South California Purples

by Baron R. Birtcher

  “You seem awfully calm, Jordan,” I said.

  He glanced at me for a moment and returned to his work.

  “You know how you survive a shit show like ’Nam?” he asked. “You admitted to yourself that if you were there in the first place, you were probably already dead. So, if you’re already dead and already in-country, then you might as well make the best of it.”

  “That’s what you think this is?”

  “No, Captain,” he smiled. “I’m saying I made my peace a long time ago. You know what I mean. You’ve seen the elephant. There’s not much that scares me no more.”

  My gaze roamed the street and my bones felt like water as the adrenaline leeched out of my bloodstream.

  “You got a funny look on your face, Mr. Dawson,” Griffin said.

  “Just tired.”

  “You mind if I say something that’s none of my business?”

  “Here comes the deacon,” Powell said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “The boys call me Deacon ’cause I read the bible sometimes before bed.”

  Powell raised his palms skyward and waggled his fingers.

  “I don’t bother preaching,” Griffin told me. “The savior I serve doesn’t need to be forced on nobody. You just got a sad look on your face, is all.”

  “Go ahead, Griffin,” I said. “Speak your mind.”

  “I don’t have children of my own, and I already said I’m no minister. But there’s something I believe you need to know.”

  “What’s that, Samuel?”

  “God gives us children to teach us humility.”

  I pulled my eyes off the window and onto his.

  “I don’t think I’m following this conversation,” I said.

  “I’ve seen how it is with you and your daughter. And I saw that poor Mr. Meeghan with his little girl.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “How else could God show you how it feels to have somebody you love unconditionally just turn around and tell you to go right straight to hell?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE SUN DID not appear to rise that morning, simply faded in from dark to light and washed a deep blue cast inside the clouds. I stretched the kinks out of my back and neck from sleeping in a chair, and stepped outside to feel the air that smelled of juniper and piñon.

  The street was empty at this hour, and the streetlamps had begun to cycle off. I turned my face into the breeze that swept down from the slopes, chilled but not enough so as to turn my breath to fog. In the distance, slender funnels of white smoke rose up from timber stumps left smoldering in damp soil.

  The gables and arcades of frontier architecture etched themselves in stark relief against the lambent sky, and my footsteps echoed on the boards along an old section of sidewalk still inset with posts and iron rings where teams of horses had once been tied. Yellow light warmed the window of the diner and the susurrus of voices spilled outside.

  I ordered coffee from the diner’s counter and ruminated on my day. The room was rippling with the welcome noise of normalcy, and the muted conversations across laminated tabletops, and speckled china dishware heaped with fried potatoes, eggs, and slabs of ham and buttered toast.

  I drank my coffee, ordered egg and cheese sandwiches and cans of orange juice to go while I watched Rowan Boyle through the service window work the flattop flipping pancakes. He nodded when he saw me then focused his attention on the slips of paper clipped to the order carousel. I polished off my coffee when I heard the service bell, paid cash at the register, and carried the box of food back to the station. Across the street, Lankard Downing had nailed a sheet of plywood across the shattered window of the Cotton Blossom, where a painted sign was stapled that said closed for repairs.

  Griffin sat yawning at his desk when I returned, but Powell was still sacked out on the floor in back between the file cabinets, using his rolled-up jacket as a pillow and a hat to cover his eyes. His Winchester was laid out beside him like a lover. I heard him stir awake when he smelled chow.

  I carried some juice and sandwiches to the prisoners upstairs while my cowboys helped themselves. One of the cell toilets had backed up and the air inside the confines of the detention room was heavy with the odor of feces and dried sweat. Without a word, I slid the food across the floor between the bars.

  “Somebody needs to fix the shitter,” the rapist said.

  “I’ll call the maid,” I said. “Enjoy your meal.”

  I had just unwrapped my sandwich when my wife and Caleb Wheeler pushed through the front door. She had a thermos and a stack of Styrofoam cups cradled in her arms, and a look on her face that made it clear she was not happy.

  “I made Caleb bring me with him,” she said to me. “So don’t get mad at him.”

  “I’m not mad at anybody yet,” I said. “I asked Caleb to meet me here this morning.”

  “I know. He told me.”

  I shot a glance past Jesse’s shoulder. Caleb grimaced and shrugged an apology in my direction.

  “Good morning, Samuel,” she said pleasantly. “Good morning, Jordan.”

  She set the thermos and the cups beside the food carton on the bookcase while her eyes bored into mine.

  “There were armed cowboys on my porch when I woke up this morning,” she said. Her tone was phlegmatic and impassive, but her message to me was clear.

  “I asked them to look out for you and Cricket,” I said.

  The ceiling rumbled as the prisoners upstairs began to stomp their feet in unison.

  “What is that?”

  “There’s two bikers locked in the cells up there,” Powell offered.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said.

  The stench hit me in the face again when I reached the landing of the staircase. The rapist was grinning through swollen and scab-crusted lips, his gums and remaining teeth washed in pink from the blood that still seeped from the empty socket in his mouth.

