The Whipping Boy (41 page)

They walked past the secretary, who looked up suspiciously, into Parker's office, where he shut the door. They all continued to stand.

“Bribe him for what purpose?”

“More immediately to my concern, Mr. Jaycox has been kidnapped.”

Judge Parker waited.

“Deacon Jim Miller, in the hire of Ernest Dekker, took Mr. Jaycox from his boarding house. Early this morning. Hit him over the head and dragged him into the street. I saw it happen.”

Everything LaFarge said was making the judge look less friendly, which made Tom wonder if the lawyer knew what he was getting into.

“I presume there's some connection between these accusations?”

“There is, Your Honor.”

“I have to go back to the courtroom in two minutes. Perhaps you can enlighten me within that time.” There was a loud knock on the door, and one of the mustachioed marshals appeared carrying a packet of mail, which he put on the judge's desk. The marshal eyed the satchel that Tom was carrying and hesitated. “You can wait for us outside,” Parker said to him. After the marshal left, Judge Parker looked at his watch.

LaFarge took a deep breath. “I'll try to put it in a nutshell. Ernest Dekker colluded with certain parties of the Mercantile Exchange Bank to obtain control of his father's business. He then called in the debts of his customers in Arkansas, Oklahoma Territory, and the Indian Nations. He is threatening to close their businesses if they refuse to transfer merchandise mortgages for land and improvement mortgages of their customers. Ernest Dekker essentially wants his retailers to sign over their customers' land wherever they're holding mortgages. He is selling these mortgages to a land syndicate that I believe will exploit the mineral resources, possibly oil—”

“What?” Judge Parker said.

“Rock oil, sir. Kerosene, gasoline, lubrication.”

“I know what oil is used for, counselor,” the judge said. “But I'm not aware of any oil trade in the territory.”

“Lately in Guthrie, I've been hearing a great deal more about oil than coal. There's beginning to be a great interest in it, although at twenty-five cents an acre, it doesn't much matter what use they intend for the land.”

“In your practice you've been hearing this?” Judge Parker said. “Yes sir.”

“Which
is
currently the practice of law?”

LaFarge nodded, looking wounded. “I do have a modest practice, sir.”

“Please excuse my limited knowledge of the law, counselor. I am only a federal judge. But the last time I checked, white men couldn't own land in the Indian Nations. In certain arranged circumstances, they may be allowed to lease it from the tribal government for grazing. They may even ‘hold' improvements—but they may not own land. The land belongs to the tribes, by treaty and by statute.”

“That's where Judge Crilley enters,” Leonard said.

Parker waited for him to explain.

LaFarge hesitated, and Tom saw him make a decision. “He is trying a case that reflects on this.”

“What case is that?”

LaFarge's glance fell to the newspaper on the desk and he sniffed. He squinted, right hand going up to his stomach. Tom got the feeling LaFarge had lost the bridle. He suddenly sounded less sure of himself. “It concerns whether whites may . . . own land in the Indian Nations, be sold land, or in some way exploit its mineral . . . resources.”

“This must be a rather undefined case, counselor,” Parker said. “Who are the parties in it?”

“Sir, my immediate concern is that Jim Miller, in the hire of Dekker, has kidnapped Mr. Jaycox, along with . . . another. Another person.” LaFarge sounded almost breathless, and Tom saw his gaze wander to the newspaper again. “Knowing how limited your time is, I hesitate to go into that part of it. It's the bribery of Judge Crilley that most concerns me.”

The judge had become openly impatient. “Mr. LaFarge, you just said that it was the bribery you were most concerned about, then you said it was the kidnapping, now you've come back to the bribery. Which will it be?”

The office was cool, but LaFarge was sweating. Tom wondered when he was going to signal him to give over the money and letter. “I don't know the name of the particular case that Judge Crilley is considering, Your Honor. I should have admitted that. I haven't had time to investigate it.”

“On what evidence are you making the charge?”

“Logic, sir, inductive logic.” He added limply, “Based on fact.” LaFarge looked stricken. His complexion had gone chalky and he looked sick to his stomach. He was sinking like a rowboat with the plug pulled out, and Tom didn't understand why. Only a moment ago he'd had Parker's interest.

