Dutch Uncle

by Marilyn Durham

  Jake ran his eye over it rapidly, making several false starts on a common obscenity under his breath. The article concluded with the League’s offer of the post of town marshal to the renowned Mr Hollander, who had consented to take the job on a temporary basis while the League furthered its efforts to find a permanent solution to the town’s problems.

  ‘You are trying to shanghai me, aren’t you, you four-eyed penpusher?’ he accused Clem when he had read it.

  ‘I was counting on you to change your mind.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you have nothing else to do for a month, and because you’ll surely want to stay until you find your money. The search would be easier if you had legal sanction, wouldn’t it?’ Jake looked at him stonily. ‘Then, you’ll need money to live on, money to travel on. You might win enough at gambling to take you out of here, but you’d need some money even to do that, wouldn’t you? The job pays well, remember.’

  ‘Did you sit up all night thinking this out, or did it just come to you in a flash, like you were Moses?’

  ‘Naturally, if you want to quit at the end of the month, you can, and have enough money to take you on to El Paso. You might well find your own money before that time.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t bet on it, until you get the town papers or another deputy, right?’

  ‘I simply felt you’d want to occupy yourself until you found your belt. I hope you’ll stay on after that because you want to. The town needs your experience, and you might come to like having the respect and admiration of a lot of people again, Jake.’

  ‘Who says I haven’t been respected?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean, all right. I see you didn’t mention in your paper that the “innocent traveler” who got himself plucked was me. That wouldn’t go very well with this malarky about the big gun who was the terror of the Kansas clod kickers, would it? No, you have to build me up to get some attention from Santa Fe. Make it seem like things must be pretty bad down here if you have to hire a professional gun to watch out for you. What I want to know is, who am I supposed to scare? That bunch of rube miners who were out in the street yesterday dressed up like mick politicians?’

  Clem turned a little pink, Jake noticed. The reaction brought an enlightened smile to Jake’s thin mouth.

  ‘Wait a minute — that’s it, isn’t it? That’s really it. All this talk about the town needing law and order is just a cover. You need a bodyguard! Yes, and you thought it would be nice if the rest of the town paid his salary. What did you do to get the muckers pissed off with you? Print the facts about their mothers? Catch them in the hay with each other?’

  Carrie came in with the coffee. She handed a cup to the grinning, triumphant Jake, examining first his face, then her brother’s.

  ‘I think we made a mistake, printing the special edition, Clem,’ she said in a cool little voice. ‘Mr Hollander doesn’t want our help, and he doesn’t want to be of help, either. And who’s to say he isn’t being wise? After all, he isn’t a young man any more. It may be that he’s lost whatever small skill he had in the past. Who would know that better than he? Perhaps that’s why he had to turn to gambling to make a living. Did you ever consider that? If he can’t protect himself —as he certainly couldn’t last night — what good would he be to the town? We already have enough drunks here who do their drinking at their own expense. Why import one and pay him to perform? The only talent he seems to have left—’

  She stopped because Jake was holding the muzzle of a small gun up under her brother’s chin. His other hand still held the coffee cup, but some of the coffee had slopped over on the floor. He and Clem exchanged looks of mutual understanding. Clem looked almost triumphant. Jake put away the gun and Carrie reached out to clutch her brother’s arm.

  ‘That wasn’t good,’ Jake apologized. ‘Besides being a dumb, showoff thing to do, it just wasn’t very fast, but it was the best I could do in my drunken condition. Thanks for the coffee. I’ll take your goddamned job for one month. Come on, Paco.’

  Paco tore out from behind the press with a whoop and ran out the door in front of Jake, dragging the silent Urraca by the hand.

  When the door had slammed behind them, Clem turned and looked at his sister. She released his arm suddenly, as if just aware of how she was gripping it, and started for the kitchen door.

  ‘Carrie, do you think that was wise?’

  ‘What? You mean to dig at his stupid male pride? It made him agree to do what you wanted, didn’t it?’

  ‘He’d already made up his mind to do that a moment before.’

  ‘Out of the goodness of his heart or his friendship with us? No! Only because he needs money now. Well, you’ve got him. But if you want to get any use out of him, you’d better not pay him in advance. If you do, he’ll be gone.’

