Town Tamers

by David Robbins

  Asa asked how much and the man told him and he nodded. “Deal,” he said.

  The church sat atop a hill. A small building with a bump for a steeple, by Ordville’s standards it was downright humble.

  A sign said that services were conducted every Sunday morning and two evenings a week.

  Asa tried the door but it wouldn’t open, which was unusual. Most churches never locked their doors. He was about to knock when something scraped and the door swung in. “Reverend Wilmer?”

  “I am.” The parson was stout with ruddy cheeks and warm eyes. He wore black and a white collar. “Who might you be?”

  “Cecilia Preston sent me.” Asa introduced himself and indicated Noona. “This is my daughter. We’d like—”

  Reverend Wilmer held up his hand and looked both ways and down the hill. “Come in so we can talk in private.” Once they entered, he quickly shut and locked the door.

  “Expecting an Injun attack?” Asa joked.

  “There are worse things,” Reverend Wilmer said. “Follow me, please.”

  A dozen pews on either side fronted an altar and a cross. Several candles were burning.

  A room at the rear had a desk and a shelf with the Bible and other books and a couple of chairs. Reverend Wilmer waited for them to seat themselves, then closed the door.

  “Is it me, Parson,” Noona said, “or are you a mite skittish?”

  Wilmer sat behind the desk and gave her a halfhearted smile. “If you only knew.”

  “As I was saying,” Asa said to get things rolling. He had six more to visit, and he wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. “Cecilia Preston sent me. It’s about Arthur Studevant.”

  “Lord help us,” Reverend Wilmer said.

  “She seems to think my talking to you is important. What do you have to do with Studevant?”

  “As little as possible, I assure you.” Wilmer wrung his hands. “She told me you were coming. I wish she hadn’t sent you, but she’s determined.”

  “What has you spooked?” Asa asked.

  “He does.”

  “Studevant? You’ve met him?”

  “No. I wouldn’t want to. That man is the devil personified.”

  “Cecilia Preston calls him a demon.”

  “She might be right.”

  Asa sat back. “Are you the one who put that notion into her head?”

  “I didn’t have to. Not after what happened to her husband.”

  “She didn’t mention him.”

  The parson bowed his head. When he raised it, the cheer was gone from his face. “Her husband, Charles, was the salt of the earth. They used to come to Denver now and then and always visited my church.” He stopped and did more hand wringing.

  “I’d like to hear it all,” Asa said.

  Wilmer bit his lip. “They lived here before the town existed. When that old prospector found silver and people started swarming in, Charles and Cecilia didn’t think much of it. The town was a ways off from their house. But then it grew, and before they knew it, all the land around them was overrun. Except for the fifty acres they claimed as their own.”

  “Had they filed on it?”

  “What?” Wilmer said. “I honestly don’t know. I doubt it would have made a difference in light of what happened. For you see, when Arthur Studevant took over, he didn’t like having fifty acres of woods in the middle of his town. No sir. He asked them to sell, but the Prestons refused.”

  “That was their right,” Noona said.

  “Studevant didn’t see it that way. He accused them of standing in the way of progress. He invited Charles to one of his saloons to talk it over, and the next morning Cecilia was awakened by the marshal pounding on her door. She had waited up for Charles but fell asleep.”

  Asa didn’t like where this was going. He didn’t like it one little bit.

  “Marshal Pollard told her that Charles was dead. That he’d had a lot to drink and played cards and got into a fight and was knifed. Cecilia knew better. Charles rarely touched hard liquor and wouldn’t have anything to do with games of chance.” Wilmer did more lip-biting. “But that wasn’t the worst of it. Studevant claimed that Charles agreed to sell him the fifty acres and that they signed a bill of sale, and that he paid Charles and Charles lost the money playing poker.”

  “Oh my,” Noona said.

  “On her next visit to Denver she came to see me and poured her heart out. I was incensed. I’d heard about all the saloons and bawdy houses Studevant ran, and I felt moved by the hand of God to do something about it. I came here and started this church to stem his tide of wickedness.”

  “And?” Asa prompted when the parson didn’t go on.

  “I had faith in the Lord. He was my buckler and my strength. I preached against the evils of this town, and the man responsible for them.”

  “And?” Asa again prompted.

  Reverend Wilmer blanched and swallowed. “And one day the wickedness came calling at my door.”

  49

  Noona had seen a lot of ugliness in her life. People who had been shot. People who had been stabbed. She’d shot more than a few of them herself but only stabbed a man once. As accustomed as she was to violence, the parson’s account had bothered her. “Do you believe him, Pa?”

  “No reason for him to lie.”

  The carriage was winding toward the second address on Cecilia Preston’s list. Above them, the driver cracked his whip.

  “The marshal and the deputy would do that? They’d beat a man of the cloth within an inch of his life? And threaten him with worse if he didn’t stop his sermons on Studevant?”

  “You saw how scared he was,” Asa said. “He had tears in his eyes.”

  “God,” Noona said.

  The carriage wheeled into a side street bordered by homes. It came to a stop and the driver called down, “This is it.”

