The Book of Murdock

by Loren D. Estleman

  “Not knowing how many you got, I can’t answer. If the brother’s right, a cockeyed scheme like that is a sign they’re losing their smarts. However, I ain’t what you might call a religious man. The evidence of things unseen don’t hold up in San Antonio.”

  “What’s the reward on these fellows’ capture or death?”

  “Five hundred a head.”

  “I’ll add a hundred each, and see if I can get the Stock-Raisers Association to double it.”

  “That ought to make things right lively. If I had a blue bandanna I’d burn it.” Jordan stood and offered his hand. “I’d like to ask the brother a couple of questions, just us. He’s the one Cherry talked to. He might remember a thing or two more in a place where he’s comfortable.”

  “You don’t have to ask my permission, Captain. That’s up to Brother Bernard.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you anything I haven’t, Captain.”

  His lips parted to let something out, but I jigged my eyes right and left, hoping he wasn’t an unsubtle man. He drew a breath and stirred his handlebars on the exhale. “Well, if you can’t take a preacher at his word, who can you? It’s getting late and I don’t trust that stage trail. I’ll spread my roll outside town and start back at first light. This trail won’t get no warmer.”

  “I’ve got spare rooms gathering dust,” Freemason said. “I’d consider it a favor if you’d put up here. Mrs. Freemason and I don’t get many visitors. Pariahs, don’t you know, under the veneer of respect.”

  “I’ll remember you asked next time. Just now I got men getting set to stretch out on bare panhandle. It wouldn’t set right with them to know I spent the night on feathers.”

  We left that house. At the bottom of the long flight of steps Jordan and I shook hands. “The parsonage behind the church,” I said. “After dark. I’ll leave the back door off the latch.”

  He didn’t even nod, although I could feel the heat of curiosity glowing deep in those burnished eyes. We turned in opposite directions. As I did so I caught a glimpse of a curtain stirring in an upstairs window of the mansion. When she’d moved in, Colleen would have been sure to secure herself a room with the best view of the town.

  The sun was long gone when someone tapped at the back door of the parsonage. I’d moved the lamp in the little sitting room to a spot where it wouldn’t outline the opening and closed and latched the door behind him quickly. The sacking someone had put up to serve for curtains masked the windows.

  “I don’t see the need,” Jordan said when we were seated. I’d given him the rocking chair, filled two tin cups from the bottle I’d brought from Helena, and drawn the straightback close so we could talk quietly. There didn’t have to be professional spies; the Fielos and Mrs. McIlvaines of the world have soft soles and long ears. “I thought I did a fair job of explaining the palaver.”

  “I’ve got my reasons,” I said. “They don’t have to make sense to anyone but me.”

  He didn’t pursue the point, and my respect for him went up another healthy notch. He tipped his hat as far back as only a Texan can without it falling off. “I’d as lief wrestle bobwire in the dark as have another meet like that one at Freemason’s. Just who knows what?”

  “His wife and I have a history. She kept her mouth shut, but he figured it out based on some things she’d told him in the past. Neither of them knows you and I have met before. I’d like to keep it that way for a while. People let down their guard when they think one man is all they have to worry about.”

  “I knowed something was in the wind when you gave me the evil eye there at the finish. First Cherry, now his boss? How big is this bunch?”

  “I don’t know, but Cherry wasn’t in it.”

  He drank from his cup, his eyes fixed on mine above the rim. “Why would a man lie his way into hell with his last breath? And how do you know he did?”

  “I don’t. He confessed, but not to informing on Freemason’s plans. He wanted me to know he’d strayed once from his marriage. It happened just the one time, he said, back in St. Louis, but he didn’t want to die with it on his conscience. He asked me not to tell his wife. I think what happened had something to do with why he accepted Freemason’s invitation to set up shop here in Texas.

  “He was talking to the collar,” I went on. “I’ll probably draw another month in purgatory for it.”

  “That was the shebang? He jumped the traces?”

  “If there was anything else he didn’t last long enough to share it. In that situation you lead with the sin that’s most on your mind.”

