Telegraph Days: A Novel Page 2

  I took the news about Georgie Custer in stride. Georgie had always been the soul of recklessness—why the army had let him ride off with two hundred and fifty men was a mystery to me.

  All I could say about his courting was that it was crude at best. He was apt to corner me on the staircase and subject me to big sloppy kisses, which I declined to enjoy. Then I discovered that he had also been kissing my big sister Millicent, who now lies in her lonely grave near Council Grove, Kansas. I was not about to share Milly’s menfolk—Georgie Custer never caught me on the staircase again. Being dead probably served him right, though of course it didn’t serve his soldiers right.

  “We could sure use breakfast,” Jackson admitted. “You wouldn’t have any buffalo liver, would you?”

  “Son, I don’t,” Aurel said. “My Poles gobbled those livers down before sunrise. But we might have a few tongues left—and if you’d not acquired a taste for tongue I can chop off a tasty rib or two.”

  Neither of us much cared for tongue, so Aurel did chop off some hefty ribs, which he soon had dripping over a fire.

  The Poles, now laggards, had already loaded their small hide wagon and set out for Rita Blanca.

  Aurel Imlah seemed a little surprised that neither of us was very upset about the fate of Georgie Custer.

  “It’s a big thing,” he said. “A big thing! I expect for the Indians it’ll be the last big thing!”

  He shook his head grimly, as if puzzled that such a tragedy could happen. “He shouldn’t have underestimated the Indians,” he added.

  “Seems to me the army shouldn’t have overestimated Georgie,” I added. “Cuts both ways, don’t you think?”

  Mr. Imlah looked at me solemnly, for a long time.

  “You’re smart, Nellie,” he said. “That’s good.”

  The old hide seller had always been especially fond of Jackson. Since the Cimarron was only a short walk from our place, he often took Jackson fishing, and taught him how to make fish traps, which he considered more reliable than the pole and the hook. Mr. Imlah had been raised on the Chesapeake Bay and often talked to us about what delicacies the Chesapeake terrapin were. Our old darky woman Della was said to be able to make a fine dish of terrapin but she passed away on the boat between St. Louis and Westport. Jackson caught plenty of turtles in his trap, but none of his catch resulted in wonderful meals.

  “I expect you’ll be needing a job,” Aurel said to Jackson, as he was getting ready to lope off toward Rita Blanca—Percy’s pace was far too slow for Mr. Imlah.

  “Come see me at the hide yard,” he suggested. “I can usually find work for a stout young fellow like you.”

  Jackson, I could see, was about to burst out with thank-yous—but I had other plans for my little brother. Working with hides was smelly and I couldn’t hope to stay upwind of a brother all the time.

  “That’s most kind, Mr. Imlah,” I said. “You’re a true gentleman. But the truth is, Jackson’s already secured employment—I believe Sheriff Bunsen means to make him his deputy.”

  Aurel Imlah was hard to surprise, but Jackson Courtright had his mouth so wide open a bat could have flown into it.

  “If this mule don’t fail us my brother hopes to start work tomorrow,” I continued.

  “That is fortunate … I consider Sheriff Bunsen a fine man,” Mr. Imlah said.

  Then he tipped his cap to us and rode off east.

  “What are you talking about, Nellie?” Jackson asked. “I haven’t been offered a position with Sheriff Bunsen.”

  “No, but you soon will be,” I assured him. “Have a little faith in your big sister.”

  With that, we pointed Percy east and got started.

  4

  PRUDES AND OTHER censorious folk might consider it a bad sign when—as was the case in Rita Blanca—the most impressive building in town happened to be the jail. The founding fathers of this little community knew what they were doing in that respect, at least. The jail was a sturdy two-story building built of thick, mud-colored adobe. A lynch mob would have had to chisel half the night to break through those muddy-looking walls.

  There was a long platform extending out from the second floor, boasting a well-built gallows, from which the more serious miscreants could be efficiently hung.

