Mr. American

by George MacDonald Fraser

  'Help yourself,' said Mr Franklin, and Logan settled himself in an arm-chair, crossed his legs, carefully hitched the leg of his frayed trousers, and looked about him. 'You know, this is really nice. Guess this is one of these English country seats, is it? They live all right, don't they? Yes, sir. They do that. Comfortable fixings, beautiful countryside, peace and quiet. I like it. If a man just had a drink in his fist as well, he'd have nothing to complain of.'

  Mr Franklin walked to the sideboard, opened a small cupboard, and drew out a whisky decanter and a glass. He poured a stiff measure while Logan watched him bright-eyed, and handed it over. 'It isn't Mount Vernon,' he said.

  'Well, I'll be!' Logan laughed and stared at him in admiration. 'You remembered that! After all these years! You son-of-a-gun!' He took a deep swallow. 'Say, it'll do, though. Yes, it will, just about.' He shook his head, eyeing Mr Franklin, who stood with his back to the fire. 'And you remembered about me and Mount Vernon! You were always a deep one, though, weren't you, Mark? All that education, I guess. You knew a lot. Knew a lot about me, didn't you?'

  'Enough,' said Mr Franklin, and Logan nodded, and drank again.

  'You said a minute ago you didn't believe it when you heard I got killed. Why not?'

  `Because after that someone held up a bank in Wyoming somewhere, and - '

  'Cody - Cody, Wyoming,' said Logan, shaking a finger. 'Now, that - that was professional. And you tied me to it, did you? You're a smart boy, Mark. Real smart.' He coughed suddenly, setting down his glass, his shoulders shaking. 'Goddam it!' He coughed rackingly, his sleeve across his mouth, while Mr Franklin watched him impassively. 'There! That's better. Phew! I reckon this English climate ain't too kind to the chest, though. Too damp. And that fog in London - why, that's poisonous! How d'you stand it?' Getting no reply he went on: 'No, I reckon you can take it well enough. I was just - '

  At that moment the door opened, and a maid entered, bearing a large silver tea tray, which she set on the table near Logan's elbow. He smiled on her benevolently, murmuring appreciatively, and watched with interest while Samson, who had followed the maid silently into the room, addressed Mr Franklin.

  'Will there be anything further, sir?' It was a question plainly intended to cover a wide range of possibilities, but no one but Mr Franklin could guess that.

  'No, thank you, Thomas, that'll be all. I'll ring if I want you.' 'Very good, sir.'

  As the door closed behind him, Logan slapped his knee in delight. 'Why, goddam it! Goddamit to hell! "Will there be anything further, sir?" "No, Thomas, you can kiss my ass until further notice!" I wouldn't ha' believed it! He's real! A goddam butler in a goddam tail-coat! And you standing there like you're the Dook o' Crap!' He gazed at Mr Franklin in something like awe, and then regarded the tea service. 'And tea in cups, for Chrissakes! All brought in by an itty-bitty-pretty little maid in a starched cap! Well, that beats the band, that does!'

  'You want some?' Mr Franklin came to the tray and began to fill a cup.

  'What? Tea? Oh, an elegant sufficiency, old fellow - if you please!' Logan bowed from his sitting position, and began to load his plate indiscriminately with sandwiches, cake, brown bread, and tea-cake from the little bain marie. 'Say, this is real nice, though! And napkins, too. This is real style.' He chuckled, with his mouth full. 'Say, what d'you think the old Wild Bunch would say if they could see you and me this minute? Mark Franklin and Kid Curry sitting down to afternoon tea in a stately home of England, with butlers and maids waiting on 'em, and dainty little pats of butter, and a real silver pisspotty tea service! Boy, they'd bug their eyes out of their heads!'

  Mr Franklin carried his cup back to the fireplace. 'How's Cassidy these days?'

  'Butch?' Logan's eyes widened. 'Didn't you hear? Why, Butch is dead - just a few months back. Him and Sundance both. Down in South America.'

  'I heard they went down that way.'

