Hangtown

by Paul Lederer

  ‘I think we can accommodate the horses,’ Josh said. Wage thought he detected concern now in Josh’s eyes. The three ladies trekked into the hotel, uttering disappointed sounds. The other girl, the little one – Liza – was rummaging around in the back of the big covered wagon, searching for some sort of supplies. The man, Gus, just sat on his bench seat stolidly as if time had already done all it could to him.

  ‘Why don’t you help the man out, Wage? After he has dropped the harnesses, you can show him where the seep water is. Don’t forget to take your rifle,’ Josh advised, ‘we still need to get us a deer. You might just see one up there, though it’s the wrong time of day’

  ‘All right,’ Wage agreed, his broad face now unhappy. ‘These women — I wonder. …’

  ‘Don’t worry about them, Wage,’ Josh told him. ‘They won’t be around long. What’s to keep them here?’

  The women had found lantern oil somewhere, for as dusk settled, the hotel began to glow with light. Josh crossed that way, curiously, and entering he found the lobby dusted, swept and waxed. That little girl, Liza, was busy still, cleaning up behind the desk. She rose with cobwebs in her hair and watched Josh Banks’s approach with wide, dark, emotionless eyes.

  ‘You women have done a good job in here,’ Josh said by way of compliment. The girl’s expression did not change, nor did she answer. Shrugging, Josh climbed the stairs to his room. Passing an open door he glanced in to see the other three women reclining in chairs, fixing their hair, dressed still in their finery.

  He mentally apologized to Liza: it was pretty obvious who had done all of the cleaning up.

  Behind the hotel Wage Carson had hung a deer carcass from an oak tree and was busy skinning it out. He glanced to the darkening skies, hoping that he would have enough light to finish his chore.

  His big shoulders ached, his hands were bloody. Taking down the four-point buck had been no problem, but without a horse he had been obliged to carry it back to town. Leaving it out there while he returned for his pony would have been an open invitation to the coyotes and other scavengers. Wage was not complaining. He had performed more difficult tasks in his time, and at least now they had meat. All of the tins they had so far opened had contained only beans, and that diet could get mighty thin after a while.

  A patch of light flashed across the yard as the back door to the hotel opened. The small woman with the short dark hair appeared there and began vigorously shaking a dust mop. Wage stood watching her, his skinning knife still in his hand. The girl stopped and stood with her shoulder leaning against one of the uprights that supported the rear porch. She looked small, forlorn and very tired.

  Wage considered offering her one of the deer’s haunches so that the women might have roast venison to eat – they must be hungry, too. He knew that he was only making an excuse: he wanted to talk to the girl. Shy as he was, Wage started that way, before she could go back into the hotel.

  ‘Anything wrong, miss?’ Wage asked, and the girl started as he emerged from the shadows. A stray lanternlight beam caught the silver badge on his shirt and the girl relaxed.

  ‘Oh, it’s you, Marshal,’ Liza said, thrusting fingers into her hair. ‘You startled me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,’ Wage said. Then his usual tongue-tied manner around women returned and he was unable to think of anything else to say.

  ‘What were you doing out there?’ Liza asked, a little trepidation returning as she recognized the stains on Wage’s hands for what they were.

  ‘That’s why I came over,’ Wage said, remembering his excuse. ‘I shot a deer up along the seep, and I’ve been butchering it. I thought you ladies could probably use some fresh meat.’ Then he fell silent again, looking away, his posture awkward and shy as a boy at his first dance.

  ‘Venison steaks would be a fine change from what we’ve been dining on lately,’ Liza said, using her fingers to brush her hair back from her forehead. ‘If I can find enough wood to get the kitchen stove going.’

  ‘You do the cooking, too?’ Wage asked, studying the girl’s dark eyes by the scattered lamplight.

  ‘I have to earn my keep,’ Liza replied.

  Wage nodded. He didn’t quite understand why only Liza was required to earn her keep, but he had run out of words and only said, ‘I’ll bring you a haunch. Are there any butcher knives in that kitchen?’

  ‘I’ll make do,’ Liza said. As Wage turned his back and started away he heard the small voice behind him add, ‘Thank you, Marshal’

  Without turning to face her, Wage said, ‘I’ll see what I can find in the way of firewood.’

