Forgiving

by LaVyrle Spencer

  “Very well.” Chapline rubbed his nose with his damp hanky and studied the floor for several seconds. He was perhaps thirty-five years old, bony and round-shouldered, with thinning brown hair as fine as a one-year-old’s. It drifted above his dome as if it hadn’t enough weight to lay flat. His nose was red and his eyes watery—a man who presented not at all the picture of one in whom you’d place your confidence when your well-being was threatened. But he had a voice that rumbled with authority. It vaulted up from his depths like the resounding crash of falling timber and seemed to shake the very sand loose from the walls of the mine as he continued speaking.

  “We have a rather peculiar history of the process of the law here in Deadwood. The stampede of gold prospectors brought population before civilization, you might say, at a rate so incredible it nurtured lawlessness along with it—claim-jumping, saloon brawls and theft, to name a few.

  “So the residents instigated a miners’ court and decided that each session would be presided over by one of the seven lawyers in town, with the ‘judge’ changing from session to session.”

  Chapline again scrubbed at his nose and paced.

  “You heard about the unfortunate shooting of Wild Bill Hickok here last month, I presume?”

  “Of course.”

  “It was a shock to all of us, and if ever there was a town that wanted to see justice done, this was it! However, the trial turned out to be a travesty of justice in spite of all our efforts at jurisprudence. Better than half the men on the jury were suspected of having been part of the bunch who hired Jack McCall to kill Wtfd Bill. They handed down a verdict of not guilty and we had to let McCall go scot-free. Nobody liked it, but what could we do?

  “A lot of us weren’t happy about our court system, but before we could come up with a better one we had another homicide take place, this one three weeks ago. Fellow named Baum was shot. This time all seven of us lawyers volunteered our services, and my colleague, Mr. Keithly, acted as judge. Trouble was, we didn’t have any lawbooks, and it created one heck of a predicament.

  “It was decided then and there that not only would we order a complete law library for Deadwood, we’d suspend all trials until they got here. In the meantime we’ve begun organizing ourselves as a city, which is the only way we can expect to have an appellate court established here with a real federal judge.”

  “Have your lawbooks arrived yet?”

  “No, they haven’t.”

  “Oh.” Sarah’s shoulders wilted slightly. “Then it sounds bad for me.”

  “Not necessarily, because in the meantime small disputes are being settled by our new mayor, George Farnum, and that was agreed upon by the whole town when they elected him. Now, before you jump to conclusions, why don’t you give me your version of the events leading to your arrest.”

  “That’s easy.” Sarah picked her notebook off the floor and handed it to Chapline. “I’ve written it all down for my next issue of the newspaper. This is exactly how it happened.”

  Chapline spent the next several minutes sitting on the chair, reading the account, his shoulder slanted toward the lantern light. When he finished, he wiped his nose and looked up.

  “Did you refuse to move your printing press?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you operating it without a license?”

  “Yes.”

  “Were you informed by the marshal that you needed a license?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you incite a riot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Intentionally?”

  “No.”

  “Did you yourself strike Marshal Campbell?”

  “No.”

  “Did you encourage others to do so?”

  “No. I tried to stop them.”

  “Did you see the freight driver, True Blevins, get shot?”

  “Yes “

  “Who shot him?”

  “Marshal Campbell.”

  “It was an accident?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Were any other guns drawn?”

  “No. It happened too fast.”

  “Did you resist arrest?”

  “The first time, yes. The second time, no.”

  “Would you be willing to pay any and all damages, get a license to operate your newspaper, and agree to put off further publication until your equipment is under proper cover on private land?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Chapline studied her silently for some time, sitting on the chair with his knees apart, clasped by his bony hands. Finally he inquired, “Do you think you can repeat those answers verbatim if I asked you the questions again?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have the money to pay for the damages?”

  “Right here.” She patted her waist above her left hip.

