23
Over at the saloon, Ezra Welk was
innocently gathering information as quickly as it came in. He had
got to be on a first-name basis with Nicky, one of the few barmaids
who worked the day shift, and Nicky was his new font of
information.
Sampson Davis had perished sometime
during the day, and had been moved from the jail to the
undertaker’s, then from the undertaker’s back to the jail. Nicky
wasn’t certain why, but after she reported, a short time later,
that Rachael Cohen (wife of Solomon Cohen, the mercantile owner)
had entered the jail carrying packages and clothes, he managed to
put two and two together.
They were all a bunch of
Jews!
Which meant that Davis was one, too. Or
had been.
It figured. He’d known there was
something wrong with Davis right from the very start, hadn’t he? He
wasn’t a religious man—far from it—but the term “Christ killer”
rolled nicely on his tongue. And he’d never admit it, but he liked
having somebody around he could feel morally superior to. He
congratulated himself on his prescience, and ordered another beer.
There was just enough time to drink it before he needed to be back
at the boardinghouse. That was, if he wanted a share of that big
turkey that he’d seen Mrs. Kendall put into the oven this
morning.
His stomach rumbled at the thought of
it!
That evening found Rachael in the jail,
quietly attending to Davis’s body. It was dark and she was alone,
so when she heard the door open she jumped.
“Solomon?” she said, scolding herself.
But the next voice she heard didn’t belong to her
husband.
“Mrs. Kendall told me you were
preparing the body for burial,” said a female voice.
“Yes,” said Rachael, then, “Who’s
there?”
“Sorry,” said the voice before its
owner stepped into the feeble light of the solitary lantern Rachael
had lit. Judith Strong peeled the light gloves from her hands and
shrugged. “Ich, auch, bin Juden,” she said,
indicating that she, too, was of the Jewish faith and
heritage.
Rachael was so shocked and happy that
she nearly fell to her knees and kissed the woman’s hem! After all
this time, all these years, another Jewish woman!
Instead, she began sobbing. “Praise be
to Jehovah!” she gasped through her tears.
“You mean it’s just us?” the woman
asked, and when Rachael nodded, she shook her head. “No
chverah kadisha, then?”
Rachael’s head shook, to indicate there
was no sacred Jewish burial society. How could there be, when she
and her family were—or had been—the only Jews in town?
“America,” the newcomer muttered,
shaking her head as she went to the basin and began to wash her
hands. “Small towns. My name’s Judith, by the way. Judith
Strong.”
“R-Rachael Cohen.”
“I know. I’ve seen you before. Your
husband, he owns the mercantile?”
Rachael sniffed. “Yes.”
“And you just had a baby, I
hear?”
Rachael smiled, just a tad. “Yes.
Little Sarah.”
Toweling her hands, Judith Strong
nodded. “I heard she was very sickly. She’s better
now?”
“Thank you, she’s much improved, knock
wood.” Rachael had a grip on herself by this time, and wiped her
eyes with her hankie. She accidentally glanced at Judith Strong’s
hands, and saw the many tiny scabs covering her fingertips. She
said, “You’re our new milliner and dressmaker?”
Judith smiled and said, “My hands give
me away every time.”
“I’m sorry,” Rachael said
self-consciously, and flushed. “I didn’t mean to
stare.”
Judith’s smile widened and she put a
hand on Rachael’s shoulder. “It’s all right, my dear. Do you have
tachrichin?”
Rachael nodded, and pointed to a
paper-wrapped package on the desk. She only had the tachrichin left from the long ago journey west, because
she had been afraid that either she or her husband would die during
the journey. She had wanted to be sure there was enough of the
plain, white shroud—this one was hand-loomed from cotton, not
linen—to wrap the body and bury it. And now it was going to wrap
the body of a killer, the man who had murdered their friend Ward
Wanamaker.
“Very good, then. And I know the
prayers for each part of the ritual, if you don’t.”
