Andromeda Gun (17 page)

Surprisingly for Ian, the only obstruction he encountered in his plan to construct the schoolhouse for Gabriella came from the prime contractor, Mickey O’Shea.

In a casual, offhand manner designed to cloak his intentions, Ian asked Gabriella if she had any pictures of buildings she liked. On Saturday evening after supper she dropped by the jailhouse office bringing a huge book,
Architectural Treasures of Europe
, which she laid on the sheriff’s desk and opened to a full-page, mezzotinted engraving.

“Ian, I’d like to show you the world’s most beautiful building, and I’d like to explain the architectural details which lead me to think so.”

Rather dismayed by her tutorial manner, he demurred, “No use showing me Gabe, Mickey O’Shea’s the man I want to look it over.”

Turning, he shouted down the corridor, “O’Shea, front and center!”

O’Shea swung open his cell door and advanced at a quick step down the corridor, a questioning look on his face as he emerged into the office and noticed Gabriella.

Feeling that now was as good a time as any to make his intentions known to the girl, Ian waved his hand toward the book on the desk and said, “Mickey, take a gander at the schoolhouse you’re building for Miss Stewart on Peyton’s Point.”

Across the desk from Ian, Gabriella’s head snapped up, and she was looking at Ian in astonishment. A veil seemed to float over her eyes, and she continued to stare at Ian as O’Shea glanced at the picture.

Though Gabriella was petrified with amazement, her astonishment was less than O’Shea’s. Leaning over the book, he, too, went rigid as a low whistle broke from his lips. Standing beside them, Ian waited patiently for the tableau to break, and O’Shea broke it first.

His voice rose to a high whine of incredulity as he said, “What the hell, boss? This is Chartres Cathedral.”

“Watch your language, boy,” Ian snapped, “There’s a lady present… Now, I don’t care who owns the building, just shut up and build it.”

Ian knew O’Shea would disobey the order because O’Shea had never heard it. In a stupefied monotone, he said, “It took four thousand Frenchmen four hundred years to build this building.”

“Snap out of it, O’Shea… Are you telling me you’re willing to let a few Frenchmen outdo an Irishman?”

Gabriella was still in a trance caused by Ian’s oblique announcement. O’Shea had turned pale, but he was continuing to argue.

“But, captain, Miss Stewart doesn’t need a four-hundred-foot bell tower.”

“Mickey,” Ian explained patiently, gently, “she’s got to have a building to impress them Mormons. Superintendent Peyton will be sending her his young ones, but that don’t mean the others will fall in line…”

“Ian McCloud, are you telling me that Bryce Peyton’s already agreed…” Finally, snapping out of her trance, Gabriella hurled the partial question, but O’Shea did not let her finish.

“Four hundred feet, captain. Don’t you think that’s overdoing it a mite?”

“Ian, I had no idea…”

“Lop off a few hundred feet if you don’t feel up to it,” Ian said. “Maybe three hundred will be enough.”

“Thirty’s enough,” Gabriella broke in. “But I don’t need a bell tower. I have a hand bell… Ian, what’s this about Bryce Peyton?”

“Peyton’s sending you his young ones.”

“Let’s see… eighteen young ones, that’s thirty-six dollars, head tax,” she said, and began to drift back into a trance when Ian aroused her.

“You’ll need a bell tower, Gabe. No sense going out to ring your own bell on a rainy day, and a bell rope will have all the Mormon boys coming just to ring your bell. Anyhow, when that bell sounds, I want the whole valley to know there’s a school in session.”

“Then, by all means, give me a bell tower, Mr. O’Shea, but thirty-six feet will do fine.”

“Make that a hundred, Mickey,” Ian ordered.

“Oh, but Ian…”

“No bother, Miss Stewart,” O’Shea turned to the girl abruptly. “I believe I can satisfy both parties in regard to the height—one hundred feet for the captain and thirty for you.”

“If you can do that, I’ll be flabbergasted, but I’m already flabbergasted. For me, the most beautiful schoolhouse in the world, and right here in Shoshone Flats.”

Standing, she seemed to be floating away, but O’Shea hardly noticed.

“What about the flying buttresses, Miss Stewart?” he asked, pointing to the page.

Gabriella had not heard O’Shea. She was drifting into a private world, her eyes misting over with happiness.

Ian glanced at the drawing on the page, to the abutments on the building O’Shea was pointing to, and he liked the looks of the exterior arches. They gave the building the straddlelegged stance of a gunfighter.

