“More likely the morning,” Asa calculated. He had seven people to visit, and they were spread all over town. He’d be lucky to be done by late afternoon. “That’s when we’ll go.”
“No,” Byron said.
Asa and Noona looked at him and Noona asked, “You’d like to stay longer?”
“I’d like not to leave.” Byron squared his shoulders and sucked in a breath. “I know I said I’d do one last job and then head east. But that was before Ordville. Why go east when everything I want is right here?”
“You’ve been in this town less than a day,” Asa said.
“So? I could stay a week or a month and my mind wouldn’t change. You’ve seen this place, Pa.” And for once, Byron didn’t exaggerate the “Pa” with a hillbilly twang. “It’s incredible. The theaters, the opera house.”
“The Poetry House,” Asa said.
“That most of all. I doubt there are more than two or three in the whole country.” Byron shook his head. “No. I’m sorry. I’m staying. There won’t be any last hurrah. It will just be Noona and you from now on. Me, I’m starting a whole new life.” And with that, he picked up his rifle case and bag and walked out.
“Well, damn,” Asa said.
45
With every step that Byron took, he felt more invigorated. The world seemed awash in the bright light of new adventures and opportunity. He’d finally done it. He was as free as a bird to take wing on his heart’s desires.
Byron hadn’t felt this happy in he couldn’t remember how long. He was his own man. Good-bye to town taming. Good-bye to killing people. Good-bye to blood and spilled guts.
Byron laughed, and a hand fell on his shoulder that brought him up short.
“Hold on there, mister. I’d like a word with you.”
Byron turned.
A tall man with pockmarks covering his face and a thin slit for a mouth had one hand hooked in a gun belt. A badge was pinned to his vest. It read DEPUTY.
Byron bristled at being laid a hand on, but he reminded himself that Ordville was to be his new home and that he should get off on the right foot with the local law. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m Deputy Agar. I’d like to know your business with Asa Delaware.”
“Why?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Is it against the law to talk to somebody?” Byron heard himself say. He knew he should cooperate, but there was something about this Agar that prickled the short hairs at the nape of his neck.
“Look, boy,” the deputy said. “I’m just doing my job. Marshal Pollard wants me to keep an eye on the Town Tamer and make sure he doesn’t cause trouble.”
“My pa isn’t a lawbreaker,” Byron said. Not normally, anyway.
“Your—” Deputy Agar glanced at the Motherlode. “And that gal who was with you?”
“My sister.”
“You don’t say.”
“We work together. Or we did. I’ve just parted company with them. They’re heading back to Texas in a couple of days, and I’m staying on.”
“How come?” Deputy Agar asked suspiciously.
“Do you really need to ask?” Byron gestured. “Look around you. This town is incredible. The culture. The energy. The feel of the very air. I’ve never been to anywhere as wondrous.”
“The culture?” Agar said. “The feel of the air?”
“I like it so much, I’m fixing to live here,” Byron revealed. “I’ve taken a job at the Poetry House and—”
“The Poetry House?”
“Do you know Myron Hobbs?”
“That Nancy boy who gets up onstage and reads poems for a living?”
“I’ll be working for him. With any luck, he’ll let me do a few readings of my own.” Byron recited a few lines to show he could. “‘I love the language, that soft bastard Latin, which melts like kisses from a female mouth.’”
“What the hell was that?”
“It’s from Beppo by Lord Byron. Isn’t it marvelous?”
“Is he one of them poets?”
“One of the most famous ever.”
Deputy Agar did a strange thing. He reached up and pinched his cheek.
“Why did you do that?”
“No reason,” Agar said. “Are you sure you’re Asa Delaware’s son?”
“Why would I make it up?”
“It’s just—” Deputy Agar stopped. “They say your pa is as tough as can be. That at man-killing he’s up there with the likes of Hickok and Hardin.”
“He has his moments,” Byron said.
“Didn’t any of it rub off?”
“How’s that again?”
“Nothing,” Deputy Agar said, and then, half to himself, “Life can be peculiar sometimes.”
“Am I free to go?” Byron asked.
“Sure, boy. You go ahead. I’ve got to report to the marshal. He’ll want to hear this.” Agar turned partway. “Where can we find you if the marshal needs to have a talk with you later?”
“Where else?” Byron said. “I’m staying at the Poetry House.”
“Of course you are. Behave yourself, poet.” Agar snorted and headed up the street.
Byron refused to let anything spoil his mood. A new day had dawned for him, and he bubbled with excitement at the prospects.
A new life. A new job. A new friend in Myron Hobbs. And then there was Olivia.
46
It wasn’t widely known but the Rocky Mountains had more than a few glaciers. Which must be why, Noona reckoned, that the owner of the the Glacier Hotel picked the name. It wasn’t the most expensive in Ordville, but it was far and away one of the nicest places Noona had ever stayed. Her room had carpet on the floor and a double bed with the softest of quilts and a water closet. That her father splurged for rooms for both of them was a mild surprise. Usually, he’d suggest they sleep off in the woods.
