A Good Man (60 page)

The shack behind the smithy looks like an apple crate. It doesn’t even have a window, but the chinks between the rough planks ooze a little light. Joe raps on a door hinged with old boot soles. The girl who answers is a little mite of a thing with a rat’s nest of sandy hair and eyelashes so pale at first he thought she had none at all. Despite the time of year, she is bare legged and wears a thin cotton dress. But she’s bright and cheery enough. “Hello there, mister!” she cries.

“Miss Eberhardt, I’d like a word.”

“Do come in,” she says. “In the dark, I get lonely.”

The shack is a dismal place, reeking of a slop can in the corner, and so cold that Joe can see his breath. There’s a rusty unlit stove and a coal scuttle holding a few tiny chips of coal hardly bigger than his thumb. Betsy Eberhardt apologizes for the chill. “I don’t light a fire till Grandpa gets home. The blacksmith lets me pick through the scraps of coal that fall by his forge.” She displays two small grimy paws and laughs heartily. “See! I just done harvesting!”

“Well,” says Joe, “I’m lucky to find you home then.”

“Let’s visit,” says Betsy, as if he’s some old family friend.

“I met your red-haired gentleman today,” says Joe.

“Was Mr. Figgis in town?” she says, giving a delighted clap of her hands. “Why ever didn’t that blamed rascal come see me?”

“I reckon he would have liked to but he was occupied.”

“Was Mr. Toomey with him?”

“I didn’t see Mr. Toomey.”

“They’re rivals,” Betsy confides. “First Mr. Figgis wanted to marry me and then Mr. Toomey did. I say, let them fight it out between them.”

“That’s a good policy,” Joe concedes.

“It’s how I operate,” Betsy says, doing her best to look coy and fetching.

“You was surprised Mr. Figgis was in town. I guess that means he hangs his hat elsewhere.”

“He got a nice little cabin up in the hills. About five miles from here. Well, it ain’t all his – he shares it with the other three fellows. They invited me to visit.”

“Four men, you say?”

“Yes, Mr. Figgis, Mr. Toomey, and a man they call Priest. I think he’s sweet on me too, but I don’t think priests is allowed to marry. And then the one who shooed me out of there, that blasted Mr. Dunne.” She wrinkles her nose. “Him I wouldn’t marry for love nor money.”

McMullen asks, “Could I take a chair, Miss Eberhardt?”

“Yes. But we only got two. When Grandpa comes home, you got to give it up.”

Betsy busies herself dragging the second chair out of a corner and up to the table. He lets the name Dunne sink in his mind, settles his breathing as she watches him with naked curiosity. “I’d like to pay your friends a visit too,” he says once he has recovered his coolness. “I wonder, could you tell me how to get to their cabin?”

Betsy launches into directions, but they’re so haphazard and mingled with chatter about how smitten the men in the cabin are with her, how jealous they are of each other, that by the time she’s finished Joe has only the vaguest idea of where they’re roosting.

“Miss Eberhardt, do you think you could make me a map?”

“I could, but there ain’t no paper nor writing things here.”

Joe considers for a moment, then takes out one of the handkerchiefs he bought for the wedding. “Maybe you could take a bit of coal and draw on this.”

“Oh, that’s too fine and pretty a article to dirty up!” Betsy exclaims.

“I got another in my pocket,” he says. “Picture me a map and the other’s yours.”

Delighted by the promise of a gift, she works away, twisting a lock of hair around her finger, giving him directions as she draws. “Right here is the roofs of Helena. You follow Mullan Road out of town about half a mile to this here stream,” she tells him, scribbling a wavy line on the cloth, “cross over it – it ain’t deep enough to get your feet wet – and move thisaways into the hills,” she says, making peaks and then laying down an arrow over top them. “Keep headed this direction maybe three more mile and soon enough, there you are, you’ve found it!” she cries triumphantly, slapping down an
X
on the cloth to mark the cabin. Finished, the map is a crude reference, but together with the information she’s supplied, Joe thinks he has a chance of finding the cabin.

McMullen places the other handkerchief on the table under Betsy’s admiring eyes and tells her he best be on his way.

“When you visit them boys you tell them they better come round and see Betsy soon. Tell them they ain’t the only fish in the ocean!”

“I’ll do that.”

Betsy follows him to the door. “Mister, how old are you?”

“Me?” says Joe, taken aback. “I’m fifty-four next birthday.”

