Dutch Uncle

by Marilyn Durham

  ‘He got the poor lonely bachelors so hot thinking about “con-nub-ial bliss,” as he put it, that they put up two hundred dollars apiece to get some.’ She dropped back into a normal voice and finished off the rest of the details in a businesslike clip. ‘He sent the money off to some New York agency. They’re supposed to find some pure-hearted little pioneers who want to come out west and help shovel rocks for their supper. They have to put up some kind of money of their own or they don’t eat on the way, I guess; because they’re sure as hell going to be shipped out in a cattle car at that price.

  ‘There’s just been one little thing go wrong with our boy’s plan. The girls are late, and the grooms are getting nervous.’ She looked at his face. ‘Oh, hell, go on and have another drink. I guess you need it.’

  He needed it. ‘How many women are coming?’ he asked, while his mind tried to imagine how to organize the ground rules for a community rape.

  ‘Fifty. Oh, there’s going to be so much sanctified tail around here soon I’ll have to start making hats and baking pies for a living. And, you know, when he tells me about all this, he gets such a light in his eye that — damn! I almost think he planned the thing as a special favor to me.’ She laughed again, like an adolescent boy.

  Jake was getting numb. The three hastily swallowed brandies were vaporizing in his brain. He had almost forgotten what they’d been talking about before. No, he hadn’t. She’d made some kind of phony offer for Paco and Urraca, whom she needed and wanted like an extra tit. He didn’t buy her offer, but her behavior baffled him. What did she want? She was still giving him that look, as if she had expected to hear something from him; had been watching and probing until she saw she was drawing blanks.

  He didn’t like to feel he was missing a point, but he knew he was. His only consolation was that she must be as puzzled as he was. She couldn’t know how far out of the game he really was at the moment. He was worth something to her. How? The interest women took in life was mainly confined to matters of love, hate, and money. Love and hate had nothing to do with the two of them. It had to be money. But that was just as farfetched: What, then?

  She was standing with her head to one side, eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Did you go to sleep?’ she asked softly.

  He smiled slightly. ‘No. I was just thinking about you baking pies and running a home for Mexican orphans. I’ll get you a big checkered apron before I leave town. It’s going to give me a lot of peace of mind, knowing you’ll be here taking care of Rosie’s kids — while I’m down in El Paso spending money.’

  It was a crude shot in the dark, but it was right on target. He saw two little spider gleams of greed light up her eyes. He smiled at them warmly as he returned her decanter and glass.

  ‘Thank you for the hospitality, sweetheart. And for the education. It’s time I made another patrol.’

  It was Delia’s turn to be left behind, he was happy to see. He let himself out into the hall and started for the kitchen door. She came trotting after him.

  ‘Wait a minute, Jake—’ She stopped. In the kitchen George Ramey was getting himself a dipper of water from the pump. He didn’t act like somebody who was trying to evade Jake. But Delia looked unhappy to see him there anyway.

  ‘Ramey, what are you doing away from the game?’

  ‘I just stepped outside for a minute.’

  ‘What for?’ she demanded in a haughty voice.

  Ramey looked from her to Jake and back, then grinned. ‘Why, ma’am, I had to take a leak.’

  Jake busied himself with fixing the doorknob.

  ‘Well, that’s all right, George, but you better get back to work now.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Ramey moved away at his leisure. By the time he was gone Jake had the knob fixed and the door open. Delia put a restraining hand on his arm.

  ‘Listen, Jake. We keep getting interrupted. About those kids—’

  ‘I’ll think it over and let you know.’

  She gave him the ivory smile again. ‘Sure. And, Jake, just because we’ve butted heads once or twice doesn’t mean I’m not glad to see you come down here. You’re welcome any time, for a drink or a talk, or — anything. So don’t be a stranger, huh?’

  He let his gaze drop slowly from her big cow-brown eyes to her smiling mouth, her white throat, and her deliciously overstuffed gown. The ghosts of a tree full of dead magnolias were emanating from between those firmly packed breasts.

