by Bill Brooks
“As much as I don’t care for the man,” Wild Bill said, “I feel sorry he’s lost his wife.”
“I was thinking,” Charley said.
“About what?”
“The way she was shot and all.”
“How was she shot?”
“From a long ways off with a rifle.”
Bill was still heavy-limbed from the effects of the dope. His mind was a bit sluggish still and he couldn’t put together everything that was being said.
Teddy sat listening to Charley talk, said, “You think it could have been the same one that shot your horse the other night?”
“I don’t get it if it is,” Bill said. “Why’d he want to shoot Jeff Carr’s wife? Besides, I thought we all agreed it was Ned Loyal.”
“I don’t think it was him now,” Teddy said. “I think whoever it was shot her for the same reason he shot Charley’s horse. He wasn’t aiming to.”
“He killed the wrong one?”
“It’s a possibility this shooter isn’t any good with a long gun.”
“Or maybe he is and just enjoys shooting women and horses,” Charley said glumly.
Teddy watched Bill closely. Maybe he should have shown fear, but he didn’t. Instead he just looked a little more morose than usual.
“I guess somebody wants to shoot Jeff Carr’s wife and Charley’s horse and you and me and all the rest, he by gar will,” Bill said. “As long as he’s willing to hide and do it with a long gun where nobody can face him down, who’s to stop him?”
Charley shivered, and when Bill saw him do it, Charley said, “Cold morning, ain’t it,” and poured himself some coffee from a pot he’d been heating over the campfire.
Bill sat off by himself to finish writing the letter he’d started the evening before. Teddy squatted next to Charley.
“Any ideas?”
Charley sipped his coffee, said, “No, you?”
“I was just thinking, the next time he tries, he might not miss.”
Charley looked off to the trees. “He could be up in there right now.”
“He could be.”
Charley flung the dregs of his cup into the fire, which hissed like a snake. “Old Bill’s right about it all. He wants to kill us, I guess he will.”
“It’s my job not to let that happen,” Teddy said.
“Then you better get to work, old son.”
“I guess I better.”
Chapter 27
Jeff Carr thought what a cruel joke it was that the day he was to bury his love had turned so beautiful. Potts, dressed in formal funeral attire—black cutaway coat and trousers, a stovepipe beaver hat—came and said in a low whisper, “Anytime now, Sheriff…whenever you’re ready, we can proceed.”
Jeff had been sitting in the front pew of the small church hardly noticing anyone else. Among the mourners: his deputies, the mayor and city fathers, old friends, members of the Ladies Benefit Society, and the curious. All had come to bear witness to a man and his grief. The leaders of the community were less certain now than they had been a year previous, when they’d hired him, that he was their man. For, he did seem to arouse a certain antipathy from the rough trade—the shootists, pimps, and whores. And now there had been three murders in the span of as many days. And though the community leaders were sympathetic to his current situation, they privately wondered how much longer they could go with the man. Perhaps someone with a bit more diplomacy, someone who didn’t stroll about cradling a shotgun, might be better suited for the task. Still, this day they would abide him his position and let him have his bereavement.
Some of the businesses Jeff Carr and his crew protected day and night draped their windows in black crepe out of respect. Even Frenchy closed his bar till noon—announcing the shutdown with a hand-painted sign out front. A few of the doves took up a collection the night before to help pay funeral expenses.
But none of this was of any consequence to Jeff. He thought only of his Molly, of the brief days of her life, the moment of her death, and the man who’d killed her.
Potts’s sister, Adele, played a collection of mournful dirges on the organ—music that floated toward the rafters, rattled around, then fell heavy on the ear and heart, heavy and ethereal and dark as bad dreams. And when she came to the end of the selection and looked at her elder brother, he signaled with a look that she should continue, and so she began again, while the gathered began to grow restless.
