The Peacemaker’s Vengeance

by Gary D. Svee

  Mac looked over his shoulder at his mother as he stepped through the door into a morning wet with dew. Mary stood in the doorway and watched as he walked through the grass and trees of the river bottom to climb over the rail bed, slipping a bit on the loose gravel. He turned then and waved at his mother before disappearing over the top.

  Mary turned to reenter the cabin, stopping when a glint of enameled metal caught her eye. The blue enameled washbasin lay off the corner of the step and when Mary picked it up, she noticed a slight dent in one side. Mac must have dropped it. That’s odd, she thought, carrying the basin into the house. Mac wasn’t usually so careless.

  19

  The sheriff sat behind his desk, back stiff as a man awaiting his drop at the gallows. He had wiped the desk clean that afternoon of everything that had gone before, clearing it for everything to come.

  Precisely in the center of the desk was a letter from Catherine Lang. The sheriff had been conjuring the contents of the letter, turning it this way and that so the words might tumble out on his desk. But the desk was empty of words. Only the letter was there.

  Drinkwalter picked up the missive and passed it to Mac. “Apples, Mac. Just the faintest smell of apples. She’s been in the park again, sitting at the same bench she was sitting at when we first met.”

  “I think she’s wondering whether she should come out here. She must be wondering whatever possessed her to stake her future on someone like me who’s never made anything of his life.”

  “She’s probably weeping her eyes out,” Mac said.

  The sheriff’s eyes jerked to Mac.

  Mac looked the sheriff full in the eyes. “She’s probably wondering how she ever hooked her train to a sorry son of a bitch like you.”

  Drinkwalter’s face tightened.

  “I figure she’s been reading my letters and bewailing all those years she wasted on you when she could have a handsome young lad like me.”

  The sheriff cocked his head. Then he smiled and chuckled, Mac joining in.

  “I have been doing that, haven’t I?”

  Mac nodded. “Poor Sheriff Drinkwalter has to marry the woman of his dreams. Poor, damn sheriff.”

  The sheriffhooted. “Yes, I am one sorry son of a bitch.”

  “Every sorry son of a bitch in the nation holds you up as an ideal that we all strive for.”

  The sheriff laughed again. “Read the letter, Mac.”

  Mac wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of his eye and opened the letter.

  “Beloved:”

  “I am in the process of shedding the person I have been. I never imagined all the material things that are necessary to life. Simple things like canceling my milk and ice deliveries, changing the subscriptions of my magazines to Mrs. Frank Drinkwalter of Eagles Nest, Montana. I run that name over my tongue a hundred times a day, and each time it brings a smile to my lips.”

  “I intend to bring some of my mother’s furniture with me. I hope you don’t mind. Her family has been in America since its birth, and she has furniture passed along to her from that time. They are beautiful useless things, but I would like to keep them to pass along to our children so that they can have a sense of their roots. Our children: Is that not a wondrous thing to consider? If we should be blessed with a boy, I hope that he is the spitting image of his father. And a girl: She must be as my mother was. How beautiful she was as a young woman.”

  “Mr. Clavedatcher, my mother’s attorney, has been scurrying about to handle the legal details of her passing. And through it all, I think only of you. I awake in the morning with your face clearly before me, and fall to sleep at night pretending that I am resting my head on your cheek.”

  “Franklin Nicholas Drinkwalter, you are the man of my dreams, and soon those dreams will become a reality. I will be with you in that wondrous place you describe in your letters, and nothing—nothing—will ever tear us apart.”

  “I’ve saved the best for last. I’ve bought my train ticket to Montana. How many times I’ve dreamed of stepping up to the stationmaster and saying, ‘One-way trip to Eagles Nest, Montana, please.’ I went to the station Saturday and bought the ticket, and the vendor said, ‘Eagles Nest, Montana: whereabouts would that be?’”

  “‘That would be next door to paradise,’ I said. ‘Just next door to paradise.’”

