Redemption, Kansas

by James Reasoner

  “We can hope so, anyway,” added Dunaway.

  Bill nodded. He reached and grasped the barred door on one of the nearer cells. He gave it a good shake and was pleased that it didn’t budge.

  “Seems solid enough,” he said.

  “Oh, it is,” said Fleming. “The town fathers didn’t skimp on building this jail. We always knew Redemption would have to have law and order if the town was going to grow and thrive.”

  Bill nodded and backed out of the cell block. He closed the door but didn’t lock it.

  A smaller door in the left rear corner of the office led into a narrow storeroom, and a back door opened from it onto the alley running behind the jail. Bill checked the lock on it and thought it might be a good idea to replace it with a stronger one. When he mentioned that, Fleming said, “I’ll make a note of it. The town will take care of it.”

  “The sooner the better,” Bill said. “A jail’s only as strong as the easiest way into it.”

  “The boy’s got a knack for this, Roy,” said Dunaway.

  “More like common sense,” said Bill.

  He continued looking around the place for a few minutes, opening the drawers in the desk and pawing through the wanted posters and assorted papers that filled them. He took a half-full bottle of whiskey from one of the drawers and handed it to Fleming.

  “Won’t be needing that.”

  “You don’t drink?” asked the mayor.

  “Not Frank Porter’s whiskey,” Bill said. “You can pour it out as far as I’m concerned.”

  He didn’t find a spare marshal’s badge in the desk, but there were several plain, unmarked tin stars in one of the drawers. Bill figured they were deputy badges. But he didn’t have a deputy, so one of them would do for him.

  As Bill started to pin it on, Dunaway spoke up, saying, “Wait a minute, you haven’t been sworn in yet.”

  “Well, let’s get it done, then.” Bill had seen a Bible in one of the drawers. As he took it out, he thought about how ironic it was that a cold-blooded killer had the Word of God in his desk. Too bad Porter had the Devil in his heart, thought Bill.

  He gave the Bible to Dunaway, who held it out and said, “Put your hand on it and repeat after me . . . I solemnly swear to fulfill the duties of the marshal of Redemption, Kansas, and faithfully uphold the laws of the United States of America, the state of Kansas, and the town of Redemption, so help me God.”

  “That’s a mouthful. How about I just say I solemnly swear, so help me God, and let it go at that?”

  Dunaway chuckled. “It’ll do. You’re now the marshal of Redemption, son. What’s your first order of business?”

  “I’ll finish pinning on this badge, I reckon,” Bill said.

  After Fleming and Dunaway were gone, Bill sat behind the desk and took a deep breath. Hard as it was to believe, he was a lawman now. The star on his shirt said so.

  He wouldn’t get rich on the salary the mayor had promised him, but it was more than he would have earned as a cowboy. Steady work, too. It wouldn’t be long before he and Eden could start thinking about setting a date for their wedding. Even though she had agreed to marry him, they hadn’t discussed just when that would happen.

  He sat there a few minutes, trying to come to grips with everything, then got to his feet. He couldn’t just wait in the office for trouble to come to him. As a lawman, it was his job to get out and stop it from happening in the first place.

  Some of the people who had gathered in the street in curiosity were still standing there when Bill stepped out onto the porch. They appeared to be waiting for him. An excited buzz of conversation came from them when they saw the badge he wore.

  “Is it true, Bill?” one of the men asked him. Bill recognized him as a customer who came into the Monroe mercantile. “Are you really the new marshal?”

  Bill smiled. “That’s what it looks like.”

  “Hot damn! After the way you stood up to those killers, I feel better already.”

  “Hope you feel that way after I’ve worn this badge for a while,” Bill said.

  He gave the citizens a friendly nod and started walking down the street. Everyone he passed smiled at him and many of them spoke, saying they were glad he had taken the job of marshal, but he sensed a certain wariness in many of them, as well.

  You couldn’t blame them for that, he thought. Porter and Norris had probably seemed like friendly, competent, honest lawmen at first. When they had taken care of the problem with the trail herds and the Texas cowboys, they had been hailed as heroes by the people who lived in Redemption.

