by Len Levinson
Duane followed the dumpy man into the street, where they crossed and ran into the alley on the far side. They came to a yard where a cheering crowd had gathered, and Duane elbowed through men laying bets and hollering encouragement to the combatants. Circling each other in the moonlit arena were a cowboy in his mid-forties with acne scars on his face, and a young drifter who resembled a raccoon. They held long knives in their right hands, and both had been cut already on the arms.
Duane drew his Colt as he strode into the middle of them. “Party's over, boys. Put the knives away and get out of town.”
The acned cowboy sneered. “I'll get out of town when I'm ready to get out of town. Step back, or I'll cut yer dick off.”
Duane aimed his Colt between the cowboy's eyes. “I said get out of town.”
The cowboy didn't flinch. “You wouldn't shoot me in cold blood.”
Duane grinned and said, “You're right.” Then he lowered his gun as if to holster it, but suddenly brought it up and smacked the cowboy across the face. The cowboy went stumbling backwards, as Duane snatched the knife from his hand. Then he turned toward the other cowboy. “Put that knife away.”
“Make me.”
Duane scowled as he stalked toward the cowboy.
“Keep yer distance, Sheriff. Otherwise I'll cut you.”
Duane had been trained in close combat by the Apaches, and suddenly clamped one hand around the cowboy's wrist, while simultaneously bashing the cowboy in the head with the barrel of his Colt. The cowboy dropped in a heap and didn't move.
A familiar figure appeared at the far end of the alley. “What happened this time?” asked Deputy Wright.
“Why is it you always show up late?” Duane asked testily.
The ex-officer shrugged. “I was making my rounds when somebody called me. Listen kid, you don't like what I'm doing, go fuck yourself. I don't need money this bad.” The ex-officer tore the badge off his shirt, tossed it to Duane, and walked away.
The tin badge bounced off Duane's chest and fell to the ground. As he bent over to pick it up, Duane realized that he'd insulted Wright. A sheriff should be more diplomatic in his dealings with others. He dragged the unconscious knife-fighters into his office, opened the jail, and threw them in with the earlier drunkard. Then he sat behind the desk and wondered if he should fill out a report— but for whom? And what in the name of all that's holy am I doing with this tin badge?
He craved normality, but only received weird situations. He wondered what it was like to go home to a good hot meal every night. At least in the monastery I had books and nobody tried to kill me. When Mexican girls came to Mass, I should've looked the other way.
His face downcast, he sauntered toward the stable. Behind him, in the saloon district, he could hear laughter, pianos, shouts, and garbled conversation. If these people want to kill each other, it's no skin off my ass.
A lone light glowed within the stable, and Sam Goines shoveled horse manure in the middle of the floor. “Somebody who wants to talk with you in the office,” he said.
“Who?”
“You'll find out when you get there.”
The sheriff couldn't imagine what was going on. No lamp shone in the office, and its occupant couldn't be seen through the window. Duane opened the door. “Who's here?”
“Have a seat,” said a woman in the darkness. “Don't strike a match.”
Duane recognized the voice: Dolores Goines, Sam Goines's mother and Maggie's cook. Duane groped for a chair in the darkness. He made out her slim, erect figure sitting in the corner, hands folded in her lap.
“First of all,” she said, “you've got to promise that I never told you these things, and we never even talked here.”
“Anything you say,” Duane replied. “What's on your mind?”
“About eighteen years ago, I worked in a certain saloon in the Pecos country,” she began.
It fell silent in the office, as Duane caught his breath.
She continued. “One night some riders showed up, lathered and tuckered out. They had a woman with ‘em, about the same age you are now, too sick to travel. The boss knew the woman and took her in, then the riders left, and sometime later a posse caught up with ‘em down Mexico way. Now don't interrupt. The woman who was left with us, she was pregnant, and there was a man who hated her and tried to dirty her name by sayin’ she was a whore. But she wasn't a whore, she was the daughter of one of the other men who rode with the Polka Dots.”
Dolores Goines paused, for Duane was completely devastated. He struggled to find his voice. “What was my mother's name?” he managed to ask.
