by J. Birch
Don strolled out of the doors, holding a plate in his hands. He shoveled scrambled eggs into his mouth and watched.
“What’s going on here?” Tracker asked.
Don opened his mouth to explain, but Sylvia stepped in front of him and said, “The Reverend is leaving us, Sheriff. Don’t let him.”
Tracker looked at Tickie. Tickie’s eyes glowed in his sooty face. He blinked furiously.
“Is he acting belligerent?” Tracker asked.
“No,” Sylvia said.
“He strike you or my deputy?”
“No,” Sylvia said impatiently. “Why are you asking such foolish questions?”
“If he hasn’t broken a law, then I can’t hold him,” Tracker said. “He’s a free man, and a free man can do as he pleases.”
“That’s right,” Tickie said.
“But surely there’s a law against losing a preacher,” Sylvia protested. “Doesn’t every town need a man of God?”
“Not without a church!” Tickie declared. “No church, no preacher. I’m leaving.”
“We’ll rebuild it,” Sylvia said, clutching his shoulders.
“The law doesn’t require a town to have a church,” Tracker said. “And who’s going to rebuild it, you?”
Sylvia stomped her foot. “Men. If The Ram had burned, you’d already have a new frame sunk into the ground. But a church is of no consequence.”
Tracker heard the rumble of the stagecoach. “He’s early.”
“The sooner I’m out of here, the better,” Tickie said, wrenching himself from Sylvia’s grasp.
“Reverend, I’m begging you,” she said, clasping her hands. “Stay. I’ll do anything.”
Looking at the hotel, Tickie said, “A twenty percent share.”
“Absolutely not!” she exclaimed.
“Then goodbye.”
“Sheriff,” Sylvia said. “Please do something.”
“You got any luggage needs loading?” Tracker asked.
Tickie pulled a Bible out of his coat pocket. “This is all I have left.”
The coach stopped in front of them. “Got no mail,” the driver said. “You got any passengers?”
Tickie raised his finger. “Just one.” He opened the door and climbed aboard.
“Where will you go?” Tracker asked.
“Away,” Tickie said, slamming the door.
With a snap of the reins, the coach turned around and headed out of town. Sticking his head out of the window, Tickie yelled, “Devil’s trough! Devil’s trough! De-vil’s Trough!”
Don stopped eating long enough to say, “I for one will miss him.”
“This won’t stand, Tom,” Sylvia said, pressing her fingers to her forehead. “This town needs a church. Without it, we’re nothing but Satan’s bed.”
“Trough,” Tracker corrected. He watched the coach roll out of sight. “Don, I want a word with you at the office.”
“I still got coffee coming.”
“Bring it with you.”
“Once Tate finishes brewing it, I’ll come,” Don said. “Until then, you’ll just have to wait, now won’t you?”
Tracker looked at him. He nodded. He wouldn’t give the blowhard any satisfaction, especially in public. He continued on to the office.
“Sheriff,” Sylvia called after him. “This is the worst sort of luck. You’ll see!”
* * *
Don took his sweet time, more than enough for Tate to make three pots of coffee and most of a banquet. “Sorry I’m late,” he said, strolling in. “Sylvia wouldn’t let me take my cup with me.”
“Sit down, Don,” Tracker said, motioning to the stool.
“Oh, I’m not staying,” he said, plucking his hat off the nail beside the door. “My shift is done and I’m going home.”
Tracker stood from behind the desk. “Please. I just want to square things between us.”
Don grunted. “You want to square things? You threatened to shoot me.”
“I was angry with Tickie, not you,” Tracker said. “I had no proof you had anything to do with Devlin’s lynching.”
“No, you surely did not,” he said, leaning in the doorway. He dug into the frame with his thumbnail. “Know what your problem is, Tom? You don’t know how valuable I am to this office. So I’m gonna tell you. Gold. I’m gold to this office.”
“How do you figure?” Tracker asked.
“Ed gets shot, and who cares?” Don said. “A few toothless kin from the mountains. I get shot and you lose your peace with the Dupois family. Last night, you were wrong about everything except for one thing: I am pals with Andy Dupois. Now, he may not be the bear his pa was, but he’s still a Dupois.”
