At his table, he reached into his vest pocket, and put a roll of greenbacks in my hand, saying: “We have to stick together, pard.. He’d never been so friendly with me—with anyone—before, but he wasn’t pulling the wool over my eyes.
So I went back to my table in a hurry. And I did take the money he loaned me.
I sat and scowled. Even made myself swallow down another oyster. I finished the glass of wine, but Estrella was no longer talking. The waiter brought our real meal—food that had been cooked, and wasn’t served on ice—and we ate in silence.
“Well,” she said at last, dabbing the corners of her mouth with her napkin and looking at me.
Outside the Drovers, our moods changed back to the way they had been earlier. I walked her home, and she laughed at the sound my boots and spurs made as we crossed the sidewalk in front of the Grand Central Hotel. That sidewalk wasn’t warped planks, not by a long shot—manganese limestone spanned the length of the red brick building, the finest sidewalk west of Kansas City. Her laughter lightened my mood, so I strode back to the corner, and then back again, my heels clopping on that hard pavement, the spurs jingling, amplified by the night air and hard rock.
“You make me laugh,” Estrella said, and I forgot all about Fevre and the $8.35 I’d spent on our meal. Or rather what André Le Fevre had spent.
I took her hand in mine, and we strolled the rest of the way to her home, stopping at the white fence that surrounded her modest home. She looked at the sky. “Look at all the stars!” she exclaimed. “Why there must be a million.”
I looked up, found Orion’s Belt, and then gazed into her wonderful face. This time, I summoned enough gumption to speak like some crazy poet. “None shines as bright as you, Star,” I said.
She turned to me. “You’re a sweet boy, Madison.. She kissed me, and hurried through the open gate and to her front door.
Me. I looked at the door that had just closed, then back at the stars, and wondered if I’d done or said anything wrong. Then I touched my lips where she had kissed me, they tingled. I figured I hadn’t done anything wrong. By grab, Estrella O’Sullivan had kissed me.
My lips kept right on tingling until I stood beside the Studebaker, feet aching from all that walking, waiting for Larry McNab.
chapter
19
I waited. And waited. Well, I should have known better. Larry had to be getting roostered with the boys, I figured, so I climbed into the driver’s box of the chuck wagon, stretched out, and pictured Estrella. But I couldn’t sleep, not on that hard seat, and not with Estrella lingering in my thoughts.
The store was closed, and this part of town was deader than dirt. When boots sounded on the boardwalk, I sat up, and saw lantern light reflecting off a badge in the shadows. A quick glance underneath the seat revealed the shotgun Larry had stuck there. A lawdog like Brocky Jack, Happy Jack, or any of those other Jacks might consider that a violation of the town ordinance, and I could find myself in jail, probably as bloody and bruised as was Phineas. Heart pounding, I drew a deep breath, but smiled and let out the heaviest sigh of relief when Sheriff Chauncey Whitney stepped out under the street lamp.
As I leaped from the box, he reached for his gun, but relaxed when he saw it was me.
“Didn’t mean to give you a fright, Sheriff,” I said.
He walked over to me, lighting a cigar. “What are you doing here, Madison?”
“Waiting on our cook,” I said.
“Where have you been?”
“At the Drovers Cottage,” I said. “I took Star to supper.”
“That wasn’t my meaning. Haven’t seen you in town lately.”
“Oh. Been busy. That storm ..... That reminded me of something else, so I stopped in mid-sentence.
“Lose any head?”
“No, sir.”
“I haven’t seen that farmer from Holyrood.. Whitney removed his cigar. “Have you?”
“Well ....”
“Maybe he went back home.”
I just couldn’t keep it from the Whitney. “He’s dead, Sheriff,” I said.
“What?. He dropped the cigar, grinding it out with his heel, while I told him all about how Hagen Ackerman had been struck by lightning some time during the storm.
“You should have sent word to me, Madison,” he said. “Someone should have told me. I’m the county sheriff.”
“He wasn’t murdered,” I said. “God killed him.”
“Balderdash.”
“You think he was murdered?”
