by James Short
Madeleine didn’t respond. She kept the black points of her unblinking eyes on Kurtz as she descended the stairs. “Who do you say you are?” She spoke with her own peculiar drawl, drawing out the words uncomfortably.
“Conrad Kurtz, rancher from Oregon, ma’am.”
“Conrad Kurtz?” She positioned herself so close that if she were a man, it would be a challenge, and if she were a beautiful woman, it would be a seductive invitation. Their intensities seemed to balance out. “What is your unpleasant news, Conrad Kurtz?”
“Thomas Deering—a man I know to be a thief and a seducer—has been sneaking into your house at night, sneaking into your daughter’s bedroom and having his way with her.”
This information in no way disconcerted her. “Why are you telling me this news, Mr. Kurtz? You’re not family, not a friend, not a neighbor, so my misfortune can’t be your concern.”
“You’re mistaken, ma’am. In my book, when two people suffer misfortune at the hands of the same person, they become friends. Thomas Deering seduced your daughter. He caused me a great deal of property loss, and I’ve spent the better part of seven years tracking him down. He’s our common enemy, which means we should help each other in seeing justice done.”
Mrs. Boller seemed amused. “Seven years you searched, and now you want full satisfaction. I am impressed. Seven years, yes. But how could this weak old woman be of any help in bringing Thomas Deering to justice?”
“We’re already halfway there. Deering is in jail and will hang tomorrow afternoon whether the sheriff is in accord or not. His fortune, which I reckon to be considerable, is rightly ours because of the harm he has done us. Without your daughter’s cooperation, however, I doubt we’ll find more than a fraction of his ill-gotten gains.”
“Yes, I do understand you.” Madeleine smiled with as much graciousness as her gauntness allowed. “Better than you imagine, I understand you. What you require of my daughter will be against her will.”
“Perhaps, yet there are many ways to influence a young woman,” Kurtz said with a hint of a question in his words.
“Very good, my dear man. I dare say you are familiar with some of them.” The laudanum hadn’t yet obliterated the ability of Madeleine to express in her features eagerness and desire. The hunger in her eyes and dark moist open mouth was startling.
Kurtz maintained his gaze on her as if she were the only object in the room. “Might we begin by bringing your daughter down here and asking her the truth of whether or not Thomas Deering is her lover?”
“Why? Are you lying?”
“I never lie.”
“It is a most unusual man who never lies. Only men of means and strength have the liberty to always speak their minds.” Madeleine took a step back. “How long do you plan to remain in our town? If you have made no other accommodations, you don’t have to look elsewhere for a place to lodge.”
“As long as it takes to finish this business.”
“Might that include courting a young woman of difficult temperament?” Madeleine Boller laughed. “I surprise you? Tell me, sir, what better way to gain the information you require than to be her master and lover? Franklin, go fetch the sherry. I so yearn to have a conversation with this good man who never lies.”
This was the first order Madeleine had dared to give Franklin since his arrival. Like many weak creatures, Madeleine possessed a finely tuned sense of who was the most powerful in a room.
Franklin listened out of sight at the top of the stairs.
“Mr. Kurtz, let me be frank.” Madeleine’s tone was intimate and conspiratorial. “I am a poor widow. After paying my husband’s debts, I lacked the means to provide for my ungrateful daughter. Penelope is my special burden, the cross I’ve borne for eighteen years. Now you say that she has a value that might compensate me for the burden I’ve carried so long. It is almost too much for my poor feminine head to believe. Forgive me for not trusting a man who claims he never lies, but experience weighs on me too bitterly to trust any soul this side of heaven.”
There was a long pause while she let the words settle in, then continued: “However, I do trust what I feel in my hand and see with my eyes, especially if the thing offers sustenance in my old age. You have my permission to take the child for something I can feel and see now—not hidden pots of gold in the ether of imagination.”
Kurtz slowly nodded—understanding, calculating. ”To me, Mrs. Boller, as you said the issue seems to be her consent.”
“No, Mr. Kurtz, Penelope can want whatever she wants. The issue is my consent.” Madeleine paused as if to emphasize the last word. “I’m not so far gone that I don’t see your gentlemanly manner towards this mad old scarecrow of a widow as a way to get at her daughter. You have the best of reasons—money and revenge. So I prefer to deal plainly. My daughter for a consideration of money. Two men stand in our way. It is your business to take care of them. It will also be on you to put the bridle on my daughter, the bit in her mouth, and break her to your will.”
