Sawbones
by John W. Steele
part 1
Tim and Cindy were sitting at the dining room table, staring at their laptops.
“I need a break,” said Tim. “Do you want to hear something really strange?”
Cindy looked up from the display, her dreadlocks draped around her head like the tentacles of an octopus. “Yeah, sure. We’ve got a week till mid-terms. What is it?”
“I’ll bet you’ve heard nothing like this. My great-granddad, Gaj Baczek, was a surgeon. He learned the trade on the battlefield during the American Civil War. No one else wanted the job — according to my dad — and he took to it like a toad to water. Once he mastered the bone-saw, the cautery came easy. He saved a lot of lives from gangrene, so says my father.
“When the war ended, Gaj moved to Amarillo, Texas and opened a blacksmith’s shop. Before long, he met my great-grandma, Hazel Burks, and so it went right down the line until today. It all sounds legit, but there’s a twist to this story.”
Cindy took a sip of soda. “So what happened?”
* * *
Back in those days, it required little training to salt a body. The town had not yet risen to the status where medical degrees and certificates were necessary. The undertaker was the fool that took responsibility for a corpse that no one else wanted. My granddad tried his hand at barrel-making for a spell but, when he saw the profit in what they now call embalming, he dropped the idea.
With his last fifty dollars, he put up windows with curtains on the front of his ramshackle barn. He trimmed his ragged beard and ordered a black suit and a top hat from the J.W. Sears catalog. Granddad had little use for religion, but he converted to Christianity and became a church deacon.
Warner’s lumber yard lay just across the railroad tracks. Granddad worked out a deal with Basil, the owner, to purchase their number two pine at a discount. He took to making coffins in the back of the barn and stacked them in the yard. Granddad made big ones and little ones, wide ones and narrow ones. It didn’t matter. “The end comes in all shapes and sizes,” he used to say, and he had a box to fit every configuration.
* * *
It seems he didn’t have to wait long for customers. One day he was sitting at his desk by the coal stove, wearing the vest of his new suit and reading the first issue of American Funeral Advisor Magazine sent to him for free all the way from New York City. It was a wintry day in Amarillo. A brisk wind was blowing outside, and tumbleweeds were rolling down the street.
The door creaked open, and a dainty looking thing with strawberry blonde hair parted in the center and side curls framing her face walked into the parlor. Under her cape, she wore a black silk bodice embellished with white lace tufts at the collar and cuffs. A hulking cowboy that mostly filled the doorway walked behind her. A gust of stiff wind followed them in.
She smiled demurely and asked. “Are you Mister Baczek?”
“Yes, Gaj Baczek at your service, madam. What may I do for you?”
“My name is Lillian McBride. I’m the wife of Joshua McBride, who recently departed. “
“You have my condolences, Mrs. McBride. I’m sorry to hear about your husband. I read about the accident in The Abilene Weekly Reporter. He was a fine man.”
“Yes, it was a terrible tragedy. The mule kicked him in the face and snapped his neck.” She raised a handkerchief and dabbed her eyes. “Joshua was such a lovely person, a saint in the prime of his golden years, and now he’s gone.” She lost her composure and collapsed in the arms of the cowboy who held her in a comforting embrace.
“I’m sure he’s found his way to paradise, my dear. How may I be of service to you?”
Lily raised her hand to her brow; a diamond the size of a plump raisin peered out from the ring finger of her left hand. “Oh, I’m sorry, this is Dorian Guttmann. He’s our trail boss. He’s supervised our cattle drives for two years running. Dorian has brought me such solace in my hour of darkness.”
The big man stepped forward and grunted. He stared at Gaj, his eyes flat and gray. The cowboy stood beneath a black suede Plainsman wide brim with a moon leather band and a turquoise stone mounted at the center. A tumble of long blonde hair hung below his collar like Wild Bill Cody.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sawbones. The lady’s hurting now, but we got to make a plan to get rid of him.”
The undertaker dog-eared the page of his journal and remained silent.
“I noticed you ain’t ast why we’re here,” the big man said.
The mortician pushed his glasses up on his nose. “I’m puzzled, but I am not entirely surprised. Tell me, madam, how tall was your husband?”
The cowboy spoke, and Lily nudged him with her elbow. “He was a frail but generous man, sir. We shall need a proper casket and your most elegant funeral services.”
Gaj stood up and put on his jacket. “Well, of course, the Reverend Talcum administers the eulogy. Other than digging the grave, I do all the preening and preparations. I assure you we offer the highest level of personal care and detail worthy of your beloved. Where is the deceased?”
