Today, everything sparkled in the morning sun. Monday knew most folks in town now and a few greeted him cheerfully on his rounds. Even Simmons the assayer was pleased to see him and gave him fourteen dollars in tax arrears. Mrs. Simmons gave him coffee and a biscuit. Were folks supposed to be happy to see the tax collector? Kate would know.
There was an idea. A morning already so fine as this could be topped off perfectly by seeing Kate’s sunny smile, her carefully brushed hair, and whatever dress she’d put on today. He favored her split riding skirt because of the way it fit around her hips and seat. He quickened his step and went around the boarding house toward the back, hoping to catch her in the yard or the kitchen again.
He came to a halt at the corner of the house. She’d moved her washtubs from the porch, nearer the clothes lines. Monday heard her before he actually saw her, muttering under her breath and occasionally uttering unladylike curses.
No sunny disposition today. Kate’s wet hair was piled haphazardly onto her head, held by her straw hat and a couple pins. She wore yesterday’s dress, dingy and a mite wrinkled today, and stood ankle deep in her bare feet in mud and wet grass. She heaved another light brown sheet out of one tub and plunked it into another, stirring it with an old broom handle. Didn’t look like she was washing it as much as trying to get it clean enough so it could be washed. She was beating the sheet half to death and ordering the dirt out.
Monday was glad he couldn’t hear all she was saying. Probably best to come back later. She might put him to work, and he was a bit more practiced with dishes than with laundry.
He beat a quiet retreat. But he grinned as he thought of Kate’s salty language. She didn’t seem like so much like a lady today. Maybe not too much of a lady for a Texas cowboy after all.
Monday made his way back up the street and saw Doc go into the saloon. His pocket watch said it was way too early for anything to drink.
“Well, Doc, has the shortage of patients driven you in here for a noon drink?” He asked as he let the batwing doors swing closed behind him. “You’re early even for that.”
Doc and Chet looked up. Chet was busy trying to put pieces of glass back into one edge of his pride and joy that hung behind the bar, by far the biggest mirror in Warbonnet.
“Very funny, Sam. No, I’m hoping Chet might cut a finger, so’s I can put a plaster on it and charge him a dime. Be the biggest professional fee I’ve made this week.”
“What happened to your mirror, Chet? Buffalo come right through here?”
“Doc’s right, Marshal, you’re a regular ray of sunshine. Naw. This was another cowboy from the X-Star throwing an empty bottle at a soldier last night, after your last rounds. They both had their guns drawn, but you didn’t hear no shooting. When they saw the damage that bottle did, they settled down right quick. I got the only saloon north of Laramie and they knew it’d be a long ride to the nearest card game and drink if I banned ’em from the Alamo.” He straightened the shards and stepped back to squint at his work.
“I collected two dollars from each of ’em, but there ain’t no way to fix this permanent. Even that wad of money Quincannon had the other night couldn’t pay for a new mirror this size. Reckon I’ll just glue these pieces right here and move some bottles down to cover the gap.”
“I’m sorry to see this, Chet. Right sorry to have joshed you, too. I know how much you dote on that fine looking glass. Wish I could figure a way to keep cowboys, guns, whiskey, and cards from adding up to trouble so often.”
“Be glad Chet doesn’t have any soiled doves to add to that equation. It’s been my experience that putting women into the mix you just mentioned generally causes the pot to boil over.”
Doc finally broke the awkward silence that followed. “Here we are, three morose men hanging around a saloon before noon—no drinks to sell, no bones to patch, and you with an empty jail, Sam. We’re as underemployed as young Kate Shaw, who spends her time cleaning that school and doesn’t have any pupils in it yet.”
“Doc, I really don’t think we should be discussin’ Miss Shaw in the saloon.”
“What do you think, Chet? Remember how we said last night how happily married our new marshal must be, because he don’t ever complain about his wife, or compare her to the prettier ladies in these parts, like Miss Shaw, Miss Masterson, or Mrs. Crandall?”
“How about it, Marshal? You gonna tell us where you’d fit your wife into that lineup?”
