Power in the Blood (17 page)

When Bryce approached her in the marriage bed she allowed him the one simple thing he wanted satisfaction in. The act was over with soon enough not to interfere with her overall peace of mind. He always fell asleep before her, and it was during the hiatus between Bryce’s first gentle snore and the final closing of Zoe’s eyes that those doubts, the few and formless kind that still bedeviled her, came and stood about the bed to express misgiving.

The marshal of Keyhoe, Kansas, was Grover Stunce, and he oftentimes felt himself inadequate for the task. He was forty-one years old, and did not like running up against drunken cowboys. He found the work repetitive and pointless, since the same fools always showed up, drunk again, after a night in the cells. Once, a cowhand on a spree had resisted arrest and blown a hole in Grover’s calf with his .45 before being cut down by the marshal’s own gun. The killing bothered Grover for many weeks afterward. He was neither a brave man nor a coward, but he saw the need for civil order, and in Keyhoe there were few men seeking after his job.

Grover had a powerful sense of communal obligation, but he also had a wife. Mrs. Stunce had refused to let him touch her since the day of the shooting that brought him home with bloodied pants. “Why should it be you that does this filthy work!” she wished to know, and Grover could only repeat that no one else seemed to have the stomach for such a calling. “Then share it!” she instructed him. Grover was prepared to admit she had a good point, so he hung in the window of his office a hand-lettered sign offering gainful employment to anyone prepared to wear the badge of a deputy marshal. The sign remained in his window for eighteen days, then was brought inside late one evening by a tall individual cradling a sawed-off shotgun.

“This offer still good?” he asked.

“It is.”

“I’ll take it.”

“That depends. It’s not a job for just anyone.”

The light in Grover’s office was poor; only after close scrutiny of the face before him did it become apparent there were badly-healed-over holes through both cheeks. It was not a pleasant face, the jaw hanging like a bucket, the eyes like pistol bores, cheekbones like a hungry Indian’s, and all of this framed, as it were, by the dark halo of a wide-brimmed preacher’s hat supported on two jugged ears. Grover reminded himself that handsomeness was not a requisite for the position.

“I’ll take it anyway,” the applicant said, and Grover didn’t argue.

“That your only piece?” he asked, nodding at the sawed-off.

“Yes.”

“Revolver’s the standard sidearm in law work.”

“I’ll stick with this. My name’s Dugan.”

“Been on the right side of the law at all times, Dugan?”

“Yes.”

“I like to set an example. I won’t take on a man who’s been convicted of any felonious activity. A clean slate is what I ask for, and honest ways, also I can’t use a man looking to make a pile of cash from doing what we do here. It won’t be a stepping-stone to riches, this office.”

“Didn’t think it was,” said Clay. “Am I hired?”

Grover let him wait a moment longer. He was not altogether happy with the situation. “Got your own horse?”

“Got a good one, and a spare.”

“Go on over to Merton’s Livery, just across the street. Tell them you’re working for me and he’ll put up your mounts, care of the county. The same doesn’t apply to room and board. There’s a number of rooming houses that charge a reasonable rate and are clean. You take your pick.”

“What’s wrong with here?”

“Here?”

“That’s a bed, isn’t it?”

Clay aimed his eyes at the rawhide-sprung frame and mattress in the office corner, under a locked rifle rack.

“That’s just for when we have to guard a prisoner overnight if there’s a lynch party wants him out and hung. You can’t live here full time, it’s an office. There’s no amenities.”

“Where do the prisoners shit?”

“In a pan, generally, and you empty it in the outhouse next door; they don’t mind.”

“Then I’ll just skip the pan.”

Grover felt that matters had been settled far too quickly, but was not inclined to delay official approval of the would-be deputy. He outlined briefly the responsibilities of the office, then added, “You a drinking man, Dugan?”

“No.”

“That’s one thing I won’t tolerate, especially on duty. A position of authority in a fair-sized town like this one, you need to watch out for public opinion and stay on the good side of it, hear me?”

“I said I didn’t drink.”

“Well, all right. There’s just certain things have to be spelled out clear so there’s no misunderstanding.”

“I didn’t misunderstand.”

