by Max McCoy
“Ophie!” Paschal called behind me.
I tried to outrun him, but couldn’t.
At Chartres Street, he grasped my wrist and spun me around. He was wrapped in a gutta-percha slicker. The hood was down and the rain was streaming down his face, as it was mine, hiding our tears.
“Let me go,” I said, somehow finding the strength to pull away from him.
“Ophie,” he pleaded. “Stay. We can try again—”
“No!”
“Something was wrong. It should have worked.”
“Teach me no more of your evil,” I said.
“I’m not evil,” Paschal said. “I’m just . . . weak.”
“We are done.”
“Stay and we can explore other worlds!”
“I have found this world harrowing enough,” I said.
“The knowledge of the tree of good and evil is within reach,” he whispered. “We can become as the gods.”
At this declaration, the square was bathed in a blinding light and there was a crash, as if heaven itself had fallen. A bolt of lightning had shattered one of the ancient oaks and it fell, not thirty yards from us, amid a shower of orange sparks.
“There is your answer.”
“Don’t you see the power we command?”
“We command nothing,” I cried. “Our words are sparrows before the storm. The storm drives us, not the other way around, and all is as it should be. We amuse ourselves with carnal devices and gibberish, as a way to distract us from our boredom or our grief, but in the end the great door of death admits only one at a time, and permanently.”
“Ophie, no!”
“Putain! Go back to your wife.”
13
It was after midnight when I returned to my rooms at the Dodge House, and Front Street was going like a fire in a circus tent. I shut the windows against the noise, apologized soothingly to Eddie for being so late, and barely got my clothes off before falling in bed.
After being frightened by the rattlesnake on Boot Hill, I’d still had much business to do that night. But I had arranged to book the opera house for the next night, managed to place a story in the next day’s Ford County Times announcing the event, and visited several brothels and made some profitable contacts among the city’s demimonde.
Then I went to the Saratoga, one of the better gambling joints on North Front. The place was jumping, and Stetsons were clustered at every table. Faro was the most popular card game, and a lot of cowboys were bucking the tiger and losing. There was also a noisy game of chuck-a-luck, a game in which the dealer mixes three dice by turning them in a cagelike contraption shaped like an hourglass, and near the bar a game of keno was in progress, the white balls being deposited one at a time from the keno goose, an egg-shaped wooden hopper. In the very back was a billiard table or two. I couldn’t see the tables, but I knew there was one there because over the heads of the crowd I could see a cluster of raised cues.
I played a few simple rounds of three-card monte at a table that was full of cowpunchers just arrived that afternoon. Being Texans, they were drunk; and in a few minutes, I had enough in coin and greenbacks to pay my polite tramp’s vagrancy fine, and then some. I stayed just long enough to charm the Texans into forgetting they had lost money, then slid out the door before the management of the Saratoga could take notice and ask for a house share.
My last stop was at the city jail, where I found young Tom still on duty.
“Don’t you ever go home?”
“I live in a tent behind the Rath hide lot, near the mercantile, with six other fellows,” he said. “If you had a choice, wouldn’t you stay here?”
I gave Tom five dollars to pay to Judge Frost in the morning, along with a dollar for the tramp’s breakfast and lunch. Then I asked Tom to deliver a message.
“Please ask our gentleman to see Bartholomew Potete upon his release,” I said. “I believe Potete can help him find work.”
Tom snorted.
“If Potete has work for him, odds are against it bein’ legal.”
“Mister Potete has done right by me.”
“I didn’t say he was a bad lawyer,” Tom said. “The tramp has a name, you know. He wrote it down for me.” Tom found a slip of paper on the jailer’s desk and pushed it over to me. “Timothy Cresswell. He’s from Boston. Says he’s been mute all his life.”
By the time I got back to my rooms at the Dodge House, my head was throbbing from noise and the cigar smoke. I needed sleep, because my hearing in district court was scheduled for eight o’clock. My mind needed to be in good working order, without fog or cobwebs. Yet, I could not force myself to sleep. The harder I tried, the more infuriatingly awake I became.
I sat up in bed and, with something approaching panic, thought of Chicago.
No, I told myself. I would deal with that later. For now, I had to concentrate on freeing myself from the clutches of County Attorney Sutton, paying my debt to Potete, and getting clear of Dodge.
With this thought, my mind became considerably calmer. Outside, Front Street seemed to be winding down as well, because the din had subsided from a circus blaze to a campfire.
Still, it took me another hour to get to sleep.
Then I was awakened by a cry of terror from the street below.
“Lawd A’mighty!” a rough male voice shouted with an Ozark twang. “How wondrous strange. The ghost returns!”
“Speak to it, Homer,” another voice urged.
I stumbled out of bed and threw open the window.
The street below was empty, save for two drunken cowboys, arms around one another, staring at a ghostly figure at the edge of the railroad right-of-way.
“Angels and ministers of grace defend us,” I whispered.
As I watched, the dead girl began to walk toward the cowboys, her bloodstained blond hair swaying and her dress rippling in the breeze that comes before dawn.
