Whiskey Kills

by Johnny D. Boggs

  Somehow, he knew he had found Coursey & Cox Bottling Works.

  The lights appeared suddenly, and Daniel stumbled back, wishing he had brought his Remington revolver with him, but Agent Ellenbogen had refused to allow a ward of the government to cross into Texas with a firearm. Flames flickered from the shadows, and he counted. One. Two. Three. Four.

  Torches.

  Voices. A drunken laugh.

  Suddenly Daniel was surrounded, bathed in light. Stupid, he thought, and he cursed Hugh Gunter and his insistence that Daniel go to Dallas. Only he couldn’t blame the Cherokee for everything. Coming here this late. Alone. That was stupid. This was his own fault.

  He counted seven men. One, a raw-boned, broad-shouldered man, much taller than Daniel, stepped out of the circle the men had formed around Daniel.

  “Welcome to Coursey and Cox, buck-o. What do you think?”

  He saw the knife, thin blade and bone handle, in the man’s left hand.

  Ducking, leaping back he avoided the slicing blade, but strong arms grabbed him from behind. A fist rocked his head. He saw the orange flames of the torches. No. His eyes were closed. The light came from elsewhere.

  “They tell me you’s Comanche,” a voice whispered. “Comanches killed my uncle on the Salt Fork thirteen years ago.”

  “Don’t kill him, Trent!” someone cried.

  “I ain’t,” Trent said. “But he’s gonna wish he was dead.”

  Someone rammed an anvil into his stomach. He felt sick. His long hair was jerked back. Another punch rocked his jaw, loosened three teeth. He tasted blood in his mouth.

  “Maybe I’ll scalp the bloody savage,” Trent said.

  Daniel threw up.

  “Damnation!” another man roared. “He puked all over my Oxfords!”

  He felt his nose give way. Then vomited again. Realized he was on his knees. Someone kicked him in the back, and he fell into the ash. Bits of glass scratched his face. He was jerked back by the hair, thrown onto the grass.

  Then came a gunshot.

  “Jesus!”

  Another shot. Daniel heard the whine of a ricochet.

  Trent’s voice, suddenly high pitched: “Let’s get the hell out of here!”

  Running feet. A third shot prodded them on their way.

  Slowly Daniel rolled over, opened his eyes, saw another orange light coming for him, flickering, weaving, then lowering, revealing red hair that flowed beneath a large hat, touching the collar of a black broadcloth suit, a mustache, under-lip beard, and three days of stubble across the rest of his pockmarked face, and those cold deadly almost pale blue eyes of the Tejano Ranger named Carl Quantrell.

  “Well,” he heard the Ranger’s drawl, “if it ain’t the Comanche detective. You’re off the federal reserve, amigo. Hope you learnt your lesson.”

  Daniel closed his eyes, heard sounds. Flipping of pages. The Ranger was looking at his Old Glory tablet. Daniel didn’t know what happened to his pencil. Those things didn’t come cheap. The Wichita Falls merchant had charged him 37¢ for a dozen. Then rough fingers dived into his pockets, removing his pouch, his medicine bag, and papers.

  The voice started moving far, far away, like it was inside a cave.

  “Well, hell, boy, you got yourself a pass. Don’t you rate, eh? A pass giving you permission to come to the great state of Texas with a party of other red devils.”

  Paper crumpling.

  A heavy sigh. A curse. “Vaughan Coyne. That contemptible shyster.” The ripping of paper. “That son-of-a-bitch.”

  A new voice cried out: “What is going on out there? Speak to me! Who are you?”

  “Shit.” Daniel wasn’t sure if he had cursed, or if it was Carl Quantrell.

  “I warn you,” the voice came louder. “I have a three-dollar Smoker in my hand, and I sha’n’t miss.”

  “You’re lucky, Sergeant Killstraight,” Carl Quantrell’s voice whispered, and the Ranger was gone.

  So was Daniel. He dived into that opening, as black as midnight, and fell forever.

  * * * * *

  The woman with the Irish brogue and .38 Smoker also had a beautiful smile. The city policeman, likewise, had an Irish accent, a much larger, much more expensive revolver, and a permanent scowl.

  “Seven men,” the policeman said. “One of them called Trent. Another wearing Oxford shoes. I do not have much bloody evidence to go on, Patty.”

