Timpanogos by D. J. Butler Page A

imperceptibly.   He kept
staring Absalom in the face, and Absalom wondered if he was walking into a
house of sick people, or insane, but decided the fellow was probably just old.
    “It would be a great kindness,” Absalom said cheerfully and
smiled.
    Heber sighed and stepped back inside, making room for Absalom
to pass.   Absalom walked inside the
low house, enjoying the smoky warmth and the smell of a meaty stew that came
from a large pot hanging over the fire.
    “Thank you,” he said.
    “I’m sorry,” Heber answered.   He stared at the heavy boots on his feet.
    Then Absalom saw John D. Lee.   He stood behind the door, smiling a smile that might have
been handsome on another face.   Between his jug ears, and over the two cocked pistols he held pointed at
Absalom, his smile looked vicious.
    Three more men in black coats stood in the corners of the
room, all pointing guns at Absalom.   He swallowed uncomfortably.
    “Come now, Brother Heber,” Lee kept his voice low and he
grinned.   “You should never
apologize for hospitality.   Besides,” Lee’s grin vanished into a stony glare, “I saw you try to warn
the little limey off.”
    “I say,” Absalom gulped.
    “Isn’t it time you invited your friend into the house, too?”
Lee suggested in a catlike purr.   “It will be a lot easier that way.”
    Absalom turned and looked out the open doorway.   The dwarf Coltrane still sat on his
horse in the yard.   Absalom
couldn’t see his face in the shadow, but if the midget was holding back, he
must suspect something was wrong.   Absalom didn’t want to invite Coltrane in.   They weren’t friends, but they were allies, and Absalom
didn’t want to be the kind of man that betrayed an ally into a trap, even when
he was in a hard position, himself.
    “Go on,” Lee said.
    Absalom wanted to be Richard Burton.   Damn the man, he was infuriating and
Absalom hated him, but Captain Richard Burton was no coward.   Besides, would Lee really shoot
him?   He must guess that Young and
the others were outside, and gunshots would warn them off.
    Lee raised his pistols and pointed them at Absalom’s head.
    “Run!” Absalom shouted, and tackled John D. Lee.
    He knocked the Danite chieftain back against the wall with a
shoulder and then jabbed him several times in the jaw with his fists.   Lee didn’t shoot, as Absalom had
expected, and the man called Heber joined the fray, grabbing Lee and throwing
him against the wall.
    Then something heavy crashed into the back of Absalom’s
skull.   He saw stars and planets
and then the wooden planks of the floor, filthy and stinking of sweet pine,
rushed up to whack his head.
    The room spun around him for a minute and he heard more
sounds of scuffle.
    “Goddamn midgets!”
    A drop of blood hit the floor right in front of Absalom’s
eye, then another, then a dwarf.   Coltrane struggled, but ropes were thrown around him as the farmhouse
door slammed shut.   “Dirty yellow
cowards!” he snapped, and then his captors banged his head against the
planks.   “Rotten sons of bitches
were waiting in the corral and the coop, too,” he muttered to Absalom.
    Absalom tried to say something reassuring and full of
bravado to the dwarf, but the effort almost made him throw up and no words
would come out.
    “Don’t do anything foolish, Heber,” he heard John D. Lee
say.   “Think of your family.”   Lee’s boots paced slowly across the
planks to Absalom’s face, their heavy thuds reverberating like the relentless beats of a drum.   They stopped with the toes pointing right into his eyes.
    “Mmmrrrrroolpff,” Absalom protested.   He felt vaguely cheated—the
Foreign Office had never prepared him for this—but also proud, for not
surrendering.
    “I told you,” he heard Lee say, “that if you invited your
friend in, it would be easier.”
    One of Lee’s boots swung away, slowly—
    then kicked Absalom in the face, smashing him into darkness.
    *    *    *
    Burton