“I’ve broken my share of horses and men. The young miss won’t be much harder.” Kurtz maintained his admiring gaze.
“Harder? You must be engaging in banter, Mr. Kurtz. Hard it will be, but I’m certain such a thing will be more a pleasure than a chore, which should add to the amount of the consideration.”
“I suppose you require down payment to prove my intentions,” Kurtz whispered. Then, in a louder voice, he said, “Aren’t you afraid of your daughter hating you, Mrs. Boller?”
“My good man, I don’t care whether she loves or hates me as long as it is from a distance.” Madeleine Boller’s sharp laughter set a crow cawing outside.
Franklin visited Penelope, who was sitting motionless by her window and listening to the men outside. He related to her the situation briefly: Tom had been arrested; her mother had invited the man who was behind Tom’s arrest to be their guest; and, at this moment, they were deciding how to use her to extort money from Tom.
When Franklin mentioned the forced marriage, Penelope laughed hollowly, then exclaimed, “Throw him out. This is your house, not his.”
“It’s not that simple. I’m a Negro—I can exert my property rights only if they don’t interfere with what a white man thinks is his.”
“You’re just afraid,” Penny said.
“I’m not a fool. Of course, I am afraid—above all afraid of acting rashly and losing whatever chance I have of protecting you,” Franklin replied.
“Save Tom, then worry about me,” Penelope demanded.
Promising to return with a plan, Franklin stepped out of the room. Penelope didn’t acknowledge his departure.
The Wise Thief and the Foolish Thief
“So what’s this I hear about you and Miss Boller?” His face darkly clouded, James Thornton turned the key of the cell locking it. He had just returned from cajoling and threatening the hostile parties outside the jail to keep the peace.
“I was meaning to tell you, James. In fact, I meant to tell you today. It happened that I managed to make Miss Boller’s acquaintance, and it happened that we got along well together, so we’ve been seeing quite a lot of each other.”
“No one has seen you entering the mansion during the day except once or twice recently, so you must be sneaking in at night. Seems to me hanging you myself would solve the majority of problems we have presently.”
“What are you accusing me of?” Tomàs had always prided himself in acting honorably towards women.
“I’m accusing you of being a man who takes advantage of an innocent young girl.”
“Take advantage of Penny? Well, if talking to her is taking advantage, then I plead guilty,” Tomàs replied hotly. “You can call Penelope sheltered and innocent, which I guess is true, but that young lady doesn’t give an inch in any direction unless she so decides. I would lay it on Franklin for spoiling her, but we know she isn’t spoiled. It’s the way she is.”
“So Franklin abetted you in your seduction,” Thornton said, not
hiding his incredulity.
“He found out after we had been seeing each other for two months. Do you think you’d have to bother hanging me if Franklin believed I had seduced Penny?”
“He’s right,” Franklin said as he walked through the door. “If he had taken advantage of Penny, I would have done Kurtz’s job for him. However, our friend here didn’t even lift her veil.”
Thornton looked doubtful. “How could you have allowed a thief and god knows what other sort of criminal to consort with your… your…” He was about to say, daughter.
Franklin shook his head. “Penny pleaded with me to let Tom still see her, and Tom, despite whatever else he is, had treated her with respect, so I acceded. We can assign fault later. The pressing problem now is that Mrs. Boller is negotiating with Kurtz the cash value of Penny. I don’t know what you did Tom to make the man so goddamn angry, but you certainly made the wrong enemy.”
“Let me go free, and we’ll see who has chosen the wrong enemy.” Tomàs gripped the bars.
Franklin ignored him. “You and I, sheriff, are to be put out of the way temporarily, which Kurtz hasn’t gotten around to doing yet. If we act quickly, I believe we can save Penny. I don’t know what we can do for Tom. Kurtz came here to hang him, and he doesn’t plan to leave until that at least is accomplished.”
“You are out of your element, my friends. I gained the advantage of Kurtz once, and I can do so again.” Tomàs shook the bars.