That he knocked on her door about nine was a bigger surprise. That he was holding a brandy bottle was an outright shock.
“Pa? I was just about to turn in.”
“I’d like to bend your ear,” Asa said, and took a swig.
Noona smothered her worry and motioned at a chair in the corner. He walked over, sat, and took another swallow. “What has you out of sorts? As if I can’t guess.”
Asa frowned. For an instant his eyes were mirrors of pain. “Pardon my language, but what does he see in that goddamn poetry?”
“He likes it, is all.”
“No, he loves it. He cares for it more than he cares for you or me.”
Noona perched on the edge of the bed and folded her hands. “He’s always liked to read. You know that. Ma encouraged him, remember? She bought him books all the time.”
“I never thought it would come to this. If I had, I’d have prevented it.”
“I don’t see how. What, you would have taken a switch to him for liking verse?”
“I never hit either of you once your whole lives.”
“I know,” Noona said, and smiled. “All it usually took was a glare to get us to do what we should. You have powerful eyes. It’s why the bad men squirm in their boots.”
“Poetry,” Asa said, and bitterly laughed. “Of all the things in the world, sissified words.”
Noona frowned. She should have seen this was coming. Her father had been holding in his feelings for so long, the dam was bound to spring a leak. “I don’t know as I can explain it to you other than Byron wants a new life. You can’t blame him for that.”
“We’re family.”
“Granted. But how many fathers and daughters work together like we do? Very few.”
“You’re special, gal,” Asa said. “You always have been.”
Noona felt her ears grow warm. “Thank you. Byron is special, too.”
“Byron is a kno
thead.”
“He is not.”
Asa stood, swigged, and commenced to pace. “We had a good thing going. Maybe we weren’t getting rich, but it was clean, honest work.”
“Now, see,” Noona said. “Byron saw it different. Not so much clean as blood-drenched. And not so much honest as sanctioned murder.”
Asa stopped pacing. “He said that?”
“More than once. And he couldn’t take it anymore. Poets have sensitive souls. They’re not like the rest of us.”
“Hogwash. What you call ‘sensitive’ I call ‘squeamish.’ It’s like those people who can’t stand to swat a fly. They never grew up.”
“Byron is a grown man.”
“On the outside,” Asa said. “But inside he never got past that age where boys stand outside a girl’s window at night talking mush.”
“Oh, Pa,” Noona said, and had to laugh.
“What we have to decide,” Asa said, “is whether to go on with the taming. Just the two of us.”
Noona’s shocks were compounding one on another. “What else would you do if you didn’t tame? Take up a badge again? Work as a cowhand? Wash dishes?”
Asa moved to the window and stood with his back to her. “I toted a star for years and I was good at it. But I’m a little long in the tooth for that now.”
“Nonsense. If you can tame, you can wear tin.”
“It’s not the same work. The taming, I do when I want. We’re in and out and it’s over. Being a marshal or a sheriff is a twenty-four-hour job, seven days a week.”
“You’re nitpicking,” Noona said. “Find law work at a quiet town where all you’d have to do is sit at a desk all day and whittle.”
“That would shrivel me,” Asa said.
Noona walked over to stand next to him. She glanced at his face, and her heart went out to him. This business with Byron had pierced him deep.
“I was raised on a farm, but I couldn’t cowboy. I’m no good with a rope or at throwing calves. And being in the saddle all day would kill me.”
“You’re in the saddle a lot now.”
“Not nearly as much as a cowboy is.” Asa sipped some brandy. “As for washing dishes or putting on a clerk apron, that would shrivel me, too.”
“What are you saying? You’re fixing to retire and sit in a rocking chair the rest of your days? That would shrivel you to nothing.”
“It’d be best for you.”
“Me?”
“You could get on with your life. Live like other gals do. Find yourself a fella and say, ‘I do’ and have a home and a family.”
“Never said I wanted that.”
“All females do.”
“Not true, Pa. Not true at all.”
“Well, anyway,” Asa said. “We have time to hash it out yet. I promised that crazy woman I’d talk to some people tomorrow so she’d pay us two hundred for us coming here. We’ll use her money for fare back to Texas and have our minds made up by the time we get there.”
“Mine already is,” Noona said. “I want to go on taming for as long as we can.”
“I don’t know, daughter,” Asa said. “I truly don’t.”
Noona didn’t know what else to say. They stood in silence staring at the lights of the town, and after a while she took the brandy bottle and enjoyed a sip herself.
“You can keep it,” Asa said. Turning, he walked out and quietly closed the door after him.
“Damn you, Byron,” Noona said. “I love you. But damn you, anyhow.”
47
Byron had settled into a back room at the Poetry House. His clothes hung in the closet and his rifle was under the bed against the wall where no one was likely to find it. And where he could forget it was there.
He wanted a clean break with his old life. A complete break.
Myron told him to take the evening and enjoy himself, that his work would start in the morning. He went to the café and sat outside and watched the well-dressed townsfolk bustle by as the gray of twilight gave way to the blue-black darkness of a high country night.