Lily folded her arms on her breast. “This has been such a troublesome time. Joshua loved to watch the sunset. Every evening, we rolled his chair to the top of the hill and allowed him his wish. When he was still right in the head, he told me that our time together had been the finest he’d ever known.”
“That’s righteous, madam, but it doesn’t answer my question. I need to see the body.”
Her sky-blue eyes shifted. “Of course you do. Joshua rests in peace on a feather bed in the master’s suite at our ranch. Please come out and salvage his remains. Money is no object, and we want only the best for him.”
“Don’t worry about a thing, my dear. This is in hand.”
Dorian ripped a page from the Sears catalog lying on a plant stand and scribbled down the directions to their ranch. He scowled and slammed it on the desk.
“It has been a pleasure to meet you, Mister Baczek. I look forward to the privilege of your services. This evening would be a perfect time to come out and recover the body of my beloved husband. We don’t want to keep Joshua waiting.”
“How long has the Colonel been asleep?”
The widow’s eyes narrowed. “A short spell. We moved him outside in mind of the cool breezes that would preserve his remains.”
“I see... It would be best if I came for the body directly.”
Dorian pulled a leather pouch from the pocket of his Sheepskin Duster and tossed it on the desk; it jingled on the flattop like a passel of coins. “Here’s yer money, boss.” His eyes were firm. “Tonight at sunset.”
The widow McBride took his arm and said, “Oh, Dorian can be so brash. This is a retainer, sir. We shall remit the balance upon completion of your professional services. Incidentally, I understand you provide medical and surgical care as well. Is that correct, Doctor Baczek?”
“That it is ma’am. Bleed, blister, purge, and extract are my calling on this earth. Gunshots, whippings, Chilblains, bloody flux, consumption, I cure it all.”
“My, my, you certainly are a versatile man, aren’t you, Doctor Gaj? We look forward to your visit.” She smiled. Her bone-white teeth smooth as milk glass. She and Dorian turned and left the mortuary.
* * *
Gaj walked to the window. He watched the widow McBride and her escort stroll towards the horse-drawn buggy that sat near the board sidewalk on the other side of the road.
From behind the carriage, a bent woman wrapped in an Indian blanket and wearing a gray Puritan Bonnet charged them in a limping run. She hobbled to Lily and spat towards her face, a bolus of phlegm that collided with her pearl white collar.
“We know what you done, harlot! You killt Uncle Josh and runnt off with his money!”
The cowpuncher grabbed the woman by the throat with one hand and raised her in the air. Her feet shuffled and she gagged. “Y’all got the manners of a sand lizard, hag.” He pulled a silver dollar from his pocket and pushed it in her mouth. “Get ya back on the reservation ’fore I stuff you with cornstalks and mount ya like a scarecrow.” Dorian threw her on the road, and she tumbled in the grit. The woman got to her feet and ran. “And tell yer kin we be awaitin’ on ’em!” he bellowed.
The woman hobbled away and then turned and shook her fist. “We knows what’s goin’ on out there at the Horn Camp, black devil! The curse of Maheo be upon ye!”
The cowboy pulled his pistol and fired a shot in the air. “Heyahh, ya old turtle!”
The crone threw the cartwheel coin on the ground and hobbled away. Dorian laughed and spat in the mud. He helped the widow into the carriage and draped a heavy Pendleton over her shoulders. He set foot on the step plate, hurled his rugged frame into the coach, and took the reins. An icy breeze kicked up and ruffled the horse’s mane. Dorian snapped the lines, and they rolled past the Moon Dog Cantina and faded into the desert.
* * *
Gaj watched the spectacle from the confines of the parlor. The old woman’s accusation unfolded in his skull as straight as the rail tracks to Dallas. There had been rumors about the changes at the Broadhorn Ranch since the new foreman took over, but Gaj paid them no mind. He knew Joshua well. He had served under Colonel McBride in the battle of Sabine Pass, and he knew Joshua McBride was an honorable man.
Any man that earns success is a scapegoat of the rabble, he thought. He’d tasted a tad of their envy in his own right, as if pawing on and in dead bodies was a hoot.
Like some kind of mirage blurred and out of focus, a picture came into view. He remembered when President Andrew Johnson had stood in the caboose’s rear at the Lubbock Railway Station and declared his vision for the new America. Colonel McBride attended the ceremony, and they had met like lost brothers in the crowd.
