“Mad Carter,” he said, slurring his words, “guess what I got me?”
With a shrug, I waited.
Drunkenly Tommy reached inside his vest pocket, pulled out a wadded piece of paper, which he deliberately tried to unfold, and when he failed at that, he slapped it down in front of the bottle of rye.
I stared, shrugged, not really comprehending what it was.
Tommy laughed. “It’s one of them white affidavits.”
That’s when I heard the shot.
The last shot I remembered hearing had been fired by Billy Thompson, but this one had not come from a scatter-gun. Another round sounded, almost in echo, and I charged through the door Sean Ronan still had not fixed, made my way out of Nauchville, went up South Main Street, where I found Deputy Charley Brown holding a smoking revolver over a dead man.
A man I recognized lay, face up, spread-eagled on the ground, staring up at the pale blue sky but seeing only, I hoped, the devil and his demons.
Happy Jack Morco didn’t look happy, just dead, with one bullet in his heart and another square in his head.
“He refused to disarm,” Brown said in a steady voice. “Drew his weapon.. He was telling me this as if I were someone important, a man of authority, a real peace officer, not some rank kid who belonged back home in South Texas, riding drag or helping his widowed ma with his brothers and sisters.
“I had no choice,” Brown said.
“Good,” I said, and walked back to the jail.
* * * * *
Somehow I thought the death of Happy Jack Morco would bring peace to Ellsworth. Oh, I reckon it did, if briefly. Cowboys still disregarded the no-gun law, and citizens kept patrolling the streets wearing their guns. Still, it seemed to me as though a peace settled over Ellsworth.
It didn’t last, of course. The whole world collapsed a few week later.
Like ten thousand pounds of limestone.
chapter
26
If you’re old enough, might be you recall what they called The Panic of ’73, or the Great Depression. I doubt if we’ll ever see the likes of such a disastrous economic time all the rest of our days. It took a good six years before our nation got back on solid footing. The whys and reasons are beyond this old cowpuncher’s grasp, but the way I remember it is that the silver market played out in Europe, and that had an effect on our United States. On September 18th, away off in New York City, the Jay Cooke and Company went belly up, and that was a mighty big bank, a real big player, to close shop. Other banks quickly followed suit. Folks started running on banks, hoping to pull out whatever money they could save from the bankers and government. That’s one reason I never trusted banks, not that I ever had enough money to make a bank interested in rounding me up as a depositor. That big stock exchange closed down for ten whole days. Factories laid off workers. Railroads went bankrupt, and remember Ellsworth was a railroad town. Worse than all that, the cattle market went south. It had been stagnant all summer, but, come September, it collapsed.
What with the telegraph and iron rails, news traveled fast even to a remote outpost like Ellsworth, Kansas. Well, bad news traveled fast.
Maybe that played a part in what happened. Or maybe it had to happen and would have happened, anyway.
I didn’t do much policing those days as a deputy sheriff. Mostly I paid visits to Nellie Whitney. She was only eighteen years old, and a widow, with not a cent to her name. It turned out her husband had bought a furniture store, but that was on credit, and once word reached us about Jay Cooke, well, things got tougher. Even pennies became scarce.
In Ellsworth, no one ran to the banks, and those banks kept their doors open, but I don’t think much money left the vault. Especially in the way of loans. In October, when most notes were due, things got even worse.
Trains had been shipping cattle three times a day, but, by October, only two trains were pulling through a day—one eastbound, one westbound—and they weren’t hauling many cattle east to Kansas City. The stockyards were empty. The prairies along the Smoky Hill, on the other hand, weren’t.
The times I’d get sent out to some farm on sheriff’s business, I’d pass thousands of beeves trying to find something to eat with the grass burned to the roots, losing weight instead of adding pounds. One time, I reined up and just stared at the camp I knew all too well. I’d hoped that Mr. Justus had sold his herd, but no luck. He wasn’t the only cattleman in such a fix. Everywhere you looked, you saw cattle. Poor cattle.
Poorer cowboys and cowmen.
