A Bad Place to Die, page 7
“Yes, sir.”
He nodded in approval, taking the seat beside her. “No one has probably told you, but the soiled doves usually do their shopping from two to four in the afternoon, and the other women avoid the stores during that time.”
“The undertaker’s wife told me I wasn’t wanted on their side of town,” Tennie said. “So evidently I’m not going to fit in anywhere.”
“Well, what did you expect, taking this job?” he demanded.
“And what was I supposed to do?” she asked.
“Be respectable. Marry any of these men in town. All you have to do is point your finger at one and say ‘you’re it.’”
“And I would frighten him so badly, he would get on his horse and ride and not stop until he reached California,” Tennie countered. She changed the subject. “Why is town so quiet? Where is everyone?”
Pulling out a pipe, Mr. Payton filled it with tobacco from a leather pouch. “There is a little Mexican segment of town to the east of us,” he said, pointing to it with his pipe. “And a Negro settlement a mile west of us. Don’t go there and don’t bother them. They handle their own affairs.
“The men are across the street in the saloons watching us right now. Waiting to see how you handle yourself. Don’t go in there, either. For one thing, the saloon girls will try to lure you into taking sides in their constant fights, and it will become a never-ending source of irritation for you. They are sows dressed in silk, but sows nevertheless. The men of the West are so starved for women, they will take anyone, and many a prostitute has found a good man and started a happy life with one out here.” He gave a nod of his head to the inside of the store. “But those girls are the hardened ones. They don’t want to give up the excitement of the sporting life and won’t stop until they contract syphilis or get too old, in which case, Lafayette will put them on the first stage out of town.”
“He paid for new bedding for the jail,” Tennie said.
“He’s trying to get you to feel beholden to him. Don’t. That blonde who just walked into the store? That’s his mistress.”
Tennie had to resist the urge to turn and crane her neck to get a better look.
“I sometimes wonder if Lafayette isn’t trying to get shut of her,” he mused. “He hired a slick piano player last year and talked up how exciting life could be on a Mississippi riverboat, but Arabella wouldn’t take the bait. She dallied with the piano player for a while, but in the end decided what she had here was too good of a nest to fly away from, so she let one of the other girls run off with him.”
“I won’t pretend I understand any of that,” Tennie said. “All I know is he said he fell in love with the wrong woman and that’s how he ended up in Ring Bit.”
“The brother’s wife?” Mr. Payton said. “Did he tell you he killed one of his brothers in a duel over that woman?”
Tennie shook her head. “No.”
“He did. I talked to my relatives in Alabama about him when I went there to fetch you girls; they told me about it. The brother’s wife became so distraught over the havoc she caused, she went into mourning and hasn’t come out of it to this day.”
“Well, that’s a little foolish,” Tennie said.
“To you and me, yes,” he said with a dry laugh. “But to those wealthy, inbred old Southern families, no.” He took a long drag on his pipe. “The thing to remember about Lafayette is everything boils down to business with him. He’s here to make money—I guess to prove something to his family. I don’t know. His parents disowned him.”
“He hasn’t tried to go back?” Tennie asked. “Surely his family has forgiven him by now.”
“Maybe, but her family hasn’t,” Mr. Payton said. “She had an uncle who used to go to town wearing a woman’s camisole and corset under his shirt. He’d preen like a peacock when people would notice. He wouldn’t hurt a fly, but there was a stern younger brother who would kill Lafayette in a heartbeat if he ever showed his face back there. It’s surprising to me he hasn’t come looking for him.”
Rusty walked out of the store, looking self-conscious in his new clothes. Tennie had feared he might decide on something inappropriate, but he had made good choices. It came to her with a start they were replicas of the ones Wash Jones had worn, right down to the high-topped boots with the pants legs tucked in.
“Oh, here,” Rusty said, thrusting into her hand the money he had left over.
Mr. Payton nodded in approval. “You know anything about horses and cattle, boy?”
Rusty nodded. “Yes, sir. I helped my pa with our cattle before he got so down.”