  “So why did you tell Freemason—Oh.” The dawn appeared to break. He nodded. “That’s why I came in the back way. How sure are you?”

  “Not enough to take any sort of action. Subtracting Cherry, it’s the only explanation for what happened out on the road, but I can’t take that to Helena. Anyway, you can see why I didn’t want anyone to think I had the chance to pass on what I knew to the Rangers. I have to be the lightning rod.”

  “A lightning rod can take a lot of hits. With a man, all it takes is one.”

  “I’ve been struck before.”

  He shook his leonine head. “I got to tell you, this is one game of poker where you’re safer to share your cards.”

  “The deck’s passed through too many hands as it is.” I lifted my cup, but didn’t drink. I tapped a finger on the rim and lowered it. “I’ve a strong hunch you can hold a secret till it sprouts leaves, but my hunches don’t always turn out. It has to stop somewhere. I can’t even trust my friends with what I plan to do next.”

  “Lone wolves are easier to kill. Just so you know.”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s easy. But if it happens, it means I figured right. The rest will be up to you.”

  He got out his pipe, leaving the makings in his pocket. He slid the stem along his lower lip, watching me through the thickets of creases that surrounded his eyes. “I don’t mind dying while I’m moving forward. I’d sure as hell hate it while I’m going the other direction. They don’t pay me enough to do it standing still. What do they pay you up there?”

  “Free burial, same as you. Did you bring anything for me?”

  “Thought you’d ask. Since I was fixing to be in the neighborhood I took it along.” He gave me a thick fold of yellow paper from the flap pocket where he kept his tobacco pouch.

  I unfolded it. It was a garble of unrelated words consuming several pages of Western Union scrip, signed HAB. Harlan A. Blackthorne’s personal code was more complex than the one I’d worked out with Jordan, but it was a lot less chatty in appearance; anyone who saw it would know immediately it contained confidential information. I was relieved to see it was addressed to the Rangers station and not Bernard Sebastian.

  “Anything for me?” Jordan asked.

  “I don’t know yet. It takes time to work out. I’ll get word to you if there is.”

  “What you fixing to do now, fort up here and wait?”

  “I’d just as soon post my plans on the church bulletin board. The biggest day in the Christian year is coming up; I expect a full house Sunday, and I have to get ready for it.”

  “I was you, I’d sling a skillet around my neck front and back. So far the Lord God Jesus is the only one ever clumb back up out of the grave come Easter.”

  “Well, I died up north and here I sit. Maybe He’s got another miracle for me in His pocket.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The lamp was guttering when I left off translating the Judge’s response to my question about Freemason and turned in. I finished in the morning, but by then I’d already learned enough to piece together the rest. The old bastard behind the bench had been wise to wait until I was a thousand miles away before he opened Pandora’s box.

  I worked on my Easter sermon over coffee, ate noon dinner at the Pan Handle, where Charlie Sweet was too busy waiting tables to exchange more than a couple of friendly words, and made my first two missionary stops, to the Alamo and the Old Granada saloons, where th
e cowhands and the sheep hands did their respective drinking.

  In the Alamo the bartender, a stove-up old waddie with a rolling limp and a permanent squint, gave me a look intended for a natural enemy, and my collar made the customers nervous, anticipating a weekday sermon, but I put them all back on their heels by buying drinks for the men I stood with at the bar while ordering well water for myself. On the second round I moved my glass, leaving a wet ring on the glossy cherrywood, and traced a pair of intersecting triangles with my finger. I asked the men at my right and left if they’d seen a brand that looked like it. Each man looked closely, traded his position with the others to give them a view, and shook his head. The bartender finished drawing a beer, came over, and wiped away the symbol with his rag, muttering something that sounded like Hebrew. That threw me a little.

  I drew the same blank at the Old Granada, where a pastoral engraving of a bearded shepherd and his flock hung above the bottles of busthead. Two of the sheep hands there saw the mark’s resemblance to the Star of David, but no one had seen it in the flesh.