I heard a fellow in the Lone Star Saloon laugh and say: “In Kansas City, they slaughter beef every day. Here in Ellsworth, it’s the cattlemen who get slaughtered every single day.”
Beef prices kept falling. If you sold out then, you were broke. If you waited, you were broke. The only cattlemen who had money to invest were big names like Shanghai Pierce, and he began buying herds at rock-bottom prices. He could afford to. Men like June Justus, of course, couldn’t.
And in Ellsworth. Well, by mid-October, it seemed that every day that I’d walk or ride along the streets in the town proper or down in The Bottoms, I’d see a building boarded up, or a lot where one had been torn down. Folks wandered around in a daze, out of work. I’d find men, women, even children begging for food or money along the depot.
Sometimes, I’d go by the Star Mercantile, always relieved when I didn’t spot a CLOSED or GOING OUT OF BUSINESS sign or a padlock on the front door and that dreadful notice tacked on the wall. See, that was one of my jobs as deputy sheriff. To evict people. To give them notice. It made me sick. One time, I asked Sheriff Tracy Grace if he’d do it, but he simply smiled and told me that was part of my routine, not his.
Everything was going down, except the temperatures. It was supposed to be autumn, but it felt like summer in hell.
Nellie Whitney had a really rough go.
“I haven’t a cent to my name,” she told me one evening. “Sandy owned his horse, but that was it.. She burst into sobs, choking out: “I don’t even ... own ... my ... sewing machine.. Once again, on the front porch of the rented Whitney house, I had a woman bawling on my shoulder, and me not knowing what the Sam Hill to do.
Well, the folks of Ellsworth—not just the town proper, but also from The Bottoms—they knew what to do. They took up a collection. Those people were mighty generous, even though many of them were broke, too. That’s how much the citizens of Ellsworth had thought of Chauncey Whitney. Someone suggested that we should also collect from the cattlemen, seeing that Whitney had been a friend of drovers, too, but that weasel of an attorney, Pestana, said: “Those Texians are broker than that widow.. Likely he was right, but that comment, and the way he said it, irked me. “Besides,” he had added, “some have been served white affidavits and they still haven’t left the county.”
They elected me to present Nellie with a right smart of cash stuffed in a grain sack. I even added in all the money I still had from Mr. Justus and my salary as a deputy sheriff—which was now slow in coming, the county feeling the pinch, too—to the bag with the greenbacks, yellowbacks, and gold and silver coin. I wore my gun, of course. I feared I might get robbed on my way to her house, but naturally I wasn’t.
Nellie cried again, but these weren’t sorrowful tears. “Oh, you sweet, precious boy,” she said, and kissed me on the lips. She pulled back, must have seen the hurt look on my face, and then she came closer. “You’re not a boy,” she whispered. “I know that. Sandy knew that. You’re a fine man.”
She began kissing me softly, her lips tasting like sweet cherries. Her hands, soft, pleasant, grabbed my arms, pulled them around her back. She murmured something, and put her arms around my neck, drawing me even closer.
Something took hold of me, and I found myself kissing her back, feverishly. The wretched thing about it was that when I closed my eyes, I didn’t see Nellie, but Estrella. I might have even call
ed her Star, but, if I did, she didn’t say anything, didn’t act slighted. We just kept kissing before it suddenly struck me what I was doing. I was kissing the widow—granted she was only a couple years older than me—of a good friend, a dead hero. She was gasping, backing up, my lips still hungrily searching hers, and her hand was gripping the doorknob, jerking it open, and we stumbled inside.
“Madison,” she sighed, and looked up at me with a look on her face I’d never seen before. I started to kiss her again, but then fear practically knocked me upside the head, and I stampeded out of that house, not knowing what I should do, or what I had been doing, or what I was about to do. I ran straight for the Star Mercantile.
I don’t know why. I’d reached Walnut Street, heart pounding, and saw the building. When I hit the center of the street, I heard the gunshot from inside. I even thought I saw the muzzle flash through the window, but that was just imagination. The pistol’s report, on the other hand, seemed all too real.
Sliding to a stop, I reached for my holstered revolver, and just stood there.