  “What about the Texas Ranger, Carl Quantrell?” she asked.

  “What about him? He didn’t do a thing, except, maybe, if the boy’s story is right, save the Indian’s life. This Indian might should thank Ranger Quantrell.”

  “Thank him?” Patty Mullen sprayed the side of a brass spittoon with her saliva. “Some gentleman, some Ranger. He ran into the darkness. Didn’t even offer to help me with Sergeant Killstraight. Likely would have killed him had I not happened along.”

  “Now, Patty.”

  “Now Patty nothing.”

  “He’s a Texas Ranger, Patty. A Texas Ranger.”

  “Who’s likely enslaved by demon rum, who thinks his badge makes him a god, who runs away in the dead of night like a craven coward.”

  Daniel’s brain remained in a slowly dissipating fog. He knew he was inside a newspaper office, lying on a sofa, knew that his head hurt, that his stomach ached, that it hurt to breathe through his nose, knew that he had been talking to the city peace officer and Patty Mullen. He looked outside.

  He knew that it was daylight.

  He knew that he was in trouble.

  “I need to get to Fort Worth,” he said. His voice had an odd, nasal tone. “Hotel Texas. Quanah Parker.”

  “You rest, Sergeant,” Patty Mullen ordered. “I’ll take you to the Panther City myself. I’ll explain everything to Chief Quanah Parker, and the Northern Texas Stock Growers’ Association officers. It’ll be a great story for my newspaper. But not as great as the scathing editorial I shall write about our city police.”

  The policeman sighed. “I’ll see what I can do, Patty. Just don’t expect much with what I have to go on.”

  “You do that, Timothy.” Her voice and eyes softened. “Do it for me, please.”

  “Talk to you tonight.”

  A bell rang over the door. Somewhere, a train whistle blew. Daniel tried to sit up. He slid back down, mumbling: “Shit.”

  “I don’t know where Doctor O’Brien is,” Patty Mullen said. “Well, I do, most likely. In his cups. Or sleeping off another drunk. I should have known better than try to get him here on a Friday night, Saturday morning, rather. Can I make you hot tea, Sergeant?”

  He seemed to shake his head. “I’ll be all right.”

  “In a pig’s eye.”

  He felt a warm, wet towel on his face. He felt Patty Mullen take his right hand in hers. He felt better.

  “Tell me again, Daniel.” Testing his first name. “What were you doing at that old building? At nigh two in the morning, mind you.”

  “Coursey and Cox Bottling Works,” Daniel said vaguely. “Ginger beer.”

  “You wanted beer? Ginger beer?”

  “No. I don’t drink.”

  “Good for you, Daniel. But . . .”

  “There have been some murders on the reservation.”

  “Really?” With much interest.

  “The only clue I have is a bunch of ginger beer bottles from Coursey and Cox.”

  “Aye. But that burned down a month ago.”

  He used his left hand, let Patty keep running her soft fingers over his right hand, and removed the wet towel. He seemed to see her for the first time.

  A tall, slim woman, hair the color of corn silk tucked up in a bun. She wore a fancy gown—long sleeves of black, yellow, blue, and white checks, with gold cuffs, a gold-trimmed collar, the rest of the dress a rich gold satin, fastened in the back with hooks and eyes. Her eyes were bright blue, her soft fingers stained with ink. She even smelled of ink. He saw the door, a name spelled backwards on the glass, couldn’t quite read it. Finally
it came to him.

  Dallas Temperance Leader

  Patricia Anne Mullen

  Editor & Publisher

  “When did it burn down?”

  “The Ides of March,” she answered rather quickly.

  “March Fifteen,” he said, and she stared, intrigued, sizing him up.

  “That’s correct,” she said. “I remember because it was my lead story. I publish on Tuesdays. The fire was late the Fifteenth. It was my March Twentieth edition.” Her smile was warm. “I remember everything. I’ll give you a copy of that paper if you like.”

  “How did it burn?”

  “Arson,” she answered.

  He sighed, and slowly sat up. The room no longer spun around like a taibo children’s top.

  “Lucifer Salzburger,” he said in disgust.

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “A joke.”

  “Ahh.”

