For the Love of a Woman

by Orrin Russell

  In the street again, Balum replaced his hat. ‘Where to now?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m going to have to keep you occupied all day, aren’t I?’

  ‘That’s about the long and short of it.’

  ‘Happy to do so. Fancy a game of faro?’

  Balum hesitated.

  ‘Poker?’ ventured Randolph.

  ‘As much as I’d like to, I’m afraid I’d lose all my money. My mind isn’t in it.’

  ‘There’s a bit of a tournament at the Silver Nest tonight. Chester gave me the impression he’d like to throw his hat in.’

  ‘Chester knows cards.’

  ‘You fancy watching? As a spectator, nothing more.’

  Balum slapped the long haired man on the back and grinned. ‘Lead the way.’

  The Silver Nest offered two levels; the lower for amateurs, the upper for high stakes players. At the bottom of the stairs Randolph paid for the both of them and they ascended into a room crowded with tables and chairs and gamblers dressed up for the occasion, each last one of them nervous, desperate with the hopes that their dreams might be met in short time, and their worries swept away like a spider at the end of a broomstick.

  Chester’s short frame mixed within them. They found him, and their presence brought a light to his eyes.

  ‘I see I’ve got my boys in my corner,’ he said.

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Balum. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t mention this last night.’

  Chester scratched his neck, then let his thoughts be known. ‘I figured it best not to. You’re mind is heavy with other things. And, well… we’ve all seen you play poker, Balum, and no offense, it’s worse than listening to a cat howl in the night. Tell me you aren’t buying in.’

  ‘Ha. Spoken as an honest friend. Don’t worry, Chester. I’m only a spectator tonight.’

  The gamesmaster rang a bell and called the hall to order. Players took their assigned seats, the dealing began, and Balum and Randolph relaxed with a drink behind their friend. It began well. Chester’s chips began to stack up. As the cards were dealt, Chester would turn up the edges to allow the two men behind him a peak at what he was working with. An hour in, his luck turned and his chips went with it. They dwindled, and as they did, Balum felt a pressure rise within him, his breath tight and his thoughts far from his own concerns. He rode on the back of Chester’s emotions as if it were his own money on the line, and when Chester’s luck recovered on a flush and he raked in a pot overflowing with chips, Balum and Randolph could scarce keep themselves from dancing drunkenly behind him.

  Hours passed in a tense pendulum between rejoice and despair. Liquor accompanied the rise and fall of emotion, and as the crowd intoxicated themselves with drink they erupted in gasps and cheers while the players sorted themselves into the victorious and the defeated.

  When the gamesmaster rang the bell and called an end to the tournament, Chester found himself a richer man by a factor of ten. His old eyes turned to his friends, wide and reckless, and he demanded a round for the three of them.

  They drank until their feet floundered below them. The heights of celebration, seldom disappointing, stoked the joy in Chester like a drywood fire doused in kerosene. His jubilation would find its apex in only one place; the Baltimore Club, and when the thought struck him he blurted it out with a passionate plea that his friends accompany him to continue the mania.

  In a show of self-control more resolute than he was accustomed to, Balum declined. Chester’s crestfallen face nearly swayed him back into the revelry, but Randolph interjected by reminding the old man of Balum’s delicate frame of mind.

  In the street they parted ways. Balum stumbled back to the hotel, up the stairs, through the door. On the floor, slipped under the door, was an envelope with Balum’s name hand written in black ink. He ripped it open. The court summons. His drunken eyes struggled to make it out, and finally he threw it back to the floor and flopped onto the bed. From a reclined position he tossed his hat to the desk and pried his boots off with his toes.

  For as drunk as he was, sleep would not take him.

  With Chester and Randolph gone, the more pressing issues of his predicament came swarming back. Johnny Freed’s voice sounded in his mind. The image of Angelique, Nelson, the pending court date. His loneliness. As for what he would do when the trial was over, not a single notion did he have. Only emptiness.