  Rita Blanca, at this stage of its existence, was a disorderly straggle of buildings, perhaps twenty at most. Some of these had already been abandoned and were in the process of falling down. Beauregard Wheless’s general store was a happy exception—it was a sprawling frame building, in good repair, with a small undertaker’s office off to one side. Beau Wheless, the father of Hungry Billy Wheless—Jackson’s one friend in Rita Blanca—was the busiest merchant in town. When he wasn’t selling firearms, or dry goods, or hardware, he was usually in his carpentry shop, hammering together coffins as fast as he could in order to keep ahead of the deaths, no easy task in a place where life was cheap.

  “I see Hungry Billy,” Jackson said, as Percy plodded doggedly into town. “He’s wasting time, as usual.”

  Hungry Billy Wheless had once got lost while on an antelope hunt. He had been forced to wander the prairies for three days, living on grass and weeds, or so he claimed. When he finally located Rita Blanca he eased his hunger pains by eating a whole goat, which, had it been a small goat, would have been no special feat. Locally there was much disagreement about the size of the goat. Those who couldn’t stand Hungry Billy claimed that it had been merely a tiny kid; but others, such as Sheriff Ted Bunsen, who liked to keep in with the Whelesses, claimed that it had been a fairly hefty specimen of the goat tribe. I suppose people in remote communities need things like that to quarrel about. Anyway, the nickname stuck.

  A central feature of downtown Rita Blanca was its three dilapidated saloons; the three were crammed together right across the street from the jail, which was convenient for Sheriff Ted Bunsen when it became time to collar the drunks.

  In fact, when we rode up to the front of the jail, Teddy Bunsen was just in the process of releasing his catch of drunks from the previous night. Most of them still had sleep in their eyes, although it was nearly noon, and three of the men only managed to stumble a few steps into the street before collapsing in the dust. Most of the other slowly sobering drunks—about fifteen in all—staggered to the safety of the saloons across the way. Two looked as if they might be Mexican but the rest were white.

  When Sheriff Ted Bunsen stepped out the front door of the jail, he was pretty surprised to find Jackson and me standing there, with Percy, our mule, burdened with all our worldly effects.

  I gave him no time to preen, but he did manage to quickly tip his hat.

  I saw no reason just to stand there, letting time pass.

  “Hello, Teddy,” I said. “Father suicided himself yesterday and Jackson and I have abandoned the Black Mesa Ranch.”

  “Oh Lord!” Ted said, looking shocked. He was a man of few words, as well as tickly kisses.

  “We’ve moved to town,” I added. That fact was obvious, but you don’t ever want to count on a male to spot the obvious.

  “Jackson needs a job,” I said, pressing right on. “Do you think your budget could accommodate a deputy? He’s prepared to work cheap.”

  It’s likely that my forward way of doing things startled Ted Bunsen a good deal. He was, of course, a bachelor, and cautious to a fault. Maybe he was beginning to suspect that being so rash as to allow a woman into his life meant that she’d soon start putting onions in dishes he’d rather not have onions in.

  Still, the man had ridden out six times to propose to me, and now opportunity was knocking on his own front door. I didn’t look at Jackson during this negotiation. No doubt I was embarrassing him half to death, but embarrassment is only a temporary thing.

  A deputy’s job, which might mean he could board in a fine adobe jail, was not something Jackson could afford to pass up.

  On his various visits Ted Bunsen had barely taken notice of Jackson—he had been too busy taking notice
of me. He finally looked at Jackson, who was blushing fiercely in his embarrassment.

  “I suppose it is about time I got me a deputy,” Ted allowed. “What kind of things can Jackson do?”

  I looked into the street, where three drunks were still snoring peaceably. Anyone hurrying through in a fast wagon might well run over them.

  “He can remove public hazards,” I pointed out. “Like those three drunks in the road. Suppose someone came along in a heavy wagon and ran over one of them. Such an accident might result in the loss of a limb, which could even prompt a lawsuit.”

  “A lawsuit?” Teddy asked, nervously. “Who would the one-legged fellow sue? No one around here can even figure out which state we belong to, or if we belong to any. There’s no county. The town don’t even have a mayor.

  “Some think this is Texas,” he added. “Some think it’s Kansas, and a few favor the theory that it’s New Mexico.”