  He let himself have one more breath of her before he said, ‘Sweetheart, we’ve never been strangers.’

  She shut the door with more energy than necessary, and he heard the key turn in the lock.

  10

  Coming out from behind Delia’s house in the dark, he heard the confrontation across the street before he saw who it was. Clement Hand was in front of the Schooner Tavern, surrounded by his creditors. Jake stopped in the shadows beside the Moon to listen to them. They had apparently just caught Clem.

  ‘Damn it, Reb, you got to watch them big feet of yours! A little feller like Mr Hand cain’t step over both of them without trippin’ himself.’

  Clem was adjusting his spectacles. ‘That’s all right. No harm done.’

  ‘Well, now, we cain’t be sure of that. Why, you like to’ve busted your specs there when you fell down. Let me see ‘em.’

  ‘No, no. They’re fine—’ But the glasses were removed from his nose by a massive thumb and forefinger and turned over to a second pair of hands when Clem reached for them.

  ‘God A’mighty, look through them, will you? I don’t see how a man could be so blind! If you was to break ‘em, I bet that pretty sister of yours’d have to take you around town by hand.’

  ‘They’d be goin’ Hand in Hand!’ This piece of rare wit drew a round of laughs that drowned out whatever Clem was saying. But somehow he managed to recover the glasses and took out his handkerchief to clean the smeared lenses.

  ‘Look there now, Gowdy, you greased ‘em up so much Mr Hand cain’t see out of ‘em. We better take him home before he gets turned around and stumbles into that hurdy-gurdy house across the street.’

  ‘He wouldn’t go to no hurdy-gurdy house even if he was blind. He come right out foursquare agin ‘em when he took our money and sent off for all them sweet little girls. Didn’t you, Mr Hand?’

  ‘Maybe he was foolin’ us.’

  ‘What’re you talkin’—’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t send off for no sweet little girls at all.’

  ‘You got a suspicious mind, Reb.’ They had begun to take Clem down the Street toward the Arrow office, jostling him, elbow to elbow, while they played at their mock quarrel. Jake drifted along on the opposite side of the street after them.

  ‘Maybe he took our money and put it in the bank somewheres.’

  ‘That’s a bad thing to think of a man—’

  ‘Maybe he bought himself a sweet little woman in some other town.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that with our money. No, sir!’

  ‘If somebody was to give me ten thousand dollars to buy a bunch of women and I didn’t get one myself, I might take some peculiar notions.’

  ‘Well, you got crooked ways about you — I always know’d that. But Mr Hand here is a gentleman.’

  At the mention of ten thousand dollars Jake stopped auditing their talk to do some rapid calculations. Two hundred dollars times fifty disgruntled miners was — ten thousand dollars. But not even Clement Hand would be dumb enough to swindle the muckers out of their money and then stick around town to be found out.

  But suppose he had lost it. Suppose the women weren’t coming, and the money was down the drain, and Clem knew it. What would he do then? Pick somebody’s pocket? The little bastard wouldn’t have the nerve! Or would he? He was holding up pretty well under the rough joshing he was getting across the street. Jake had half expected to see him break away from Reb and Gowdy and run for home like a terrier pup.

  He stopped on the corner by Dugan’s store and let Clem’s escort deliver him t
o his front door. They wanted to go in with him, but were shut out somehow without a struggle. They began to beat on the door and call him. Jake strolled into the street. He wanted Clem to himself for a few minutes.

  Gowdy’s mule was tied up in front of the Silver Man. The animal had a homing instinct that surpassed bad pennies and United States Army pigeons. Gowdy was proud of her talent and depended on it after a night at leisure in Arredondo. Jake turned her loose from the hitching rail, then fanned his hat at her nose.

  She backed away from the rail and started down the street at a weary walk. Jake was just bending over for a pebble to throw at her flanks when Urraca, a nocturnal truant, came out from between the Red Front and the Arredondo Arrow and was startled by the sight of Reb and Gowdy. She had a large white cat in her arms. She dropped it, and it streaked across the street just under the sleepy mule’s front feet.

