Protecting Hickok

by Bill Brooks

  They sat in silence for a time, then she raised her eyes and said, “The sun is out, did you notice?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think, if the offer is still good, I’d like to go for that horseback ride today.”

  “Then I’ll be back to pick you up in twenty minutes,” he said, put on his hat and went out.

  He rented her a small palomino mare and himself the same gelding he’d ridden before, then led them back to the boardinghouse. She was waiting for him, dressed in a wool shirt and corduroy trousers. She’d pinned her hair and tucked it under a slouch hat she said was one of William’s. He gave her a hand up into the saddle, then said, “Is there a river nearby?” She told him there was one off to the east, and they rode out in that direction for almost an hour, going at an easy trot and sometimes a gentle gallop. She was a good horsewoman, and he liked the feel of the wind in his face when they galloped and liked to watch her running slightly ahead of him like a spirit set free.

  They came to the river—she said she didn’t know the name of it, and it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. They dismounted and let the horses drink. There were scattered clouds flung across the blue sky, and they cast shadows that floated across the land like dark creatures in search of prey. And where the shadows fell on the water it changed it from glass blue to a metal gray.

  They found a grassy spot and sat on it cross-legged, facing off toward the river and beyond to the unending sweep of land that was yet brown from the retreating winter but would soon be green again with rich grasses.

  “I would love to have a house right here,” she said.

  He had to agree; it was peaceful and far removed from the realities of the world.

  “Kathleen, I’m really sorry about the news and I’m sorry about William’s troubles and all the rest…”

  She turned her head slightly to look at him, and he saw as much peaceful beauty in her face as he did in the land. He drew himself close to her and kissed her and wanted to steal from her the sickness she carried, wanted to steal all of her troubles.

  She relaxed in his arms and he held her like that—the two of them looking into what could have been a future together, but they both knew the impossibility. Still, it did not prevent them from dreaming about it.

  “You must promise me,” she said, “that you’ll get William free so that I can take him with me to New Mexico.”

  “I promise,” he said, but doubted his ability to keep such a promise unless he took the law into his own hands. What would it matter if he did? West of the Mississippi the law was mostly what a man made it, and if he had to become a fugitive to keep his promise to her, then maybe that’s just how it would have to be. He thought briefly of Horace. What good had serving the law done him?

  He held her closer still, and she turned her face up to him, offering her mouth. He kissed it more passionately this time, her touch causing his blood to race hot under his skin.

  “Is this what you want?” he said.

  “How do I know?”

  Her eyes were filled with tears. He couldn’t tell if they were tears of sadness or joy, and he didn’t want to ask.

  He lay her back upon the old grass where new grass was just starting to sprout through and began to unbutton her shirt. She took her hat away and her hair spilled free. He kissed the hollow of her throat as she unbuttoned his shirt. The shadows of clouds played over the ground as she closed her eyes, and she could feel the clouds playing over them too, could feel the altering warmth and coolness. She could feel her own passion rising like a great bird winging toward the heavens.

  Afterward, they rode back to Cheyenne feeling stunned and happy, and beneath their happiness lay the ever present sorrow that seemed to grow larger and more real the nearer to town they came.

  “I could go with you to New Mexico,” he said.

  “It’s such a nice thought to think that you would.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “Yes, I believe you, but I think that it will never happen…that it can’t ever happen.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve always known since I was a little girl that I would never be as happy as I feel right now—that such happiness, though it has found me for a little while, is not mine to keep.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” he said.

  “We shall see,” she said.

  He left her off at the boardinghouse with much regret in his heart, then returned the animals to the livery. From there he went to the bank and completed the transaction of funds his mother had sent: close to a thousand dollars. He would give it to Kathleen for a stake to get her set up in New Mexico—hopefully enough to buy her own boardinghouse. He knew she was right about everything, but he didn’t want to accept it.