  By then the local meeting place of the Texas Stock-Raisers Association, which occupied the second floor of the Elks Lodge, had opened its doors for dinner. The gatekeeper, a Prussian in a cutthroat collar with a straight back and military whiskers, sat me on a hard bench inside the entryway and kept me waiting for a half hour while he checked in diners, then as the flow ebbed sent a waiter to the little club library for a brand book. I spread it open on my knees, turned page after page of crudely drawn insignia, and found exactly what I’d expected: Nothing. For whatever reason—possibly one as harmless as its owner hadn’t registered in time to make that year’s record—the spread where the bandits’ horses were raised didn’t appear to exist in the eyes of the ranching establishment. That left me as heavy as ever on suspicion but as light as usual on evidence.

  The First Unitarian was packed for the second Sunday in a row, which I attributed more to the holiness of the day than to my skills as a spellbinder, although I flattered myself that I hadn’t driven anyone into the arms of the Methodists. Richard and Colleen Freemason were in their customary pew up front; a brass plate on the end of the backrest bore witness to their contribution in its construction, as did the others celebrating other donors, but in their case the Masonic compass and square took the place of a name. I saw other familiar faces as well as some new ones among the worshippers standing in back. The lay volunteer circulating the collection plate had to dump his load in the old Wells, Fargo box on the platform behind the pulpit and go back for seconds. There was a new coat of paint there and roof repairs. I never was in a house of God that wasn’t stumping for a new roof: Church shingles take a double beating, from rain above and prayers below.

  I’d gone through the portfolio of sermons Eldred Griffin had placed in my charge and made a risky choice. The text rejected the common view of Judas’ betrayal of Jesus as villainy, transforming him into a kind of flawed, tragic hero, who when he realized the enormity of his transgression had chosen to take his own life rather than to confess and repent, thus sentencing himself to an eternity in hell without parole. It fell short of expiating his guilt, but it hinted at personal redemption. As originally written, the sermon bordered on heresy; I was next to certain that Griffin had composed it after his own fall from grace, with no intention of ever reading it in public, and as such it required editing to avoid having myself nailed to the sorry crooked wooden sticks that West Texas had to offer in the way of a cross. I laid in the conventional condemnation of Iscariot and powdered it lightly with the defrocked priest’s mercy, leavening out the sardonic quality with which it was drenched.

  I don’t know why I made the selection, except I was already out on a limb holding an anvil and an ounce this way or that didn’t matter. Whatever happened, I’d presided over my last service in Owen.

  There was a short silence after I finished, but no murmurs, and when I called for “Lead, Kindly Light,” everyone in the congregation joined in.

  “A bold piece.” Freemason took my hand at the door. He looked puzzled. “Do you always fly this close to the flame?”

  “The man who wrote it showed me how close is too close.” There was now no reason to pretend authorship.

  “You must tell me about him sometime.”

  “He wouldn’t like it. He’s bent on disappearance.”

  “Fugitive?”

  “Yes, I think that describes him.”

  We were speaking low, but he leaned in close and dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “What luck tracing that brand?”

  “It’s not in the book, and none of the ranch hands I talked to remember seeing it.”

  “It must be a pirate outfit. They comb other spreads for mares with foals too young for branding, pare the mares’ hooves to the quick so they can’t wander far, and when the foals are ready to wean they rustle them and burn their own mark. It’s as if the animals never existed. A fully grown unbranded horse invites investigation, but registering the brand involves answering too many questions. No one knows just how many such ranches exist. It’s an impossible quest.”

  “Those are the ones I usually get.”

  “You’re not dissuaded?”

  I looked at him, but he was a hard man to read. “Do you want me to be?”

  “I think it’s too much for one man. Your death would weigh heavily on my conscience.”

  “Jordan and his Rangers are working on that brand, but they’re spread thin themselves. I’m thinking of asking Judge Blackthorne to lean on the governor to put every available company on the job.”

  “That’s wise, but why go so far around the barn? I’m sure I can persuade Ireland to see reason. That brand is the first thing we’ve found that can provide a link to the man responsible for these raids.”