  Clem sighed and smiled faintly at her. ‘Yes, I’m afraid you’re right about that. The thief who robbed him was more persuasive than all my arguments.’

  Carrie burst into tears and fled to the kitchen.

  *

  Clem wisely let Jake alone for a few hours before approaching him with the badge of office and the keys to the cells.

  He naturally looked for him in several of the saloons first, but, not finding him there, he tried the jail. Jake was sitting alone polishing an ancient Colt. His long legs were propped on the jail’s only table. Clem was astonished at the size of the old gun.

  ‘My God, I haven’t seen one of those for fifteen years. Is that the same one you used to carry?’ Jake nodded. ‘I’m surprised you’d keep it all this time, traveling as light as you seem to do.’

  ‘Kept it to pawn when I needed the money,’ said Jake. ‘Gunsmiths are crazy about them. What are you down here for? Got somebody you want arrested?’

  ‘No, I want you to come down to Red Front with me to meet some of the town people. We don’t have anybody with the authority to swear you in, but meeting them will make it seem a bit more official. Anyway, you’ll want to know some of them and get off to a friendly start.’

  ‘Will I?’ Jake stood up and strapped the heavy gun belt around his hips. ‘Have you got a badge to go with this job, or do I just wear a sign on my back?’

  ‘Oh. Yes, here it is. And the keys.’ Jake took them without looking at either and pinned the tin circle on his vest. Clem opened the door again and made a slight, inviting gesture, like a man trying to put a surly dog out on a rainy night.

  The Red Front Tavern was a two-story shed that smelled of beer, sawdust, and burning coal oil. Its clientele seemed to be gathered there to mourn some common loss. They turned their heads to watch Jake and Clem walk the length of the narrow room to the stairs in the back, but no one spoke to them. The bartender wiped his hands on his vest and followed them, leaving the care of the business to his fat wife.

  The saloon’s upper room was filled with Jake’s employers, sitting on a congregation of rough benches and chairs. Clem presented Jake to them with a short speech, then made the social introductions as they rose and came forward.

  ‘Jake, this is Bert Kelly, our host, so to speak. He owns the Red Front.’

  Bert Kelly was two hundred and fifty pounds of Irish gloom with a drooping mustache, and a hardshell black derby that he never removed in public.

  ‘I’m from Chicago,’ said Bert. ‘You ever been to Chicago, marshal?’

  ‘Once,’ said Jake. ‘It was raining.’

  ‘Ezra French, and Mrs French,’ said Clem, hurrying on. ‘Ezra has the General Mercantile Store down the street. He was one of our first citizens, weren’t you, Ezra?’

  ‘Brought two wagonloads of goods in here from Santa Fe,’ Ezra said briskly. ‘Sold out my stock, sold the wagons, sold the mules. Had to fight to keep one to get back home to Emmy with. Saw it was going to be ‘a dandy little place to do business.’ He was the essence of the Yankee trader; spare, sharp eyed, with a goat’s beard like Uncle Sam’s. His wife was a tiny, toothless crone, wrinkled
like a dried peach. She smiled and worked her tightly closed mouth vigorously, but no words came out as she pumped Jake’s hand.

  He saw Carrie standing at the back of the crowd. She actually smiled at him and pointed down to something out of sight by her side. A moment later Paco and Urraca broke through the forest of trousered legs and stepped on his boot toes.

  ‘We been eating all day at Angelina’s, and we’re gonna get to eat some more at Carrie’s later. You can come, too, she says,’ Paco croaked.

  ‘Get off my foot, damn it.’

  He endured the rest of the crowd’s frank curiosity and their awkward attempts to draw him out. Jesse Dugan, of the Miners Supply House, asked him if he thought he could handle somebody up in Lincoln County called Billy the Kid the way he’d handled the McNaughton gang. Jake didn’t answer.

  W. C. Clay, of the Silver Man Saloon, asked if he’d fought in the late War, and on which side. Patchy Murdoch, a country sharp with a piebald face, asked if he liked to play poker sometimes, but was elbowed away by the town barber, Zeke Patterson, who told Jake he’d give him a shave and a haircut for fifteen cents any time, because they were both Kansas men.

