Giving Up the Ghost (7 page)

I crossed to the door, lifted the latch, and was out on the street in an instant, making my way down and across to the depot. Only, Calder wasn't sitting there anymore. I stood in the street a moment, feeling foolish in my nightclothes and cape, and hoping no one would see me. Then I turned back and made for the shadows beneath the porches and false fronts on the north side of the street.

As I passed the dark windows of the Occident Saloon, two doors down from the agency, I was startled by a man who struck a match on his belt buckle and lit a cigar with it. He was leaning lazily against a red hooped water barrel, the kind that dotted every block in the case of fire, and from the glow of the match I could see that his face was hard and stubbled and that he wore a bowler hat tilted forward over his brow.

“Good evening,” he said.

I smiled, but said nothing, and tried to walk past.

He stuck out his boot.

“Where you off to in such a hurry?”

I sidestepped the offending piece of footwear.

“Stay and we can talk.”

His voice was rough and confident and sounded like he belonged east of the Mississippi, but not too far east. Chicago, perhaps.

“Nonsense,” I said.

He grasped the shoulder of my cape and pulled me to him.

“I said, Ophelia Wylde, we should talk.”

It seemed odd that he knew my name.

“I am always willing to interview prospective clients,” I said. “The agency opens at nine o'clock, mostly, but sometimes as late as eleven,” I said. “Considering what an active night I've had, your best chance would probably be in the afternoon. Of course, your behavior has already made me disinclined to take your case, so if I were you, I wouldn't get my hopes up.”

I jerked free of his grasp.

“How sharper than a serpent's tooth is a woman with a wicked tongue.”

“You've bent the quote all up,” I said.

“It's in the Bible,” he protested.

“That's not in the King James, you idiot. That's Shakespeare, and it's about an ungrateful child,” I said. “So you've now compounded your ignorance.”

He drew a gun from inside his coat.

“You think you're smarter than everybody else, don't you?”

“No,” I said. “Sadly, I am not smarter than most people. I have some talents that I attempt to use to my best advantage, but there are plenty of people who are smarter and more talented than I am. I'm sure you have admirable qualities yourself that are not, at this moment, apparent.”

He drew back the hammer of the gun until it locked.

“Be still for one moment,” he said.

“I tend to talk when I'm scared,” I said. “And right now, you're scaring the daylights out of me. What do you want?”

“Shut up,” he said, and shoved the barrel of the gun into my ribs.

I was quiet.

“You're going to turn down the alley between the buildings, with me right behind you,” he said.

“And then what?”

“Never you mind,” he said.

“We'd be more comfortable at the agency.”

“Just go,” he said.

“All right,” I said softly, taking a cautious step forward. The gun pressed against my side, and I took a few more steps, wondering how much longer I had to live. Once we were in the darkness of the alley, I stumbled along, unsure of my footing amid the broken bottles and other debris that had been thrown there.

“Keep going,” he said.

“It's dark,” I said.

Then I tripped on one of my laces and fell.

The moment I struck the ground, there was the deafening roar of a pistol shot.

I cried out in terror, sure that I had been murdered.

There were two more shots, and then another, all in quick succession, and I realized that the shots were coming from several yards down the alley. My abductor was staggering back, toward Front Street, and as he reached the light I could see that he was holding one arm tight across his chest, but still grasping the pistol with his other hand.

“Stop!”

It was Calder, advancing out of the darkness. He touched my shoulder as he walked past, his large gun at the ready, his eyes on the stricken man in the bowler hat.

“Drop the pistol,” I heard Wyatt Earp call from the street.

Earp was walking toward him from the west, gun held low but ready.

The man in the bowler turned sideways to regard this new threat, then attempted to bring his gun up.

Earp fired.

The bullet struck the man in the throat.

He dropped the gun and fell to his knees. The gun discharged when it struck the ground, and the bullet ricocheted from a hoop on one of the fire buckets and made a wicked zinging sound.

Blood spewed from the man's throat, squirting in time to his heartbeat. The man clawed at the wound, looking absurdly as if he were trying to loosen his collar, and the bowler hat fell to the street.

“Are you all right?” Calder asked me.

I had been following behind him, and he noticed I was limping.

“Turned my ankle,” I said.

“Stay put,” he said.

The man had toppled over now, still clutching his geysering throat, and his hands were wet with blood. Earp walked over and kicked the gun out of his reach.

Calder knelt down, but kept his own gun ready.

“You're dying,” Calder said. “You're shot twice in the brisket and once in the windpipe, and you're bleeding out pretty quick. You might as well make a clean account of things and tell me who you're working for.”

The man's eyes were wide in terror.

“What about your name?”

The man tried to speak, but just managed a horrible wet sound.

“Dammit, Wyatt, why'd you have to shoot him in the throat?”