  It was only after more time had passed that folks began to see Porter and Norris for what they really were. That made some of them suspicious of Bill. Plus he had the disadvantage, in their eyes, of being from Texas.

  He didn’t mind being patient. He would do the best job he could, and he was confident he would win over the doubters.

  He walked all the way up Main Street from the marshal’s office, then crossed the broad, dusty street and headed back down the other side. When he came to the mercantile, he thought about going on past it and continuing his rounds, but he couldn’t resist the temptation. He was just vain enough to want to show off his new badge to Eden.

  Quite a few customers were in the store, so she didn’t notice him right away. He crossed his arms, lowered his head so the brim of his hat shielded his face, and stood in line at the counter, like somebody waiting his turn to buy something. After a few minutes, the people in front of him cleared out, and he was able to step up where Eden could see him. Her eyes widened in surprise.

  “Oh, my goodness,” she said. “It’s real. You really are the marshal.”

  “Did you think I was making it up?” he asked with a grin. She shook her head. “No, of course not. I knew the town council really offered you the job, and I knew you were going to accept. But seeing you standing there with that badge on your shirt . . . well, it’s just going to take some getting used to, that’s all.”

  “Maybe it won’t take too long.”

  Perry Monroe came up, studied Bill from head to toe with pursed lips, and finally nodded. “I have to admit, you look like a lawman. Now if you can just do the job . . .”

  “He’ll be a vast improvement over what we had before,” Eden pointed out.

  “I’ll do my best,” said Bill. “You’ve got my word on that.”

  “Well, if it doesn’t work out,” said Monroe, “you can always clerk here in the store.”

  That wasn’t going to happen, thought Bill. No way in hell. His clerking days were over. But not wanting to hurt his future father-in-law’s feelings, he didn’t say that.

  He would have visited longer with them, but just then he heard some commotion in the street outside, loud talk mixed with hoofbeats and the creak of wagon wheels. He inclined his head toward the front door and said, “I’d better go see what that’s about,” even though he had a pretty good idea.

  Sure enough, he saw when he stepped out onto the high porch of the store, a caravan of freight wagons was rolling into Redemption from the west, on their way back from Santa Fe. The bullwhackers were cursing and whipping their oxen. As Bill hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and looked at the wagons rolling past, he thought that the days of such caravans probably were numbered. With the way railroads were spreading all over the country now, it wouldn’t be long before all the goods traveling from one place to another would be shipped by rail.

  He was musing on that when he heard an angry voice say, “Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch. It’s you.”

  Bill looked down and saw one of the burly, bearded freighters glaring up at him. It took him a second before he recognized the man as the one called Blaisdell who had caused trouble in the mercantile weeks earlier. An ugly grin stretched across the man’s whiskery face as he went on, “I been hopin’ I’d meet up with you again, you gimp bastard.”

  Chapter 25

  Bill reined in the surge of anger he felt. A lawman was going to be cursed an
d called names from time to time. It was inevitable. He had to be able to control his temper and stay coolheaded when somebody tried to provoke him.

  “Howdy, Blaisdell,” he drawled. “Maybe you better take a closer look. I’m not on crutches anymore, and there’s a star pinned to my shirt.”

  Blaisdell’s eyes narrowed. “So there is. What happened to that son of a bitch who threw down on me last time I was here?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “You killed him and took his job?” Blaisdell laughed. “That sounds pretty far-fetched to me, kid.”

  “I didn’t say that’s what happened. But I am the marshal of Redemption now, and I don’t want any trouble while you’re in town.”

  “Sort of jumpin’ the gun, ain’t you? We just got here. I haven’t done a damned thing yet.”

  “I’m just letting you know,” said Bill. “As long as you and your friends act decent, there won’t be any problems.”

  Blaisdell gave a contemptuous snort. He turned back to his stream of oxen, popped his whip over their backs, and let loose with a stream of sulfurous profanity. The wagon creaked on down the street with the others, heading toward the piece of ground on the eastern edge of town where the caravans usually camped next to the small, cottonwoodlined stream meandering through there.