“All right, then. Now, there’s supposed to be a piece of paper you sign after I swear you in, but I don’t believe I can lay my hand on it right this minute, so we’ll take care of that another day and go ahead with the swearing in. Raise your right hand.”

Clay repeated the oath Grover spouted, and lowered his hand. Both men looked at each other. Clay raised an eyebrow.

“Badge?”

Grover went home with something approaching a spring in his step. This was the second-best news he could possibly have conveyed to Mrs. Stunce; first best would be a declaration that he intended returning to his original line of work, as a wheelwright. That was the work he had done when he married Sophie. She was his second wife, quite a bit younger than himself. His first, and their two children, had been taken by cholera.

“Deputy?” said Mrs. Stunce with some disbelief.

“A real deputy, looks mean enough for two.”

“You’re sure now.”

“Of course I’m sure. I hired the man. You can walk down and meet him tomorrow if you like.”

“You should have invited him home for supper. That would have been the decent thing.” Mrs. Stunce was becoming quite excited. “I could have dished up something extra for a real deputy!”

“He might not be the inviting-to-supper type, Sophie.”

“What type is he?”

“Well, he’s … standoffish. Not one for socializing is my guess, but I’m sure he’ll be just fine for the job. Dedicated, by God. Wants to sleep right there in the office. I think I got us a good one, Sophie, I do.”

She permitted extensive intimate fondling that night, but would not allow full coitus until such time as she had seen for herself the caliber of this new deputy.

Clay took himself to the Ambrosia Eatery for a meal, and attracted considerable attention by placing his shotgun among the bowls and cutlery. A waiter asked him to remove the offending item, but Clay declined. “No, I’ll just leave it there, thank you,” he said, and proceeded to order from the menu. The waiter decided not to press his complaint; the man with the holes in his face had an intimidating air, and besides, he wore a deputy’s badge.

His belly full, Clay strolled up and down Keyhoe’s main street, inspecting his beat. There were fourteen saloons, so he would earn his pay. He visited each one in turn with his truncated shotgun, and introduced himself to the bartenders, most of whom tried to curry favor with the new deputy by offering drinks on the house. Clay refused politely.

He found his reaction to these establishments interesting. Clay’s own intermittent encounters with alcohol since burning down Hassenplug’s barn in Indiana had shown him liquor’s appeal. The fact that scores of men chose to congregate in rooms reeking of tobacco and sweat and beer struck him as sad. He learned also that the whores who encouraged men to spend money on drink and themselves made him angry. Clay was a virgin still, and intended remaining that way until some virtuous woman who could ignore his appearance should cross his path.

His opinion of saloons and their floating populations was judgmental, puritanical in its overall condemnation. The trick to his playing a representative of the law lay in Clay’s conviction that he was superior, in the moral sense, to every person inhabiting such places as were found along the street. If any one of them gave him the least amount of trouble, Clay felt fully capable of arresting that person, and in the case of armed resistance, would shoot dead the offending party without a qualm.

It was not to happen that first night. When the bars finally closed, he marched himself up and down the street one last time before returning to the marshal’s office to divest himself of coat and hat and lie down on the prepared mattress, not the most comfortable he’d ever slept on, nor the least. He set his weapon beside him, both barrels loaded as always, and turned out the lamp. In the ceiling above him, Clay saw projected no future, no past, no hope or joy. He was, in his way, content.

Mrs. Stunce came to evaluate her husband’s choice. She chose subterfuge over directness to accomplish this, arriving at the office around noon with a basket of food for both men. Grover happened to be absent at the time, and Mrs. Stunce took this as good fortune. She wished to run her eye over this new associate, with a long-term view to encouraging him in notions of replacing her husband rather than continuing as his deputy.

She introduced herself with a smile, and the smile broadened as she began to appreciate how unusual Dugan’s appearance was; the holes in his cheeks were positively mesmerizing in their ugliness and the questions they raised concerning their origin. Dugan’s face registered neither pleasure nor annoyance at her presence. He nodded as she gave her name, and thanked her quietly for the lunch.