“If it’s all the same to you, I don’t want to talk about Emma nor no schoolteachers in here. Reckon we can play cards, Doc, or I can try again to get some back taxes out of Mr. Webb down the street—or Chet here.” He grinned at Chet’s sour expression.
“Sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean to bait you so severe. Chet and I are just a little curious, and I figured I could get you to champion your Emma’s beauty if I mentioned other pretty ladies. I got to go. Chet, let me have that bottle, if you would.” He clinked down a couple coins.
“I’m making some cough medicine after yesterday’s dust storm, and the secret of cough medicine is a tad of whiskey in each batch. Now where did I lay my hat?” Doc looked around the bar, then saw it on the long pegs next to the door. Monday watched as he retrieved it.
As Doc picked up his hat, Monday looked at the double row of pegs mounted on a sturdy board screwed into the wall. A Roy Butcher project from last week.
“Wait a minute there, Doc.” Monday unbuckled his gunbelt, took it off, rebuckled it, and hung it from a peg. “Hmmm. Chet, you got that scattergun behind the bar there?” Stratman handed him a double-barreled, cut-down shotgun. Monday broke it open, took out the two rounds, closed it, and hung it from its trigger guard on one of the other pegs. “Rifles and shotguns, too.” He stroked his chin for a moment. “Chet, what would you think if the marshal were to order everybody who comes in to hang up their guns with their hats?”
“Dunno, Marshal. You think separating ’em from their irons while they’re drinking and gambling would ease the wear and tear on my place?”
“And cut down on my occasional butcher’s bill?” Doc asked.
“Might. Couldn’t hurt to try.” He reloaded the shotgun and handed it back.
“Well, I’m ready to try it, but you can’t be here as every man comes in, Marshal. I think we’re gonna need a sign over them pegs telling folks to hang their guns there.”
“And it better say ‘by order of the marshal,’ if you hope to get ’em to do it,” Doc added. “Not that half of ’em can read.”
“Chet, Ike’s acting carpenter and sign painter while Roy’s gone to Laramie. If I can’t get him to pay for the sign, I’ll go halves with you.”
“Done,” Chet said, reaching in his apron pocket. “Here’s a dollar, Marshal. If he’ll do it today, paint’ll be dry by tomorrow. Folks start coming in tomorrow ’fore the big dance on Saturday.”
With that, Monday went off to look for Ike. Doc trailed along, for moral support, he said. A second council opinion, if needed. Monday wondered if he could enforce this idea. And if it would cut down on violence he’d already experienced in the saloon, maybe help him stay alive until he left for Montana next week.
Next week. Time was running out.
Chapter 24
Friday
Warbonnet
“Come on, Kate,” Martha said. “These sheets won’t get no cleaner if we wash ’em one more time. I got to have at least one dry set for the preacher. Don’t know what he’ll think if we can’t put out clean sheets for the three nights he stays here each month.”
Kate gratefully gave up stirring sheets in near boiling water. Her shoulders and back ached. After three mornings of this, she hated doing laundry more than ever. Martha had an armful of the driest sheets and was heading for the house. Kate rinsed her bare feet, dried them as best she could, and followed Martha upstairs.
“I’m sorry to have to move you for three nights, Kate, but I don’t want to put the preacher in that back room ’til I get the rest of the wallpaper up
. Hope you won’t mind the change. That room’ll be ready for him when he comes next month.”
Kate pulled sheets from the bed in her front room and helped Martha remake it with dry but off-white sheets for the Reverend Mr. Barnes. At least they smelled clean.
When she and Martha finished in the front room, Kate went down the hall and made her temporary bed in the other room, opening the window to air it out a little. She brought her few items of folded clothing and three dresses, then went back to help Martha “stew” more laundry.
They ran sopping sheets through the wringer and hung them up to dry. As they hung one sheet, Kate held it up while Martha secured it with clothes pins, next to her left hand.
“You said you’d tell me the story of that scar some time. Why not now? We’ve got another hour of work in front of us. Buxton’s out with his friends. Sally’s at the Crandalls for her piano lesson.”