The business next to the mercantile was empty. I knew that. Per the instructions of the court and one of the banks, I had tacked a note on the door just the other day. I glanced up and down the streets, but they were empty. Hoof beats suddenly sounded, and I whirled to see André Le Fevre galloping up on a dun horse.
He didn’t even wait until he’d reined in before he slid out of the saddle, letting the horse loose on Walnut Street. Looking at the door, he asked me: “Where did that shot come from?”
When I didn’t, couldn’t answer, he started for the door, yelling: “Star. Star. Are you ...?”
The door flew open, and a cowboy staggered out, clutching his stomach with both hands, his face bleeding from three wickedly deep scratches across his cheek. “Lord, God, this ain’t happenin’,” he said, dropping to his knees. “Can’t ... be ..... He looked up, moved on his knees to the porch column, and gripped it with a bloody hand. He wore a gun belt, but the holster was empty.
Le Fevre dashed inside the mercantile, leaving that cowhand staring at me. Slowly, like I was in a dream, I moved toward him. Tears streamed down his face, smearing the droplets of blood collecting in the scratches.
“Mad Carter ...,” Tommy Canton croaked. “Get me ... to ... a ... doctor. Don’t let me ... die.”
But he was dead. Those were the last words he spoke. He let go, and fell into the dust.
From inside the store, I heard Le Fevre’s voice. “Star. Where are you. Star. Star?”
My heart sank suddenly, and I stepped over Tommy’s body, joining Le Fevre inside the mercantile.
I found her in the storeroom, between rows of crates stacked nearly as high as the ceiling. She lay in the corner, blouse and camisole torn, sobbing, shaking, staring with blank eyes at nothing. Her right hand gripped a revolver, still smoking. Tommy’s gun.
I hurried to her, pulling her torn clothing together, trying to say something comforting. Finally I took off my vest, and put it across her chest. I looked at the fingers that had raked across Tommy Canton’s face.
“Star,” I said softly, “are you all right?”
She just stared.
A vile oath caused me to turn, and Le Fevre rushed over and kneeled down beside me. “What happened?” he asked, but he knew. We both knew.
About that time, the back door to the storeroom opened, and Estrella’s father came running inside. He froze, face turning ashen, when he saw his daughter.
“Mister O’Sullivan!” someone yelled from the front door. “Mister O’Sullivan. Miss Estrella?”
It was Le Fevre who barked out at Estrella’s father: “Sir, you need to get your daughter home. Get her home, do you hear me. Now!. He rose. “She’s all right. Just get her home. Go out the back ... through the alley. And try not to let anyone see you.”
Then Le Fevre spun toward me. “Come on.. He jerked me to my feet. “Take me outside. Arrest me. I killed Tommy Canton.”
“But ....”
His slap stung my cheek, but brought me out of my stupor.
“Just do it, Mad Carter. Just do it. For Star’s sake.”
chapter
27
That was the plan. André Le Fevre’s plan.
I walked him out to face the gathering crowd. Mostly townfolk. If any cowboys were in Ellsworth, they were down in Nauchville, but this late in the fall most didn’t have enough money to spend on women, cards, or whiskey. The cattlemen were probably at their camps, praying for God’s mercy, unless they were rich men like Shanghai Pierce and still hanging their hats at the Drovers Cottage.
“I killed him,” Le Fevre told Marshal Freeborn, who had just raced to the Star Mercantile with Long Jack DeLong. “It was self-defense.. Slowly Le Fevre unbuckled his gun belt, and let it drop to the boardwalk.
* * * * *
Since the county courthouse didn’t have room for a sheriff’s office, the old jail also housed the sheriff’s office, and a deputy sheriff, which was me, served as jailer for any prisoner—town, county, state, or federal.
That afternoon, a coroner’s inquest was convened, and it was determined that Thomas Jerome Canton was killed by a single shot fired by André Le Fevre. Then the judge said that Le Fevre would be remanded until trial.
“Trial?” Major Canton scoffed, and glared at me, not the judge or jury. “I think we’re finished with Kansas law.”
“It will all come out at the trial, Major,” Le Fevre said.
