Killing Time

by Paul Lederer

  Tom nodded and finished his beer. ‘Who suggested me for the job?’

  ‘Tarquinian Stottlemeyer, who says he knows you well.’

  Tom smiled. He had thought he would never hear that name again. ‘He doesn’t know me that well,’ Tom said with a shrug.

  ‘Well, Marshal Joe Adderly down in Rincon seems to,’ Walt Paulsen said. In response to Tom’s raised eyebrow, the feed-and-grain man said, ‘Flapjack is not entirely cut off from the world, Dyce. We wired Rincon and Marshal Adderly sent back a message,’ Paulsen withdrew a folded telegram from his coat pocket, ‘in which he states that he has “complete faith in you, that you have his highest regard as a law officer”.’

  Nice of Joe, but Tom did not wish to become a law officer ever again. He rose suddenly, saying, ‘I don’t think I can consider your offer at this time, gentlemen. Unfortunately, I have other obligations.’ Then he turned on his heel and walked away from the trio. Lee Tremaine, who must have heard at least a part of the conversation, followed him with those cold eyes of his.

  Outside Tom paused for a deep breath, asked a passer-by for the time and started on. It was after four o’clock. His shoulder was aching like sin, and Laura should be home in her little cabin by now.

  Not knowing exactly where he was heading, Tom wandered into the narrow alley behind the restaurant until he came upon four identical white cabins facing each other across a clearing in the oak grove there. A dog barked at him and continued to bark until someone shushed it. A weary-looking bay horse stood beside one of the cabins, tugging listlessly at the yellow grass, swishing its tail at the flies that taunted it.

  Tom found the cabin with the letter ‘C’ crudely painted on its door and tapped at it. In moments, the door swung open and Laura stood there, smiling out at him.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ she told Tom, escorting him inside the musty cabin. She left the door open for air.

  ‘I wasn’t either,’ Tom said, taking a seat on a rust-colored plush sofa that looked older than Flapjack, and possibly was. ‘I thought I’d better, though.’ He rubbed his shoulder gingerly.

  ‘Still bothering you?’ Laura asked.

  ‘It’s gotten worse, actually. Now it’s stiffening as well as hurting.’

  ‘We’d better get to it,’ Laura said, nodding her head toward a cubbyhole of a kitchen. ‘Out there. Take off your shirt – if you can.’

  Tom unbuttoned his shirt and then found that when he tried to stretch his arm out it would not co-operate. ‘I guess I could use some help,’ Tom told Laura, who nodded and came to help him, her lips pursed inquisitively as she studied the wound.

  ‘Sit at the table,’ Laura, all efficiency now, told him. ‘I’ll probably have to soak the bandages free first with some hot water before I can cut them off. They’re scabbed over.’

  ‘I’m in your hands,’ Tom said as he watched her pull out a pot, fill it from the indoor pump at the sink and somehow prod the fire in the stove to life. She was all concentration. She was near enough in the small kitchen that he caught hints of her scent as she worked. Lilac, he thought, but was not sure. And he could see the small tendrils of reddish hair that curled on the nape of her neck because of perspiration. He noticed her capable hands, narrow waist. She was, he thought, a fine-looking young woman. Laura seemed unaware of his appraising glances, but she might not have been. Women, Tom thought, always knew when a man was looking at them with interest. Laura was carefully unwrapping the bandages that she could – those not pasted down by clotted blood. She made small sounds of distaste as she worked. Tom was aware of her small exhalations brushing over his flesh.

  ‘Well, whoever did this did well enough, but obviously he had little experience,’ Laura said assessing Wade Block’s patch job.

  ‘He’s only a ranch hand. That’s probably the way he stitches a steer that has torn itself on barbed wire.’ Tom smiled at his own remark, but the smile was overwhelmed by pain as Laura went too far with her tugging at the dirty bandage.

  ‘Sorry – that must have hurt. I’ve started it bleeding, and I see some pus. I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull out these old stitches, clean the wound and start all over again.’

  ‘If you have to,’ Tom muttered. He had been hoping for a quick fix.

  ‘I have to if you want the wound clean and ready to heal properly,’ Laura told him, adopting a motherly tone.