Thornton glared at Tomàs. “If we kill you now, Tom, we would save a bunch of trouble and grief including the sale of your beloved Penny to your enemy.”
“I’d like to believe it were that easy, sheriff,” Franklin said. “But Kurtz has made a down payment on Penny, so to speak, and will insist on value for his money whether Tom is alive or dead. And then there is the inconvenient matter that Penny loves Tom.”
“Does Kurtz know Penny is blind?” Tomàs asked.
“Not yet,” Franklin replied. “Mrs. Boller will try to keep Kurtz from visiting Penny as long as she can because she’ll be afraid Kurtz will use the blindness as a reason to knock down the price.”
“How many men does Kurtz have?” Tomàs went to a small window and studied the pistoleros throwing dice at the back of the jail.
“About thirty,” Thornton said. “Ten guarding you. The rest either staying with him or, at this moment, stripping your house bare of every item of value.”
Tomàs shook his head. “I suppose Kurtz bringing so many is flattering. He really didn’t need an army to get me. Vincent Olmstead, a man who taught me a few things about the world, said that the more people in a crowd, the stupider the crowd is. That might work to our advantage.”
When the plan was made—by necessity a desperate one—James Thornton left to make contact with a few of Tomàs’s more bellicose friends in the Flats, and Franklin returned to the Boller mansion to rehearse Penny on what she had to do. For the time being, Tomàs had to stay put. He hated waiting, but he knew the value of not acting until the opportune moment. He occupied his thoughts trying to anticipate the problems that would inevitably occur.
Escaping the jail wouldn’t be difficult. Thornton had unlocked the cell again, and since Kurtz’s men had persuaded themselves that Tomàs couldn’t possibly escape, slipping past them would be a simple matter.
Slipping out of Solvidado posed more challenges, yet nothing beyond his abilities. The weather seemed like it might cooperate. Tomàs could tell by the smell of the sea breeze that out on the ocean a thick fog bank was slowly rolling towards Solvidado. It would arrive in the early evening, making bright torches appear as dim candles, rendering figures beyond a few feet distance invisible, and muffling sounds.
In a cove, a mile away, Tomàs would find a skiff sunk in a pool and weighted with sandbags, the oars stowed, the mast laid on its side. He needed only a minute to remove the sandbags, pull the boat out, set up the mast, and shake out the sail. He would row out beyond the bay with muffled oars. The current or the usual northerlies would waft the boat south. Kurtz would have an easier time finding a tick on a grouchy bear than searching the hundreds of coves along the coast for his landing spot.
The tricky part lay in extracting Penny from the mansion. There was no sly way to do it. The premises were well guarded. Kurtz would be expecting him. The plan had to be so brazen, seem so impossible, that Kurtz failed to anticipate it.
Olmstead once told the story of how in his younger days when he was caught cheating and a whole town was preparing to tar and feather him. They had stripped him naked. The tar was bubbling. The womenfolk were ripping open old pillows to supply the feathers. Young Olmstead offered the angry mob a deal. They would cut the cards. If he drew the high card, they would let him go, if they got the high card, they could lynch him, after the tarring and feathering. They rejected the offer unless young Olmstead was willing to do three draws and win each time.
Tomàs had asked the irascible Swede, “Did you cheat?”
“With my hands tied?” Vincent smiled, then winked. “I had to choose the card by bending down and separating it out with my nose. It was beyond them to imagine how I could possibly nose out the king, queen, and jack.”
Would this plan be beyond Kurtz’s ability to imagine and anticipate? Tomàs had misgivings. Danger to Penelope was unavoidable, although he was certain if nothing were done his impossible foolish blind girl would attempt something riskier. Additionally, he needed enough money to tempt Kurtz. There was only one place where he could acquire the necessary sum. The thought of it, even at this desperate pass, still made his conscience churn.
Jacinto entered, interrupting these thoughts. His face wore the only smile Tomàs had seen that day.
“I need your help, Jacinto,” Tomàs said.
An Undertaker Undertakes
Philip wanted to tell April about Jacinto, but couldn’t quite figure out a plausible explanation for his ghost. It was at this point in the narrative that Jacinto had unexpectedly slapped Philip resoundingly on the back.
