Whiskey Kills

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “Hello, Daniel,” Vaughan Coyne said.

  Patty was saying something, but Daniel’s eyes bore into his lawyer, who smiled, moving easily, until Daniel asked sharply: “What happened to Toyarocho?”

  The lawyer frowned. “He’s dead. Hanged himself. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry you had to learn about it through my newspaper, Daniel,” Patty said. “I never thought . . .”

  “Did he kill himself before you talked to him?” Daniel’s voice remained sharp, edgy. He felt his anger boiling at the lawyer, had barely even heard Patty Mullen’s apology. “Or after?” He took a step, made himself stop, but it proved hard. “Or did you talk to him at all?”

  “Daniel,” Patty began.

  Vaughan Coyne let out a long breath. “Miss Mullen, gentlemen, would you excuse Daniel and me?” He turned back toward the cabin. “Come on, Daniel. Let’s talk. Get what you have off your chest.” He looked back, forcing a smile. “Come on, Daniel. This is what lawyers do. You’re not the first client of mine to explode on me, but let’s do this as gentlemen, as civilized men. Inside.”

  Coyne’s smile vanished as soon as Daniel stepped into the agency, and the door slammed behind him. Coyne raised his left hand, wagging a finger under Daniel’s nose.

  “I tolerate a lot, Daniel, but you watch your attitude. You watch your tone.”

  “You never answered my question.”

  “Toyarocho hanged himself. You think I killed him?”

  “The thought struck me.” He clenched his teeth, looked beyond his lawyer, saw Coyote Chaser lying on his cot, barely alive.

  “Why would I kill him? You tell me that. He was dead by the time I returned to Wichita Falls. After our talk with Marshal Noble and that Cherokee. You don’t believe me? Ask the jailer in Wichita Falls. You ask the town marshal. He hanged himself in his cell with his leggings. Choked to death. Whip Windsor, the jailer, told me it was a miracle that Comanche lived as long as he did. They expected one of his cellmates to kill him. Wouldn’t have bothered anybody there. Everyone considered him a child killer. That’s what Windsor said. And you tell me this, Daniel. What would you do, what would your conscience tell you to do, if you had been Toyarocho? If you had killed your four-year-old daughter?”

  Daniel felt the tension pour out of him, replaced by a weariness. He shut his eyelids tight.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Coyne said, his voice a hurt whisper. “As God is my witness, I didn’t kill him. Don’t try my patience, Daniel. I put up with a lot, but you can push me only so far.”

  He bowed his head, remembered something Hugh Gunter and Harvey Noble had been trying to teach him. Don’t go off accusing anybody until you had proof, until you were satisfied, until you could get an arrest warrant or an indictment. He hadn’t done that with Vaughan Coyne, had let his temper beat him.

  When he opened his eyes, Daniel asked: “What are you doing here?”

  Coyne smiled, put a gentle hand on Daniel’s right shoulder. “That’s another reason I wanted to speak to you alone. There’s trouble in Texas, Daniel. Carl Quantrell hasn’t been spotted since you saw him in Dallas.”

  Daniel considered this. “How about Fenn O’Malley?”

  “Nobody’s seen him, either. I asked the officer of the day at Fort Sill when we arrived.”

  “Could they be together?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But that’s not the problem. The problem is people in Texas are starting to say Quantrell’s dead. They expect to find him scalped, with his thigh slashed.” He removed his hand, looked deep into Daniel’s eyes. “They’re starting to say you killed him.”

  “Me?” He took a step back. “I haven’t seen him . . .”

  “There’s no evidence, Daniel. It’s just talk. That’s why I was coming here before I met Miss Mullen and Mister Caldwell.”

  “Caldwell,” Daniel tried. He pictured the gray-haired man with the silk hat outside. “Who’s Caldwell?”

  “Jonathan Caldwell. He’s an Indian commissioner. You should be introduced to him. He’s here to help. Thanks to Miss Mullen.”

  * * * * *

  Deputy Commissioner Jonathan W. Caldwell III removed his cigar, blew a plume of smoke toward the moon, and smiled. “Do you understand what Congress passage of Henry Dawes’s proposal means to you, Daniel?”

