“I could use a pitcher of cold water, though.”
The barman grinned. “Be right back.”
Cassie squatted and poked and said, “Grandpa?” Jedediah didn’t move. She poked harder and he snorted and mumbled but didn’t wake up. Exasperated, she leaned against the fence. All these years, she’d never suspected his secret. Her pa and her ma had hidden it from her, to spare her feelings, probably. “I need you sober,” she said to the still form.
Presently the barman returned with a glass pitcher filled to the brim. “Want me to do it?”
“I’d rather,” Cassie said. “It will serve him right.”
“Here.” The barman gave her the pitcher. “I’d love to watch but I have customers. Bring it to me when you’re done.”
“I will,” Cassie promised. She waited until he was gone, then rolled Jedediah onto his back. His mouth fell open and he commenced to snore loud enough to be heard in Arkansas. “Dang you,” she said, and upended the pitcher over his face. The water cascaded into his mouth and nose and pooled under his head.
Jed came out of a black well sputtering and breathing water. He was bewildered out of his wits. The last he remembered, he had bought his third or fourth bottle. “What the hell?” he gurgled. Spitting and shaking his head, he squinted in the bright glare of the midday sun. A shadow fell across him. “What are you trying to do, you son of a bitch? Drown me?”
“Grandpa,” Cassie said sadly. “It’s me.”
Jed wiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “Cassie girl?” he said, and raised his head. The effort cost him. Pain exploded between his ears.
“You never came back.”
“What time is it?” Jed gritted his teeth and rose onto his elbows. He sniffed a few times. “Is that me?”
“You left me in the room all alone all night,” Cassie said.
“I’m sorry,” Jed said. He was sincere. The last thing in the world he ever wanted to do was hurt her feelings. “I got to drinking and got so sleepy I couldn’t stay awake.”
“You got so drunk, you mean.”
“I might have had a little more than I should,” Jed allowed. He slowly sat up. The pounding in his head and the churning in his gut made him so queasy, he was half afraid he would spew his insides.
Cassie said bluntly, “You need to stop drinking.”
Jed smacked his lips and scratched himself. “I wish to God I could. Honest I do. But I can’t.”
“All you have to do is tell yourself you won’t and you won’t.”
“It’s not that simple.” Jed shifted so his back was to the outhouse. He looked down at his buckskins. “Thanks for washing them for me. I like to at least once a year.”
“I’m serious, Grandpa,” Cassie said.
“So am I.” Jed ran a hand through his wet hair. “When I first took to drinking regular, it was because I lost Mary. She was the world to me, girl. It tore me apart, her dying.”
“So you’ve said many times.”
“Hear me out,” Jed said. “I’d never been a heavy drinker. Not like some. Always figured I could stop whenever I wanted. But something happened. I’d sit at the table and want a drink so bad, I’d break out in a sweat and shake something terrible. The more I drank, the worse it got. I was up to two to three bottles a day when I got word about Scarlet. Took a lot out of me having to sneak drinks when I could at your place.”
“You worry me, Grandpa.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to. I came to the saloon last night thinking I’d have a glass or two but once I started I couldn’t stop.” Jed grinned sheepishly and patted her head. “Will you forgive me?”
“Can you give me your word it won’t ever happen again?”
“No.”
“Oh, Grandpa.” Cassie turned away. This, on top of everything else, was almost more than she could bear. “I thought you cared for me.”
Jed heaved to his feet. A sudden attack of dizziness made his legs go weak. He braced himself against the outhouse or he would have fallen. When he was able to, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her so she faced him.
“Cassie girl, I care for you more than you can imagine. You and your brother both. I’d do anything for you. But giving up drink just ain’t in me. I need it as much as I need to breathe.”
“What am I to do when I have to count on you?”
“Except for now, when have I let you down?” Jed countered. He held up his hand when she opened her mouth to reply. “I know. What’s to keep me from doing it again? Nothing, I’m afraid. Sometimes the craving is so powerful I’m not myself. But I give you my word I’ll do my best not to give in.”