  He went to the telegrapher’s office and sent two telegrams, the first to his mother:

  RECEIVED FUNDS THIS DATE, MANY THANKS. WILL PAY YOU BACK. HOPE YOU’VE CHANGED YOUR MIND ABOUT GOING TO EUROPE, BUT IF NOT, BEST WISHES. AS ALWAYS, YOUR SON, T.B.

  The second he sent to George Bangs:

  YOU SHOULD KNOW THERE WAS A SHOOTING INVOLVING MYSELF AND SOMEONE TRYING TO ROUST H OFF THE NEST. ATTEMPT UNSUCCESSFUL. MAN DEAD, NO LEGAL COMPLICATIONS. WILL SEND GREATER DETAIL IN LETTER. WEATHER SET TO BREAK ANY DAY, MAY BE ON THE MOVE TO THE GULCH SOON IF H GOES. ASSUME YOU WANT ME TO STAY ON THE HUNT. DO ADVISE AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE. T. B.

  Coming out of the telegrapher’s office, Teddy spotted Charley ascending the train station platform steps. He was relieved that Charley was back. It might just mean that if he had to, he could resign his job with Pinkerton’s and go with Kathleen to New Mexico. He walked over and shook Charley’s hand, who shook his in turn like he was trying to pump water out of a dry hole.

  “Well I’m glad to see you ain’t killed,” Charley said. “Because if you were, it might mean Bill was killed too. Where is he?”

  “Left him last night in the Gold Room with Cody and Texas Jack. The rate they were going, they might still be over there chewing the rag.”

  “Shit and be damned!”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Cody will try and talk Bill into going East again, if he ain’t already done it. Cody’s got a flannel mouth, could talk a Eskymo into buying snowballs. I hope I ain’t too late.”

  Teddy and Charley marched over to the Gold Room, but Bill wasn’t there; the place at that early hour was as empty as a church on Monday. Charley was inwardly hoping maybe Bill had broken his vows of celibacy and was lying up with one of the doves somewhere. For if Bill had broken his oath, it meant that he could probably break his too and not feel overly bad about being a weaker man than Bill when it came to such things as carnal desires.

  “Let’s try the camp,” Teddy said.

  Sure enough, Bill’s feet were sticking out through the tent’s flaps. Charley didn’t see any feet other than Bill’s and it disappointed him greatly that he didn’t. Charley peeked in, and Bill was lying there like a corpse, but one that snored.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Teddy said, then he told Charley about the gunfight with Hank Rain.

  “I’d like to have been there when you dusted him,” Charley said.

  “It wasn’t a pretty thing to watch.”

  “Never is, but I’d still liked to have been there. What about his pard, Ned Loyal?”

  “I’ve not seen him.”

  “You can probably bet you will, sooner or later.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking too.”

  Bill snored like a locomotive.

  “You sticking around for a while?” Teddy said.

  “I’m here for the long haul, unless of course something catches my fancy, then you never know. I’ve been thinking about Alasky lately.”

  “But for the present, you’ll be going with Bill to Deadwood?”

  “Yes. I’ve done been home to visit my wife and daughters, so I’ve done that for now. All I need is a nice hot bath and some victuals.”


  “You want me to hang around while you go take your bath?”

  “I surely would appreciate it, old son.”

  “You don’t think anyone would try and shoot Bill in his sleep, do you?”

  “Hell, I think there are those who’d shoot him while he was trying to piss. Some’s bad in that respect, sneaking up on a man and just plum killing him outright with no warning, especially when it comes to a feller of Bill’s reputation.”

  Charley dropped his valise next to the tent and said he’d be back in a couple of hours. Teddy made a chair out of a bucket, turned his back toward the sun so it would fall over his shoulder, then took out his book of Shakespeare and opened it at a random spot and read: You and I are past our dancing days. Then lowering the book, he glanced toward the narrow opening of the tent where Bill slept peacefully and knew that it was probably true—that men like him and Charley and all the others were past their dancing days.