Kate thought a while before starting. “This scar is a lot like that widow’s ring you wear, the one you made out of Jack’s hair. You twist it when you’re thinking of him. Well, this scar reminds me of someone, too. I wish I could take it off to forget, like a ring, but I can’t. It’s the mark of my folly. It’ll be with me ’til the day I die.” The day she died. That was another story.
“My sister Antoinette and I had the same best friend growing up, Lacey Ferris. Her real name is Elizabeth, but her parents always called her Lacey after her baby clothes. Her brother Stuart was five years older. We three girls used to trail after Stuart until he found enough older boys to play with, and they kept away from us. But every time I went over to Lacey’s, I always looked for Stuart and tried to talk to him. I had quite a crush on him by the time I turned thirteen. But he was eighteen, and there were plenty of older girls. He never noticed me any more.” She sighed before pinning up the next sheet.
“But the war changed everything. I didn’t think Stuart was much interested in politics, but in the fall of ’Sixty-four, he signed up in a newly formed regiment. I wondered why he did it, for it looked like the war would surely be over soon. We all thought he looked dashing in his uniform. I had just turned fourteen, and he was getting ready to leave with his unit. He took me aside the night before he left and kissed me, out behind his parents’ barn. He, he touched me, and urged me to lie with him before he left in the morning.”
She paused and caught her breath before continuing. Martha turned an empty wash tub over and sat on it. Kate paced back and forth and rubbed her left hand.
“I was so intoxicated with his kisses and his touch that I didn’t want him to stop. As a doctor’s daughter, I knew all about how babies are made, but I didn’t care about the risk. I had the ‘Curse of Eve’ that night, though, and we couldn’t do as he wished. He kept kissing me and was insistent, but at length I prevailed upon him. He left, swearing he loved me and would write to me. I couldn’t sleep that night. I told Nettie about him kissing me, but not the rest. His family and ours went to see the soldiers off the next day.” Kate sighed.
“All that fall term, I was in a daze. Stuart loved me! When he returned from the war, we should be married. Mrs. Stuart Ferris, wife of the war hero. I planned how many children we would have, gave them names, and thought of us pushing a pram together. In December, when Lacey and her family sent a daguerreotype to Stuart, I badgered my mother to have one made of me and sent it to him, along with a blue scarf I’d knitted. I wrote him a long letter each week. I had only one reply from him, in November. He was engaged in the siege of Petersburg by then. Lacey and the family only got one letter a month, so I didn’t think anything of the frequency of his letters.
“We had a happy Christmas, knowing the war would be over soon. I must have been obnoxious with my fantasies by then. My sister wanted a room of her own just to get away from me, and mother converted a sewing room for her.” Kate found another wash tub and upended it so she could sit nearly knee-to-knee with Martha.
“But he didn’t come home from the war, did he, darlin’?”
“No, he didn’t. The blow came in mid-January. Stuart died of cholera in camp just before Christmas, but we didn’t find out for nearly three weeks. Lacey didn’t come to school one morning, and her family sent word to my father at the hospital. He told my mother, and they got Reverend Pomeroy, our pastor; they all came and told me at once. It was good that father was a doctor. Mother said I became hysterical and couldn’t be consoled. They gave me something to make me sleep—laudanum—and when I woke up, it was two days later.” Martha reached out for Kate’s scarred left hand and wiped her own eyes with a handkerchief.
“Stuart was buried at Petersburg, but there was a memorial service for him that Saturday. I couldn’t pull myself together to attend it, but Father gave me a little laudanum again before we went. I wore my best black dress. When we got home, I went to my closet with a scissors and cut up all my clothes that weren’t black. I planned to dress as a widow all that year. Father was furious at the waste, but Mother understood.
“I drifted through the last few months of the school term in a daze. I told my mother as school ended that I felt like a stranger in my own life. I swore to her I should never marry, should never listen to the pleas of another man, let alone fall in love. She urged me to make a career for myself, to get out of Buffalo with all its memories. I’d always been good at taking care of younger children, so she encouraged me to teach Sunday school. When I got older, she helped me apply to Miss Bishop’s Normal School, where I learned to become a teacher. I graduated in May, and the town council offered me a position. So here I am.”