“Kathleen O'Shea. It wasn't long after that when she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. But she was sickly, and then we heard that her man had been killed down in Mexico. Miss Kathleen didn't get well, and just kind of wasted away. Near the end, she made us promise we'd take her little boy to a Catholic orphanage far away, because she was afraid the rich old man would kill him, just as he'll kill me if he finds out what I told you.”
Duane felt like a block of stone. Again, when he'd least expected it, he'd discovered the truth that he'd yearned for all his life. “I swear to you that I'll never mention this conversation in my life,” he told her breathlessly. “Please . . . what was my mother like?”
“Whenever I think of Miss Kathleen, she was always reading the Bible. She was younger than your father—twenty years at least—and don't you believe them that say the Polka Dots was outlaws. They was fighting for their rights, and they sure gave Old Man Archer a run for his money.”
“Did you ever actually talk with my mother?” asked Duane.
“She was always saying about Jesus and prayer. Her hair was like gold, and she was almost as tall as you. She hoped you'd be a priest when you growed up, but you're too much like your daddy, I can see that.”
Duane didn't know which question to ask first. “Did you know that Twilby was in the Polka Dot Gang?”
“It's news to me.”
“If he was, do you think Old Man Archer might've had him killed?”
She leaned forward, and her eyes glittered catlike in the darkness. “I wouldn't put anything past Sam Archer,” she said. “He's the cruelest, meanest man I ever heard of, because he always has to win. I never talked about the Polka Dots since I left the Pecos country, not even to Miss O'Day, ‘cause you don't know who's listening. I wouldn't want nobody to think I was having a talk with Joe Braddock's son right now, so I'd better get back to the Last Chance. Now listen to me, boy. You shouldn't never head for the Pecos. But you're a hothead like your father, and I'm just wasting my breath. Your mother was a fine religious woman, and you should be proud of her. That's all. I've got to get back. Good night.”
Her skirts rustled past him. She opened the door and was swallowed by the night.
Duane lay in the loft and thought of what Dolores Goines had told him. Now at last he knew his mother's name: Kathleen O'Shea. He let the syllables roll through his mind and imagined a strong, hard-working farm girl who fell in love with an ex-soldier and rancher old enough to be her father and then went on the dodge with him. What a couple they must have been, he pondered. According to records in the monastery office, they never bothered to get married.
Now Duane felt more attached to the world, thanks to a Negro woman he barely knew. But he'd always expected the truth would be like Dolores Goines had said. His parents had been good, honest country folk who'd fought greedy, powerful men and got slaughtered. They never had a chance and probably knew it, but didn't let it stop them. Or maybe they thought right would prevail in the end and God would save them.
Why is it that the worst people get the richest rewards, while good folks work hard to barely survive? he wondered. I know the promises of Christ in the next world, but what about now? How can I let Sam Archer get away with killing my parents?
Duane couldn't take a vacation to Mexico while Sam Archer was walking around, thumbing his nose at everything Duane's father and mother had stood for.
It's never too late to settle a score, Duane reasoned.
He whispered solemnly into the night: “Mister Archer, I'm going to find you someday—you can bet your bottom dollar on it. Where you're concerned, there's no mountain too high to climb, no desert too far to cross, no burden too great to bear. Maybe I'll arrest you, and maybe I'll have the sand to shoot you in cold blood, which is what you deserve, you son of a bitch. You might be sleeping real peaceful now, but you damned sure won't be sleeping peaceful long.”
On the other side of the stable, her head propped on a pillow, Alice Markham watched Duane tossing, turning, and mumbling to himself. She thought he must be loco, the way he carried on every night. Sometimes he frightened her. What'll I do if he shoots himself?
But she didn't think he'd shoot himself. He wasn't that loco, although nobody in his right mind would become sheriff of Escondido. But in other ways, he was the smartest and best-educated man she'd ever met.
Somehow she couldn't stop thinking about him. He looks like a child and a man thrown together, but some of the parts don't fit. Duane didn't have a fat gut like most of the men she'd gone to bed with, and whenever he looked at her, his eyes pierced her brain.
