by Bill Brooks
these weeds.”
He stayed there squatting on his heels until they
called him that they were leaving and if he wanted to
ride he better come on and reluctantly that’s what he
did because he didn’t know what else to do. He
climbed on the back of the big horse behind Zack and
went with them thinking about the woman.
He’d never been a part of anything like that before
and he never wanted to be again and the only way he
wouldn’t was to come up with a plan to shuck them
and go on his own.
The land lay ahead of them as empty as a poor
man’s pockets.
26
The kids played on the schoolhouse floor with
wooden tops, April and May and the Swede boy.
The Swede boy looked like any other kid, except that
he wasn’t. Soon enough Jake knew he’d have to take
him down to the orphanage in Bismarck, probably as
early as the next day.
Jake had stopped by to tell Clara what he’d done
with her father.
“You put yourself at risk,” she said.
“No risk to me, less to you if he’s not here. Less to
the children.”
“I’ve asked Mrs. Merriweather to stop and look
after them after supper,” she said. “Her sons are in
my classroom.”
He took Clara aside and said, “I saw a stranger
ride into town earlier.”
“Do you think it might be someone who’s come
here for my father?”
“He didn’t look like a drifter or that he got here by
accident. But I could be wrong.”
“But he could just be someone passing through?”
“Maybe. I just want you to be on the alert. I’ll
check him out.”
The children began to quarrel over one of the
tops—whose turn it was to spin. She told April to
share with the Swede boy whose lower lip stuck out
in a pout.
“I’ll come and take him off your hands tomor-
row,” Jake said as she walked him to the door.
She looked back at the boy, they both did.
“You know if I could I’d . . .”
“I know,” he said. “He’s not your responsibility.
Nobody would expect you to take him on. He’ll be
fine once he gets down there and settled in.”
She didn’t know what to say, neither of them did.
“I’ll come round later, after supper, and walk you
over to Doc’s to see your father,” he said.
She closed the door behind him but felt his pres-
ence still linger there in the room. He was not a man
given to small talk, nor to flights of fancy. Most seri-
ous, she thought, as she went in and began fixing sup-
per. The sort of man a woman could depend on if
such a woman existed who needed such a man. She
sure as hell didn’t. One man in her life was one too
many right now, she told herself.
She thought about that one man, her husband,
Monroe Fallon. Funny, but she had a hard time pic-
turing what he looked like even though it had only
been a few weeks since she’d left him. She wondered
if it was wrong of her not to feel sorry for him, not to
feel some sense of guilt for abandoning him? But it
was he who had abandoned her—had left her in favor
of whiskey and whores and before all that, in favor of
killing Indians. Monroe was simply a man who
couldn’t live in peaceful existence with himself or
anyone else.
The boy came into the kitchen and stood there
looking at her.
“What is it?” she said.
He seemed transfixed.
She bent so that she could be at eye level with him.
“Are you okay?”
He shook his head, then began to cry. He could not
say what it was he felt.
Damn it all to hell, she thought, as she hugged
him to her.
Jake went round to the Three Aces, the only saloon
currently operating in the town. The other, Skinny
Dick’s place, was still closed and boarded-up since the
murders. Someone would eventually come along and
buy it and open it up again. There never seemed to be
enough places for a man to drink, to buy himself a
woman, or get in a card game. But right now Ellis
Kansas’s place had the market cornered on the pleasure
business and if a stranger came into town and wanted
any bought pleasures, he’d find it at the Three Aces.
Ellis and his bartender Curly Beyers were tending
bar. They were having trouble keeping up the place
was so full.
Jake found a spot at the end of the bar and waited
until Ellis came over.
“How’s tricks, Marshal?” Ellis said, pouring a shot
glass of his better whiskey without having been asked
to. Jake thought about it a second before tossing it
back and setting the empty glass down again.
“You see a long-haired stranger drift in here ear-
lier?”
“He’s up the stairs with Baby Doe.”
“Which one is she?”
“One who looks like she ought to still be in school
doing her multiplication tables.”
“Should she?”
“No. I don’t hire ’em that young. She just looks
young—a rare trait in the whore business and one
that will earn her quite a bit of money for a time—
until she starts looking her true age.”
Ellis poured Jake another drink. Jake didn’t take it
up right away. Instead, he set a dollar on the bar.
“No, it’s on the house to the law,” Ellis said.
“Something I learned to appreciate back in Liberal
when I operated a house there.”