  “He gave me the oddest look, and then he smiled. Isn’t it odd about smiles? The more you give, the more you receive. Without realizing it, I’ve been smiling at everyone, and everyone is smiling at me. I’m so pleased they can share my happiness.”

  “Beloved, I know this is presumptuous of me, but it has been a tradition of the family Lang since the Revolution to marry off its women on the Fourth of July. Could we please continue that tradition? I will be arriving in Eagles Nest July 2. I’ll be bringing my own gown, and the service will necessarily be small. I don’t know anyone in Eagles Nest to stand up with me, but I would like Mac’s mother to be there. I’ve not heard two words about her, but I know that she must be a wonderful person to have raised such a fine young man.”

  “Mac, please ask your mother to meet me at the station. I hate to be an imposition, but I will need someone to help me get acquainted with Eagles Nest, and I am giddy with excitement. I’m afraid I’ll suffer some faux pas in the city of Eagles Nest and embarrass my husband—husband, how that rings in my ear.”

  “I must go now, beloved. Mac, please take care of my darling for me.”

  “Forever yours,”

  “Catherine Lang”

  Mac sighed and laid the letter back on the desk. The sheriff took it gently, as though it were a newborn child.

  “She wants to have children,” Drinkwalter said. “We never talked about it. I’ve not given it a lot of thought, but I would be pleased to have children, Mac, if they turned out like you.”

  Mac tried to smile, but he realized for the first time that he wasn’t gaining a surrogate mother but losing a surrogate father. Mac hadn’t realized how important the sheriff had become to him, and how much Catherine would be a wedge driven between them. There would be no more magic afternoons fishing with Drinkwalter and Big Jim Thompson. He might even lose his job. The sheriff could carry his mail home to Catherine at noon. She could do his correspondence.

  Then the boy realized how selfish he was being. The sheriff was his friend. Catherine was too. He felt close to her even though he had never met her. How could he put his own selfish interests ahead of his two best friends?

  Mac turned bright red, and he dropped his head against his chest, feeling revulsion with himself.

  “What’s wrong, Mac?”

  Mac couldn’t tell Drinkwalter what he had been thinking. He was too ashamed of himself. His mind skittered around like a drop of cold water on a hot skillet, trying to hide his spitefulness from his best friend.

  “Uh, I was just wondering about fox pass?”

  “Fox pass?”

  “In the letter Catherine talks about…”

  The boy held out his hand for the letter, skimming through the lines. “Right here, it says: ‘suffer some faux pas and embarrass my husband.’”

  “What is it about a fox pass that makes it so embarrassing?” Mac sagged limply in his chair, hiding his eyes, hoping that he had said something that would lead the sheriff’s mind astray.

  “Faux pas, Mac. The word is faux pas.”

  “How do you know that? You can’t even read.”

  The moment the words came from Mac’s mouth, he wished that he hadn’t said them. He didn’t know what made him so spiteful. He dropped his head to his chest, hiding from his friend’s eyes.

  Drinkwalter’s voice was almost a whisper. “Archie’s Ice Cream in Cincinnati. People would go there for ice cream, and he would read to them. It was something special, sitting at the counter and listening to him pull the words from the page. I think he must have been an actor once, or wished that he had been. It was almost like watching a play with only one character.”

 
“Archie was reading to us one day, and he said fox pass. Catherine interrupted him, so softly that no one but the three of us could have heard what he said. ‘Faux pas,’ she said. ‘It means “false step” in French.’

  “I thought that would upset Archie, but he just beamed. He stepped into the back room and came out with a yellow rose. He gave it to Catherine. ‘You gave me the gift of your attention,’ he said. ‘It is only fair that I should give you something in return.’”

  “That was when I learned what faux pas means, Max. When you can’t read, you learn to pay special attention to what other people mean.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right, Mac. If I knew how to read, we couldn’t have become such good friends. We are good friends, aren’t we?”

  “Best …” Mac said, the words choked off by the knot in his throat. Mac looked up, but the sheriff’s face was blurry, disappearing behind the sheen of tears in the boy’s eyes. He jumped to his feet and turned his back on the sheriff, his fists tightening as he strained to hold back the tears.

