24
The town of Fury buried Sampson Davis
the next day.
The only Jew serving as a pall bearer,
Solomon, was aided by Jason, Salmon Kendall, Wash Keogh, Rafe
Lynch, Marshal Todd and, of all people, the Reverend Milcher.
Solomon had resisted Milcher’s inclusion long and hard, but when no
one else came forward, he had to give in. Neither the Reverend Bean
nor Father Micah was anywhere in sight.
They carried his body in a casket made
with no metal fittings, just pegs and wedges to hold it together,
and before the casket left the jail, both Rachael and Judith
performed the ritual keriah, or symbolic
rending of their clothes. This entailed each of them making a small
tear—made where Judith said she could fix it, of course—in her
clothing, in lieu of Sampsom having no family present.
When the procession made its way up the
street—stopping seven times for reasons Jason didn’t completely
understand—and into the cemetery, the “mourners” recited the 23rd
Psalm, Solomon recited the memorial prayer El Maleh
Rakhamin, the Mourner’s Kaddish, and since they had no rabbi
present, the eulogy. It was short but memorable, and during the
first part of it Solomon was so nervous that he shook and stuttered
a bit. But all in all, it went pretty smoothly, Jason thought,
right through the part where they all had to shovel three scoops of
earth onto the echoing coffin, say, “May he come to his place in
peace,” and then stick the shovel back in the pile of earth where
he’d found it. This was to avoid the passing on of death, Solomon
told them, as if it were catching.
They all had to wait until the grave
was completely filled in, then the pall bearers were told to wash
their hands before they left—Jason and Abe used the horse
trough—and that was it. So far as Jason was concerned,
anyhow.
While nearly the entire saloon had
emptied to go and catch a peek at Davis’s funeral, Ezra Welk sat
nearly alone in the saloon, deciding if right now would be the best
time to go and shoot that goofy excuse for a dog that seemed to be
hanging around town. He finally decided against it.
But he was bored silly. This town was
getting entirely too calm for him. He was pissed that he’d missed
the whole Indian thing, pissed that he didn’t get to see Davis
hang, or at least watch them haul the marshal’s body into town over
his horse. Either marshal would have done. What was the danged West
coming to, anyhow?
He thought again about the dog, and
thought something that ugly surely didn’t deserve to live. He’d
decided not to shoot it, but now he reconsidered. After all, who
the hell’d miss it?
He downed the rest of his beer, stood
up, and started for the batwing doors.
Bill Crachit, having been left by
Solomon to guard the mercantile against Hannibal, sat slouched in a
chair beneath the overhang. There were no customers during the
funeral, and he’d spent a peaceful half hour sitting out front,
watching Hannibal drowse (and chase imaginary rabbits in his sleep)
on the sidewalk outside the marshal’s office.
But as he watched, he noticed a man
come out of the saloon. He’d figured about everybody else was at
the funeral, but he’d been wrong. He hadn’t seen this fellow
before, either.
The fellow started to walk across the
street, toward the marshal’s office, and as he walked, he pulled
his gun.
Bill stood up, all the hairs on his
neck standing on end.
The man stopped in the middle of the
road and raised his pistol, pointing it at Hannibal.
“Stop! Don’t!” Bill leapt off the porch
and took two long strides before he heard the shot.
At first he thought Hannibal was dead,
and then he realized that the gunshot had come from behind him. The
man down the street had fallen, while the dog was just gaining his
feet, yawning and stretching.
From behind him, a voice asked, “You
okay, Bill?”
Tears pooling in his eyes, he whirled
about and recognized the speaker, who was just shoving his Colt
back in its holster.
Thickly, he replied, “Yessir, Marshal
Fury. I mean, Jason.” Then he got some of the stiff back in his
spine. He shot an accusing finger toward the body lying down the
street. “Did you see? He was gonna shoot Hannibal!”
Jason nodded. There was another man
with him. The deputy U.S. marshal, Bill thought, and he was wearing
a brand new hat, a heavy-duty Stetson. Mr. Cohen had sold it to him
the first thing this morning.
Jason said, “I don’t believe he’s gonna
try that again, for a while, anyway.”
“Mebbe not never,” said the U.S.
Marshal, and started ahead, on down the street.
Bill heard Jason mutter, “Christ, no .
. .” before he took off, running down the street after the older
marshal.
Jason skidded to a halt next to Abe,
just as he stopped beside the downed man. “Is he . . . is he still
alive?” he asked hopefully, his voice shaking almost as hard as his
knees. He’d shot men before, but never just for threatening a dog!
What had he been thinking?
Abe didn’t answer him, at least, not
yet. He had bent to the body, checked for a pulse, and was going
through the pockets. He found a worn wallet, stood up, and started
going through it.
After what seemed like hours (during
which Jason imagined himself going through a trial, then being
marched out to a scaffold and hanged, then being read over by the
Reverend Milcher in a much less kindly tone than he’d used for
Ward), Abe looked up and said, “Thought so.”
“What does that mean?”
“Thought he looked familiar. He was
Ezra Welk, wanted for a string’a killin’s and robberies over the
last ten, fifteen years or so.” He looked over toward Jason.