“So?”
Andy chuckled. “Haven’t you ever wondered how it is three lawmen can keep this town from folding? How many deputies you figure ol’ Garnell has up in Brush, a half-dozen? They got ranch land up there. How about in Waterbrick or Murphy? Seven lawmen protecting two silver towns gone dry. We’re a gold town, Tom, and yet you’ve never employed more than two deputies. Do you really think that’s because you’re some big shot policeman from Bear Hunt?” He smiled. “If it wasn’t for the Dupois family, the longriders and b’hoys would’ve rolled into Gasher Creek like dynamite and blown this town to Heaven. You’re nothing without that family, and you’d take care to remember that before cussing me out again.” He turned to leave.
“Wait,” Tracker said, moving toward him. “I’m not through with you yet.”
Don slipped his hat on. “Oh yeah? You got something else to say to me?”
“I do,” Tracker said, and punched him in the face.
Don stumbled out the door, fell off the sidewalk, and splashed into the mud. Rolling onto his knees, he pulled his knife, but Tracker was there to kick it out of his hand and crack him across the jaw. “Stay down,” he said, then cried out as Don smashed his foot into his knee. Tracker dropped, but drove his elbow into Don’s chest on the way down.
Don growled up at him, his teeth bloody.
“You’re right, Don,” Tracker said, cuffing him across the forehead. “I’m as useless as a mewling kitten. What would I ever do without you?”
“Sheriff!”
Tracker heard Sylvia, but ignored her. He didn’t care that he was rolling in the mud and the shit, that everyone in town was watching, that he wasn’t acting like a proper lawman. After all, he was proving her right. Children did need a good swat now and then.
“Sheriff, help!”
Tracker turned. Between the spokes of a wagon, he saw her standing outside the hotel, holding what appeared to be some sort of sack. The crowd that had gathered to watch the brawl was now staring at her as she screamed his name a third time.
Tracker stood to get a proper look.
It wasn’t a sack.
It was a small, limp body.
“Jimmy,” Tracker said. He turned to Don. “Come on, something’s wrong with Jimmy.”
Don got to his feet and flicked the mud from his hands. Blood spilled over the sides of his mouth. He spat. “No Tom,” he said. “I’m through with you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge. Dropping it in the mud, he said, “Hope the nights are to your liking.” He pulled his knife out of the mud, wiped it on his leg, and then limped away.
Tracker didn’t have time to argue. He turned and charged through the traffic, shoving rushers out of his way as he hurried toward Sylvia.
“Sheriff,” she said. “Please, help him.”
Tracker leapt onto the sidewalk.
Jimmy lay in her arms, his head resting in the crook of her elbow. His eyes were shut, his little hands squeezed into fists. His face was ashen.
Tate rushed out of the hotel, wiping his hands on a towel. Seeing his son, he let out a squeak and cupped his hands to his face.
“I called for him, but he never answered,” Sylvia said, sobbing. “When I went upstairs, I found him in the hallway. What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know,” Trac
ker said. “Give him to me.”
She hesitated.
“I promise I won’t drop him,” Tracker said. “Please—I can get him to the Doc’s faster than you can.”
“It’s all right,” Tate said, touching her arm. “Let the sheriff take him.”
“You can follow,” Tracker said, scooping the limp child into his arms. He was heavy; the kind of heaviness a body only got when—
“Out of my way!” he shouted, turning around. The crowd parted as he ran toward the Doc’s house. He held the boy close, dodging the pedestrian traffic and trying not to slip on the muddy planks.
“Doc!” he shouted, jumping off one sidewalk and leaping upon another. “Doc, wake the hell up!”
Up ahead, the Doc’s side door opened. He stuck his head out and squinted in the sunlight. His hair was a mess. He wasn’t wearing his glasses. His trousers weren’t buttoned and a dollop of jam clung to his shirt. He said, “What in creation is going on out—oh!” and jumped back as Tracker charged into the waiting room.
Seeing the boy, the Doc said, “Quickly, on the table.”