Betsy thinks long and hard. “You’re nice, but I guess you’re too old. I reckon Figgis is a better age for me.”

“Yes,” says Joe, tips his hat to her and departs, feeling the throb in his bruised back and head. Maybe I am too old, he thinks, there’s a time I wouldn’t have felt a beating so. Taking the vial of Dover’s powder out of his pocket, he shakes a little into the palm of his hand and licks it up. He needs the opium to help his body do what is required of it now.

It’s a sorry, lamentable sight that greets Joe at the Franklin House. Hathaway is pacing the room in a frenzy. Ada sits on the bed, back bowed, face slumped in misery. She throws him an accusing look. “Why did you leave him, Joe? What were you thinking?”

McMullen wants to keep her from heaping blame and recrimination on her own head for running short on Dover’s powder. “I had to answer a call of nature,” he lies. “Gone but a few ticks. But I seen one of them.”

She shakes her head in disbelief. “Whoever are they? Whatever can this be about?”

“I ain’t certain. But there seems to be four involved. Dunne is one of them.”

For a moment Ada sits motionless, a little bit of a sparrow frozen to a winter branch. Then she stirs, passes her hand over her forehead slowly. “Yes. Dunne,” she says in a feeble voice. “I see it.”

“We must go to the sheriff,” announces Hathaway, aglow with resolve. “These fellows must be made to feel the full weight of the law.”

“No,” says Joe, “I don’t want no posse made up of saloon scourings and halfwits blundering about in this. No sheriff calling out to Dunne to surrender his prisoner and give himself up. There ain’t no predicting what he’d do faced with that.”

Ada speaks with quiet desperation. “You’re saying his intention is to murder Wesley. Is that it, Joe? Is it?”

“I ain’t about to try to read his mind. But if all he wanted was Wesley dead, he could have attended to that directly, right here in this room. Instead, Dunne hauled him off. And I’m going to get him back.”

“Yes,” says Hathaway, “I see what you’re thinking. Fall upon them as they fell upon Mr. Case, without warning – effect a swift citizen’s arrest. I agree. Give me a moment to collect my revolver, Mr. McMullen, and we’ll be off.”

“You ainȁt going. You’re staying here to look after Mrs. Tarr.”

Peregrine bridles. “If you doubt my courage, Mr. McMullen, I assure you it will not fail. I would give my life for Mr. Case.”

“I don’t doubt that. But I’m better suited to what needs doing. I got no scruples,” says McMullen. “You’re a good boy, Peregrine, and scruples might get underfoot and bring us down.” He passes the handkerchief-map to Hathaway. “This is where they’re supposed to be at. Give me three hours. If I ain’t returned by then, fall back on the law. Tell them there’s four of them.”

Suddenly, Ada says, “There’s another way, Joe. The two of us could go in the cutter. If I were there, I might be able to reason with Dunne.”

“Never. Get that out your head.”

“I know him. If I came with you, if I appealed to him – I think it might stay his hand.”

“He ain’t the only one, Ada. There’s three more. I ain’t walking you into that. Understand?” He attempts an encouraging smile. “I’ll be fine. My granny foretold I was going to die in a bed. I walk out of here right as rain and that’s how I’ll come back.” McMullen hesitates, then declares, “And when I do I’ll have Wesley with me. I swear it.” He stands looking at her, willing his words to sink in. But there’s no change in her stricken face, no sign she believes him. So Joe quickly sidles through the door, feeling the weight of a vow he’s not sure it’s in his power to keep.

TWENTY-EIGHT

DUNNE HAS CONSIDERED IT
from all sides. There’s no gainsaying it; Collins, as his contribution to the enterprise, has hung three millstones around his neck. Figgis, the lookout, bungled his job, made a dog’s breakfast of it. He brags he smashed McMullen’s brains to jelly, left him as good as dead, but Dunne knows a lie when he hears it. Figgis lost his hood and was
seen
. And he won’t admit the damage he has done to the undertaking. He just frets and whimpers over his chewed-up arm. “A dog bite ain’t nothing to a man bite,” he says. “They infect up terrible. I got to see a doctor right quick or I’ll lose it.” Dunne knows Figgis. Sooner or later he’ll take himself off to Helena seeking medical attention. That can’t happen.

