Dutch Uncle

by Marilyn Durham

  ‘They’re gone, Jacob.’

  ‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’

  ‘Mrs Cuddeback came in a little while ago and took them home with her. She’s agreed to keep them for a while, to see how they all get along together, but I’m sure they’ll be fine. She’s had ten children of her own. She’ll know how to care for them properly.’ She saw that he hadn’t moved. ‘I must say, you don’t look very pleased. I thought you’d be jubilant. Now you’ll be free to do as you like, and they’ll have some sort of normal home. Or did you particularly want them to go live with Miss Moon?’

  ‘Who took them?’

  ‘Mrs Cuddeback. The Hassayampa Mine foreman’s wife.’

  ‘You mean that woman. with the iron jaw who looks like she used to recruit mule skinners for the army?’

  Carrie flushed. ‘We are all as God saw fit to make us. Annie Cuddeback is a good wife and mother, and a good Christian woman. She’ll see that the children get proper food and rest, and begin to learn decent speech and manners, which is more than you— What is the matter with you? You know you told me that if I could find someone who would take them you’d be glad to let them go! Now you look as if I’d thrown them to the wolves. Surely you’re not sorry to have them out of your way?’

  “Hell, no! Why should I be? They’re not my kids.’ He was still feeling the aftereffects of his encounter with Delia. She had stirred him more than he let her know.

  ‘What’s wrong then?’ Carrie asked, coming forward a few more steps, frowning at him. ‘You look pale. Are you sick?’

  ‘Sick?’ He did feel a strange emptiness in the pit of his stomach. ‘No. I haven’t had any breakfast yet. I’m hungry.’

  He looked at the welter of trash that was strewn across the back lots, from the jail down to the stage road beyond the Red Front. Somewhere in all that mess was Rosie Robles’s carpetbag with its false bottom, hiding — unless both he and Delia were wrong — ten thousand dollars. Without Urraca to guide him, how was he ever going to find it now?

  15

  The carpetbag remained hidden from him. His break with Delia was complete enough to make him swerve to the other side of the street right after checking the Happy Apache and avoid her end of the block entirely. With the kids gone and his belt returned to him, he should have known peace for the remainder of his time in town, but it was not so.

  The two westbound stages, from Mesilla and El Paso, came in the following two days. He saw their dusty, travel-dazed passengers totter into the cantina, gorge themselves on Sánchez’s risky stew, and climb aboard again, while he nursed a solitary drink at the bar. Jake felt a hopeless envy for them, like that of a pauper watching the wealthy disport themselves in some wasteful, tiring game with rules he can’t follow. Only when they were gone toward Fort Bowie fifty miles away did he ask himself why he hadn’t gone with them.

  The only answer that occurred — that they were headed the wrong way — did nothing to stifle the anxiety and doubt growing in him. He asked himself what was so special about El Paso that he would be confined in this voluntary hell to get to it, now. El Paso, for God’s sake!

  He could have returned to Tucson, then gone north-east to Santa Fe, or up to Denver. He could even have returned to California. There wasn’t a spot in that state, from the worst mining camp in the north to the army-dampered Presidio of San Diego, where he couldn’t find more money being spent in a better climate.

  The damned wind here blew seven days a week! You had to guide yourself around with one hand while you pawed grit out of your eyes with the other. It was already hot as a California July in the daytime, but still colder than a San Francisco winter at night, and this was only the middle of March.

  And if anybody was getting rich from the silver in the ground out here it was being kept a secret from him.

  He sat in the cantina, hating himself for doing nothing. Then, when he finally moved, pushing himself listlessly from the chair he said, ‘Come on, P—’ The word died on his tongue. He looked at the other customers to see if he had been heard. He felt as if he had just stopped short of summoning the dead.

  And that was nonsense, because he’d spoken out of mere habit. They had followed him like the echo of his own foot steps for two weeks. They were like that fly that had buzzed so insanely in the jail the night before and dodged all his attempts to kill it. When its tiny scream finally stopped, because of exhaustion or death or escape, he could still half hear the sound.

  When he returned to the jail to waste the rest of the afternoon, Carrie was inside, busy with a broom and dust-cloth.