“Wasn't like I had the time or the light to take real careful aim,” Earp said.

The gunshots had summoned Mackie from the station, and he was watching timidly from a few yards away. A few curious others were milling about in the street, and a few lamps were now lit in the storefronts.

“Isn't there anything you can do for him?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Calder said. “Let him die.”

“Why?”

“He was going to kill you, Ophelia.”

“This isn't right,” I said, limping toward the man. “We can't just.”

Calder held me back.

“You know how sometimes a wolf is the most dangerous when it's in a trap and dying?” Calder asked. “It's the same here.”

“But he's not an animal,” I said, afraid I was going to cry.

“Mackie, go fetch Doc McCarty,” Earp said.

The telegrapher dashed off down the street.

The left sleeve of Earp's white shirt was dripping with blood.

“You're hurt, too.”

“Damn it,” Wyatt said, noticing it for the first time. “Must've been that damned ricochet what stung me.” He flexed his hand several times. “It's nothing, because I can still move my arm and my fingers.”

“Doc still needs to look at it,” I said. “Calder, do something.”

Calder sighed and handed his gun to Earp, who now held a gun in each hand. Then Calder pulled a kerchief from his pocket and pressed it against the man's throat, trying to stem the flow of blood.

“Doc better hurry,” Calder said. “It's frothy.”

Calder applied more pressure.

The man's hands loosened and fell to his sides, and his eyelids fluttered.

“Careful,” Earp said. “You're strangling him.”

“Then tell me how to do it otherwise.”

Calder repositioned his hands.

“There,” he said. “I can feel—”

The man drew a silver dagger from his belt with a bloody right hand.

“Knife,” Wyatt said.

Calder sprang back as the point of the knife came in an arc toward his gut. The blade missed, but narrowly. Calder, who was now standing, pinned the man's wrist to the ground with the heel of his right boot.

“Want me to finish him?” Wyatt asked.

The man writhed for a moment, then went limp.

“No need,” Calder said. “It's the end of him.”

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Both wolves and men stop bleeding when they die.”

Then McCarty came, carrying a lamp and in his nightshirt, and confirmed what we already knew. He looked at Wyatt's wound, and said it wasn't very deep, but that it would be wise to wash it out with carbolic acid. Then McCarty insisted on looking at my ankle, and, after feeling it, declared that it wasn't broken.

Wyatt reached down and scooped the dented bowler from the street. He glanced inside, then removed a card and asked McCarty to bring the lamp over so that he could read it.

“Says his name was Frank Blackmar,” he said. “A Pinkerton man.”

That would explain the Chicago accent, but little else. The Pinkertons often worked for the railways, but from what I knew they were more associated with the Rock Island than the Santa Fe.

“Sometimes people carry false credentials,” Calder said. “Everybody's heard of the Pinkertons, so that would buy some influence. We can send a telegram tomorrow to Chicago asking them to confirm his identity.”

“No, we can't,” I said. “The wires are down, remember?”

Wyatt tossed the hat next to the body of the mysterious gunman.

“Somebody should call Mitford,” he said.

“I'm glad you're not badly hurt, Wyatt.”

As soon as I spoke the words, I realized that I had stopped thinking of him as Earp the moment he was wounded.

“Any idea what this man was after?” Calder asked.

“Not the faintest,” I said.

“Do you think it could be connected to your newfound railway friends?”

“I can't imagine,” I said. “I did not care for Strong, but there seems no advantage for the railroad to have me killed. No one could have predicted the circumstances that led to my meeting with Strong on the
Ginery Twitchell,
and I seemed the least informed of anyone about the atmospheric phenomenon and the disruption of the telegraph lines.”

“Come on, Ophelia,” Calder said. “I'll help you get home.”

“I think I can manage.”

“I'd feel better knowing you were home safe,” Calder said.

“So would I,” Wyatt said. “Go with him, Ophelia.”

I relented.

“Calder,” I said. “You were watching because you knew something wasn't right. And you, too, Wyatt.”

“Not me,” Wyatt said. “I was just coming down the street rattling doors when the fireworks started. It didn't take long to figure the odds. Jack, stop by the office tomorrow so you can give me a statement and we can make it all square and legal for the judge.”

“How did you know?” I asked Calder.

“I didn't,” he said. “But the man seemed to be hanging around the block for some reason, and I knew you had been leaving the door to the agency unlocked. Then, after shouting at me from your open window, you came downstairs and made it pretty easy for him to hustle you into the alley.”

“So you heard all of it.”

“Sure,” Calder said.

“You waited a long time before doing anything.”

“I was waiting for him to say what he was after,” Calder said.

“You
waited?
”

“Yes.”

“What if I hadn't fallen?” I asked. “You wouldn't have had a clear shot. He had the gun jammed so tight into my side, that he certainly would have killed me before you had a chance.”

