Esther's Pillow

by Marlin Fitzwater

  Temp made a mental note to call this McArdle kid just as soon as he could, and as soon as he found his number. When his desk was almost clean, except for a dictionary with the name “TEMP” written in ink on the side of the tightly bound pages, he found the scrap of paper he needed and placed it in the middle of his desk. It read: “McArdle. No. 3001. Nickerly County, Kansas.” If he could get a call through to the Nickerly operators, 3001 translated into three shorts and a long on the desk of W.W. McArdle.

  Temp took out his prized writing pen. The pen was an award, given to him by the Kansas City Press Club for a series of stories he did about a nurse who had murdered two of her roommates.

  Temple lived across the hall from the three girls and had decided to ask one of them out to dinner. He knocked on their door and was greeted by a young woman in white, holding a butcher knife, and sobbing that she had killed her friends. Temp consoled her as best he could, unsure of her mental state, and slightly fearful that she might try to close the gender gap among her victims. He also realized his first responsibility, as all journalists do, to get the story. He only had an hour before deadline. Temp listened as the girl poured out her hatred for her “prettier” roommates and how they had mistreated her. He told her to call the police, checked to see that the victims were indeed in the bedroom with their throats cut, then went across the hall and called Nate Cabot to dictate the story.

  “Hell no, I don’t have sources,” Temp said. “I’m here. The nurse did it. She told me about it herself. And I saw the bodies.”

  “What about the cops?” Nate asked.

  “She’s calling them now.”

  “OK, gimme the story,” Nate said. “But you better be right.”

  Temp was right, and the Kansas City Press Club recognized him with a handsome black pen with his name inscribed in gold letters on the side. Hoping for inspiration, Temp picked it up, opened the bottle of black ink in the well at the top of his desk, and began to write:

  NICKERLY, KANSAS, Aug. 10, 1911—Arrests have been made against those accused of the “tar party” in the case of the state against the assailants of Margaret Chambers of Nickerly, who on August 7 was taken to a lonely spot near town where a coat of tar was applied to her body by businessmen and farmers from the surrounding area.

  The story contained few solid facts, because Temp didn’t know very much. But he was on deadline, and if the Star got the story first, it would be their trophy, no matter how rough the reporting. Nate ran the story at the bottom of page one.

  The front page of the Kansas City Star, the biggest paper between Philadelphia and the Rockies, was a megaphone to the world. Within hours after porters loaded the Star bundles on the Western Express headed for Denver, newsmen across the state were reading about the tar party and placing calls to the courthouse in Nickerly, Kansas. First it was Lawrence, then Topeka, then Abilene and Salina. One by one, every town along the rail line woke up to news of the tar party. Reporters were calling Nickerly all morning, but Temp was still one step ahead. He was on the train heading west.

  About midnight, Temp stretched out on the seats of Car No. 3, just ahead of the pullman. Nate hadn’t approved of this departure, but he would pay the expense anyway, especially if Temp could produce a front page story every day for God knows how long. He tossed his copy of the Star on the seat in front of him, folded his jacket over the arm of the seat for a pillow, and closed his eyes. When he awoke, nearly five hours later, a halo of light was on the horizon, casting a soft yellow haze throughout the train. Several people were seated just ahead of him, no doubt passengers from Abilene or Salina. Just as he stirred himself, sitting up in the seat and peeling his wrinkled jacket from the armrest, he caught a snippet of their conversation.

  “Look at this, Charlie. A tarring and feathering. Haven’t heard of that in years. Right here in Nickerly, Kansas. Says a whole bunch of town fathers were in on it.”

  The other man laughed. “I bet those ole boys had a good time. Wish I’d been there.”

  “You will be,” Temp thought. “Through the pages of the Kansas City Star.”

  Temp felt sticky from the hot train. Even with the windows open, the breeze across the seats was heavy, making his skin feel clammy and raw, as if he had been riding a horse. As the train slowed, he stood up and stretched, then picked his straw hat from the rack at the end of the seat. Though he rarely wore a hat during the winter, he relied on this straw number all summer when the sun threatened his fair skin. It wasn’t a panama hat because it was made in Arkansas, and the straw was slightly heavier than the pliable South American variety, but it held its shape in high winds, and the wide brim sat umbrella-like over his eyes, giving him a rakish appearance that he rather liked.