  But still he’d taken the job of guarding Hickok, and guard him he would until the last dance was over.

  Charley bathed and sang, making up words from his joyous heart. He’d determined that anything could happen at any time, and as that strange preacher reminded him on the train, death she does come like a stranger in the night, and maybe she was coming for him and maybe for Bill and all the rest of them. And if it were so, then he might just as well live out what time he had left in the most bodacious possible way.

  He had the chink scrub his scalp until his hair squeaked. Then he repaired from the bath, put on fresh duds and went straightaway to the Gold Room prepared to propose marriage to Lilly and offer to set her up with a nice little house he could visit and spend nights at. The cold ground of Cheyenne was putting a soreness in his bones that ached him most all of the time. Even Bill had begun to complain about rheumatism, and Bill was a good five, six years younger.

  Then when he and Bill went up to Deadwood, he would send for Lilly to follow, and have a nice little house set up there for her as well. He sang loud and off-key, and the chink stood back and smiled the whole time Charley got dressed, Charley knowing the chink couldn’t understand a word but that chinks were pleasant souls and smiled a lot. Chinks were generally agreeable and good fellers all around.

  When Charley found Lilly, she was having her lunch along with several of the other crib girls. They were chattering like squirrels at the end of the bar in the Gold Room. Mostly they were telling stories about their odd encounters with customers. Charley interrupted such palaver and told Lilly he needed her to accompany him upstairs.

  “It’s my lunch, Charley. Can’t it wait till after?”

  “No, it can’t,” Charley insisted.

  Lilly knew Charley to be a rambunctious little fellow when he got his mind set to something, but usually this didn’t happen till late in the evening after he’d had several cocktails. It was just barely past noon.

  Once in the crib, Lilly began removing what little clothing she wore, but Charley stopped her.

  “It ain’t about that, Lil…”

  “What is it, Charley?”

  “I come to ask you to be my wife.”

  Lilly tried to suppress a laugh. Charley got down on one knee.

  “I’m serious,” he said.

  “I know you are, but you’re already married, Charley.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “Why, you told me plenty of times, mostly when you were drunk and maudlin and it was after we did it.”

  Charley forgot how much he talked before and after fornicating and how maudlin he could get when he was through fornicating but still in his cups and thinking of home and his wife and children.

  “Well, it don’t mean we can’t still get married,” he said. “It just wouldn’t be entirely legal—you’d be more or less my common-law wife. And I’d treat you good, Lil. I’d treat you like a regular wife…”

  “No, Charley, I won’t marry you. You told me how sweet and nice your missus was and how pretty your daughters. I could never do nothing like marrying you and hurting them. And besides, I already love another.”

  “Ah, Lil…What’s his name? I’ll fight him over you.”

  “Oh, Charley, you’re so sweet.”

  He couldn’t be mad at her no matter how hard he tried. Lilly was right, he did have a sweet wife and children. He should be thanking her for reminding him.

  “I’m just not in my right mind, is all,” he said. “These wild prairies make a man feel lonely. They’s other things too been troubling me something terrible lately…”

  “What Charley?”

  The crib was small and cramped, with just a bed and a small trunk taking up most of the room. Charley sat on the side of the bed.

  “I met a preacher man who put the willies in me,” he said. “That’s some of it.”

  “What’s the rest?”

  “I guess I don’t know.”

  “I bet I do.”

  Lilly sat on the bed next to him and took her finger and run it around in Charley’s hair, twisting a strand into a curl, and he felt himself falling for her wiles all over again, then remembered what that glow-eyed preacher said about seductresses and jumped up.

  “I can’t do it, Lilly. It ain’t that I don’t want to do it, it’s just that I can’t.”

  “Since it’s still early in the day I’ll give you a discount if you want.”

  It was a tempting offer. But he saw the face of his wife and daughters waving to him through the train window of his mind.