  ‘Go ahead,’ Tom said unhappily. He knew what removing Wade Block’s stitches, opening the wound and applying new stitchery was going to feel like. But if Laura thought it had to be done, may as well let her get started. As she worked and the pot whistled on the stove, they talked between Laura’s concerned puffs of breath and Tom’s occasional grunt of pain.

  ‘Are you still planning on taking the stagecoach on Saturday?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Yes! The day after tomorrow,’ she said happily.

  ‘You said there was a layover in Rincon.’

  ‘Yes, and that’s where you came from, isn’t it? Do you know of a place to stay?’

  ‘There’s a hotel there,’ Tom told her.

  ‘Oh, yes! Rincon’s a big town, isn’t it?’

  ‘If you’re from Flapjack, I suppose it is,’ Tom answered, wincing as Laura pulled out the last stitch Wade Block had put in.

  ‘Let me kind of open it up, and then I have some salve to put on the wound,’ Laura said.

  ‘Open it up…?’ Tom began, but then he winced with pain and felt perspiration pop out of his forehead as, with a pair of tweezers, Laura peeled back the wound’s flaps of skin. She was against his back now, talking a near-whisper.

  ‘Saturday for me,’ she said as her fingers worked. ‘What about you, Tom? Are you staying or leaving?’

  ‘Staying, for a while, I think. I still have some unfinished business.’ Without meaning to, he drifted into the long story of Aurora Tyne and her ranch, about his suspicions concerning Ray Fox. Laura was cleaning the open wound with a cloth. Tom could feel blood leaking down his arm. He began talking again, to distract himself from what she was doing. After a time he could hear himself telling Laura how lovely Aurora was, how she had rejected him. He knew a man doesn’t go around telling one woman how attractive he finds another, but the words just seemed to spill from his lips.

  ‘She’s the tall lady with the long dark hair, isn’t she? I’ve seen her two or three times in the restaurant.’ Her voice seemed indifferent, but Tom thought he heard some other emotion lurking in her words. He shrugged off his pointless conjectures. Painfully, Laura swabbed out his gunshot wound with lye soap and then produced a mixing bowl and what looked to be a pestle.

  ‘What’s that?’ Tom asked. He thought he recognized the small white berries, but could not be sure.

  ‘Mistletoe,’ Laura answered, smashing the berries to a paste. ‘Indians use it all the time for treating wounds. That and green moss which helps the wound to coagulate – we’ll skip that part, you’re not bleeding heavily.’

  ‘Where did you learn about that?’ Tom asked. He recalled once being told about mistletoe from an old plainsman, but it wasn’t common knowledge.

  ‘Back home I had a woman who was part Crow Indian as a nurse when I was young.’ Laura was applying the paste to his wound now. ‘I was interested in Indian medicine long before I thought of becoming a nurse myself. Does that hurt?’

  ‘No, it’s soothing actually,’ Tom said.

  ‘Good,’ she said reaching for a needle and waxed thread, ‘because what I am going to do next will hurt, I can guarantee.’

  Now she was the one who talked as she pieced the skin on Tom’s shoulder together again. ‘I heard that you were going to be offered the job of town marshal.’

  ‘It’s not the job for me,’ Tom said through clenched teeth as Laura took another stitch.

  ‘No, I suppose not, but I was thinking – if you are determined to halt the feud between the Rafter T and Circle R for Aurora, and to find out the truth about Ray Fox, to nab Vance Wynn – wouldn’t it be easier
to accomplish all that if you were wearing a badge?’

  ‘It would … ow!’ Tom cried out, half-rising from his chair.

  ‘Sit still,’ Laura admonished him. ‘You don’t want this shoulder to look like a piece of quiltwork when it heals, do you?’

  ‘No,’ Tom said through clenched teeth. ‘As I was trying to say – the long valley is far outside of Flapjack’s town limits. I can’t see how a marshal’s badge could help anything.’

  ‘Maybe not, but it lends a little authority to your poking around.’

  ‘I can’t see myself taking up residence in Flapjack,’ Tom said, wincing again. ‘You know how that would be – it’s the reason you’re leaving.’

  ‘Yes, I know, but you could explain to the town council that it was only a temporary move until they find someone who really wants the job.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Tom said doubtfully, hunching his shoulders as he waited for the next piercing of the needle. But Laura stood back, brushed her hair from her forehead and said with a triumphant cry:

  ‘Finished! That’s it except for a fresh bandage, and I believe the patient will make a full recovery.’