She finished on a brighter note and was relieved to see Martha wipe away her tears.
“What about your hand, darlin’? That scar?”
Kate looked down so she wouldn’t have to meet Martha’s eyes. “I got carried away with the scissors, cutting up all those dresses. This was the result.”
Maybe some day she’d tell her the truth. No one but her family knew the whole story. Martha hugged her and they went off to do separate chores.
Kate went back upstairs to her room in the front, looking to see if she’d forgotten anything. She found her robe behind the door and her small picture of Niagara Falls, and took them down the hall. They made this temporary room look more homey. But her conversation with Martha and the little picture of the falls made her remember. Oh, Stuart. . . .
* * * * *
Kate always kept the Niagara print next to a little picture of young Stuart that Lacey gave her. After his death, she created a sort of shrine to him in her room. Through that winter and spring, all she could think of was their parting. If only she could have had his baby. She blamed herself for refusing him. Never mind that they couldn’t have conceived a child that night.
Some days in the depths of winter, when hopes are bleakest anyway, Kate would go watch Nettie and their brother Ted skating. She didn’t skate any more. It was something she’d done with Stuart and Lacey when they were younger, and she couldn’t abide the idea of enjoying anything. Kate learned where all the thin ice was and began to think how she might drown herself. But whenever she went out, Nettie or Ted was always with her. She knew one or both of them would likely perish trying to save her.
Kate’s plan came to her in a press account. In the spring, when the ice broke up, the falls were in full force. The newspapers carried stories of disconsolate lovers hurling themselves into the maelstrom. She resolved to end her life that way and planned to do it on May 27th, Stuart’s birthday. Her parents wouldn’t let her go anywhere by herself, but they let her go next door to Lacey’s. She suggested to Lacey during one visit that they should send some flowers over the falls to mark Stuart’s birthday. Lacey promised to get them a carriage that day and keep their trip secret. No need to tell Lacey her plan.
Kate woke up early on Thursday, the last week of her life. She walked to school mechanically and after lunch she was out back using one of the three girls’ privies. Two of her friends, Amelia and Constance—well, she thought they we
re her friends up to that point—came to use the other two. They didn’t know Kate was there.
The two girls spoke of Lucy Harris, another girl they all knew, who’d dropped out of school and gone to live with an aunt in Vermont just before Christmas. Kate hadn’t paid any attention to Lucy’s departure at the time. Amelia said Lucy’d had to leave school because she became pregnant with Stuart’s child last summer. Then Constance confided to Amelia that she too had been with Stuart about the same time, that he’d told her he loved her, and would marry her. Fortunately, she said, there had been no issue from their union. Stuart had joined the Army to get out of marrying Lucy.
Then they laughed and wondered if Stuart had had relations with Kate. He’d told them he intended to try and was sure she would allow it. They giggled and said they’d wondered at the time why Stuart should be interested in such a child.
Kate threw up quietly in the privy and didn’t leave until the other girls were gone. She didn’t remember how she made it back into the school, but she told her teacher she was having cramps. Miss Carteret excused Kate and she staggered home. Tears burned her eyes so badly she could barely see. How could she have been such a fool? Stuart didn’t love her, had never loved her. And if he had come home, he wouldn’t have married her. All this time, she believed she’d been important to him. She’d been about to kill herself for love of him. As much as she despised Stuart, she hated herself more.
When Kate got home, she went upstairs to the little shrine where she kept Stuart’s picture in its silver and glass frame. She seized it and smashed it upon the corner of her bureau, breaking it again and again into pieces. When she saw what a mess she’d made, she began to pick up the larger bits. Nearly blinded by tears, she noticed some pieces felt sticky, then saw drops of blood on the floor. A jagged splinter of glass, about the size of a pen knife, transfixed her left hand.
Murder for Greenhorns Page 21