“You’re old enough to go on the roundup and trail drive next spring,” Mr. Payton said. “I’ll take you on. I won’t be going next year, but my men will. I’ll see you have a place with them.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rusty said, surprised and pleased.
That night, amidst a flurry of whispers, Rusty worked on the outside cutting the bars with a saw, while Lucas and Badger took turns with the file from the inside.
It grew so late, Tennie told them they would have to stop for the night. “We still have so far to go.”
CHAPTER 7
By Friday afternoon, Tennie decided the men must have tired of sitting inside of buildings watching her, because the sidewalks were filling with people, almost all of them male. The streets became noisy with the sounds of men shouting and animals barking and braying. Maggot Milton ran out of his store twice waving a gun and cursing children to stay off his sidewalk and away from the animals in the pens behind his building. By evening, the streets were full of horses tethered to hitching posts in front of the saloons, and gunshots were heard being fired all over town. The sounds of laughter and cursing filled the night, all of it raucous. It seemed to Tennie it happened in front of the jail more than anywhere else, as if she was being dared to come outside.
She stayed huddled with the three boys in the living quarters. Rusty tried to read, but the noises outside were so loud, they had trouble hearing him. He stopped when a particularly vile stream seemed to be coming their way. They had the door between the living quarters and office open, and from where they sat, they could see the outside door. When the cursing became its strongest, it sounded just outside the door, and all four of them jumped when it was kicked open.
“We got one for you, Miss Tennie,” a man shouted. He and another man were half carrying and struggling with a man so drunk, he could hardly hold his head up. He nevertheless managed to squirm and spew obscenities at his captors.
Tennie jumped up, grabbing the key ring from the wall.
“Stay back, Miss Tennie,” the bigger of the two men wrestling their prisoner said. “He’s liable to kick you. He’s a mean jackass when he’s drunk. Oops, pardon my French, ma’am.”
Tennie nodded and followed from a safe distance as they took the prisoner upstairs. They threw him unceremoniously into the farthest cell and slammed the door behind him. Tennie locked it with shaking hands. He jumped unexpectedly, and she barely made it out of his reach before he grabbed her, calling her foul-sounding names she didn’t know existed. One of the men took a pistol and, using the butt, reached through the bars and struck him in the head with a blow that should have knocked him out, but only sent him reeling back.
“Don’t pay him no mind, Miss Tennie,” the other man said. “Believe it or not, he’s a real nice fellow when he’s sober.”
They didn’t waste time, but tromped back down the stairs, spurs jingling, with Tennie behind them. Reaching for the door, they stopped. “Lafayette said to remind you not to be outside if you can help it.”
Tennie nodded, and they left, shutting the door behind them.
The prisoner, however, continued his tirade. Tennie returned to their living quarters and the table the boys sat around, but the man’s continual cursing above them amplified throughout the room. Rusty tried to read and couldn’t. As the prisoner cursed everyone who locked him up, he began banging the slop bucket against the bars as loud as he could.
Badger began to cry. “I want my pa. I want to go home.”
Lucas began to weep silent tears, while Rusty looked like he was about to. Tennie stared at them, feeling helpless.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “We have some buttermilk pie left over from supper. I think it would be a nice thing if you took it over to Big Mike and perhaps visited him for a while.”
The younger boys wiped their tears. “Really?”
Tennie nodded, but Rusty looked hesitant, as if he didn’t want to leave her alone.
“I’ll be fine,” Tennie said. “You boys go. But don’t wear out your welcome.”
She got the pie for them and thrust it into Rusty’s hands as the sounds above them increased in ferocity. They walked into the office.
Opening the door, Tennie peered into the night. “Okay, go there and straight back. Don’t dare go anywhere else.”
She stayed at the door, watching through the dark night. Mike had his doors open and lanterns lit. She could make out the dying embers in his forge and the shadow of the boys as they walked past.