  'Sure. They were working for this Scotch fellow down there, but then they took off, crazy-like, you know how they were, and bushwhacked a mule train. There was talk of a pay-roll, but if I know Longbaugh and Cassidy they probably got nothing but stirrup-irons and mule-shit. Anyway, they lit out and got boxed in somewhere, and Sundance got killed. They reckon Butch shot himself' Logan shook his head in reproof of loose rumour. 'I doubt that. For one thing, the crazy bastard wasn't that good a shot. And it wouldn't be like him - hell, he didn't care all that much.'

  'He cared about Longbaugh. They were pretty close partners.'

  'Enough to kill himself?' Logan shook his head doubtfully. 'I don't take that, somehow. You mean, if Sundance was dead, Butch wouldn't think life was worth living? Hell, that's tall! Anyway, those rurales greasers are just like the Pinkertons - you know they said I shot myself. Can you imagine that? Ten to one Butch gave up, and they took him prisoner and shot him. Now, that would fit, all right. Kind of fool way you'd expect those two to go. I don't know how they lasted as long as they did.'

  Mr Franklin hardly heard him. He was remembering the burly, ugly young man with the great wide grin and tousled hair that was forever falling down into his close-set eyes; he could still hear the voice stumbling over Jamy's speech from Henry V. '. . . but I'll pay it as valorously as I may, that will I surely do. That is the brief and the long.' Now Butch was dead, in South America. And Sundance, with his carefully-parted hair and trim moustache and neat clothes, looking more like a lawyer or a doctor or a shipping magnate (one of the better-class ones), than a bandido Yanqui. Why, he looked more like a British member of Parliament than the real thing. Now they were both dead, in South America, and he and Kid Curry were taking afternoon tea in Oxton Hall, Norfolk.

  A remarkable fact for which he expected to receive a remarkable explanation, and knowing the Kid it was liable to be an unpleasant one. It had set him back on his heels to see that ghost from the past in the hall; one suspicion had crossed his mind immediately, to be strengthened as soon as he noticed the threadbare but well-brushed clothing, the darned shirt and cheap tie, and the voracious appetite with which Logan had fallen on his food. But all this way... and how had he known where to look ... ?

  Logan's plate was clean. He swallowed and reached out to the bain marie for another tea-cake, smeared it liberally with jam, and wolfed it down; then he reached for a piece of cake, caught Mr Franklin's eye, and shrugged in mock apology.

  'Hungry, Kid? Have some more tea.' Mr Franklin reached for the tea-pot while Logan chewed and made grateful noises before swallowing again. 'When did you eat last?'

  'Oh, this morning. But I haven't been eating too regular. Nothing like this,' and he waved a sandwich. 'This is A1 grub, all the trimmings. Wouldn't put much belly in you if you was riding or living rough, but it's mighty welcome.' He sighed and wiped his lips, accepting his tea-cup. 'Thank you kindly. You're fixed kind of pretty here, Mark.'

  'Here? Well, it isn't my place, Kid...'

  'No, I know. Your papa-in-law-that's-to-be. Sir Charles Clayton. Nice spread, though; good grazing. Better to farm than anything back in Missouri, I guess. Imagine it'll be yours some day - no, hold on though, there's a son, ain't there? Yes, Arthur Clayton. That's right. Still, you ain't worrying, I'll be bound. That's a handsome property you've got yourself, over at Castle Lancing. I took a look at it yesterday - met your hired hand, that Jake.' He chuckled again. 'Don't you find one like him hanging around every livery stable and saloon from Denver to the Gulf? Here, though, that's a strange thing - this is the first part of England I could understand what they say? In London, they just whine at you, can't speak English worth a dam, but round these parts - every word. You noticed that, Mark?'

  'Yes. I noticed.'

  'Strange, all right.' Logan shook his head over the wonders of dialect. 'But that's a good place, Mark. Worth a piece of money. Yes, sir, you're well set up. Going to get married, too - and I got to hand it to you there. That's the prettiest little gal I ever laid eyes on, and I laid eyes on a few.' Logan nodded appreciatively, and reached into his inside pocket to dra
w out a folded sheet of paper; then, to Mr Franklin's astonishment, he fished out a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles, blew on them, rubbed them on his sleeve, set them on his nose, tilted his head well back and squinted at the page. 'These glasses don't read worth a piss in the wind! Yes, that's her - Miss Peggy Clayton. Ain't she a real peach of a peach, though! Why, you horny young goat, you!' He leered at the page salaciously: it was the page from the Sphere. 'Yes, sir, that's bully. I admire your taste. I've got another paper here, too. ..' He rummaged and drew forth another page, rather more tattered. 'Yes ... what's it say? "... among the guests, Lord Somebody ... Marquis D. Soveral ..." No, here's the bit. "One of the most successful guns in His Majesty's party was Mr Mark Franklin, with seventeen brace". What's a brace?'

