by John Shirley
“He’s not often seen drunk,” said the bartender of the Gypsy Saloon in a kind of wonder as he looked past Sweeney at Heywood Kelmer. “But when he is, fireworks ain’t in it. He’s a full-on powder keg. His father don’t approve of him drinking, not a drop. James Kelmer, now, he’s a teetotaler. Wouldn’t be pleased if he could see that boy now.”
The bartender was having a drink himself, with Peanut Sweeney’s encouragement, and eating from a wooden bowl of pork rinds. Sweeney turned to have a gander at the table where Heywood Kelmer, wearing his fancy riding suit, sat with his two companions, Chance Grogan and Blackie. Heywood had been alternating beer and whiskey this last hour, and he was gesturing wildly, raising his voice from time to time. There were half a dozen farmhands in the little saloon, along with Heywood and his men. Two of the farmhands were playing what appeared to be a deadly serious game of checkers; the other four were nursing beers as they played poker.
Heywood and Blackie had ignored Sweeney when they’d come in; Chance had nodded to him and taken no more notice.
“What’s Kelmer all worked up about?” Sweeney asked in a low voice.
“Something about that Seth Coe and the Dubois girl. Heywood’s sweet on her, but she’s keeping company with Coe. Stays on the same farm with him—he’s in the barn, they say, and she’s in the house.”
“Seth Coe! Why, he’s an old friend! I ain’t seen him for a good spell. And she’s with him? Where at?”
“I heard he was working for a farmer over on the north side of town. Don’t know who.”
“You don’t say.” Sweeney had been gathering information since he’d arrived in the midafternoon. He’d managed to work out that the bank did not have an armed guard, that there was a sheriff in town who’d been shot—said to have been shot by Hannibal Fisher. But the sheriff was on the mend at the doctor’s office. The Town Marshal, Coggins, was somewhat beholden, it was said, to the Kelmers and did not like to ride far from Prairie Fire. Nor was anyone hereabouts working hard to find Hannibal Fisher. The story Sweeney had heard was that Marshal Coggins had followed Fisher’s trail to the Oklahoma border and there had given up, sending word on to lawmen to the south.
Sweeney ordered another drink, then ambled over to stand near the checkers players, their table being next to Heywood’s. He stood with his back to the men from Black Creek Acres, pretending a fascination with the game and listening up sharp as Heywood groused about Seth Coe.
“Marshal says that wanted man tried to kill Coe,” said Heywood. “Boys, I tell you, if Coe doesn’t leave Josette alone, I’ll kill him myself!”
“Now, I think that might be regarded as what they call illegal,” said Blackie dryly. “Even a Kelmer ain’t free to just kill a fella he doesn’t like, boss.”
Heywood slapped the table hard, making everyone in the saloon look over at them, and yelled, “I’d let him draw first and shoot him dead! I’ll nail him into his coffin!”
Sweeney snorted at that improbable vision as Heywood went on. “When I make up my mind I want something, that’s an end to it! I’m going to get it! And I decided I want Josette Dubois!”
Blackie groaned, softly. “Your pa won’t like you talking loose about women in a saloon, boss.”
“Don’t tell me how I can talk, Blackie! I’m telling you that if Coe tries to elope with her, it’s as good as kidnapping! I’ll raise a posse and go after them!”
“Not sure that’d work, Heywood,” Chance said, sounding apologetic for having to point it out. “Posses are decided by the law—”
“Then I’ll hire some men to get it done! I’ll see to it—one way or another!”
Would he go that far? Sweeney wondered. Might be a way to get Seth Coe and get paid for it, too.
A quiet meeting between Heywood Kelmer and, say, Gaines and Briggs could be set up if Heywood was willing. . . .
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Seth,” said Josette quietly as they rode up to the Dubois farmhouse, “I have a presentiment about this.”
It was just going from dusk to full dark. Josette sat on Seth’s horse right behind him, clasping his waist, and now, as Seth reined in, she clambered quickly down and put her hand on his knee.