She shut the door and went back to the table. She placed her hands over her ears and put her head down, but she couldn’t block out the screaming filth above her head. She kept her hands over her ears, her eyes shut tight, hoping he would tire of yelling and beating on the bars soon.
She felt someone’s presence in the room rather than heard it. She jerked her head up and removed her hands from her ears. Rusty had come back, carrying the pie.
“Mike said Mr. Lafayette and Mr. Payton both warned him about eating us out of house and home, so he can’t take the pie,” Rusty said. “But he sent me back to fetch you. He said you can sit with us; we can watch for anybody coming who needs locking up tonight.”
Tennie nodded in thankfulness. She took the keys from the hook on the wall and followed Rusty to the livery as the man in the cell above cursed Tennie, Lafayette, and Lafayette’s mother.
Mike sat in a chair just outside the door, facing the jail, and he had placed another chair for Tennie a little farther back in the shadows, so she could see but not be seen. The boys sat around them on the ground.
“Thank you, Big Mike,” she said, sitting in the chair he pulled it out for her. “It is nice of you to let us come over.”
“Nice?” his big voice boomed. “No, not nice of me. Nice for me.”
She couldn’t place his accent. “Are you Polish, Mike?”
“No! I am Ruthenian,” he said, beaming in pride.
“What’s that?” Badger asked.
“Here, I show you. Come closer to fire.” Mike took a stick and drew circles on the ground. “See, here is Russia; here is Poland; here is Hungary. Here is where I come from,” he said, pointing the stick. “And here,” he said, moving the stick far from the circles, “is where I am now. The people where I am from, they are all small people. I don’t fit in so good there. But here, I fit in better with tall Texans.”
Tennie laughed and agreed, moving back to her chair. Mike took his place as sentry and began telling them about his home in the foothills of the mountains, his big voice booming over and drowning out the sounds of rinky-dink pianos, shouting, fights, and the occasional gunfire floating in from the street. Tennie listened, but waited, nerves tense, for her job to begin. Mike hadn’t been talking long when he stood up. Tennie rose and went to the door, seeing two men dragging a writhing third toward the jail.
“I have to go,” she said. “I’ll be back. You boys stay here with Mike.”
They followed her to the front doors of the livery as she hurried to do her job. She made a motion for them to stay back and called out to the men in front of her. “I’m right here.”
The men looked up. One was the same man who had come the previous time, a heavyset, stoutly built cowboy. The other man grappling with the drunken cowboy who seemed intent on escaping their grasp was a different helper.
Tennie opened the jail door and stood back. They headed for the stairs with the battling man muttering they were to let him go so he could kill them or some other peckerwood, Tennie wasn’t sure. When the other prisoner heard them coming up the stairs, he began his ruckus again.
The men threw the thrashing man into one of the empty cells and slammed the door behind him. Tennie locked it as quickly as she could and drew back. One of the men yelled at the first prisoner.
“I told you to shut up! Now shut your mouth. You ain’t going nowhere.” His words had no effect on the jailed man’s tirade, and he shook his head in disgust, heading for the stairs. Tennie followed the two men out.
“Go ahead on,” the first man said to his helper. “I’ll be there directly.”
He nodded and left. The heavyset cowboy turned to Tennie. He looked older and wiser than an ordinary cowboy in the dim light of the lanterns, a man with dark sad eyes and a square chin. “Name’s Jeff Hamilton, Miss Tennie. You and them young’uns staying over at the livery?”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Hamilton,” Tennie said, grateful to hear another Southern accent. “All that hollering was upsetting the boys, so I sent them over to Big Mike’s. He sent them back to fetch me, saying it would be all right if we just watched the jail from the livery for a while.”
“We’ll be working together, Miss Tennie,” Jeff said. “You might as well call me Mr. Jeff.”
“Of course, Mr. Jeff,” she said as they walked together.
“Don’t worry about Honey Boy; he’ll calm down and fall asleep in a little while. You won’t have to be up too late. Most of the vinegar is out of them a little after midnight; after that, they quit wanting to fight. Then we’ll just roll them onto the sidewalks when they pass out.”