  “With you applying pressure from below and Blackthorne applying it from above, I don’t see how he can refuse the accommodation.”

  “At least let me send a rider to Wichita Falls with your message. The Overland proceeds at its own pace.”

  “I’ll use both, in case one or the other is waylaid.”

  We regarded each other. It was the biggest time-waster anyone could imagine, even on a Sunday: Two men talking circles around the thing they both knew.

  Colleen interrupted the game. In honor of the day she wore a purple velvet dress with a hat to match, trailing a broad yellow ribbon down her back to her waist. In one kid glove she clutched a closed parasol, yellow with purple trim. “Once again, Richard, you’re holding up the line.” She offered me her free hand. “Another intriguing sermon. A bit cosmopolitan for Owen, don’t you think? The people around here prefer their badmen painted in black with thick strokes.”

  I met her blue gaze, harder than Jordan’s, more opaque than Freemason’s. “I like purple.”

  She smiled. “What a pretty compliment.”

  They moved on. The friendly freight office clerk shook my hand, wrenching me from my reflections. His face was troubled. “I was raised to love Jesus and hate Judas. Now I don’t know what to think.”

  “Hate is the devil’s seed,” I said. That seemed to lift his spirits.

  My reviews were mixed; I could tell by the silences as well as by the remarks. The man who had snored through most of my first services wrung my palm and gave me high marks for preaching against sin; plainly he’d awakened just in time to join the exodus for the door. Some people who’d stopped to greet me last Sunday swept on past the line without pausing. I didn’t expect them back even if I thought I’d be back myself. I made mental note of everything to report to Griffin, who might be interested to know the reaction, even though I was sure it wouldn’t surprise him.

  I felt an indifference bordering on atheism. It had been important that my debut was positive enough to assure me some time in the community. Whether I left it with a sour taste in its mouth signified nothing. One way or the other, my time in Owen was growing short.

  For a time after the last carriage creake
d away, I stood at the pulpit pretending to make corrections in the margins of my notes while Mrs. McIlvaine’s broom swished relentlessly in the corners. My pencil drew meaningless coils on the foolscap, unconsciously imitating the patterns of dust turning in the shortening shafts of sunlight coming through the windows. They circled patiently, killing time as they waited for the bristles to stop moving so they could settle. It seemed God’s plan that there should be dust, and that any attempt to banish it from His place on earth was doomed from the start; but housekeepers, too, have a patron saint, so their efforts carry some kind of endorsement. Everyone seemed to have one, except lawmen posing as ministers of the faith. I knew, because I’d looked it up. Nomads of the desert have one, so do nurses and the sick, innkeepers, storytellers, the desperate, fishermen, even thieves. Impostors alone are without representation. What did it matter what miracles you accomplished for the United States District Court if they condemned you in the court of heaven?

  The assignment had gotten under my skin worse than all the others. I’d flogged whiskey and mucked out stalls for cover, been a Cheyenne slave and shared a cell with a matricide—rotten work, but you can scrub off the stink of sour mash, recover from prison food, and a good laundress can boil the manure stains out of your clothes. In time, exposure to other peoples and their ways can even restore your belief in the basic humanity of every race. Everything was reversible, except Moses and Ezekiel and Ruth and Solomon and Matthew. Once they burrowed under your skin they were there to stay, like the heads of chiggers. There wasn’t a miserable deed or an act of charity in the Good Book that didn’t resemble something I’d witnessed and had sometimes been part of. The words of those drifters and cobblers and drones and harlots and the odd bearded king were more accurate than The Farmer’s Almanack.

  At length the swishing stopped, a door thudded into its frame, and I was alone. Still I didn’t stir from the pulpit, although I folded my pages and poked them into my breast pocket near the revolver in its rig. I stood gazing at the empty pews, feeling the reflected warmth from the squares of daylight creeping toward the east windows, smelling candle wax and walnut stain and the eternal dust, the dust of the Eternal, the presence of the Lord in every restless grain, searching for a place to lay His head and not finding it for more than a moment.