Town Tamers (11 page)

A
letter was waiting for Asa at the boardinghouse. Ethel gave it to him, saying, “This came about half an hour ago.”

Asa had his mail forwarded by his sister in Austin. He had post office boxes for both Asa Carter and Asa Delaware, and his sister had access and made sure any letters caught up to him.

He didn’t open the envelope until he was in his room. He was supposed to pack so they could head home, but after reading it he sat on the bed and pondered until a knock on his door roused him.

“We’re ready when you are,” Noona said as she and Byron entered.

“I’d like my share of the money first,” Byron said.

Asa always gave each of them a third. Noona was saving hers and had quite a nest egg. He didn’t know what Byron did with his.

“I’ll be heading east soon after we get back,” Byron said, jingling his poke.

“Any chance I can interest you in one last job?” Asa said.

“No.”

“What was in the letter you got?” Noona asked.

Asa unfolded it. “How about I read it to you?”

“Go ahead,” Noona said.

“I don’t care what its says,” Byron declared. “I’m not changing my mind.”

“It’s from a Cecilia Preston in Ordville, Colorado,” Asa revealed.

“Isn’t that a mining town?” came from Noona.

“Silver,” as Asa recollected. “A man by the name of Ordville struck one of the richest veins ever found. The mine produces tons of it a year.”

“Colorado is a long way from Texas,” Noona said.

“Let me read it.” Asa wet his throat. “‘Mr. Asa Delaware. Dear sir. My name is Cecilia Preston. I’m writing on behalf of Ordville. We would like for you to come and tame our town. There are bad men here. Come in person as soon as you can. Thank you. Cecilia Preston.’”

“That’s it?” Byron said, and laughed.

“She sounds sort of simpleminded,” Noona said.

“Postscript,” Asa read. “You will be paid five thousand dollars to tame Ordville. Please come quick.”

Byron whistled.

“That’s more than we’ve earned for any job, ever,” Noona said.

“It is,” Asa said.

“Will you take it or not?”

“I’ve been sitting here thinking,” Asa said. “Five thousand is a lot of money. With your brother wanting to go off on his own—”

“Don’t involve me,” Byron interrupted.

“—I was thinking I would take my usual three hundred and you two can split the rest.”

“No,” Byron said.

“That would come to over twenty-three hundred dollars for each of you,” Asa calculated.

“I don’t do this for the money,” Noona said. “But that is an awful lot.”

“Damn it,” Byron said.

“We’ve never been to Colorado, though,” Noona noted. “Wyoming, that once. And Arkansas that time. But mostly we work in Texas.”

“Colorado’s no different than any other place,” Asa said. “A town is a town.”

“It’s a long way.”

“Wyoming was farther.”

“I’m not objecting,” Noona said. “I’ll do it if you do it.”

“Thanks.” Asa looked at his son.

“No,” Byron said, with a lot less conviction than before.

“Twenty-three hundred to bankroll your new life,” Noona said.

“I don’t care,” Byron said.

“One last taming.”

“Don’t do this.”

“If he doesn’t want to,” Asa said, “leave him be. He’s a grown man now, as he keeps reminding us.”

Noona placed a hand on her brother’s arm. “If you won’t do it for him, do it for me.”

“I hate you,” Byron said.

“Twenty-three hundred,” she said again.

“I’m not you, sis. I don’t like blowing people’s brains out anymore.”

“I’ll help Pa blow out the brains if that’s what bothering you. I just want your company.”

Byron stepped to the window and stared down at the street, and sighed. “‘But ever and anon of griefs subdued there comes a token like a Scorpion’s sting,’” he quoted.

“Is that a yes or a no?” asked Noona.

“I’ll go,” Byron said. “For you, not for him. But I won’t kill. I am done with killing, now and forever. Whatever else I can do, I will.”

Noona grinned, went over, and pecked him on the cheek. “Thank you. You won’t regret it.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Honestly, boy,” Asa said, rising. “You are gloom itself. We’ve done this how many times? We’ll take the usual precautions.”

“Nothing will go wrong,” Noona said.

“I hope not,” Byron said and turned to Asa. “But if it does, I have your epitaph.”

“I don’t need one.”

“Listen,” Byron said, and quoted with, “‘Thy days are done, thy strains begun. Thy country’s strains record the triumphs of her chosen Son, the slaughters of his sword. The deeds he did, the fields he won, the freedoms he restored.’”

“I just don’t understand you sometimes,” Asa said.

“Enough of that.” Noona raised her hand as if she held a glass. “To Colorado,” she said happily, “and the last hurrah of the Delawares.”

T
hey took a train to Denver. Or, rather, a series of trains, since they had to switch a couple of times. It was only possible because earlier that year the Fort Worth and Denver Railway had completed their line and commenced service.

Noona was delighted. Usually they rode horseback to the next town or took stagecoaches if it was far off. She liked to ride a horse but not for days at a time, and she could only take the confines of a bouncing stage for so long before she wanted to jump out.

The train cars swayed a little now and then, and there was the constant chug of the engine and the clack of the rails, but all in all, it was as comfortable as could be compared to horseback and a stage.

“This is grand,” she said as they took their seats in the dining car. “This is awful grand.”

“Unusual for you,” Byron said to Asa, almost as if it were an accusation.

“If it’s to be our last time together,” Asa said, “we might as well make it special.”

“No if,” Byron said. “It is.”

“What will you do? How will you make a living?”

“I don’t know yet,” Byron said, “but anything is better than blowing out brains.”

“Not that again.”

Noona smacked the table so hard, their glasses of water shook. “No, you don’t. I won’t put up with it. Byron, you keep what’s eating you to yourself. Pa, don’t bring up how he feels. We’re going to get along if it kills us.”

