by Celia Hayes
“It was fortunate that he was present,” Magda agreed, “the dearest and most loyal of all of our friends that day. He gave out that I was quite overwrought, not able to answer questions. He deflected what little official curiosity that there was onto himself, and managed in short order to muddy the waters so much that my name was never attached to the business. Not that much of an inquiry was ever made, once Waldrip was buried. They buried him with his hat, you know. Everyone knew him by it; I think they wanted to make sure the Devil would recognize his own.”
“Did anyone ever make mention of it to you afterwards?” Lottie asked.
Magda nodded regally. “Twice, only. I told Porfirio, of course; much later, after your Uncle Hansi had moved his family and his business interests to San Antonio.”
“What did he say?” Lottie asked, as if she barely dared to breathe.
Magda smiled as if the memory gave her pleasure. “Well, he had broached the topic himself, first apologizing for not fulfilling his oath. But he had been the means of driving Waldrip out of San Antonio. ‘I regret that I am not as swift as I once was, Señora Becker. That Waldrip creature got away from me’, he said. When I confessed to him that I had killed Waldrip myself, he kissed my hand most affectionately and fetched out a bottle of very fine old French brandy. He poured the last of it into two small glasses and we drank a toast to your Papa. Then he drank a toast to me, took both glasses, and threw them into the fireplace. He is the only person I ever told. Your brother knew also. I assume that Cousin Peter told him..”
* * *
Sophie Nimitz clucked over Magda and Lottie, and her own daughter, making much of the terrible fright they had all suffered. She brought Magda a little glass of her own mustang-grape wine and took Lottie to the kitchen for a bite of gingerbread fresh from the oven. She insisted that Magda put her feet up on the tuffet, while Charley sent word to Peter and Anna.
“You must say as little about this matter as you can,” Charley advised her in a low voice. “Do not elaborate. If you keep what you say as brief and as close to the truth as possible, then you do not have to remember so many small details.”
“I thought he was reaching for his own weapon,” Magda answered, faintly. “He was going to take Lottie. He planned to use her to escape from town. I know this, Charley. I could see his thoughts in his face. It was as if he shouted it from the rooftop.”
Charley nodded, swift in understanding. “But say nothing of that, Mrs. Magda! Say only that you were walking past the stable yard when you heard Bertha scream. You looked up, saw Waldrip and recognized him. But then you heard shots and he fell. You did not see where the shots came from.”
Magda repeated obediently, “I did not see where the shots came from, which killed Mr. Waldrip.”
“Good. Say only that and nothing more.” Charley patted her shoulder comfortingly. He left the little parlor, and Magda sat with her fingers curled around the stem of Sophie’s little wineglass. How strange it was to feel nothing much at all over having killed a man. Surely, one ought to feel something of guilt or regret? It was a sin to commit a murder, a violation of God’s commandments; but thanks to Charley’s quick thinking, she would likely escape any punishment for having done so. She thought about J.P. Waldrip, lying at her feet in the dust of Charley’s stableyard; the way that the blood came out of his mouth as he coughed his last agonized breath, how the manic light in his odd-colored eyes had faded with the departure of life. But he would not haunt her dreams, she was sure, no more than he would haunt her sons with his malicious envy. He was dead, never again able to threaten harm to her family. She ought not to take such a deep sense of satisfaction from that, yet she did. Waldrip had been repaid for his many evil deeds. Justice had been served and she had been its instrument. She sat in the Nimitz’s parlor, wrapped in that satisfaction, while people came and went. None came to speak to her, although she recognized the sheriff’s voice, and Judge Wahrmund also.
Peter Vining arrived with the small wagon. Charley handed her up to the seat as if she were something fragile, and he exchanged some few words with Peter. She thought they spoke English, but in tones too low for her to hear, and that was the moment when she truly comprehended what she had done, what J.P. Waldrip had tried to do. She clutched the valise to her lap and held Lottie close. Now she trembled, reliving those moments when she looked into J.P. Waldrip’s face and read the intention writ so plain. That vile man! He would have snatched her precious child from her hands, pressed the end of his pistol to her head, held Lottie hostage in exchange for his own freedom. No one would have dared threaten him, lifted a hand to prevent him leaving, not with Lottie’s life at risk. He would have left town somehow, carrying his hostage with him. And then? The very possibility made her feel sick with horror. She would have done anything to prevent that, anything, and with her bare hands if necessary.
