The Lawmen

by Broomall, Robert

  “I wouldn’t bet on that, Chandler. Then again, maybe that’s the kind of bet a loser like you would make. “

  Essex moved past Clay, down the narrow aisle that divided the rows of cells. “You killed Pompey,” he said, glaring at Vance.

  “Who?” Vance said. “You mean that swamper? Sure I killed him, what of it? It wasn’t much fun. He didn’t even kick.”

  Essex thrust his arms through the bars. “White motherf—”

  Clay grabbed Essex by the shoulders and pulled him back. “Cool off, boy. You’re here to enforce the law, not take it into your own hands. ”

  Essex was breathing hard. “You mean deliver him to a white man’s jury, where some fancy lawyer gets him off?”

  “If necessary,” Clay said.

  “Where’s the justice in that?”

  Before Clay could reply, there was a knock at the barred front door. “See who that is,” Clay told his deputy.

  Essex unbarred the door and opened it, revealing a half-dozen whores, dressed in cheap jewelry and feathers, reeking of perfume, giggling and carrying picnic hampers. The girls saw Essex and stopped, openmouthed. “Who are you?” one of them asked.

  “I’m the boogeyman,” Essex told her. “Who the hell you think?”

  “No, he’s not,” another girl said. “He’s a deputy. Look at that badge.”

  The rest of the girls chimed in. “A deputy?”

  “Well, would you believe that?”

  “But he’s a Negro.”

  Clay moved forward politely. “May I help you ladies?”

  “We come to see Vance,” a tipsy bleached blond replied.

  The other girls looked over Clay’s shoulder, into the cell. “Hi, Vancey,” they cried, waving.

  Vance smoothed back his long hair and flashed a smile. “Hi, girls.”

  “You look awful,” one said. “How are they treating you?”

  “Not real good. But I’ll be out tomorrow. I’ll see you all then.”

  “All of us?” another of the girls said coquettishly.

  “You know me,” Vance boasted.

  “We sure do,” a third girl said, and they all started giggling again and nudging each other’s shoulders.

  “What’s in the baskets?” Clay asked them.

  “Food for the prisoner,” the tipsy blond replied. “The poor thing looks like he’s starving. ”

  “Damn right I’m starving,” Vance cried. “This marshal won’t feed me.”

  “Let me see,” Clay said, holding out his hand. He inspected the hampers, pulling apart the cloth napkins with which they were lined. “Ham, chicken—looks good. What kind of pie is this?”

  “Cherry,” one of the girls said.

  “So that’s where you lost it,” another cracked, and they all laughed.

  Clay felt something beneath the chicken. He reached deeper and pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam. “Now, ladies. You know whiskey ain’t allowed inside the jail.”

  “Why not?” the one with the cherry pie complained. “Just the one bottle won’t hurt him.”

  “Sorry,” Clay said. He returned the Jim Beam to its purchaser, then arranged the open hampers on his desk.

  “Now what are you doing?” the blond asked.

  Clay affected surprise. “Why, I have to inspect the contents further. Who knows, you could be concealing a pistol or a bowie knife inside one of these hams. Hell, you could be hiding something under all that makeup on your face.” Grinning, he slid the cherry pie across the desk to Essex. “Cut me some of this pie, boy.”

  “Cut it yourself,” Essex replied.

  Clay looked at him. “Ain’t you forgetting who’s boss here?”

  “You can tell me what to do as far as the law goes, peckerwood, but I ain’t your body servant. You want that pie, cut it yourself. And don’t go calling me ‘boy’”

  From his cell Vance said, “Uppity, ain’t he, Marshal?”

  The girls shouldered past Clay and Essex to the cell, where they took turns kissing Vance passionately through the bars. “If that marshal would let us in there, we could have some real fun,” one of the girls pouted.

  Clay started pulling the girls away. “All right, ladies. This ain’t business hours. You all have to leave.”

  Squealing and protesting, the girls were led from the office. “We’ll see you tomorrow, Vance,” they cried.

  When they were gone, Clay came back to the food. He lifted the ham from its wicker hamper and began slicing it.