“I knew something would happen,” Calder said. “Something always does.”

Somehow I didn't find Calder's faith in luck very comforting.

Safe, with the agency door locked and my bedroom window shut, I tumbled into bed and fell into a dreamless sleep. I slept far too late the next day, not rising until after nine. As I dressed, I knew that Calder was already at work downstairs, because I could smell coffee.

I was still yawning as I walked downstairs and took a cup from the sideboard.

“Good morning,” Calder said, looking up from his paperwork.

I mumbled something in reply as I filled the cup from the enamel coffeepot on the stove. Then I found my way to my own desk and sat down, both hands clasping the cup.

“Wild night, wasn't it?”

“Any word on our mysterious Mr. Blackmar?”

“There was no other identification on him, other than inside the hat,” Calder said. The dented bowler was resting on the corner of the desk. “Doc was thorough in his inspection of the body, and Mitford has him on ice next door.”

I made a face.

“Well, can't let him rot before somebody comes to claim him.”

“What are you working on?”

“Warrants served so far this month,” he said. “It's usually a little lean after the cattle season, but this year has been surprisingly busy. Ford County residents appear determined this year to keep pace with the state's larger municipalities in terms of felonies committed and bonds jumped.”

“And I thought we would just have to settle for being proud of our new school building,” I said.

I sipped some more coffee while Calder scribbled away with his pen.

His face said there was something wrong, but I knew from experience that he would do just about anything to avoid talking about his feelings. There was no real need to work on the accounts this morning, I knew, as the court had recently settled up with him for returning bail jumpers during the previous ninety days. Whatever he was doing—and he had an odd habit sometimes of making lists and figuring averages, particularly when following the scores of the local baseball teams—I knew it was just busywork to keep him from thinking about something else.

And it wasn't hard to guess what that something else might be.

“Calder,” I said.

“Yes?”

“Does it bother you having killed men?”

He returned the pen to the inkwell and blotted the ledger.

“It's not something I think about,” he said.

“I don't believe you,” I said.

Calder swiveled in his chair and looked at me.

“If Blackmar hadn't of been put down,” he said, “it would have been the end of you. Why are you feeling guilty about it?”

“I'm not,” I said. “The violence was horrific, and I would have liked to have been spared that, but you and Wyatt were clearly justified in the use of force.”

“I am in hopes the judge will see it that way.”

“How many men have you killed?”

“I don't count,” he said.

“Of course you do. You keep incessant lists of everything, from the number of warrants you've served this month, compared to the same time last year, to the number of runs at bat the pitcher of the Red Stockings can expect on any given day. So, tell me.”

“Seven,” he said. “That counts Blackmar.”

“How did the first one make you feel?”

“Rotten,” he said. “Just like I do now.”

“I'm glad you feel rotten,” I said. “I don't think I'd like you if you didn't.”

Calder rubbed the back of his ear.

“The old days were pretty wild,” he said. “Back when Dodge was young, and there wasn't any police force here, and the nearest law was at the fort, five miles away. If you think Dodge is wide open now, you should have seen it then, because it was hell on greased skids.”

“But there was the Committee of Vigilance,” I said.

“We had to do something,” he said. “So we formed our own police force, or at least our own idea of what it should be, and in the winter of 1873 we got our start by breaking up a saloon fight in which a couple of hands were killed. They deserved it, I guess. Then a month later, we chased out of town a buffalo hunter by the name of McGill who had been shooting out the lights in town just for the hell of it, and when he pulled his long gun on us, we killed him. It was me and Jimmy Hanrahan and John Scott—Scotty—doing most of the shooting, both times. The other bad elements in town got the message clear enough, and things settled down.”

He paused.

“And then,” he said, “some members of the committee began to enjoy the power we had. We had cleaned up the town, sort of, but then we started acting like the very people we had wanted to drive out in the first place. It doesn't take but a little power to give a man a powerfully big head, and we had a bad case of it. We walked around like we owned the place—which, in truth, we really did.”

“But you didn't act that way.”

“Not at first,” he said. “But I came around soon enough. I began taking a free drink and that occasional cigar and a meal every once in a while, and after just a couple of weeks I began to expect those things. Felt like I was owed them, somehow, but the truth is that I was just another bully.”

“That doesn't sound like you.”

“You wouldn't have spoken to me then.”

“What happened?”

“Things continued on like that for a while,” he said. “Then the cattle season came and the town started growing and the free drinks poured down on us like water. In early June, some members of the committee stole a mule team and wagon belonging to the colonel's manservant. When an orderly ran out to stop the theft, Scotty killed one of the mules for spite. I don't even remember why we wanted the wagon. It wasn't even loaded.”

“You were there?”