“I want more than that, Grandpa. When you feel the craving coming on, I want you to tell me and we’ll keep you sober together.”
“They say that miracles happen,” Jed said.
Seagulls screeched and wheeled in the blue vault of clear sky. On the shore other gulls sought edibles washed in on the tide; crabs were a favorite. The pilings under the wharf were encrusted with the residue of countless tides and the water smelled strong of fish. Out on the bay a pelican was taking off.
Chace leaned against a piling with his hands in his pockets and whistled to himself.
The crunch of boots heralded Sergeant Rutter. He stopped a good ten feet away. “You’re punctual. That’s good. Tunk kept me waiting half the time.”
“I wanted to get it over with,” Chace said.
“Did you bring the money?”
Chace took a hand out of his waistcoat pocket and patted it. “Three hundred dollars, just like you wanted.”
“Bring it here.”
Chace nodded and walked over. He slid his hand into the pocket and brought it out again holding a pearl-handled derringer. He thumbed back the hammer.
“What the hell is this?” Rutter snapped.
“Three hundred dollars is too much.”
“Don’t give me that,” Rutter said. “You make three times that in a month. You can spare it.”
“I’m letting them keep more of their money,” Chace informed him.
“Why in hell would you do that? They don’t deserve it, the little grubs. And even so, you hand over the three hundred or I’ll have every hawker rounded up and turned over to an orphanage. Just see if I don’t.”
“What I want to see is you taking your six-gun out and setting it down.”
“Like hell I will.”
Chace pointed the derringer at Rutter’s forehead. “This is your one and only chance.”
“You don’t scare me,” Rutter said. “No one shoots a policeman. Not if they know what’s good for them.”
“After you set down your six-shooter, you’re to walk into the water until it is up to your neck.”
Sergeant Rutter laughed. “This is what I get for being nice. I’ve changed my mind. I’m hauling you in for murdering Tunk. I have a witness who will testify against you. The judge is a friend of mine and it won’t be hard to persuade him to throw away the key.”
Chace kicked him in the knee. Rutter cried out and bent to clasp his hands to his leg and Chace kicked him in the throat. The lawman fell back against a piling and clawed for his revolver. Chace kicked him in the other knee. Swearing and gasping, Rutter went down. He got his revolver out and tried to take aim. Chace clubbed him in the side of the neck, not once but several times. Rutter’s fingers went limp and the revolver dropped. Seething mad, Rutter swung his other arm, but Chace skipped back. Rutter snarled and cursed. In a rush, Chace was on him, hitting Rutter’s throat and neck again and again. The lawman sagged and broke into convulsions. His eyes rolled up in his head. Chace went on hitting him in the same spot. When the convulsions stopped, so did he. He pressed his fingers to a vein.
“Is he still breathing?”
Chace whirled. “What are you doing here? I didn’t say you were to follow me.”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t,” Tallulah said as she came out of the shadows. “I wouldn’t have shown myself except you’re abo
ut to have company.” She pointed down the beach.
A middle-aged man and his dog were having fun playing fetch. The man would throw a piece of driftwood into the surf and the dog would run in after it and bring it back to be tossed anew.
“Get down,” Chace warned.
The dog came out of the water and stopped and shook itself, spraying drops.
Laughing, the man patted it on the head. He tried to take the driftwood but the dog held on. Their mock tug-of-war brought them near the wharf. When the dog finally opened its jaws, the man threw the stick as far as he could away from the pilings and the dog lit out after it. The man, puffing, trailed after.
“What would you have done if he saw us?” Tallulah asked.
Chace didn’t answer. He let down the hammer and pocketed the derringer, then took hold of Rutter’s ankles and pulled. Without being asked, Tallulah helped. She couldn’t do much, as small as she was, but she huffed and tugged until they were at the water’s edge. There she collapsed and said, “For a skinny man he sure is heavy.”