  “What did S.W. Zeske have to say about his business burning to the ground?”

  “Zeske?” Patty Mullen laughed. “Zeske. He sold the business two years ago. Left Dallas for Denison. After I ran the whiskey-rotted fool out of Dallas.”

  He looked for his Old Glory tablet, couldn’t find it, asked her about it, hoped she hadn’t left it in the grass or mud along Houston Street and River Road.

  “It’s on my desk. Your penmanship leaves something to be desired. It’s almost as bad as mine.”

  “May I have it?”

  She returned with two more notebooks, along with a pack of pencils. The tablets weren’t Old Glory, and the pencils weren’t Faber’s, but Daniel didn’t complain.

  “Yours is practically filled up,” she said. “You’ll need some more.”

  “Thanks.” A creature of superstition, he looked at the notebooks and pencils in his lap. Uncomfortable. Didn’t think he really trusted the Echo pencil tablet or American Eclectic pencils, but maybe he could use them until he found a mercantile that sold Old Glory tablets and Faber’s.

  “Now.” She had a tablet and pencil in her own hands. “You mind telling me about those murders, about everything?”

  “I have to get back to Fort Worth,” he said.

  “Fine. I’m coming with you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Coursey & Cox Bottling Works was founded by M.W. Coursey and his grandmother, Bessie Cox, shortly after the Houston and Texas Central Railway arrived in the summer of 1872. The following year, the Texas & Pacific reached Dallas, and the city, and the brewery and bottle manufacturing company boomed. The business moved from a wooden frame building on Pacific Avenue to a larger lot on the outskirts of town near the Trinity River bottoms, to be closer to a water source. Mr. Coursey and Mrs. Cox were lucky. They sold out to S.W. Zeske shortly before the Panic struck in 1873. Zeske managed to hang on—“probably just so he could drink free ginger beer,” Patty Mullen said—until he sold out to a gambler known in Dallas, Denton, and Tarrant counties as Show Low Beeber, who kept it for about eighteen months.

  “Two years ago,” Daniel said.

  Patty Mullen started to reply but had to take a quick lick of ice cream before it dripped onto her lap. “Yes. Two months after I started my newspaper in Dallas.”

  Daniel carved the cold cream with his spoon, and ate, liking the softness, the coolness, the sweetness. Having not eaten ice cream since one 4th of July in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, he had forgotten how good this Pale Eyes concoction tasted.

  They sat at a corner table in the Queen City Ice Cream Parlor in Fort Worth, guests of the Northern Texas Stock Growers’ Association. Outside, women, children, and even one or two cowboys crowded the boardwalk along Belknap Street to watch Kiowa and Comanche Indians eat ice cream and talk to newspaper reporters and cattle barons. Quanah and Coyote Chaser seemed to relish their peach ice cream. A’do-eete wolfed down chocolate, and Tséeyñ took incredibly small bites of vanilla. Daniel and Patty Mullen had followed Quanah’s example, choosing peach ice cream. Teepee That Stands Alone sat alone, arms folded, refusing to try the Pale Eyes dessert.

  Daniel had arrived in Fort Worth shortly before noon, having to apologize for his tardiness, then sitting through four hours of meetings, translating, asking questions, answering questions, explaining, discussing Senator Henry Dawes and what the passage of his act that would divide the reservation meant, talking, talking, listening, arguing. Negotiating. His heart wasn’t in it, though. He kept thinking about the Coursey & Cox Bottling Works, about Patty Mullen, about Carl Quantrell, and seven Dallas ruffians.

  Of course, he had reason to thank those Dallas toughs. In Fort Worth, he had been treated as someone just short of hero status. He wore bandages on his cheeks and broken nose. Quanah had asked him if he had counted first coup. Even the Texas cattlemen had slapped his back, congratulated him on his round of fisticuffs, even if he had lost the fight. Once the newspaper reporters learned what had happened, they had hurriedly scribbled stories for the next editions that would illustrate just how rotten a city Dallas had become. Fort Worth, much closer to the Indian frontier, proved to be a city where Comanches and Kiowas could walk the streets safely, could enjoy wonderful treats such as prairie oysters, thick steaks, biscuits flavored with pecans, and ice cream for dessert. But step into Dallas, and an Indian walked right into harm’s way.

