A Season in Hell

by Easy Jackson

  “Follow me,” Tennie said. The lanterns hanging from their hooks were already lit, and grabbing the keys, she hurried up the stairs with Gid following, pushing his prisoner relentlessly as he fought with every step.

  “Quit that, you ornery cuss,” Gid’s voice boomed behind her. “Before I bite off a chunk of your ear, dang your old sorry hide.”

  Tennie hesitated, not knowing what to do. The fighting prisoner coming up behind her galvanized her, and she opened the middle jail cell, unwilling to yell at the other prisoners to get back while she opened the door of their cell to put them together. She had no idea how many she would get in that night, but with only Gid to help her, she didn’t risk opening the cell of two soldiers still in the throes of drunken madness.

  Gid slammed the prisoner so hard and fast into the cell, he hit the back wall. Tennie shut the door as soon as Gid stepped out, locking it with shaking hands.

  “That’ll hobble your hooves, you kicking mule,” Gid said to the prisoner.

  A wave of profanity-laced bile spewed from the prisoner’s mouth in response. Tennie ignored it, and Gid hollered at him to shut his trap.

  “What has gotten into them?” she asked Gid as they walked down the stairs with curses screaming at their backs. “Three in a row in just a few minutes.”

  At the bottom of the stairs, Gid stopped to catch his breath. “They done had an Indian attack north of here a few days ago, Miss Tennie. They routed them, but one of the worst ones got away and holed up in a rock house. He killed several men trying to get at him. When night come, they snuck up on the roof and dropped a bag of burning rags soaked in turpentine on his head. He run out, and they riddled him, not realizing that some squaws and children had been in there with him. In the dark in all the confusion, they got killed, too.”

  “Oh my,” Tennie said, looking up the stairs. “I guess they have a reason to be screaming and cursing.”

  Gid removed his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I reckon they’re pushing for somebody to give them a licking over it for sure. I best be getting back, Miss Tennie.”

  She hesitated, wanting to ask him to bring a helper the next time he came. But to do so would be insinuating he wasn’t capable of doing the job Lafayette gave him, a high insult in the West. Besides, being the town marshal was her job, and she would have to manage the best she could.

  “Thank you, Mr. Gid. I will probably see you later.”

  After he left, Tennie returned to the living quarters. “I guess we better go see if Shorty wants to play dominoes,” she told her stepsons as one of the three men upstairs screamed of killing Gid and her.

  The first time something like that had happened, the boys had cried and wanted to go back home to their dilapidated ranch. It had become less jarring over time but remained painful to listen to. In a twisted way, all the turmoil kept the boys from running around town after dark—that and Lafayette had ordered them from the very beginning to stay indoors at night in Ring Bit.

  As she followed the boys out the door, Tennie muttered, “So much for being a darling marshal.”

  Looking back as they hurried to the station, a movement in the alley between the jailhouse and the livery caught Tennie’s eye. “Go on in. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Rusty hesitated, but Tennie urged him to take the younger boys inside. When he complied, she crept silently back. Peering around the corner separating the two buildings, she gasped. Two Mexican men were dumping a third man into the alley.

  They looked up, saw her, and halted. Three jaws dropped. Tennie glanced at the body, sure by his dark clothing he was yet another soldier. She looked at the two Mexican men and realized she knew them. They were friends of Poco, a ranger who rode with Wash. They had built an outdoor oven for her behind the jail, encouraged by Poco because she had nursed him after he had been wounded in an Indian skirmish.

  They realized she recognized them and began to speak softly in Spanish, making hand signals. Wash could speak fluent Spanish, but Tennie could only recognize a few words. She thought they were trying to tell her they had not killed the man but were just trying to get rid of the body.

  “Poco’s amigos?” she asked.

  “Sí, sí,” they agreed.

  “Vamoose,” she said, waving them away and looking behind her to make sure no one else was watching. When she turned back, they had disappeared.

  She knelt down, hesitantly placing her hand over the soldier’s heart. The skin already felt cold, and she knew he was beyond help. She rose and hurried back to the station.