  Her intrusion was welcome by that time, though he felt obliged to frown at her activity. ‘You don’t have to do that.’

  She raised her eyebrows diffidently.

  ‘I know I don’t. But I thought I might as well take the children’s bedclothes away and look around for anything they may have left behind. I couldn’t find that carpetbag their things were in. I bundled up what they had in a box for Mrs Cuddeback. Do you know where the bag is?’

  Jake took his breath in slowly, then let it out with a shrug. ‘I guess they dragged it off to play with. I’ll look around for it later.’

  ‘It really doesn’t make any difference now. I just wondered.’

  He lounged in the inner doorway, watching her sweep out the cells. Several apple cores, an empty wadded paper sack, and a thing that looked like a pressed mouse corpse came from under Paco’s bunk. She leaned forward to look and gave a little cry of disgust — because that’s what it was — then swept it out of the cell to his feet. He took it by the tail and tossed it into the street.

  It was a good thing she’d asked about the bag. Now he’d be able to look for it openly without seeming odd, raking through the litter that was tumbled around everyone’s back door.

  ‘Did Paco give you any trouble over going?’ he asked, for something to say. ‘He claimed to be crazy about sleeping in jailhouses.’

  She looked at him soberly. ‘What he meant, of course, was that he liked being here with you, Jacob. That was what made me feel almost guilty about sending them away. And knowing that I was going to miss them myself, even though it’s all for the best that they’re gone, as I’m sure you’ll agree. But I hated to deceive him. I told him that they were just going out there for a visit, to see the mine and the mill and get acquainted with Mrs Cuddeback’s youngest children. If he’d known they were meant to stay, I’m sure he would have refused to go. As it was, he went happily. He didn’t see me give Mrs Cuddeback their clothes.’

  Jake smiled faintly. ‘You always know how to handle things, don’t you?’

  She stiffened. ‘I tried not to upset them more, than was necessary, in order to do what was best for them, if that’s what you mean. But I don’t think it is. What is it, Jacob? You looked so strange that morning. Do you resent my finding a home for them, even if you don’t want them yourself? Do you think I’m just an interfering busybody?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ he said hastily. ‘You did the right thing. That’s all I meant.’

  ‘It isn’t what you said.’

  ‘Well, it’s what I meant. Why « ------ » burred whenever I say anything to « ------- » them like you said you would. You « ------ » even take care of me. You help run the paper and the Sunday school and the League. You cook and sew and wash. You help deliver the paper and write up the news. You do it all very well.’

  She continued to look at him as if he were accusing her. ‘Well?’ She pushed a pale thread of hair back in place.

  ‘Nothing! It was meant to be a compliment. But—’

  ‘I thought there would be a “but,” ’ she said, vindicated.

  ‘You’re as touchy as a cat. I was only going to say — hell, I don’t know what I was going to say! You work too hard! Don’t you ever think about taking a little time off now and then? Let somebody else take care of you for a change?’

  ‘Who? Why?’

  Jake sighed, wondering how he’d got into such a bind.
<
br />   ‘Why? For pleasure; for fun. It wouldn’t hurt you to have a little pleasure out of life, would it? You ought to. As for who, I don’t know. I guess there are enough men around here who would like to. I see them watch you when you go down the street, but you never give them more than half a nod. Don’t you want a husband? Most pretty women do. Most ugly ones, too.’ He came to a lame and sorry halt. Whatever it was that his inner mind had tried to unfold to her, that couldn’t have been it.

  She turned pink slowly. ‘Your compliments and concern overwhelm me, Jacob. I didn’t know you’d paid that much attention to my plight. Are you about to play the part of John Alden now?’ She saw that he didn’t know about John Alden. Her mouth quirked. ‘Let’s try to clarify this. Are you urging me to get married in order to have more “pleasure” and “fun” out of life? Do you have any prospects in mind for me who could offer me a life of such ease? I’d be fascinated to hear about them. I, myself, know only one person here who has a good deal of money but no house to keep, no children to raise, no clothes to be mended, and no work that needs an extra hand.’

  ‘Sounds pretty good. Who is he?’

  ‘You. Move your feet, please.’