  “What are you doing?” Vance shouted. “That’s mine.”

  Clay smiled at him and stuffed a big piece of ham into his mouth. “Go on,” he mumbled to Essex, “have some.” But Essex hadn’t waited for permission; he had already started on the chicken.

  Outside, Clay heard the rumble of wheels and jingle of harness. He walked to the window in time to see the mule-driven stagecoach go by, up Tucson Street and over the San Marcos Bridge. He smiled grimly to himself. They still had a chance.

  “When the hell do I get my food? “ Vance wanted to know.

  “When we’re done,” Clay told him, slicing more ham.

  Clay dropped the piece of ham on the floor. He picked it up; it was covered with dust and dirt and who knew what. “There must be a year’s worth of dirt on this floor,” he said. He cast an eye at Vance. “Cleaning it up sounds like a job for our prisoner.”

  “I ain’t cleaning that shit up,” Vance said.

  “You will if you want your food,” Clay told him. He unlocked the cell. “Get out here.”

  “I don’t need the food,” Vance retorted. “I can wait till tomorrow and get all the food I want.”

  “Get out, I said.”

  “You can’t make me,” Vance said, smiling confidently.

  Clay hesitated.

  “I’ll make him,” Essex said. Setting down the chicken, Essex drew the rope belt from his worn trousers and doubled it over. He went into the unlocked cell and started flogging Vance’s back with it.

  “Ow! Ow!” Vance cried, putting up his hands to protect himself. “Ow! All right, I’ll do it. Ow! Call this crazy nigger off.”

  Clay said, “Essex—that’s enough.”

  Essex lowered the rope while Vance scrambled out of the cell, keeping a wary eye on him. Essex looked at Clay and smiled. “That’s called ‘motivation.’ The overseer taught it to me.”

  Clay handed Vance a broom. “Uppity, ain’t he?” Clay said.

  While Vance started sweeping the floor, Clay got the water bucket. To Essex he said, “Watch him while I get some water for coffee.”

  Clay rounded the comer to the well on Second Street. Most of Topaz’s citizens avoided the river for drinking because of people relieving themselves in it, bathing in it, and using it as a place to dispose of garbage and dead animals. There was a line of men drawing water from the well—there was always a line—but they ushered Clay to the front. They didn’t want him around any longer than he had to be.

  On the way back to his office, Clay stopped. Two men, pistols at their hips, leaned in the awning shade of a store across the street. When they noticed Clay, one of them raised a hand and touched his hat brim mockingly. Clay walked around back of the jail. There were two more armed men there, idling beside the alley fence.

  Clay went into the office with the water. Inside, Essex was taking great pleasure in supervising Vance Hopkins’s efforts to clean up the place. “You missed that comer,” he said, slapping the doubled-over rope in his palm.

  Vance took his broom hurriedly to the comer. “Wait till my brother gets you,” he muttered.

  Clay sidled up beside Essex, so that Vance couldn’t hear. “Wes Hopkins’s men are all around the jail,” he said in a low voice. “They’ve got us trapped in here.”

  14

  The breeze died. The afternoon air grew heavy. Outside the marshal’s office the world turned and people went about their daily routines. Inside, Clay and Essex watched what were likely to be the final hours of their lives drop away.<
br />
  The two lawmen had finished eating—they had even given some food to Vance. Clay sat at his desk, counting what remained of his pay advance. Sweat dripped from his nose and splashed on the desk’s rough wood. Essex sprawled in the other chair, the Henry repeater across his lap. He’d taken off his wool hat in the stifling heat. There were sweat stains on both men’s shirts. Files buzzed around the picnic hampers that had been left by the whores. Essex brushed a fly away from his face. In the back, Vance was asleep again, snoring lightly.

  “Got any money for ammunition?” Clay asked Essex.

  “Yeah, right. Do I look like I got money?”

  Clay poured more coffee and resumed his seat. “Where was you a slave at?” he asked his new deputy.

  “Tennessee. Down around Somerville. Born and raised— or should I say bred?—on Mr. John Woodbine’s plantation, Fairfield.”

  “Yankee army set you free?”