“Madison ..... He caught his breath to calm himself. “I’m the county law. I need to know these things. We should have an inquest. Formalities.. He sighed heavily. “Besides, a soiled dove was strangled to death in Nauchville a week or so back. Struck me that it could be the work of the man who killed Ackerman’s daughter, and I wanted to talk to him again.. He shook his head. “No matter. And it’s not your fault. Sorry I snapped at you, son. Well, maybe it’s for the best. Poor soul. Ackerman’s out of his misery now.”
“I ....”
Quick footsteps stopped my thought, and then came the yelling: “Sheriff Whitney. Sheriff Whitney!”
Despite the dark, I could make out two men were running toward us. “Murder!” one man cried. “Happy Jack has ..... He stopped as soon as he saw me.
By then, of course, Whitney had stepped away from me and the wagon. By the light of a street lamp I recognized one fellow as none other than Sean Ronan of the Ellsworth city council and the Lone Star Saloon. He was whispering and pointing his finger. I wondered what had happened, but this wasn’t any of my affair, so I climbed back into the Studebaker.
I could hear the part of the conversation as their voices grew louder.
“Where’s Brocky Jack?” Sheriff Whitney asked.
“He and High Low Jack took off after those blokes who robbed Davis’s store.”
Profanity.
“And Hogue?”
“Drunk. Passed out in a cell in his office.”
Even stronger cusses. Then Whitney was saying: “Can I deputize you fellows?”
No answer.
More cussing, which I didn’t expect from Sheriff Whitney, followed by the two men making lame excuses as to why they couldn’t help him out.
I looked over my shoulder, and watched the three men start into the darkness, but then Whitney stopped, turned, and called out my name.
Stepping back down into the dust, I could barely make out Whitney waving me over. I pulled my hat down tight, and tentatively made my way toward him and the two town dudes.
“I need your help, Madison,” he said.
I stammered and stuttered and almost lit a shuck back to camp.
“I’m going to deputize you,” Whitney said.
“Chauncey ...,” Ronan began. “That kid’s from Texas.”
“I don’t care.”
“I’m not a lawdog,” I said, and immediately regretted those words.
“Just for tonight,” Whitney assured me.
“But ....”
“I’m saying I need your help.”
That struck me. Shamed me. Chauncey Whitney had been a good friend to me. Ronan was right, of course, I was a Texian, but Chauncey Whitney didn’t care. He figured he could trust me in whatever situation he was headed into.
“I don’t have a gun,” I protested, but then I remembered Larry’s scatter- gun. So I ran to get it, and, when I returned, Whitney gripped my shoulder, and said: “That’s a good lad.”
“He might use it on you,” the townsman with Ronan said.
* * * * *
The Lone Star Saloon stood in The Bottoms not far from the racetrack. It occurred to me that Ronan had promised me and Mr. Justus’s other riders a free drink, and I still hadn’t taken him up on it, not that I figured I would have a chance to partake on this evening.
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We stopped on the boardwalk across the street from the saloon. “Ronan,” Sheriff Whitney said, “you and Darius wait here. Madison, give me a couple of minutes, then come in with that shotgun, both barrels cocked, braced against your shoulder. Just follow my lead after that, and do what I tell you to do.”
My tongue turned drier than West Texas in a drought. My head bobbed ever so slightly, and Sheriff Whitney crossed the dusty street. As soon as Whitney disappeared inside the saloon, the gent named Darius sprinted back toward Ellsworth, disobeying the sheriff’s orders. Ronan, I must give credit to, for he stayed put. Then again, it was his saloon.
It was one of those false-fronted affairs, a Texas flag painted on the upper façade. Pale light shone through the large windows and the batwing doors. The front doors were wide open, of course, at this time of night, but I could see one of the glass panes had been busted out. Plenty of shadows dancing around inside told me that place was jam-packed. I bit my lips. The shotgun felt heavy in my slick-with-sweat hands.
“What happened?” I asked Sean Ronan, having decided I might need to know what kind of situation I was getting myself into. Then I realized my mouth was so parched, and I was so nervous, Ronan hadn’t heard my question. I repeated it.