  Bill watched them go. He knew from experience that the freighters sometimes caused trouble while they were in town, although never enough to make Redemption bar them the way it had with the Texas cowboys.

  But that was all right, he told himself. Sure, this was his first day on the job, but there was nothing wrong with settling in quickly.

  “That was Clint Blaisdell, wasn’t it?” Eden asked from behind him.

  He turned to see the worried frown on her face. “Yeah, but I warned him not to cause any trouble while he’s in town this time.”

  “Do you really think that’ll do any good?”

  “It better,” Bill said with a firm nod. “If it doesn’t, he’ll find himself locked up again and facing another fine.”

  Eden didn’t look convinced. She said, “Be careful. I don’t trust him.”

  “I don’t, either,” Bill said.

  He gave Eden a quick kiss on the cheek and resumed making his rounds. He stopped at several other businesses to chat with folks he knew from their visits to the mercantile, including Josiah Hartnett at the livery stable and Phillip Ramsey, the editor and publisher of the Redemption Star. Ramsey wanted to interview him, but the idea of answering a bunch of questions about his life made Bill uncomfortable, so he promised to think about it, hoping Ramsey would move on to something else.

  When he stopped at the café run by Gunnar and Helga Nilsson, the walrus-mustached Gunnar wiped his hand on the apron he wore, shook Bill’s hand, and said, “You can eat as many meals here for free as you want, Marshal.”

  His wife, Helga, nodded, adding, “It’ll be a pleasure to feed a real lawman, after those two who were always in here wanting meals on the cuff . . . and more besides.”

  “I’m obliged,” Bill said, “and I’ll take you up on the offer. I’ll try not to take advantage of it, though.”

  “We’ll start by giving you lunch,” said Gunnar. “I’ll go fry up a steak right now.”

  Bill didn’t protest. He’d heard that the Swedes put on a good feed, and he was eager to find out if it was true.

  It certainly was, and he was pleasantly stuffed when he left the café a while later. After a meal like that, it felt good to walk around, so he made another circuit of the town. Redemption was busy, but everything was peaceable.

  It remained that way through the afternoon. By the time Bill went down to the mercantile as Eden and her father were closing up, he figured his wages for the day were just about the easiest money he had ever earned.

  Monroe went on ahead. Bill and Eden lingered behind so they could walk together and talk quietly. Bill said, “I was thinking I might fix up the sofa in the marshal’s office so I can sleep there nights.”

  Eden sounded surprised as she asked, “What’s wrong with our spare bedroom?”

  “Well, now that we’re engaged and all, it’s not hardly proper for us to be living under the same roof until we’re married.”

  “But it was proper before we were engaged?”

  “Don’t ask me to explain it,” said Bill. “That’s just the way it feels to me.”

  Eden laughed, and he liked the sound of it. “Some wild young cowboy you are,” she said.

  “Not anymore. I’m a lawman now. Sober as a judge. Upright as a preacher. Speaking of which, we haven’t talked about which church we’re gonna get married in.”

  “Father and I are Methodists.”

  Bill winced. “I was brought up Baptist, myself, but maybe I’ve backslid enough I can see my way clear to marrying a sprinkler.”

  “Well, I have to put up with a dunker, so I think I’m the one who’s having to be tolerant.”

  “We’ll sort it out,” Bill said with a grin. “The Methodist church it is. But to get back to what I was saying . . . I think it’s a good idea for me to stay at the office at night in case anybody comes looking for the marshal, too.”

  “There’s that to consider, I suppose. You can’t spend the nights there after we’re married, though.”

  “Oh, no! I don’t intend to.” Bill made a face as he realized he’d probably answered a mite more vehemently than he’d intended to. “What I mean is, when that time comes, I’ll probably ask the mayor and the town council to hire somebody to work as a night deputy.”

  “That’s a good idea. And when is that time going to come?”