There was a rapping on the door, and the secretary opened it and left it open. Past the stern-faced marshal, down the hall, people were filing back into the courtroom.

Tom unaccountably felt less afraid, despite the fact that the marshal was looking holes through him. He got the impression that the judge was more interested than he was acting.

“They're back in court,” the secretary said.

Parker tranquilly rested his light blue-grey eyes on Tom for a moment. “If you have reason to do so, I admonish you to see a law enforcement official. Specific complaints will have to be made to them. It is beyond my power to protect citizens from harm, except by harsh punishment of the guilty.”

Desperately, LaFarge said, “Your Honor, I came to you because you have always been a protector of the people of the Indian Nations. Their land is being stolen, and the new courts in the Oklahoma Territory and Indian Nations are the worst villains in it.” Parker's eyes flashed on him. “Are you just becoming aware of that, counselor? Many times over the years, recently converted protectors of Indian rights have come to me for one thing or another. Always, it seems, their newfound philanthropy is happily congruent with their own immediate interests. Now, if you have cause to talk with a federal marshal, please do so. I must wish you good day, gentlemen.”

With his eyes Tom signaled to LaFarge,
Don't you want me to give him the satchel?
LaFarge looked alarmed. Had his nerve failed? Should Tom just dump the contents out on the floor? Surely that would get the judge's attention. But LaFarge took him by the arm with a surprisingly strong grasp and pulled him through the door.

They walked in silence for a few blocks, LaFarge huffing and puffing and looking green in the daylight. He went into a druggist and bought a little brown bottle of Dr. Poole's Stomach Relief and drank a slug on the spot, while Tom hung around a dark corner of the druggist's display case, gazing at a group of “sanitary instruments” with carefully printed labels:
ELECTRIC BELT, PHIMOSIS DEVICE, PILE COMPRESSOR, SPERMATORRHOEA RING, AND SOLUBLE SANITARY TAMPONS
. Leonard LaFarge looked unsteady for a moment, then he walked out of the drugstore without a word, and Tom followed.

At a barbershop, LaFarge bought a
Fort Smith Elevator
, and they walked on to Mrs. Peltier's. The two of them went up to Jake's room and LaFarge fell down on the couch, still sipping his medicine, reading something on the front page of the newspaper. Finally he looked up and sighed. He held out the paper, and now Tom understood—before he took it—what had happened in the judge's office.

 

ORPHAN MURDERS BENEFACTOR

WORKED FOR DEKKER HARDWARE

MURDERS MINISTER AND THEN

COMMITS LAST MORTAL SIN

FOUND IN POOL OF BLOOD

 

Tom tried to read it and couldn't. His eyes and the words pushed each other away. He eventually looked up at LaFarge.

“Far be it from me to worry about one less Bible Jack in the world, but is this true? And were you with him, Tom?”

Just lie
, Tom told himself.

LaFarge squinted, as if trying to see him through a clouded glass. “Can you answer me?”

Looking out the window into the grey daylight, Tom felt sweat running down his body. He took off the stiff buckskin shirt and went over to the washbasin, poured in water, and splashed some on his face and neck.

When he turned around, the lawyer was staring down at the floor, shaking his head. “We marched into his office! There we were, in the office of the most deadly judge in the United States, about to show him the goods, bragging about it! You were with this boy, this boy killed somebody, a preacher! And you now have the
money
that he was carrying! Tom, if we gave over that delivery parcel, it would seriously incriminate you.”

“I know that.”

“Well, why in heaven's
name
didn't you tell me? No, no, don't tell me anything. Nothing else. I don't want to hear another word. Jesus Cristos! What have I gotten into?”

Tom heard someone in the hall, and Mr. Haskell came in without knocking. “I found my railroad man. He says that Park Hill is being used, all right. Some men from Fort Smith using it for some kind of business dealing.”

LaFarge seemed too exhausted to respond.

“I think we're wasting our time,” Tom said. “We have to handle it ourselves.”

