by Len Levinson
Duane opened it. An older woman appeared in the corridor, her features austere, and she was dressed in black. “May I help you, sir?”
“I want to see Reverend Herbert Berclair about a funeral. My name's Duane Braddock.”
She made an uncertain smile. “Everybody's talking about you, Mister Braddock. I'm the parson's wife, Patricia Berclair. Right this way.”
As she led him to a small parlor, he noticed she was in her mid-thirties, and was tall and angular. “Make yourself comfortable. I'll get my husband.”
She headed for the door, and he decided that he liked the holy lady. He sat on an upholstered chair and looked at a small bare cross affixed to the wall above the fireplace. Above the cross was a sign: He Is Risen.
Duane felt out of place in the parson's home, because Protestants generally hated Catholics, and vice versa. He'd studied the Reformation at the monastery in the clouds, and countless warring Protestant sects had confused him. Duane didn't know what was right or wrong in religion anymore, but tried to keep an open mind. He expected a pale preacher with an elongated beak to appear, but instead a big strapping fellow approximately six feet four inches tall strode into the room. He had curly dark blond hair, a deep chest, a ruddy complexion, and advanced on a shiny walnut pegleg.
“I'm Parson Berclair!” declared the booming voice. He grasped Duane's hand firmly. “Pleased to meet you.”
Duane squeezed with all his might to prevent his knuckles from being crushed. “Mister Snodgras said you wanted to see me about the Twilby funeral,” Duane said.
“Are you a Christian?”
“Definitely.”
Parson Berclair fixed Duane in his stare. “I mean a real Christian who tries to live the gospel, not just pay lip service. If I'm going to bury your friend today, I expect a prayerful experience for all concerned, in which we relive together the passion of Christ and his resurrection into heaven.”
“Wouldn't want it any other way,” Duane replied.
Reverend Berclair beamed. “I've always believed that the best way to prepare for a funeral is to bare our hearts to God, ask for forgiveness, and pray for the soul of our recently departed. Most people in Escondido are outlaws, and perhaps you are too. But God loves repentant sinners most of all. Why don't you go to the chapel, and I'll call when we're ready to depart for the cemetery?”
The chapel was filled with slanting shafts of morning light that illuminated pews. Duane sat, looked at the bare cross and walls, and felt strangely bereft without the statues, symbols, and paintings of the Catholic Church. The Protestants didn't have anything except God Himself, he realized. It was an interesting concept, but he preferred Giotto and Titian to drab walls. He dropped to his knees, clasped his hands, and tried to pray.
Nothing happened, and he felt unworthy to appear before the Lord God. The plain fact was he'd broken every rule in the book since leaving the monastery in the clouds. Unable to turn the other cheek, he found himself drawn back to a more primitive biblical theme: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. He knew it was barbaric, but also recognized that he was weak and couldn't ignore the murder of his father, the loss of his mother, and now, most recently, the killing of Amos Twilby and the subsequent attempt on his own life.
If Twilby had stayed away from me, he'd still be alive today, Duane surmised. Twilby stuck his neck out for Joe Braddock's son, and a snake in the grass shot him. Murder and robbery are taking over the world, while good people turn their cheeks. Didn't Christ throw the money changers out of the temple precincts?
On top of everything else, as if he didn't have enough worries, somebody had tried to blast him to pieces as he slept behind the Last Chance Saloon last night. Duane couldn't imagine who the bushwhacker was, and wondered when he'd strike again.
The back door of the church opened, and Duane's slender fingers darted toward his gun. He heard the laughter of five children chasing each other up and down the aisles. A stout woman accompanied them, and Duane arose from his pew as she approached.
“Sorry to bother you, sir, but this is the onliest place where the little ‘uns can play during the day. You're new in town, ain't y'all?”
“Just arrived yesterday,” Duane replied.
“The children cain't go outside,” she explained.
“There's so many guns in Escondido, you'd think there was a war on.”
She smiled apologetically, then waddled to a back pew and sat where she could watch the children. Duane returned to his knees on the floor and considered what she'd said. How can children grow normally if they're pushed indoors all the time?