  There were others, whose names he forgot as soon as they were spoken. The women in the group were the last to come forward. As Carrie inched nearer, still looking surprisingly benign, a stout, redfaced woman with a commanding jaw got in front of her and grabbed his hand. Behind them both he saw Delia Moon, wearing a bird of paradise hat and a wicked grin.

  He heard the stout woman say, ‘Marshal, I’m Annie Cuddeback. My husband is d’ foreman by d’ big mines out here. When Carrie told me your name I said, I bet he must be a Cherman, chust like me. Ja? So! How long hass it been since you hat a big piece of home-baked kuchen? You come by my haus und I give you some, ja?’

  Delia took her place immediately, cutting in front of Carrie. Her eyes were sparkling. She seized both his hands and leaned forward to give him a good look down her dress. In a guttural parody of the Cuddeback woman, she murmured, ‘Und my name iss Zzatin-Ass Alice from Crribhaus Corners. How long hass it been zince you hat a liddle piece of nookie, marshal? Vell, you come on by my haus und I gif you some, ja?’

  Jake tried to swallow his snort, but it burst out of him, bringing the other conversations to a stop. Delia simpered past him and out the door.

  When he remembered to look for Carrie he found she was gone, too.

  7

  Jake made his first official tour of duty that evening. As he came out of the jail the shrieks and bellows erupting from the cantina drew his attention first, but he didn’t hurry to get there, in spite of the slaughterhouse pitch of the noise.

  One of the washtub whores was being chased in and out among the tables by a customer cheered on by the rest of the house.

  ‘Hold ‘er, Newt, she’s headin’ for the barn!’

  ‘You’re gamin’ on her, Reb. Put some salt on her tail!’

  The woman showed surprising reluctance to be caught. Bottles and glasses smashed to the floor wherever she or her pursuer failed to take a sharp corner.

  Sánchez saw Jake standing in the door. ‘Hey, patrón! You are medicine for sore eyes. See what that burro is doing.’

  Jake came to lean over the bar. He shouted, ‘Has anybody been in here spending a lot of money today? More than usual?’

  ‘Eh? Patrón! Prudencia! Stop this games.’

  ‘Or did anybody leave town since yesterday? Not to go to work. I mean, pack up and leave.’

  ‘I can hardly hear what you say, Patrón. This son of a donkey will put me out of business. Stop him! Prudencia! To the back and shut the door.’

  Jake twisted about in irritation just as Prudencia made another lap around the floor and passed him. He put his foot out behind her and tripped her lover into a belly slide that ended with stunning suddenness against the far end of the bar. Before the man could get off his hands and knees Jake jerked his gun out and hit him across the back of the head with the long barrel of it.

  Two of the victim’s friends jumped up to fight for him, but stumbled to a halt when the gun barrel swung around to them.

  ‘He wants to go home,’ said Jake. ‘You take him there.’ To Sánchez he said, ‘If he owes you something for tonight you’d better get it now.’

  The two miners lifted their dazed friend as Sánchez hurried around the bar to pick his pockets under their critical eyes. When they were gone out the door with their burden and Sánchez was fondling the five dollars he had collected, Jake plucked one of the dollars from his fingers and stuffed it into his vest pocket.

  ‘His fine for disturbing the peace,’ he said. ‘Now. Has anybody been in here today spending a lot of money, or has anybody left town suddenly, that you know about?’

  *

  Across the stage road from the cantina was Dugan’s Miners Supply. He found the doors there properly locked and went on to the next saloon. It had a dead Indian painted on the window: The Happy Apache.

  ‘Who’s the biggest spender in here tonight?’ he asked the bartender.

  ‘Jesse Dugan. He’s been buying for everybody.’

  ‘How much has he spent?’ Jake saw Dugan coming toward him, arms upraised in recognition.

  ‘Two dollars and thirty cents.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He never buys anything but beer.’

  Dugan reached Jake and threw his arms around him.

  ‘Here’s our new marshal! Howdy, Dutch! Have a beer on me.’ He put his face up close to Jake’s and whispered, ‘Let’s you and me ride up to Lincoln County and catch ol’ Billy the Kid. Make you famous again.’ He put his head on Jake’s shoulder and belched.

