by Diane Munier
She took me by the face and made me look at her. “You do know how much we love you? How proud?”
I shook my head. “You say hero. No. Not a devil. Not a hero. Not God. Just a man. Addie helped me see it. Just a man. But a man who has to carry some things he’s learned to understand.”
She nodded. “She’s so right for you,” she said.
Now I agreed. “When did he leave?”
“He brought me home,” Jimmy said. “Even after…he knew. He did his duty. Then he said he was going to Springfield to get his share. I told him he had to wait for you…you’d bring the reports and make it official. He said he had no heart to wait. I told him if I was well I’d throw him in jail just because I could cause he needed to simmer down. He said he bore us no ill will, but didn’t want to look on our faces ever again. So now he’s you, the tragic rider going west. Frankly he’s got the excuse he was looking for to raise some hell.”
I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. I let my hands drop. “Then let him go.”
“He needs his cut,” Jimmy said. “He’s staying at the hotel there. Ma Avery’s Inn, it’s called.”
“Sounds real dangerous.”
Jimmy laughed. “Once he gets that money…I fear he’ll be reckless.”
Now I laughed. “He has to play the prodigal…let him do it. We’ve all raised hell. I’m not his pa. He’s told me enough.”
I thought of him, the way I’d seen his heart. It had been hard going for him. I couldn’t chart his map.
By the time William and Lenora returned, I was packed and ready to get on the road. You could feel it between them, the spark and tinder. Once he delivered her to the porch, he gave her not a glance, but took care of the spare horses. While he did that I readied my pack and said my good-byes. We would not wait for the train here, but would pick it up the next day in Hillsboro. Soon we were back on the trail.
As soon as we rode I thought of her. Mayhap I would order the bricks there, for I wanted a good foundation for Johnny’s room and the other I would build with it. For now. The boards I could have sawn near home. I had all kinds of plans. I didn’t care to fill dead man’s shoes, I’d always said it. I would make that house new, that’s if I didn’t tear it down and start over. Well, Richard had not built it, so it had a chance. And the barn…my people liked them big. That barn was as sad as the house. She had said I made them pathetic the way I thought of them. But they deserved all the good I could do for them, and there was so much I would do. For her? For them? I’d move whatever mountain came.
Tom Tanner
Chapter Two
We got to Hillsboro still in front of the train. I was saying this when we dismounted near the livery which was near the station. Hillsboro wasn’t very big. Nothing like St. Louie.
William stayed mounted. Sitting there staring at me.
“Get off,” I said, my saddle bags over my shoulder already.
“Going back,” he said.
I stopped what I was doing and put my hands on my hips. “You’re deserting me?”
He nodded. “This ain’t my fight.”
“Then whose?” Already knew he blamed me for the entire world of white folks. “You can sit up top,” I said, knowing this was futile. “If you wouldn’t of gone off with….”
“I’m not going,” he said before I could get it out again about the Choctaw.
“You’re going home to Lenora.”
He kept staring.
“Well damn,” I said. I tried to be a man about it. If there was a way, I wouldn’t be here myself. “Jimmy thinks you’ll get full pay with service in the war, and being a lawman. Mayhap you was there….”
“I’m going back.”
“Ain’t like I’m wanting this.”
“You’re the one. It’s you.”
“You’re the lawman.”
He shook his head and looked away.
“If you would just….”
“There’s a baby,” he said.
“What?”
“Lenora is with child.”
“Oh…you got a death wish.”
He looked mad now. I hadn’t seen that face since Garrett died.
I stared at him. Truth be told I might do better if he wasn’t with me. It was a draw really for I had not been involved in such before and knew not what to expect.
“Mose gives you trouble, just tell him you make seventy-five a month. I promise that’ll knock him off his high horse. You got to promote yourself sometimes.”
He actually smiled at that.
“Don’t let him treat you low.”