  Now in the ice cream parlor, he was thankful that the attention had turned to the real Comanche and Kiowa leaders, so that he could talk to Patty Mullen. And eat ice cream.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know what Show Low Beeber’s real name was, would you?” Daniel asked the Irish newspaper editor, publisher, and temperance leader.

  “Not hardly.”

  “I’d like to find him.”

  “That’s easy, Daniel. He’s buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery.” She swallowed more ice cream. “It happens to a lot of gamblers. Dallas isn’t some tame farm town. Doc Holliday lived here for a while. So did Sam Bass. Ever hear of them?”

  He shook his head.

  “Bad men. We get our share of bad men.”

  “Like a man named Trent and some fellow with Oxford shoes and a sledge-hammer for a fist.”

  She giggled. The first time he had heard her laugh, but it didn’t last long.

  “And many wicked peddlers of spirituous liquors. I’m for temperance. I founded my newspaper on that very principle.”

  “I guess I’m the same. Temperance I mean.”

  “Good for you. We’re allies.”

  “So, what happened to Show Low Beeber?”

  “Shot and killed. There wasn’t much interest in ginger beer any more, or there was too much competition. He lost the Coursey and Cox Bottling Works in a dice game. The story I hear, though, is that he lost on purpose. The dumb oaf that won it thought he had a gold mine when, in fact, he had a bankrupt company, a ton of debt, hardly any ginger beer, and crates and crates of worthless, empty bottles.”

  He stopped eating, started writing. By the time he had finished, most of his ice cream was nothing but a thick soup. He ate it anyway. It still tasted mighty fine.

  “How do you remember all this?” He tapped his writing tablet. “I’m nothing without my notes in front of me.”

  “It was my story, Daniel. I covered it. Wrote about it. Any scandal that I can blame on drunkenness. I don’t need writing tablets.” She tapped her temple. “I keep it all up here. The Ides of March. Coursey and Cox Bottling Works. Show Low Beeber. Important news for my cause. Important stories that can turn public opinion, that can help us wipe out this blight, make the United States and her territories free of evil liquor forever. I covered these stories, so I remember them well. Covered them all. Up until Show Low’s death, it was big news in Dallas. Maybe bigger news in the Temperance Leader than the Times Herald. Exciting stories to write about. Then it got all bogged down with lawyers trying to sort everything out, argue everything. Lawyers. That’s too boring for my paper, listening to overpaid barristers say this and that. I want action. I write with action, about action, and demand a
ction.”

  He interrupted her before she started another sermon.

  “What do you know about the fire that burned down the place? You said it was arson.”

  “It was arson. It’s still under investigation. Maybe it was the new owner that burned it down. Some say it was the creditors. Some say it was friends of Show Low Beeber. Some say it was just some drunken tramps.” She winked. “Some say it was me.”

  He smiled. “Was it you?”

  “No. Not my style. I burn with ink and paper, not matches and coal oil. And I had no need to burn it down. I had done my job by shutting it down.”

  “Who won it from the late Mister Beeber?”

  “A drunken Irishman,” she said. “Gives my people a bad name. A soldier. Claimed self-defense, and, maybe it was, so the grand jury did not indict him.”

  Daniel felt a chill race up his spine. His spoon rattled in the empty bowl. He knew the name before Patty Mullen said it.

  “Fenn O’Malley.”

  A bowl crashed and shattered on the floor, and the din of conversation immediately stopped. Daniel turned, saw Teepee That Stands Alone looming over a freckle-faced clerk who must have brought the puhakat a bowl of vanilla ice cream.

  “You try to destroy my puha!” the old man roared in Comanche. “I do not wish to be here.”

  “What’s the matter with him?” Patty whispered.

  “He’s what you would call a medicine man. What the soldiers and agents call . . .”

  “I am Nermernuh,” the tall Comanche said, striding across the parlor to tower over Quanah and Coyote Chaser. He certainly looked as a leader of The People, his feathered headdress, and elk-skin war shirt, dyed black and decorated with images of hailstones, partially covered by a breastplate of coyote rib bones. That contrasted sharply with Quanah’s suit of black broadcloth and Coyote Chaser’s mix of trade goods and buckskin. He raised a ceremonial lance over his head.