“Wanted in the Arizona Territory, too. Reckon there’s a bunch’a
folks who’ll be tickled pink to close the books on
him.”
Jason felt his insides slowly begin to
settle themselves again.
“C’mon, hero,” Abe said, thumping
Jason’s arm. “Help me drag this dog turd over to the side’a the
road.”
They went back to the office when it
was over, and Abe pulled out a chair, lit himself a smoke, and
said, “Well, I’d best be makin’ my way back up to
Prescott.”
“What?” asked Jason. It was the last
thing he had expected.
“Gotta file my report. Gotta turn in
ol’ Ezra.” He tipped his head toward the door. “Gotta talk to my
boss ’bout gettin’ hitched.” He grinned self-consciously. “Gotta
arrange a change in duty, too.”
“Electa know about this?”
“Oh, yeah. We talked it all over
yesterday. Sure gonna be nice to have her to come home
to.”
Abe was fast fading into a waking
dreamland, and Jason tried to engage him in conversation. “So,
when’re you two tyin’ the knot?”
“What? Oh, next Saturday. I already
talked to the reverend.”
“Milcher or Bean?”
“Milcher,” Abe said with a shrug. “He’s
the only one what’s got a church. Electa says he used to be pretty
pushy, but somethin’ must’a happened, cause he’s got a lot softer
lately.”
Well, that was true. But Jason kept on
talking. “You find a place to live yet?”
Abe blew out a long plume of smoke
before he said, “Well, Electa said that her folks’d be tickled pink
to have us move in with them for the time bein’, but I told her
that I think I really oughta stick around town. You know, keep in
touch.”
Jason nodded. He wholeheartedly
agreed.
“So, I reckon we’ll stay at the roomin’
house. I’ve already got a room over there. And Mrs. Kendall says
she can give the two of us a bigger one, iffen we want.” He stopped
and smiled. “I reckon we’ll take her up on that. Till I can get us
a house, that is. Why don’t this town have a
telegraph?”
The question caught Jason a little off
guard, but he said, “’Cause nobody’s strung the wires, I guess.
Don’t know that we’ve got anybody here who knows how to use the
damn thing, even if we had one.”
Abe snorted. “Oh, I reckon somebody knows. Just gotta get some wires strung up,
that’s all. I’ll check on it while I’m in Prescott.” He stubbed out
his smoke and stood up, stretching slightly. “Oh. And I’ll tell ’em
about Lynch—don’t you need a new deputy? Been thinkin’ he’d do
better’n most—and Teddy Gunderson and Davis and such. That crazy
MacDonald character and how he blocked off the Apache water supply,
too. Head marshal’ll get a kick outta that one,” he said with a
grin and a shake of his head. “Well, I’ll see you in three, four
days, Jason. Hold the fort.”
“You’re leaving now?”
“Good a time as any,” Abe replied,
already halfway out the door. Jason figured he must be in such a
big toot on account of Electa and getting married and all. It was
none of his nevermind, but he suddenly realized that in a very
short span of time, he’d come to depend on Abe more than he’d
wanted.
Well, stiff upper lip and all that, he
supposed. He stood up and said, “You have a safe trip, now,” and
watched the big man exit his office and head up the street, toward
the livery. Then he went back to his desk and sat down with an
audible thud—and a heavy sigh.
Hannibal, who was now ensconced in the
first cell, echoed his sigh, then lay down on the cot.
Jason flicked a finger toward the cot.
“Get down, Hannibal.”
No response.
“Off, Hannibal.”
Nothing.
“What the hell. Stay up there and
shed.”
The dog immediately hopped down and
stretched out on the floor, leaving Jason to shake his
head.
The door opened and Rafe walked in.
“That was sure somethin’, wasn’t it?” he asked, grabbing a chair
and swinging it around backwards before he plopped down. “And who’s
the dead guy on your sidewalk?” He reached for his fixings
pouch.
“What was something?” Jason asked
before the gears of his brain managed to engage. “Ezra Welk? Oh.
You mean the funeral! Yeah, it sure was. I found Davis’s address in
his pocket, so I gave it to Solomon. He’s gonna write to the
family, let ’em know everything’s handled.”
“Good,” said Rafe, then held forward
his tobacco pouch. “Smoke?”
“Thanks.” Jason patted his pocket. “Got
my own.”
Well, he’d been thinking it, and now
Abe had said it. He supposed he should just do it and get it over
with. He cleared his throat, then said, “Rafe, how’d you like a
job?”
Rafe puffed on his smoke for a moment,
then said, “Ain’t like I need the money, but what you got in
mind?”
“I’m needing a deputy, now that Ward’s
. . . now that he’s gone. What’d you think?”
“Ain’t comin’ in in the
mornings.”
“I want you for night
deputy.”
Rafe stared at the cigarette twisting
in his fingers, then looked up. “Sure. ’Bout time I spent some time
on the right side of the law, don’t’cha think?”
Jason nodded. “I do, indeed.” He still
had his doubts, but he figured he was pretty well stuck with it.
And he was stubborn. Once committed, he’d hold his ground until
hell froze over.
Rafe was shaking his head and grinning.