  “Excellent.” Chapline rose to his feet. “Then what I think we’ll do is appeal to Farnum’s sense of fair play, making no excuses for what you’ve done, simply pointing out that your intentions were not dishonorable, nobody was irreparably hurt, and you are remorseful—which you’ve already demonstrated to Marshal Campbell. When we go out there, just make certain you keep the same contrite tone you’ve displayed so far. Regretful but not groveling.”

  She nodded.

  “All right, let’s see what we can do.” He gave her a bracing smile while rapping on the door.

  Campbell opened it.

  “We’d like to talk to Farnum,” Chapline told him.

  “Come on out.” He stood back, waiting for Chapline and Sarah to precede him through the tunnel. To Sarah, the light at the end of it looked like the exit from purgatory. The sound of voices was as welcome as a spring thaw. From the musty smell of sunless earth she emerged into that of coffee beans and smoked jerky and vinegar (which seemed less offensive than before). From dark into light; from dampness into freshness; from solitariness into a crowd whose murmurs silenced as she appeared.

  Behind the counter, Farnum stood, watching the procession move through the back door. Campbell halted just inside. The other two went around to the front of the counter.

  “Mr. Faraum,” Chapline said, “in view of the fact that our law library hasn’t arrived yet, and a decent jail hasn’t been built, and the town has voted you the authority to settle minor disputes, Miss Merritt asks if you would do so now, so she won’t have to spend an indeterminate length of time locked in that abandoned mine.”

  Farnum replied, “Well, I don’t know. That’s sort of up to the marshal here, whether he thinks the charges against her need those lawbooks or not. Marshal?”

  Campbell uncrossed his arms and cleared his throat. Before he could answer, Chapline spoke up. “Miss Merritt has no intention of underplaying her guilt, but neither does she consider herself a dangerous criminal who deserves being jailed without recourse. Perhaps you would both read this and then decide. It’s an article she wrote for her newspaper, and I think her candidness will speak for itself.”

  Farnum removed his white apron and laid it across the counter with all the pomp of a judge donning black robes. Campbell moved behind the mayor’s shoulders and the two read the article together. When they finished, they traded glances and in the following seconds each seemed to be waiting for the other to speak first. Again Chapline filled the gap.

  “As you can see, Miss Merritt is not trying to whitewash her role in today’s unfortunate incident, indeed, she’s prepared to report it to the entire town in her own newspaper. Gentlemen, if you’ll allow me, Miss Merritt has agreed to answer a few simple questions, and afterward you can make your decision.”

  “All right,” Farnum said, “go ahead. I don’t see what harm it can do to listen.”

  Chapline ran through his questions, ending by extracting from Sarah the promise that she would be willing to pay any and all damages, including the doctor bills for True, and for Marshal Campbell, if there were any; she would pay whatever fines were imposed, and would get a license to operate her newspaper, and agreed to put
off doing so until her press was under proper cover on private land. In that regard, Chapline asked them to consider that she had valuable property sitting out in the street and exposed to the elements and which needed her immediate attention.

  At the mention of her property, which he still had not located, Noah shifted his feet. He glanced past Sarah at the curious faces watching and listening and realized a detailed description of these events would spread up and down this gulch faster than an epidemic of smallpox. Not a soul who heard it would feel Noah was in his rights to keep this woman locked in a hole in the ground when none of what had happened was provoked by her intentionally, and when she had virtually thrown herself on their mercy and was offering to make recompense to whatever extent was fair. None of that spoke as loudly, however, as the fact that she was female, single, and a non-prostitute—a rarity in Deadwood. Wouldn’t he have a time explaining her incarceration to twenty-five thousand woman-starved miners?

  The proceedings were moving on. Where the jumping hell was her press? For a moment he was tempted to lock her up simply to give himself time to find it.

  “What do you think, Marshal?” the mayor was asking.

  “She’s caused one devilish amount of trouble today.”