The wagon seat jostled as Peter climbed up and took up the reins, deftly adjusting the leathers in his wooden hand and pressing his mechanical thumb closed. Magda thought distractedly how very adept he had become with his artificial limb; that very morning he had come into the shop and purchased a button-hook. With as great a pleasure as Charley had once taken in his magic tricks, Peter had demonstrated how he used the button hook, anchored between thumb and fingers in the very same way he held a pair of reins, to fasten the shirt-cuff buttons on his right wrist. Peter Berg’s clever device had been a boon to his confidence. He seemed much as he had been when Magda first met him, an outgoing and spirited lad. Now he looked sideways at Magda as he slapped the reins on the teams’ back and chirruped to them. It seemed to her that there was a new degree of respect in his expression. Always he had treated her with the proper courtesy due to an older woman, his uncle’s wife and Dolph’s mother, but this was different.
“Five shots,” he mused, apropos of nothing, after the horses had gone half a block from Charley’s hotel. “All on target and none gone wild; that was some practiced shooting—even if it was up close.”
Magda parroted Charley’s advice. “I did not see where the shots which killed Mr. Waldrip came from.” The corners of Peter’s eyes crinkled; no doubt he was smiling under that dreadful drooping mustache. His amused expression was so like to that which her husband had worn that her heart was wrung once again.
He looked deliberately straight ahead, remarking, “It saved everyone a passel of trouble, especially for Dolph and I, Ma’am Becker. If ever a man needed killing, it was that Waldrip for sure. Captain Nimitz remarked to me on how you and Lottie were just innocently passing by.”
“I am inconsolable,” Magda returned sedately. “It is most tragic. He should have been arrested and tried for his crimes.”
“Less trouble this way,” Peter answered, still looking straight ahead. “But still; there is a smell of black powder remaining about your person, Ma’am Becker. You would be advised to air your clothing carefully, lest someone else remark upon it.”
“Of course,” Magda nodded. So that was how Peter knew, if Charley had not told him. It went without question that Peter would also take part in this unvoiced conspiracy. He had come to care for them greatly, and it was in Magda’s mind that Hansi and her own son returned that affection and respect.
“And that was all that was ever said to me,” Magda told her daughter, “and all that ever came out of it, although now and again strangers came to Friedrichsburg, inquiring about the mystery. Everyone they met would point out the very tree on Magazine Street where it happened, and tell them most eagerly of how J.P. Waldrip was felled by an unseen assailant, how he ran out from the hotel yard after Miss Nimitz saw him and screamed and how as he lay dying he begged not to be shot any more. Of every incident and detail save one—and I have always fancied that those who went into the most detail were those who had not actually been present. But that satisfied all those who heard. And if they were not satisfied, they made little complaint in Friedrichsburg, where there were many besides our family who had good cause to hate Waldrip. Y
es,” Magda added, as she looked into the fire, “five shots. Your Papa would have been most pleased with my aim.” At her feet, Mouse the Pekinese rolled and stretched, and settled himself with his head resting on the toe of her shoe, whilst looking up at her. Magda chuckled fondly, “Such a dog as your Papa would never recognize as such! Now, the story of how this Mauschen and the others came to be mine—that had the beginning of it that very same spring!”
“Did it, Mama?” Lottie asked, dubiously, “But I didn’t think you met Princess Cherkevsky until much later…”
“I didn’t,” Magda answered, “but the road to that meeting—we put our feet upon that road when Anna read some curious news in the American newspapers. Your Onkel Hansi always called it ‘the road of silver and gold.’”