Case is chuffing like a steam locomotive, is hot as a tin stovepipe, his lips are turning blue, and it all falls on Michael Dunne’s shoulders to preserve this valuable property. Nobody else will lift a finger to help. He asked Priest to take a turn caring for the unconscious man. All he said was, “Oh, Mr. Dunne, I’m not like you. I lack the motherly touch.” Then he laid himself out on his bunk and dove down into sleep, began mumbling. Dunne catches a word here and there dropping from his lips. Priest is dreaming the Rosary.

Toomey is outside keeping watch. He’s lit a roaring fire that is shooting up sparks like Bangalore rockets and flapping flames sky high, a beacon to attract any pasby. Dunne went out and told him to extinguish it, but Toomey said, “It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey out here. If you think I’m putting this out, give it another think, Dunne.”

He has given it another think. That fire will soon be out.

If people won’t listen to common sense he must do what he must do.

The scrape of chair legs on the floor interrupts Dunne’s glum thoughts. Figgis is headed to the door, arm dangling like a wounded wing, face full of self-pity.

“Where you off to?” Dunne asks.

“To take a crap, if it’s any of your business.”

The door closes behind Figgis, and Dunne glances over to Priest, Hail Marying away, oblivious to the world. Dunne fetches a cool compress for Case’s forehead, smoothes and pats it down in place. Then he collects his tools.

Outside, he throws his eyes to the sky. There’s a breeze trundling sacks of cloud westward. The moon is full, a brimming basin of the purest, whitest milk. For an instant, a passing cloud curdles its surface, blighting the land in shadows, but then the moon reappears and fills the snowy clearing with a shimmering blue radiance. It sketches the trees against the sky in inky scratches. Padding along, Dunne sniffs the air. It smells of new snow.

When he jerks open the privy door, the moonlight swarms into the cramped space, turning Figgis’s surprised eyes greener than grass, causing the smouldering red of his hair to suddenly blaze. Dunne sweeps away the fire with a single stroke of the curved surgical knife, uncapping the skull. Figgis topples over on his side, soundlessly, ankles shackled in his lowered trousers. Dunne chops at the fallen body until it disintegrates, falls to pieces smoking in the cold air.

Breath gone, Dunne backs out of the charnel house of butchered meat.
That
, he thinks,
got out of hand
. The trees crowding the cabin rub their branches together in a low, soft moan. He wipes the sweat from his neck, spelling out in numbers the word for Figgis’s new condition. There’s an appealing, steadying balance, a shapeliness to the integers. Each ends in a 2. Each is divisible by 2. “12, 42, 52, 12,” Dunne says softly to himself.
Dead
.

Toomey’s great bonfire flares in his eyes. A hundred yards off, he can see it besieging the night, trying to scale its black walls with bright ladders. Toomey is standing before it in a grateful trance, arms extended, holding his palms to the crackling, snapping heat.

They have all lost their minds
, thinks Dunne.
Every last mother’s son of them
.

Priest is awake in his bunk when Dunne trudges heavily into the cabin. Seeing him, Priest scoots his back hard against the wall, draws his knees up tight to his chest, pulls the blanket up under his chin, and goggles at him, dumbstruck. Dunne realizes there must be something amiss in his appearance. Inspecting himself, he finds suspicious matter speckling his shirtfront, sees his cuffs are soaked in gore, his hands gloved in scarlet, that his boots squelch blood.

Priest is shrinking himself up smaller and smaller and beginning to mewl like a famished cat. “Shush,” says Dunne, “shush now.”

When Dunne lays a hand to his shoulder, Priest springs up on the bed. He seems to be attempting to scramble up the log wall, hand over hand. Dunne plucks him back down on the mattress. Over and over, Priest hoarsely jerks out three words through clicking teeth, “I adjure you … I adjure you … I adjure you –” Dunne clamps a hand to his mouth, stopping the incantation. For a moment, the well shafts of Priest’s eyes transfix him; he stares down into them searching for their bottom, but all he can see are tiny reflections of his own face on their surfaces. Two Michael Dunnes, divisible by two. Then Priest begins to struggle violently, to flop and jerk, and his contortions cause Dunne momentarily to lose sight of himself.

The long-bladed knife makes its first pass through Priest as if he were made of feathers and air. His back arches; he wildly paws the handle of the surgical instrument in the same way he had frantically groped the log wall for an escape. Slowly, he slides down the blade and falls flat on the mattress. Dunne passes the knife through him four more times, measured, deliberate thrusts so he doesn’t lose control of himself the way he did with Figgis. Each one, he notes, causes the Michael Dunnes reflected in Priest’s eyes to fade a little. With the last thrust, they disappear entirely.