“Happy Jack Morco beat a cowboy to death on the streets down yonder,” he began, pointing, but all I saw was dark streets, there being no street lamps in this part of town. “Billy Thompson and some other cowboys tried to stop that murdering Morco, but then John Branham arrived. He’s a deputy, too. He backed off Billy and your cowboy pals with his pistols, but by that time every saloon on this street had emptied. Lot of you Texas boys were armed with six-shooters and Bowie knives. I figured the streets would run red with blood, but nobody fired a shot. Then Branham and Morco, pointing their guns, backed their way into my place. The Texas boys followed them. Now it’s a Mexican stand-off ... in my place.”
Shouts came from inside the saloon. I wanted to drop that gun and disappear into parts unknown.
“Hadn’t you better join Sheriff Whitney?” Ronan whispered.
I cussed Sean Ronan as a coward. This was his affair, not mine, but I made my legs carry me across the wide street, and onto the boardwalk. I used the Westley-Richards’s twin barrels to push open the batwing doors, and the sound they made behind me as they flapped back and forth scared the dickens out of me, but no one seemed to notice. Probably figured me to be another cowboy come to see the show. And I wasn’t wearing a badge.
I spotted three pistols drawn, a bunch of free hands gripping holstered revolvers, and two or three rifles with their hammers cocked. So the shotgun I was toting didn’t strike any of these boys as unusual. Cowboys by the score lined the front of the long bar, but nobody was drinking. Every eye was trained on the gambling layouts —faro and keno, roulette wheels, and some poker tables—but nobody was trying their luck, either.
Against the far wall I saw Happy Jack Morco holding revolvers in both hands. Beside him was another gent, whose sawed-off rifle shook in hands that were trembling worse than mine were at that moment.
Over Texas hats and broad shoulders, I saw Sheriff Whitney standing next to an empty faro layout, talking to somebody I couldn’t see.
“Let me take these men out of here,” Whitney was saying. Near as I could tell, he hadn’t drawn his revolver, since he was pointing at the two petrified lawmen against the wall.
“Don’t think the boys would like that,” came the smooth reply of voice I had heard before.
“You can take their bodies out, Sheriff, after we’re finished here” said an angry voice that I immediately recognized as Billy Thompson’s from Mueller’s boot shop.
“You don’t want that to happen,” Sheriff Whitney said, addressing the man I still couldn’t see.
“Tell that to that man lyin’ dead in the street.”
Then I knew that voice. Ben Thompson, Billy’s big brother.
“We’ll hold an inquest ...,” the sheriff said.
“Yankee inquest,” someone from the bar snorted.
“Let the law handle this,” Sheriff Whitney said.
“We are the law,” Billy Thompson roared. “Texas law, by thunder!”
“Chauncey,” Ben Thompson said in that slow drawl, “you can’t get out of here with those boys. Not with that gun still in your holster. And not with them two yellow vermin backin’ your play.”
I didn’t know what Sheriff Whitney had wanted me to do, but there was only one thing I could do.
Taking a deep breath, one I thought might be the last I ever breathed, I bulled my way between two cowboys, knocking one to his knees, turned, and pointed those twelve-gauge barrels at Ben Thompson, who was sitting, cool as you please, at a poker table, both hands on the green felt, a nickel- plated Colt lying just a few inches from his fingers. Behind him, Billy spun, dropping his hand toward a pistol stuck in his sash, but he stopped when he got a look at that Westley-Richards.
All I had to do was touch those triggers, the Thompsons knew, and both of them would be blown apart. Plenty of cowboys behind them would feel some buckshot, too.
“Madison!” someone yelled from the bar, and that shotgun practically rattled in my hands because I recognized the voice of Perry Hopkins. Still, I kept those barrels trained, didn’t dare look away from the Thompsons, didn’t dare look at Perry.
“Get out of here, boy,” Perry said, his voice closer now. “You don’t know what you’re doin’. That’s ....”
“That’s enough!” Whitney sang out. He had gained the advantage while every eye was on me and the Westley-Richards to draw and cock his revolver.