  For reasons known only to them, Bandana had attempted to urinate all over the tick mattress on the bunk inside the empty cell. The bed was some distance away, but he had tried anyway, and now most of his stream pooled on the floor.

  “Stop pounding your feet,” I said.

  “We’re still hungry,” the rapist said.

  “Stick your hands outside the bars. Both of you.”

  When they complied, I cuffed Bandana’s left wrist to the rapist’s right one, binding them together with a length of iron bar between.

  “With your free hand,” I said. “Remove your boots and kick them over here to me.”

  Bandana tried on a mad-dog glare, but I ignored him.

  “Do it now,” I said. “Or you can spend the rest of the day chained to your cells like that.”

  I didn’t care to handle their soiled footwear, so I left it where it landed.

  “Try not to step in your piss,” I said.

  I unlocked their manacles and went back down the stairs.

  “Tell me what’s happening, Ty,” Jesse said when I returned. Her voice now hovered somewhere between irritation and alarm.

  “A gang of bikers called the Charlatans is running off the rails,” I said.

  “And you didn’t think you needed to mention this to me?”

  “I thought the situation was under control.”

  “But you now think they pose a threat to your daughter and your wife,” she said. It was a statement, not a question. “This is why armed men were posted on my gallery?”

  “I believe it is a possibility,” I said. “That’s the reason I needed to speak with Caleb this morning.”

  Jesse crossed her arms protectively and her gaze slipped from my face and out the window. The brittle silence in the room was broken by the ringing of the phone. Powell picked it up before it rang a second time.

  “For you,” he said and handed the receiver to me.

  The person on the other end did not wait for me to announce myself.

  “Mr. Dawson, th
is is Denton Lowell from the district attorney’s office.”

  “Thanks for calling back so early in—”

  “Please stop talking,” he said. “I understand you have two men in custody for the alleged abduction and forcible rape of Emily Meeghan, is that correct?”

  “Yes, I—”

  “Let me run some facts by you: You kicked a motel door down without a warrant—”

  I am not accustomed to being interrupted, and Denton Lowell had already done it twice. I felt the pulse pound in my temples and an unpleasant heat crawl up my neck.

  “Exigent circumstances,” I interrupted this time.

  “Perhaps,” he sighed, impatient, like an overburdened parent. “You also threatened bystanders with bodily harm, and one of your deputies fired a weapon that nearly took a man’s face right off his head.”

  “Care to tell me where the hell this is coming from?” I said. “And for the record, if Jordan Powell had wanted to remove that asshole’s face, you would have found it on the wall.”

  “Charming,” Lowell said. “Let me get to the point: Emily Meeghan is refusing to press charges. She insists that her presence with your suspects was entirely of her own volition.”

  “Lay your eyes on that girl, Mr. Lowell, and tell me she signed on for what she went through. That is complete and utter horseshit.”

  “I interviewed her at the hospital myself.”

  “Then someone got to her.”

  “Kick your prisoners loose, Mr. Dawson, before the county finds itself on the wrong end of a civil suit. Do it today. Do it now, in fact.”

  “That girl was gang raped and burned with cigarettes. Repeatedly.”

  I was gripping the phone so tightly, my knuckles had gone white.

  “Emily Meeghan is free, white, and over eighteen,” he said. “She can do as she pleases.”

  “I don’t care for that expression,” I said. But I was speaking to a dead connection.

  I slammed the receiver into the cradle and turned my eyes on Jesse and Caleb.

  “I need you both to leave,” I said. “Caleb, take Drambuie and the other horses from the barn and turn them loose up on the North Camp pasture; take the remuda to Three Roses camp and do the same.”

  “Captain?” Powell said.

  “Hold on, Jordan,” I said without moving my gaze from Caleb Wheeler’s weathered face. “Tell the men to keep one horse apiece and keep them in the sort corral. Anyone who wants to leave right now is free to do so.”

  “Captain?” Powell said to me again.

  “What, goddammit?”

  “Look out the window.”

  Sheriff Skadden had parked his patrol car at the curb and was staring toward the intersection, fists resting on his hips. Five Harleys rumbled into view, driving slowly in formation down the center of the street. I rushed for the door, tossed the station keys to Powell, and told him to lock it behind me once I was outside.

  The bikes rolled to a stop and parked at an angle along the curb beside the sheriff’s cruiser. The one I had earlier named Wallace hooked a leg over his leather seat and strolled over next to Skadden while the others remained in the saddle.

  “Didn’t waste any time getting here this morning, Lloyd,” I said. “You have a puzzling set of priorities where the execution of your duties is concerned.”

  “I don’t believe in giving a man a responsibility, then turning around and getting in his way.”

  “No, I surely can’t complain that you’ve been anywhere near my way. You’ve been practically invisible.”

  “It’s not a training position, Dawson,” he smiled and smoothed his mustache with his fingers. “It’s like throwing calves. You either tallboy up and get it done, or you don’t.”

  “I appreciate your confidence, Lloyd,” I said and turned toward the station. “Have a nice day.”

  “I understand you’ve been ordered to let your prisoners go,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  Skadden leaned in close enough that I could smell the Vitalis in his hair.

