Dutch Uncle

by Marilyn Durham

  ‘Killing breeds more killing, and that’s what you’ll get here if you start sticking guns in their faces. If those muckers get the idea that you town people have taken their money and cheated them on their women, they’re going to be mad as hell, and they might make it a little sore for the girls. But if they think you’re also ready to shoot them down in the street when they come in to get what they paid for as much as anybody did, they’re going to turn on this town, and you’ll have just the situation you were worrying about when I first got here. They’ll tear you apart. Every miner who is killed will have six friends ready to avenge him. The same friends who would’ve knocked out his teeth in a friendly brawl to see who got to be first with one of these women.’

  ‘But if we’re not going to do anything what’s the use of having deputies at all? If we’re just going to leave the women to their mercy?’

  Jake sighed. ‘Because you can’t make bets on a hand that hasn’t been dealt yet, and neither can the miners.’ He looked at the celebration in progress. Two of the women had tottered away from their tables and were consulting with one of the waitresses. They made a quiet exit through the doorway she pointed out. Jake’s mouth twitched.

  ‘There’s your answer, I think. With all the beer and tea they’re guzzling, Sánchez’s privy is bound to be overworked by both sides. If you can think of some nice way to tell the women that they’re welcome to use your privy, I think we could ease them out of here gradually, without making anybody too suspicious.’

  ‘But then what?’

  Jake rubbed his unshaven face and grinned. ‘Well, when we get them across the street, we take them down to the jail instead and lock them in. Somebody will have to explain it all to them, of course, so they’ll see it in the proper light. We’ll put the deputies to the job of guarding the jail, let the miners have the cantina, and see what happens after that.’

  ‘But they’re bound to find out and come after the women!’

  ‘That’s when you make your speech. Tell them the ladies are tired and want to rest up. Tell them they can draw straws tomorrow, or bid for them at an auction, or wrestle for them, or win them at the shooting match — any damn thing you can think up. The main thing is that the women will be out of reach, and the men will have to wait until tomorrow. Hell will pop tonight, but we can hope things will be more settled tomorrow. At least they’ll have the satisfaction of all starting even, instead of half ‘of them feeling like they’ve been thrown out of the game before it started.’

  ‘I don’t know, Jake,’ Clem said doubtfully.

  ‘That’s the best I can do for you,’ Jake told him. ‘If you wanted more you should have talked those troopers into sticking around. I’ve got to go now. I promised Ca — I promised Paco a present.’ But new yells and traffic in the street heralded the second wave of men, from the little independent mines, who had been late getting the news. They came in roaring with anticipation and indignation at being the last to know.

  There was no need to go looking for the Gebhardts and Patchy Murdoch; they were already there. It began to look as if the whole town were packed into the cantina. The volume of noise grew.

  Clem struggled through the press to the Gebhardts and Patchy, and made his offer. They didn’t turn it down, provided the salary was paid in advance. Clem looked grave and consulted Sánchez. Jake thought Sánchez looked as if he’d just heard of a death in the family, but he yielded to Clem’s insistence.

  Jake left them and made his way slowly from the bar to Mrs Cuddeback, who was laughing and clapping her hands at some japery of one of the miners. Her hat was askew and her florid face made her pale eyes seem almost colorless.

  ‘Where’s Paco and Urraca?’ Jake yelled when he was close enough.

  ‘Bitte?’

  ‘Where’s Paco and Urraca?’

  ‘Ah, they been by Miss Carrie all day.’

  ‘No, they haven’t.’

  ‘Ja?’

  ‘I said, they aren’t with Carrie! Where else would they be?’

  She shrugged, her eyes flickering from him to the merriment he was interrupting. ‘Maybe they go see dot Angelina they so crazy for! She’s the cook and eferthing for that bad place down the street.’

  ‘Why the hell aren’t you taking care of them?’ he shouted in exasperation.

  ‘Ja, I take gut care of them.’