Tracker entered the examination room and lay Jimmy on the table. The Doc nudged him out of the way as he pushed on his glasses. He leaned in for a closer look.
“Well?” Tracker asked.
The Doc placed his ear against the boy’s chest.
“Dammit, Doc, speak to me!”
“No heartbeat,” he said, straightening up. “Hand me that mirror, Tom.”
Tracker grabbed a small mirror off the shelf and handed it to the Doc. Holding it under the boy’s nose and mouth, the Doc said, “Damn.”
“What are you doing?”
“Checking for a breath.” The Doc removed it, held it under.
Removed it.
Held it under.
Finally, he removed the mirror and swore with such viciousness that Tracker took a step back.
Setting the mirror back on the shelf, the Doc said, “I’m sorry, Tom. He’s gone.”
“Dead?” Tracker said. “How?”
“I—”
The Doc stopped talking as he looked out the window. “Oh no. Here she comes.”
Sylvia marched toward them, flanked by Tate and Ben. A gaggle of onlookers followed close behind.
“She can’t come in,” Doc said. “Not yet. I need a moment to examine the child.”
“I’ll stall,” Tracker said. “Tell her the bad news.”
Glancing at his gun, the Doc said, “That thing loaded?”
Tracker exited the house. Sylvia saw him and stopped. Everyone stopped to listen.
“How is he,” she asked. “How’s my boy?”
Tracker wished there weren’t so many people watching. Approaching them, he said, “Sylvia, I…”
“Tell me,” she said, but the tears were already streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Tracker said. “He’s dead.”
Sylvia stared at him a moment, almost as if she hadn’t heard him.
And then she screamed.
Tate reached out for her, but she shoved him so hard that he stumbled and fell. Ben froze as she howled and flailed her arms.
Bracing himself, Tracker ran up to her and wrapped his arms around her. She screamed in his ear, kicked at him, hammered him with her fists. Together, they collapsed onto the street. She bucked and pulled, pushed and scratched, but he held on. Finally, she gave up fighting and buried her face in his chest.
“Tate,” Tracker said.
Tate pulled himself out of the mud and rushed over to his wife. “Come on,” he said, unable to fight his own tears. “Come on, love.” Thankfully, instead of knocking him out, she turned and sobbed into his neck.
“The Doc needs to look him over,” Tracker said. “Find out what happened.”
Tate nodded.
“I want to see him,” Sylvia said.
“Not now,” Tate said. “Not just now, wife.”
Finding his nerve, Ben said, “Sheriff, should I—”
Tracker nodded at Ben, and together he and Tate led Sylvia back to the hotel.
“It’s over,” Tracker said to the others. Standing, he said, “Clear off. You’ll all hear about it soon enough.”
As the crowd dispersed, Tracker saw Frosty shuffling back to the mercantile, his hand covering his mouth.
Tracker returned to the examination room. As he entered, he saw the Doc standing next to the body. “Poor boy,” he said, wiping his hands on a handkerchief. “He choked to death.”
“Choked,” Tracker said. “How?”
Using the handkerchief, the Doc pressed Jimmy’s cheeks and opened his jaw. “Come closer, Tom.”
Tracker drew closer and peered into the boy’s throat. “I don’t see anything,” he said.
“I know,” Doc said. “I want you to hold his mouth open.”
“Me?”
“Just for a moment.”
He replaced the Doc’s fingers and felt the spongy flesh of Jimmy’s cheek. At that moment, he wanted to be anywhere else but there. He’d gladly fish a dozen dead rushers out of the creek instead.
The Doc retrieved a pair of tweezers from the cabinet, and then lowered them into the boy’s mouth. They clicked against Jimmy’s teeth.
“Please hurry,” Tracker said.
“Almost—there, got one,” Doc said. He lifted the tweezers, revealing a small, green object. Saliva clung to it like webbing.
“See?” he said.
“What is it?”
“A berry,” Doc said, “and there are two more down there, mashed up. The boy must’ve eaten them, his throat closed up, and he choked. They may be poisonous.” He retrieved a washbasin from his desk and plunked the berry into it.