  'Two birds.'

  'You shot birds? How did you do that?'

  'Wing-shooting.'

  'What - with a forty-five?'

  For the first time in their interview Mr Franklin smiled. 'With a shotgun.'

  'You shot thirty-four birds with a shotgun - and they put it in the newspapers?'

  'It's different over here. It's a ... a social amusement.'

  Logan looked over the top of his spectacles, and the sudden glance of the bright eyes took Mr Franklin back with chilling speed to that poker table, the wolf-smile on that face, the Remington butt greasy in his grip under cover of the table-top. But the Kid's smile was amiable enough now; it was difficult to realise that it was the same man, the little tiger, the fast snake of the Wild Bunch. He looked older, almost frail in his spectacles - until the bright eyes fixed you, and then you forgot the frayed clothes, and the ageing look of the skin, and the touch of white in the fading, untidy hair, and automatically you glanced at the hands, the lean brown fingers as supple as ever, and remembered who he had been - and was.

  'Must be mighty amusing,' said Logan, and replaced his papers inside his coat. 'You've seen this picture - of your girl, haven't you? I'll keep it, then.' He patted his coat back into place. 'That was the King of England you were shooting with,' he said, almost accusingly, like a wife casting her husband's boozing cronies in his face.

  'That's right.'

  'Holy damn!' He regarded Mr Franklin with anxious reverence, and then asked possibly the most unexpected question ever put about Edward VII. 'How does he handle a gun? Good?'

  'Pretty fair. Don't ever draw on him if you're a partridge.'

  'Uh-huh. That's fancy company, though, for a rough-rider from Hole-in-the-Wall. The King, eh? And Lord this and Marquess that - why, even that son-of-a-bitch at the front porch, there, he was a lord, you said. And you're going to marry a Sir's daughter - that doesn't make you a Sir, does it?'

  'No.'

  'Well, anyway. Sir or plain mister, you're in Upper Ten society now, Mark. Ain't you?'

  'That's right, Kid.'

  'And you're stinking rich. Oh, I know about that. Everyone round your village knows all about the Yankee millionaire. They're downright proud of you, Mark, you know that? Proud as if they'd dug eleventeen tons of paydirt out of Tonopah themselves! Course, I knew about that before they did - like everybody else in Colorado. They're talking still, and telling bigger lies every day, about the FranklinDavis Silver Hill - not so many of them know about the Belle Bourche Bank, or the Union Pacific hold-up at Wilcox, though.' Logan sat back deep in his chair, and glanced placidly at his host.

  Mr Franklin looked at him for a moment, set his cup on the mantel-piece, and moved absently to the table to replace the silver cover on the bain marie. Then he went back to the fireplace and leaned his shoulders on the mantel. But still he said nothing. Logan watched him, then shook his head in reluctant admiration.

  'You're a cool boy, though, Mark. I always liked that about you nobody ever ruffled Franklin, did they? Remember that poker game, with Linley and Davis pissing their britches? You came chest to chest with me then, Mark, and took the pot, didn't you? Course, I knew you'd slipped your piece into your boot-top before we sat down - even so, you didn't blink at Kid Curry.' Just for a moment, over the top of the spectacles, Mr Franklin saw the mad-dog flicker in the dark eyes before it passed. 'And who got me out of Deadwood jail? - not Cassidy, not Kilpatrick, not the Sundance Kid. Just young Mark Franklin - with that little creeping Jesus holding your horse - what's his name - ?'

  'Carver.'