  “Let’s start with the simple fact that it’s got a sheriff, whether it belongs to any state or not,” I advised. “Drag those three drunks out of harm’s way, Jackson—and show a little charity.”

  “Charity?” Jackson asked.

  “Dump them in a shady spot, if you can find one,” I explained. “We wouldn’t want them to incur sunburn. And be careful. Don’t let one of them wake up and shoot you.”

  “Oh, they’re not armed,” Teddy informed me. “I generally don’t dole out the firearms until the middle of the afternoon. By that time they’re usually feeling pretty tame.”

  Jackson soon had the drunks piled under a tree not far from the blacksmith’s shop. By the time he finished I believe the notion of having a deputy had begun to grow on Teddy Bunsen.

  “A deputy just might come in handy,” he remarked, several times. “I guess he could bunk in one of the cells.”

  He said it in a slow, foot-dragging way, though. If there’s one thing I can’t tolerate, it’s an indecisive male. I decided it was time to dig in the spur.

  “If you’re doubtful, Sheriff,” I said, “we’ll just let you be. Fortunately Jackson had another offer of employment. Reliable young men don’t grow on trees around here.”

  I believe Teddy knew me well enough by this time to grasp that my loyalty to my brother could well affect other things—kissing, for example, or even, at a stretch, matrimony.

  “Can you shoot a pistol?” Teddy asked Jackson, more briskly.

  “Never tried,” Jackson admitted.

  Teddy sighed, and bit the bullet.

  “I rarely shoot a pistol myself,” he admitted. “Mostly the job just consists of walking the drunks across the street and packing them in.”

  The upshot of this tedious interview was that Jackson got hired, at a salary of fifteen dollars a month and board.

  5

  ONCE TEDDY BUNSEN reconciled himself to the fact that he now had an active deputy, he began to feel so generous toward us Court-rights that he even offered to stable our mule for free—a handsome gesture under the circumstances. After all, Percy had to live somewhere.

  Then Teddy’s mind seemed to go clickety-click as he thought of tasks he had been putting off and could now assign to Jackson, his useful deputy. Some of the locks could use a squirt of oil, and many of the cells needed a thorough sweeping—most of their occupants were not exactly tidy souls. And there were the long-neglected gallows, which could clearly use a coat of paint.

  “I can handle all that, yes sir,” Jackson said, relieved. I believe he feared that his first job as a deputy would be to arrest the biggest killer in the vicinity. In fact, Jackson could probably have arrested some pretty bad killers—he just didn’t know it yet. My brother had abilities that he had no suspicion he possessed—though, at the moment, what he really needed to locate was a broom, a paintbrush, and a can of paint.

  “I can’t find the broom—or the paint either,” Jackson admitted to Teddy, who got a kind of embarrassed look on his face.

  “Golly, I forgot. Mexican Joe stole the broom—that’s why you can’t find it,” he admitted. “I fear we don’t possess a paintbrush, or a can of paint, though we might have some linseed oil somewhere.”

  “This is a fine kettle of fish,” I told Teddy. “This jail seems to suffer from a dire lack of equipment.”

  Teddy didn’t deny it.

  “There’s a well-stocked general store right down the street,” I reminded him. “I bet they have a fine selection of paints, and probably even brooms and paintbrushes.”

  Before I could say more, the very thing that I had predicted happened. A wagon with a wild-looking old man on the wagon seat came racing hell-for-leather right down the middle of the road, where, a few minutes earlier, three drunks had been reposing. But for my brother’s timely work all might have sustained a good trampling.

  “I don’t know where that old fool is going in such a hurry,” I said, “but I hope you will agree that it was a good thing that Jackson cleared the street.”

  I can’t say that my remark was well received. Ted Bunsen didn’t enjoy my having an idea that he should have come up with himself. Besides, there stood Deputy Courtright, unoccupied due to a shortage of equipment. It all added up to a kind of pressure Teddy Bunsen hadn’t had to experience when he was running things all by himself. He had a kind of crease down the middle of his forehead that I had not observed before.

  “Sheriff, are you all right?” I asked. It’s odd how it can take but a second for things to get out of kilter in this life.

  “It’s rare that I have this much opportunity for conversation,” he admitted.