“I’d just as soon not be beholden to you,” Jake
said. “No offense.”
“None taken. How about a woman?”
“That on the house, too?”
“Why not?”
“And in turn you expect what?”
“Just uphold the law, is all, same as with anyone
else. Some places a man sets up an operation the law
ignores, figures any trouble comes his way, he de-
serves it. Other places, the law likes their cut. I don’t
mind the latter, it’s the former that troubles me. A sa-
loon ain’t much different than a hardware or mercan-
tile the way I figure it. Run honest, it’s just the
same.”
“You think I wouldn’t treat you like everyone else
unless I go on the take?”
The gambler looked at the lawman, offered a
somewhat embarrassed smile.
“No, I think you would. Just that past experience
has taught me to be ready to grease the wheel to keep
it from falling off.”
“You hear anything from Baby Doe about that long
hair you think I should know, you’ll pass it along,
right?” Jake said, then threw back the other whiskey
and walked out.
The evening wind was cold and it shook itself
down inside a man’s clothes like icy hands searching
for his poke. I best buy a new coat, Jake told himself,
and crossed the street and w
ent up the other side to
Otis Dollar’s mercantile.
Otis was leaning palms down atop the counter
looking glum. He looked up when Jake came in.
“Evening, Marshal.”
“Otis.”
“Was about to close up.”
“How’s Martha doing?”
Otis’s eyes were still black and blue and he had a
hard time talking too long at one time.
“She’s resting. I don’t know how to thank you . . .
and Trueblood,” Otis added.
“No thanks necessary. How are you doing?”
“Got headaches.”
“Go to the pharmacy and get some aspirin pow-
ders, stir a teaspoon in with a glass of water and take
it every four hours, it should help.”
“Appreciate the advice.”
“You want me to look in on Martha?”
“No. She’s sleeping, I’d hate to disturb her.”
“I’ll swing round tomorrow and check on her.
Right now I’d like to buy a new coat.”
Otis took him over to a shelf with coats folded on it.
“What would you recommend having lived on
winters on these prairies?”
“Nothing is certain,” Otis said. “I mean they ain’t
made a coat I know of that can keep the winter off a
man completely, but the best I carry is one of these
mackinaws.” Jake found one that looked like it fit.
Otis said he might want to go up a size in case he
wanted to wear a sweater under it.
“She can get so cold on these prairies she’ll freeze
the spit in your mouth,” Otis said. “Besides you’ll want
it loose enough to get to your gun in case you need to.”
Otis helped him on with a size larger—a nice heavy
wool double-breasted plaid. It had some weight to it.
“How’s that feel?”
“Peaches,” Jake said.
“You’ll want gloves to go along with it.”
“Pick me out a pair, Mr. Dollar.”
“You been out to Karen Sunflower’s place lately,
Marshal?”
“A few days back.”
“How was she?”
Jake shrugged.
“Seemed her usual self.”
“Oh,” Otis said.
“Toussaint’s out visiting her,” Jake added. Otis
nodded.
“None of my business, Mr. Dollar, but I think he
plans on getting back together with her.”
Jake saw how Otis flinched over the news, watched
as he picked out a pair of wool gloves and set them on
the counter. “That it, Marshal?”
“That will do.”
Otis toted the bill.
Jake put the gloves in the pocket of his new coat
and went out again. The sun set early that time of
year and already the sky was growing the color of
rust. He figured Clara had probably left the school-
house by now and had gone back to her place. He
planned on swinging by and taking her to see
William Sunday. He wasn’t at all sure why he felt
such an investment in her, or the gunfighter. Except,
he told himself, turning up the collar, it was his town
and it paid him to be in charge of what went on in his
town.
His town. It sounded funny.
He saw then as he started up the street again Fan-
nie coming out of her new hat shop. She saw him, too.
“Evening, Mr. Horn,” she said, the tone of her
voice almost as icy as the air. Jake knew she was still
disappointed in him for not pursuing a relationship
with her earlier that summer.
“Evening, Fannie. How goes the business?”
She shrugged and drew her capote around her
shoulders a little tighter, as though his presence made
her more chilled.
“Business is fine. I was just on my way to meet Will
for supper.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, whether or not
she was trying to get a rise out of him, make him jeal-
ous that she was seeing Will Bird now. It didn’t trou-
ble him.
“Well, enjoy your meal,” Jake said and touched the
brim of his hat, then walked on. He could practically
feel her eyes staring holes in his back.
