Of Grave Concern (2 page)

I sat on the monument, carefully placing Eddie's cage on the ground beside me. I took off my glove and ran my hand over the surface of the bronze, then inspected my fingertips. Mixed with the greenish smudge were a few streaks of rusty brown. It might have been blood, but I thought it was probably just dirt. There was plenty of dirt in this town to go around.

It was a nice little monument, but there was no dead girl.

“Eddie,” I whispered. “You have a fool for a mistress.”

2

It hadn't taken five minutes to satisfy my curiosity at the monument. By the time I stepped back over the drunken cowboy and mounted the steps to the platform, that snake of a telegraph operator was talking to a man in a bowler hat, who was furiously scribbling in a notebook.

To bolt would have been a mistake.

So I walked with deliberation across the platform toward the train, passing within a yard of the pair. The telegrapher just stared at me agape, but the man with the notebook tipped his bowler. I gave a curt nod in return.

“Miss,” he said.

I forced a smile before turning to address him over my shoulder.

“Sir.”

Then he trotted up beside me and placed a hand on my grip.

“Here, let me help you with that.”

Before I could evade him, he had relieved me of my luggage.

“Pardon, but would it be possible to have a word?”

“I've already given you one,” I said. “Now, there's five more. Could I have my bag, please? I am in a hurry to take my seat aboard that train, as a gentleman would have noticed.”

“You have plenty of time,” the man said, and smiled. He had the self-satisfied smile of a schoolboy who doesn't know his lesson but cares not, because he's the teacher's pet. He was thirty-five or forty, with dark hair and a walrus mustache and soft hands. “The stops here are always twice as long as advertised. The train crew has a fondness for oysters and cold beer at the Alhambra.”

“That would throw them off schedule.”

“No, because they shave a few minutes or so from every stop west, until they reach Pueblo. Creative, really.”

“I don't know if I should believe you,” I said. “My grip, please.”

I pulled the valise away from him.

“You must allow me.”

“I am an independent woman and need no man to escort me or carry my things,” I said. “Your attitude offends me nearly as much as the stench from this town. I can't imagine how anyone could stand to live here.”

“Oh, the stink is just getting started,” the man said. “The first herds from Texas arrived two days ago. There will be more. By the middle of June, all of this grassland you see around you will be full of beef grazing, a hundred thousand of them, waiting to be packed on cattle cars and shipped east. And we don't mind the smell so much—it smells like money.”

“That seems oddly appropriate.”

The man smiled, but with tight lips and no mirth in his eyes.

“Come with me.”

“What the devil for?”

“Really, you must come with me.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Or what?”

“Face the consequences.”

“C'est le bo'del,”
I declared. What a mess. “You force me to summon the law.”

“I am the law,” he said. “My name is Michael Sutton, and I am the Ford County Attorney. I promise you a fair hearing and an impartial examination. Justice demands nothing less.”

I stared at him with eyes wide.

“You mistake me for someone else.”

I was attempting to summon indignation.

“I think not,” he sniffed. “You are Kate Bender.”

I laughed, with genuine surprise.

“You joke,” I said.

He reached into his pocket and produced a nickel-plated revolver with a four-inch barrel. I stopped laughing. I dislike guns, especially when they are pointed in my direction.

“I have here a warrant for your arrest on eleven counts of murder, Miss Bender,” Sutton said. “Mackie, the telegraph man, told me he thought it was you, on account of your appearance.”

“Truly, this is absurd.”

With his free hand, he retrieved a yellowed and much-folded sheet of paper and shook it open.

“This is a proclamation issued by Governor Osborn,” he said. “It offers a five-hundred-dollar reward for the apprehension and delivery to the sheriff of Labette County of any member of the Bender family.”

“Where is Labette County?”

“You know where Labette County is, Miss Bender. You lived there.”