  “Yes, she has, but I believe in this case the real court might be lenient. After all, she is a woman, and that mine is no place to stick a member of the fairer sex.”

  “How and when is she going to pay?”

  “Here and now,” Sarah interjected, slipping her hand into the side placket of her skirt and coming up with her buckskin sack of gold dust. “Just tell me what I owe.”

  Campbell’s eyes met Sarah’s. She had the damnedest, most disconcerting way of looking straight at a man. He had a feeling she knew he’d been standing there hoping she couldn’t come up with the dust on such short notice. He was the first to look away.

  “Whatever you say, Mayor,” he allowed grudgingly.

  Farnum imposed a twenty-dollar fine for disturbing the peace and another ten-dollar fine for operating a business without a license. He said he’d trust Sarah to pay the doctor bill and that she could settle that with Turley tomorrow. When the gold was weighed out, including an additional ten dollars’ worth for her first quarter’s license to operate a printing office, Sarah put away her gold dust and extended her hand to Farnum.

  “Thank you, sir. I would have disliked spending the night in that mine.” She pumped his hand hard, once, and turned immediately to Campbell. “Marshal.”

  She didn’t offer her hand. Instead she hit him with a hard, direct gaze. It struck him how different she was than her sister—direct, focused, a fighter.

  “I suppose it’s something in my nature, but I expect we’ll bump heads again,” she told him.

  In about two and a half minutes, he thought uneasily, watching her turn toward Chapline as if this meeting were concluded and she had been the one controlling its tempo all along. “Thank you, Mr. Chapline. I’ll come by tomorrow and settle up with you.” When she was halfway to the door Campbell called, “Miss Merritt, wait.” Again she faced him squarely, putting him on edge. At times she seemed able to control her very impulse to blink, as now, when she simply stood waiting for him to move toward her. “I, ahh... I need to talk to you about another matter. Outside,” he added, conscious of the onlookers.

  “Very well. We’ll walk together.” She turned and led the way from the store, opened the door herself without waiting to see if he’d do it (he’d had no such intention), stalked out into the middle of the street without concern for her hems (he’d never seen a woman so indifferent to mud) and headed in the direction of the ponderosa pine with her notebook pressed to her left breast (what there was of it). Here, too, she was different from her sister—not much in the way of femininity at all.

  They advanced up the street and he spoke up before she could catch sight of the tree.

  He said it straight out, as if it were no fault of his, because he knew damned well it was.

  “Someone stole your printing press.”

  “What!” She halted and spun on him.

  “It disappeared while I was at Doc Turley’s checking on True.”

  “Disappeared? Half a ton of machinery disappeared? What are you trying to pull here, Campbell?”

  The thought had never occurred to him she’d suspect him of skulduggery.

  “Me? I didn’t—”

  “Where have you hidden it?”

  “Now, listen here—”

  “Don’t tell me this isn’t your doing—!”

  “I was down at Doc’s—”

  “Because nobody else in this town—”

  “You can ask him!”

  They stood in the middle of the street, shouting at each other, nose to nose. It was nearly suppertime; the streets were busy with hungry men heading for the food saloons; many stopped walking to rubberneck.

  “... have no right to impound my press!”

  “I didn’t impound it. Someone stole it!”

  “What for?”

  “Hell, I don’t know!”

  “What about my type and my ink and paper?”

  “It’s all gone, even the tent.”

  Her mouth tightened and she looked as if she’d like nothing better than to sock him in his other eye and give him a matched pair.

  “You’re the most unscrupulous reprobate in this town, and the pity is you’ve got them all bamboozled! To think they all elected you!” She tromped off angrily, still clutching her notebook, her free hand curled into a fist. By the time he reached the tree she was standing beneath it throwing glances in a wide circle.

  “You’d better find it, Campbell, and do it quick!”

  “That’ll take some time.”

  “Then spend it.”

  “And search every building in this gulch?”