  'Yes, Carver. But it was you who covered the deputy and broke me out. You know that's twelve years ago? And you're as quiet and composed this minute as you were then - remember? "Don't try it, Mr Deputy. Just sit still and put your thumbs in your mouth". And he did like you told him, the same as that goddam butler of yours. Dammit!' In sudden irritation Logan struck the arm of his chair. 'You still haven't asked me what I'm here for!'

  Mr Franklin gave an inward sigh, but all he said was: 'I figured when you were ready, you'd tell me.'

  'But you wouldn't ask! Not you! That's why I like you, Mark. Why, you didn't even blink out there in the hall just now, with your fine papa-in-law-that's-to-be! You just come in here, and feed me tea and cookies, and pass the goddam muffins or whatever the hell they are, and inquire after Butch and Sundance, and watch me and wait and say no more than a clam on an ice-cake!' Logan stared at him. 'Damn it, you're still doing it!'

  'Have some more tea if you feel like it,' said Mr Franklin, and Logan suddenly began to cough again, rackingly, the frail body shuddering as he held the arms of his chair. The fit passed, he breathed heavily, reached out and poured some milk into his cup, and drank it.

  'All right, I'll tell you. When you and Davis made the strike, I was coming to see you - '

  'I know that. I was waiting at the Bella Union.'

  'Yes, but you didn't know why I never got there. A payroll train got in the way, but it went wrong. I was on the dodge for a while, and then there was the Glenwood affair - where you heard I got killed - and then the bank at Cody, and then Mexico, where a fellow got himself shot, and I drew five years in a stinking jail at Sonora, under the name of Allen. When I got out, I came looking for you - last summer. Gone east, everybody said. So I went east, and bummed around New York, where they said you'd gone, and just by the grace of God someone I knew spotted your name on a passenger list for England. So I came to England. I traced you as far as London.'

  Logan coughed and cleared his throat painfully, dabbing at his eyes. `That beat me - I could have trailed you from Pecos to Powder River with my eyes shut, but not there. I slept in gutters nights, and prowled round hotels by day, asking for anybody called Franklin. If you'd changed your name I'd have been bitched. As it was, I took more shit from snot-nosed English clerks than I ever heard in my whole life before! And then I hit the right one - the Waldorf. Just when my last few cents ran out. I had to hi-jack a fellow in an alley for the fare down here.' He nodded, and rubbed his chin. 'So I made it.'

  Mr Franklin stood looking down at the slight body in the armchair, wondering, remembering that night at the Bella Union, waiting for the Kid, for the shoot. And now, years later, the Kid had finally arrived - better if he had reached the Bella Union with his pearl-handled Peacemaker against the Remingtons; it would have been more cleanly settled. At last he said:

  'All right, Kid. How much?'

  Logan looked up at him. 'How much for what?' 'For keeping your mouth shut.'

  For several seconds Logan stared at him, apparently uncomprehending, and then suddenly the dark eyes blazed in anger, in the feral menace that he remembered, and the lips pulled back from the teeth as the small man seemed on the point of launching himself at Mr Franklin's throat. But he held his seat, his hands gripping the arms of the chair, mastering his rage. He let out his breath in a hissing sigh, and relaxed, but not into the quiet, courteous little man of a few minutes ago. This was the Kid he knew, all spite and icy wickedness.

  'Well, you son-of-a-bitch.' It came out in a whisper, in a tone almost conversational, so devoid of passion as it was. 'To keep my mouth shut, eh? You know, Mark, you disappoint me. What the hell d'you think I am? You th
ink I came here to squeeze you? That I'm a blackmailer - the kind that's going to say, "Pay up, or I tell the world that the rich and respectable Mr Mark Franklin of Castle Whereverthe-hell is a Hole-in-the-Wall gunslick, a Wild Buncher? Is that what you really thought? That I'd blacken your name to your big English friends -and the King, and them - and that sweet little girl in the paper?' The level of the voice never rose, but the glare of the eyes was unwavering. 'You think I'd do that to a friend? To the man that bust me from Deadwood, and stood up with me at Wilcox and Snake Bend and Greentree Creek where we broke banks for coffee and doughnuts - or all those trains Cassidy was so sure had payrolls and never did? The stupid son-of-a-bitch,' added Logan, with dispassionate irrelevance, 'no wonder, he got his fool head blown off in South America. D'you think I'd do that to you?'