“I like them, Mickey, so throw in a few for her. Now, take the book and get cracking on them plans.”

Strangely, O’Shea, also, seemed to be withdrawing. Standing over
Architectural Treasures of Europe
, staring down at the drawing, he was talking to himself. “A little Chartres. I never thought I’d start with a little Chartres.”

Suddenly, he snapped out of his reverie, “Captain, I’ll not only need the book, I’ll need a drawing board, T squares, French curves, pencils, drafting paper, and five more days on my sentence.”

“You ain’t getting no more time from me, unless that road ain’t finished on schedule. You’re doing this on your own time.”

Nevertheless, Ian had obtained the supplies from the general store by Monday, clearing almost as much from the purchase of the supplies as the $50 he earned from O’Shea’s retainer fee. In addition, he permitted O’Shea to set up his drawing board in the cell-block corridor for night work and scheduled a day off from road work for a small crew under O’Shea to dig the foundations for the Peyton School. Ian’s about-face followed the policy of generosity set by the town’s administration. There was little point in being stingy with the prisoners’ time since the mayor was not the saving sort. After reviewing O’Shea’s plans for the school, Winchester had upped the contractor’s bid to $910.27.

The mayor took the trouble to explain to the deputy why the contract had been upped; flying buttresses added considerably to a building’s overhead. Ian admired the mayor’s persuasiveness. He was convinced the additional cost was allowable until the banker greeted them on the sidewalk with a friendly, “Good morning, Mayor Winchester, Deputy McCloud.”

Ian admired even more the twenty-seven cents Winchester tacked onto the bid. Such little touches separated mayors from deputy sheriffs.

Mormons were beginning to use the road now. Not only were the Mormons and Gentiles in the valley being drawn closer, Winchester and Bain, erstwhile symbols of virtue and vice in Shoshone Flats, were being seen together more often. Bain pledged $100 to the mayor’s campaign fund to fight any possible reform candidate who might be entered into the race by the nonvoting wives of habitual poker losers.

Ian personally gained a feeling of accomplishment from the road. He was being paid well for his work, and the bank was gaining an increasing stream of depositors, but his feelings did not seem connected with the harvest, present and potential, he would gain in money. It was more a satisfaction in civic accomplishment, a pleasure alien to any he had ever felt before.

Full extent of the Winchester-Bain rapprochement was not brought home to Ian until the day of the ribbon-cutting ceremonies marking the opening of the road. Had it not been for the ceremonials planned by the mayor, Ian could have finished two days ahead of schedule and given the prisoners five days off for good behavior.

But the prisoners were not the only ones to suffer from the delay. Ian had to cancel his plans for a dramatic farewell to Gabriella since the ribbon cutting was posted for the afternoon he would have to leave to pick up the stagecoach at Wind River. Neither he nor she could avoid the ribbon cutting. The mayor had invited Ian to sit on the platform as a guest of honor, and Gabriella was to be the official ribbon cutter.

As it happened, Ian reached the official end of the road before eleven on the morning of September 2. A sizable crowd had gathered to watch the unofficial finish as the men worked toward the officials’ platform and the wide swash of whitewash drawn across the road where the ribbon was to be strung. Ian’s crew insisted on an impromptu ceremony of its own, handing him the last full shovel of gravel to spread on the last inch of road. Enough members of the band were on hand to tootle “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” and give a festive note to the informal finish.

There was a spate of applause and handshakes for Ian after he bowed to the crowd and handed the shovel to O’Shea, who marched the crew smartly off to the jailhouse to wash up for dinner and get ready for the official ceremony at two o’clock. Both Gabriella and Liza were present, and they rushed up to buss his cheeks. He blushed and walked down the street, Midnight following.

Gabriella and Liza had to hurry back to the restaurant to prepare dinner for the prisoners and the expected large crowd. As Ian walked along, inwardly pleased but outwardly nonchalant, Billy Peyton fell into step beside him.

“Deputy, Miss Stewart mentioned you were interested in the fifty acres of my property between the Jebediah Clayton Bridge and the Bryce Peyton Territorial School.”

“Yep.”

“You can have the whole shebang for fifty dollars, provided you give me your word of honor you won’t pay court to Miss Stewart.”

The Methodists must have done a good job of converting on Peyton, Ian observed to himself, if the ex-Mormon was willing to trust a bank robber’s word of honor, but here was a chance to make a fast $400 profit on land Sheriff Faust was willing to pay $500 for.