  Tom glanced at his shoulder. It was puffy and bruised, but it looked better than the last time he had seen it. He would have to trust to Laura’s herbal remedy to fight the infection.

  ‘You should try to move it as little as possible for the next few days,’ Laura said, and, surprising Tom, she ruffled his hair familiarly. ‘Your cowhand days are over for a while.’

  Was she hinting that he ought to consider the marshal’s job? Perhaps she was right. He had to do something to support himself, and his savings would not last long.

  After Laura finished her kitchen cleaning they sat on a bench circling an old oak in the back of the cabin, drinking coffee and talking of many things, most of them inconsequential. He found she was easy to talk to, with a quick wit. The image she had first presented to him was that of a totally different young woman.

  When the color began to paint the sky in the west, Tom rose to his feet. Laura took his hands and looked up with misted eyes. He wondered for a moment if he was supposed to kiss her, but the invitation wasn’t clear enough.

  ‘Thanks for the medical help, Laura. You’re a woman with many hidden gifts.’

  ‘Yes, Tom, I am,’ she said.

  ‘Well, I’ve got matters to attend to,’ Tom said uneasily, and Laura let her hands drop away.

  ‘I know. Goodbye, Tom, you know I must leave soon.’

  Tom Dyce trudged back toward town, thinking about Laura. He had the feeling that she was speaking of many things at once. He knew that she was leaving Saturday; her words seemed to be a forever farewell, and he supposed they were. He had never learned the ways of women; he supposed he never would.

  Horace Jefferson himself was tending bar in the Foothill saloon when Tom Dyce tramped in. The place was still fairly silent at this time of the evening. Lee Tremaine had engaged three other men in a game of poker. The prospector still sat at one table, asleep, head on his arms.

  ‘Quiet night,’ Tom remarked to Jefferson who lifted his eyes questioningly.

  ‘They come and go,’ Jefferson said. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I guess one of those green and cool beers. Then – I’d like to talk business with you. I’ve been reconsidering the offer you gentlemen made me.’

  ‘You’ll take the job of town marshal?’ Jefferson asked with surprise.

  ‘On a strictly temporary basis,’ Tom said.

  ‘Well.…’ Jefferson was stuck for words. ‘Wait until my regular bartender comes in, and we’ll go see Asher and Paulsen. I think they’ll approve.’

  Later they emerged from the saloon, Jefferson hurriedly putting on his coat as they walked. ‘This is wonderful,’ he panted. ‘It’s getting wild around here, too wild.’

  ‘I haven’t noticed much trouble.’

  ‘You only just arrived.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘That shooting incident in my place the other night was hardly an isolated incident, Dyce. There’s nights – days – that bullets are flying around the street regardless of whether women and children are about. We just can’t have that sort of behavior in Flapjack anymore,’ Jefferson said definitely.

  The meeting was held at the house of the prosperous feed-and-grain store owner, Walt Paulsen. It was a fancy structure for this far west: two-storied, of white clapboard with green-painted shutters and doors. The interior approached luxurious. Plush chairs, walnut tables and polished floors. Paulsen had done very well for himself indeed.

  Tom Dyce heard a woman’s voice, but she did not show herself as they traipsed into Paulsen’s study where he sat behind a broad desk covered with business invoices. His eyes were fixed upon Tom as were those of William Asher. Horace Jefferson sat silently in a corner chair, hat on his lap.

  ‘I understand that you have reconsidered our offer, Dyce; that you will agree to be our town marshal.’

  ‘On a temporary basis,’ Jefferson spoke up.

  ‘Oh?’ Paulsen’s heavy eyebrows drew together. ‘We really are looking for a permanent marshal.’

  ‘Have you someone in mind?’ Tom asked with a faint smile. ‘Keep on looking, and I’ll hold down the job until you find someone.’

  ‘It’s a start.’ William Asher said in his squeaky voice.

  ‘I see,’ Paulsen, who seemed to have taken the council lead, said. ‘What sort of wages are you expecting, Dyce?’

  ‘Whatever you are preparing to offer to a permanent marshal less ten per cent.’

  ‘I’ll agree to that,’ Jefferson said, his bald head glistening with lamplight. ‘Make it forty a month, then. Is that all right, Dyce?’

  ‘It will do.’

  ‘When can you start?’ Asher asked. ‘There’s already been trouble on the streets tonight.’