He was right. I did know where it was, but only because I read everything I get my hands on, and I remembered newspaper accounts of the Bender horror well. Labette County was three hundred miles due east, above the Indian Nations in southeastern Kansas.

“You think I am she of the murderous family?”

His eyes darted to the paper, then back at me.

“‘Kate Bender is about five feet six inches in height, slender and buxom, rather bold in appearance, walks proudly with head held high, and speaks English with only a trace of a German accent. She is twenty-four years of age.'”

“I am somewhat older than that.”

“The warrant was issued four years ago.”

“I don't speak German.”

“You've been speaking
something
foreign,” he said.

“Mon Dieu,”
I said. “That's French for ‘my God.'”

The barrel of the revolver drifted.

“Do be careful,” I said.

Another glance at the paper.

“‘Her eyes are hazel, flashing and alert, and her head is wreathed in auburn hair, which appears coppery in the shadow and flares red-gold in sunlight. She dresses oddly, her preferred color is black, and she may call herself professor and be engaged as a Spiritualist or public medium. Beautiful and devious, she is a master manipulator of men.'”

“You truly think I am one of the Bloody Benders?”

“Remove your spectacles, please.”

I took off the smoke-colored glasses.

“I've never seen a more perfect description.”

“‘Beautiful and devious' aren't descriptions. They're judgments.”

“I heard that drover call you ‘Katie.'”

“He's drunk. He's calling every woman ‘Katie.'”

“What's your name?”

“Does that description include a raven?”

“What's your line of work?”

There was a handful of travelers on the platform. Seeing the gun and overhearing the conversation, they had cleared a neat circle around us. I managed a bright smile for them.

“I am Ophelia Wylde,” I said with a flourish. “I am a spirit sensitive on my way to an engagement in Colorado. Let us go somewhere we can talk and reason this out. I promise to be a good and obedient female while we do. Please put that pistol away before you hurt someone.”

Sutton shook his head.

“Could you kindly lower the barrel, then?”

He relented.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Do you have other effects aboard the train?”

“I travel light,” I said.

“Let's go.”

“Where?”

“How do you say ‘jail' in French?”

“I don't know. I only use it to curse.”

“In whatever language, you're headed for a cell.”

“Why am I not surprised,” I said, and sighed. “The thing that scares men the most about an independent woman is her freedom. It is the first thing they want to take away.”

“No more talk. The city jail is just to the south, beyond the tracks. I'll follow you.”

“Say, do you know anything about a murdered—”

“Get walking!”

As Sutton urged me through the muddy streets toward the jail, I could hear the conductor calling out, “All aboard!” His announcement was followed by the hissing and chugging of the locomotive as it began to pull, with increasing speed, the line of faded yellow cars to the West.

3

The Dodge City Jail was a two-story enterprise, with the city clerk and police court on the top floor and the lockup below. The jail was made not of stone or brick but of wood, although any prairie wolf would have a hard time blowing this house down. Heavy two-by-sixes were jammed together and held by iron spikes, with the occasional narrow peephole. The walls were thick enough to keep rowdy cowboys inside, and, it occurred to me, to provide a refuge in case of Indian attack. The peepholes were really gun ports.

“What's this?” the jailer asked when Sutton marched me up the stairs to the offices.

“This woman is my prisoner, Tom,” Sutton said. “Lend me a cell.”

“Lower that piece, would you? You're so nervous you're making
me
twitchy.”

The jailer was a youngster, barely twenty, but obviously unafraid of the older man. He had unruly blond hair, hands and feet that seemed two sizes too big for his body, and a downy beard. Keeping his seat at the desk near the door, he arched his back and scratched the side of his neck in a casual manner. His well-worn boots were propped up on the desk, and I noted specks of red paint on the toes.

“Don't know about that, Mr. Sutton,” he said. “Marshal Deger ain't going to like it, you using one of his cells. Shouldn't you be taking her to the county jail? That's your jury-diction.”