He nodded. Then he licked his lips, impatient to be off and not eager to hear my speech, I reckon. I stepped to him and we shook hands. Then he made a speech of his own, “You are the one to do this.”
“Get that in a vision, did you?”
He smiled again, then tipped his hat and rode off.
“Mayhap with those Choctaw smoking that pipe?” I yelled after, but he did not turn around.
I boarded the train next morning. I rode the freight car again. Well, I was a man liked the fall air in my face. I studied the fields and thought about Addie. I didn’t want anybody cutting in. Thinking about her made the time burn quick. Late noon we rolled into Springfield.
The stockyards were next to the station, and the lolling of cattle and smell of the pens was strong in the wind. Well, I milled through and found the boardinghouse. I secured me a room and dumped my gear, stuck the Enfield under the tick. I cleaned up some, fresh shirt and string tie. Shined my boots and brushed my pants, too. Wore my black coat and my green vest dark as a bottle of bitters. I’d buy me a hat at the mercantile, then I’d take these papers to the Sheriff’s.
At the store there were a confusing number of hats to choose from. With my thick hair I had to get one big enough could fit over. Bought me a wide-brimmed buff colored Stetson cause there weren’t a Bowler made going on this head of mine.
I also looked at wedding rings. A good one cost five dollars, but none were so fine as Granma’s ring which Ma said went to the oldest son. That would be me. I would give this to Addie on the first night of our reunion. When I got to that point, many things I did not cotton to face would be behind me. Oh, I looked forward to that time, our children safe in their beds. My bride in my arms, her skin again mine sweet and eager. I felt the heat sweep through me.
All I had to do now was handle our business. I felt a grave sense of responsibility to get this right. I was more a man of action, truth be told, but I was no fool, I reminded myself, so I put on my William face and headed for the Sheriff’s office.
Most establishments were on the square, just like Greenup only the town was much, much bigger with roads jutting this way and that, and houses sprawling. When I reported to the sheriff and laid my bundle of papers before him, you’d of thought Abraham Lincoln had risen and come in the door. I honestly looked over my shoulder, but this big howdy was all for me.
Well he made over me, and the deputies come out, and even a couple of the prisoners came to the bars and were gawking at me. I admit it left me plain embarrassed. I was introduced to folks all the day through. We would stare at each other. My dread in this world. William had the sight, he did and I hated his deserting guts about now.
The next day the same. I had hoped to have Michael and Gaylin along, but though they were registered at the inn they never showed. The Missus Avery said that was not unusual, and then she raised her brows and pursed her lips and I did not ask.
I was back in the chair and then had to appear before the judge and go through all the questions again. Everything was stated in the reports, or so Jimmy had said, and they were written in his flourishing style. Mind you he spent the biggest part of the whole adventure on laudanum. If he wasn’t already shot, mayhap I’d go home and do it again the way he wrote of our deeds, me particularly having to hear it with so many others looking on like I was boasting on myself. Strip me naked and let me take a shit right here on the table. It co
uldn’t be worse.
So as these stories were scrutinized, I gave exacting testimony to support each thing, each act, each location on the map, each event, each shot fired, each son of a bitch we killed, each son of a bitch we wanted to kill and didn’t, each dollar taken and spent in the name of the law. I accounted, in short, for everything but how many times a day I had scratched my breads, picked my nose, taken a piss, or had a sinful thought.
All kinds of folks were writing everything I said like I was President Johnson himself. Lord how Jimmy would have loved this. Why this became my dance was a head scratcher for sure. But I was done dancing. I was tired now.
That’s when it went to the Gatlin gun. Now that was the big question—how the hell did I come by it?
It was on the train, said I.
But several have said with certainty that I directed such to be loaded on the train, they said.
All I can say, I answered, is I have often been taken for someone’s son both dead and alive. Mayhap that was the case. Or mayhap they needed spectacles. My own Ma did.
Now I had reporters, and a man to take my picture, which I refused so hotly they pulled back on it.