  Temp stepped off the train and onto the wooden platform at what appeared to be the outskirts of Nickerly, Kansas. At least it said so on the front of the station, a ghastly yellow building that was blackened by the steam, grease, and oil of the trains. Temp carried only one suitcase, a green plaid cardboard affair with a gold plated latch. A veteran traveler, he had packed several sets of underwear, a razor and shaving soap, two shirts, and two pairs of pants. As long as his hotel arranged for laundry, he could live on that meager supply for a year.

  At the end of the platform, Temp got his first look at Nickerly. The town had one long main street of sand running north from the water tower where the train was refilling its tanks. The street was wider than any small town street Temp could remember and perfectly engineered so that storm water would run from the center to the ditches along the side and be carried to a ravine, that led to a creek, that led to the Saline River. The entire tributary could be mapped from the middle of town. Similarly, from his vantage point at the edge of town, Temp could survey Nickerly’s entire collection of businesses, mostly two-story buildings with living quarters above, framed against the horizon. And there, at the far end of the street, was the most imposing prairie structure Temp had ever seen: a limestone giant larger than most of the buildings in Kansas City. It rose up from the earth like an Egyptian pyramid, and Temp wondered how it had been built, how many men with teams of horses had pulled how many sleds of limestone from the quarry to the edge of Nickerly. This was surely the fortress of local government. He decided to go there first.

  Temple Dandridge didn’t need to introduce himself to W.W. McArdle. His lecture on “The Law and the News” had made a strong impression on the young lawyer. While most of W.W.’s classmates at Washington Law School in Topeka sneered at the idea that public opinion could truly influence a trial, W.W. thought otherwise. He remembered his own father sat on a murder trial jury for a case in which a wife had killed her husband after years of physical abuse. The senior McArdle, an accountant for the Great Western Stockyards on the Kansas side of the Missouri River, was a very precise man who led an ordered life and abhorred violence. During the trial, McArdle read the morning paper’s accounts of the proceedings to his family at breakfast. W.W. could see that his father was moved by the paper’s accounts of the husband’s behavior, his “large hands slashing across her face if dinner were not ready.” That kind of description had not been available to the jurors at trial. But W.W.’s father repeated these words again and again to explain why he found the wife “not guilty” of murder. He just couldn’t blame the woman after reading those stories about her abuse.

  Of course, W.W. McArdle hadn’t had much use for the press so far. In the small town of Nickerly, two papers fought for the seventeen hundred readers in the county, competing primarily on the basis of family reunion reports, church picnic notices, and school sports scores. The editors were both deacons in the Presbyterian church, loyal believers in the words of the Reverend Aaron Langston, and never printed gossip or other material that might be embarrassing to individuals or to the town. The local papers were a far cry from big-city journalism in which crimes and trials were magnets for readership, and long columns of newsprint were devoted to the legal machinations of jury selection.

  Wh
en W.W. McArdle opened the door of his office and offered an outstretched hand to Temple Dandridge, he sensed that an unspoken union was being formed. W.W. was smart enough not to let Temp think he was being used, but he also guessed that the story of a young, single, attractive schoolteacher would be more compelling for readers in Kansas City than the enforcement of moral rectitude by rural businessmen. W.W. knew he was on the right side of the issue, and he sensed that Temp would want the story.

  W.W. and Temp sized each other up rather quickly. Temp’s suit was wrinkled from the overnight train ride, but his white shirt collar was still starched and straight. He had an open face, light skin with freckles, and he looked quite the innocent for a thirty-four-year-old man in a cynical profession. When he removed his straw hat, his smile looked more like a perpetual smirk, as if all of life were amusing and ironic.