  “These fellas are here to pick ’em up,” he stage-whispered, then took off his sunglasses and hung them from the top button of his uniform shirt. “I’ve been asked to supervise their release.”

  “Wait here,” I told him.

  “I think we’ll just go ahead and wait inside,” the sheriff said. I looked at Wallace and he was smiling.

  “You’ll both wait where I told you to,” I said and stepped toward the door again. Inside, Griffin’s expression was tense with anticipation. He’d watched the whole exchange from the other side of the glass, one hand tight upon the locking mechanism, the other on his gun.

  Wallace squinted toward the station window then turned his eyes on me.

  “Is that your wife inside there?” he said. “I’d like to meet her.”

  “I wonder what I’d find if I tossed your pockets right now, Wallace,” I said. “I bet you’re carrying half a dozen felonies right there on your person.”

  “There’s no call for that,” Skadden interceded. “Everybody settle down.”

  I studied the sheriff’s ruddy face and the clots of red and purple capillaries that had broken on his cheeks. He shoved his hands into his pockets, and rolled his weight along the balls of his feet.

  “When a man implies a threat against my wife, I’d say that’s cause enough.”

  “I was only making friendly conversation,” Wallace said.

  “What gave you the impression we were having a conversation?” I said.

  I heard the lock slip as I neared the threshold. Griffin bolted it behind me once I stepped inside again.

  “Powell, you come with me,” I said. “We have to turn those shitbirds loose.”

  “Can you repeat that, Captain?” Powell said. “I don’t think I heard you right.”

  “You heard me fine,” I said and looked at Caleb Wheeler. “Take Jesse out the back door, and use the long way out of town. Do not drive past those men out front.”

  I heard Jesse and Caleb leave, and the door click shut behind them, as Powell and I reached the top of the stairs. Griffin waited at the bottom with his rifle at port arms. We cuffed the prisoners behind their backs and marched them back toward the stairwell. No one said a word. We halted at the upstairs landing and I caught the look on Powell’s face beside me. I knew what he was thinking, since the same thought had crossed my mind. Nothing would have been as satisfying as to see these two bouncing headfirst down the steps.

  “Don’t do it,” I said softly and shook my head at Powell. “Let’s just get this done.”

  Bandana and the rapist blinked hard against the morning light as Powell and I unchained them. The Charlatans astride their bikes looked on, offering a fanfare of wolf-whistles and applause while my former prisoners rubbed the clefts the ligatures had carved upon their wrists.

  “Good Christ,” Skadden said, looking at the rapist’s broken face. “What the hell happened to this man?”

  “He objected to his arrest,” I said.

  “Looks like he was trampled by the entire Borax mule team.”

  “It was a vigorous objection.”

  Wallace took a step in my direction, but Skadden barred his way with an outstretched arm.

  “Understandable,” Skadden said to me. “Given the man’s innocence.”

  “He’s about as innocent as Juan Corona,” I said. “Take these two fuck knuckles with you and go. If I see either one of them again, I guarantee you they’ll be begging for the rope. That is not an exaggeration.”

  “That’s not a healthy attitude,” Wallace said to me.

  I ignored him and addressed Lloyd Skadden instead.

  “These guys have chewed through the leash,” I said. “It’s well past time for them to get a bunch of leaving done. I’d recommend they start right now.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  JESSE STOOPED OVER the utility tub in the mudroom snipping the ends off the stems of fresh-cut flowers she had collected from the garde
n. The sunshine through the window-pane cast half her face in shadow and emphasized the highlights in her hair. When she heard me come into the room, she gathered the cuttings into a bouquet of gold daffodils and purple crocus and iris with one hand, the pruning shears still clutched inside the other.

  “Come with me to the kitchen,” she said, and bussed me on the cheek as she squeezed past me. “I want to put these in a vase.”

  “Where’s Cricket?”

  “She went off with Caleb and the boys, moving the horses to Three Roses.”

  “They left you alone?”

  “I can handle myself for a few hours.”

  She stood on her toes and peered into the pantry.

  “I’m sorry about this morning,” I said.

  “Can you get the green one down for me? I can’t reach it.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “I did, and I am trying to change the subject. Will you please hand me that vase?”

  I collected the vase and set it on the counter beside the kitchen sink.

  “I can’t help from thinking I should be burying those bastards right now.”

  “Those are not the times we live in, Ty,” she said, turned, and leaned her back against the sink.

  “I’m tired of feeling like a hypocrite,” I admitted. “For a second this morning, I seriously considered shoving a manacled man down a flight of stairs.”

  “Did you?”

  “Did I what?”

  “Did you do it?”

  “No.”

  “Because that’s not who you are. Yesterday I watched you keep the peace at Teresa Pineu’s. A few hours later you rescued a young girl. You didn’t deal the cards.”

  “You didn’t see her, Jesse; you didn’t see what they did to her. That could have been our daughter.”

  “Emily Meeghan made bad choices.”

  “She didn’t choose what happened,” I said. “I have no interest in judging her decisions.”

  I had missed it when I’d first come in, walked right past it, but now my attention landed on the shotgun propped up beside the kitchen door. Jesse saw me study it, and something soft came in her eyes.