  “When we get married, you mean? That’s sort of up to you. You’re the bride.”

  “And you’re the groom. You’ve got a say in it.”

  Bill thought it over. “How about a month from now?” he suggested. “Is that long enough for you to get ready for a wedding?”

  “That’s more time than I need,” said Eden. “I already have the dress. My mother’s wedding gown.”

  “Well, then, how about two weeks?”

  She thought about it and nodded. “Two weeks.” She slipped her arm through his as they walked along. “I like that. In two weeks I’ll be Mrs. William Harvey.”

  Bill swallowed hard. He wanted to marry Eden more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life . . . but even so, hearing it put into words like that was almost enough to spook a fella who had spent his whole life as a fiddle-footed cowboy.

  He didn’t have time to think about it, because at that moment rapid footsteps sounded behind them. Bill stopped and turned, freeing his arm from Eden’s so he could move his hand closer to the butt of his gun. He saw a man hurrying toward them in the dusk.

  “Hold it,” Bill said. “You looking for me?”

  “Marshal? Is that you?” The man sounded out of breath, and as he came to a stop, Bill recognized him as Benjy Cobb, the swamper from the saloon.

  “Yeah, it’s me. What’s wrong, Mr. Cobb?”

  “Fred sent me to see if I could find you. He said for me to tell you . . . He said for me to tell you he thinks there might be some trouble brewin’ at the saloon. That bullwhacker Blaisdell’s playin’ cards with a tinhorn gambler who drifted into town a few days ago, and he don’t like losin’.”

  “Who doesn’t like losing? Blaisdell?”

  “Yeah. That tinhorn’s gonna clean him out, the rate he’s goin’.”

  Bill didn’t give a hoot in hell whether or not Clint Blaisdell lost every bit of his money. But if Blaisdell raised a ruckus about it and started wrecking the saloon, that was another matter entirely. It was his job to put a stop to that, or see to it that it didn’t happen in the first place.

  “Sorry, Eden,” he said. “Reckon I’d better go with Mr. Cobb here and see if I can settle things down.”

  “Should I keep your supper warm for you?” she asked in a voice drawn tight with worry.

  “Sure,” he answered easily. “This won’t amount to much
. I won’t be gone long.”

  He hoped that was true. But as he started walking back toward Main Street with Benjy Cobb, he thought about how the possibility existed that he might never come back. That potential for danger was something a lawman just had to live with . . . and so did a lawman’s wife.

  “I figured I might find you at the Monroe place, Marshal,” Cobb said. He sounded nervous, and Bill thought he was probably talking just to give himself something to do. Bill had heard enough about Cobb to know that the swamper had spent a lot of years drinking and wasn’t in very good health. The job at the saloon was all he could manage. His nerves and body were just about worn out. He went on, “Is it true what I heard, that you and Miss Eden are gettin’ hitched?”

  “It’s true,” Bill told him. “Two weeks from now.”

  “Well, ain’t that mighty fine! Congratulations, Marshal. You won’t find no sweeter gal than Miss Eden.”

  Bill grinned. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Mr. Cobb.”

  “Oh, you should call me Benjy, like ever’body else. Ol’ rumpot like me don’t deserve to be called mister.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. I was raised to respect my elders. I reckon it’d be all right, though, if I called you Benjy because we’re friends.”

  “Really?” The swamper looked over at him, beaming with surprise and pleasure.

  “Sure. I suspect you know a lot about the folks who live here and what goes on in Redemption.”

  “Oh, I do,” said Benjy. “I surely do.”

  “Since I’m new at this law business, I’m liable to need to ask you some questions every now and then.”

  “Anything you need to know, I’m your man,” Benjy said proudly. “I’d be honored to give you a hand, Marshal.”

  “I appreciate that, and I’ll keep it in mind.”

  They had reached the saloon. Even before they went inside, Bill knew the situation had worsened while Benjy was looking for him. He heard Blaisdell’s loud, blustery voice raised in anger. Bill went in first, pushing the batwings aside with his left hand and stepping into the room.