“Well, boy,” Ian said, “I know I ain’t up to courting Miss Stewart. She’s got too much book learning to look on me as a legible suitor, but since you think different, let’s step in the bank here and transfer the title. I got fifty dollars to spare.”

Ian was pleased by the transaction and more pleased when Peyton immediately put the payment back into the bank. However, Ian’s pleasure was short-lived. When he reached the office, he found Faust there attending to his administrative work by staying sober until after the ribbon cutting.

“Sheriff,” Ian said, “I think I can get Billy Peyton’s land for you for about five hundred, so’s you can make your own beer when you retire.”

Sober, Faust was suspicious. “Trying to retire me off, son? Getting ready to step into my boots while I’m still in them?”

“Naw, sheriff. Been thinking of quitting, myself. But you said you wanted the property.”

“I did once, but that was before I brought law and order to Shoshone Flats. Doing administrative work sharpens a man, deputy. I decided to put my money in the bank and draw interest. By the time I retire, which ain’t going to be for a long time yet, the people over in Idaho will be shamed into building a road to the Wyoming border to match the one Mayor Winchester ordered you to build. When that happens, the freight rates between here and the brewery in Pocatello’s coming way down, and the price of beer’s going to drop. With my interest money and the low prices, I figure I can buy more beer than I can brew in what little time I’ll have left to me after I finally decide to retire.”

Well, Ian thought, as he went to wash his hands, it served him right. He was a bank robber, not a hornswoggler, and it never paid to mix trades. But he’d lost nothing. He’d get his fifty dollars back, plus the sheriff’s savings, tomorrow.

Ian’s place of honor on the speaker’s stand was to the left of the justice of the peace, who was left of the commissary stewardess who was left of the high sheriff, who was left of the ribbon cutter, who was left of the mayor. Strangely, Mr. Bain had been invited to the platform and sat to the right of the mayor. Prettily gowned and bonneted, Gabriella Stewart carried a large pair of shears at the ready. Before the platform, precisely ranked, shovels at “right shoulder,” an honor guard of Ian’s road crew under the command of Mickey O’Shea stood at attention.

After the crowd had assembled before the dignitaries and after a few patriotic airs from the band across the street, the mayor arose to “Present, tools!”—barked out by O’Shea. When O’Shea had ordered the honor guard to “Parade, rest!,” the mayor introduced the honored guests from left to right, ending with Ian, “whose spadework under the supervision of Sheriff Faust made our dreams a reality.”

When Ian arose to acknowledge the introduction, prolonged applause and cries of “Speech, speech” arose from the crowd, so the mayor invited Ian to say a few short words.

“When I first got here,” Ian said, “I had two complaints about this town—the Mormon gunfighter couldn’t shoot straight and Dead Man’s Curve was too crooked. Since then, your Mormon gunfighter’s become a Methodist straightshooter and O’Shea’s Gap has straightened out Dead Man’s Curve. Now, I ain’t got no complaints.

“However, I’m giving all my convicts time off for good behavior, right after ribbon cutting, and inviting them over to Bain’s Saloon to have free drinks on me. If any of the rest of you have been saving up for a spree, tonight’s the night to throw it. I’m leaving here for Wind River to ride shotgun on the stage, right after the ribbon cutting, and I won’t be back till tomorrow morning. So, tonight, I won’t be arresting nobody. Thank you.”

Amid prolonged cheers, Ian sat down, and the mayor arose to wait out the silence. When it finally came, Mayor Winchester went into a spiel describing the future of Shoshone Flats, which Ian had heard before in Brother Winchester’s description of heaven, then with the added attraction of a radiant throne.

Ian’s thoughts wandered to his own immediate future.

Blicket would hit the stagecoach at sunrise, the way he always did. Probably he’d detail The Sergeant to kill the rear guard and fluster the driver, then The Colonel would step around the corner of the cliff on the big gray and get the drop on the driver, lulling the man with honeyed words to make him feel safe and to watch the surprised look on his victim’s face when he pulled the trigger on his sawed-off shotgun. Colonel Jasper Blicket was right fond of surprises.

But The Colonel and his orderly would make a mistake. They’d think it was Johnny Loco riding rear shotgun on the stagecoach, and there’d be no means of identification afterwards because The Sergeant used lead minié balls with a slit across the nose, dum-dum bullets named for the sounds they made going in and coming out. But the final remains of the shotgun guard would not be the scraps of Johnny Loco, for he would be crouched inside the stagecoach waiting.