Their screams pierced his ears, disturbed his prayer, and provoked his hostility against the outlaws who'd taken over Escondido. They have no respect for anybody, not even women and little children. Who the hell do they think they are? It's time somebody took charge of this town.
Now hold on, he admonished himself. Don't get carried away. You're just one ex-cowboy with a price on his head. You can't save this town, and if Jesus Himself came back to earth, even He couldn't save Escondido.
Duane heard a deep voice emanate from the front of the church. “It's time.”
Duane followed the Reverend Berclair to the parlor, where his wife was waiting, attired in her black dress, black lace collar, and black bonnet that contrasted sharply with her milky white complexion. They proceeded outside. The undertaker sat on the front seat of the buckboard. A planked wooden coffin lay in back. Duane knew who slept eternally inside, covered with cosmetic powder, wearing a new suit. The undertaker flicked his reins, and the horses pulled the wagon toward the cemetery.
Duane walked beside Reverend and Mrs. Berclair and the clanking buckboard. “The deceased was a close friend?” asked Reverend Berclair.
“Actually, we'd just met,” Duane said. “But he was a good man, and didn't deserve to get bushwhacked.”
“Remember the words of Paul the Apostle. Even if you are angry, you must not sin. Never let the sun set on your anger, or you will give the devil a foothold.”
“Nobody's shooting at me and getting away with it,” Duane replied darkly. “That's all I know.”
Reverend Berclair glanced at him. “You're on the road to hell, my boy.”
“Am I supposed to look the other way and let him do it?”
“Why does somebody want to kill you?”
“I think it has something to do with my father. You ever heard of Joe Braddock?”
The preacher shook his head. “Should I?”
“He was killed in a feud with some rich ranchers near the Pecos some years back.”
“I've never spent much time in the Pecos country, I'm afraid. My wife and I arrived in Texas only recently from Alabama. We felt that God was calling us to this sinful land, isn't that so, Patricia?”
She nodded solemnly. Duane glanced at her out the corner of his eyes, and thought she might be pretty if she gained some weight. “Escondido sure is sinful,” Duane said, picking up the conversation. “I never saw so many hard hombres in one spot in my life.”
“It's an uphill battle, but I believe in persistence and the healing power of God. I've seen Him, you see.”
“What'd He look like?” Duane asked.
The preacher appeared not to notice the skeptical note in Duane's question. “It happened a long time ago, during the war, at Vicksburg,” he replied, and his face seemed to glow with the memory. “Cannonballs were falling, canister raked our lines, the ground was covered with dead and wounded, and behind it all, high in the sky, I saw the face of the Lord God gazing at me, an expression of indescribable compassion on his face. I literally cried for joy, but then a chunk of flying metal hit me in the leg. It was the end of the war for me, but the message was irrefutable. God directed me to take up His ministry, and simultaneously made it impossible to do otherwise. So I mustered out, went to divinity school, and here I am in Escondido.”
Maggie O'Day stepped outdoors, accompanied by Bradley Metzger, and the bright morning sunlight nearly
blinded her. She was a creature of the night, usually fast asleep in the early hours, but there was something she wanted to do. Duane Braddock's story had touched her, for she'd been a semi-orphan too, and had often wondered about her father. She suspected that news of Duane's mother might be available among the older women of Escondido.
“Pick me up,” she ordered.
Bradley lifted her easily in his powerful arms and carried her across the street, dodging potholes, refuse, and a puddle of horse piss. They came to the far side, and Bradley lowered her to the ground. “You ain't a goin’ in the Silver Spur, are you?”
She glanced at him sharply. “If I want yer opinion, I'll ask fer it. And if'n you don't like yer job, just give me a day's notice, so's I can git somebody else.”
“You'll never get anybody like me,” he said angrily.
“Your kind is a dime a dozen,” she replied.
She held her skirts as she entered the Silver Spur Saloon, so she wouldn't attract dirt to her hem. Outlaws slept bent over tables in the filthy, ramshackle saloon, while the bleary-eyed bartender washed glasses in a tub of dirty water. “Can I help you, Miss O'Day?”