He walked over to Clara’s. Light the color of but-
ter filled the windows of the little rented house. He
felt drawn to it. It seemed like a warm and natural
place to be on a cold night. He knocked on the door
and Clara answered.
“I’m waiting still on Mrs. Merriweather,” she said
apologetically.
“You want me to wait out here?”
“No, of course not, come in.” The children were
still sitting at the supper table eating cookies. Three
faces watched as he entered the room. The boy espe-
cially drew his attention: that sad narrow face with
those big eyes resting under the cut-straight-across
nearly white hair. Jake figured the boy sensed his time
in this place was short, that soon he’d be taken some-
where else, somewhere there were strangers and he’d
have to figure everything out all over again.
Clara offered him coffee and he accepted. They
kept their talk to a minimum until Mrs. Merri-
weather arrived with her two boys in tow, apologiz-
ing for running late.
William Sunday was sitting in Doc Willis’s rocker
when they arrived. He had a quilt resting across his
lap, pistols ready under it. The room was dark, cold.
Jake lighted lamps, started a fire in the fireplace.
“I’ll leave you two alone,” he said and went back
outside and stood there in the dark, the sky littered
with stars. He could feel the old bullet wounds
protesting the cold in the night air; like razor blades.
He was still thinking about the stranger.
Fallon Monroe sat up in the whore’s narrow bed. The
room was warm and odorous with the scent of per-
fume, sweat, and sex. She stood with her back to him
washing between her legs.
“That could wait until I was gone,” he said, not
liking that she turned immediately to practical mat-
ters as soon as he expelled his lust.
“Can’t wait,” Baby Doe said. “Don’t want to end
up with no bastard kid.”
“You talk rough for such a young gal.”
“I ain’t as young as I look.”
“Still . . .”
Then she dropped the shift and it fell down past
her knees and she went to a side table and shook some
pills from a bottle and poured herself a glass of
whiskey and downed them.
“You sick?” he asked.
“No. Healthy as a horse and aim to stay that way,”
she said straddling an old piano stool that was in the
room instead of a chair.
He looked her over good.
“You want to go again?” she said. “Cost you ten
more dollars.”
He could see the cocaine pills already working in
her eyes.
“No,” he said. “I got me a regular woman.”
“Wife?”
“Yeah, a wife.”
“Maybe I’ll meet me a man someday with lots of
money,” she sa
id.
Then there was a knock at the door, a soft hesitant
knock and she came off the stool and answered it. A
Chinese girl entered the room and the two women
embraced and Fallon watched them from the bed and
then he watched as they kissed each other on the
mouth and he thought, goddamn.
They whispered to each other. He didn’t care.
“You could have us both,” Baby Doe said. “But it
will cost you three times as much.”
“Why three times when there are only two of
you?”
The Chinese girl didn’t seem to have a tongue, or
she couldn’t understand the lingo.
“Don’t know,” Baby Doe said. “That’s just what
Ellis says we got to charge when there’s two of us.”
“No,” he said. “I’ve had my fill. Time I get on.”
She gave the Chinese girl some of the pills and
some of the whiskey to wash them down. It made him
uncomfortable—the way they were so familiar with
each other, the way they acted, like nothing mattered
to them.
He got out of bed as they got on it and put on his
clothes and watched them the whole time, but by now
they were only paying attention to each other, as
though he didn’t exist and he didn’t care for it much
at all and quickly put on his coat and hat and left and
went downstairs and ordered himself a whiskey.
“You enjoy yourself up there with Baby Doe?” El-
lis asked.
“I think she likes women a whole lot more than
any man,” he said tossing the whiskey back.
“She took care of you though, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, real well.”
Ellis Kansas smiled.
“You new in town, ain’t you? You just drifting
through?”
“Truth is, I’m looking for someone,” Monroe said.
“Who might that be?”
“A woman named Clara Fallon. You know her?”
Ellis Kansas shrugged, remembering the interest
of the marshal in this man, knew, too, who Clara
Fallon was.
“No. Don’t know of anyone by that name.”
“She has a couple of kids with her.”
“I’m somewhat new here myself,” he said. “You
might ask Marshal Horn.”
“Marshal Horn, huh? Where might I find him?”
“Keeps an office up the street.”
Fallon set the glass down and walked out.
27
The Stone Brothers made the town well after
midnight.
“My ass is so sore it feels like I been busting rocks
with it,” Zack said; he’d been riding double with