  He shrugged. Congress had passed the act back in February, meaning that the reservations would be ended at some point in time, but truthfully Daniel hadn’t paid much attention to any ramifications. Whiskey runners, and more recently whiskey murders, had consumed him.

  “It’s private property, Daniel,” Caldwell said. “Private property is the essence of civilization. Henry says that to be civilized means you wear civilized clothes, you cultivate the land, you live in houses, ride in Studebakers, you send your children to school, and you drink whiskey.” He laughed.

  Vaughan Coyne cleared his throat, but Caldwell seemed drunk on his own voice. Patty Mullen’s mouth fell open, but the deputy commissioner didn’t notice. “Most importantly, you own land. You, Daniel, as a single man over eighteen years of age, will receive, when the President directs the allotment, one-eighth of a section. You have no idea how much land that is, do you, Daniel?”

  Daniel frowned. “Eighty acres.”

  The tall man stared at his cigar with sudden distaste, flicked the ash, spit, and put the long thing back in his mouth, dragging on the foul-smelling stick until the tip glowed red. He sent another plume of blue smoke into the sky. “Eighty acres is correct. I forgot you were educated at Captain Pratt’s fine school. Eighty acres is a lot of land.”

  It is nothing, Daniel wanted to say. The People had never owned land. Who could own the earth? The land belonged to all of The People, to the Kiowas, even to the taibos. No one person could own land, and eighty acres . . . Nothing. Even Pale Eyes farmers knew you could not make a living in Indian Territory on eighty acres. He did not like Jonathan Caldwell.

  “I have been in Tahlequah since early March,” Caldwell said. “Working with the Cherokees, explaining to them what this change will bring. Then the charming Miss Mullen wired her articles to Washington City, and so I was directed first to Dallas, and now to here. We happened upon Attorney Coyne in Wichita Falls, and, as he has been a fine representative for you, he asked to come with us as he had business here, too, and so we are here.” He placed the cigar aside. “I have never seen such stars. The sky here is big. The Western skies are magnificent, Daniel.” Caldwell looked across the fire. “How do you like it, Leviticus?”

  “It’s big.”

  “Big. Grand. At night, I forget how wretched this territory is. Look at that.”

  “Esiavit,” Daniel said.

  The deputy commissioner stared across the fire at him. He tried the word, couldn’t make the muscles in his mouth work, and sighed. “What’s that?”

  “Esiavit,” Daniel repeated. “The Milky Way.”

  “Yes. You should forget that heathen word, Daniel. Remember, you’re civilized now. Milky Way.”

  “Why are you here?” Daniel asked.

  The commissioner laughed. “Why, to see that old medicine man of yours, Daniel. What else? What’s his name, dear?”

  “Teepee That Stands Alone,” Patty said.

  “Per President Cleveland’s directive, Commissioner Caldwell has asked for a meeting with Teepee That Stands Alone,” Leviticus Ellenbogen explained. “To smooth things over, get this controversy ended. We will go to his lodge the first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Daniel nodded. “Good. I was going to see him anyway.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The surrey shifted when Leviticus Ellenbogen climbed into the back, squeezing between Vaughan Coyne and the deputy commissioner. Daniel helped Patty Mullen into the front, moved around the wagon, and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Frank Striker put his hand on the brake as Daniel gathered the reins. “Know how to handle a rig like this, Dan’l?”

  “I’ll figure it out,” Dan
iel said with a grin.

  Striker spit, fought down a grin, and looked at Patty Mullen. “You need anything, Dallas?”

  “No,” she said. “Just another newspaper article.”

  “You’ll likely get that, madam,” the commissioner began, but Daniel cut off the rest of his words, snapping his head back to Frank Striker, and demanding: “What did you call her?”

  Bewildered, Striker shook his head. “Nothin’. I didn’t call her nothin’.”

  “Dallas,” Daniel said.

  “Yeah.” Striker still didn’t understand. Daniel wasn’t sure he understood it all, either. “Dallas,” Striker said. “It don’t mean nothin’.”