  He gave up and started out the back way. When he reached the kitchen he remembered he should have told her about taking the women across the street when their bladders forced them to make a retreat. But it was hopeless in that noise. He cut around to Hassayampa again to find the children and get them off the street in case the trouble he expected came early.

  Carrie was crossing the street from the Arrow to the cantina. He intercepted her and caught her arm.

  ‘Don’t go in there.’

  ‘But I have to. Everybody will be wondering where I’ve been.’

  ‘Nobody in there would miss the roof if it blew off right now,’ he told her. ‘I’ve got a job for you, but it’s on this side of the street.’

  ‘Have you found the children?’

  ‘No, I was just going to do that. Don’t worry about them. There’s a good chance they’re down at the Moon with Angelina. If they are, they’re safe enough right now.’

  He hurried her back to the Arrow and, after a quick look around to make sure there were no witnesses, he pulled her into the walkway between the two buildings’ and kissed her hungrily. She responded quickly, then just as quickly pushed him away, looking flustered.

  Ordinarily he had no patience with such airs, yet it was strangely true that it was this very thing about Carrie that tempted him. That, and her surprising availability. To see her blush and blow some more, he said, ‘Are your corset strings still too loose? We could go inside and I could fix them for you again.’

  ‘I fixed them myself, thank you. You’re behaving like a satyr. And you’ve been drinking, too. I can smell it.’

  ‘Everybody’s been drinking. And they’re going to go on drinking and dancing and laughing and nuzzling the women. By sundown they’re going to pull out all their gold teeth, throw them in a pot, and make themselves a golden calf. A piece of him, anyway. It’s hard to watch all that and not join in.

  ‘I’m surprised you left it, then. Are the women that pretty?’

  He laughed. ‘The women are prettier than the miners. That’s as much as anybody could give them. Don’t worry about them. They’ll survive, whatever happens to the rest of us. My guess is that they’re all straight out of the Bowery or right off the boat. They didn’t learn what they know about men from reading etiquette books. But they may need a breather in a little bit.’

  He told her his plan for the women and gave her the key to the jail. Looking at her, after all those beer-swilling red faces, he was struck anew by her fine bones and delicate skin. She was a rare find, who would make the rest of his stay in Arredondo a real pleasure. He only regretted that he had wasted so much time avoiding her or baiting her. He could have had her a week ago if he’d paid proper attention. Everybody had told him so, even that bitch Delia.

  She was delicious to contemplate now, who a week before had seemed only a thorn in his hand. He made himself a private wager that within two days she’d be thumbing her nose at her brother and the rest of the town and coming to him openly.

  He was enticed by her as he hadn’t been by any other woman for years. That was the best part of the whole thing. She wasn’t his usual taste. She was such a typical, scorn-provoking old maid on the surface; prickly, scruple ridden — and famished for everything she’d been missing. Yet he actually liked her. He was at a loss to explain such a quirk in his feelings, but he knew he’d have to be careful how he handled her, or her conscience would sap the eagerness out of her and spoil things.

  He started to touch her again, but to his consternation she looked as if she had been reading his mind. She brushed away his hand when it would have touched her breast, and gave him only her
cheek to kiss when he attempted her mouth again.

  ‘Please hurry and find the children. I don’t like to think of them being either down at that place or loose on the street.’

  He surrendered her with a decent grace and started walking toward Delia’s house.

  As he passed the cantina again he heard someone bellow, ‘I don’t give a damn who got here first. I’m out two hundred dollars, a new bedstead, and a week’s digging for a shithouse if I don’t bet me a woman, and, by God, I aim to have one of ‘em!’

  He called Paco as he passed the hardware store, the Happy Apache, and the pool hall, and looked between the buildings as he walked, but he saw no one. When he reached the Moon several of the girls were standing out in front in their best bib and tucker, looking longingly down the street. He asked about the kids, but they shrugged their ignorance.