“Let me talk to Papa first!” she said, looking wide-eyed up at Seth.
“Let’s go in together, honey,” he said gently. “He needs to see we are together in everything.” He swung out of the saddle and tied the gelding up on the hitching post.
She bit her lip, looked at the house, and then at the horse as if thinking they should just ride away. Then she let out a long breath and took his hand. “Yes.”
Holding her hand he led her to the door and knocked.
“Shouldn’t I just go in?” she whispered.
“Do you still live there, Josette?”
She hesitated. Then he saw the determination come into her eyes. “No. I do not live there.”
There were footsteps and creaking boards; then Dubois opened the door. “You!” he snarled at Seth. He was in an undershirt, the sleeves cut away, and his suspenders were off his shoulders to droop about his hips. He looked at their clasped hands. “Take your hand off her!”
“Mr. Dubois,” Seth began, “we—”
Dubois reached out, grabbed Josette’s wrist, and pulled her off balance so she staggered into the house and Seth lost his hold on her hand.
“Papa—stop!” she said, struggling to get loose.
Dubois tried to slam the door in Seth’s face—but Seth blocked it with his shoulder and forced his way in.
His voice grating, Seth declared, “She and I are betrothed, Dubois, and she is of age! Let go of her!”
Josette pulled away from her father and rushed to stand beside Seth. “Papa—he’s here to ask for your blessing! We are going to get married!”
“You don’t even know him!” Dubois said, his hand shaking as he picked up a mug from the table. “How long is this courtship? One week? Ten days? Nothing! You have known Heywood far longer!” He took a gulp of whatever was in the mug.
“Papa—I simply do not like Heywood Kelmer!”
“It is not necessary to like!” He slammed the mug on the table. “Only to marry!”
“She can’t stay here, Mr. Dubois,” Seth said, trying to soften his tone. “She’s wanted to leave for a long time. We knew each other as kids and— Well, sometimes folks just meet up and they know. Anyhow, it’s not safe for her around Prairie Fire. Heywood’s making threats—”
“Not safe? You make her in danger! What will you do, drag her off to Texas to be killed by the Cherokee on the trip? Killed by a bear?”
“I’ll keep her safe,” Seth said calmly. “I’ve taken that road to Texas many times.”
“I’m not afraid to go to Texas, Papa!” Josette said. “And I will not marry Heywood! If you will not give your blessing, Seth and I will marry in Freeman when the court opens on Monday!” She added something in rapid French that Seth couldn’t make out and went on. “Papa—please! I would like to have you at the wedding—here in town!”
“I will be at your wedding with Heywood!” he shouted, throwing the mug aside. “Now, you”—he pointed at Seth—“will go!”
Dubois spun on his heel, stalked across the room, and threw a cabinet open. A shotgun stood in an otherwise empty rack inside.
“Seth!” Josette cried. “Run!”
Dubois swung the gun up, and Seth realized he was standing between Josette and the muzzle of the double-barreled shotgun. If Dubois fired now, some of the shot spread could hit Josette.
Seth vaulted over the table, shouting, “Here, Dubois!”
The shopkeeper tracked Seth with the gun and, face contorted, fired both barrels—a split second after Seth threw himself flat. The gun roared like a cannon and part of a cabinet exploded just back of where Seth had been standing a heartbeat before.
Josette screame
d, “No!”
Shotgun smoke billowed, and cursing, Dubois cracked the weapon open, fumbled the spent shells out, and reached for two more from the cabinet.
Seth got to his feet and rushed Dubois, grabbing the gun crossways and using it to force him back against the gun cabinet. Dubois bellowed, “You see, Josette! Regarde ça! He attacks me!”
Seth twisted the gun away from Dubois and stepped back.
Reaching deep for self-control, Seth took a long breath, then spun on his heel while swinging the gun and smashing the breech on the stones of the fireplace.
Dubois cursed him in French. Seth tossed the broken shotgun aside, and keeping the table between himself and Dubois, he strode over to Josette, took her by the hand, and went out the door. She came willingly along, closing the door behind her.