  The old man in the wagon was nearly out of sight to the east.

  “Who was that old man?” I inquired—it seemed about time to change the subject.

  “Never saw him before,” Teddy said. “Out here on the plains people just come and go.”

  “Is your credit good at the general store?” I asked. “Deputy Court-right is itching to get to work. I’ll go fetch the stuff, if you’ll allow me. It won’t take a minute.”

  “It’ll take a minute if you pass in earshot of Hungry Billy,” Ted said. “That boy’s got a wagging tongue.”

  But then Teddy’s mood seemed to lighten—maybe he was contemplating the possibility of kissing, or more.

  “It’s a pretty day,” he said, “and the jail’s empty. Let’s all go together and get the paint.”

  So off we sauntered, watched by two or three of the newly released drunks, who were sitting outside the saloons, warming up for their day by drinking beer.

  6

  HUNGRY BILLY WHELESS was a slouchy youth with buckteeth and a flagrant cowlick. He looked glad to see us and probably was—a day in Rita Blanca would make any decent person welcome the arrival of any other decent person, in my opinion.

  Hearing that Jackson had become a deputy sheriff gave him a start, for sure.

  “Why’d you want to be a deputy?” he asked. “Now all the killers will be after you, lickety-split.

  “Especially Mexican Joe,” he added.

  Jackson looked taken aback. I don’t believe it had occurred to him that being a deputy could be hazardous to the health. And all we knew about Mexican Joe was that he had stolen a broom.

  I confess I hadn’t given much thought to the possibility of killers. The Black Mesa Ranch, as Father had called it, was so remote and so poor that no killer ever bothered with us.

  “Oh, now Billy,” Teddy put in. “Jackson’s just going to paint the gallows and help me collar the drunks. I’ll look after him. I’d hardly let anything happen to Nellie’s little brother.”

  Teddy, I suspected, still had his heart set on matrimony. He wanted me to believe that Jackson was perfectly safe, but burying six siblings, plus some darkies and our parents, had long ago convinced me that no one anywhere was perfectly safe. My own thought about Jackson was that at least he was living in the best housing in town. The jail was a fortress, and besides that, cool in summer, thanks to those thick adobe walls.

  Hungry Billy wa
s wound up on the subject of all the killers who were said to be roaming around No Man’s Land: he mentioned Alex Groat, Irish Roy, the Skivvy Kid, and several others of note. Jackson began to look a little peaked at the realization of what his big sister had got him into, but I got tired of listening to it all and wandered off to inspect the frocks. It occurred to me that the good citizens of Rita Blanca might want me to start a school, or be mayor, or something—anyway, I was in dire need of new frocks. Ted Bunsen trailed me like a puppy but I ignored him. I heard someone muttering and noticed an old woman sitting at a low table counting piles of pennies and nickels.

  “Don’t rush me, I’m working as fast as I can,” she said—the poor old thing’s eyesight was going. I suppose she mistook me for her boss.

  “It’s Mrs. Thomas, she’s nearly blind,” Hungry Billy whispered to me. “She’s Pa’s old nurse from Tennessee. He lets her count the small change to give her something to do.”

  I thought that was commendable on the part of Beau Wheless, who came bustling in from his coffin shop with curlicues of wood shavings clinging to his pants. Jackson had found the paint and the paintbrushes by this time, and I had my eye on two or three frocks. Teddy mostly stood around looking left out.

  “Why, hello,” Beau said. “Damned if we don’t nearly have a crowd in this store, which is how I like it.”

  Beau was not entirely pleased, though, to hear that we had buried Father in a homemade coffin. It meant that he had missed a sale, but he was merchant enough to move right along to the next opportunity.

  “The deputy will need a pistol, I’m sure,” he said. “Fortunately, we have a good sturdy revolver available for purchase.”

  He put the good sturdy revolver on the top of the counter, when, to my shock, my brother flatly rejected it.

  “That’s just a plain pistol,” he said sullenly. “I want that Colt with the pearl handles—it’s just like the one Bill Hickok carried.

  “It’ll do me fine,” he added, pointing to the fancy gun, as if the matter was settled.