“Where's Sanchez?”
The bartender nodded toward the back corridor.
“Why don't you wash the spittoons while yer at it?” she asked. He didn't reply.
Bradley accompanied her to the corridor. Sometimes he felt like murdering her, and other times he wanted to get on his knees and beg her to marry him. She turned toward him as they approached the door. “Wait for me here.”
“Be better if I went inside with you.”
She looked at him askance. “Better for who? I said wait for me here.”
She knocked on the door, waited a few moments, then disappeared into the office. Bradley sat on a chair near the door, placed his gun on the table, and looked around the smoky rundown saloon in the morning light streaming through smeared windows. A man in a frock coat lay unconscious on the floor, his arm hanging over a brass rail covered with rust and dried gobs of tobacco juice.
Bradley thought Maggie should stay out of filthy low-class saloons like the Silver Spur, but she never listened to him. She uses me like a horse, but she'll git her ass in Dutch someday, and turn to me for help. Maybe I will, and maybe I won't.
Sanchez was a portly olive-skinned Mexican with a short curly beard and half-closed eyes. He set out two glasses, poured whisky, then handed one glass to Maggie. “What can I do for you, Señorita?”
She turned down the corners of her mouth with distaste as she perused the room. “I've seen nicer pigpens.”
“My customers like it this way,” replied Sanchez. “It reminds them of home.”
“Yer the dumbest businessman I ever saw, but that ain't why I'm here.” She reached into her purse, pulled out her gold cigar case, selected a panatella, and lit it with a match scratched atop Sanchez's desk. “You ever hear of Joe Braddock?”
Sanchez reflected for a few moments. “What Joe Braddock?”
“He shot some folks up by the Pecos ‘bout eighteen years ago. Ever heard of the Polka Dot Gang?”
“Not that I remember, Señorita.”
“Well, Joe Braddock was boss of the Polka Dot Gang, and his wife was in the business, if you know what I mean. I'm tryin’ to find out who she was. Do you think you can ask yer gals if they ever heard of Joe Braddock and his women? I'd appreciate the favor.”
He leaned toward her, licked his upper lip lewdly, and asked: “What'll you do fer me?”
“I'll buy yer business fer a good price after you go broke.”
“Who says I'm goin’ broke?”
“Them dirty cuspidors and yer cruddy floor. It might remind some men of home, but most wouldn't set foot in here.”
“Maybe you and me could become partners,” he said.
“Find me some news on Joe Braddock's women, then we'll talk. You know where to find me, day or night. But don't get no ideas. This is strictly bizness.”
On her way back to the Last Chance Saloon, Maggie found Duane Braddock sitting on the bench in front. “Morning,” he said with a smile. “I want to talk with you.”
“Change yer mind about the sheriff job?”
Duane was surprised. “How'd you know?”
She turned to Bradley. “Go to the blacksmith and tell him I want a tin badge for the new sheriff.”
Bradley scowled. “I told you onc't afore that I ain't yer errand boy.”
She placed her fists on her hips and leaned toward him. “That's exactly what you are, and if you don't like it, you can pick up yer pay and leave.”
She placed her arm around Duane's waist and led him through the door. They passed afternoon drunkards, the bartender stocking fresh bottles behind the bar, and a Negro sweeping the floor. Duane said: “You'd better watch out for Bradley.”
“If he made a million dollars fer me, I'd kiss his ass. But until then, he'll do as I say.”
They entered her office. She sat behind her desk, reached for the whisky bottle, and dangled it before his eyes. “Want some?”
“I'm not drinking anymore, but could use a little breakfast.”
“Go to the kitchen and eat whatever you want. By the way, Twilby owned the stable free and clear, we got no probate in Escondido, and Twilby ain't got kin, far as we know. Since you was his best friend, the stable's your'n.”
“What'll I do with a stable?”
“Make money off it. What else?”
“Is it legal for somebody my age to be a sheriff?”