  “I guess I was led here by God to learn the truth,” he said. “And the truth is I need to become celibate. It ain’t nothing against you, girl. And if I was going to be my old self, I’d be it with you, but that old me is long gone to somewhere other and I doubt the old Charley will ever show his face again. Good-bye, Lil.”

  And with that Charley went out and down the stairs, out the front double doors, and almost straight into the arms of Squirrel Tooth Alice.

  She said, “Whoa there, buckaroo, I sure never laid eyes on you before. You’re a cute little cuss.”

  And Charley fell instantly in love all over again.

  Chapter 23

  Teddy was in the courtroom when the deputies brought William in. The circuit judge was a man named Pierce. The jurist had long white hair and tufts of more white hair sticking out of his ears. He had a pinched eye that looked like it had seen about everything bad there ever was to see in the way of the human condition and didn’t care to see any more of it than was absolutely necessary. He had ridden in from Laramie, this Judge Pierce, and his coat was shabby with dust and his paper collar yellow with sweat stain. Beyond that he looked thirsty and disillusioned and tired.

  Teddy saw Kathleen there in the front row, and she offered him a sad smile.

  Jeff Carr served as bailiff and announced the court come to order, and everyone stood until Judge Pierce waved them back down into their seats. Then Carr announced the first case on the docket—a man named Haybarrow, on the charge of being drunk and disorderly in public.

  “How do you plead?” Judge Pierce said to the sot.

  “Guilty, I guess.”

  “Ten days or ten dollars.”

  This Haybarrow was, like many of his kind, a prankster, and said, “Judge, I’ll take the ten dollars,” and Pierce scowled and slapped his gavel hard down on the desk and said, “Make her thirty,” and told the bailiff to take him away. Jeff Carr hooked a thumb at one of his deputies, who stepped forward and hauled the happy lush away.

  “Next case?”

  “William Bonney, felonious assault and attempted murder.”

  “How do you plead?”

  Teddy stepped forward, said, “I am the legal representative of this boy, your honor?”

  The judge rested his pinched eye on Teddy.

  “He pleads not guilty.”

  The judge read over the charges before him, looked up again.

  “Says you shot a man through the throat. That’s an onerous place to shoot a man.”

&
nbsp; William started to speak, but Teddy stopped him with a hand clasped firmly on his forearm.

  “My client will claim self-defense, your honor.”

  “Can you prove that, sir?”

  “The victim was shot with his own revolver—the defendant does not possess nor own a firearm. If he had not been set upon by the victim, well, there simply wouldn’t be a victim and this case would not stand before the court.”

  “Is it true that the victim was shot with his own gun?” Judge Pierce asked Carr, who offered a reluctant affirmation. “Why’d you shoot him, boy?”

  Teddy started to intervene but the judge waved him off.

  “I want to hear it from his mouth.”

  “He was beating me up over a gal. He had her beat plenty of times too. He stuck his gun in my face and threatened to blow out my brains. I figured he would, so I stopped him the only way I could.”

  “Says here the dispute was over a prostitute. This gal you were fighting over, was she a dove?”

  “She’s only doing it to feed herself. She’s a good gal doing what he told her to do.”

  “The victim was her pimp?” The judge settled his weary gaze on Jeff Carr. “The victim a relative of yours, I assume?”

  “Cousin.”

  “You wouldn’t be biased in this case, would you, Sheriff?”

  “We ain’t never been that close, him and me.”

  “Any witnesses to the event?”

  “Nobody except the victim himself and the defendant. One ain’t talking and the other can’t.”

  “Yes, as I’d suspect a man shot through the gizzard would have a difficult time carrying on a conversation. Where is the woman in question?”

  “I’ve already questioned her, your honor. She refuses to testify one way or the other.”

  The jurist closed his eyes. Dust moats floated in a shaft of morning sunlight that fell through a window. Then with great effort, he resumed his position of arbitrator and said, “How big a man is the victim?”

  Jeff Carr hesitated, but not for long under the impatient pinched stare.

  “Nearly six feet tall, sir.”