Dutch Uncle

by Marilyn Durham

  And when the fine had been exacted, Jake took a dollar of it.

  ‘For disturbing the peace.’

  He found Patterson, the barber, on the boardwalk outside the Silver Man, crawling on hands and knees.

  ‘Lose something?’ Jake asked, standing in his way. ‘This is my anniversary,’ Patterson said indistinctly. Jake helped him to his feet. ‘Is your wife still in the Silver Man?’

  ‘Oh, no, Edna’s at home. She was always a woman who liked to stay at home. I bet she’s back there right now, celebrating my anniversary by waxing the front steps.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, you better get on home to her. Where do you live?’

  ‘In Kansas. I’m a Kansas man just like you, marshal. I always say my heart’s in Kansas, no matter where I roam.’

  ‘Come on, Patterson. Your wife’s waiting up for you. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘I live in a damn barbershop, marshal. Sleep in one of the damn chairs,’ Patterson said in sorrow, beginning to ooze drunken tears. ‘Edna lives in Kansas — waxing the damn steps so you can’t put your foot on ‘em without breaking your ass! She don’t hold with liquor, so she threw me out, ten years ago tonight. It’s my anniversary.’

  Jake wheeled him around in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn to face the jail.

  He found he had collected too many drunks. Paco and Urraca had to come into the tiny room to sleep with him for the night. Patterson sang and wept for hours. Urraca wet the pallet again, and Paco woke him a little after dawn to ask about breakfast.

  *

  He was careful thereafter not to arrest too many people at one time. He fined his prisoners two dollars apiece for the inconvenience of harboring them, then released them. He made eleven dollars in fines the first day.

  The women and other milder citizens of Arredondo were pleased with his diligence, because the incidence of broken windows and shot-out lamp chimneys declined sharply after the first few days. Quarrels were taken outside the town limits to be settled, and drunks tried to balance themselves with greater care as they traveled the streets. But he hadn’t found his money belt or any clue to the theft of it. Though he probed and questioned relentlessly, he could still find no better suspects to his own mind than Clement Hand and his hulking assistant, Judd.

  To some of the Citizens’ Government League, Jake’s method of peace keeping smacked more of vengeance than of diligence. The saloonkeepers complained about the justice of the gun barrel at the next League meeting, where Jake was an indifferent guest.

  ‘Hollander, if you don’t ease up with that God — with that hog leg of yours, half the population of this town is going to be addlebrained.’

  ‘That’s right! Damn it, Jake, there ain’t hardly a boy big enough to wean that isn’t wearing his hair parted with a dent from that thing. And after some of them get their heads cleared they’re meaner than a snake with the shingles, too.’

  Jake was sitting on a chair beside Clem’s presiding table with his legs stretched and crossed before him, while the rest of the League perched on their benches watching him. Arms folded and insolently at ease, he studied Delia Moon’s wonderful bodice as it shook with suppressed laughter. Carrie sat with Clem at the table, taking notes and watching Jake.

  Smitty, of the Schooner, was testifying. ‘Lord Almighty, man, you take the wrong people off to jail, it seems to me! The only ones you bother with are harmless. The fix they’re in when you grab ‘em, they can’t do any more damage than to piss down their own legs — excuse me, ladies. No offense. Now, where’s the sense in that?

  ‘And then when we collect from them for damages, you take a dollar of it away from us for a fine. You’re fining us, not them, when you do that. Why don’t you take them down to the jail and fine ‘em double, like you do the drunks?’

  ‘Fines?’ Carrie asked, puzzled. ‘What’s this about fines?’ Clem frowned, and there was a muted murmur from the few other people in the room who hadn’t heard about the fines. Delia snickered, attracting Jake’s eyes to her face for a moment.

  ‘Marshal Hollander.’ Carrie’s voice was sweet and cool. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your meditations, but what is Mr Smith talking about? We’ve never discussed fines.’

  ‘I fine them a dollar for disturbing the peace and two dollars for public drunkenness,’ said Jake.

  ‘But you don’t have the authority to do that.’

  ‘I’m afraid Carrie’s right, Dutch,’ said Clem uneasily.