Cussing, the major stormed out of the courthouse. Phineas O’Connor, Perry Hopkins, and maybe a half dozen cowboys from other camps followed him.
The Masons and Marshal Freeborn and his deputies helped me escort the prisoner back to the jail. That wasn’t because we thought Le Fevre was a dangerous criminal, but because we feared Major Canton like a sinner fears God.
* * * * *
“What’s gonna come out at the trial?” I asked Le Fevre when we were back in the jail. “The truth?”
“Not by a damned sight,” he said. “I killed Tommy. That’s the story. You best not forget it.”
“But ....”
“I’ll plead self-defense.”
“Tommy was shot in the gut with his own gun.”
“I’ll think of something. I’ve had to do it before, and they ain’t hung me yet.”
Shaking my head, I looked at Le Fevre through the iron bars. “André,” I said softly. It struck me funny. Here was a man I despised, a fellow I had pegged for a murdering scoundrel. Yet I was suggesting: “Star can testify. She can ....”
He came up to the bars so fast, I backed away, almost tripping over a slop bucket.
Le Fevre gripped the iron till his fingers turned white, his face a mask of rage. “No!”
“It wasn’t her fault,” I tried to explain. “She did what ....”
“No.”
“But ....”
“Are you that green, Mad Carter. Do you know how people will look at her if she were to say what really happened. Do you know what people will say behind her back?”
“She didn’t do anything wrong. And it’s not like ... Tommy ... ever ....”
“We do this my way, Mad Carter. You cross me, and I’ll kill you. So help me God, I’ll kill you if it’s the last thing I do.. As I bowed my head, Le Fevre released his grip on the cell bars, and settled back onto the hard bunk, whispering: “I should have killed that sorry excuse of a Canton months ago.”
“I can’t believe Tommy would ..... My head shook.
Le Fevre let out a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh. Our eyes met.
“You are so ignorant, Mad Carter. Why do you think those vigilantes handed Tommy Canton one of those white affidavits?”
I’d forgotten all about that warning notice. “Well ....”
“He beat a prostitute half to death in Nauchville
the other month,” he said. “If you ask me, he killed that hurdy-gurdy girl in July, too, though no one ever could prove it. And, criminy, they said she was just a soiled dove. Who cares that someone strangled her to death?”
Those words stunned me. I thought of that girl’s name down in Nauchville—Bertha. I remembered Sheriff Whitney saying a prostitute had been murdered. Then I remembered Tommy getting angry when I had mentioned Bertha’s name to him sometime shortly after the killing.
Le Fevre was still talking, though I hadn’t been listening. “ ... and down in Fort Worth, I had to pull him off a chirpie he was slapping.”
“Tommy told me that you beat up that girl in Fort ....”
Le Fevre kept right on talking. “And I know Tommy murdered that big farmer’s daughter. Even money says the major knew it, too.”
That set me back. Sitting down on the desktop, I heard myself saying: “But you ....”
Laughing, Le Fevre rose again, came close to the bars. This time, he didn’t grip them. “Yeah, Mad Carter, I know. You had me pegged for killin’ that girl. Well, sir, I’ve done some mean deeds in my life. Likely I deserve to be behind bars and bound for hell, but I ain’t never ever lifted a hand to a woman. Saw my pa hit my ma enough to sicken me to that kinda thing.. He traced the remnants of the cuts on his face. “Don’t you remember nothin’, boy?”
Right then, I did. I almost needed a slop bucket. That memory of mine, which Mama considered a precious gift from the Almighty, had failed me. Tricked me. Perhaps because I hated André Le Fevre so much, I had wanted to believe. Made myself think it was the truth. Le Fevre had said he gotten those scratches across his cheek when he got pitched into a briar patch. Shanghai Pierce had been in our camp. It was right after the stampede, just across the Kansas state line. It hadn’t happened in Ellsworth County, or anywhere near Holyrood. And it had happened weeks earlier.
I bet if I hadn’t been so blind, if I’d looked at Tommy when we were in that Ellsworth bathhouse, I would have seen scratches on him somewhere. His arms or back. As my shoulders sagged, I let out a moan.
Summer of the Star Page 19