She pressed the barrel of her derringer against her breast and pulled the trigger. Blood blossomed, a rose of tragedy on the fine material of her dress.
She’d taken Girard’s promise and held him to it.
The two of them. Forever together.
Epilogue
“Doc, anyone else’s arm you want to break?”
We were sitting in the Chinaman’s. My casual question hit Doc so hard he sputtered on the coffee he was about to swallow and jarred his cup down to slosh more coffee over the sides.
“Thought so,” I said. I’d never seen Doc squirm before. It was enjoyable. Especially since I’d only been half sure with my speculations. “It’s a real shame, though, Doc. As lawman, I don’t think I’d ever be able to prove it was you that done in Benjamim Guthrie. Means I can’t ever take you up before a judge. Or even talk to other folks about it.”
Doc glared.
I smiled.
Doc pulled his spectacles off and began to polish them.
“Doc,” I said, “you need more time to compose yourself, go right ahead. Those glasses weren’t any dirtier than they were last time you cleaned them.” I gave another smile. “Two minutes ago.”
“You are so very funny.” He quit polishing and set the spectacles back on his nose. “How’d you know?”
“I finally got over to the Guthrie house to tell him I’d had no luck yet. Got there ’round supper time. Met his wife and little boy. She had two black eyes. Not recent black, but puffy and yellow and blue and green by now. Said she fell down the stairs a few weeks back. The boy couldn’t say a word, he was shaking scared so bad to see someone as big as me in the doorway. Little gaffer had a broken arm. His ma said he’d fallen down the same stairs about the same time. That you’d splinted it for him.”
I gulped back some coffee. Looked Doc straight in the eyes. “Wasn’t it you Doc, said a sawbones has a moral obligation to keep secret what a patient tells him? I saw that boy’s broken arm and her black eyes and got to asking myself what kind of secrets you’d know about them. I got to asking myself what I’d do if I were you, if a mama and her boy came in and told you it was her man that hurt them both. You can’t go to the law, not unless she gives permission. And she’s too scared.”
I grinned and leaned back in my chair. “Let’s make this a what-if situation, Doc. Tell me what you’d do in a case like that.”
He shrugged. A theatrical shrug. “What if? Well, say it happened that some rebs ride into town, and say folks might blame it on them, anything that might happen to Benjamin Guthrie. In a situation like that, I’d surely consider giving that man a taste of his own medicine. I’d probably soak a burlap bag in choloform, throw it over his head and whack his arm as good as I could. Then I’d probably charge him double to set it, that is if he came in the evening and inconvenienced me.”
“I’ll bet few would blame you Doc. I had my own words with Benjamin, private-like.”
Doc raised an enquiring eyebrow.
“I mentioned that if his wife or son ever fell down the stairs again, I’d gut-shoot him from an alley. He seemed to understand I was serious.”
The Chinamen stopped by with more coffee. He returned again with a rag and tsk-tsked Doc as he cleaned up the spilled coffee. Doc accepted the chastisement and waited until the Chinaman disappeared into the kitchen before he leaned forward and whispered across our table.
“Samuel, your secret is safe with me, too.”
“What secret?”
“Folks are ready to make you a legend. They’re still talking about how you shot both snakes. I happened to notice, though, that neither shot put a hole in the tent. Was it buck-shot you sprayed from your revolver?”
“Bring your medicine bag like I asked?” I wouldn’t give Doc the satisfaction of hearing he was right. “’Cause I got something you’ll need with it.”
I unbuckled my holster, and set it on the table. “Go ahead,” I told him. “Strap it on.”
“I’ve never worn a gun before. I will not start now.”
I removed a couple bullets from the belt, and, just as I’d done in Mayor Crawford’s office, I began to work the lead loose from the casing.
“Fine,” I said, “I guess it’ll have to be Jake Wilson who shares all the pleasure in my doings with Brother Lewis.”
Doc squinted suspicion at me.