  “Mrs. Granger!” a shrill voice called to her from across the street.

  Tennie froze. She turned and saw Inga Milton striding toward her from across the road.

  “I want to speak to you right now. Get over here,” Inga said, pointing to the ground.

  Reluctantly, Tennie took a few steps, meeting her in the street. “What is it, Mrs. Milton?” she asked, dreading the answer.

  “It’s that man. That Hawkshaw man. You must speak to him.”

  “Hawkshaw?” Tennie said, breathing a sigh of relief. “What—”

  “Don’t act so much like a moron. You must speak to him and order him to stop.”

  “Stop what?” Tennie asked.

  “Stop snooping. Twice I caught him listening. Just now by the window, I saw him. You go find him and tell him you throw him in jail if he persists.”

  “Snooping?” Tennie remembered Hawkshaw had been listening to Lafayette speaking to her. And he was eavesdropping on the Miltons? It didn’t make any sense to her.

  “Do I have to tell you everything twice?” Inga said. “Go find that man and tell him you arrest him if he does it again.”

  Tennie shook her head clear. “I’m not going searching in the dark to find Mr. Hawkshaw this late at night, but I will speak to him in the morning.”

  “You better. You are sorriest town marshal in world.”

  “I’ll find him tomorrow,” Tennie said.

  Inga stomped away, and Tennie went back to the station. Rusty and Lucas were waiting for her in the shadows. She said nothing but shooed them inside where Shorty sat at a table in the barren waiting room shuffling dominoes with Badger. A hundred-pound dog with long black and gray fur lay beside Shorty, his tongue lolling out and panting happily, saliva dripping from teeth that looked like a row of ivory bowie knives hanging from his jaw. Bear, like Shorty, never looked for a fight, but he never backed away from one either. The other dogs in town had learned a long time ago to leave him alone. Badger’s beloved puppy, Rascal, Bear’s son, lay beside him, tired out from following three boys all day. Shorty had high hopes of training Rascal to be like his father.

  Shorty looked up and grimaced. “What did that Viking want?”

  Tennie explained but said nothing about the dead soldier in the alley. Instead, she joined them at the table and repeated the story about the Indian fight.

  Shorty pursed his lips together and glared at her. “A man has to learn to do his duty and leave the outcome to God. That’s no reason to go on a bender and tear up everything and everyone in sight.”

  Tennie realized men like Shorty and Winn Payton had little patience with others who couldn’t be as strong as they were. “I don’t know why life has to be so stinking hard,” she said.

  Shorty gave a sharp glance at the boys around the table. “Don’t waste time asking why, Tennie. Save your energy for asking, ‘What do I need to do today?’”

  “I don’t need to do anything tonight except try to beat you at dominoes,” she said. “It’s tomorrow I’m worried about. Mr. Slick Gun Hawkshaw is going to be laughing in my face. But I’d rather face him than Inga Milton.”

  “Tennie, were you abused by the matron of that orphanage?” Shorty said. “You’ll stand up to any man, but you are terrified of women.”

  “That’s not true,” Tennie said. “I got along very well with the other women on the wagon train out here, thank you very much. It’s these women in Ring B
it who give me the willies. No use talking about that,” she said as she slid dominoes toward herself.

  There were nice orphanages and not-so-nice orphanages. Tennie’s fell in the latter category. When Ashton Granger had begged her to take care of his boys and not let them be sent to an orphanage, it had been easy to agree. Putting it into practice was another matter.

  With her stepsons looking at her, Tennie looked through the opened door and into the street, and watched a group of cowboys riding toward the livery stable. She hoped they had come to Ring Bit to have a little fun—not destroy every saloon in the town and try to rob the bank all on the same night.

  “It’s just that Inga scares me,” she said, turning back to the game. She thought about the dead soldier in the alley, saying a silent prayer for him and hoping the army wouldn’t tell his mother he died in a drunken fight over some woman.

  Gid came back with yet another intoxicated soldier, along with a helper. Afterward she asked Gid to take the body in the alley to the undertaker’s. Gid had been in Ring Bit long enough to know that no explanations were necessary.