“Let us go—quickly, Seth! He has an old pistol!”
Seth untied the horse, stepped up and into the saddle, then helped Josette up behind him. They rode off at a good clip and in grim silence as Dubois shouted from the doorway, “You are a bad man! You steal my daughter; you will go to jail!”
* * *
* * *
It was a warm, muggy night as Heywood Kelmer, smoking a cigar, paced the porch that wrapped two sides of the big house. Crickets sang, and the crescent moon was silvering the white fence around the garden plot in front of the house. Heywood was brooding, having fallen out of favor with his father for coming home drunk; rumor had reached James Kelmer of Heywood drunkenly firing his gun at the ceiling in the Gypsy. “Like the lowest drunken saddle bum!” his father had said, each word dripping with disgust.
Heywood was then given a choice: cease the imbibing of spirits altogether or find his own place in the world, far from Black Creek Acres.
Restless and all too sober, Heywood paced, thinking of Josette and how she’d snubbed him—him!—for that plain-faced cowboy who was scarcely taller than she was. The insult was still twisting its knife in him.
Now Heywood winced as he heard the squeak of the screen door. He knew it was his father, coming out to drag him once more through the dust. Pa rarely settled for one tongue-lashing.
“You get any work done today?” his father asked, coming to stand in the lamplight a little too close to Heywood. James Kelmer was in his shirtsleeves now, but the tie he’d worn to a meeting in town was still taut at his throat. He was a man of medium height but sharp angles, with hard planes on his face, and a black mustache cut close to his thin lips; his blue eyes, fractionally too close together, were perpetually peering about, ferreting for problems.
“I did all my work today and more, Pa. We finished the branding, and we brought the herd into the lower pastures. They’re set to move to the buyer.”
“That’s something, anyhow. There’s another matter. . . .”
Of course there is, Heywood thought.
“Heywood, I’ve been thinking on this matter of you and that Josette Dubois—and her cowboy.” He lit a cigar and asked, “What did I teach you about letting people ride roughshod over you?”
“I stood up to Coe—told them both what I thought about it in plain talk, Pa.”
“Not enough! If you want something, go and get it, long as you can do it in a way that does not land you in jail. But sometimes . . .” James Kelmer drew on the cigar and blew a stream of blue smoke out into the night. “Sometimes you can make your own laws.”
Heywood nodded. He’d heard his father say it more than once. He remembered when they’d cut off the water to the Henshaw place, forcing Turk Henshaw to sell out cheap and giving Black Creek Acres another big swatch of grazing land. The law wasn’t clear on it, and no one had challenged the Kelmers.
But this? “Not much I can do if she’s got her mind set, Pa.”
“You can make up your mind!” his father snapped, pointing the red eye of his cigar coal at his son. “You either walk away, and let it be one more failure—or you act! Maybe she’s just waiting for you to show you’re man enough to take what’s yours! You ever think of that?”
Could it be true? Was that in fact what Josette wanted? Heywood found himself remembering how his own mother had ridden out one day in her buggy and had never come back. She sent her thirteen-year-old son a letter declaring that his father was too high-handed, too rigid, too heartless, and she couldn’t stay and watch him ruin her son. Confused in his feelings, Heywood had not responded and had never heard from her again. Certain papers were signed, and it was said that she had remarried, was now wedded to a prominent lawyer in San Francisco.
Why hadn’t Pa gone after her? Heywood had an impulse to ask, but he knew his father would backhand him for the impertinence, so he held his tongue.
And what right, after all, had Josette to spurn a Kelmer? He had stepped down from his own social position to suggest that he might court her. She should have been grateful.
A cold anger rose in him then. “I expect you’re right, Pa.”
“You keep your head about you and don’t let some drag-riding, dust-eating cowboy cut between you and what’s yours!” His father tossed the half-finished cigar into the rose bed, where it struck out a spray of red sparks. He put his hands in his pockets and strolled back into the house.