“And as drunk as the rest,” he said. “It seemed like grand sport at the time, taking the wagon, but when the mule was killed, it wasn't having fun anymore—it was just madness. It never occurred to us that we were doing exactly the same thing that we had run others out of town for, or forced confrontations that got them killed. After the killing of the mule, we were a mob. I remember my gun in my hand, ready. Didn't know what I was ready for, but I was ready. That gun was going to be fired.”

He paused and stared out the window, as if he were seeing it again.

“The colored man, Taylor, confronted us,” he said. “He objected rather strenuously to the killing of the mule, and said we should be ashamed of ourselves, and that there would be hell to pay when the colonel learned of what had happened. And then the mob just opened fire.”

“He was killed?”

“Badly wounded,” Calder said. “I sobered up then, just as if somebody had doused me with cold water, and me and a few others carried Taylor to the nearest drugstore, run by a man named Fringer, who dressed the wounds. But after I left the drugstore, a mob led by Scotty broke in and dragged the colored man screaming into the street, where they shot him dead.”

“Good Lord.”

Calder rubbed at the ink stain on his forefinger, from where he had gotten a bit careless while making his lists in the ledger. It occurred to me that the forefinger was his trigger finger.

“But you didn't shoot, did you?”

“I don't remember shooting,” he said. “But afterward, when I examined my revolver, there were three empty chambers. So I must have fired half a cylinder at something. It's possible I just fired into the air, because there was a lot of that. Or I could have helped kill the mule. I remember thinking at the time that a dead mule was ever so funny.”

I looked down at the large and shining gun in the holster on his hip.

“But there's a chance I may have shot Taylor,” he said.

“Is that the same gun you had then?”

“No,” he said. “Back then it was an old Army model cap-and-ball. Cartridge guns were quite new, and expensive. But I got rid of the gun soon after because I couldn't stand the feel of it.”

He cleared his throat and took a swallow of his coffee.

“I swore to myself that I'd never get that drunk again,” he said. “At least not while wearing heavy iron.”

“That seems wise,” I said. “Did anything happen to this Scotty?”

“A warrant was sworn out for his arrest, but he hid for two days in the ice house behind the Peacock Saloon, and then lit out,” Calder said. “Never has been seen since, at least not around here. He was the only one indicted.”

“What happened to the rest?”

“Still here, most of them. Hanrahan, for example. He led some buffalo hunters to the panhandle in June of 1874, and that resulted in the Second Battle of Adobe Walls with the Comanches, but he survived that to return to Dodge. Right after the death of Taylor, I packed up and went back to Presidio County—”

Calder had told me the story before, but in abbreviated form. I knew he had had a family in Texas, and that their wagon had been attacked by the Comanches at Sharp's Creek at about the time of the second Adobe Walls battle.

“You didn't tell me you were in Dodge before.”

“It's a story I'm ashamed of,” he said. “I had left Sarah and the boy in Texas. I had come up to Dodge looking for work, and found whiskey. That was easy, because I was the enforcer at Tom Sherman's barroom. After the killing of Taylor, I returned to my home in Presidio County.”

On an adventure the year before, Calder had told me the story of how his wife and child were killed by a renegade band of Quanah Parker's band of Comanches—and how he had tracked down and killed three of them, which began his career as a bounty hunter.

“After Sarah and Johnnie were gone,” he said, “all that had held promise for me in Texas was dead. I drifted back to Dodge and became a bounty hunter, because hunting people down and killing them seemed my only talent. And now that I was sober, I was damned good at it. The men I hunted deserved it, murderers and rapists. Every one of them, I thought, had taken their share of women and children, and if they resisted being brought back to stand trial, they deserved to die. I also discovered that the less one is concerned about one's own life, or about leaving a widow and orphans, the more cool and calculated one could become.”

“Were you hoping that you yourself would be killed?”

“I simply did not care,” he said. “I hated myself because I could not stand the precious time I had wasted, away from my own family. It wasn't just the Comanches that had taken them away from me, Ophelia. I had made the choice myself.”

“You went back to them.”

“Too late,” he said. “If only I could have had just one of those days back that I had squandered drinking and acting the fool, things would have been different. But of course, it never works that way. We are saddled with debts that we can never repay.”

“How did you conquer your grief?”

“Wouldn't say I conquered it,” he said. “It was more like a cease-fire.”

“What changed?”

“Dodge changed, for one,” he said. “A regular police force was established. There were fewer warrants to serve and, with some exceptions, the truly bad men began to avoid town.”

“There's still a vigilance committee,” I said. “You've told me.”

“There is,” he said. “But it's not needed like it once was.”

He cleared his throat, picked up his pen, and carefully dabbed the excess ink from the tip into the well before studiously returning to his lists.

“Perhaps,” he said, his eyes still on the rows of figures, “it never really was needed at all.”