  * * *

  It was two a.m. before the brawlers in the jail cells above calmed down enough for Tennie and the boys to sleep.

  “It’s a good thing Shorty loves to play cards and dominoes,” she said as the boys and their puppy hopped onto the beds on the far side of the room.

  “It’s a good thing Mr. Lafayette asked him if we could go over there when things get noisy here,” said Lucas, who always took up for Lafayette.

  Tennie agreed and went to her bed in the little alcove behind the curtain, saying her prayers, so thankful their jailhouse days would soon be over.

  The next morning, a major arrived with two lieutenants to escort the imprisoned soldiers back to the fort. Tennie had prepared ham and biscuits for the prisoners to take on their journey, and as was her custom, invited the major to eat breakfast with her and the boys. A handsome young West Point graduate with dark eyes and a clear complexion, far away from home and lonely, he readily agreed. Unlike many of the men of West Texas who refused to speak until they finished eating, the major remained voluble throughout the meal, telling Tennie the latest news from his sweetheart back East.

  “I suppose you heard about the Indian attack?” he asked.

  Tennie nodded.

  “There’s no way I can bring my fiancée out here,” he blurted. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Tennie forbore pointing out that she was living “out here.” What happened between the major and his fiancée was their business, not hers.

  “I tried to write to her about you, Miss Tennie, but, she . . . she doesn’t . . . she can’t—”

  Tennie nodded, looking away momentarily.

  He left his blunder behind and spoke of other failures to comprehend his life in the West. “The people back East have no understanding of what pioneers are facing. They solved their problems with Indians years ago, so they can sit back in their chairs and tell us without a qualm of conscience that the tales of atrocities are greatly exaggerated. If only they could witness what we have seen with our own eyes.

  “And yet there are times when I feel so sorry for these people. So sorry that everything they know is vanishing and changing.”

  Tennie wanted to tell him Shorty’s words of the night before, but she realized the major did not want her advice. He wanted her to listen. The boys must have known it, too, because they ate in silence, perhaps remembering their father, who was so traumatized by the war he quit doctoring and became a rancher.

  After the major finished eating, and as he was leaving, Tennie did try to comfort him. “Just continue to do your duty with compassion, Major, and do not take everything so hard.”

  He grasped her hands in his and kissed them in gratitude.

  Tennie smiled. “Get along now. I must get ready for another big night.”

  He smiled. “I fear so, kind lady.” He doffed his hat to her, clicked his heels, and left.

  “Shorty said you ain’t never gonna get rid of these men if you don’t quit feeding them,” Badger said.

  Tennie looked at the dishes on the table and wondered if she could get the boys to do them. It was going to be a battle to get them to do their other chores. “I cannot turn them away, Badger. Besides, the major helps me with the enlisted men and deserves some kindness in return. Now go help your brothers by bringing in some kindling.”

  “Aw, Miss Tennie!” The cries rose from the table.

  “If you want to eat, you have to work. Now hop to it. I have to finish these dishes and go find Mr. Hawkshaw.” She wondered when the man would ever leave town.

  In a place where every building looked raw and new, the hotel managed to look like an old dump. Lafayette had grandiose plans for a new one to be built in conjunction with the coming railroad, but the railroad plans were stalling and so was the hotel. In the meantime, Tennie stood on the wooden sidewalk, looking at the unpainted, lopsided structure and hoping someone would come out.

  A cowboy approached her on the sidewalk, coming from the west. “Ma’am?” he asked, tipping his hat.

  Tennie smiled. “I need to speak to Mr. Hawkshaw. I usually see him on the street, but he isn’t about today. Would you happen to know if he is in his hotel?”

  “No, ma’am,” the cowboy replied. “He’s over yonder at the café.”

  Tennie gave him her thanks and turned to leave.

  “May I escort you, ma’am?” the young cowboy asked.

  “Of course. Thank you,” Tennie replied. It was a little early for obnoxious drunks to be lurching from the saloons, but one never knew.