  Then the yard grew darker again as the door was shut. Wage looked back toward the hotel, watching the lighted windows where, once, a slender silhouette passed. He realized as he returned to his work and did what he could in haste, that the desert was suddenly full of questions. He would have to talk seriously to Josh Banks.

  Just as dusk was turning to purple night, with only a few pennants of pale color in the western sky, the stars already blinking on one by one, the lone rider appeared at the head of the dusty street and guided his pony toward the lighted hotel. His mount was a high-stepping bay, but it showed some signs of weariness. The rider wore cavalry blue.

  Cora Kellogg and the pale Rebecca had seated themselves in front of the hotel, enjoying the cool of evening when the horseman, leaving a trail of white dust behind him, slowed his horse and approached them. Cora blinked, squinted her eyes to focus and then lifted her heavy body with a smile and a cry of welcome.

  ‘Private Dan Osborne! I don’t believe it.’

  ‘Corporal Osborne, Cora,’ the narrow young man said, tapping his chevrons. ‘It’s been a few years, don’t forget!’ He swung down from his trail-weary horse and approached the porch, tilting back his cap, propping one boot up on the edge of the plankwalk. ‘And – I don’t believe it, either! Is that Rebecca? My God? And Madeline is still with you? When did you get back? I used to pass through Hangtown hoping to see you girls again, but then the place just finally gave up its ghost to the desert.’

  ‘We just arrived today,’ Cora said. ‘But you, Osborne, you’re still at Fort Thomas after all this time?’

  ‘I am,’ Dan Osborne said. ‘My years in the service have made me too lazy to consider honest work again.’ He grinned as he told Cora that. ‘I ride dispatch these days. It lets me get out on my own without any officers looking me over.’

  ‘I’m surprised Fort Thomas is still there,’ Cora said. Now the pale, red-haired woman had moved up beside Cora and she tried a wan smile that was meant to be warmer than it was. Rebecca was still exhausted from the long trail.

  Cora Kellogg knew that outposts were constructed and then abandoned as the Indian menace grew and then abated and the forts became useless in the push west. There were dozens of these standing empty across the far lands.

  ‘We’re still there,’ Osborne said cheerfully.

  ‘Are you going to stay the night?’ Rebecca asked. She seemed relieved when the answer came:

  ‘I’d love to, Princess, but I have a dispatch for my commanding officer that is marked “urgent”. I’ve got to try to make Fort Thomas tonight.’ He paused and grinned again, ‘But I will be back – now that you ladies are here. Don’t make any plans. The first of the month, payday, is the day after tomorrow: a lot of the boys you remember from the old days will be wanting to pay you a visit.’

  Josh Banks, standing at his open hotel window heard half of this exchange, enough to cause him to frown. He wondered if they had a town ordinance against this sort of activity. Of course they did not: he and Wage were the town. He wondered if they should enact one. Josh was no prude, but he had believed the women were going to get tired of the ghost town and leave shortly. Now with the promise of money, it seemed doubtful that Cora and her girls would be pulling out any time soon. It smelled like trouble to Josh Banks. Men, loose women and money were always a bad combination. He was glad there was no whiskey to be had in Hangto
wn, because that was usually the fuse that lit the combustible mix.

  He turned and made his way downstairs, emerging from the hotel as the dust stirred up by the departing soldier’s pony still hung in the air. The two women still sat in their chairs on the porch. The older, darker one, Cora Kellogg glanced up and said, ‘Good evening, Mayor Banks.’ Josh wasn’t sure if he had detected a note of sarcasm in her voice or not. He only nodded, turned on his heel and started out looking for Wage Carson.

  He wasn’t hard to find. Behind the hotel, working in the dusky dimness, he was just finishing cleaning and skinning the deer he had shot. A little yellow light bled through the windows at the back of the hotel. Crossing the shadowed yard Josh approached Wage who heard him coming, lowered his knife and turned to greet him.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Josh inquired.

  ‘All right,’ Wage said. ‘I could have used another hour of daylight, though.’ Josh nodded. It was also starting to grow cool out, the desert temperature plummeting as night crept in. ‘Josh,’ Wage told him, ‘I promised that little girl a haunch of venison.’