Rachael said, “Please. Yes, you
preside, please.” A small smile crossed her lips. Imagine, a woman
knowing an “official” part of the preparation of the body! She
added, “And then we will sit and be shomerim? Through the aninut?”
she added, to make certain that she wouldn’t be left alone with him
again until he was in the ground.
“Yes,” said Judith, curling her long
arm about Rachael’s shoulders and directing her back toward the
cell, and the body. “We will both stay to guard him. Sehr gut?”
Rachael’s head bobbed up and down.
“Ja,” she said in her pidgen Deutsch, which
Judith seemed to be speaking more than pure Yiddish. “Sehr gut.”
Very good.
Outside the town walls, Father Micah
was burning the midnight oil, quite literally. Just south of where
the wagon train had been parked, he sat on the ground with his
lantern beside him, forming a mixture of Arizona’s plentiful
caliche earth, plus straw, plus a mixture that Mr. Cohen had given
him, into adobe bricks. He picked up another handful of mud and
pressed it firmly into the wooden mold before him, then turned it
out, upside down, besides the countless others he’d made during the
day.
Well, he hadn’t actually made them
alone. Several of his future parishioners had helped during the
day. Mrs. Morelli, the most. What a kind woman! But when night had
fallen, they had all retreated within the walls. It was suppertime,
after all. But Mrs. Morelli had sent a plate out to him, bless her.
He could still taste the delicious lasagna she’d made, and wondered
if the whole town ate this well every night.
He had used up the last of the mud and
was wondering whether it was worth it, in his exhausted state, to
make another, when he heard sounds to the south.
Riders?
He pulled himself up to his feet and
peered into the distance. Then, like a jackrabbit, he sprinted for
the gate!
“Indians!” he shouted as he hurried
inside and pushed the big gates shut behind him. “Apache! To arms!
To arms!”
Jason was running the second he heard
the alarm sounded, and quickly gained the top of the stockade wall
to the south. There were Indians, all right, but they weren’t
stripped and greased for battle. At least, not that he could tell
in the moonlight. He heard a rifle cock to his left, and shouted,
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” loudly enough that the whole
town, silent and holding its breath, could hear him.
He watched as the Apache drew closer,
then halted and spread out in a long line that went from the creek
on the west and out into the darkness in the east. Jason rubbed at
the gooseflesh covering his arms.
He couldn’t figure out why they were
there! They weren’t attacking, that was for certain. But what other
reason would they have for riding all this way? And why the hell
were they spread out like that?
One brave, the war chief it looked
like, rode out from the line a few feet and stopped his pony.
“Todd!” he cried, and it took Jason a second to realize that the
savage was saying Abe Todd’s name, not speaking Apache
gibberish.
Beside him, Abe was just gaining the
top of the wall.
Jason said, “They’re askin’ for you,”
as Abe peered over.
“I hope to kiss a pig, they are,” he
said, then raised his voice, shouting, “Caballo
Negro!”—which Jason’s lousy Spanish translated as “Black
Horse”—followed by a string of guttural words and phrases that he
didn’t understand.
In fact, the exchange turned into quite
a conversation. Every once in a while, Abe would stop and translate
part of it for Jason, which put his mind at ease and stopped his
quaking in his boots, but Abe was just a little too chummy with the
redskins for his taste.
After about ten minutes of this, they
must have said good-bye, because the brave backed his horse into
the line before they all regrouped, then turned and cantered off to
the south again.
After they were gone from sight, Jason
turned toward Abe. “Friends?” he asked, one brow
arched.
“Reckon. ’Bout as close as you can get
with an Apache without dyin’ for him. Or marryin’ his daughter.”
Abe cracked a smile. “Why? You plan on tryin’ to cozy
up?”
Jason started backing down the ladder.
“Hell, no! How’d you get to be so friendly with ’em,
anyway?”