“Boy, this is a heck of a turnaround, ain’t it?” He turned toward
Jason. “You realize I can’t go to California, right? At least, not
in an official what-ya-call.”
“Capacity.”
“Yeah, that.”
“I realize it.”
“Well then, yeah. I’d admire to, and
thanks for askin’!”
Jason began to roll himself a smoke.
“No problem,” he lied, then paused and leaned forward. “I’m
trustin’ you, Rafe. Don’t let me down.”
Rafe just grinned at him.
Father Micah was back making his adobe
bricks, and had been since breakfast. He had help from inside the
walls, as yesterday, and today they were not only making new
bricks, but transporting the dried and finished ones inside, as
well. Father Micah had already staked out where he wanted the walls
and doors to go, so the Morelli and Donovan kids knew where to pile
the bricks once they were hauled inside.
In all, the Father had most of five
families doing duty this morning, packing brick molds with the mud
mixture, turning them out to bake in the Arizona sun, or loading
cured bricks onto handcarts for the children to take inside the
walls.
He pretty much had a handle on it, he
thought to himself, always visualizing what the building would look
like when it was finished, and praising God for this opportunity to
serve.
And he wasn’t alone in working. There
was an entire crew at work in town, erecting the water tower, and
Salmon Kendall was their foreman. Or he would be, once he got the
type set for his headline story. He’d said he figured that young
Sammy could crank the presses as well as anybody else, and he was
needed across the street.
The men working on the water tower made
so much noise, in fact, that they finally drove Jason from his
office and over to the saloon.
“Beer,” he said to Sam, the barkeep,
once he arrived. He turned toward the doors and made a face. He
could still hear them clear over here, hammering and yammering, but
at least it wasn’t so cotton-picking . . . immediate!
Sam slid the beer in front of him, and
he gratefully took a long gulp. “How do you stand the
noise?”
Sam shrugged. “A body can get used to
’bout anythin’, I reckon. And well,” he added, grinning and tugging
a plug of cotton from one ear, “these help.”
Jason cocked his head. “How’d you hear
me when I ordered, then?”
“Read your lips,” Sam replied. “You’d
be surprised what a feller learns, tendin’ bar.”
Jason tipped his hat, then carried his
beer to a table in the front corner of the place. Business was
slow, it still being the forenoon, but he noticed a few other
fellows coming through the doors and holding their ears, including
two that had been working on the job site.
Jason waved one of them over to his
table. It was Steve Jeffries, one of the newcomers from the wagon
train several months back.
“Mornin’,” Jason said.
“Mornin’ yourself,” Steve echoed. “We
makin’ enough noise for you?”
“More than enough. Say, when you
fellers plan to finish up, anyhow?”
“Today? Mr. Kendall says we’re workin’
till dark.”
Jason waved his hands. “No, no. I mean
the whole job.”
“Oh. Well then, I don’t know. When it’s
finished, I reckon.” He snorted out a laugh. “Guess you’d have to
ask Mr. Kendall. He’s runnin’ the show.”
Jason sighed. “Okay, thanks, Steve.
I’ll do that.”
But in his mind, he thought only one
word: Crap!
Solomon Cohen finally finished up the
letter he was going to send to California, to Sampson Davis’s
family. He had labored over it long and hard—a wastebasket filled
with crumpled paper bore witness to that—but it was finally
finished, and he set it aside more forcefully than one would
normally lay down a piece of paper.
“Finished?” asked Rachael from the
kitchen, where she was hard-boiling eggs.
Solomon sat back and sighed. “I
suppose.” He almost asked her if she’d heard the bell jingle before
he remembered that he’d left Bill Crachit on duty downstairs. He
relaxed again. “The service. It was all right?”
“How many times are you going to be
asking? It was fine, Sol, just lovely. His family would have been
pleased. Now, stop, already.”
Solomon shook his head. “Such a burden
to have a kvetching wife . . .”
Rachael stuck her head around the
corner. “I heard that,” she growled. But she was grinning. “You
know, Solomon, that even a rabbi couldn’t have done a better job
than you did. I couldn’t help but be proud.”
Solomon felt himself color slightly at
her words. “Thank you, my Rachael. But you shouldn’t say such
things. A rabbi would have been much better. Much
better.”
She was still smiling. “Yes, dear. You
know best, dear.”
Solomon felt the shroud of uncertainty
lift from him like a cloak had been pulled from his shoulders, and
barked out a laugh. He jumped from his chair and lunged for
Rachael, who tried to duck back behind the shelving, but didn’t
make it. Solomon caught her in his arms, and the two of them
laughed like maniacs until Rachael was in tears.
“Stop, Sol!” she cried. “Stop, already!
You’ll make me wet myself!”
He let her go, although he was loathe
to, and she stepped back, still tittering, and moved the eggs from
the burner to the sink, where she poured off the boiling water and
replaced it with cool well water from a bucket.
“Why do you always do
that?”
“Because you’re greedy, and I don’t
want you to burn yourself.”
“Always thoughtful.”
“I try.”
He took her in his arms again. “And you
succeed, my Rachael. You succeed.”
He kissed her, long and
hard.