“Yes.” I spoke firmly. “Pleasure. It’s time I moved Brother Lewis out of that jail cell. But I’d hate to see him back in the revival business again.”
Doc didn’t even ask what I had in mind. He took the holster and stood to to buckle it on.
The first lead pellets landed on the table with light clunks. Some grains of gunpowder followed. I’d brought along small pieces of cloth and I stuffed one into the casing to keep the powder in place.
“You’re taking Brother Lewis more serious than most lawmen would,” Doc commented as I began to pry at the second bullet. “Why’s that?”
He sat and waited for my answer.
“I’d like to tell you it’s the same reason you have,” I said. “A woman got snakebit and died. But when I ask myself, I think there’s more to it.”
I set my knife aside. “Doc, a few months back I almost got killed. Discovered I wasn’t ready for it — that I hadn’t given thought to the beyond.”
I explained to Doc that I’d realized there was a simple decision to be made behind a question I’d ignored all my life. Either God existed or He didn’t. It had led me to realize that despite the compelling matters of living, much of a man’s business was to decide matters of his death and his soul. To choose to believe God did not exist. Or to accept faith and from there try to search for what that meant. I told Doc how it bothered me to see someone as skillful, powerful, and charismatic as Brother Lewis taking advantage of the confusion too many of us had.
“Worst part is,” I finished. “I still can’t figure out how he could reach into those snakes and come out unhurt. Nor how some of the others could do it.”
“You might recall,” he said with a smile, “I’d once mentioned how little we know. I won’t even try to explain that one. Sure enough it did happen, and sure enough it might happen again. Just because you can’t understand it, though, don’t close your mind to it. Fact is, Samuel if a man doesn’t predispose himself to disbelieve in God, and he tries to figure out how the world works, soon enough he’ll have no choice but to believe in God. That’s when the fun starts. After you get faith, looking for more answers.”
“I haven’t found it particularily fun,” I said. “I thought believing was supposed to give you the answers, not get you started with more questions.”
“Some folks do look at it that way,” Doc said. “You’ll notice they surround themselves with all sorts of church rules and let those rules serve as answers. I don’t mean that unkindly, and I have no doubt God welcomes those folks.”
He paused. “The older I get, it seems, the more I know how ignorant I am. Especially in the face of God. And folks rarely talk serious like this, so indulge me when I try to share what I’ve learned through watching people live and die over all my years as a doctor.”
My coffee was getting cold. I only had one bullet prepared. But I was ready to indulge him.
“Some people approach faith to hide from the infinite mystery. They just want rules to get them through life,” he said. “Others approach faith to seek the mystery behind it. I believe I know which road you’re on. I promise you it won’t be easy.”
He swirled his coffee and stared down at it. “This black tar the Chinaman serves. You don’t know how bad I wish it was whiskey. Even now, first thing in the morning. Every day I fight the urge for just one shot. The bottle cost me my family before I decided to quit.”
We both gave that statement respectful silence. I thought how he’d repeatedly decline my offers of whiskey at the Red Rose, and I made a note to quit that habit around him. I thought of the inscription in his book from his wife Sarah. The rumors of a succ
sessful practice abandoned. This was a tough man, not to have quit on life.
“Will it help, Samuel, if I tell you I’ve discovered faith isn’t much different than my fight against the bottle? All you can do is hope to win a day at a time. Keep searching and the truths come in little doses here and there.”
He pulled the revolver from his holster and examined it critically. “Speaking of truth, young man, I believe you owe me an explanation.”
I provided it as I worked over the last few bullets. Girard and the chicken blood had given me the idea.
Doc grinned when I was finished.
**********
I carried Doc’s medicine satchel during our slow walk across town to the jail cell. As we walked, I explained to Doc what I’d learned from Dehlia. She’d been easy to find — the foreman of the Bar X Bar knew of only two dry wells nearby, and she’d been at the bottom of the first we searched.