  ‘That’s all right with me,’ Josh answered. ‘You’re the one doing the work anyway.’

  Wage started to return to his butchering, then paused again. He stammered a little as he said, ‘Josh. Don’t it seem that they’re sort of abusing that girl? I mean, it seems to me she’s doing every bit of the heavy lifting.’

  ‘I noticed that myself,’ Josh answered. ‘But it’s their business and none of ours.’

  ‘I know, but still. …’ Wage glanced toward the lighted kitchen window and Josh Banks saw a glimmering of the oldest human yearning in the young man’s eyes. He smiled a little sadly. The big kid knew nothing of the world, nothing of women, and it seemed he was setting himself up for trouble. However, there was no way in the world a man, or woman, could be cautioned once they had their minds set that way.

  ‘What I’m uneasy about,’ Josh said, only partially changing the subject, ‘is that it now seems that the women have it in mind to settle in here for more than a few days. There was a pony soldier passing through on his way to Fort Thomas. I heard him say he’d be coming back with some of his friends after payday.’

  ‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ Wage said frowning. ‘What are we supposed to do with them when they get here? We can’t feed ’em. They’ll be wanting to stay in the hotel too, and I don’t think it’s right to have them bunking that near to the ladies.’

  Josh agreed, although the older man believed the soldiers had in mind bunking closer than ‘near’ to the ladies. ‘I guess we’re going to have to do some brain work, Wage. Maybe pass a couple of town ordinances about these things. Of course,’ he reminded Wage, ‘you being the marshal, you’re the one who would have to enforce any law we come up with. It might not be easy.’

  Wage stood frowning, then he shrugged his big shoulders. ‘It’s either we do that or we just ride off ourselves, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s about the only two choices we have. I thought the women would just stay a night, maybe two to rest up. Now. …’ Josh sighed again, more heavily. ‘Running a town isn’t going to be as easy as I’d thought.’

  ‘I guess not.’ Wage was silent for a minute, standing in the near-darkness, his skinning knife still in his hand. ‘What you’re suggesting, Josh, is it legal? For us to pass town ordinances, I mean?’

  ‘We’re the only two permanent residents of Hangtown. I guess we can do what we damn well please,’ Josh said, although conviction was lacking in his tone. ‘If we mean to stay on, we have to do something more than strut around telling ourselves what important men we are.’

  ‘All right.’ Wage smiled crookedly. ‘I guess we’ll have to call a meeting between the two of us and vote on the few laws we might wish to make.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Josh said, clapping the big man’s shoulder. His expression was still a little grim as he told Wage Carson, ‘There’s a cot in the marshal’s office and leather-strap bunks in both of the jail cells. For me, I’m in favor of moving our gear out of the hotel and sleeping there. You can do what you want.’

  ‘I’ll go along with you whatever you say, Josh. You know that,’ the big man said sincerely. He hesitated. ‘You think that maybe tomorrow we should clean the office up … and make sure we have the keys to the cells?’

  ‘I’m afraid that we must do that, Wage. When the soldiers get here, who knows what might happen. Unless,’ Josh said again ‘you want just to saddle up and shed this Hangtown dust.’

  Wage was looking again toward the lighted kitchen window of the hotel. The same look lingered in his hound-dog eyes. ‘No, Josh. I think we ought to give it a try at least. I’m for staying on. For at least a little while more.’

  Josh nodded. What Wage had in mind was one thing he never gave a man advice about. It had never come up with the youngster before, but here it was, it seemed, circling in his mind and singing in his blood like white doves and summer roses. ‘I’ll start over toward the marshal’s office,’ Josh Banks said. ‘I’ll sweep up a little and see if I can maybe find a lantern.’

  ‘All right, Josh,’ Wage said, although he was barely listening to the old man. ‘I’ll take the girl her venison and then pack up our gear.’

  Josh started away, unsure if this was a wise decision. It was either Hangtown or the long dry desert, however, and Josh was trailed-out. He was too old for those long desert rides.

  He walked out on to the main street and started toward the marshal’s office. The sound of approaching horses brought his head up. What now? He stepped back into the shadows of a buckled awning to watch as the four tough-looking men rode into Hangtown.