“Are you listening?” Jacinto asked in the annoying tone of a child wanting to show off. “This is the part of the story where I come in.”
Philip had jumped. “I thought you were… you were…”
“Insubstantial? That doesn’t mean I can’t give a good whack now and then to the substantial when it is required.”
Philip stole a glance at April’s dear tired face and thought he’d never be able to explain how he acquired this information. Best continue on with the story. He did so hearing Jacinto’s words in his head.
“After joining Sheriff Thornton to help recruit friends in the Flats, I found myself driving my wagon out of town on an old logging road. I had two coffins strapped in the back of the wagon, one of them empty, the other occupied by a tramp who didn’t even own a pair of shoes when he was found dead on the beach the night before. Tomàs had promised he’d pay the cost to bury him because the tramp had died in the Flats. That made him one of us, Tomàs had said.
“Now Tomàs and I were distracted by more pressing problems, and nobody had time to attend to a burial of a friendless vagrant. I had sprinkled sage and ammonia salts on the poor devil to keep him from festering for a few hours, but those measures wouldn’t mask the smell for long, which might not turn out to be a bad thing. When he began to ripen, there would be no eager inspectors of my cargo. I found the gold exactly where Tomàs said it would be: just below a turn in the road near the stump of a fallen redwood. I retrieved the coins and put them in two canvas sacks, tucking one under the tramp’s head and the other under his feet, so he looked quite comfortable for his eternity. I slowly drove back, whistling.
“When I returned, the situation in Solvidado had worsened. Tomàs had done the disappearing act as he had promised. Using the shawl and the dress of the old granny who took him dinner, he sneaked out right under the noses of Kurtz’s boys. Now, Kurtz’s rough characters stood on every street, looking like they wanted to get even with the town that had fooled
them. Two of this gang were going from house to house, guns drawn, pounding on doors until they were let in. As if Tomàs were so stupid as to be sitting in the parlor having a chat with a neighbor.
“I kept whistling while I drove towards my establishment. I was stopped three times. Each time, they opened the coffins, screwed up their noses and made a joke along the line of me joining the tramp. And since they didn’t find Tomàs in the coffin and hadn’t been told to look for sacks of gold, they let me go on.
“When I arrived home, I took out the sacks and piled them up against the pig trough with the other sacks of potato peels and the buckets of fish entrails and rotting vegetables. I had three large hogs then, the fattest one, El Gran Conde, you know about. I had named him El Gran Conde because I had the fancy that the real Great Count, my illegitimate father, had been sent back into this world to be my prized pig. El Gran Conde, true to his nature, showed a keen interest in the bags of gold, as he had for any metal since eating the spurs and foot of that dead cowboy. He snorted and kicked at the wooden barrier, but not even El Gran Conde could get through four-inch redwood planks.
“I drove out again to see the lay of the land. Kurtz’s boys were losing their tempers. I hadn’t got more than a few yards when I heard a shout and a bullet whizzed over my head. ‘Get back inside!’ a roughneck yelled. ‘Nobody goes anywhere until we finish searching!’
“To make their point clearer, several bullets hit the coffins in the wagon, killing the tramp again if there had been any doubt. I jumped out of the wagon and ran for cover into the Valero cabin, the first place I could find, dodging a couple of bullets aimed in my general direction, mostly to encourage me to be quick on my feet. Peeking through the slats in the window, I saw my horses running off with my wagon, then stopping a short distance away.
“The Valero family—a father and three daughters, all very talkative because they were scared—gave me the details of what was happening. They told me that Kurtz’s men were positively polite now compared to how they were acting just an hour before when they had started breaking into every house in the Flats and abusing anybody they could lay their hands on. They frisked the girls for secret messages, even grabbing Beatriz by the hair because she didn’t want to be searched and forcing her to run alongside a horse for fifty yards. They broke into the Mayor’s house, stole everything, and then burned it to the ground. James Thornton finally came and got a handle on the situation, breaking the teeth of the man who had made the Beatriz run, and accidentally slamming a door on the fingers of one of the men who had bothered the girls. He told Kurtz that his men could look for the Mayor, as long as they behaved themselves. If they didn’t, he’d make a posse of every single able-bodied man in Solvidado, and they would fight it out to the death.