  “‘It don’t mean nothing,’” Daniel repeated. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

  Ellenbogen was shouting his name when he leaped from the surrey, and ran to the corral. Frank Striker patted the back of the bay horse, and furiously worked on his tobacco, still perplexed, while Daniel found his notebooks, all of them, and hurried back to the wagon.

  “That’s good thinking,” the commissioner said. “You can be our stenographer when we interview this medicine man of yours. I’d trust a heathen like you before I’d trust this alleged journalist or a damned attorney to take accurate notes. And I was once an attorney.”

  * * * * *

  Jonathan W. Caldwell III didn’t know how to shut up. For three hours, his jaws had been working, producing nothing important. “Tahlequah wasn’t the end of the earth, but you could see it from there,” he was saying, stopping only to light another cigar. “But this . . . Jesus . . . this is perdition itself.”

  He wondered if Hugh Gunter had met this insufferable son-of-a-bitch.

  “Last night, you admired the stars,” Patty Mullen said.

  “How much farther?” Caldwell asked, ignoring Patty’s statement.

  “Good bit.” Daniel jutted his jaw toward the rising blue-gray hills to the west.

  “God,” the deputy commissioner said in disgust, then laughed. “Teepee That Stands Alone. I guess his name says it all.”

  “I find this country beautiful,” Patty Mullen said.

  “The People do, also,” Daniel said. “And the Wichitas are even more breathtaking.”

  “Perhaps the scenery will improve after the allotment of this unholy reservation,” Caldwell said. “When this desolation is turned into civilization, with farms and fences, acres and acres of ripening wheat, pastures of Jersey cows, church steeples, and telegraph poles.” He started to light another cigar. “I don’t know why President Cleveland insisted on me meeting this holy man.”

  “Politics,” Leviticus Ellenbogen said.

  Daniel yawned.

  “How long have you been practicing law?” the commissioner asked, changing the subject, trying to pull Coyne into his worthless conversation.

  No response. Caldwell tried again.

  “Pardon?” Coyne coughed slightly. “I’m sorry, sir. You were saying?”

  “How long have you been practicing law?”

  “Oh. Eight years. No, nine.”

  “I had a practice myself for twenty-three years. I found being a lawyer is much like being a Thespian.”

  “I think you are right, sir,” Coyne said.

  “Good training for politics.”

  “That I wouldn’t know.” Coyne sounded bored.

  “In Pittsfield, that’s where I practiced,” Caldwell continued. “Tried one murder case.”

  “That’s plenty,” Coyne said.

  “A grand case. I was defense counsel.” The commissioner laughed. “I proved that the man slain had been killed by a left-handed individual. The wounds on the deceased showed no alternative, then I used testimony after testimony to show that my defendant was right-handed.”

  “I’m a left-hander myself,” Coyne said, just to say something.

  “Perhaps you were the killer.” Leviticus Ellenbogen displayed a rare moment of levity.

  Coyne laughed. “Not me. Never been to Pittsfield.”

  “You’re safe there, sir,” Caldwell said. “The man I defended was the culprit.”

  That pulled Patty Mullen into the conversation. Turning around, she said: “But you said you proved . . .”

  The deputy commissioner laughed. “He was ambidextrous, madam. Used his left hand as well as his right. Luckily we didn’t prove that to the jury.”

  “More proof of my innocence,” Coyne said, smiling. “I can barely hold a fork in my right hand.”

  Caldwell had no interest in Coyne’s words. He was enjoying the expression on Patty Mullen’s face. “Oh, don’t look so shocked, so repulsed, Miss Mullen,” Caldwell said. “I didn’t know of my client’s guilt at the time. Only afterward, after the jury found him innocent, did he confide in me. Got away scotfree, but here’s justice for you. Two weeks later, he stepped out of a dram shop and was run over by a hack. Broke his neck. There’s God’s justice for you.”

  Daniel sighed. The Wichita Mountains didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

  * * * * *

  Grace Morning Star offered the guests dried meat and bread that looked more rigid than Army hardtack. She busied herself around the lodge, bringing water to drink, humming a song as she worked, talking to Daniel, apologizing that her husband was not here.

  “Ask her when Teepee That Stands Alone will return,” Leviticus Ellenbogen said again.

  “She does not know,” Daniel said for the third time, and thanked the silver-haired woman again for the water.