“Well, about five years back I was down
the Colorado—marshal business—when I sorta got tangled up with
’em,” Abe said as he followed Jason down the ladder and joined him
on the ground. “I ended up being took prisoner along with the man I
was with. I was haulin’ him up north for trial. Anyhow, the Apache
killed him, but for some reason, not me. Never did understand the
why of it, and I was too grateful to ask. Never thought I’d be good
at it, but I picked up their tongue right off.” Abe shook his head
and chuckled. “Dangedest thing! Just come natural to me, I guess.
Anyhow, they ended up lettin’ me go, once they’d had some fun with
me.”
“I’m assuming this is the short
version?” Jason said as they started down the street. It seemed the
whole town was coming out to join them.
“Yup,” replied Abe, and he remained
silent until Salmon Kendall came running up to them.
“What happened? What did they say? Are
they going to attack?” he asked all in a rush. Jason finally had to
take him by the shoulders and give him a little shake to calm him
down long enough so that he could listen.
“Tell him, Abe,” he said. “Salmon’s our
newspaperman, so don’t spare the details.”
Abe obliged. “You’re safe, there,
Salmon. Everybody’s safe. They just rode up from their camp to
thank us, that’s all.”
Salmon’s head tipped to the side.
“Thank us for what?”
Abe turned to Jason. “You didn’t tell
nobody?”
Jason shrugged.
Abe shook his head and began from the
beginning, telling Salmon that they had taken a ride down to Matt
MacDonald’s place the day before, and backtracked the creek.
“MacDonald had built himself up a dam down south of his place. We
figured as much, since the stream clear up here in town was
sluggish and near topping its banks. So anyhow, we busted it down,
us and six or seven of MacDonald’s men. There was Indians watchin’,
but they didn’t show any signs of tryin’ to stop us or nothin’.
Guess one of ’em recognized me, ’cause that was practically the
whole dang tribe, coming to thank us for the water. See, MacDonald
had cut off their water supply, which was why—”
“Cut off their water supply!” Salmon
chirped, happily making notes. “Oh, this is grand, just
grand!”
“You write down that this doesn’t make
us ‘blood brothers’ with the Apache,” Jason piped up. “Just means
there’s a temporary truce, that’s all.”
“For which we’re grateful,” added
Abe.
Jason nodded. Solomon Cohen was at his
side, patiently waiting to talk to him, so he said, “Abe, why don’t
you take Salmon down to the saloon and fill him in? I’m gonna go on
home.”
“Right,” said Abe. “See you tomorrow.”
He led an attentive Salmon on down the street.
Jason turned toward Solomon, saying,
“Yes?”
Solomon said, “I was listening while
Marshal Todd talked. I believe I have most of it, thank you. And I
mean, thank you for everything!”
Curious, Jason cocked his head.
“Huh?”
“For everything,” Solomon repeated.
“For breaking down the dam and getting rid of those Apache with no
one getting hurt, for giving us the use of the jail tonight, for
everything.”
Jason’s brain had to throw on the hand
brake before he figured out the jailhouse business. He smiled. “No
problem. To any of it.” He wasn’t lying. It could have been much,
much worse. “It’s Abe Todd we ought to be grateful to, for speaking
such good Apache.”
“Of course. But still, you have our
thanks, Rachael’s and mine. Along with the whole town, of
course!”
Sol shifted the bundle in his arms, and
it wasn’t until that moment that Jason realized he was carrying
baby Sarah. He reached over and gently pulled back the fold of
swaddling covering part of the sleeping infant’s face. “How’s she
doin’?”
She looked healthy enough, but it was
only polite to ask.
Solomon broke out in a wide smile.
“Fine, just fine! She is much better, and thank you for asking. I
was just goin’ to the jail to see if Rachael was all right. She’s
there alone, you know.”
Jason nodded.
“Well, then . . .”
Jason held back a little chuckle. “Go
on with you, Sol. I’m sure she’s fine. And you can fill her in on
what just happened.”
“She’s probably scared silly. You know
women.” Solomon shifted the baby again and walked
away.
Yeah, I know,
Jason thought as he turned to go back to his house and avoid the
crowd already gathering outside his office. And then he
reconsidered.
No, he thought,
shaking his head. I don’t know ’em at
all.