  “You’re the marshal, aren’t you? That’s your job! That press means my livelihood, and the type is the same my father began on. They mean far more to me than just the tools I work with, but of course you wouldn’t—”

  “Miss Merritt?” The youthful male voice interrupted Sarah’s diatribe. A boy with a curly crop of black hair had approached. He was about sixteen, comely, with a shy mien and the first shadow of a beard beginning to sprout beneath his nose. He wore dome-toed boots, worn wool britches and a shabby green plaid jacket. His hands were in the jacket pockets.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Bradigan sent me. He’s got your press and he says you should come with me.”

  “Mr. Bradigan!”

  “Yes.”

  “But why? And where?”

  “He’ll explain if you’ll just come along.”

  Sarah looked to Noah but he only shrugged. “I’d better come along and see what Bradigan is up to.”

  “What’s your name?” Sarah asked as they struck off behind the lad.

  “Josh Dawkins.” He glanced back briefly.

  “Dawkins? Are you Emma’s boy?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Oh, goodness, I just remembered, I’m supposed to be at your house for supper. It must be almost that time now.”

  “She’ll hold it till we get there. You’ve got to do this other first.”

  “Do what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He led them to a small frame building on the southwest end of Main Street. Facing east, it was already blanketed in shadow from the canyon wall; within, lantern light glowed. Inside, Sarah came to a halt while her glance snapped from wall to corner to wall. There before her were all her prized possessions—her press, her furniture cabinet, her typecase, her father’s desk, the crates containing her ink, brayers, newsprint and wood engravings—all set up in perfect working relationship to one another. The oily smell of ink combined with the tang of turpentine hung in the air like printer’s perfume. On a wooden table along the right wall four stacks of printed pages were drying. At the press, wearing a black-blotched leather apron, Patrick Bradigan was cleaning today’
s type with a turpentine rag. He turned when they entered, gave a slow, wobbly smile, and an even slower, wobbly bow.

  “Miss Merritt,” he said in his rich Irish brogue. “Welcome to the office of the Deadwood Chronicle.”

  She moved forward as if mysticized, her eyes taking a more lingering tally of the setup before returning to him. Stopping before him she said, “Mr. Bradigan, what have you done?”

  “Found you a building and gotten your first issue ready for the streets, with the help of young Dawkins here. Patrick Bradigan at your sorvice, ma’am. Have composing stick, will set type.” He whisked his composing stick from a breast pocket as if it were a cigar. She could tell immediately he was inebriated. Nevertheless, she was grateful.

  “Mr. Bradigan, Master Dawkins, though it’s inexcusable in a newspaperwoman, I must admit to being speechless.”

  Young Dawkins stood by beaming while Bradigan sported a pie-eyed grin.

  “We ran three hundred twenty-foive copies.”

  “Three hundred twenty-five!”

  “You’ll sell every one of them, just wait and see. Tomorrow young Dawkins intends to help you.”

  She turned her full attention on the boy. “Thank you for the help you’ve already given.”

  “Ma sent me over when she heard about the fracas in the street. Word got to the bakery that Mr. Bradigan was going to take over getting the first issue out, and she said I should come and help however I could. I put the paper in the frisket while Mr. Bradigan rolled the ink. It was fun!”

  She smiled, recalling the first times her father had allowed her to do that, how fun it had been for her, too.

  “Perhaps we’ll teach you the rest and make an apprentice out of you—would you like that?”

  “Yes, ma’am! Would I ever!” he exclaimed with a huge smile.

  She took another scan of the premises—raw wood walls, but four of them, sturdy, with a solid roof overhead, and a wide front window facing east for good morning light during her favorite composing time of the day. “Is the building yours, Mr. Bradigan?”

  “The building’s yours, to rent or buy, whatever you choose.”

  “But why... and how?”

  “A gesture from the townspeople who want their first newspaper to begin operating full steam ahead as soon as possible. You can see Elias Pinkney about it. His bank built it on speculation.”