  Essex shook his head. “After the war started, I ran away and hid in the woods. Lived on fish and rabbits that I trapped. One day some bluecoat soldiers found me. Told me how I was a free man, how lucky I was. I was so free, them bluecoats made me go along with them and help them with their cannons. Ended up in some big battle in Georgia—found out later it was Chickamauga.”

  “You were at Chickamauga?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  Clay shook his head. “I served in Virginia, with Lee.”

  “Well, it was some fight,” Essex went on. “Me and the other ‘free’ slaves had to help get the guns in place. Man, you wouldn’t believe the noise when them things started going off. Sounded like Judgment Day for sure. We all fell to the ground and hid, but the Yankees came around kicking us to make us go back to work. After that I was sent to the rear to help with the wounded and move equipment. Later, they sent me to Tennessee to work on a plantation, growing food for their army. That’s where freedom got me—right back where I started.”

  Clay threw back his head and guffawed. “Haw, haw, haw.”

  “It ain’t funny.”

  “Sure it is. What do you have to complain about? Everything you got, you got from the white man.”

  “Oh, yeah, like I got so much.”

  “You got your freedom, ain’t you?”

  “And who you think it was put us in chains, you dumb shit? It was the white man.”

  “So what? You weren’t no worse off as slaves than you were in Africa.”

  Essex looked amazed. “You don’t seriously believe that, do you? In Africa my father was a prince. His father was a king.”

  “Sure he was,” Clay scoffed. “Every black man I ever met says he was royalty in Africa. Sounds like you Africans had too many overseers and not enough field hands.”

  Essex struggled to control his temper. “My tribe is called the Fulbe. They live in western Africa, near the coast. As a young man, my father was captured in battle, then sold to the slave traders.”

  “There you go. See how lucky he was? If it hadn’t been for them slavers, he probably would have ended up in a stew pot.”

  Essex shook his head. “Man, you just don’t get it, do you? You’re right about one thing, though. Everything I got, I got ’cause of the white man. It was the white man destroyed my family in Africa. That wasn’t enough for them, so they destroyed my family in Tennessee, too. Now they tell me I’m free, but I ain’t got no rights. Yeah, I’m just grateful as hell to the white man. I don’t know what I’d do without you all.”

  Clay drank his coffee. “How did we destroy your family here?”

  “Well, to start, ol’ Massa Woodbine used my father as a stud. Yeah, like a horse, or a prize bull. Used to rent him out to the other slave owners to breed with their women. ”

  “Sounds like good duty to me,” Clay remarked.

  “My father thought it was humiliating. My mother didn’t like it much, neither. But then they didn’t have no say, did they? Then Massa married my sister to his slave driver, man she couldn’t stand. Figured she and the driver would breed good field hands. Then there was my older brother, Norfolk ...” Essex’s voice trailed off.

  “What happened to him?” Clay asked.

  “Seems Norfolk was a bit too quick to complain about things. Whuppin’ didn’t shut him up, so Massa and the overseer, they made an example of him and sold him south, into Mississippi.”

  Clay said nothing.

  Essex went on. “Man, they got some bad overseers in Mississippi. Disease and shit you wouldn’t believe. You don’t want to go there.”

  “Ever see him again?” Clay asked.

  “You don’t never see nobody again after they’re sold south. I looked for him some after the war, but it wasn’t no use.” He paused. “You bein’ a peckerwood and all, I don’t suppose you ever had enough money to buy you no slaves.”

  “Nope,” Clay said. “Wouldn’t have bought ’em even if I could have.”

  “Why not?”

  “It don’t make sense. Slaves cost more than they bring in. You got to clothe and feed and house them. Plus it takes two white men to watch one slave and make him work. I’d rather hire whites. That way if they won’t work, you fire ’em and get somebody who will.”

  “That the only reason you wouldn’t own slaves?”

  “It’s the main one.”

  “But is it the only one?”

  Clay hesitated. “I ain’t real comfortable with the idea of owning people.”

  “So—you admit that we are people?”

  “I never said that.”

  “Well, we sure ain’t sheep or dogs.”