“Where do you find those berries?” Tracker asked.
Doc Ansen stepped over to the window and held the basin up to the light. Rolling the berry around, he said, “I’m not sure.”
“You don’t know?” Tracker asked. “You are a doctor, aren’t you?”
“Yes Tom, I’m a doctor. Not a botanist.”
“We have to find out where he picked them,” Tracker said. “I’ll not have another child die.”
The Doc set the washbasin down and turned back to the body. “Well, the berries appear washed, so that doesn’t help us. I found no evidence of scratches on his fingers or hands, so they probably didn’t come from a thorny bush. The knees of his cuffs and trousers are muddy, but that doesn’t mean much with that bog of a street out there.”
“Did you check his boots?”
“No,” Doc said. “Why would I?”
Tracker crouched at the foot of the table and examined Jimmy’s boots. “In Bear Hunt, I worked with an officer named Warlitser. He always said that you could tell a lot about a man by the soles of his boots. Every time he’d arrest someone, he’d always demand their footwear.”
“Anything?” the Doc asked, removing his glasses.
“Mud,” Tracker said. “A bit of straw. Smells like Main Street.”
A lump of mud clung to one heel. Tracker scraped it off with his thumb and smeared it on his palm.
“What in blazes are you doing now?” the Doc asked.
Tracker touched something sharp. Plucking it out, he said, “Got any water?”
The Doc fetched a pitcher and poured. Water spilled over Tracker’s hand and splattered onto the floor. What remained, pinched between his thumb and forefinger, looked like a flake of white paint.
“I have no idea what that is,” the Doc said, slipping on his glasses.
Tracker examined it carefully, turned it over in his palm, and then said, “I do.”
Chapter Nineteen
Jack’s ma once told him about the Morning Blue. “The sun’s shadow is blue,” she said. “It runs over the land, whispering to every grasshopper and fox and boy and girl that it’s time to rise and see the dawn. It fancies the dawn and wants to show her off to the world. It whispers, ‘Wake up. Wake sleepy head…’”
Wake up sleep
y head…
Jack opened his eyes and shivered, his breath steaming over his face. It was early, the Morning Blue drowning the world. He stared up at it, feeling as though he were lying at the bottom of an ocean.
Rolling onto his shoulder, he poked his finger into the fire pit. Dew had soaked the cinders cold. He thought about building a fresh fire but didn’t have any kindling, matches, or cow chips.
Charlie was still asleep. His bowler had fallen off, but his eyes were shut. Silas lay face down in the grass.
Jack stood and walked a short ways from camp. He rubbed his arms and stamped his feet. He gazed out over the prairie. Soon, the sizzle of bugs, the cackle of Silas, and the clatter of breakfast would fill his ears. For now, it was silent. The Morning Blue was his only companion. It helped him forget.
But only for a moment.
“Morning.”
Jack turned around to see Charlie. He held his bowler in his hands, saying, “Did you sleep?”
“Suppose,” Jack said. “What I could, with—”
“Yeah. It’s still following us, isn’t it?”
Jack plucked a blade of grass. “I don’t think Silas saw a different black coyote.”
Charlie nodded slowly. “What are we going to do now? From here on out, we’re on foot.”
“I see that thing again, I’m killing it,” Jack said. “Fashion me a new coat from its pelt.”
Charlie gazed out at the prairie. “It’s hard being a half-breed,” he said. “You got two ways of looking at the world: the white way, and the Chewak way. Now, the white preacher in me says you’re right. It’s just a crazy old coyote and it’ll bleed. But the Chewak in me says the Old Man is wile. You never know what he’s up to.”
“It’s no spook,” Jack said. “You tell that to the Indian in you.”
“I’ve never seen an animal pursue a man like this,” Charlie said. “Have you?”
Jack shrugged. “Once saw a pony that followed its owner everywhere he went.”
“Even after it was shot at?”
Back at the camp, they heard Silas say, “Curse that varnish.”
They walked back, but Jack couldn’t shake what Charlie had just said. It was true enough; no animal likes a gun. Ghost or not, it must have a powerful reason to keep following him.