I had been right about one thing. Dehlia had been blackmailing Girard, bleeding him slow with malicious joy. She’d armed herself with the four rebs — not her brothers, but hired on and posing as brothers — because she knew she needed protection as she threatened to expose his double life. After all, as she had sweetly explained to Girard, if she died, those rebs would not only track him down, but give the entire story to both Eleanor Ford and Leslie Girard.
Blackmail had forced Girard to set up a phony loan to the Bar X Bar from the Denver bank, and made him desperate enough as Cyrus Ford to steal the bank notes from the bank in Laramie.
It was the perfect setup for Dehlia. As long as Girard needed both his wives, she could squeeze him dry. And he couldn’t leave, not when most of his wives’ wealth was tied up in cattle, land and bank assets. It was so perfect, she knew she could aggravate him by posing as his daughter in Denver, just to spite him more.
Her mistake was in failing to realize when Girard had decided to run from the situation. Her death, then, and the following revelations would make no difference to either of the wives he left behind.
She’d met Girard at a pre-arranged place on the grasslands to get more money. He pulled a gun and forced her to the dry well, believing if the rebs caught up to him in the next few days, he could use her as a bargaining chip. Otherwise, as he’d happily explained to her, if he’d put enough days between himself and the Bar X Bar that she was finally dead of thirst in the well, it was also enough distance that the rebs would never be able to track him down.
If I’d been right about the blackmail, I’d been wrong about the why. Dehlia had never been a wife to him. Dehlia’s mother had, a wealthy woman down south some half-dozen years older than Girard. The marriage lasted as long as the wealth — after Girard had diverted all he could, Dehlia’s mother had died mysteriously one night, and a bribed doctor called it heart failure. Girard played the role of grieving widower for only a month before he fled. Dehlia, a daughter determined to get revenge, had finally caught up to him after a soldier friend passing through Denver had spotted Girard at the bank and wrote back to her with the news. She went to Denver and watched him for several weeks, which led to her to follow him to Laramie and discover the double life. Blackmail, to Dehlia, had seemed the ultimate justice.
What I didn’t tell Doc was that Dehlia had openly expressed interest in staying on in Laramie and deepening our aquaintence. Nor did I tell Doc how I’d had no regrets in gently declining, something Dehlia had understood from my eyes even before I spoke the words. Clara in Denver had helped me more than she knew — I would not permit me or my heart to flee from Rebecca, no matter how easy to justify in the face of temptations or my worries about what might happen to Rebecca’s love for me during our time apart.
I also held back from Doc the conversation I’d had with Mayor Crawford upon my return to Laramie from the Bar X Bar. Physicians aren’t the only ones with moral obligations to hold some things secret. Crawford had already been punished greatly for his mistakes by Girard, and as Laramie did depend so much on a strong bank, I made my own judgement and let the matter lie. Maybe I didn’t have the right or foresight to make such a judgement, but there hadn’t been anyone else to take from me the responsibility.
Resolving so much of the previous weeks’ happenings, however, didn’t rid me of the problem of an irate, abusive revivalist preacher and the too-slow territorial movement of a circuit judge who still might not arrive for another month.
Which was why I was stepping into my own marshal’s office with a leather bladder of chicken’s blood beneath my shirt, a Bowie knife tucked in my belt, my holster around Doc’s waist, and two saddled horses reined to nearby posts.
*******************
“Sun’s been up two hours, Marshal,” Brother Lewis called as I opened the door. “Where’s my breakfast? And —”
Doc Harper stepped in behind me.
Brother Lewis softened his voice. He’d learned quickly how far he could push before we went through the trouble of bringing the horse back into his jail cell. “I sure am glad you got a sawbones in here. My throat’s been aching bad for days.”
“My own thoughts are that you don’t shut up enough to rest it,” I said as I moved to the hook that held the jail cell key. “But to make you happy, I’ll let Doc Harper explain that in fancy doctor talk.”