“She’s a-comin’ this way,” Homer, the taller one, said.
“Ask it what it wants,” the other said.
“I don’t think I will,” Homer said.
“You aren’t scared, are you?”
“I’m not afeared of anything, Bertrum.”
But the cowboys were backing up as they talked, and were now close to the steps of the Dodge House.
The ghostly girl continued to approach, and now I could see that she had just one shoe. She was walking in a curious lopsided rhythm, as if to some unheard dirge, but her feet never touched the mud. Her entire body glowed with an unearthly bluish light, and I could clearly see her calm expression, as well as the gaping wound beneath her jaw.
“Oh, my Lord,” Bertrum muttered.
From a pocket, he produced a hidden gun, one of those little two-shot jobs favored by gamblers and pimps, and he pointed it unsteadily at the apparition.
“Don’t be foolish,” Homer said. “You can’t kill a ghost with a gun.”
Bertrum fell to his knees and covered his eyes with his hands.
Homer cleared his throat, stood his ground, and held up his hand.
“I command you . . . in the name of the Father.”
The ghost stopped.
“And the Son, and the Holy Ghost, what do you want?”
She stood still for a moment.
Then her mouth moved, as if trying to form words, but no sound came out. Her left hand came up to her throat, as if to gesture that her wound rendered speech impossible.
Then her head tilted back. Her eyes had no pupils, only whites. And she was staring straight up at the window where I stood.
The breath caught in my throat.
Why has she come looking for me?
“I can’t take it!” Bertrum cried, and he shoved the little gun forward and fired both barrels in quick succession.
Pop! POP!
The girl remained, but her blank eyes regarded the cowardly cowboy with a mixture of ghostly pity and disgust. Then a rooster crowed somewhere and the ghost dissolved in a mist that looked like a thousand
blue fireflies swirling into the night.
14
The district judge was a man who looked as if he had been turned out by the same machines that made barbed wire. He was a hard man with a hard name, silver hair as coarse as a scrub brush, and his features looked sharp enough to draw blood.
Judge Grout cleared his throat, balanced his spectacles on the bridge of his nose, and looked over the papers spread before him on the bench. After some long minutes, he glanced up, first to Michael Sutton, who was sitting at a desk on the right side of the courtroom, and then to Bartholomew Potete, whose bearlike form was jammed into a chair at the table on the right side of the room, where I sat. Potete smelled like he had spent the night in a barrel of whiskey.
“Mister Sutton,” Judge Grout said. He removed the glasses and tapped the paper in front of him. “According to this, you believe this woman before me is the infamous Kate Bender.”
Sutton came to his feet, buttoning his jacket over his vest.
“That’s correct, Your Honor.”
“And you have detained her since yesterday morning?”
“That’s when I took her into custody, yes.”
“She spent the night in the county jail?”
“If it please, Your Honor,” Potete said. He grasped the edge of the table and hauled himself up. “My colleague Michael Sutton delivered my client to the city jail, and to keep her from having to spend the night in proximity to a rangy bunch of Texas cowboys sleeping off a night of fun, Police Judge Frost released her on my promise that she would appear before district court. She passed the night safely at the Dodge House.”
“You are drunk, Mister Potete.”
“No, Your Honor. I have an ear complaint that has impaired my balance, I’m afraid. I apologize for, ah, any inconvenience my slight list to starboard may cause the court. In front of you also is my writ of habeas corpus.”
“You claim the charges are without foundation?”
“They are as lacking in foundation as the privy that was tipped Election Day behind the Long Branch Saloon, and they smell about as bad.”
“That will be enough humor, Mister Potete.”
“Sorry, Your Honor.”
“Who is this woman, then?” the judge asked, reclining back in his leather chair. “And why is she dressed so strangely? Is that the custom now, in the East, for women to dress as men? And is she in mourning?”
“While my client’s manner of dress is not in question here, we will be happy to respond to all of the court’s questions, provided that County Attorney Sutton provides sufficient evidence for detaining my client.”
“Very well,” Grout said. “Mister Sutton?”
“Your Honor has a copy of the warrant for the arrest of one Kate Bender, as issued by Governor Thomas Osborn on May 17, 1873,” Sutton said. “If you read the description, you will find that it fits this woman like a glove. Also, I heard a familiar address her at the depot as ‘Katie’—a name she denied when questioned. In all, she acted in a very suspicious manner, and used all of her cunning in an attempt to get back on the train. Her behavior was so suspicious, in fact, that her detention would have been warranted even without the force of the document. It was obvious that this woman was up to no good.”
“So you’re saying that we can detain citizens attempting to board public transportation solely on the basis of odd or eccentric behavior?”
“Of course, Your Honor. It is a matter of public safety.”
“She is strangely dressed,” the judge seconded.
“If I may,” Potete said. “My client was in a hurry to get back on board the train to resume her trip to Colorado, where she has pressing business.”
“Exactly what is your client’s business?”
Grout placed his forearms on the bench and leaned forward.
“Religion, Your Honor.”
“Go on.”
“I fail to see how this is relevant to—” Sutton objected.