  He went to the back door and knocked, and found Paco in the kitchen with Angelina. He had to enter without an invitation and stand in a sudden silence looking down at Paco’s still, brown face, with the awful home-style haircut that made his ears seem to be clinging to his head with alarm at their naked exposure. For some reason he couldn’t think of anything to say immediately, and the two of them didn’t help. Angelina gave him a hostile look with her little obsidian eyes and turned away to her simmering pots. Paco wiped his nose on his sleeve and had trouble swallowing the mouthful he was chewing.

  ‘Hello, kid. Who gave you the haircut, the Apaches?’ Jake asked with a forced grin.

  Paco’s gaze fell to the area of Jake’s belt. ‘Tía Annie,’ he mumbled.

  It wasn’t going to be easy. ‘Annie? Is that her name? How do you like her? Is she a good cook?’

  Paco shrugged. ‘Not as good’ as Tía Angelina.’ Angelina smirked at him.

  Jake felt foolish standing in the middle of the kitchen floor. He took a seat across the table from the boy, trying to think of something to say that wasn’t stupid.

  ‘Where’s Urraca?’ was the best he could devise.

  ‘She went off to find that cat she likes.’

  ‘Maybe you and I ought to go help her look for it. How about it?’ Paco shook his head. His mouth was beginning to want to pucker and turn down. He kept straightening it when it did. ‘You mad at me, kid?’ Jake asked him softly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, you got a right to be. I acted like a bastard this morning.’ Paco nodded his affirmation of that. ‘I’m sorry about it, boy. The truth is, I didn’t even see you, I was so lathered up about something else. It wasn’t you, understand?’

  ‘You said you didn’t want me around no more.’ Paco’s stiff lip betrayed him and began to quiver as his dammed-up tears started.

  ‘Hey, don’t run over! I guess that’s what I said. I don’t even remember, I was so mad. If you say it is, I guess it’s so. But I didn’t mean it. Why, I’ve been waiting for you to come in so I could give you something. Here.’

  He searched for the jackknife and put it on the table in front of the boy. Paco looked at it, but wouldn’t pick it up.

  ‘I’ve had it for a couple of days. I didn’t know when you’d be back. Hell, I thought you might be running the mines by now and be too busy to come in.’

  ‘We wanted to come back the first day, but Tía Annie said you was tired of us and she was gonna keep us, unless we got too bad, and then she was gonna give us to the Injuns!’

  ‘Why, that old battle-ax! I hope Urraca wet the bed just for that.’

  Paco snorted through his tears. ‘She did. Every night. Tía Annie beat her tail, but she just peed some more.’

  ‘Well, the hell with her. She isn’t the only rag on the bush. We can do better than that. I’ll talk to Carrie about it.’

  ‘Will you, Chake?’

  ‘Sure thing. Right now, if you like. After we find Urraca.’

  ‘And you ain’t really mad at me and don’t like me?’

  ‘No! I told you.’

  Paco slid off the chair and threw himself on Jake, burying his running nose in Jake’s vest. ‘Then I’m not mad at you no more, either. Because I want to stay with you and not nobody else!’

  Jake put his arms around the boy, at a loss for any more words. He hadn’t meant his offer that way; hadn’t even known he was making it. The results of his carelessness left him feeling greasily guilty of betraying both Paco and himself.

  A door opened behind them, and the odor of magnolias cut through the onion-and-cumin smell of the kitchen. He got up, still holding Paco, who wrapped his legs around Jake’s waist.

  ‘What are you doing down here with that kid? Get him, out of here, quick!’ Delia’s voice was hardly more than a whisper.’

  He didn’t even turn around to look at her. ‘We were just going,’ he said, scooping up Paco’s knife.

  ‘Well, see that you do. And keep those kids away from here!’

  Even Angelina noticed the strange quality of Delia’s voice and turned to stare at her. There was a large mark on Delia’s cheek, already beginning to purple, that made the old woman take in her breath and start to trundle toward her.

  But Jake only tucked the knife into the handiest pocket in his vest and strode to the door.

  ‘Come on, Paco, let’s go find your sister.’ He walked out with Paco’s chin boring into his shoulder.

  As they went around the side of the house Paco said, ‘Tío, there’s a man looking at us out the window.’ But when Jake turned to see there was no one.