Shortly after the death of Waldrip, they received a message from Mr. Johnson. He had seen a white girl in an Indian camp in the northern territories, a girl of Grete’s age, with a tiny round scar on her forehead; although her hair appeared dark in hue and he had not been permitted to speak to her. He could not press to interview the child without betraying his interest, and before he could do so, those who guarded her had gone to another camp; no one would tell him where. Liesel had one of her spells again, for Marie had let word of this slip to her mother, with the result that Liesel had retreated weeping to her bed.
“Papa,” ventured Anna thoughtfully, as she set aside one of the American newspapers, “there is something interesting that you should see.”
“Is there, Annchen?” Hansi asked. He lazily sent a puff of pipe smoke upwards. “Is it to do with business?”
“If it is,” Magda suggested, “read it aloud to us.” She knotted a thread-end and sighed; the boys were so hard on their clothes, and Lottie seemingly had grown almost overnight. At her feet was an overflowing basket of garments that needed mending and the little square sewing box was next to her. It was a Sunday afternoon and she might be done with shop business but that of her household pursued her ever, especially when Liesel had taken refuge in her dark, deep cellar again.
She sat with Anna, Fredi and Hansi in the garden of Vati’s house, while Hannah and Marie pushed Lottie on the swing hanging from a lower branch of the old post oak. Lottie giggled and screamed in excitement as the girls pushed her ever higher. Sam lay on his stomach at their feet, leafing through the Illustrated Leslie’s Weekly that Anna had already finished and passed to him. Dolph and Peter were down in the stableyard, looking at a new wagon that Hansi had ordered from Mr. Arhelger. Jack the dog lay in a warm patch of sunshine, but the other dogs trailed hopefully after Dolph.
“I thought Sunday was our restful day,” Fredi chided, “when we talked of anything other than business.”
“We cannot help ourselves, Fredi,” Magda reproved him.
Anna said, by way of explanation, “We had thought to place an advertisement in the Kansas newspapers about the children, and I found this notice.” She read from it, “As a result of the passage of this law, cattle may be driven into Kansas without being subject to the annoying difficulties which drovers in Southern and Texas cattle were subjected to last year. Agents for the Kansas Livestock Company of Topeka are prepared to purchase at least 50,000 head of cattle, once said cattle are conducted to an established Depot of the Union Pacific Railroad. Drovers are advised, upon crossing the Red River into Indian Territory, to take a direct route to Forts Arbuckle, Holmes, et cetera, and from thence a due northerly course to the southern boundary of Kansas.” She folded the newspaper so the story was uppermost and passed it to her father, adding, “The company has been capitalized at $100,000 dollars.”
Hansi raised his eyebrows skeptically. “So they say to the newspapers. Where is this railroad to the Western territories being built, hey?”
Sam looked up from his reading. “Across the northern great desert, Onkel Hansi. They have been building from the ends—one starting in California, the other from Omaha on the Missouri River. Opa had a book with a map in it.” He rose and dusted his hands on the seat of his trousers then made his way indoors.
Hansi took the newspaper from Anna. “Oh, that.” Hansi snorted. “You mean to tell me that the railroad has finally gotten out far enough from lands owned by the majority shareholder to do good for anyone else? An age of miracles is upon us, clearly!”
“They must be following the old Platte wagon roads,” Fredi observed, stifling a yawn. “They say the winters are deathly. And so are the Sioux Indians. I wonder how much farther they will go, until they give it up as a bad job? They should have taken the southern route—it would have been done years ago.”
“One more thing to blame the secessionists for,” Hansi grunted. “Giving up on our chance to have a trans-continent railway pass through the South, where it might have done us good. Fools!” He began reading the newspaper story.
Presently, Sam emerged from the house, lugging his geographical atlas. “It’s called the Great American Desert,” he said thoughtfully, as he laid the book on the table, open to a large map. “See? Hardly any towns at all.”
“It’s an old map,” Fredi mused. “Still. You are right, lad. It is hardly more than desert now. But in taking a herd of cattle north by that way—it’s no more desert than the way to California and a great deal shorter. There are no farmers objecting to the passage of animals they claim are diseased. Only the occasional hungry Indian!”