Finally Jeff Carr stood, went to the coffin and gazed down at his wife. He felt compelled to say: “I should have made it official, given you a ring.” Then he closed his eyes and thought how much better it would feel if he were any sort of believer so that he might call out his distress to some god or other. And perhaps he would get some sort of an answer as to why the sort of god Molly believed in would need her more than he would. But he could find no such sense of faith, and so in his sorrow and regret, he felt completely alone, like one of the living dead.
Potts waved forth the pallbearers. To the six, the weight of the coffin with Molly in it seemed hardly anything at all. They carried her forth to the waiting hearse hitched to a dandy pair of Percherons.
The Catholic cemetery was a half mile distance, the Baptist a quarter mile the opposite direction, and potter’s field a mile farther still. Molly had been Catholic but not practicing. Jeff thought the God of Catholics wouldn’t mind if he buried her where the other Catholics were, and so bought her a plot there and paid the local priest to perform the service.
Jeff mounted his horse sans shotgun or any arms whatsoever—and walked it alongside the hearse with its high-glass sides and ebony wood, brass lamps and black crepe trim. The horses had black feathered plumes sticking from their headstalls. He didn’t care much for the garish display. He could see Molly’s polished mahogany coffin inside with its brass handrails. It had cost him a hundred dollars, but he wouldn’t have cared if it had cost a thousand. He would have robbed the damn banks to pay for it if he had to.
He tipped his hat one last time, then took the lead so the hearse and mourners could follow, and did not acknowledge the presence of those who stood along the street observing this utterly sad procession.
Teddy Blue was one of those on the street, and he truly felt bad for Jeff Carr, a man who looked broken in spirit as he rode with slumped shoulders, his eyes cast downward.
But more than simple interest in the funeral procession had him watching the crowd. Teddy was observing them collectively to see if anyone caught his eye. He wasn’t sure even what to look for, but instinct told him he’d notice something unusual if it were there.
He saw nothing on first glance. He worked his way down the walk—first one side of the street, then crossed over to the other and up that way.
Then someone did catch his notice. A man standing dressed in black, like a preacher. There was nothing very unusual about him, and Teddy would never have noticed him on a normal day except for one thing: he was writing something in a small book.
Teddy stopped several feet away and continued to observe the man with the book. He saw him write something in it then close the book and slip it into a side pocket of his coat. It was no proof of anything; he could have been a journalist—God knows there were plenty of them in the territory. When the funeral procession passed, the crowd of onlookers drifted back to whatever they’d been doing before; clerks to their stores and cafés and banks, barkeeps to their saloons, doves to their cribs.
The man with the book turned north and walked alone to the American Café. Teddy lagged behind several paces and entered as well. The man had taken a table near the window. Teddy took a seat at the counter where he could observe the man in the mirror that hung on the back wall.
The man ordered breakfast and ate it with deliberation, pausing once mid-meal to take the book out again and write something more into it. Teddy knew he’d like to get a look at that book.
The man finished his meal then stood and left, and Teddy stayed on his trail, keeping a dozen paces behin
d him.
He followed the man to the Union Pacific Railroad Hotel. He watched as the man went up the stairs, then he walked to the desk.
“Say, wasn’t that Buffalo Bill Cody?” Teddy said.
The clerk blinked. “Who?”
“That fellow that just went up the stairs?”
The clerk snorted. “No, Cody and them checked out the other day. That feller is Mr. Bass.”
“Bass, huh. I could have sworn he was Cody.”
“Don’t look nothing like Buffalo Bill…well, except they’re both dark-haired.”
“My mistake. Bass, you say? Not Jake Bass from Kansas City, I suppose?”
The clerk shook his head. “No, that feller is Mr. Paris Bass. Odd name, ain’t it, Paris?”
“Damn odd. Well, I’ve wasted enough of your time.”
Teddy went to the telegrapher’s and sent a short wire and told the clerk he’d wait for the reply:
WHAT INFORMATION DO YOU HAVE ON ONE PARIS BASS? INFORM IMMEDIATELY. T. BLUE.