“Tom, my
jurisdiction
is the entire Ford County,” Sutton said, with condescension as thick as phlegm. “I wasn't going to be seen walking a woman at gunpoint across town. It wouldn't appear chivalrous.”

“Or brave,” Tom the Jailer said dryly.

I smiled.

“Really, Mr. Sutton, holster that piece.”

Thankfully, Sutton returned the pistol to his pocket.

“What's the charge?”

Tom had taken the fixings from his shirt pocket and was rolling a cigarette.

“Murder.”

“That a fact?” The jailer licked the twisted ends of his creation. Then he drew a match across the rough floor and lit the cigarette. He puffed, then exhaled dramatically while pondering this new bit of information. “She kill anybody I know?”

“I'm not going to try this case for you, Tom,” Sutton said. “But I can assure you, she's a cold-blooded killer who has sent more men to the eternal rest than any gunslinger who's ever walked
these
streets.”

“She don't look like a killer.”

“I certainly have not killed anyone,” I said.

The jailer smiled.

“I like the way you talk,” Tom said. “Say something else.”

“Everyone talks this way back home in Memphis.”

“It's like you're singing the words.”

“This is a case of mistaken identity,” I said. “My name is Ophelia Wylde, and I was en route to Colorado when your Mr. Sutton and his revolver got between me and my train.”

“Enough!” Sutton said. “Place her in a jail cell as directed. I will return later with the paperwork necessary to send her to Labette County.”

As far as I knew, habeas corpus was still the law of the land, even here at the edge of the world. But I could see there was no use arguing with this Sutton character.

“What are you waiting for?”

The jailer shrugged.

“All righty,” he said. “But you'll have to explain it to the marshal.”

Rising from the chair, Tom grabbed a ring of brass keys, which hung from a peg above the desk. Sutton stormed out of the door and I could hear his shoes slapping on the wooden stairs.

“Ma'am, I'm afraid you're in my custody,” Tom said.

“I understand.”

“Now I have to ask, since I ain't about to search you—on your honor, are you armed with anything besides that birdcage?”

“Only my wit,” I said.

“You'll have to leave your things up here.”

“Even my bird? Poor Eddie is already in a cage.”

“Well . . .”

“The poor thing is scared to death. And he makes an awful racket without me.”

Tom relented. He led me down the stairs to the jail, where he unlocked a heavy door of six-by-eights. Then he grasped an iron ring and threw his weight backward. The door swung open on iron hinges, which screeched like a pair of banshees.

The interior was dark and cool. Slanted shafts of sunlight from the peepholes pierced the gloom here and there, revealing patches of dirt floor. There was a bull pen up front, and a row of cells across the back. Tom led me to the cleanest of the cells, unlocked the iron latticework door, and held it while I stepped inside.

The cell was about eight by twelve feet. It had straw on the floor and a bunk, with a rope mattress, against the side. The peephole offered a sliver of the view of the trail leading south out of town.

“Sorry for the accommodations, but we don't get many ladies in here,” Tom said. The end of his cigarette glowed in the dark. “A few females, but no ladies. Have you had lunch?”

“I don't have much of an appetite, I'm afraid.”

“I'll bring you something anyway,” he said. “The lunches are the leftovers from the Dodge House, and they are a cut above.”

He walked over to a coal oil lamp that swung from the ceiling over the bull pen. He raised the globe with one hand and reached for his matches with the other.

“It gets mighty dark in here,” Tom said. He struck a match and touched it to the wick. “Especially when you're alone.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“All righty,” he said. “If you need anything, just holler real loud.”

“Thank you, Tom.”

He started to the door.

“Oh, there is one thing. . . . Who is Mike McGlue?”

He grinned.

“You saw the sign on the depot.”

“Your handiwork?”

“No, ma'am,” he said, and laughed. “Old Mike did that all by himself.”

Then he was gone, locking the heavy door behind him.

I sat alone in the cell, listening to the beating of my heart.