  The mule, spooked by a darting white phantom, gave a scream of terror and a kick in the air, then bolted up Hassayampa Street, stirrups flapping. Jake dropped the pebble.

  ‘That’s Annabel!’ Gowdy shouted. ‘How’d she get loose? Come back here, mule. Help me catch her, Reb. Annabel! Damn it, mule, it’s me — Gowdy! Annabel!’

  They were gone, and Urraca had disappeared, too, Jake let her go for the moment. When he reached the Arrow’s door he beat on it several times without getting any response.

  He followed Urraca’s path around the building, but she was nowhere in sight. The Arrow had a back door, and he saw lights burning in the small windows on either, side of it. He rapped on that door and waited.

  Clem’s voice was cautious until Jake identified himself. When the door opened he was surprised to see a small pistol in Clem’s hand. Carrie stood behind her brother, a dark robe pulled over her plain muslin nightgown, her pale, thick hair twisted into a single plait that was already coming undone.

  ‘What is it, Dutch? Was that you at the front door just now? I thought it was the usual party of drunks.’ He sounded relieved.

  Jake took his eyes off Carrie. ‘Do you keep a pistol handy for just the “usual party of drunks”?’

  Clem shrugged and put the little gun away.

  ‘He isn’t afraid of drunks,’ Carrie began, but Clem stopped her with a brief look.

  ‘What is it you want, Dutch?’

  Jake was looking at Carrie again. ‘I was down at the Irish Riding Academy just now, and I heard a funny story. I thought you might like to hear it, too.’

  Carrie took fire at once. ‘You mean you came over here at this time of night and fri — got us out of bed to tell some bawdy joke? Close that door this minute, Clement Hand, or I will!’ She tried to push past her brother, but he balked, looking at Jake.

  ‘A funny story, Dutch?’

  ‘Yeah, if you take it the right way. It’s about a sort of con man; an arranger, a fixer — you know. He’s not in it for money — I think. He just likes to fix things up for people. Reminds me of you. You’re even in the same business: nose sharpening.

  ‘Well, this typesetting Jesus wants to settle down, because he isn’t getting any younger and his gospel box isn’t getting any lighter as he humps it from one place to another. But the place he’s in is terrible. It’s too poor to grow warts. Anybody else would get out quick, but not him. No, he knows just how to fix things so the place will be perfect. He opens up his gospel box and starts right in to turn it into a nose sharpener’s paradise. A town where he can run the government, preach the sermons, tell everybody how to live. But first he needs some breeding stock—’

  Clem stepped back and motioned him in. ‘I should have told you at the beginning,’ he sighed. ‘Frankly, I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to hear about it.’

  ‘He was too busy thinking about himself and his money,’ said Carrie.

  ‘Please, Carrie. Hell, Jake, you’re right to feel I haven’t been fair with you. I should have told you the whole thing at the beginning, but I thought you’d laugh. And it wasn’t the only reason the town needed you. I really thought it was a piece of luck for both of us when you missed that stage.’

  ‘Luck!’ Jake scoffed. ‘Luck, hell! You didn’t depend on luck. I never saw a stage driver who wouldn’t wait two minutes for a paid-up passenger. You stepped out the door as soon as I was gone and told that Charlie I wasn’t coming back. Then you rolled me so I couldn’t leave any other way but on foot! And then you bigheartedly offered me a chance to make eating money by standing between you and a bunch of pissed-off miners if your shipment of women doesn’t come — and refereeing a riot if it does. Well, it’s been a profitable experience. I wouldn’t throw it in for a pair of jacks. But I’ve had all the education I can take now. Just hand over my money belt and I’ll be getting along.’

  ‘Jake, I don’t have your money!’

  ‘You were the only man in town who knew what I had on me that night. The man who rolled me didn’t even bother to go through my pockets, he was so sure of what he was after.’ A thought occurred to him that made him smile nastily. ‘You were the one who made me the local law here, too. I’m duty-bound to investigate all crimes committed inside the town limits, right?