Chace checked the shore. He quickly went through each pocket and gave her what he found. He unpinned the badge and gave that to her, too. Then he hurried under the wharf, gathering an armful of rocks, big and small. He made several trips. Kneeling, he stuffed the small ones in Rutter’s pockets. The large rocks he put up Rutter’s shirt in the front and rolled the body over and shoved more rocks up the shirt in the back. He tightened Rutter’s belt, braced his feet, and pushed. It took some doing but after a minute the body was on the bottom in three feet of water.
Chace waded onto shore.
Tallulah was staring at him with a strange look in her eyes.
“What?” Chace asked.
“I heard what he said. You did that to keep him from taking our money, didn’t you?”
“My reasons are my own,” Chace said.
Tallulah’s eyes sparkled. “Can I tell you something?”
“If you want.”
“When I’m older I’m going to marry you.”
25
Linsey, Newton, and Randy weren’t happy. They had just got off the ferry and stood with the reins to their mounts in their hands staring at the bustling hive that was Galveston.
“Damn, it’s big,” Linsey said.
“Bigger than I reckoned,” Newton said.
“Big enough it could take forever to find him,” Randy threw in.
They left the landing and hiked along the street taking in the sights and sounds. In a while they came on a side street with a lot fewer people and Linsey went down it and stopped in front of a bakery. The aroma had all three sniffing.
Newton’s stomach rumbled like thunder in the distance. “We ain’t ate in a spell.”
“We will in a minute,” Linsey said. “First we’ve got to work this out. We have to do it smarter than we did in Dallas. I want to find him quick.”
Randy said, “We all do. But how?”
“We could ask the law,” Newton suggested. “Maybe he’s got into trouble and they’ll know where we could find him.”
“Oh, that’s smart, sure enough,” Linsey said. “They’d want to know why we’re asking and we’ll just up and tell them we’re looking to bury the son of a bitch.”
“We could lie.”
Linsey shook his head. “We keep the law out of this. We find Chace Shannon, we turn him into maggot bait, and we head home.” He rubbed his chin. “Think, you lunkheads. Where is he likely to be?”
“He’ll need a place to stay so we could ask around at the hotels,” Randy suggested.
“Unless he’s staying at a boardinghouse,” Newton said.
“He needs to eat, so we could try all the restaurants and such,” Linsey proposed. “A city this size, there shouldn’t be more than a couple of dozen. And he should stand out, wearing those buckskins we’ve been told he’s partial to.”
“If he’s still wearing them,” Newton said.
“We could go to all the whorehouses,” Randy brought up. “He’d bound to need a woman.”
“Unless he’s taken up with one and is getting it for free,” Newton said.
Linsey growled, “Keep shooting them down, why don’t you? I’d like to hear your idea.”
Just then a boy with dirty cheeks came up to them. A small wooden box hung from a strap over his shoulder. “Shine your boots for you.”
“Get lost, runt,” Randy said.
“Only two bits each,” the boy persisted. “I’ll shine them so good you can see yourself.”
“That’s stupid,” Newton said. “Who wants to see themselves in their boots?”
“I’ll shine all of you for two bits. How would that be?”
“Go away, consarn it,” Linsey said, and swung his foot at the boy’s backside. The boy skipped out of reach and made a face and hurried off.
“Little nuisance,” Newton grumped.
“Now, where were we?” Randy said.
“We were trying to figure out who to ask about Chace Shannon,” Linsey reminded him. “There has got to be someone.”
A lonely stretch of prairie spread ahead and behind them. They’d only seen a few other travelers all day. At sunset they made camp beside a stand of trees that offered some shelter from the wind. Cassie gathered fallen branches and Jed kindled the fire. He had shot a rabbit that afternoon and Cassie skinned it and chopped some of the meat into pieces and impaled the pieces on sticks. Her hair kept falling into her face as she chopped and she brushed it back with her bloody fingers.
Jed held his spit to the flames. Presently the smell of the roast meat made his mouth water. “I sure am hungry. Thirsty, too.”