  19

  They couldn’t find Urraca. Calling her was useless, of course. At last Jake took Paco to Carrie and left him, under a strict injunction to stay with her while he continued the search. He would have preferred to stay himself, but with Paco there she wouldn’t permit him to so much as touch her while they stood together in the door.

  ‘Where could she be?’ she worried.

  ‘Behind any box or barrel, or in any privy or store in town. She’s playing with her trash collection or looking for her cat, and she won’t know anybody’s after her unless they tap her on the head or stand in her sight. Damn! There’ve been times when I’ve thought she really could hear and just pretends not to, but— Well, I’ll look again, after I’ve checked across the Street. Have you caught any women yet?’

  ‘Only two. One of them became ill, and the other said she’d stay with her for a little while. The rest seem to be enjoying it all.’ She pinked up when he touched a falling strand of hair and tucked it in behind her ear. He grinned and left her.

  He was just coming out of the Arrow when two things happened. He saw Urraca appear at the corner of the next building, wagging a cat. She stopped at the sight of him, then ducked back the way she had come. At the same time there was an eruption from the cantina across the street.

  The first pairing off had just taken place and the losers were protesting loudly while friends of the winner cheered and shoved. The young Swede, Arne Ekman, had his arm around the flaxen-haired girl. He was laughing and cursing at the same time, pushing away his rivals as soon as they grabbed at him. His bride clutched her crushed hat and shrieked with terror or delight.

  They were about to be mobbed when Ekman picked her up in his arms and swung her around, using her striped cotton legs as a flail. She screamed again as somebody caught one of her plump calves, but Ekman pulled her free and put his big boot in that man’s belly, sending him down with two behind him. Then he swung her up onto one of the mill wagons as the miners surged around him again.

  ‘She picked me, now! She’s mine! She don’t even talk your language, you dumb mick. Get off my wagon, you muck paddler!’ he yelled at one of the mill hands. Jake started to join the action, then stopped. Where were Augie and his thickheaded brother? To hell with it; let them handle it. He turned to chase down Urraca while he could.

  She had gone behind the feed store. He suddenly remembered the day he’d had to pull her out from under the building. That’s where she was, and that’s where she’d put the carpetbag, to make a nest for the cat. />
  She wasn’t in sight when he reached the back of the store. He dodged through the barrels, trying to remember where she had gone under before. The noise from in front of the cantina began to sound more like a fight than a contest. He hoped Ekman got away with his pick. It would mean one less damned woman to keep track of tonight. He found two openings in the building foundation, but couldn’t see Urraca in either of them. He yelled for her, futilely, and tried to light up one of the holes with a match. But she could be halfway under the building, since cobwebs and bugs didn’t seem to bother her. He saw no telltale flash of white britches this time.

  He got up, cursing because he’d got himself filthy looking for a kid with a cat. If she was hiding under the store she was perfectly safe, and there was no reason for him to lose any more time and temper looking for her. He’d bring Paco over, with instructions to sit tight and wait for her to come out, then take her to Carrie for a cleaning.

  Two pistol shots from the street startled him, and a ‘Hyaah!’ as Ekman whipped up his mules. Jake scrambled to his feet at the noise. Ahead of him, almost to the corner, Urraca suddenly popped up from nowhere. She was turned away from him, headed for the corner behind the Red Front at a trot.

  ‘Urraca!’ A white cat scampered across the stage road and she went after it. There was a clatter and rumble that shot him through with sudden fear. He began to run. Ekman’s mules, ears laid back, swung the wagon around the corner on two wheels as their driver stood up in the box, yelling his triumph over the mob behind him. Jake, still running, drew his gun and fired, trying to stop the wagon by killing one of the mules, but missed.

  ‘Urraca!’

  The galloping team bore down on her as she darted out into the road at an angle from them. Arne Ekman saw her then, too late. He jerked at the reins so hard he fell down in the box, trying to swerve the driving mules. She saw the juggernaut descending on her, wavered, tried to run back, and was struck down just as Jake reached the street.