Showdown at Buffalo Jump (16 page)

When he was done and had rolled over and gone to sleep, she slept for a while, but was up at two o'clock. No sense lying in bed if you couldn't sleep and there was work to do. She was downstairs doing laundry. Took her two days to do laundry, personal things first, already out back hanging on the line, and then the linen from the boardinghouse.

Mrs. Harris yawned: looked like it was going to be a long day.

“Son of a bitch,” whispered the banker Phillips.

The last four miles had taken close to two hours on feet as raw as hamburger. And now the birds were singing, and the stars were dull, disappearing. False dawn was only moments away. Chances were that his clothes were in Millard's. He could get dressed there and walk back to the boardinghouse. If anyone saw him entering the boardinghouse, he could say he was out for a morning constitutional. No slugabed he, he would tell them, and they would tell the rest of the town that there were no banking hours for the banker Phillips. A smile crossed his face. Leave it to him to turn a problem into an asset.

If his clothes weren't there, he could slip down the alley between Millard's and the boardinghouse. Not much chance that townsfolk would be out and about at that time. But Phillips was a cautious man. (He never talked face-to-face about a man or woman if he could talk behind their backs. He never lent money to anybody who really needed it, and he always covered his tracks.) It was perfectly natural for him to play it safe. He stopped by the side of the road and picked two sprays of sagebrush. Fanning them fore and aft, he slipped into town, bound for Millard's.

The gray light of false dawn covered the land as Phillips reached the saloon. He slipped around to the back door.

Locked! The damn thing was locked. Phillips pounded on the door, trying to strike the balance between being loud enough to be heard by Thomsen inside, and not so loud as to be heard by anyone down the street. Too loud. A dog was barking up the street. Thank heaven, he was too far away to be any immediate problem.

Phillips covered himself with the sagebrush. “Thomsen, open up!” Nothing. Phillips pressed his ear to the door. He thought he could hear a muffled whoofing inside. Must be Thomsen snoring.

No other solution, he must slip back to the boardinghouse and get into his room before anyone else awoke.

Phillips was deep in thought. He had always been proud of his ability to shut himself away from what was going on around him, to concentrate so fully on the matter at hand that nothing could distract him.

He was pure concentration as he walked down the alley, sagebrush fan front and rear, considering the cause of the bizarre events of that night. Thomsen must have slipped him knockout drops. Bass probably hauled him out of town. He vaguely remembered the rocking gait of a horse and the thump when he hit the ground.

Thomsen and Bass would pay for this night. They would rue the day they moved the president of the Prairie Rose Bank to vengeance.

Matilda Harris was taking her underthings off the clothesline behind the boardinghouse. No reason to leave them on the line where everyone could see them. She was a woman from a good family, not like the widow Mrs. Lecker across the alley. She didn't seem to care who saw her wash. Wanton, she was.

Mrs. Harris didn't notice the banker Phillips until he popped through the bushes that lined the alley, and then she saw more of him than she ever wanted to.

“Mr. Phillips,” she gasped.

Phillips was so caught up in his plans for revenge, he forgot himself. He reached up to tip his hat.

Mrs. Harris's scream rattled windows for two blocks around. It brought Mr. Harris out of bed with a thump. It jarred the banker, who hastily covered himself as best he could.

Harris burst through the door of the couple's apartment. “Hang on, Tillie, I'm coming!”

Mrs. Harris fell in a swoon by the clothesline, and the banker tossed his sagebrush apparel aside and scooted for the back stairs. Mrs. Lecker saw him and waved from across the alley.

Inside, Phillips careened down the hall. He could lock himself in his room and get dressed. By then he would have some kind of explanation.

But when he skidded to a stop at his door and reached for his key, he realized he didn't have any pockets.

“Son of a bitch,” whispered the banker Phillips.

“Phillips!” roared Edwin Harris, charging up the stairs. “Flaunt yourself at my wife, will you … you … bastard!”

12

Max was ambling into consciousness, prodded along by a stalk of hay poking him between his shoulder blades.