Heywood went back to pacing. What exactly could he do about Josette?
He tossed his own cigar over the railing as his father had, and was thinking on going to the barn to see to it the hands had brushed the new Appaloosa down, when he heard the crunch of boots on the pebbly path that led past the front gate. He looked over to see Chance Grogan stalking hurriedly up.
“Hey, boss,” Chance said, coming to the railing of the porch and looking up at Heywood.
The hands never came to the house unless they were summoned or had something of significance to report. “Well, what is it?”
“You remember that Peanut Sweeney?”
“What of him?”
“He’s done rode in with a message for you. I got him waiting at the barn. I’d’ve sent him away, but it’s about Josette Dubois, and I thought—”
“Yes, yes, out with it!”
“He says the man he’s working for now has no liking for Seth Coe. Says maybe there’s a way they can help you.”
“Help me how?”
“You pay him and his boys, they’ll see to it that this Coe doesn’t stand in your way!”
Heywood snorted. “Who’s this man?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Where is he?”
“Peanut says you’ll have to meet this feller a mile north on Black Creek. Tonight!”
“Tonight? Foolishness! Running about at Peanut Sweeney’s behest . . .”
There was a sound, then, hoofs clumping, wagon wheels squeaking. The two men both turned, then, looking up the entrance road to see Francois Dubois driving a small buckboard pulled by a weary mule.
“Now it’s Dubois!” Heywood said wonderingly. “There’s a crowd gathering!”
Dubois braked the wagon at the house’s fence, jumped down, and stumped over to the porch steps. He took off his hat respectfully. “A word with you, Heywood!”
“What’s happened, Francois?”
“That Seth Coe has dragged my Josette away! He attacked me in my house—he took my gun and smashed it! He snatched her hand and made her get on his horse, and they rode away! They talk of marriage—I said no, jamais!”
Chance tilted his hat back and squinted at Dubois in puzzlement. “Jaw-may?”
“So they’re getting married . . .” Heywood said, his voice almost a whisper.
“He is forcing her to marry him!”
“Is that right?” Heywood wasn’t convinced that Josette was being forced into anything. It had seemed to him that she was sweet on Coe. But if Coe could be eliminated . . .
Heywood seemed to hear his father’s voice again. You keep your head about you and
don’t let some drag-riding, dust-eating cowboy cut between you and what’s yours!
“When is this marriage to happen?” Heywood asked.
“Josette says on Monday they will go to Freeman to marry! Maybe you can take some men—you can stop them!”
Heywood grunted. Freeman, the county seat. “You been to the sheriff?”
“Not yet.”
“Head on over there. Tell Slim what this Coe did. I’ll see what I can do. Go on, now!”
Dubois nodded, his lower lip stuck out with pugilistic determination. He clapped his floppy hat on his head, hurried back to the buckboard, turned it about, and drove away.
“What you want me to tell Peanut, boss?” Chance asked.
“Tell Peanut to set up a meeting—let’s make it at the Willow Pool along Black Creek. Tomorrow at dawn. I’ll be there. I’ll meet this man and we’ll see. . . .”
* * *
* * *
The night was wearing on, and Seth, Josette, Sol, and Daisy were sitting around the kitchen table under a hanging oil lamp, drinking cherry cordials and toying with apple pie. None of them had much appetite.
“It could have gone bad—far worse!” Sol opined. He sipped at his cordial without much interest, probably wishing he had something stronger. “That shotgun—he could have killed you both!”
Seth nodded. He felt a sick chill, imagining Josette dying of a shotgun wound. “He could have.”
Josette closed her eyes for a long moment, nodding. “I think he would have killed Seth, anyhow, if he could have.”
Daisy shook her head, her eyes wide. “He’d have been hung for it!”
“Perhaps not. He would have claimed Seth was attacking him. Who would they believe? Me or Papa? He’s one of the town’s leading merchants. I am . . . just a girl. I’m sure that was in his mind.”