Silence filled the little office. Silence and sunlight with dust moats dancing in it. The sort of silence that eats time slowly and leaves a man fidgety. It seemed like nothing at all moved except for the steady tock caused by the pendulum’s swing of the regulator clock.
Five minutes passed, ten, twenty.
Then the telegrapher’s key started ticking and the clerk wrote down the message and handed it to Teddy. Teddy read it, looked at the clerk, who shrugged.
“I just work here, mister.”
“Keep it that way.”
Out he went, straight to Charley and Wild Bill’s camp.
Charley was braiding his hair and Bill was shaving.
“There’s something you should know,” Teddy said.
Charley stopped and Bill stopped and both men looked at him.
“There’s a man in town named Paris Bass, either of you ever heard of him?”
“Paris,” Bill said. “That’s a funny name for a feller to have. What about him?”
“That’s just it, I don’t know, except he’s in town and he was watching the funeral procession this morning.”
Bill went back to shaving, his interest already lost in a man whose first name was Paris.
Charley cast a sidelong glance toward Teddy, indicating they should walk off a ways from the camp.
“You think this Paris Bass is the one who shot my horse the other night, don’t you?”
“I can’t be sure.”
“You think he meant to kill Bill.”
Teddy pulled the telegram from his pocket and handed it to Charley, who read it:
PARIS BASS. CURRENT OCCUPATION: UNKNOWN. FORMER U.S. SECRET SERVICE AGENT. FORMER 1ST REGIMENT SHARPSHOOTER/U.S. VOLUNTEERS. SUSPECT IN SEVERAL SLAYINGS FOR HIRE IN SEVERAL STATES. AMONG VICTIMS, TWO TEXAS RANGERS, U.S. DEPUTY MARSHAL, BANK PRESIDENT. LAST KNOWN RESIDENCE: EL PASO. CONSIDERED DANGEROUS TO APPROACH. IS HE IN CHEYENNE? DO WE NEED TO SEND ASSISTANCE? G. BANGS.
“You need to show this to Jeff Carr,” Charley said.
“I thought about it, but there’s no proof of anything here.”
“Proof is a bullet already fired. By the time any of us gets the proof, it’ll be too late. What you going to do?”
“Follow him.”
“He’ll probably know if you do.”
“I know it.”
“You want him to know…”
“Maybe if he does, he’ll think twice before trying anything.”
“Or kill you.”
“Yeah, maybe that too. Thing is, if I’m following this Bass, you’ll need to stick close to Bill.”
“We’re planning on heading out tomorrow for Deadwood.”
“Might not be a bad move.”
“It won’t stop him, though, will it?”
“Not if he’s come to kill him.”
Charley’s face suddenly grew ashen. “You think maybe he killed Jeff Carr’s wife?”
“I think it’s possible, I just don’t know why he would.”
Charley handed the telegram back to Teddy. “Say’s he’s a hired assassin, which if true, means somebody has paid him to come for Bill…”
“That would be my guess. Any ideas on who might do that?”
Charley shrugged. “Could be any of a dozen folks…Bill’s made himself a lot of enemies over the years. You’d be barking in tall grass trying to figure that out.”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Go on, then. I’ll stick with Bill. Hell, I’ll even hold his pecker for him while he pisses if I have to so his hands stay free.”
“You’re a good pard,” Teddy said with a grin.
“I always knew I was.”
The pain was like lightning had shattered his skull. Paris Bass pulled the shades to stay the daylight and lay with a towel across his eyes. It had gotten worse over the years, and in the last several months had struck with greater frequency, and each time the effect was more debilitating than the last. A doctor in Dallas said he suspected a brain tumor. That was a year ago. He was thirty-four years old. It couldn’t be a brain tumor. He stuffed his ears with cotton to dull any noises. He grew sick, threw up in the basin. He knew the routine. A derringer lay on the bureau. He wondered if he had the strength to rise, take it, put it to his temple and pull the trigger.