She wondered if she was falling in love with him, or maybe he was just odd and interesting, like a desert bird that didn't know where to land. She'd met innumerable men in her career and hated most of them, although she'd never, under any circumstances, admit it. But she couldn't hate Duane Braddock. I wonder what he'd do if I crawled over there and got under the covers with him.
She felt naughty, rambunctious, and bizarre. Tough on the outside, she needed love but mixed it with other concoctions. He might jump out of his skin, but he's probably as lonely as me. We could have fun together, and it won't hurt nothin’. Neither of us is a virgin anymore. She enjoyed new sensations and didn't worry about possible consequences. The worst he can do is send me away, but she'd seen the naughty gleam in his eye as he'd looked her up and down that morning. I believe he likes me.
She pushed the covers off. She wore only a thin cotton gown as she crossed the space that separated them, and the cool night air made her shiver. He lay on his side, knees drawn up beneath his Apache blanket, looking peaceful as a baby, when suddenly he sprang like a rattlesnake. She jumped backwards as he aimed his Colt at the center of her chest. “What's wrong?” he asked sleepily, his arm rock steady.
She was so surprised she couldn't speak. Her lips moved but no sound came out.
He smiled. “Guess you're walking in your sleep.”
She dropped to her knees beside him. “I was feelin’ lonely,” she said in a small voice. Slowly, languidly she draped herself over him and touched her lips to his cheek. “Don't you like me just a little bitty-bit, Duane Braddock?”
“You know I do, but I've got an awful lot on my mind.”
She touched her tongue to his throat. “Care to talk about it?”
“I don't think this is a good idea,” he said in a strained voice.
“You don't have to marry me or anything. I don't care.” She darted forward like a minx and touched the tip of her tongue to his lips.
Surprised, Duane felt her breasts against his naked chest. He wanted to deliver a sermon on the temptations of the flesh, but somehow words wouldn't come. She unbuttoned his jeans, and he forgot speculations, deliberations, and vows. He hugged her tightly, kissed her ear, and before he could stop himself, he whispered, “Vanessa.”
She stiffened atop him. “Who?”
“It's nothing,” he stuttered. “Come here.”
She slapped his hands away. “Who's Vanessa?”
“Old friend of mine.”
Alice Markham felt cheap, used, and maligned. He doesn't like me, she figured. He needs to pretend I'm someone else.
“What's wrong?” he asked. The fluctuating moods of women never failed to astonish him.
She put her gown back on. “I forgot myself for a moment.”
“She was somebody I knew a long time ago,” he said, trying to explain. “I don't know what made me say her name. I'm sorry.”
“You said it because you're still in love with her, whether you admit it or not.” She walked back to her blankets, covered herself, and sobbed.
Duane couldn't imagine where Vanessa Fontaine's name had come from. He'd been trying hard to forget her and figured he'd succeeded, but evidently she still occupied a bedroom in his mind. Tall, willowy, aristocratic, vain, she'd accepted his proposal of marriage, but then ran off with a fancy-pants lieutenant in the Fourth Cavalry. When last seen, Vanessa Fontaine was heading toward Denver in a stagecoach, out of his life forever. He remembered her long, sinuous legs that she liked to wrap about him, and it bothered him to know that she held such power over him, although she wasn't even there.
He held the Colt in his right hand and reclined on the blankets once more. It's been a helluva day, he told himself, as he closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 8
ABAG OF MAIL ARRIVED BY STAGECOACH at Fort Richardson, Texas, two weeks later, and the good news spread quickly across the remote windswept outpost. Troopers in stables, orderly rooms, and on the parade ground eagerly anticipated missives from home at the end of the day.
Fort Richardson was Fourth Cavalry headquarters, sixty miles south of the Red River, smack in the middle of Apaches, Comanches, Osage, and Kiowa. Like any military unit, the Fighting Fourth carried on its roster clerks who sorted the mail. They were Private Mike Staglioni of Naples and Private Bill O'Shaughnessy of County Cork. Their office was behind the command post headquarters, and their strategic assignment was to attack the newly arrived letters, packages, catalogues, and appeals. Their commanding officer, Colonel Ranald Slidell MacKenzie, sat in his office down the hall, anxious for his mail like any trooper in the ranks.