“I will determine the relevance,” Grout interrupted. “Explain.”
Potete closed his eyes and swayed a bit; then his eyes snapped back open.
“Her name is The Reverend Professor Ophelia Wylde and she is a noted Spiritualist and trance medium,” Potete said. “In fact, she is making the most of her unexpected stay in Dodge City by performing at the opera house tonight.”
“Just what will she perform?”
“An educational program that incorporates a literary survey of spiritual themes, to be followed by modern feats of clairvoyance, magnetic healing, and perhaps communication with the dead.”
“But only if the spirits are willing,” I said.
“Please,” Potete said, placing his sweaty paw on my shoulder, “you are to speak only when addressed.”
“No, I’d like to hear what The Reverend Professor Wylde has to say,” Grout said. “I recall reading in the papers at the time of the ghastly murders that the monster Kate Bender claimed similar powers.”
Potete pulled me to my feet.
“Well?” Grout asked. “Speak up!”
“I do not know what this Bender woman claimed,” I said. “All I know is what I myself am able to prove through demonstration—that communication with the spirit world is possible.”
“So you are a necromancer?”
“No, Your Honor,” I said. “Necromancers talk to the dead for only one purpose, and that is to divine the future for personal gain. I talk to the dead to comfort those who grieve.”
Judge Grout ran a hand over his forehead. He had lost someone close to him, and not all that long ago, because I could see the sparkle of tears in the corners of his eyes. He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow—and eyes.
“This is all very irregular,” he declared.
“I have to agree, Your Honor. My gift is an unusual one.”
“But why is it necessary for you to dress like a man to employ these other powers?”
“It is not at all necessary,” I said. “My powers have nothing to do with the way I dress. The reason I dress like a man is to protest the way women are treated in this country. We cannot vote, serve on a jury, or if we’re married, we are required to surrender all of our property to our husbands—”
Grout held up his hand.
“If you’d like to vote, you can move to Wyoming Territory,” he said. “For the last eight years up there, they’ve allowed women to vote, God help them. Here in Kansas, we denied suffrage for both blacks and women once and for all in 1867, and I do not intend to reopen dead arguments.”
“I apologize, Your Honor. I am a woman of strong conviction.”
“Your sex usually are,” Grout said, frowning. “Tell me, why do you look so haggard if you spent the night at the Dodge House?”
“I got little sleep for worry about the hearing this morning.”
“There’s some wisdom, at last,” Grout said.
He took a pocket watch from his vest, popped open the lid, and thoughtfully studied it.
“Time,” he said, finally. “Time is the one thing that we cannot navigate or recover. We can restore money to an individual, or even help him regain health through proper treatment. But once spent, time is gone. And if only we could travel back in time, just four years, then it would be an easy matter to settle this question that Mister Sutton, perhaps foolishly, has raised. But what a grave mistake it would be, Miss Wylde, if I let you go and you are indeed a murderess.”
“I am not,” I said.
“Where are you from, young lady?”
“Chicago.”
“Were you traveling with anyone who knows you?”
“Sadly, no.”
“Do you have a relative or friend you could telegraph for some proof . . . a photograph accompanied by an affidavit from a friend or relative, perhaps, or a marriage license?”
“My husband is dead,” I said. “The war.”
The judge nodded sympathetically.
“I grew up in Memphis, but my family has all passed over
now,” I said. “That is why I am traveling alone. There’s no one left, really. The only one I can think of is a business associate of my family, a Mister Sylvestre in Chicago. But I don’t know how to reach him.”
“Could you try?”
“I will attempt a telegraph, but I cannot guarantee it will be answered.”
The judge turned to the county attorney.
“Mister Sutton, what would you have me do?”
“Order her return to Labette County to stand trial.”
“This arrest warrant offers a rather sizeable reward for the capture of Kate Bender,” the judge said. “Five hundred dollars. That wouldn’t be influencing your request, would it?”
“Your Honor,” Sutton said, feigning indignation. “I serve justice.”
“I’m sure,” Grout said dismissively. “How about you, Mister Potete?”
“This innocent widow has been all but kidnapped,” Potete said. “She must be released immediately and allowed to continue on her journey west. If she were Kate Bender—or any criminal, for that matter—she had ample opportunity to escape since her release from the city jail yesterday.”
The judge snapped shut the pocket watch.
“Here is my ruling,” he said. “Mister Sutton, you have four days from today to produce a witness from Labette County who knew Kate Bender personally and can testify as to whether this is or is not the wanted woman. Mister Potete, your client may remain free on her own recognizance during that period, as long as she agrees not to leave town.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Potete said.
“Would that be four business days, Your Honor?” Sutton asked.
“Four days is four days,” Grout said. “That means Monday! Nine o’clock!”
Fils de salope, I said to myself. Sonuvabitch, a weekend in prairie purgatory.
“Ophelia Wylde,” the judge said. “I don’t think this will create too great a hardship on you, seeing as how you have already arranged to conduct some business at the opera house tonight. Do behave yourself. I don’t want to see you in my court before the weekend is up.”