  ‘Nobody has any authority around here,’ Jake said. ‘What am I supposed to do with the people I arrest? Take them to court? Where’s your judge? Do the town people want to be tried by the miners’ court out at the Hassayampa? The nearest real, court is fifty miles away, so you told me.’

  ‘I’m afraid Dutch is right, Carrie.’

  ‘But he can’t just take it entirely upon himself to collect fines, and even set the amount, without at least mentioning it to us.’

  ‘That is a point, Dutch. We—’

  ‘It’s illegal!’ said Smitty, justified and pleased.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Jake.

  ‘I think it is,’ said Carrie warmly, her eyes beginning to glow. ‘Nobody gave you permission to do it.’

  ‘Is there a law against collecting fines from the drunk and disorderly in this town?’ Jake asked her.

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Then it isn’t illegal for me to do it, is it?’

  ‘But — well, just because there isn’t a law against it doesn’t mean it isn’t illegal, anyway.’ She appealed to Clem. ‘Does it?’ But Clem was studying an ink smudge on his thumb.

  The rest of the meeting was a confusion of voices. When it was over and the rest were scattered to their homes or businesses, Delia Moon lingered on the Street with Jake until the Hands had disappeared into the Arrow office.

  To Jake’s surprise, when he started to leave her Delia walked along with him.

  ‘Aren’t you a little turned around?’ he asked her. ‘Your place is back that way.’

  Delia put a hand to her lungs delicately. ‘Oh, mister, that smooth charm of yours just turns my heart right over. Say no more or I’ll be led astray.’

  Jake snorted. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to see where you live. You’re so unsociable, I want to see what you’ve got down here that keeps you at home all the time.’ She grinned at his guarded look. ‘And you could give me a drink when we get there. Civic duty is pretty dry work.’

  ‘Why in the hell do you go to these tea parties?’

  ‘For laughs. And to see what they’re up to. Besides, Mr Hand himself asked me to come. How could a girl say no?’

  When Jake opened the door to the jail office, Paco and Urraca were in the midst of some charade, dressed in Rosie’s underwear and shawl and Jake’s coat. ‘Get out of my coat! Take that stuff off and get into bed.’ After a week in town, he was still saddled with them. The eager adopters of children that Carrie had promised him had not materialized. He grabbed his coat as Paco shucked out of it, and gathered up the heap of cotton skirts and shawl as he followed the children into the cell area. There were no other prisoners that night.

  As Jake locked them in, Delia made her inspection of his quarters, letting forth girlish cries of mock astonishment at what she saw.

  ‘Fresh sheets! And a clean shirt, too. My, my, my. Somebody is taking good care of you. Can I guess who it is?’

  Jake brushed past her going into his room. ‘Miss Hand cleans up a little and feeds the kids, sometimes,’ he said without enthusiasm. ‘I’ve got a bottle in here. Get those two glasses off the shelf in the other room and close the door when you come back, will you?’

  ‘Miss Hand? Is that all you call her, when the poor bony little thing is working so hard to make it homey for you here?’

  He wished she’d stop spreading the marmalade. It wasn’t her style. She appeared waving the two glasses as he bent over the old carpetbag.

  Why, I’d think that the least you could do for
her would be to— What’s that?’ The slight change of tone made him glance up.

  ‘My liquor supply.’ He took a bottle out of the bag and threw the bag back in the corner, where it landed with a solid thump in its own cloud of dust.

  ‘Is that thing yours?’ she asked, staring at it.

  ‘It belongs to the kids. Carrie — Miss Hand — thinks it’s empty, so a bottle is safe in it. As you see, she ransacks my own stuff when she feels like it. Hold out the glasses.’

  Delia did so absently. ‘Then it was really Rosie’s, wasn’t it?’

  Jake swallowed his drink. ‘I guess so. She was carrying it. Why?’ He put the bottle and his glass on a small table.

  Delia continued to gaze at the leprous thing. ‘Oh — I don’t know. It’s just funny, seeing it. It sort of brings her back to me all at once.’ She sighed. ‘Poor kid.’

  ‘Yeah. Poor kid. Are you going to drink that or not?’