“You touch that flask, I’ll kick you,” Cassie said. She was glad that for two days he had behaved. “I’ve put coffee on.”
Jed would have dearly loved a drink. The craving had come over him. Not as strong yet as it would be but strong enough that a drink was all he could think of. He went to take another bite when the shadows in the trees moved and two men emerged. “Cassie girl,” he whispered in warning, and lowered his hand to his Sharps.
Both wore clothes that had seen a lot of wear, along with floppy hats. One had a hat with a leather band; the other’s hat was plain. Both had unkempt tangles of beards and cradled large-bore Ballard rifles in their brawny arms. “How do, friend?” said Plain Hat to Jed.
About to take a bite, Cassie froze. The men were big and scary looking. She didn’t like how their eyes gleamed in the firelight, or how although the one had spoken to her grandpa, he was staring at her.
“We’d be obliged for a bite of supper,” said the other.
“Have a seat, gents,” Jed said, and placed the Sharps across his lap. “There’s plenty enough for all of us. Cassie, why don’t you cook some of that there rabbit for our guests?”
“Sure, Grandpa.” Cassie pried a leg off the rabbit, and sliced. She avoided looking at the men.
“That your name, girl? Cassie?” said Hat with the Leather Band.
“That’s a pretty name,” said Plain Hat.
Jed sniffed. An odor clung to them strong. It made him think of a bear rug he once had, only different. “What’s that smell?”
“Buff,” said Plain Hat.
“You’re hide hunters?” Jed guessed.
Plain Hat nodded. “Got our horses and pack animals in the trees. We’re on our way to St. Louis.”
“Not many buffs there,” Jed said.
“Not many buffs anywhere, anymore,” Plain Hat said. “Used to be millions and now there’s a trickle.”
A couple of the other man’s front teeth were missing, and when he grinned, it made him look like a simpleton. “We like to go to St. Louis for the ladies.”
Cassie had made spits for them. Rising, she gave a spit to each.
“You’re as pretty as your name,” Plain Hat said.
“How old are you?” asked the one with the hat with the leather band.
“That’s enough about my granddaughter,” Jed said g
ruffly. He didn’t like how they were admiring her.
“We thought maybe she was your wife,” said Hat with the Leather Band.
“As young as she is?” Jed said.
Plain Hat licked his lips.“I like them young. Older ones nag too much. And they don’t taste near as sweet.”
Jed felt a flush of anger. He started to raise the Sharps, then saw that Hat with the Leather Band was pointing the Ballard rifle at him.
“I wouldn’t,” Plain Hat said.
“What is this?” Jed demanded, although he knew perfectly well what it was, and a finger of ice ran down his spine.
“It’s a long way to St. Louis,” Plain Hat said.
Jason Drake came every night to Madame Bovary’s, without fail. He came at the same time, seven o’clock. He always chose Sasha, and he always stayed an hour and only an hour. He was a gambler, and it was said he was the best in Galveston, if not all of Texas. He always wore the same attire: a wide-brimmed black hat, a black frock coat, a white shirt with a black tie, black pantaloons, and black boots made of calf leather.
Chace opened the door and gave a slight bow as Madame Bovary insisted he do. “Mr. Drake,” he said.
The gambler entered and paused. He always paused and examined himself in the mirror, and if need be, adjusted his attire. “Mr. Shannon.” He always had an easy smile, too. He nodded and started down the hall.
“Mr. Drake,” Chace said again.
Jason Drake stopped and turned. A certain wariness was in his poise and his gray eyes. “What is it?”
“I want to ask a favor.”
“I only do favors for my friends.”
“I’d like for you to take me under your wing.”
Drake was puzzled. “Under my wing how?”
“I want to be a gambler like you.”
“Do you, now?” Drake’s easy smile returned. “You’re too young, son. In a few years ask me again.”
“How old do you have to be?” Chace asked. “I’m old enough to have been with a girl and had a taste of liquor. I’m old enough to have snuffed a wick or three. But I’m not old enough to play cards?”
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