The Colonel had taken a ball of grapeshot in the hip that ended his walking days. He may have been confined to a wheelchair, but Joshua was sharp as a square nail; he always was and always would be. There weren’t no way he’d gone foolish.
They had shared a long conversation about the war and promised to get together someday. But after the Colonel paired with that soiled dove, Lillian, he no longer appeared in public. Granddad didn’t recall seeing her at the rally that day. He remembered a fine-looking Comanche gal with long black braids dressed in a buckskin tunic who wheeled the Colonel along.
Rumor had it Joshua had a family, but never married until the prostitute came along. He knew as well that Colonel McBride granted the Indians a sizable tract of his land on the White River, where they lived and hunted without restrictions.
The whole notion smelled like a dead roof-rat in July. Gaj pulled his medical bag from beneath the desk and examined the surgical instruments. He walked to the medicine cabinet and removed the new elixir he’d bought from the pharmacy in Dallas, a tonic guaranteed to ease the burden of tooth extraction. For a moment, he stared out the window, and his face hardened.
He walked to his desk and sat down. Hazel Burks, now Hazel Burks Baczek, was the local schoolteacher. With the cold, drafty weather, he knew she’d be busy filling the oil lamps, bringing in firewood to keep the classroom warm, and all the chores associated with making the children safe and reasonably comfortable. She didn’t get home until after dark. With a quill pen, he wrote her a note saying:
Dearest Hazel,
Business to attend to. Be home soon.
Devotedly,
Gaj
He tucked the note beneath the Bible on his desk and went back to the shop.
A heavy barn coat hung from a dowel post. He threw it on and turned up the collar. He wrapped a proper scarf around his neck and slid on his deerskin riding gloves. Gaj pulled a long reach match from a box in the storage cupboard. He struck it and lit the carriage lamps on the mortuary wagon.
Ruth, his well-behaved harness mule, stood munching hay in her stall. He scratched her ears and whispered, “We’ve got work to do, sweetie.” He covered her with a blanket and hitched her to the hearse. In the fading light of a slate gray sky, an old buckboard with the words “Baczek’s Mortuary” painted in white letters, on the side rolled past the Wells Fargo Exchange and into the desert.
Gaj proceeded east along the old Indian trail until he reached the railroad junction at Apache Forks. An enormous boulder sat at the crossroads. He turned left and followed the railroad tracks until he arrived at the shallow incline that lead to the Colonel’s plantation.
* * *
When he came to the ranch, kerosene lamps were burning bright in the windows that spanned the deck. He secured the buckboard to the post and grabbed his satchel. Gaj surveyed the surroundings as best he could in the frail moonlight and then climbed the stairs that lead to the veranda.
What looked like a corpse lay beneath a tarpaulin sprawled on a rustic half log bench. He walked to it and lifted the canvas. He pulled up the pant leg and pressed his thumb into the flesh that ran along the shin bone. A disc-shaped impression formed like a frozen dimple. He moved along the body and exposed the head. A deep square dent like that delivered by an anvil hammer penetrated the skull at the temple. By the light of the window, he looked at the face and spread wide the eyelid. He saluted the Colonel and then walked to the door.
A colored glass fanlight glowed at the entry, and a horseshoe knocker hung shoulder height below it. Gaj tapped it three times.
* * *
Lily answered. She wore an elegant white silk gown with a low-cut neckline. A string of pearls and diamonds sparkled on her breast. In her hand, she held a half-empty tulip stem glass. Her lips formed a giddy smile, and she appeared to be lit up.
“Doctor Baczek, I do declare we thought you’d never arrive. Welcome to Broadhorn. Please come in, will you?”
“It’s an honor to be here, Mrs. McBride.” Gaj wiped his boots on the wicker weave and entered the parlor.
A fire was burning in a cobblestone fireplace at the far end of the room. The open rafters in the dining area held a rustic wagon wheel candelabra that cast a soft yellow light on the massive table beneath it. Dorian was sitting with his back to the hearth. A bottle of whiskey stood on the lace tablecloth, along with a shot glass and a revolver.
“We’d like you to join us for dinner, Doctor Baczek. Be so kind as to accept our invitation,” Lily said, her eyes shining like polished agate.
The doctor determined that they were both in their cups. The perfect time, he reasoned. “The pleasure is mine, madam.”
“If you will excuse me a moment, sir, I need to manage the servants. Without guidance, they grow slothful.”
“Of course, madam, I understand your concerns.” Gaj walked to the table, set his bag on the Indian rug, and took a seat.
Copyright © 2022 by John W. Steele