“How big a herd of cattle might that be,” Hansi ventured thoughtfully, “if you cared to venture north with them, towards this new railroad depot?”
Fredi answered readily, “A crew of fifteen drovers at least, per every three or four hundred head. A couple of wagons full of supplies and a cook.” Fredi fell silent as he thought more on it. “How much are they paying for cattle at markets in the north, Annchen?”
“Tenfold what they’ll offer here,” Anna answered. “Less men’s wages and supplies, that would still leave us considerable profit.”
“In driving cattle to the north?” Dolph, shadowed by his cousin Peter, had come up from the stableyard in time to overhear this. “There was some talk of this in San Antonio last year. It’s no good taking longhorns into Missouri. They’re riled up good and proper about cattle fever. There were some drovers who tried it this spring and got met with a mob for their pains.”
“No, to Kansas, to the new railway,” Hansi explained. “Annchen has read in the American papers they will pay more than forty dollars a head for beef cattle upon delivery there.” Magda, her hands moving swiftly with needle and thread, watched her son’s face as comprehension dawned.
“That sounds like a better plan than selling them for next to nothing in Indianola.” Dolph took the newspaper from his uncle and read it in turn. “I like it, Onkel. And,” he admitted in a burst of honesty, “I could use the money. I want to expand the house and start enclosing more pastures. All of that costs. And I’d like to improve the breed, just as Mr. King is doing at the Santa Gertrudis. I can’t do that at five dollars a head.”
Magda looked upon him, upon her sons and their cousin, and comprehended their restlessness and ambition. Dolph and Peter; they were dissatisfied with the peace that came after the fighting had ended. Not with an end to the killing and the dying; of that, they had a sufficiency, especially Peter. What they longed for was a sense of the whole grand purpose, the adventure and camaraderie. Driving Hansi’s wagons, that was not enough. Having gotten the land back had only contented her son for a while.
“If the money for drovers’ wages and supplies are lacking,” Magda ventured, “I would take such from my State pension.”
“And I would also back this venture from out of our profits,” Hansi rumbled. “One for all, all for one, hey? Our company—now we will invest in cattle?”
“We certainly have enough of them,” Fredi said.
Dolph added, “Like fleas on the backs of m’dogs. When should we do this, Fredi? In spring, after branding?”
Fredi nodded. He stood, striding up and down as he spoke, as
if too restless to keep still while they made plans. “We’ll have the whole winter to plan this,” he said, “and to search out and hire the right sort of chap.”
“Good riders.” Dolph had the bit between his teeth now. In a moment, he would be pacing beside his uncle. “Used to working cattle and taking orders, but can still think on their feet.”
“Been cavalry scouts or some such in the war,” Fredi interjected, and laughed shortly. “Doesn’t matter for which army, I suppose. Just be accustomed to living rough. And not being paid until the end of the trail.”
“Someone whom we know,” Dolph added, with a look at his mother and other uncle. “Someone trusty and known to us: you and I, or Uncle Hansi, or Peter between us. Or someone who we trust vouches for them. I’ll not hire just any tramp off the road; I’d not pay such one penny of Mama’s investment.”
“This could be the making of our fortunes!” Fredi exclaimed. Hansi’s and Magda’s eyes met. How many mad schemes had Fredi encountered in the last fifteen years which he thought would be the making of a fortune? A throw of the dice, a will-‘o-the-wisp glimmering; her brother was ever impulsive when it came to money. But he was a trusty man, as long as someone else held the purse strings!
“No drunkards,” Magda put in. “And I don’t mean hiring only those who have taken the temperance pledge—just those who crawl into the bottle and hardly ever come out.” She met Dolph and Fredi’s gaze; clearly they both thought of Trap Talmadge, that old friend and comrade of Carl Becker’s whom he had hired out of loyalty and pity. “It’s a weakness which destroys. Not just the drinker, but anyone else with the misfortune to be around him. I do not want to risk other lives, Hansi. We have too much already at risk.”