As his senses tuned in for the day, his nose caught a scent that seasoned and then overcame the redolence of the hay. Strong it was, from the cork of a half-full whiskey bottle lying beside him. Max's stomach shuddered, and he nearly vomited. He couldn't tolerate whiskey—never had been able to. But when he left Millard's the night before, buying a bottle seemed to be the thing to do, and as long as he had it, Max felt compelled to drink it. He was not a wasteful man.

But he was paying for his frugality this morning. Another spasm, and Max rolled over and drew himself up to his hands and knees, just in case.

Be a shame to vomit in the hay, so he donned his hat and pulled on his boots. He teetered a bit as he walked over to the ladder leading down from the loft. He started down, swaying when the odor of fresh horse dung caught him full in the face, but he continued down.

The walk to the creek was tentative, Max carrying the bottle by the neck as though it were a snake. He knelt on the edge of the creek, thrust the bottle beneath the surface of the water and pulled the cork. He waited until creek water replaced the whiskey in the bottle and then emptied it, consigning it to the current. The bottle bobbed along. Max wondered how far it would go before lodging against a bank or against a rock, and how long before some cowpoke found it and wondered what kind of a Saturday night had been hidden inside.

Max shed his shirt, shivering as much from the thought of the cold water as from the cool morning air, then stuck his head neck deep into the water.

Max came up sucking air, water coursing over his chest and back, raising gooseflesh. But his eyes were clear, and his mind ready for what lay ahead at the dugout.

Smoke was coming from the chimney. Catherine was awake. Might as well get it over with.

Max's knock at the door was met with silence. He knocked again, and then poked his head through. Catherine was standing at the stove, sprinkling salt and pepper on sidepork sizzling in a pan. She didn't bother to look up.

Max took his place at the table. Only one plate and setting. A moment later, Catherine carried the pan to the table and shoveled the sidepork and some fried potatoes onto her plate. She sat down then and began eating.

“Nice morning.”

Catherine didn't look up.

“Guess I'll fix me some breakfast.”

Catherine continued eating as though she were sitting alone at the table. Max carried the pan back to the stove, but found only a few remaining potato scraps. He ate those with his fingers. He returned to the table just as Catherine was rising. “Wasn't very hungry, anyway.”

Catherine walked back to the water warming on the stove, and washed her plate and the two frying pans, drying them with the heat from the stove.

“Thought we might go over to the Leningtons today. Something there I'd like to show you.”

Catherine was slipping on her jacket, and she stepped barefoot out the door on her way to the outhouse, anywhere Max wasn't.

Shoes! Max had forgotten to bring Catherine her shoes. No wonder she was angry. He trotted over to the barn and pulled the shoes from his saddlebags and then hesitated, deciding to hitch up the mare as long as he was already in the barn. Max dawdled at the job for forty-five minutes, about forty more than usual, and when he could stall no longer, he walked back.

Catherine was sitting at the table, sipping a cup of coffee when Max stepped through the door. He walked tentatively to the table. She didn't look up. Max pulled his chair back to the table and sat down, chin resting on the top of the chair's back.

“I'm terrible sorry. I didn't mean to slap you. I've never slapped any woman, and if I ever wanted to slap one, you would be the last on the list.”

Max ran his fingers through his hair, muttering something even he couldn't hear. “This isn't coming out right. What I mean to say is that I didn't mean to do it, and I feel lower than a snake's belly. I took the shoes because I had to go to town, and I couldn't have you running away. But I meant to give them back as soon as I could.”

Max laid both pairs on the table.

Catherine picked them up with one hand, leaned across to the stove and tossed them in. Max's eyes widened in disbelief, and he sat transfixed, unable to move until the smell of burning leather tipped him off his chair. Max leaped toward the stove, his chair toppling and skidding across the floor. He opened the firebox and peeked in as though he were peering into the depths of hell. The shoes had curled in the heat, and then as the fresh air fanned the fire, they burst into flame.

“Those are the only shoes you have,” Max said.