  “You got that right. Dogs work harder.”

  Essex sprang from the chair. “You know-nothin’, white sonofabitch. I’m about ready to bust your ass.”

  Clay rose as well. “Why don’t you try, you lazy black-”

  There was a light knock on the door.

  Clay crossed the room, slammed open the door’s peephole and looked out.

  Julie Bennett was standing there.

  Trying to calm down, Clay unbarred and opened the door. “All right if I come in?” Julie asked with arched brows.

  “Yeah, sure,” Clay said, stepping back.

  Julie walked into the office. “I could hear you two arguing out on the street. ”

  Essex had regained control of himself, as well. “I was just explaining some things to the marshal here. When you’re with somebody that stupid, the conversation tends to get loud.”

  Irritably, Clay said to Julie, “This is the new deputy, Essex Johnson.” To Essex he said, “This is Miss Bennett.”

  Essex touched his forehead. “Ma’am.”

  “Mr. Johnson,” Julie said.

  Essex gave Clay a funny smile, then drifted back to his chair.

  Julie pulled something from her handbag. “I brought you this,” she said to Clay.

  “A watch!” Clay said.

  He took it. It was an inexpensive Seth Thomas, battered but still working. The time said 3:42.

  “Where’d you get it?” Clay asked.

  “From a customer.”

  For some reason, Clay found himself upset at the thought of Julie sleeping with another man. He didn’t know why—she was only doing her job.

  He peered at her closely. “You didn’t steal this, did you?”

  She looked shocked. “No. He gave it to me as a present. I swear.”

  Clay didn’t believe her, but he said, “All right. Thanks, Julie.”

  There was an awkward pause, then Clay went on. “Look, where will you be if I need to get in touch with you?”

  Julie moaned. “You’re not going to drag me into this any deeper, are you?” Clay didn’t answer, and she said, “Yeah, I guess you are. All right, if I don’t have a client, I’ll likely be in the back room of the Ocean View Saloon, on Apache Street.”

  “The Ocean View? There’s no ocean around here.”

  “That’s all right, there ain’t much of a view, either. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go. ” She cast
an eye at the half-eaten contents of the picnic hampers. “Unlike you civic employees, I’ve got to work if I want to eat.”

  * * *

  At about the time Julie was bringing the watch to Clay, Mayor Price was in the upstairs room of his store, along with the fork-bearded ex-justice of the peace Amos Saxon, and Alexander Cruickshank the banker. Price and Saxon were nursing whiskies; Cruickshank fiddled nervously with his fingers.

  “What’s Charity think about all this, Tom?” Cruickshank asked.

  Price snorted. “She just wants it over with, without damage to the town—or to ourselves. How about your wife, Scotty?”

  “She thinks Chandler’s a fool for making an issue over a dead black man. She says he deserves what he’s going to get.”

  There were footsteps on the outside landing. The door opened and Wes Hopkins entered.

  “Hello, Wes,” Price said. The other two men nodded.

  “Gentlemen,” Wes acknowledged.

  “Drink?” asked Price.

  “No, thanks,” the gang leader said.

  “Where’s Lee?”

  “He’s taking care of some business.”

  Price cleared his throat. “So—why did you ask us to meet you here?”

  Wes took a turn around the room before answering. “I’m worried, gentlemen. I’m beginning to think that our new marshal won’t give up my brother before the deadline.”

  Mayor Price nodded glumly. “I’m afraid you may be right.”

  Judge Saxon added, “He’s got that Negro helping him now. It looks like they intend to fight.”

  “I’d prefer it not come to that,” Wes said. “I’m afraid Vance will get hit in the cross fire.”

  Price drank his whiskey. “So what do you want from us?”

  Wes smiled. “A demonstration of friendship. I gave Chandler my word that I wouldn’t make a move against him for twenty-four hours, and I never break my word. You men, on the other hand, made no such promise.”

  The three men looked at each other. “We’ve already done our best,” Price said. “I even ordered Chandler to give Vance up, but he wouldn’t obey. What more can we do?”

  Cruickshank figured it out. “Good lord—you want us to kill Chandler.”