“The other businessmen and I pretty much make up the laws as we go along, ‘cause there ain't no lawyers here, thank God, and yer just what we've been a-hopin’ fer. We'll chip in to pay yer salary. Yer hired as of right now. How's it feel to be sheriff of Escondido?”
Two prostitutes in homespun dresses and no cosmetics sat at the big kitchen table, eating breakfast in the middle of the afternoon. It was their own private residential section of the Last Chance Saloon, and Duane felt like an intruder as he chose the stool farthest from them. The girls snickered, and one said. “You ain't afraid of us, are you?”
“What makes you think I'm afraid of you?” replied Duane.
“Why're you sitting all the way down there?”
“I didn't want to interrupt your conversation.”
“We was a-talkin’ about you anyways. What're you a-doin’ hyar?”
“I'm the new sheriff.”
She fluttered her eyelashes. “You can arrest me anytime.”
The girls giggled, and Duane's ears turned bright red. The face of a Negro woman appeared in the doorway. “Lookin’ fer breakfast?” she asked Duane.
“Yes ma'am.”
The face disappeared. Duane rolled a cigarette, as the girls whispered among themselves at the far end of the table. “I'm Shirley,” one of them announced. “And this is Maxine. We was just a-sayin’ ‘bout how cute you were.”
Duane's cheeks reddened deeply and the girls twittered at his reaction. The Negress cook appeared in the nick of time with a platter of fried eggs, sausages, beans, grits, potatoes, and biscuits slathered with butter. “If you ladies're finished, ain't you got somethin’ to do?”
The girls retreated from the kitchen as Duane scooped half of a fried egg into his mouth, then reached for the toast. The Negress returned with a pot of coffee and a mug. “I guess you're the Duane Braddock that everybody's talkin’ about. You sure don't look as bad as they say.”
“Nothing's wrong with me that a good meal wouldn't cure.” She returned to the kitchen, and Duane felt curious about her life. He didn't know much about Negroes, because there hadn't been any in the monastery in the clouds. Probably an ex-slave, he reflected, as he stuffed grits into his mouth. Texas had been a slave state, and most Negroes her age had been owned by white men in the bad old days.
A young woman with black hair in a ponytail entered the kitchen, and Duane was jolted with the awareness that she was the supplicant he'd seen earlier in church. His fork fell from h
is hand as he realized that she was a prostitute too! She sat opposite him, and said, “You ever find out who tried to shoot you?”
He realized with new wonder that she was also the loose-hipped enchantress who'd escorted him to his room the previous night! “No, but I remember seeing you in church this morning.”
“I told you where the parson's office was.”
What kind of prostitute goes to church early in the morning? Duane asked himself. The answer came with stunning forcefulness: Mary Magdalene. This is a God-fearing woman, Duane speculated, and if I were a good Christian I'd save her from her life of sin, but I can't even save myself.
The Negress cook brought another platter of food, as Alice Markham ate with both elbows on the table. She pretended to be tough, but Duane had seen her in church with her heart bared before the Lord. His acolyte's eyes examined the sadness in her eyes, the defiant corners of her mouth, her mock flippant manner. Underneath it, she was a pious young girl, and he felt inspired to rescue her from her squalid life. “You look so different today,” he said.
“Amazin’ what some paint and powder'll do.”
“Do you go to church often?”
“If I didn't, I'd go loco. Do you think it's fun a-screwin’ every galoot with a spare fifty cents in his pocket?”
Her blunt language gave him pause, but it was the opening he was looking for. “Do you know how to read and write and do numbers?”
“A little.”
“If you learned how to read and write better, maybe you could get a job as a clerk.”
“I'm too dumb to get a job as a clerk.”
“You don't seem dumb to me, and I could teach you. Hell, I've spent most of my life in school. I'm willing to give it a try if you are.”
She looked at him askance. “What's wrong with you, mister?”
“I thought you said you didn't like screwing galoots for fifty cents apiece.”
“I've met a million cowboys who needed to save me, but all they really wanted was my li'l ass.”