Catherine rose, slipped on her jacket and stepped out into a blustery fall day. When Max followed a few minutes later, she was already sitting on the seat of the wagon, bare feet clear of the skirt billowing in the wind.

“I've got a pair of dress boots. They wouldn't fit, but you could wear them until we can get something for you.”

Silence. Silence followed by silence. Max sighed, climbed aboard, and picked up the reins.

If he had been alone, Max would have gone cross country. The trip was rough, but passable. But with Catherine aboard, he chose the road and on they drove, pelted with swirling dust each time a gust of wind passed. There was winter in the air, but more nibble than bite. Still, Catherine's feet, exposed to the wind, grew stiff and cold. The chill was spreading through her as they approached the Leningtons, and she felt metallically stiff as she climbed off the wagon.

The Lenington place was typical: a three-room, tarpaper shack belching coal smoke, a lean-to open ended and pointing south into a corral, and a root cellar.

Edna was bent over a shovel in the garden, and didn't look up until little Zeb sprinted over to her with the news. She pushed herself upright with the handle of the shovel and waved, a bit tentatively because of the hitch in her back. Spading the garden always left her stiff and sore, and the pain grew a little worse each year. She walked over to the wagon, dreading each step, trying to show the warmth she felt for Max and his bride and not the pain in her back.

“Isn't this something,” she said, steadying herself against the wagon box. “Two sets of visitors in one day. Just like we were living in town. Come on in and have some coffee. Zeb's abed, but I'd wager he'll pop out when he sees you two.”

Zeb spent a lot of time in bed, particularly when there was a garden to be spaded or a field to be plowed or anything else that might fall to him. He was fortunate that the older boys could do nearly a man's work, but a neighbor had hired them for the past three days to haul coal, and Edna was too stubborn just to forget about the garden until they came back. Zeb didn't like to think of himself as lazy, it was just that he didn't like to work very much, and he had always considered himself a little too sensitive for heavy toil. Given his druthers, he'd rather spend the day puttering around the house.

He was sitting at the table in his long johns playing solitaire when Edna led her visitors through the door. He scooted toward his room like a rabbit running for his life.

“Zeb's pretty spry for an old man ailing so,” Edna said with a wink. She had long since forgiven him his lack of industry. He was, as she had once told Max, about as useful as teats on a boar, but he only drank when he had the opportunity, and he had never said a bad word about another human being as far as she knew.

Max smiled. “We'll be needing another hog soon as the weather breaks, maybe two.”

“That'll bring him out,” Edna said.

Zeb was a master meat processor. The Leningtons had the only decent-sized herd of hogs in the area, and Zeb was the best bacon and ham maker for perhaps a thousand miles. He had learned his trade in the hills of Tennessee, and he trusted no one else to turn the porkers into honey-cured ham.

And then, as though to emphasize Edna's thought, Zeb stepped into the kitchen, tucking his shirttail into his pants. His face had some color to it, and Max figured that was as close to a blush as Zeb would ever come.

“Caught me unawares,” he said, pulling up a chair at the table that ranged from one end of the room almost to the other.

“Second time today,” Edna said. “Charley Lucas was over this morning and caught Zeb in his long handles, too. Won't be long before people start calling you banker Phillips.”

“Banker Phillips?” Catherine asked.

“Oh, good,” Edna said, beaming. “I was afraid you might have already heard about it. Let me pour the coffee, and I'll tell you all about it.”

She came back with the coffeepot in one hand and four cups in the other. It wasn't often that she had a story as good as this one, and she went over it in her mind as she poured the coffee.

Most gossip on the prairie was pretty tame. Living so far apart, it wasn't often that outsiders were privy to a family's secrets. So most of the news was exaggerated, overplayed to make it more exciting.

But Edna knew she was in possession of a classic, the stuff of which stories would be told for years. She wanted to play it for full dramatic effect, but she didn't want to exaggerate it to detract from the credibility of the story.

When she put the coffeepot down on the table, she had the tale plotted like a good novel.

“There was something strange in the air last night,” she said, peering around the table to make sure she had everyone's attention. “I felt it when I went outside to … to make my last trip before I went to bed.