Mrs. Stunce shook her gaze free of his pierced face and settled on his weapon, lying before Dugan on the desktop. His shotgun had the uncompromising bluntness of an implement of slaughter. It was made for cutting men in half, nothing else, and caused her a moment of extreme discomfort. Guns of any kind made her nervous; those without the adornment of scrollwork or ivory handles to soften their look of deadliness were the ugliest of all. A tall ugly man with a short ugly gun was her firm impression. She could not have guessed his age, but sensed he was far younger than his face and manner suggested.

“May I ask where you’re from, Mr. Dugan?”

“Schenectady.”

“That is in the east?”

“New York.”

“A fascinating city, I’m told.”

“New York State.”

“Oh. And you have chosen law enforcement for your career in the west.”

“You might say, or it chose me. One or the other.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Stunce, but she did not see at all. Grover had become marshal only because two highly skilled brothers had set up a wheelwright’s shop in competition with him a year ago and quickly stolen his business away. She could not understand why any man would willingly choose such work, if there were alternatives to so dangerous a field. The marshal before Grover had been killed while trying to arrest a thief, who seconds later was gunned down by a bystander anxious for justice and a reputation for man-killing. This person then left town without a hand being raised against him, since he had justifiably avenged the shooting of a lawman.

It was everything Sophie Stunce loathed, this policing of the town, and it was clear to her, looking into Dugan’s dark yet cold eyes, that he, not Grover, should be in sole charge of such work.

“Is it your intention to become marshal yourself someday, Mr. Dugan?”

“Not necessarily.”

Mrs. Stunce decided she would assist Dugan to replace her husband. Once out of law work, Grover would never return, not even if the office fell vacant again; Sophie would see to that.

“You have a very determined air about you, Mr. Dugan. I believe you’ll do very well.”

“I believe you’re right.”

Sophie chose to ignore the possibility that she was being mocked. Despising the man would not serve her plans.

“I won’t wait for Mr. Stunce. Please tell him I dropped by.”

“He’ll see the basket and make that conclusion anyway, ma’am, even if I’m not here.”

“Good day to you.”

“And you, ma’am.”

She slammed the door behind her. Clay wondered if he’d met an enemy or a friend. Either way, it didn’t matter. Somehow he felt impervious to all influences working upon him, for or against. The job he held was exactly right for Clay Dugan. He didn’t know why he felt it was so, assumed in a lazy fashion it was evidence of destiny at work, or some such. His sense of invulnerability, whatever its source, would serve him well in Keyhoe. There were bad men in town, inferior persons who sooner or later would step over the line and challenge him, if only to see if his ugliness masked a devil or a poor, tortured soul. He would show them which. It worried Clay not at all that he anticipated his first professional kill with serenity and certitude. If his life had any higher purpose than the one that naturally felt right, Clay couldn’t see it, and had no use for it. He practiced loading and unloading his gun until Grover Stunce returned. Clay was very fast, his huge thumbs capable of cocking both hammers simultaneously.

11

On the first day, he ate and drank as he pleased. On the second day, he was more prudent, recalling the fate of the Kindreds. From the moment he saw his first dawn away from the mission, Drew had felt himself charged with a newfound sense of freedom. He wished he could have taken Nail in His Feet and Bleeding Heart of Jesus along with him, but they were probably better off with Smart Crow Making Mischief, who would knock the Christian stuffing out of them lickety-split, Drew bet.

He was on his own, and would make the best of it. He was again in the wilderness without a gun, but this time felt there was no danger. The ruts of the road were clear, obviously used every now and then; he might even be overtaken by some travelers who would allow him to join them. For the moment, though, he preferred to be alone. The twins had dogged his steps at San Bartolomeo, doing Father Zamudio’s spy work. It was better to be as he was.

The third dawning found him less sure he had made the correct decision in simply walking away from the mission, instead of waiting for a passerby to invite him along. The road was less frequented by traffic than he had thought; maybe the ruts stayed looking fresh because there was never any rain to wash them away. He might keep going for days and still never hear the sound of hooves or wheels. It was an unsettling notion, and Drew didn’t want to lose his brave face so soon. He still had food and water left—the second goatskin was about half full—but he couldn’t deny that by the evening of the following day he would be in trouble. Until then, he would march on without a backward glance.