  He lay staring into the dim outlines of the room for some time. Moonlight illuminated the curtains over the window, and periodically he would hear the sounds of drunks in the street, hollering and screeching in all extremes of passion. He wondered if any were Chester’s or Daniel’s, until finally his mind relented and sleep overtook him.

  5

  Habits began.

  Breakfast and coffee in the morning at the cafe across from the hotel. Shower and shave. Read the morning paper. Check the post office to see if Will’s wedding invitation had arrived. Walk.

  It wasn’t much.

  Some days he would saddle the roan and ride without direction. In the afternoons he would meet with Chester and Randolph and pass away the hours in conversation. The thought occurred to him on nearly a daily basis to take a walk to the seedier side of town where brothels outnumbered saloons and where women would call from doorways with painted faces and sweet smelling skin. The desire was great but his resolve proved greater, and he pushed the urges back.

  He drank little. Only when the questions of what he would do with his life rose in his mind sharp and roaring, him without answer, would he throw back the whiskey, wondering fruitlessly if the answers might be found at the bottom of a glass. On those few nights of despair he would choose the same Mexican cantina he had discovered with Chester. He enjoyed the darkness, the dirt floor, the soft murmur of Spanish and the serenity of an establishment without fanfare.

  It was in the cantina, seated at a corner table the afternoon prior to the trial, that Chester gave him the news.

  The old man came in gingerly, letting his eyes adjust to the dark and hoping to find Balum there, for he felt, perhaps unjustly, that his presence in the cantina was only permitted in the company of one who spoke the language. He paused inside the door. The barkeep looked a moment at him and with his eyes signaled to the corner. Chester turned. A minute later he was seated in the gloom with his friend, a glass of pulque before him.

  He took a sip and moved his tongue over his lips as if something foreign was stuck to them.

  ‘What the heck are we drinking, Balum?’

  ‘Pulque. It’ll make you strong.’

  ‘Will it make me drunk?’

  ‘If you drink enough of it.’

  Chester considered for a moment, eyes staring at the thick sludge in the glass, then took a long slam of it.

  ‘Thataboy, Chester.’

  ‘Not so bad I guess. You sure it’ll get me drunk?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Good. You drunk yet?’

  ‘No. Trial starts tomorrow. It’ll be bad enough in a fresh state of mind, let alone hungover.’

  ‘Good. Because there’s something you need to know and you won’t want to be drunk when you hear it.’

  Balum set his glass aside and leaned in.

  ‘You said you killed Saul Farro?’ said Chester.

  ‘Not me. I saw him get shot and flung down a crevice. He must have fallen two hundred feet. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Talk of the town is that he’s about. Came in this morning.’

  Balum stared blankly across the table for a minute. ‘That’s impossible.’

  ‘It’s what they’re saying is all.’

  ‘No way he could have survived that fall.’

  ‘It’d pay to keep an eye out. You shooting his brother and all, why, if it is true he’ll be looking to tally things up. You can guarantee yourself that.’

  Balum shoved his chair back over the dirt floor and stood.

  ‘Hey, where you going, Balum?’

  ‘I need to see the Sheriff.’<
br />
  ‘Don’t leave me here,’ Chester said, and gulped down the last of the pulque like a man led to a glacier mountain after endless days in the desert.

  Balum crossed town in as straight a line as possible. Wagons reared to a stop in the street as he bolted obliviously across throughways. He marched through the dust in long strides, Chester running after him.

  They arrived at the jail in the same moment as Ross Buckling. The Sheriff was coming up along the boardwalk with his hand half dragging and half supporting a young drunk man with no hat and blood streaked across his face from a broken nose. Blood dripped down the man’s lips and chin and onto his sweat-stained shirt.

  ‘Rowdiness starting early today, Ross?’ said Balum, as the two groups met at the door.

  ‘Seems like it gets earlier every week. Or maybe I’m just getting old.’

  Ross pulled the man into the jail office and led him back into the cell block. Balum and Chester waited in the office.

  ‘That boy’s a fighter, I’ll give him that,’ said Ross when he came back through. ‘That boy’s nose has been broke more times than I can count. Seems that’d be punishment enough, but it don’t hurt to add a little cell time to it.’