  “Ask her where the hell she learned to make biscuits?” Jonathan Caldwell said, and flung his biscuit into the bushes.

  When the old Comanche woman’s head dropped, Daniel turned angrily. “She speaks English well enough.”

  “It doesn’t make her a cook.” Caldwell cackled.

  “Mister Caldwell!” Patty Mullen demanded. “Your rudeness knows no bounds.”

  “You’re one to talk, lady. Your diatribe in that newspaper showed no Christian charity.” He snorted. “No offense, Ellenbogen.” Underneath his breath: “Damned Jews.” Then the commissioner tasted the dried meat.

  “I sorry,” Grace Morning Star said in English, then spoke in Comanche. “There is not much I can do with the flour I am given at ration day.”

  Daniel patted her hand. “Do not let his words sting, Grandmother. He is a fool. Even the Pale Eyes dislike him.”

  Caldwell blurted out. “Killstraight . . . tell her the meat’s not bad. Not prime, but an interesting taste.”

  “My husband should be here,” the woman told Daniel.

  “I thought you said that squaw spoke English,” Caldwell called out. “She should use it. Become civilized . . .”

  Daniel ignored him. “When did he leave?”

  “You should speak English, too, Killstraight,” Caldwell tried again, but, getting no response, he focused on eating the dried meat.

  Grace Morning Star answered Daniel’s question. “This morning, he left. He knew you would come this day. Perhaps he went to seek his own vision. To help you.”

  “Perhaps.”

  She shook her head. “Maybe he will not come. While these Pale Eyes are here.”

  “I would not blame him.”

  Daniel pushed back his hat, and tasted the biscuit. He made little progress, and placed it on a stone, his face changing, curious. “I did not see you at ration day.”

  “I did not go.”

  He tried something. “Your husband went.”

  “It is true. You spoke to him there.”

  “Yes.”

  “I am fortunate to have a good man,” she said with pride. “Especially . . .” Her eyes filled with tears, and she dropped her head. Daniel stared at the shorn locks, then at her hand. He remembered the day of Sehebi’s death, and he looked at the stub of her pinky, still red, ugly, filled with puss. He remembered her chopping off the fingertip with a knife, an act of mourning by a grieving Comanche woman who had lost her granddaughter.

  “He goes for you,” Da
niel said. “To ration day?”

  “Yes. It is far.”

  “He is a good man.” The words sounded forced, but Grace Morning Star did not notice.

  “You need more meat,” she said, rising. “Your ribs stick out like the dog I killed three suns ago.”

  He smiled. Patty Mullen had written that he was rotund, but the wife of Teepee That Stands Alone found him skinny. He chewed on the meat, and laughed, wondering what Mr. Caldwell would think when he found out he was eating dog. Daniel stopped chewing. When was the last time he had eaten dog? He made sure Grace Morning Star wasn’t looking, then spit out the partially chewed food between his legs, and covered it with dirt.

  * * * * *

  Teepee That Stands Alone did not return that night, or the next morning, frustrating Ellenbogen, but mostly Caldwell, and causing Grace Morning Star to apologize more.

  Patty Mullen wandered around the camp, Vaughan Coyne stared at the mountains, Leviticus Ellenbogen took a nap, and Caldwell complained. Daniel busied himself reading his notebooks, making new notes in the margins, scratching through some words, underlining others, sorting things in his mind.

  “Shit!”

  He looked up, saw Patty Mullen clutching her bare foot near the brush arbor, saw the blood, and he slammed the tablet shut, went to her, but Grace Morning Star reached her first, apologizing in broken English.

  “Such language,” Caldwell said with a snort, “from a lady!”

  Sitting on a boulder, Patty Mullen bit back something stronger than her first epitaph. “I’m all right,” Patty protested as Grace Morning Star lifted her leg. “Cut my foot on a rock.”

  “What were you doing in your bare feet?” Daniel asked.

  “Shut up!” Patty displayed her rare Irish temper.

  “Sorry,” Grace Morning Star said in English. She looked at Daniel. “I fix.” And to Patty: “You wait. Cut bad not. Here.” She thrust the leg into Daniel’s hand. “Keep this like.”