Except…except, he knew that once the spell passed and life seeped back into him again, he would feel well and whole and ready again for the pleasures of life. He doubted he had the strength to kill himself at that moment, and so abandoned the thought, as he always did.
Teddy camped out in the lobby of the Railroad Hotel, watched folks come and go: miners, engineers, couples, cowboys. The trains outside ground to halts and chugged away again. He had no plan except to follow this Paris Bass when he saw him and be ready for whatever might happen.
He thought of Kathleen in the intervening hours of his wait. She was somewhere on a train herself at that very moment, a young restless boy by her side, each heading toward uncertain futures. But then again, he was heading toward an uncertain future himself, and so was Bill and Charley and all the rest of them.
Something greater than them existed, held the reins to their destinies, and would eventually guide them along like wild horses before a drover.
There in his room, the dull light of dusk now descended, his pain a cooling fire inside his head, he hears voiced…a voice: But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life…
He sat bolt upright, his skin flush and afire, his nerves twitching under his eyes, his hands trembling.
“My time is short, I know it,” he muttered to himself. “I must go and kill the Prince.”
Teddy saw the Preacher descending the stairs, a long rifle encased in a scabbard of rich brown leather. He’s going out for the kill, he thought. The twilight hour has fallen and he is going to find Wild Bill and kill him.
He followed the Preacher from the hotel, down several city blocks, and up an alley that led to vacant lots. Across these, maybe five hundred yards distance, were the stand of the trees that lay between the town’s limits and the encampment of the miners where Wild Bill and Charley had their tent pitched.
The twilight sky was a dusty rose color, like a harlot’s faded dress. Teddy could see the dog star, could feel the heat of the earlier sun ascending out of the earth. The Preacher walked steady on across the vacant lots toward the treeline. He had to hold back in case the Preacher was to turn and see him. Surprise was key.
Bill was tugging on his boots and Charley was playing a game of solitaire with a deck of cards that had illustrations on them of scantily clad women. Charley had bought the cards in San Francisco from a sailor who said they came from Hong Kong, China.
“You winning or losing?” Bill said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Charley said. “I only play because it gives me a chance to see all my girls.”
Bill shook his head. “Wonder where Teddy’s gone off to this lo
vely night.”
Charley looked up, stared out beyond the camp where dusk was deepening into night. “You reckon we should have us a fire going?”
“Why not?” Bill said. “It’s going to get cold.”
“I was thinking about what happened the other night, how that firelight might make us prime targets was there somebody out there with his rifle.”
“You mean like that French fish feller?”
“Paris Bass,” said Charley, letting the name sort of fall off his tongue rather than speak it aloud.
“Well, if it will make you feel better, let’s go get us a cocktail.”
“Harry Young’s place?” Charley said hopefully.
“I’d just soon not go there and have to watch you make a spectacle of yourself with the doves.”
“Alice already told me about you and her, Bill. And it don’t bother me a smidge if it don’t you. After all, I don’t suppose you’d care one way or the other at this stage of the game, would you—you being married to Agnes and all?”
“It don’t bother me who you want to fornicate with. But we’re pards, Charley, and even though Alice and me have been quits three or four years now, I’d still like to think you honor the bonds of friendship and not fornicate with her knowing her and me had us a history together.”
Charley started to present an argument to Bill he had rehearsed with himself just in case Bill played the friendship card, which Charley suspected he might, knowing how particular Bill was about certain matters—women he’d been intimate with most especially. But before he could get the opening statement out of his gullet a shot rang out, then another.
“Why’s it always so goddamn dark a feller can’t see to defend himself,” Bill said, and cursed, backing farther into the shadows as he pulled both Navies free.
Chapter 28
Jeff Carr got himself plenty drunk after the funeral. Some of his deputies came to Frenchy’s to take him home. He refused them.