I opened the cell door for Doc to enter, then moved to my desk, sat with my back turned on them and busied myself with paperwork.
It didn’t take long.
“Samuel?” Doc’s voice had tension.
“Yes,” I said without looking.
“Samuel!” More urgent.
I sighed. Turned around. And yelped. “Doc!”
“I’m sorry Samuel,” Doc said, shaky-like. Brother Lewis stood behind, left arm wrapped around Doc’s neck, right hand pressing the gun barrel into Doc’s ear. “He took it from my holster while I was reaching into my satchel.”
“Let him go,” I warned Brother Lewis. “You’ll never get away with this.”
Inside I groaned. Couldn’t I come up with anything better than a line from one of Ted Buntline’s dime novels?
Brother Lewis didn’t notice. That was my gamble. That he would be so wrapped up in this, he wouldn’t notice odd details.
“We’re moving out,” Brother Lewis said. His face was white with strain. “Don’t force me to shoot.”
Brother Lewis pushed Doc into the jail cell door, swinging the iron bars open. “He stays with me until we’re well clear of town. Anyone follows, I shoot him dead.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t believe you’d kill a man.”
“Don’t call my bluff,” he warned. They were halfway to the outside door now. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” I said. “If you shoot Doc here, you have no hostage.”
I pulled the Bowie knife loose from my belt. Whether or not he was capable of killing a man in cold blood, I figured he’d shoot in self defense.
I held the knife high, giving him a good look at it. I took my first step towards him slow, letting Brother Lewis see my intentions. Then I rushed.
Brother Lewis pushed Doc aside and fired into my body.
I twisted, screamed, fell, made sure I landed on my belly. The leather bladder burst blood against me. I rolled over and over, screaming, gurgling, and ended in collapsed pile against my desk, pressing my shirt into my belly, letting the blood seep through my fingers.
Then I let my head fall back and my eyes close.
“You killed him!” Doc shouted.
“Shut up or I’ll kill you!” Brother Lewis was in a panic, the frenzied edge in his voice a sure indication that all of this had happened so quickly that he bought it completely.
All that remained was for Doc to get him out of the office.
“Please don’t kill me!” Doc said. “I’ll ride with you! I promise! I won’t do nothing to put you in danger! Just let me go when you get far enough away!”
It seemed too staged to me. But I needn’t have feared. Brother Lewis was holding a smoking gun,
looking at the bleeding body of a Wyoming Territory marshal, and realizing he‘d hang for it. He was in no condition to spare any other thoughts for logic.
“Get moving,” Brother Lewis said. “Walk calm when we’re on the street. One false move and I shoot.”
“Anything!” Doc said. “I don’t want to die!”
Moments later, I heard the creaking of the office door. Then silence.
I relaxed. Doc would point out the saddled horses reined at the posts if Brother Lewis in his panic missed them. As they rode, Doc— safe because my colt now had only one blank and empty chambers — would also point out the dangers of future public appearances as a revivalist, now that Brother Lewis would be on every wanted poster in this territory and the neighboring ones. And I’d be rid of the problem of taking before a judge someone accused of throwing snakes.
To be safe, I laid on the floor for another five minutes.
Jake Wilson walked in just as I was ready to sit.
“Morning, Marshal,” he said. “Things work out fine?”
“Just fine, Jake.” I got to my feet. Wiped my hands free of blood against my pants.
“Good. That preacher was a tiring man.” Jake grinned. “You’ll be wanting to clean up. So I’ll hold this letter for you till you get back.”
“Letter?” It couldn’t be from Rebecca among the Sioux. Not unless she’d found a way to get it to the nearest fort outpost.
Jake held it to the light and his grin became a leer.
“Wish I could read through the envelope,” he said. “Looks like it’s traveled some to get here. Smells of perfume, too. What’s this on the outside? Some Injun symbols. A drawing of the moon. Marshal, it —”
Moon? Moon Basket. Rebecca.
Silver Moon Page 25