  ‘Two dollars and thirty cents?’ Jake asked the bartender.

  ‘Dugan gets drunk eating sourdough biscuits.’

  Jake shifted the drowsing Dugan until he got him balanced. ‘All right, Dugan. Let’s go.’

  ‘Wait a minute!’ cried the bartender. ‘He’ll be all right in a little while. Leave him here.’

  But Jake had felt a bulge around Dugan’s waist. He hauled him down the street to the jail, dumped him onto one of the cell bunks, and pulled open his clothes.

  He didn’t find his chamois money belt. The bulge was a lumpy canvas contraption with copper bands clasping it at intervals. Dugan’s belly was striped with green corrosion from the metal. On the copper belt buckle Jake read: DR WELLMAN’S GALVANIC ENVIGORATOR.

  ‘It works pretty good, too,’ murmured Dugan, grinning at him beerily. ‘Wanna see my cock?’

  Jake slammed the cell door on his first prisoner and strode out.

  *

  The pool hall was a retreat of quiet minds. He passed it after looking in the door. The rest of the block was quiet, too, until he reached the Golden Moon. There was a fight in progress on the porch.

  ‘Hey, you! Break it up!’ he said from the boardwalk. They wheezed and grunted, paying no heed to him as they locked arms around each other’s neck. As he started up the steps for them, one broke free and shoved the other one back. The man stumbled off balance and fell on Jake, sending them both to the ground.

  Jake struggled to his feet cursing and ran up the steps, butting into the second man’s stomach and bowling him over on the porch floor.

  The front door swung open as Delia and three of her girls came to investigate.

  ‘What in hell is going on out here?’

  Jake hauled the man up by the shirt and prepared to throw him down the steps.

  ‘Augie! Jake! What are you doing?’ Delia snapped. ‘I’m stopping a fight,’ Jake gasped, and shoved his captive down the steps, where he fell on the first man. He stopped, out of breath, and wiped his wet face while Delia glared at him, her fists on her hips. From the heap of bodies at the bottom of the steps he heard groans and laughter.

  ‘Hell, we wasn’t fightin’, Deel. We was just funnin’. I told Rance I was gonna get his girl tonight. He’s sweet on Big Irma.’

  ‘I ain’t no such of a thing!’ Rance br
ayed with guilty laughter.

  Jake, still panting, watched them pick themselves up and climb the stairs again, grinning at him like a pair of china apes. They were burly blonds in their twenties, with a family resemblance that they now confirmed.

  ‘Marshal, you don’t need to pay us no mind. We’re the Gebhardts. I’m Augie — and this is my brother, Rance. We was just playin’ the fool with each other. Deel can tell you. God A’mighty, Rance, you like to tore off one of my ears there.’

  ‘I was just funnin’, Aug,’ his brother wheezed.

  Jake looked at Delia. She shrugged.

  ‘They were just funnin’,’ she said. ‘Come on inside, boys. Big Irma’s been waiting for you. Are you coming in, too, marshal?’

  Jake picked up his crushed hat from the porch floor and descended the steps without answering.

  *

  The other side of the street was no different, except that it had more saloons. In the Schooner he left two brawlers staggering from the weight of his long gun barrel. They had been locked together like rutting elks when he came up behind them. After estimating their dead weight on him for a two-block journey to the jail, he left them to the jurisdiction of the Schooner’s owner instead.

  The Silver Man yielded him another drunk. The Red Front Tavern was still in mourning. He paused there for a drink and watched for a while, suspiciously, but no one stirred or spoke above a mutter. He left and returned to the jail, where he found Paco and Urraca waiting for him.

  ‘Go to bed,’ he said briefly, and when they had he locked them in the cell. He sat down exhausted and waited, doing nothing, until it was time to make a second patrol.

  *

  On the second sweep he arrested a marksman who was using the Apache’s lamp chimneys for targets. He waited patiently in the door until the man had emptied his gun before moving in on him.

  ‘How about this one?’ he asked the bartender. ‘Do you think he’ll be all right in a little while? I don’t want to take away all your business.’

  ‘Get him out of here.’

  ‘Better get what he owes you for the broken glass first.’