  She sipped it, barely, then handed the rest to him. He put it down and reached for her.

  She clung to him with that quick, professional passion of whores that always put him off a bit, but for which he was now prepared to make allowances.

  But a few moments later, when he let her mouth go and was nuzzling her perfumed ear, she said, ‘I guess she died broke, too, huh?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Rosie.’

  Jake sighed. ‘I told you last week, the law in Tucson took whatever money she must have had before they gave me the kids. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about now? The cattle market? Free silver?’ He was a little put off, and it irritated him that she was frittering away a promising moment. He kissed her again and got the same mechanical response. But her eyes were open, distractingly; watching him.

  They parted the second time with a mutual sigh, Jake’s a bit sharper. She pulled away with a friendly pat on the arm.

  ‘Listen, Hollander. I hate to break up a good set, but I better go.’

  ‘What the hell’s the matter with you? You invited yourself down here.’

  ‘I know, honey, but I’ve got half my mind on business and the better half doesn’t stand a chance. I’ve got a new dealer, and I really ought to get back and see how he’s doing. You know how it is. Listen, you come down later and we’ll — talk some more, huh?’

  Jake let her go with both hands as if he were dropping a sackful of cats in the river. ‘Sure. Run along. Don’t catch your bustle in the door.’

  She smiled with maddening inattention, and left.

  He lit a cigar and stalked slowly through the jail sipping her rejected drink, rankled by his own rejection; disturbed even more by his strong reaction to it. Anger made his ears feel hot. What in hell had she been up to? Did she just want to let him know she wasn’t going to have to spend any more time buttering him up because she’d found herself a dealer? What a crazy damned way to go about saying so. Nature wasn’t wrong when it gave women small heads and big asses. Even so, there was wasted space at the top.

  Paco broke into his thoughts as he stood in the front door brooding.

  ‘Tío, is that lady gone?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s gone. What do you want?’

  ‘Urraca needs the pot. You didn’t put it in here.’

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Jake whispered in despair.

  8

  Every evening now when he made his patrols of the town Paco walked with him. Urraca, too, when Carrie didn’t have her in hand for scrubbing, currying, or measuring for dress patterns.

  They visited the saloons one by one, and Paco cadged sips of beer or puffs of cigars from the men while Jake surveyed the place for trouble. His income from the fines fell off in the second week, though he still collected them by the same methods, having discovered that the Citizens’ Government League wasn’t going to pay him until the end of the month. What money he did collect Paco and Urraca managed to eat up at an appalling rate, even with frequent handouts from Carrie and the cook at the Moon.

  Urraca was an object of pity and curiosity wherever she went, but Paco was a universal favorite. Young children were so rare in the community that even the most anti-Mexican sentiments were softened by his gap-toothed cheerfulness. It was a phenomenon that Jake noticed and pretended he didn’t.

  While they walked the street, Paco talked. He saw or heard everything that happened in Arredondo. Jake never invited his reports, but he listened to them because Paco’s information often proved sound, if biased.

  ‘There is a strange man up at the Golden Moon now, tío.’ Jake didn’t respond. ‘He is a bandido, too.’

  ‘How do you get that?’

  ‘Angelina says. He is very mean and ugly, like a bandido.’

  ‘A lot of people are mean and ugly who aren’t bandidos.’

  ‘She says he’s, got a big scar on his face where another bandido cut him with a knife.’

  Silence from Jake.

  ‘Man, he sure must be an ugly-looking sonofabitch,’ Paco said pensively.

  ‘Listen, you better cut out that kind of talk or Carrie’s going to stomp the hell out of you. She thinks you learned all that stuff from me.’

  Paco was puzzled. ‘But I learned it all by myself. Good American. Don’t I talk good American, Chake?’ Jake laughed and threw in that hand.

  ‘Angelina says the bandido is hiding from somebody up there.’

  Jake looked slantways down at him. ‘Hiding,’ he echoed without inflection.

  ‘Angelina says he’s been up there for three days now and he don’t go outside in the daytime, even to take a leak. She has to bring him all of his meals and drinks upstairs. Tía Deel don’t like it, but he won’t go away. Angelina says she’s scared of him.’