  She swept Paco’s litter past him and out the door, then « ------ » -ding. Her eyes were glowing, but « ------ » or pique he couldn’t tell.

  « ------ » have to work hard all their lives out here, wherever they live and whatever their circumstances. It isn’t a soft country. I count myself luckier than most of them. I’m not tied to a man who despises me while he uses me for a slavey and a brood animal. My brother needs me and he respects me, so I’m glad to help him all I can.’

  The closing door ended their exchange before Jake had to think of a suitable reply to that.

  The woman was like an armadillo. Anything you said to her made her bunch up. It was a good thing her brother needed her. He had the skin for it. Anybody else would need body armor, too.

  He saw that the circular on Frank Becker was just where he had dropped it days before. He snorted, reading it again, and put it in his pocket. He’d have to ask Sánchez if the man had really been in the cantina. But not now. He had just come from there himself.

  An hour later he was still idle, sitting with his feet up on the table, staring into the middle distance. With one hand he toyed with a silver dollar, rolling it over and between his fingers, side over side. It was a juggling trick he’d picked up from a magician with a weakness for inside straights. He used it as an exercise to keep his fingers nimble.

  Thinking about the Great Orloff brought him around to Mooney’s Marvel Show, carpetbags that did disappearing tricks, and Delia.

  He’d handled her wrong, like everything else lately. Something she’d said had got to him. If it was about selling the kids, he’d wasted his anger, because while she was saying it Carrie was taking them off his hands anyway, if he had known it.

  Even if he hadn’t known it, why did it affect him that way? Women were always saying things that were stupid, or cruel, or ignorant. He didn’t recall ever postponing his pleasure in them because of their mouths. Delia was only saying what she thought he wanted to hear. But it wasn’t what she said about selling Paco and Urraca that had cooled him. It was the remark about his leaving little replicas of himself to grow up hungry without his knowledge.

  It was crazy, but he felt a cold horror of the idea. Some piece of him, some reincarnation without his death, might be alive somewhere; living without his consent; feeling without his control. It made his flesh crawl.

  He caught the coin in his palm and put it in his pocket again. Delia had called him an old man who needed a tonic. She’d been right enough about that. He left the jail, looking for some kind of action.

  But it was the wrong time of day.

  The industrious Anglos were all hard at work. Patchy Murdoch was making a water haul from his source of supply in the mountains. The other regular card players were gone, too. Patterson, the barber, was out of his shop. The pool hall was deserted.

  He had a drink at the Happy Apache, then went over to the shooting gallery. The proprietor, a gunsmith of limited talents named ‘Reamer’ Farney, was dismantling an elderly Springfield for cleaning. Jake put money on the counter and picked up a rifle and cartridges.

  He fired steadily at the standing targets until he was out of ammunition. Reamer put down his work and examined the results. ‘Looks like you get a free game, marshal.’

  He set the revolving targets in motion. Jake knocked them over remorselessly. The sound of his rifle made a one-to-four counter-rhythm to the racket of a carpenter’s hammer on the roof of a new house down the street.

  He began to attract a small crowd. He paid little attention to them. The minor destructiveness of the shooting and the ease with which he was hitting the targets were balm to his soul. He hadn’t done any shooting for several years, but he had always had a natural eye for it and a steady hand, in spite of his sedentary habits. At least that hadn’t changed, he thought, and was surprised at the relief the discovery was to him.

  Augie Gebhardt and his brother, Rance, joined the crowd. Patterson, the barber, came with several girls from the cantina. Sánchez and Clement Hand stood on the fringe.

  ‘Hollander, why don’t you stop massacreein’ tin ducks with a popgun and show us what you can do with that old hog leg you wear?’ Augie called to him.

  ‘Not in here you don’t!’ said Reamer. ‘That damn cannon is big enough to blow the back end out of my stall. Get some bottles from the saloon and do your shooting out in the street.’

  Jake shook his head.

  ‘Maybe it don’t shoot no more, Rance,’ said Augie. ‘I never see him do anything with it but brain the poor drunk muckers.’ He worked his way through the girls to Jake’s side, grinning.

  Jake began to reload.