Day three they was worried about the Choctaw. I said I reckoned I didn’t know they was Choctaw. You’d have to ask them for they all looked the same saving people from inside the train and diving in that cold swirling river to save the screaming passengers. Well, I said that for William. He should a come so he could of heard it.
Well, they shouldn’t of been walking free like that, they said. Witnesses said they were coming up from the south when they needed to be on their reservation. Where did I think they were headed?
I shrugged. “It’s a pretty big country,” I pointed out, not even mentioning Canada. And the other eight times they asked, I shrugged again. If I needed to remember what ignorance looked like so I could get it right, well all I had to do was look at them.
Jimmy had warned me to answer nothing my guts told me not to answer. He said if I stayed the course and did not mix my facts, they would leave off. He was right.
Day four we went back over the money. Yes, I took money from Monroe’s hide-out. Yes, I spent some. Three hundred dollars. Did I give some to the others? I just said no, even though I’d sent money to Iris, and given the boys some as we liked to eat now and again when riding for the law. I saw no problem with the swearing in as God knew the whole truth anyway, and if anyone could see the sense in what I’d done, it would be Him.
How much money did we collect at Monroe’s hide-out? How much stolen property from the train robbery? Did I help myself to any of that stolen property?
I said, “No. Was some of it missing?” For that cash had traveled far and been through much.
They said no. Everything was accounted for. The railroad was particularly grateful. They were rewarding the five of us fifty dollars apiece.
So why was I asked if I’d taken anything? There are days.
Day five they gave me the figures. The reward money was on Boyle Monroe. Big money. Ten thousand dollars. That was two each. I caught myself getting ready to smile. I knew my picture was being drawn, so I held my William face. Sonny came in five thousand, no small potatoes, so add that. A couple of the others figured in, too. Jimmy had said we were cutting Gaylin in equal. That meant the sum to each of us was three thousand, three hundred eighty dollars. I’d have to get my brother and Michael in here to sign.
I had trouble listening then. I was thinking about what I needed more, that five hundred dollar combine or did I want to raise the whole roof and add another story on the house?
I did hear this: Our money would be carried on the railroad to Greenup by government agents in one month’s time.
Well, it was news. One reporter wrote that this event had done more to ease people’s minds over all they had lost in the war, the shock of the assassination, the devastation of cholera, and a goodly amount worry over outlaws and their gangs springing up all over the country, than any other story in a long time.
Never mind we veterans were also causing many of the problems such as robbing, killing and general nefarious conduct. We were drawing lines and taking sides, though they were not as clear as they’d been in the war. However many of us were still finding ways to fight. And one could always go west. Lots of fighting there.
But our posse had put a good face on men coming home from the war to be salt of the earth. And it was selling lots of papers even if the only picture they had was of Jimmy standing in front of the Greenup jail leaning on his cane, and looking about one hundred years old. And now they had the drawings of me wearing my new hat.
I had to find Michael and Gaylin so our reward money could be released. They had to get to the courthouse and sign those papers. I tried not to be mad at them. I wouldn’t wish what I’d gone through on Iris’s dog. But they had to at least pull themselves together long enough to write their names.
So at the end of that week, day six, I stopped the little maid in the hall. She wore this ruffly snood that mostly hid her face. “Miss,” I said, and she looked ready to drop the two buckets of water and take a fighting stand.
When she tilted her chin I saw her pretty face. But the coldness in her eyes made me keep the hall’s width between us. “I was trying to find my bro….”
“I know who you are,” she accused. “I’ve my eye on you. And I’ll tell Missus if you do to me what he did.”
“Who did?”
“Gaylin Tanner. Your brother. Missus warned me we had another. Watch your backside, she said. And I am. I’m a good girl. Just cause I have to work like a mule doesn’t mean I’ve no morals. Your kind would do well….”
“Hold on, Miss. I am only asking. I don’t know what he did…but I’m sorry whatever it was.”