“Madison,” Perry said, softer now, “do you know ...?”
“Shut up. Everybody shut up. Before you scare me into pulling these triggers.. Those words, coming from my mouth, sounded like someone screaming, far, far away.
“Shut up, Hopkins,” Billy Thompson said. And Perry complied.
Chauncey Whitney asked: “That enough for you, Ben?”
Ben Thompson didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
“Morco,” Whitney said, “drop those revolvers on the floor.”
“I ain’t doing ....”
“Do it!. Whitney’s voice seemed to make the wagon-wheel chandelier above him shake. “High Low Jack, you ease down the hammer on that Winchester and set it on that table in front of you.”
“We do that, and we’re dead,” High Low Jack said.
“You don’t do it, I’ll kill you myself,” Whitney said. All the time he was talking, Whitney kept his revolver aimed at Billy Thompson. “I’m taking these men in. I’ll hold them for an inquest ....”
“You ain’t arresting me, Whitney,” Happy Jack said.
“Then I’ll take Branham with me,” Whitney said, still staring at the younger Thompson brother, “and leave you to our Texas guests.”
The rifle and Morco’s Colts dropped. Slowly the two town peace officers moved away from the wall.
“We ain’t forgettin’ this, kid,” a Texian behind me said. It took a moment before I realized he wasn’t talking to the deputy marshals, but to me. I just kept that shotgun aimed at the Thompsons. I didn’t dare try to find Perry in that crowd. I feared I would collapse if I saw how much he hated me right then and there.
“I’ll let you know when the judge schedules an inquest,” Whitney announced. “And don’t any of you boys try to follow me to the jail. Brocky Jack’s standing across the street with Ed Hogue and twenty other deputies. If they see an eyeball in a window or at that door, they’ll shoot it out.”
It was a lie, a poor poker player’s bluff, and I guess everyone in the Lone Star Saloon knew it.
Yet the cowhands parted as Morco and Branham started for the door.
“Mad Carter,” Sheriff Whitney said, one of the few times he used my nickname, “if our prisoners run, kill them.”
* * * * *
They didn’t run, of course. Looking back on how things turned out, I wish now they would have, and that I would have had the courage to gun them down.
We made it to the county jail, the two-story stone structure where Sheriff Whitney had his headquarters, and locked up the two deputy marshals. Then we went to Whitney’s office, where he poured each of us a stout offering of Irish whiskey—which we both needed.
“I need to go back to Nauchville,” Whitney said after downing his drink. “I want you to stand guard. Don’t let anyone ... anyone ... in until I’m back.”
“Don’t you have another deputy?” I asked.
He smiled. “Ed Hogue. The drunken deputy marshal. He’s my deputy, too. He’s no good. Not now. Probably not ever. Stay here. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“But why?”
“I have to bring back that dead man, Madison.”
chapter
20
It must have been past midnight when I drove the chuck wagon back to camp. I left Ellsworth feeling miserable, dazed, not noticing the millions of stars lighting my path, not even thinking of Estrella O’Sullivan. I didn’t bother crossing the iron bridge, but forded the Smoky Hill, too angry, too broken-hearted, too disgusted, and too sick to my gut to know how foolish that was what with the river so high and the current so strong, but I made it. God was looking after me, I reckon.
When I reached camp, I reined in the mules, set the brake, and just stared. I’m not sure I really understood what was happening. Tommy Canton was on the ground, nose pouring blood, his father towering over him, cussing him up and down, and then bending over, jerking him off the dirt, and backhanding him back to the ground.
“Is that how I raised you?” the major bellowed. “You think you’re a son of mine!”
“Pa!. Tommy feebly raised a hand. “Don’t hit me no more, Pa.”
The major didn’t listen. He jerked his son back up, turned him, started to backhand him once more, only then he spotted me. Why he hadn’t heard the blowing mules, creaking leather, traces jingling, or squeaking wheels I didn’t know. He let go of his son, and Tommy dropped to the ground, curled up in a ball, and whimpered.
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