  ‘You throw him in there with Nelson?’ asked Balum.

  ‘No. Nelson’s an ornery son of a bitch. I keep him in a cell to himself. You come to check up on him? He’s had enough visitors you’d think he was a damn politician.’

  The comment was lost on Balum. He shook his head. ‘I came to ask about Saul Farro. People are saying he’s in town. You know anything about that?’

  ‘I do,’ Ross nodded. ‘I surely do. He was here not but two hours ago.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Right here. Came in to pay his buddy a visit.’

  Balum paced the short distance between the two desks like a bull in a bucking chute.

  ‘Johnny was sitting at his desk when he come in,’ continued the Sheriff. ‘Saul sure got him worked up. He gave the Marshal some harebrained story, contradicted just about everything you gave in your deposition, and I’ll be damned if Johnny didn’t take it hook line and sinker.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know, a bunch of horse shit. Makes you out to be one nasty fella.’

  ‘Where’s Freed now?’

  ‘Up at the courthouse. You’d almost think he’d decided to go lawyering for Nelson. He told Saul he should testify in court, and he’s been pushing the judge to set back the trial date for health reasons. Says Nelson still hasn’t recovered, says he needs rest and recuperation.’

  ‘Rest and recuperation?’

  ‘Hell if I know. I think he plain just doesn’t cotton to you, Balum. Don’t ask me why. Some folks just rub each other the wrong way, I guess. But Johnny, he’s done gone and taken sides. And it ain’t yours. Every time Nelson’s lawyer comes in, why Johnny jumps up and plays handmaid to him. Eager to help out any way he can.’

  ‘Nelson has a lawyer?’

  ‘Where you been these past two weeks, Balum? You ain’t heard about his lawyer?’

  ‘Haven’t heard a thing.’

  ‘Some highfalutin fatman. Expensive. Arrived last week by train. And Nelson didn’t even send for him, that’s what I can’t figure. The man just showed up. Goes by the name of Crenshaw. Douglas Crenshaw.’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ said Balum.

  ‘From Kansas City, apparently. He knows his business. You can see it when he talks.’

  Chester listened, propped against the jail office door, mildly buzzed from the pulque . When the door opened suddenly behind him it sent him sprawling to the floor.

  ‘What’s all this?’ said Johnny Freed, frowning at the old man picking himself off the ground. He turned to Balum. ‘You’ve got a lot to answer for.’

  ‘I’ve got plenty of questions myself,’ replied Balum.

  ‘I’ll start with one. How many lies did you tell me in that deposition?’

  ‘Lies?’

  ‘You said Saul Farro was dead. Unless you can explain to me how a deadman is walking around town, I call that a lie.’

  Balum’s boot smacked the floorboards as he took a step toward the Marshal.

  ‘Whoa now,’ Ross Buckling moved in and put a hand between them. ‘Easy now, Johnny.’

  ‘I’m not wrong,’ the Marshal defended himself.

  ‘Everything I told you in that deposition was the truth as I saw it,’ said Balum. ‘Saul Farro was shot and thrown off a cliff. I considered him dead and that’s what I told you. If he’s alive it’s not because I lied, but because of pure dumb luck. Don’t go throwing that word around lightly, Johnny. A man’s word is all he’s got out here. And my word is good. I can be mistaken, but I’m no liar. Plenty of men have been shot for what you just said. You’re in the West now, and you’d better wise up or you’ll end up opening that mouth of yours when you’d have been better off keeping it shut.’

  ‘Are you threatening a U.S. Marshal?’

  ‘I’m giving you advice. You’re young, you’ve grown up in a sheltered world, and you’ve got a nice big badge you think gives you the right to go spouting off,’ Balum’s eyes looked at the young man in front of him. ‘It doesn’t. You question my word again and the very least you’ll get is your teeth knocked out of that pissy little face of yours.’

  ‘It won’t be me questioning you, Balum. You’ll have to answer under oath. When the witnesses start talking, Nelson won’t be the only one on trial.’

  ‘What witnesses?’