  ‘As soon as I get a new shirt to pin the badge on,’ Tom said, displaying the ripped blue shirt he now wore. His bandages could be seen through the split shoulder seam. ‘And after we’ve settled a few things.’

  ‘You’re setting conditions?’ Walt Paulsen asked, his frown deepening.

  ‘Trying to settle matters,’ Tom said easily. ‘Things your new marshal will have to take care of if I don’t do it now – a jail, for instance. And a room for me to stay in.’

  ‘A jail?’ Asher said it as if it were a shock. His turkey neck quivered doubtfully.

  ‘You’ve got to have a place to lock up the drunks and brawlers. What am I supposed to do? Tie them to a tree somewhere?’

  ‘I suppose.…’ Paulsen drummed his chubby fingers on his desk top. ‘I’ve got an empty room in my warehouse and another that could be cleaned out without a lot of work. The walls are heavily timbered.’

  ‘What about the doors?’ Jefferson asked with a hint of uneasiness. ‘I wouldn’t want to have one of the roughnecks arrested only to have him break out and come back mad an hour later.’

  Tom suggested. ‘Why can’t you get the blacksmith, Bridgeport to reinforce the doors with iron straps, whatever stock he has handy? The man seems to know what he’s doing. Down the line he could fashion steel bars for a real jail door. He’d be glad to get the work, I think.’

  ‘I have that small parcel of land behind the stable,’ William Asher said, growing more eager. ‘Land sales have been more than a little slow. Why not build a new jail on the property? It seems we are going to need one sooner or later.’

  ‘That takes time,’ Paulsen muttered. ‘For now, we’ll go the way Dyce suggests. I’ll talk to Bridgeport in the morning, see what he thinks he can do.’ His eyes leveled once again on Tom’s. ‘Anything else, Dyce?’

  ‘Yes, there is,’ Tom told him, looking at each of the three members of the town council in turn. ‘What are we calling the town limits of Flapjack? I have to know my boundaries.’

  ‘Well.…’ Paulsen seemed momentarily flustered. ‘It’s never come up before. You obviously have a reason for asking us to define the town
limits.’

  Tom said quietly, ‘There’s trouble brewing up along the Thibido.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve all heard. But those ranches up on the long valley … why, they’re miles away! We can’t include them in the town limits.’

  ‘Why would we want to?’ Asher asked almost delicately.

  ‘You want us to hire a marshal to guard the ranch properties? No,’ Paulsen said firmly. ‘Why would we care about their squabbles?’

  ‘Because they could very quickly become your own,’ Tom said, leaning forward. ‘If they get to feuding up there, you may see a lot of new arrivals in Flapjack, and not the sort of men you are hoping to see. Thugs, hired guns looking for rough work. They’ll be hanging around Flapjack, drinking in the Foothill saloon. If you think these local boys are tough, wait until someone gets it in his mind to hire a bunch of Texas toughs.’

  ‘It could happen,’ Horace Jefferson said miserably. ‘Those boys don’t care about anything but whiskey, women and money. And women would be coming too – not the sort we want. They could tear this town down while we watched all of our decent citizens depart.’

  ‘What makes you think you could stop this, Dyce?’

  ‘I want to take care of matters out on the range before it ever gets to that point, before things boil over and spill into Flapjack.’

  ‘I see. What do you think we could do, Bill?’ Paulsen asked Asher. The narrow man was shaking his head. His eyes brightened slightly.

  ‘We could simply annex the ranches.’

  ‘Annex? Art Royal would have a fit!’

  ‘It would build up our tax base,’ Jefferson said. ‘Circle R and Rafter T have the use of our town without ever having paid a dollar in taxes. We could take a vote on that – I’d say “yes”.’

  ‘I don’t know if it’s even legal,’ Paulsen said stubbornly.

  ‘Neither do I. Neither does Art Royal or Aurora Tyne. By the time they could bring the matter before any judge, months will have passed. And if Dyce has cleaned up that mess by then, we’ll simply drop the annexation and apologize.’

  ‘Why do I feel like I’m being railroaded?’ Walt Paulsen asked, his accusing eyes on those of Tom Dyce. Then he said in frustration, ‘All right, then – as of this moment the Thibido Creek long valley is considered to be within the boundaries of the town of Flapjack. We’ll draw up the annexation papers, legal or not.