“Honey Boy?” Tennie said with a questioning raise of her eyebrows.
“It’s the nickname his mama gave him and it stuck,” Jeff said. They had reached the door of the livery. He tipped his hat. “I’ll be getting back. I’ll tell Lafayette where you’re at.”
“Is Mr. Lafayette . . .” Tennie began. “Is he the boss of the town?”
“No. It’d be a da . . . er, dag-gum sight better place if he was, though,” he answered and moved through the night.
Big Mike and the boys were in the middle of telling ghost stories. Tennie sat down once again, but got interrupted just as Mike began a narration about something he called a vepyr, a bloodsucking man who haunted castles.
“Thank goodness there are no castles around here,” Tennie said before she hurried away. That was all she needed, hollering men and children screaming from nightmares about a vepyr.
The three men were from another saloon. When their prisoner saw Tennie, he mistook her for another woman and began cursing her violently.
One of the two men holding him gave him a vicious strike across the face. “That’s not Marguerite! That’s Miss Tennie!”
They pushed him inside the jailhouse, up the stairs, and into the third cell. Honey Boy began banging his bucket and hollering again, something about Lafayette being some kind of mother Tennie didn’t understand. She only knew it drew a violent response from the men who had brought the third prisoner in.
One of them drew his pistol and fired it into the cell. “Shut that up or the next bullet goes in your gut,” he hollered.
“Please, I’m going,” Tennie said, heading back down the stairs. The two men followed her, escorting her to the livery.
“Don’t pay him no mind, ma’am,” one of them said. “He’s got the manners of a donkey.”
“I won’t,” Tennie promised, thanking them before escaping back into the livery where Mike had gotten off the subject of the bloodsucking count and was telling them about a headless man who rode through the countryside looking for his wife.
Tennie had never met anyone so full of lore and superstition as Big Mike. She was listening to a story about his grandmother, who knew his ill father was going to die because a bird tried to get into the house, when Jeff called to her from the doorway.
She started and jumped up.
“One more, Miss Tennie,” Jeff said, but his voice lacked the rougher edge he had used before.
He had yet another helper with him, but they didn’t bother to have the cowboy between them in a hold. Their prisoner barely made a shadow, he was so small. In the dim light, he looked as mild as a bowl of oatmeal. Tennie hurried to the jailhouse, wondering what he had done. She opened the door for them, but they didn’t warn her to stay back. Instead, they allowed the prisoner to climb the stairs ahead of them.
“You may be keeping him for awhile, Miss Tennie,” Jeff said. “He knifed a friend of his, but the man ain’t dead yet. Doc passed out earlier tonight, and when we managed to wake him up, he had sobered enough to work on him, so he may live.”
Tennie didn’t know how to respond. When they reached the top floor, she said, “The cells are full. I don’t know where to put him.”
Jeff looked at the three men. “Honey Boy’s finally out. We’ll put him in there with him. They’re pals.”
“Uh, do you think we should search him for more weapons?” she asked, feeling timorous, but not wanting Honey Boy to be knifed, too.
“Two-Bit, you got any more weapons on you?” Jeff asked the prisoner.
He shook his head. “Nope.”
“He’s all right, Miss Tennie,” Jeff said.
Tennie unlocked the cell, hoping the sound of the key being turned didn’t awaken Honey Boy and turn him into a crazed maniac again. Jeff opened the door, and Two-Bit walked in.
“Roll Honey Boy off the bed,” Jeff instructed the prisoner. “He ain’t gonna feel nothing for a long time.”
Two-Bit nodded, pushing Honey Boy aside. Tennie scrunched her eyes shut and heard a thud, but when she opened them, Honey Boy was lying on the jailhouse floor, mouth gaping, still snoring and looking none the worse.
She locked the door and followed Jeff and his helper down the stairs.
“Lafayette will send word what to do with him, tomorrow or the next day,” Jeff said. “It depends on if the man he knifed lives and wants to press charges. They usually don’t.”