The clerks searched the pile quickly, tossing the colonel's letters to the side. Then, after double-checking each piece, the clerk with the most time in grade, Private O'Shaughnessy, held the specially designated packet in his left hand, marched forthrightly to the colonel's office, and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” said a firm parade-ground voice.
“Your mail, sir.” O'Shaughnessy dropped it onto the desk, took a step backwards, saluted smartly, and said, “Anything else, sir?”
MacKenzie didn't look up from the pile in front of him. “That's all, Private O'Shaughnessy.”
O'Shaughnessy backed toward the door, examining the famous Civil War hero at close range. Colonel MacKenzie had fought at Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, among other major battles, and had left behind three fingers in the soil of Virginia. At the age of thirty-seven, he was the second youngest colonel in the U.S. Army, and War Department insiders said he'd be a general before long.
MacKenzie heard his underling close the door, as he perused newly arrived communications from the outside world. A West Pointer born in New York City, he'd been given the Fourth Cavalry only last December. Prior to that, he'd been commanding officer of the Negro Forty-first Infantry at Fort MacKevitt.
MacKenzie wore a walrus mustache and a blue Army shirt with matching pants adorned by yellow stripes down each side, tucked into highly polished black cavalry boots. His hair was short, dark brown, parted on the side, and neatly combed. Sifting through the stack for important messages, he found one that had been sent from the Department of War. He tore open the envelope and read an inquiry from General Sherman himself. “What are you doing about Apache depredations in your Department?”
Colonel MacKenzie knew that congressmen and senators were breathing down Sherman's back, demanding quick solutions to complex problems, but Colonel MacKenzie preferred the art and science of gentle persuasion. He'd seen too many bloody battlefields to be impetuous with other men's lives.
The morning passed slowly as he worked through requisitions for supplies, reports of troop dispositions, accounts of skirmishes with Indians, complaints about a variety of complex issues, recommendations for action, pr
omotion lists, etc. The higher you go in the Army, the more you push paper, he thought with chagrin. Unshakable in battle, indomitable under pressure, Colonel MacKenzie hated the administrative side of his job.
Three-quarters down the pile, he came to a plain envelope with his name and address, but no return address or government marking. He smelled it, but it carried no perfume except possibly the faint trace of whisky.
He tore open the envelope and held the carefully printed message in front of him:
Dear Colonel MacKenzie:
All hell has broke loose down here in Escondido. Seven men shot last week, two wimmin cut to pieces, and no sign of let-up. Sheriff Duane Braddock is wanted for murders all across Texas. Dont you think its time to send the Fourth Cavalry, or are you gonter wait till we is all dead? I aint signin this cus I'm fraid somebody'll shoot me.
a citizen of Escondido, Texas
Colonel MacKenzie leaned back in his chair and lit the Kentucky burly in his corncob pipe. Duane Braddock. He'd read about a Braddock in other recent official reports from southwest Texas. Duane Braddock had had a few run-ins with the Fourth Cavalry already. Another kill-crazy cowboy with a fast hand and slow mind, Colonel MacKenzie concluded.
The Fourth Cavalry assisted local law enforcement whenever possible, but by the time the detachment would reach Escondido, the outlaws would be long gone. They'd set up business elsewhere, the Fighting Fourth would take the field again, and the outlaws would relocate once more. It was an ongoing chess game, but served a collateral purpose. The troopers showed the Fourth Cavalry flag around Texas, and citizens didn't feel completely defenseless.
Colonel MacKenzie needed more men and better equipment, but most Americans rejected higher taxes for military appropriations. The best soldiers had returned to civilian life after the war, their places filled by misfits, morons, criminals, and the dregs of Europe. Colonel MacKenzie had troopers in his command who couldn't speak a word of English, and some of his officers were worse than the men. Fortunately, a small core of old soldiers like himself were able to hold the Fourth Cavalry together.