  Temp now realized why he had not been able to remember W.W. The man was nondescript. He wore a black suit and tie. His thin shoulders looked like they might have trouble holding suspenders, yet he was taller than Temp imagined. He had to be about twenty-five years old. There was little emotion in his face. It was hard to imagine Mr. McArdle working up great anger over the indignities thrust upon Margaret Chambers, or waving his arms in exuberance to crystallize the jury’s outrage. But then Temp had seen lawyers who cast off timidity in front of a jury and became demons of fiery oratory. It would remain to be seen if this young country lawyer could rise to the occasion. In any case, Temp liked him immediately. He especially liked the fact that W.W. McArdle had called him with the scoop of the year.

  The two exchanged pleasantries about the train trip and where Temp was going to stay. The town’s only hotel, the Adeline, was a three-story limestone building on Main Street with three rooms on each of the two floors over the lobby. Temp could have a front room, which was pricey at two dollars a night, but the Star was paying. The average price for a room was one dollar, still a substantial charge for the drovers passing through town or the relatives back for a family visit.

  W.W. got right to the point. “Mr. Dandridge, you didn’t waste any time getting here,” he said. “We just arrested these men two days ago, fourteen of them in all, and all except Jay Langston have posted bond, five hundred dollars. Jay’s father is a Bible thumper, and I can’t tell whether he doesn’t have the money, or whether he’s not sure he wants the boy out of jail. But I think his friends are going to loan him the money for bail by tomorrow.”

  “What happened here anyway?” Temp asked. “Did they hurt her?”

  “I can tell you what happened,” W.W. said. “But why is another matter.”

  “Some guy on the train said she was immoral,” Temp recalled casually, trying to lead the conversation to Margaret Chambers. “He called her ‘that trouble-making tart.’ Could that be the case?”

  “I don’t believe it,” W.W. said. “But I’ll let you meet her, and you can ask her yourself. You’re going to hear some terrible things about her in this town, but none as terrible as what these men did to her. Here’s the list.”

  W.W. handed Temp a list of fourteen names. The men’s ages and occupations made it clear even at a glance that this was not a childish prank.

  Edward Garvey Jr., 31, miller

  Jay Langston, 24, farmer

  Edward “Easy” Tucker, 43, farmer and ice man

  Herbert Forchet, 29, barber

  Ben “Cavity” Johnson, 39, hardware store owner

  Ernest “Club” Wilson, 53, quarry owner

  Delbert “Red” Romberger, 36, rancher

  Abner Polk, 28, farmer

  Piney Woods, 35, farmer

  Joe Tanner, age unknown, unemployed

  John Buckhorn, 28, drover

  Hank Simpson, 23, baker

  Joe Simpson, 17, unknown

  Striper Simpson, 19, unknown

  “So these are the town fathers,” Temp said, noting their occupations. “What about the town mothers?”

  “Well, there’s the Civic Improvement Association,” W.W. said. “They’re the leading wives in town. They meet every Thursday, pray a lot, act kind of snooty about who gets invited to the group, and the word is, they put the men up to this whole thing.”

  “Because the teacher is a tart?”

  “Their claim is that Miss Chambers seduced a student,” W.W. responded.

  “Any truth to it?” Temp asked.

  “I don’t think so. I think it’s plain old-fashioned jealousy,” W.W. said. “You can size all that up for yourself. I’m still collecting evidence, so I don’t know everything. But I am certain that these boys pulled Margaret Chambers off a buggy in the middle of the night, assaulted her, tore her clothes, and poured tar and feathers over her body. That is a crime under some statute, it’s a crime in the eyes of God, and if it happened to my daughter I don’t know what I’d do. But I’ll tell you this, I’m going to prosecute this case no matter how much money Ed Garvey has. We’re going to show people that men can’t get away with this kind of savagery in Nickerly County.”

  Temp was encouraged by the fire in W.W.’s speech. “What do you mean, no matter how much money?”

  “Ed Garvey owns the mill and most everything else in town,” W.W. explained. “Everybody says he’s an honest man. But I think the blood ran a little thin when it got to Ed Jr. It was Junior who organized the tar party, and now his dad is saying he’ll spend every cent he has to keep the boy out of jail. Fact is, of course, nobody here in town thinks any of these boys will ever be convicted by a Nickerly jury. Fact is, most people wanted the girl run out of town.”