  She made small talk about the weather until reaching the café. “Thank you,” she said again, dismissing him in the kindest, firmest way. She was engaged to Wash Jones and did not need to be encouraging the attentions of other men. It dawned on her she would not need the major’s goodwill much longer either, but she did not consider it encouraging his affections when all she did was listen to him moon over his fiancée.

  She peered into the window of the café and spotted Hawkshaw sitting alone with his back to the wall and his face to the door and windows. There wasn’t a woman in the crowded café. Seeing a bench near the entrance, she sat down to wait.

  Men came out, tipped their hats and said, “Howdy, Miss Tennie.”

  She smiled, nodding in return, and continued to wait. After fifteen minutes, she resisted the urge to stand up and peek into the window again. Rusty, Lucas, and Badger joined her, hanging on to the posts in front of the café.

  “Did you get the wood chopped?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Rusty replied.

  “Today is Saturday. It’s bread day. Is there enough to bake bread?”

  “Yes, ma’am, Miss Tennie,” Lucas said.

  “And what about Mr. Lafayette’s bottles? Have you collected them?”

  Badger leaned against her lap, staring up at her with his big round eyes. “We promised to help Lucas later.”

  “All right,” Tennie said, rubbing his dark hair. “When Mr. Hawkshaw comes out here, keep quiet. Don’t say a word.”

  They agreed, watching the men going in and out of the café without comment. Another fifteen minutes went by before Hawkshaw finally exited. The boys stood back but remained draped around the nearest post.

  Hawkshaw paused, taking a gold watch from the pocket of his vest. He looked down at it and raised his eyes, giving an uninterested gaze up and down the street. Replacing the watch, he looked at Tennie. “Are you waiting for me, Marshal?”

  “Yes,” Tennie replied, thinking only wealthy men carry gold watches. She motioned to the spot next to her on the bench. “Will you sit down? Most people drop the ‘Marshal’ and just call me Miss Tennie.”

  He nodded, removed his hat, and sat down on the far side of the bench. When she had been close to him before, she had been concentrating on his arm with only a lamp for illumination. There on the sidewalk, she could see features made much sharpe
r by daylight. His nose, ears, lips, and eyes were all large. His nose had been broken more than once, she guessed. His eyes were dark like his wavy hair and thick mustache. His skin was coarse like his features. Not an ugly man, but not a refined, handsome one either.

  “Mrs. Milton has made a complaint that she has caught you twice by her window, listening to her conversations,” Tennie said.

  “She’s lying,” Hawkshaw said. “I listened once at the window and once by the door.”

  Tennie looked at him and made to rise.

  He stopped her. “Wait a minute. Is that all you have to say?”

  “Yes,” Tennie replied. “I told her I would talk to you and I have.”

  He made a noise between a snort and a chuckle. “You aren’t going to threaten to do anything about it?”

  “I already have done something,” Tennie said. “Everyone in town knows I have been waiting to speak to you, and they will worm out why from these boys fast enough. Having it known all over town that you are an eavesdropper is enough of a warning and a punishment.”

  “You are a hard woman, you know that?” Hawkshaw asked, and then he did laugh.

  “No, I’m not,” Tennie said.

  He did not argue about that. “So, it is wrong for me to listen but not for your stepsons?” he asked, pointing his head in their direction.

  “What happens to me, happens to them,” Tennie said.

  “I know something about you, too, Miss Tennie Marshal,” Hawkshaw said. “I know you are secretly engaged to a Texas Ranger, and you are afraid if it is known, someone in a jealous fit will shoot him in the back in the dark.”

  Tennie sat staring at him, not knowing at once how to answer. “If you are speaking of Wash Jones, whoever killed him would have to deal with Lafayette. And if he got to both of them, there would be others to contend with. In case you haven’t noticed, both men like to surround themselves with people who are devoted to them.”

  Hawkshaw stared back at her. “And they are not the only ones who do that.”

  Tennie didn’t understand what he meant. He had no friends; even the dogs left him alone.

  “Are you still leaving soon?” she asked.