Byron was hoping against hope that a certain young woman would stop by, and when someone blocked the light from the lamp and a shadow fell across him, he looked up with a smile, thinking it was her.
“I’m Marshal Pollard,” one of the two tin stars said. “You’ve already met Deputy Agar, here.”
“That I have,” Byron said.
“We need to talk,” Marshal Pollard informed him, and without being invited, he pulled out the other chair and sat.
Deputy Agar moved to one side, his hand resting on his revolver.
“Nice night,” Byron said.
“So long as it stays peaceful,” Marshal Pollard replied, scrutinizing him in that manner lawmen had of taking someone’s measure.
“Why wouldn’t it?”
“The most notorious Town Tamer in the country is in my town. And you’re his son.”
“So?” Byron said. “Didn’t your deputy tell you that my father and I have parted ways?”
“He did.”
“You didn’t believe him and came to see for yourself?”
“The thing is,” Marshal Pollard said, “Mr. Studevant is concerned by your pa being here. And anything that makes him uneasy I deal with so he can feel easy again.”
“You have no cause to feel uneasy about me,” Byron said. “I have given up taming. My life will be poetry now.”
“Poetry,” Marshal Pollard said, and grinned a peculiar grin. “And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“Come to my room and I’ll show you my books on Lord Byron. When I send for the rest, you can see them, too.”
“See?” Deputy Agar said to Pollard. “I told you, didn’t I?”
“Hush,” Pollard said. He placed his left forearm on the table but his right stayed close to his six-shooter. “No, boy, I don’t entirely believe it.”
Byron supposed he shouldn’t blame him. A lot of people regarded poetry as womanish and anyone who liked it as having a lot of empty space between their ears. “I give you my word it’s true.”
“Maybe,” Marshal Pollard said. “But I don’t know you from Adam. What I do know is that your pa has a reputation for taking the law into his own hands. And it troubles me that he’s sticking around a few days instead of taking the next train out as he should have.”
“Oh, that,” Byron said. He explained about the old woman and the two hundred dollars she had offered his father, thinking that would put the lawman’s mind at ease.
Instead, Pollard straightened and scowled.
“He’s fixing to talk to people on some list she gave him?”
Byron nodded. “And then collect the two hundred and leave.”
Pollard abruptly stood. “You might want to consider taking the next train out yourself.”
“I like it here. I’m staying.”
“That’s not up to you.”
Byron felt a burst of anger. “It’s a free country. I can do as I please.”
“If you think so,” Marshal Pollard said. He gestured at Agar, and the pair headed up the street.
Byron noticed that everyone in their path was quick to get out of their way. “It’s none of my business,” he said to himself. “Not anymore.”
“What isn’t?”
He came out of his chair so fast, he bumped the table and nearly spilled his coffee. “Olivia,” he said, so happy that he almost grasped her hands.
To his delight, she grasped his. “My mother wanted me to stay home tonight but I persuaded her to let me come for a while. I just had to see you.”
“You did?” Byron said, and grew warm from head to toe.
“May I sit?”
“You may do anything, anytime.” Byron held out a chair for her.
“I thought we should get better acq
uainted,” Olivia said sweetly.
Byron couldn’t think of anything he’d like more. He cast a troubled glance up the street and then forgot about the lawmen and concentrated on the beauty across from him.
“What would you like to know?”
48
When Asa emerged from the Glacier Hotel at eight the next morning, the mountain air was crisp and clear and Ordville was awash in the ebb and flow of a new day. The businesses were already open and early shoppers were abroad. Miners from the night shift had been relieved and were homeward bound. A logging wagon rattled by, the bed piled high with logs.
Across the street, a petite woman in a pink outfit and carrying a pink parasol was walking a little dog on a leash. The dog had on an outfit the same color as hers.
“Just when you think you’ve seen everything,” Noona said at his side. “She ought to be ashamed of herself, dressing that poor critter like that.”
“Are you sure you want to tag along?” Asa said. “You could take the day to stroll about, maybe do some shopping.”
“I have all I need,” Noona said. “I’m not one of those females who buys stuff just for the sake of buying it.”
Asa took out the list. “Seven names is a lot. And since we don’t know the town that well yet, I thought we’d take a carriage.”
“My, oh my,” Noona said. “You’re splurging right and left.”
“The sooner we get it done, the sooner I have the two hundred.”
Carriages were for hire everywhere. They found one parked half a block away, the driver relaxing on the seat with a pipe in his mouth.
“Are you for use or are you taking the day off?” Asa asked.
The driver removed the pipe from his mouth and chuckled. “If I took the day off, the wife would throttle me. Anywhere you’d like to go, I can take you.”
Asa read the first name and the address.
“That’s not far. Climb in.”
“Just so you know,” Asa said, “I’ll have need of you when I’m done there, and for quite a while after.”
“Maybe you should hire me by my day rate,” the driver said. “You’d pay less in the end.”
Town Tamers Page 14