  Asa climbed down, held the door for Noona, and they crossed a yard to a porch. He had to knock several times before the door opened a crack and a brown eye peered out at them.

  “Yes?”

  Asa explained about Cecilia Preston. “She said I was to talk to a Mrs. Florence Grissom. Would that be you?”

  “It would,” she answered, but she didn’t open the door. “Cecilia sent a note you were coming, but I wished she’d asked me first.”

  Noona stepped closer. She had found that females responded better to her than to her pa or her brother. “Please, ma’am. We won’t take much of your time.”

  “Very well. Although it’s against my better judgment.”

  Florence Grissom wore a homespun dress and had her hair in a bun. She was thickset and square-jawed and looked as if she wouldn’t be afraid of anything. Ushering them to the kitchen, she set out cups and saucers and put coffee on to brew. Only then did she take a seat. “How much did Cecilia tell you about what Studevant did?”

  “Not a lick,” Asa said. “She wanted me to keep an open mind.”

  “That sounds like her.” Florence coughed and shifted. “This will be strictly between us?”

  “It will.”

  “Not even my husband is to know, you hear?”

  “I’ve never met the man.”

  “I mean it. He’s been through so much. He can’t find out I spoke to you behind his back.”

  “We won’t tell a soul,” Noona said.

  “Very well.” Florence composed herself. “My husband, Pete, works as a bartender at the Aces Saloon. He used to own it. Then Arthur Studevant came along.”

  Asa looked at Noona and she took the hint. He wanted her to do the talking. “I passed the Aces yesterday and saw inside. It struck me as grand,” she mentioned.

  “It is,” Florence said with undisguised pride. “You see, we were living in Denver when we heard about the silver strike. Pete thought it was our big chance. We
’d scrimped and saved for years so that one day he could have a saloon of his own. We came and built the Aces, and I never saw him so happy.”

  “How long did he run it?”

  Florence’s features clouded. “It wasn’t hardly a year from the time the Aces opened until Studevant bought out Lester Ordville. That’s when the trouble started. Studevant made a tour of the town and stopped at the Aces. He liked it so much, he offered to buy it. Pete told him no. That it was his dream come true. But that wasn’t good enough for Studevant.”

  “Did the marshal and his deputy pay your husband a visit?”

  “Them and a few others. They came here, not to the saloon. It was late one night. We hadn’t bolted the door, and they walked right in.” Florence shuddered and her eyes moistened.

  “No need to go on if it upsets you,” Noona said.

  Florence didn’t seem to hear her. “They beat him,” she continued, barely above a whisper. “Two of them held me and the rest hit and kicked Pete until he was near senseless. Then the marshal told Pete that if he didn’t sell, they’d come back and do the same to me.”

  “The scum,” Noona said.

  “And then the marshal said—” Florence shook, and uttered a tiny moan. “The marshal said that Arthur Studevant would take it kindly if Pete stayed on and ran the Aces for him.” She looked at each of them, tears trickling down her face. “Can you imagine? What sort of man can do such a thing?”

  “A demon,” Asa said.

  50

  And so it went.

  Their third stop was at a cabin on the outskirts. A man by the name of Halsey Finch lived there. Finch told them that he had owned the best hotel in Ordville. Then Arthur Studevant came, and he was told that he should sell out and leave. When he refused, he was paid a visit in the dead of night by five men wearing badges. Four pinned his arms and legs while the fifth went to work on him with a hammer.

  “Do you see this?” Finch asked, holding up his mangled left hand. “I can’t even use it anymore.”

  Next was a woman who had run a thriving restaurant.

  Studevant decided he wanted it for himself. The marshal and his deputy paid her a visit, and while she absolutely refused to say what they did to her, the very next day she’d signed the restaurant over to Ordville’s leading citizen.

  Asa and Noona were quiet as the carriage rattled toward the fifth stop.

  It was Noona who broke their silence by clearing her throat and saying, “He’s worse than Weldon Knox ever was.”

  “Worse than anyone,” Asa said.

  “It wouldn’t be like any of the other towns we’ve done.”

  “No,” Asa agreed, “it wouldn’t.”

  “How can we, when he’s so rich and has the law to back him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you’re fixing to?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind.”

  Noona fixed him with those piercing eyes of hers. “I know you, Pa.”

  They pulled up in front of a quaint cottage shaded by tall spruce. Asa let Noona go first, and after she used the brass knocker, the door was jerked open by a solid block of a woman with an expression as friendly as an Apache’s. She had wisps of gray in her hair and she was holding a carving knife and wearing an apron.

  “What do you two want?”

  Noona explained about Cecilia Preston, and some of the unfriendliness faded from the woman’s face. Some, but not all. “She got word to me that a man was coming, but she said nothing about a girl. I can guess what she wants, but I’m not sure it’s wise.”

  “What isn’t?” Asa asked.

  She glared at him and said out of the blue, “Men are scum. My husband never amounted to much, and now this.”

  “Now what, ma’am?” Noona asked.

  “I’m Cornice Baker,” the wrathful block of ire said. “It’s my daughter she wants you to talk to. But stirring that up again will only make it worse.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what happened?” Noona suggested. “We can leave your daughter out of it.”