  ‘So I’m going to search you for that belt of mine. If you don’t have it you don’t have a thing to worry about. But if you do have it I’m going to haul you up to the county seat and see to it that you get about ten years to play in the Territorial Rock Garden!’

  ‘No!’ Carrie cried, her eyes black with shock. ‘You can’t do that. You don’t have any right to break in and search us without a warrant.’

  But Clem took her by the arm and held her back while Jake walked past them, as puzzled as he was suspicious. Because if Clem was so willing to let him come in and search, there wasn’t likely to be anything there to find.

  He looked, anyway. There was little to see. Clem’s room contained a bed, a trunk, a table, chair, and lamp. There was a rag rug on the floor and a row of hooks on the wall. Nothing else. Clem turned back the mattress for him, opened the trunk, and even picked up the rug, while Carrie stood clutching the doorframe with a face like a Fury.

  ‘That’s it,’ Clem said finally, Jake stood still, burning with anger and embarrassment. Carrie suddenly sobbed and went back to her room, slamming the door.

  ‘I could look in her room for you, Dutch, but I really don’t think you expect it to be in there, do you? Meanwhile, there’s the kitchen, just beyond that curtain. I’ll get the key for the office.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Jake muttered.

  Clem held the back door open for him. ‘Sorry,’ he said softly. He even looked sorry.

  ‘Sorry to have bothered you,’ Jake growled.

  He stalked the streets in a rage with himself and Clement Hand, who was so meek he’d roll over on his back like a feist hound at anyone’s bark. Who’d let Jake walk into his house in the middle of the night, accuse him of theft, and search him without making a protest. What the hell kind of man would be so spineless, and still have the nerve to rob Jake on a public street?

  That was the unreasonable part. The more evidence Clem gave that he was unable to do such a thing, the more certain Jake felt that he had. He must have! He’d sent ten thousand dollars off to some thimblerig marriage agency, and it was lost. There weren’t going to be any mail-order women. And he had Jake’s money hidden to use as a refund when the miners found out they’d been gypped. He didn’t have to keep it in the house. It could be buried in a tin can in the yard. But if it was, how was Jake going to find it?

  He stood on the corner listening to the dreary cheer from the cantina before deciding to skip the rest of the patrol. All he would get for the work was Patterson and a couple of other drunks to fill the jail and keep him awake all night with their talking, singing, puking, snoring racket.

  It wasn’t worth six dollars in fines to harbor them. Tonight he needed something pleasant, like a dumb-struck woman in a soft bed. Or a piece of good news, such as that the Apaches were coming tomorrow to burn Arredondo to the ground
. He turned back to the jail.

  There was a light burning in the front that he thought he’d blown out before he left. Paco must still be up, peckering at the mud walls with a nail, his favorite after-hours pastime in the cell.

  Jake strode in, ready to take a swipe at the brat’s tail for letting Urraca out to wander around in the dark — and found Carrie waiting up for him in the office.

  She was dressed again, though her hair was loose down her back. It was straw blond and straight. Her eyes were the blue of a thundercloud. He sighed with impatience when he saw her there. She’d come to lay him out for intimidating her milksop brother, of course. Let her say her piece, then, and get out, so he could go to bed.

  She had a knitting bag at her feet. She bent over it silently and brought out a yellow, sweat-stained chamois belt sewed all around with firmly packed, snapped-down pockets. She stood up and offered it to him. He took it, too surprised to speak.

  ‘It’s all there,’ she said. ‘Though of course you’ll want to count it to be sure. And while I’m here—’ She fished a small purse out of the bag and took a fold of bills from it.

  ‘Twenty-five dollars. Half a month’s pay. Now we’re even. Except for my apologies, naturally. You have them. Now you’re through here. You may go any time you like, any way you like. Tonight, if you choose. Don’t worry about the children. Not that you would. I’ll take care of them.’

  He snorted. ‘You mean you’re firing me?’

  ‘I’m firing you.’

  ‘Where did he have the money belt hidden? In your room?’