  Mac McPherson wouldn’t cry. Nobody could make him cry.

  “Mac, I have a favor to ask. I was wondering if maybe your mother could come over to my place and see if there is anything she could do to make it a little more … well, feminine. Maybe put up some curtains or something.”

  “I never thought of it as much more than a place to eat and sleep. Now Catherine’s coming out, and I don’t have anything better to offer her. Maybe your ma could look it over. If she saw something that needs doing, I’ll do it or pay her whatever it costs and for her time.”

  “Do you suppose she’d do that for me?”

  Mac nodded and then the stepped out the door: “I’ll go talk to her,” the boy said, the words dying behind him.

  Mary McPherson looked up as her son stepped through the door. Mac’s cheeks seemed red, chapped. The wind must have picked up a bit, although Mary hadn’t heard it sighing through the tops of the cotton-woods outside.

  “Hi, Ma.”

  “Hi, Mac.”

  Mary smiled. “Sounds like a vaudeville act, doesn’t it?”

  “Just me and Ma tripping the light fantastic on the boards,” Mac said, but Mary could see that her son’s mind wasn’t on banter.

  “How did your day go?”

  “Okay. I did a story for Ben Simpkins: Town Council voted to put in a boardwalk next to the park on the south side of Main Street. He paid me a dime. Nobody gets rich in the newspaper business.”

  “Some people make their mothers very proud.”

  Mac dropped the dime into the tin can beside the range and turned to smile at his mother. “Thought maybe we could-have an ice-cream cone at the soda fountain. They’ve got strawberry and maple nut.”

  “Strawberry for you and maple nut for me,” Mary said, smiling. “Did the sheriff find out when Catherine would be coming?”

  “Yeah, July second.”

  “Not much time to finish the house.”

  “Nope.” Mac clapped his hand to his forehead. “Dang it!”

  “Mac!”

  “Sony, Ma, it’s just that I forgot to tell Sparks when Catherine is coming. I have to get the word to Big Jim, too, so he can figure out some ruse to get the sheriff out of town.”

  Mac shook his head. “I’m letting everyone down.”

  “You’re not letting me down.”

  Mac looked up and smiled. “No, I’ll never let you down, Ma.”

  Mac rolled up his sleeves and joined his mother at the stove. She was rinsing her wash, squeezing hot, clear water from each piece putting it in a wicker basket.

  Mac gestured to his mother’s chair, and she nodded. It had been a long hard day. People were putting their winter clothing away. They wanted it washed, pressed, and folded to hold the scent of the sun through summer and fall. Montanans need the scent of sun in winter to remind them that the season doesn’t last forever.

  Mac wrung the last piece of clothing, putting it into a basket to carry to the clothesline outside. He cocked his head. “Ma, you’d never guess what the sheriff’s real name is.”

  “His real name?”

  “All of it. The whole thing.”

  “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

  “Franklin Nicholas Drinkwalter. That’s a lot of name to hang on anyone.”

  Mary smiled. “Parents have the highest hopes for their children. They look at those wrinkled little lives and see presidents and senators and captains of industry, so they pin grand appellations on them.”

  Mac’s eyelid crawled up. “Did you pin a grand appellation on me?”

  “Of course we did—Maximilien.”

  “Maximilien? My name is Maximilien?”

  “That’s what it says on your birth certificate, but it never really stuck.”

  “So I’m never going to be a president or a senator or a captain of industry?”

  “No, you’re never going to be Maximilien.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  Mary laughed.

  “Ma, you got to promise you won’t ever tell anyone that my name is Maximilien.”

  “I wont. Actually, your name is Mac. We both looked at you, and we both said Mac. You were Mac as a baby and you’re Mac now. I just didn’t want you to get on Sheriff Franklin Nicholas Drinkwalter too hard just because his parents gave him a moniker like that.”

  Mac stared at his mother in disbelief. “Me tease Franklin Nicholas? I’m surprised you think so little of me.”

  Mary smiled.