“What kind of mother raised such a one is what I’d like to know. It’s not like I don’t have my hands full working in a place like this sometimes, but him with the drinking…and he can’t hold it neither. So you tell him for me good riddance.”
She did not need to breathe seemed like.
“I’ll…do you know where I can find him?”
“Where do you think? Him and the other…the saloon’s down at the wharf is my guess.” She huffed off then, her back rigid. Thick blond hair peaked out of the dowdy hat.
“What’s your name, Miss?” For I meant to ask him what in tarnal he had done to this girl.
“That is none of your concern, Sir,” she said, an Irish lilt in her righteous voice.
I knew the wharf. It smelled like piss and fish. The cholera had been here months before, but the saloons and bawdy houses were open and roaring again.
It was sunset when I walked there. The first place was crowded. Here the men were drunk and the women, too. Their dresses were nearly to their knees, and hiked higher many times a night. The tops showed deep over their dragging breasts. They painted their faces and wore their hair frizzy and fuzzy and loose. They were sweat and stink. But for some reason, it was all lust. Even as it repelled, you started to wonder. And the more you drank the more you wondered. And they looked at you, too. Like William with horses. Things most women wouldn’t say, these would. They’d run a hand over your flank, squeeze your leg, pinch your chest, notice your teeth. If you were handsome, they let you know it. They called their friends over and discussed it right in front of you. They knew the flesh.
I had this notion that my marriage protected me. In truth, it meant nothing here. Money was the voice. They would devour Gaylin. I was pretty sure he’d left home pure. I was pretty sure that was no longer the truth.
Well, Ma still had Seth to be hopeful over.
One of the women came over then. She asked me to buy her a drink. I said, “Yes Ma’am,” and ordered a beer from the bar-keep. I paid the nickel and she toyed with the rim of the glass and told me I was handsome. I should have said something nice back, but all I could think was that she might be old as Ma.
“Thank you,” I said. “I was wondering if you�
��ve seen two fellas…Gaylin and Michael. Strangers here, both young.”
She laughed.
“You would remember these, one strong and passable, the other shorter and blond, easy laugh.”
She laughed and shook her head.
“They killed Monroe.”
“Sure them. They been tearing up this place for three weeks. Whole wharf is on the house for them, even the girls. Heard Gaylin fell in love with Bertha. I think they’re getting married. Michael now…he likes to play cards. I think they’re looking for him.”
Holy cow. “Who is looking for him?”
She pointed across the room to a card game in progress. There was as much smoke in here as the field of battle. I waved my hand before my face and looked across the room. Four around a table. One in a bowler hat, long stringy hair to his shoulders, bright green coat and cravat untied with a patterned vest and chewing that cheroot. The others were dressed in regular clothes. Looked to be ones who labored. So this dandy would be the shearer of the sheep.
“That the one in the hat?”
“Sure,” she said, smashing against me, “that’s Buster.”
I jumped away. “Sorry Ma’am. I only have eyes for my wife.”
“She can have your eyes, then,” she said moving close as I braced myself again the bar.
“Where can I find this Bertha?”
She stepped back to her beer and drained the glass in one go. Slamming it on the table she belched like a man, hand over her mouth and giggling. “Let’s see, Bertha. She works down the way, at Tulley’s. She sings there.”
I closed my eyes. “You say you think he’s married or he is married?”
“I think…he is married. But these gals around here lie all the time.”
I thanked her, left four more nickels on the bar, and moved off, but I kept my eyes on Buster as I walked out, and call it what you will, he turned and looked at me before I cleared the room as if I had called his name.
I didn’t like it. When I reached the end of the building I quickly went in the alley between it and the next saloon. I waited in the dark, and there he was, a dowager in a black coat. Not Buster, but another. His man, I reckoned. He hurried past, then came back quick. He’d lost me and he was going in the other direction, guessing now. I’d have to watch though, it could be a trick. He could come around the back of the building and sneak upon me. We were all playing soldier now.