  Jake slowed his pace as they neared the Golden Moon. Every window was ablaze with light behind the red-and-yellow curtains. That, and the amount of fancy jigsaw work that Delia had incorporated into the porch and gables, made it look like a Turkish lighthouse.

  ‘You gonna go in and see him, Chake?’

  Jake considered doing just that. But, after another moment spent listening to the harsh glee ringing inside the place, he turned on his heel and started across the street.

  ‘If she wants any help she knows how to ask for it.’

  They made the rest of the tour, from the Schooner to the Silver Man; through the raucous cantina, with its cages of canaries trilling and parrots squawking and its languid, scrub-weary whores dragging their round heels; across the street to the sullen Red Front; and back to the jail.

  Carrie was waiting inside. Urraca sat beside her on the bench in self-conscious splendor, newly outfitted in clothes of Carrie’s making. Her dress was a grim tan-and-black tartan, her stockings were black, and the high-buttoned shoes that completed the ensemble were cast on the floor in front of her. Neither she nor Carrie looked happy.

  ‘She won’t even try them on,’ Carrie said. ‘I’ve tried to make her understand they’re for her, but she acts as if I’m punishing her for something instead.’

  Carrie had sailed into the task of civilizing Urraca with such low respect for Jake’s efforts that Jake couldn’t help feeling a quirk of satisfaction at her defeat.

  ‘Maybe she likes going barefooted,’ he said.

  ‘Well, she shouldn’t. It’s ruining her feet.’

  ‘Anyway, you’re putting her off, the way you’re frowning. Remember what you’ve been preaching to me — smile, look pleasant.’

  ‘Oh, Jacob, I have smiled. I have smiled and pleaded and cajoled for an hour, but she won’t even look at them. And she curls her toes under when I try to put them on her myself.’

  ‘I can make her put them on,’ said Paco. He sat down by his sister and began a delicate pantomime of approval of her new dress and its funereal trimmings, the petticoat, and the stockings. Urraca’s frown began to fade. She fingered her own finery doubtfully, watching him. Finally he noticed the boots. He picked them up as if laying hands on a treasure, poring over their every detail with avid hands and e
yes. Urraca scowled again. He held them out to her inquiringly. She shook her head.

  Satisfied with a first refusal, he began to remove his own old boots. When she saw his intention she snatched at her property indignantly. Jake had to go outside to laugh. Carrie followed him, restraining her own smile.

  ‘He’s very persuasive, isn’t he? I almost began to covet them myself, watching him,’ she said.

  ‘He’s a smart kid.’ Jake took out one of the short, thin cigars currently in favor among indigent stage drivers, bit off the end, and lit it. The brief explosion of the match etched his long face, with its narrow bent nose, which gave him the look of a shabby ascetic. She remembered thinking once before that he looked like a shopworn Richelieu out of place in the drab world he inhabited. It was a look entirely at odds with his real personality, she thought with regret.

  She saw he was watching her, wondering why she was lingering. She looked away, then took a breath for what she had come to say.

  ‘Jacob, I’ve wanted to tell you this almost from the first day you came, but somehow I haven’t had — I mean we haven’t had the privacy to discuss it.’ She faltered, seeing that he was still looking down at her in the same cool way. She squared her shoulders. ‘What I mean to say is, I know you’ve been uncomfortable here with us, and if it’s because of me, you have no cause to be.’ She looked away again. ‘Whatever we said, or thought, or felt about each other when we were younger is gone and forgotten. At least by me. It was so long ago, it just couldn’t matter to either of us now. I’ve thought lately that you might be avoiding Clem because of me, and that would be wrong. Besides, I don’t think he ever knew that we were — close. At least, I’ve never mentioned it.’

  Her face felt hot. She glanced at him again.

  ‘How much do I owe you?’ he asked, around the cigar.

  ‘Owe me? For what?’

  ‘For the kid’s clothes.’

  ‘Why, nothing,’ she said indignantly. ‘I told you, they were a present. Urraca had to have something to wear besides Paco’s hand-me-downs. He needs new things, too—’ She stopped as Jake brought out a quarter-sized ten-dollar gold piece.