  “When can I talk to Miss Chambers?” Temp asked.

  “Tomorrow, if you want. She’s at home. But I need time to tell her who you are. Why don’t I pick you up at the hotel in the morning, and we’ll go out to her house. It’s only a short distance.”

  Temp thanked McArdle for seeing him so promptly and decided to check in at the hotel before sending a teletype to Nate Cabot.

  The Adeline was built in the late 1800s to accommodate drovers and cattlemen taking their herds east from Texas to Abilene. For more than a decade, the Santa Fe rail line ended right in the middle of the Kansas prairie, and the town of Abilene sprang up around it instantly, like an oasis around a desert spring. Thousands of head of longhorns were trail driven from Texas, paid for on the spot by the Chicago and New York buyers, and held in rambling stockyards until the trains arrived to take them to slaughter. The only thing that stayed in Abilene was money, and enough brothels and saloons to satiate several thousand cowboys with big appetites.

  Adeline Bowers made one of those cattle drives from Texas, and when she got as far as Nickerly, one day’s drive from Abilene, she wanted a good night’s rest before hitting the hubbub of the city. She also speculated that if the railroad ever moved on west, it would have to go through Nickerly. So she and her husband sold their cattle and never went back to Texas. Instead they built a limestone hotel to match the courthouse and waited for the railroad to deliver their fortune. The railroad came through Nickerly all right, but it kept right on going to Dodge City. Not only did few passengers going west get off the train to visit Adeline’s, the Texas cowboys never got that far east. By 1911, the hotel had changed owners a couple of times, and most of the guests were patent medicine men, hardware salesmen, and settlers trying to reach the Rockies.

  The presence of a Kansas City Star reporter in Nickerly was almost as newsworthy as a tarring and feathering. The desk man, from all appearances the only employee in the Adeline, was Homer Huffman, a taciturn man known in the community for always wearing a red bandanna about his neck, even in church with his best Sunday suit. When people asked him why, he always gave the same answer, “Jus’ like it.”

  Homer picked up Temp’s registration card, read the name of Temp’s employer, looked up at the face beneath the straw hat, and offered him the best room in the building.

  “Welcome to Nickerly, Mr. Dandridge,” he said. “You here about the Chambers girl?”

>   “Yes,” Temple said. “How do people here feel about the tarring and feathering?”

  “Just a lot of commotion,” Homer said. “I don’t think it was anything to get excited about. Just a little tar on her dress. Probably had it coming.”

  W.W. McArdle pulled up in front of the Adeline about nine thirty in the morning, left the engine running in his new Model T Ford—the car was a luxury purchase he felt he owed his wife after bringing her to the isolation of Nickerly County—and hurried into the hotel to pick up Temple Dandridge.

  “Mister, you better not leave that machine running or some of those kids will run off with it,” Homer said, as two teenage boys scrambled across the street to inspect the shiny black automobile. W.W. turned to look through the stained glass window in the door and noticed that Temp was coming down the stairs, so he hurried back out to protect his car. Temp followed closely and by the time both were seated, nearly a half-dozen boys were gathered around. Temp wondered how many of them knew Margaret Chambers, or were her students, but those would be interview questions for a later date.

  The Chambers place was only about five minutes from town. W.W. pulled into the short lane that ran by the side of the house and widened into a circular area in front of the barn. Around the circle were a water tank and windmill, and a small granary with two bins, one for wheat and one for corn. He drove past the house to turn around so the Ford would be facing the road when they left and to give Margaret a loud warning of their arrival. Chickens scattered in all directions at the sound of an internal combustion engine. W.W. brought the machine to a halt, let the engine idle down to a series of uneven sputters, then pushed the switch to still the motor. Margaret Chambers, or at least Temp assumed it was she, appeared at the screen door and watched them untangle themselves from the steering wheel and the black leather seats. She didn’t move.