  Cornice gnawed on her lip, then said, “No. You need to see and hear for yourself.” She moved aside. “Come in. But don’t say anything until I say you can. I can’t predict how she’ll be.”

  She set the knife down on a lamp stand and led them down a short hall to a bedroom.

  In a chair by a shaded window sat a young woman in a pretty dress. She was quite striking, with lustrous flaxen hair and an ethereal beauty that almost made her seem angelic. She didn’t look around when they entered. She went on staring out the window, her face as blank as if she were lifeless.

  “My daughter,” Cornice whispered, her voice breaking, “Laura.” She went to the chair, squatted, and placed a hand on her daughter’s arm. “Laura, darling. It’s mother.”

  The young woman didn’t reply or move.

  “Can you hear me? There are some people here to talk to you.”

  Laura slowly turned her head and smiled at Cornice. “Mother,” she said in a sort of dreamy way.

  “Yes, dear. It’s me. Did you hear me about the people who’d like to talk to you? It’s important they hear about that night.”

  Laura’s expression changed. Horror crept into her eyes, her face contorted, and she opened her mouth as if to scream.

  “It’s all right,” Cornice said, patting her daughter’s hand and stroking her hair. “It’s over, remember? They’ll never hurt you again. Not while I draw breath.”

  “Oh, Mother,” Laura said plaintively. She burst into tears and buried her face in Cornice’s shoulder and wept.

  Noona cleared her throat. “We can come back another time, Mrs. Baker.”

  “No,” Cornice said almost harshly. “You’ll hear her out, by God.”

  Cornice patted and comforted her daughter until Laura stopped crying and sat up and sniffled. “Let me fetch a handkerchief,” she said, and left the room and came back with one she used to dab at Laura’s nose and cheeks.

  Laura sat back and stared out the window.

  “Can you tell them, sweetheart?” Cornice said. “Do you have it in you?”

  Laura shuddered. “We were walking down the street one day, Mother and I,” she began, “and this man saw us and came over. He said his name was Studevant, and he asked Mother if it would be all right if I was his supper guest.”

  “God help me,” Cornice said bleakly. “I said yes.”

  “He seemed so nice,” Laura went on, still staring out the window. “And Mother said he was important, and a rich gentleman.”

  “God help me,” Cornice said.

  “A carriage came for me, and I was admitted to the man’s suite, and everything was so nice. The man showed me around and we ate a wonderful meal and sat talking. Then I said it was getting late and I had to go.”

  Cornice was a study in misery.

  “And the man said no, I couldn’t, and he took hold of me and pulled me. I tried not to go with him, but he was so much stronger than me and he forced me into a bedroom and—” Laura stopped.

  Noona let out a low hiss.

  “Afterward, I asked him why,” Laura said bleakly. “When he could buy any woman he wanted, why did he do that to me? Do you know what he said?”

  “No,” Noona said, her voice rasping.

  “He laughed and said he likes it that way. Likes it rough, as he put it. Likes it with sweet young things, as he called me. He said . . .”

  “That’s enough, dear,” Cornice said, patting her hand. “That’s more than enough.” She glanced over her shoulder. “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Asa said. “We’re sorry to have disturbed you. We’ll let ourselves out.”

  “Thank you for your time,” Noona said.

  They were almost to the carriage when they stopped and looked at one another.

 
“I don’t care how different it is,” Noona said. “There has to be a way.”

  Asa didn’t answer, but his eyes were molten fire.

  51

  The fifth person on the list had, apparently unknown to Cecilia Preston, left town. He’d been staying at a boardinghouse. The woman who ran it said that the man had a great fear of Arthur Studevant but had never told her why. She suspected it had something to do with the time he came back beaten bloody. She was sorry, but that was all she knew.

  As the carriage rattled toward the sixth stop, Noona fingered the dagger she always had strapped up her sleeve.

  “I bet those tin stars of Studevant’s were to blame.”

  “Yep,” Asa said.

  “You’re not saying much today.”

  “Do I need to?”

  “No,” Noona said. “You don’t.”

  Bedelia Huttingcot was a Southern belle who lived in an apartment over a general store where she now worked.

  Bedelia was in her twenties and had been employed at one of Studevant’s bawdy houses until one night she decided she didn’t want to anymore. She made the mistake of telling the madam who ran the house for Studevant, and the next morning Marshal Pollard and Deputy Agar showed up at her door.

  “They told me I couldn’t quit until Studevant said I could, and I told them to go to hell. That’s when the marshal pulled out a folding knife and did this to me.” Bedelia touched the jagged scar that had made a ruin of her left cheek.

  Their seventh stop turned out to be the cemetery.

  Asa turned to the driver. “Are you sure this is the right address?”

  “It’s the one you gave me.”

  Asa looked at the sheet of paper. Cecilia had written a name next to the address. “We’re looking for Annie Spencer.”

  The cemetery barely had a hundred graves, the town was so new, and the headstone was easy to find.

  “Annie Spencer, sure enough,” Noona read the inscription. “Born November first, 1877. Died June twentieth, 1887.” She paused. “About a year ago.”