***

Unable to sleep any longer, Jake stood at the window, watching the night unbuild. A clear day was dawning. He'd been at this window awhile, trying to figure out their location, but there wasn't much to go by. They were on the back side of the building, looking onto a scrub forest. He'd already been to the toilet, under the watchful eye of Jesse James, the gun-toting eighteen-year-old in the hall, and while sitting on the toilet he'd heard men talking downstairs, one with the deliberateness of an Indian speaking English. A rooster crowed somewhere in the distance, and, as if it had been a signal, someone could be heard sprinting up the stairs and through the hall. Hurried words were spoken, and then it sounded as if they both went back down the hall.

Jake waited a second and opened the door. Nobody was there.

He went over and shook Sam, who was still asleep. Her eyes blinked open. “The man outside the door is gone,” he said. “I'm going to look around. You need to wake up. If there's a way out of here, we ought to think about taking it.”

Into the hall Jake walked, as if he knew what he was doing, to the unlit stairs leading to a foyer below. He stopped partway down and sat on the stairs. Below, to his left, the entrance hall opened through double doors into a big room. Several Dekker people were there, working around a long table. A prosperous-looking half-breed stood beside McMurphy, pointing at something on the table and talking excitedly, as if trying to please the unpleasable treasurer. Jake could hear a typewriting machine, and a brief burst of what sounded like Jack Peters's high-pitched laughter. Into the foyer through the double doors walked two men who at a glance looked almost like twins—slight of frame, distant of gaze, wearing bowlers, high collars, and twenty-dollar suits. They came to a place below the staircase where he was sitting, their hats not four feet away.

“Just watch the count. That's what we're here for.”

“I think something's wrong.”

“Look, it's not our problem.”

“Those two are claiming three thousand acres. That's twenty-five allotments!”

“These people all have twenty children. Don't worry about it. They're not asking us to check every allotment. Just keep your eyes and ears open. We report what we see. We'll be gone from this place within the week. It'll be in the boss's lap.”

As they sauntered back into the big room, McMurphy looked up warily toward them and surely would have seen Jake if not for the dimness of the stairs.

Jake knew that if he and Sam walked together down these stairs and through the entrance hall, they would be caught before they got off the property. Outside, they'd leave prints in the snow. He got up and slipped back upstairs, to the end of the hall. He tried a couple of doors and found nothing but dusty rooms. He was going back to his room when he heard somebody rush up the stairs. Two men appeared in the hall, guns out, walking toward him. They took him by his elbows and escorted him back to his room.

As Jake entered, he saw Deacon Miller standing back, almost in a corner, as motionless as a statue. Ernest's lawyer came in and shut the door. He sat down and offered Sam and Jake straight-backed chairs, which they both declined. The lawyer jammed the cigar into his mouth but seemed to make an extra effort to speak carefully around it. “You're out here for an important reason.”

“What's your name?” Sam said.

“I don't care about no smart talk, ma'am. Give me any and I'll have you took to another room and let the boys talk to you. They ain't the gentleman I am.”

One of the two who had escorted Jake back to his room, the skinny eighteen-year-old, smiled menacingly.

The lawyer took out his cigar and gazed at it. “Now Jake, you and this woman have been scheming against Mr. Dekker. You was trying to work the old man into puttin yourself into his place. I know about that, and I know she's been going around town asking all type of questions about his bidness. A certain courier told us that Miss King was going around asking questions. I also know you've been stealing collection money—”

“What?”

“While you've been consorting with this woman publicly all over the territory, setting up in fancy hotels, you've been taking cash from customers and keeping it.”

“That's a lie,” Jake said.

“We have the witnesses. Nobody likes to see a good hard-workin man go down to a brazen woman,” he said with fake concern. “But if it goes to a jury, they'll know you wasn't the first one.”

“You little dirtwad,” Sam said. “You look like a jug with a cork in it.”

A fleeting look of anxiety crossed the lawyer's face before he recovered and turned to Deacon Miller. “Take this here banty hen to another room, please, Deacon.”