“Fine by me, daughter,” Asa said.

“Byron?” Noona said.

“‘ ’Tis a base abandonment of reason to resign our right of thought.’”

“Another of your quotes,” Noona said. “Cut down on those, too. You only do it to show off.”

“Oh, sis.”

“Just because you can memorize more words than anybody doesn’t mean you rub our noses in it.”

“I recite it because I like it.”

“Be that as it may. Half the time I don’t know what in blazes you’re saying, and more often than not it sets Pa off.”

“That’s not my intent.”

“Besides,” Noona said, “that precious poet of yours died, what, over sixty years ago? Not much he said matters today.”

Byron reacted as if she had thrust a blade between his ribs. “You can’t be serious. Lord Byron will be read for a thousand years. For ten thousand. For as long as romance flourishes in the human heart.”

“God help us,” Asa said.

“Don’t belittle me for having poetry in my soul.”

Asa went to reply and glanced at Noona. “Can I? You just told me not to.”

Noona frowned. “I’ll make this one exception but only if you give your word that you won’t bring it up again the rest of the trip.”

“Yes, by all means, go ahead,” Byron said.

“Did this great poet you admire so much ever kill anyone?” Asa asked.

Byron stared.

“Well, did he?”

“Byron was British. They don’t go around shooting each other like we do. They’re civilized.”

Asa swept an arm to encompass the plush interior of the dining car with its shaded windows and cushioned seats and bronze fittings. “We’re not?”

“Dress an ape in a suit and it’s still an ape. Lord Byron did most of his fighting with words. He used them like other men use swords.”

“We’re not apes,” Asa said. “And why did you say ‘most’?”

“Toward the end of his life he fought for Greek independence. Before he could take part in an actual engagement, he came down ill and died.”

“So he didn’t kill anybody.”

Byron drummed his fingers on the table. “I resent what you’re implying.”

“I’m not implying anything, son. I’m saying that it’s unfair to compare me to this poet. He scribbled rhymes for a living. I kill folks, bad folks, the kind who will shoot you as quick as look at you.”

“I know that. I’ve helped you how many times?”

“Then you, of all people, should see that I can’t afford to look at the world the way your poet does. To me, life isn’t a romance. It’s grim and hard, and it will kill you if you give it half a chance.”

“I don’t think you should be like Byron, Pa. I just wish you didn’t kill, period.”

“Ah,” Asa said.

“Can’t you see it’s wrong?”

Asa looked out the window at the scenery rolling by, then said, “I had a parson say the same thing once. Went on and on about how evil I am. He quoted from the Bible, that commandment about not ever killing.”

When Byron didn’t respond, Noona was prompted by curiosity to ask, “What did you tell him?”

“I’ve never read the Bible all the way through. Your mother did. She liked to read it sometimes in the evenings after supper. You rememember?”

Noona nodded.

“One part I recollected was that not long after God gave those commandments the parson went on about, those Jewish people got to their Promised Land, or whatever it was.”

“I remember that part,” Noona said.

“What was the first thing they did when they got there?” Asa said. “I’ll tell you. They killed everybody. Wiped out whole towns and cities. Folks who worshipped other gods.”

“Is there a point to this?” Byron asked.

“If it was all right for the Jews to go around killing all those bad folks, I reckon it’s all right for me.”

“I never thought of it like that,” Noona said. “It’s good to know the Almighty won’t hold it against us.”

Byron looked from her to their father and back again. “Do they serve drinks on this train?”

L
ater, Asa lay on his back in his berth with a hand under his head, staring at the ceiling and waiting for sleep to claim him.

He was worried about his son. He truly was.

Byron had changed. When he was younger he was bright and bushy-tailed. Then Mary took sick, and his disposition became gloomy. After she died, he fell into a sulk that lasted over a year.

The boy read more than ever. He’d always liked to, ever since he first learned how. Asa had thought it a waste of his son’s time to read so much but Mary had said to let Byron be, that book-learning was a good thing and Byron would be better for it.

Not hardly
, Asa thought. After her death, the boy became so caught up in books, his book world mattered more than the real one.

Especially that damn poet. For the life of him, Asa couldn’t savvy what was so wonderful about Lord Byron. Unknown to his son, he’d snuck a few looks at the boy’s books about him.

A lot of the poems had to do with ladies, Asa discovered. It seemed that every time Lord Byron fell in love, he wrote a new poem about it. And he fell in love a lot.

Asa was surprised to come across a poem Lord Byron wrote in memory of his dog. Any man who cared for dogs couldn’t be all bad, but still.

As for the rest, it was so much Greek. Asa tried to read
Don Juan
because his son liked it so much. But a lot of the meaning, if there was any, went over his head.

Asa would be the first to admit he wasn’t the smartest gent who ever drew breath. He could count the books he’d read on one hand and have fingers left over. And when people talked about politics and religion and the like, it put him to sleep.

He was a simple man with simple needs, and simple thoughts. It amazed him that any son of his could read someone like Lord Byron and take his meaning.

He’d long suspected that no good would come of it, and he’d been proven right.

All that highfalutin nonsense about not killing—Asa was sure his son picked that up from books.

He hadn’t found anything in his skimming of Lord Byron’s works that flat-out said so, but he did remember someone telling him once that poets had gentle souls, and ever since his son became obsessed with Lord Byron, he’d become so gentle-minded that now he couldn’t abide snuffing wicks.

Asa rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. He needed to stop thinking about it. He needed to keep his head clear for Ordville.

Town taming was a serious business. It was no job for amateurs. Or for poets with gentle souls. He was glad this was Byron’s last time. If the boy kept at it, he’d wind up as dead as that silly poet.