  ‘Saul Farro, for one. And I’ve agreed to testify on behalf of the defense. The state of Frederick Nelson when you brought him in was unacceptable. You mistreated a prisoner and your stories are falling apart under closer scrutiny. I aim to find out what happened out there with that wagon train. It’s my sworn duty to do so. If a jury finds Nelson innocent, as I’m starting to suspect, we’ll put you on trial and I’ll be more than happy to see you swing from a rope myself if you’re found guilty.’

  ‘You’re a goddamn fool,’ Balum’s rage spilled over. ‘Saul Farro should be tried along with Nelson, not put up on display as a witness to the defense. He helped murder those people; he was in on it from the beginning.’

  ‘You’re quick to accuse a man, Balum. I prefer to let the judicial branch of government provide that verdict. Now kindly leave this office.’

  6

  ‘You should eat something, Balum,’ Chester said, munching on creamed corn and steak. ‘It’ll do you good. Get your strength up.’

  They sat in the restaurant attached to the Berlamont Hotel. Balum rested his elbows on the table with a hand over his neck and dug his fingers into the cords of rope-like muscle stretching from the base of his neck down through his back and shoulders.

  ‘I can’t eat,’ he said.

  ‘Man needs to eat.’

  ‘I should have shot him out there in the wilderness and let the wolves pick at his body.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Those on the expedition wanted to see justice done right. Easterners, Chester. Can’t understand them. Just look at that boy strutting around town calling himself a U.S. Marshal. A nice education he’s been given in the schoolhouse, but where has it gotten him? The kid is dumb as a rock.’

  ‘He’s got you all worked up,’ Chester licked grease from his fingers.

  ‘Talking about putting me on trial…,’ Balum winced as he turned his neck.

  ‘Hey look,’ Chester pointed with his fork toward the street. ‘Randolph’s on the loose.’

  He jumped from his chair and scuttled outside. Balum watched from his seat, squeezing the soreness in his neck with his thick hand. The two talked outside briefly, then entered the restaurant.

  ‘Pull up a chair, Daniel,’ said Balum.

  ‘Chester tells me this whole deal with Nelson is getting all fouled up.’

  ‘More than fouled up,’ said Balum. He gripped the table edge with one hand and his neck with the other and laid out the events fro
m the previous two hours. More than once he took a long breath in and a long exhale out, and more than once did he grimace as pain shot through his neck.

  ‘You wouldn’t think it could get any worse,’ said Randolph. ‘Put you on trial?’

  ‘The kid’s just talking,’ said Balum.

  ‘He’s needling you. What’s wrong with your neck?’

  Balum shook his head slightly. ‘Feels like a knife is wedged in it.’

  ‘You need to take care of that.’

  ‘It’s stress, that’s all.’

  ‘Baltimore Club,’ said Chester. ‘Nothing relieves stress like a woman.’

  ‘Ah, what the hell,’ said Balum. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Really?’ The old man’s face lit up and he put his fork down. Before Balum could respond, Randolph cut it.

  ‘You’re going to be sitting down all day tomorrow. If you want that neck worked on, I know the place to go, and it’s not the Baltimore Club.’

  ‘I need my mind off things, that’s all I know,’ said Balum.

  ‘All right, gentlemen,’ said Randolph. ‘I’ll lead the way.’

  As was the reality of most towns, Denver had divided itself up into neighborhoods, districts, and barrios , each peculiar unto itself and each under endless metamorphoses as they were built and destroyed and raised again over time. The center of town belonged to banks and lending offices. Hotels had their strip, as did general stores, feed stores, confectioneries, blacksmiths and carpenters. Churches vied for worshipers, brothels fought for johns, and saloons competed for their drunks.

  Not only was it divided along lines of business, but along ethnic and cultural lines as well. The Mexican cantina on the edge of town was neighbored by a Mexican grocer, the huts and shacks on the dusty streets built and inhabited by hard working Hispanics. Blacks, some long since escaped from southern slavery, others recently freed, lived not but a stone’s throw from the Asian alleyways, the very architecture of the edifices beautiful and foreign to the eyes of the whites.