  Then Mac turned serious. “After I finish the wash, do you suppose I could go to the station and talk to Sparks? I’m sorry about the ice cream, but—”

  “Mr. Pierson,” Mary interjected.

  Mac nodded, impatient to continue. “Do you suppose I could go to the station and tell Mr. Pierson that Catherine—?”

  “Miss Lang.”

  “Ah, Ma.”

  “Miss Lang.”

  “All right. Could I tell Mr. Pierson when Miss Lang is coming so we can tell Mr. Thompson in Billings, so he can figure out a way to get Mr. Drinkwalter into Billings so we can build that”—Mac visibly bit his lip—“house?”

  “I suppose, Maximihen.”

  “That’s Mr. Maximihen to you, Mrs. McPherson,” Mac said, and they both chuckled.

  Sparks leaned back in his telegrapher’s cage. One eye was squinted shut, and his pencil beat out a rat-a-tat-tat on the counter as he thought aloud.

  “July second. That doesn’t give us much time. The foundation is set up just fine. Major Stilson was in here just yesterday, patting himself on the back. Pete Pfeister says it will take three days, even with the crew he’s put together. I suppose we could speed it up a little by having the lumber all picked out and ready to go. We can even haul it up there the night before and have it all set. The ladies will want an early start to get all the food up there. Probably need more wagons for that than for the lumber.”

  Pierson looked at Mac and grinned. “Pfeister is taking a couple kegs of beer. Nothing like a mug of beer after a long day. Nothing like a mug of beer.”

  Pierson sucked in his breath as though it were foam from the top of a mug.

  “We’ll have to get the sheriff out of town from June twenty-eighth through July first. And he can’t come back until after dark July first or he’ll see the house. Three days. Do you suppose, Sheriff Thompson can hold Frank in Billings for three days?”

  Mac grinned. “I suspect he’ll do that if he has to sit on him.”

  “Good. I suppose it would be best to send a telegram.”

  Pierson leaned over the counter, licking the end of his pencil before he began writing on the form. “James Thompson, Yellowstone County Sheriff, Yellowstone County Courthouse, Billings, Montana.”

  Pierson leaned back.

  “Now what should we say?”

  “Need SSOB gone June twenty-eighth at night through July first. Imperative he remain until after dark July first. Sign it SSOB.”

 
“SSOB?”

  Mac cocked his head. “It’s a code sheriffs use in an emergency.”

  Pierson nodded. “All right. I’ll send it right off. Mac, if you don’t mind, maybe you could go to the lumberyard. Sal told Klaus to pick good stock. We’ll need nails and paint and windows and doors. Everything all set to go. You do that, and I’ll go over and tell Pfeister when we need the men. I better taste that beer. I wouldn’t want him to be giving us anything second rate.”

  Mac grinned. “You’re a good man, Sparks Pierson, to be so concerned for others.”

  “Thanks, Mac. I will drink a toast to your stunning perspicacity.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s a two-dollar word that means you’re almost as smart as me.”

  “When I get as smart as you, will I be allowed to drink beer?”

  “Can’t imagine it any other way. That’s how I got so smart.”

  Mac grinned and stepped through the door.

  The Dutchman stood behind the counter in his lumberyard listening to Mac. He seemed to be standing at attention, his back carved stiff by his Prussian ancestors. Two decades in America hadn’t rubbed a bit of the old country off Berger. He considered it an affront that Herr Pierson had sent a boy to talk to him about the lumber. Still, the boy was respectful. In these days in this country, you couldn’t ask for much more than that. The two had spent the evening sorting through lumber and loading it into wagons.

  “Ya, all vill be firsts. You tell dat Sparks he don’t have to worry none. Tell him, I got two vagons, but I don’t want to tie dem up all day, so would be good he get me anudder one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Berger smiled. Respect: That was good.

  Mac walked away from the lumberyard into the night. His mother was fixing salmon loaf. Salmon, or any fish that Mac didn’t catch, was a luxury, but with the five dollars a week Mac was bringing home, they could afford a little luxury now and then.