  THREE

  The four new arrivals rode desert-beat horses. All carried guns, all were bearded to one degree or the other. They halted their weary animals near the stable and looked around in puzzlement. Josh Banks started that way.

  ‘Evening, men,’ Josh said. At the sound of his voice one of the strangers dropped his hand toward his holstered belt gun. The rider next to him gripped his fellow rider’s wrist and shook his head.

  ‘What the hell happened here?’ a bulky rider who seemed to be the leader demanded.

  ‘Silver played out, most everybody left – years ago,’ Josh explained.

  ‘I’ll be damned. Bert, you said—’

  ‘It was a standing town the last time I was up this way, Jay,’ a narrower rider answered.

  ‘There’s lights on up there,’ the man called Jay said, pointing toward the hotel.

  ‘That’s going to be an army billet,’ Josh said, stretching the truth. ‘We’re cleaning it up for the soldiers.’ He saw the glances that passed between the men at the mention of the army. They looked far too rough for Josh’s liking. He had been thinking that maybe speaking of the army might convince them to move on, or at least to restrain their impulses which might become reckless should they happen to spot a silk skirt.

  ‘Army billet?’ the man called Jay asked, scowling down from his exhausted horse’s back.

  ‘A dozen or so men from Fort Thomas. There’s been some Indian trouble nearby, and they’re going to be staying in Hangtown for a while.’

  ‘Is that so? And just who are you?’ Jay asked, his eyes narrowing.

  Josh laughed. ‘I just happen to be the mayor of Hangtown. The town’s rebounding nicely. The marshal and I were just discussing the imminent revival of Hangtown.’

  Josh again saw a glance flicker from man to man. As he had hoped, his mention of a local law officer seemed to strike a cautionary note. He knew these men not at all, but there was a dangerous aura surrounding them.

  ‘Let’s just ride on,’ the narrow man called Bert suggested. He was obviously nervous now, glancing around from shadow to shadow. A third man said, ‘My pony couldn’t make it to the other end of town. He’s worn down to the nub.’

  Jay became transparently polite. ‘Mayor, if you can show us where to water and feed our horses, where we can get a meal, show us
a place to sleep, we’d be appreciative.’

  Josh Banks breathed a little easier. This just might play out the way he wished. ‘Tell you what I can do, men, there’s a little seep just beyond the town limits and grass for your horses. Food, we’re awful short on, but I can let you have some venison if you feel up to roasting it over a camp-fire.’ He paused, ‘As to a place to sleep, I can’t do a lot for you. The army contingent could arrive at any time, and we agreed to hold the hotel rooms for them. I can’t let you sleep in the stable either – there’s a town ordinance against that. But if you don’t mind sleeping out, we can take care of you well enough.’

  ‘It’s the best we’re going to get, Jay,’ Bert said.

  ‘I’ve been sleeping out for three weeks, one more night won’t kill me,’ another rider put in.

  ‘My pony’s done in.’

  ‘Roast venison sounds fine to me,’ the fourth man said.

  ‘All right,’ Jay said, his forced politeness slipping. In a more surly tone he told Josh Banks, ‘We’ll take you up on your offer. Show us where we can water our ponies.’

  Later, while Wage Carson was at the hotel retrieving their saddle-rolls, and presumably mooning around in the kitchen with Liza, Josh was doing his best to clean up the marshal’s office where he had decided it was better to stay now. By the dimmest light of dusk, he succeeded in lighting the lantern which still hung on the wall, found a broom in a small utility closet and began sweeping. In the morning he meant to repair the broken leg on the battered desk, for the sake of appearances, and poke around for keys to the jail’s two cells. He had left the door open to the cool of the settling evening and was startled when the shadow of an unheard visitor fell across the buckled floor of the office. Turning, he found Cora Kellogg, still dressed in black, watching him.

  ‘Good evening, Mayor,’ she said.

  ‘Evening,’ Josh Banks said to the stout woman. ‘Something I can do for you?’

  ‘You may or may not be aware of it,’ she said, looking around the dusty room, ‘but there will be some soldiers from Fort Thomas arriving in the next few days. Looking for some female companionship,’ she said with an innocent smile.