  ‘I heard he killed seven men in one week with it once. ‘Course, that was a while back. Maybe something got a little rusty since, hey, marshal?’

  ‘Don’t start up on me, squarehead,’ Jake said evenly. ‘I was just beginning to forget about you. How’s your nose?’

  Augie’s grin soured as the girls and his brother laughed. ‘Hollander, I bet if I was to throw a brick up in the air in front of you, you couldn’t hit it for five dollars.’ There was a chorus of support for Jake from the girls and Reamer, to which Clement Hand added his voice.

  ‘That’s pretty easy money, Dutch. Why don’t you take him up on it?’

  Jake looked around and saw him: bright eyed and flushed, hands in his pockets; cocky as a terrier pup. The little bastard was drunk! He’d been siphoned out of the cantina by the noise.

  ‘Maybe you’d like to put an apple up on your head and stand out there,’ Jake suggested. Clem batted his eyes twice, then nodded.

  ‘All right,’ he said.

  Jake swore under his breath and turned back to his targets, but the rest of the crowd cheered Clem and sent up cries for an apple. ‘Get an apple!’

  ‘Here’s one!’

  ‘That’s a horse apple! Goddam it, Reb, we want a Kentucky redstreak. What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘I got somethin’ better — a bottle of redeye!’

  Jake turned to look, because he recognized Gowdy’s voice in the chorus.

  ‘Hey, that’s my bottle, Gowdy-y!’ Augie bawled in anguish. ‘I just bought that bottle. Get you an empty one, for mercy’s sakes! Jake!’

  Clem was standing in the middle of the street with Augie’s bottle balanced on his head and a sheep eater’s grin dying on his face. His eyes searched for Jake, but he didn’t move as Gowdy danced back from him and pulled a battered pistol out of his belt.

  ‘Old Jake’s scared to try it! I’ll show you how it’s done. Stand up. there, Mr Hand — don’t teeter!’ The crowd drew back to a safe distance, their anticipation only slightly dampened with apprehension. Gowdy took careful aim, resting the short barrel of the pistol on his other wrist.

  ‘Gowdy — shit!’ Jake drew and fire
d from the back of the crowd before Gowdy could. The bottle on Clem’s head vanished in a glittering shower of whiskey and broken glass that rained down over his tight-squeezed eyes and mouth. Smoke from the black powder threw a white pall over Jake, but he emerged from it, gun leveled at Gowdy. Everybody whooped and applauded.

  Gowdy hastily put his gun away. When Jake was close to him he said in a dangerously friendly voice, ‘How would you like to be the first man in town with two ass holes?’

  ‘He was just funnin’, Jake,’ Augie said. His own face still showed traces of anguish for his lost bottle, but he clapped Jake on the shoulder in spite of it.

  ‘The second man in town, then,’ Jake amended instantly. ‘Not much of a distinction. But how about it?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Gowdy said earnestly.

  ‘Then you better back up every time you see me on the street, starting right now!’

  Gowdy backed all the way to the Schooner, guided by his friend Reb. There were a few requests from the remaining crowd to ‘Do it again’ and ‘Get an apple,’ but it was evident that the show wasn’t going to be repeated, and they began to drift away under his watchful eye. When he turned to glance back at Clem he saw him still standing in place, wiping whiskey and broken glass off his coat carefully with a handkerchief.

  ‘If you were looking for a filler for the dunce column I guess you’ve got it now: “Hollander Gets the Drop on Half-wit Mucker.” Is that what you wanted?’

  ‘No,’ said Clem, beginning to laugh weakly. ‘I just wanted to see you do it, too.’

  ‘So much that you’d bet your own head on it? That was pretty chancy, considering that we aren’t exactly blood brothers!’

  Clem continued to laugh as he took off his stained glasses and tried to clean them with the sodden handkerchief.

  ‘I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘You crazy bastard, you’re drunk as a cider-maker’s sow! Gowdy couldn’t hit the ground with his hat, and you just stood there and let him take aim!’

  ‘Well, he did have me worried for a second, until I saw you come out.’ Clem’s eyes squeezed shut again with the memory, and his shoulders shook helplessly. Tears ran down his face.