Payback at Morning Peak (24 page)

“Yes, I’m for it, I think a man should have bare arms and a bare backside.”

She stopped and held her hands over her mouth in embarrassment as Jubal called out, “Bare backsides, bare backsides.”

He would never see Pru married, never be godfather to her children. He had been denied the pleasure of her tall, straight countenance on her wedding day. That radiant smile, the sense of play and joy of life.

He had been denied that by a number of fools who had thought their need for fun was greater than the rights of three loving people.

The marshal, when he finally arrived, strutted down Bennett Street like a man going to his own wedding. Shirt fresh, boots shined. His badge, usually worn on his vest and tucked away, now appeared prominently on the outside lapel of his smart jacket. From the attention he was paid by the various passersby, it seemed the man had achieved satisfaction from his appearance.

Jubal walked to the other side of the street and fell in step alongside Marshal Turner. “Good afternoon, sir, lovely day, wouldn’t you say?”

Turner was lost in his own image. “What the hell? Oh, it’s the young shootist, come to gloat.”

Jubal chose to ignore the remark. “How’s the judge doing, Mr. Turner?”

“I guess you’re going to be a pain in my behind the rest of the day, aren’t you?”

“No, sir, I’m not.” Jubal continued walking beside
the marshal. “I just wanted to inquire of Judge Wickham’s health. How is he?”

They reached the front of the sheriff’s office. The tight-lipped marshal paused, looked at Jubal, then entered and shut the heavy door behind him.

Jubal returned to his run-down structure and slid his back down the side of the porch. He was still determined to see Tauson be ridden off to the train. He was baffled as to what he had done that had so agitated Marshal Wayne.

It was close to an hour’s wait when Sheriff Cox and Marshal Turner came out of the building. They spoke for a while before the deputy appeared with Tauson in tow. The group loaded their chained prisoner into a buggy and took their seats. Jubal was determined to get an answer from the marshal.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me before, Mr. Turner, but I asked about the judge. How is he?”

“I heard you, schoolboy. The man you shot, Al Wetherford, is in the hospital in Albuquerque. He’s gonna live. As for the judge, he’ll make it, too, no thanks to you.”

They rode off toward the train station with Tauson trying to look his haughty best, under the circumstances. Sheriff Cox was the only one to acknowledge Jubal, winking at him as the group disappeared down the dirt street.

“‘No thanks to you’?” Jubal repeated aloud, wondering what the heck that meant.

He had no idea how to proceed, thinking maybe he’d hang around until Sheriff Cox came back from delivering Tauson and the marshal to the train station. He then changed his mind and took off.

Jubal walked Frisk slowly down the dirt street, passing the post office, wondering when or if he would hear from the judge. He liked the man. Judge Wickham seemed unusually honest, and while thinking of the judge and his family, it was an easy jump for Jubal to let his mind wander over the body and soul of one Cybil Wickham. He imagined her soft hair, smile, and mischievous frame. A wonderful group of particulars wrapped around a humorous and quick mind. He passed Faulkner’s Livery where he had been yesterday to find out about a sluice for panning gold.

Well, that would have to wait. First he needed to talk to a fellow he had heard of, a certain Greek, a man named Mr. Apoptic.

The dark establishment reeked of chemicals and other dank scents. A thin man, his sleeves rolled up, dried his hands on an overused towel and asked Jubal how he could be of help.

“I came about Bob Patterson.”

The man looked puzzled.

“He was probably brought in early this morning from the tavern. Gunshot wound to the chest, a bit of ginger-colored hair and sideburns.…”

“Ah, yes, and you’re here to…”

“Pay my respects and take care of his funeral if I’m able.”

The man directed Jubal to a chair across from a dark wooden desk.

“Is Mr. Patterson a relative, Mr.…”

“Young, Jubal Young. No, we are just friends. Or, I mean, we were friends before.”

“Mr. Jubal. I know you would like to see your friend Bob well taken care of, wouldn’t you?”

Jubal thought he’d like not to be called “mister,” and especially not “Mr. Jubal,” but then, what the heck was the difference? “Yes, of course, but I’ve been caught a little short, so it’ll have to be a modest event.”

“Event?”

“I mean, I’m not sure what all this entails, as I’ve never taken part before—in a funeral, I mean.”

The man leafed through a ledger. Jubal suspected the man already had a figure in mind and was just posing.

“Beloved friend Bob.” He took on a serious look. “Could be nicely interred for, I think, around one hundred”—he glanced up to see how Jubal was taking it—“and thirty dollars. Mr. Jubal, would that suit?”

“That includes a box, I mean, a casket and all?”

“Yes, of course, the very finest carved rosewood receptacle we have. That would include a charge for a carriage to the cemetery, crepe for doors—”

“Could you scratch around and find something a little more plain? You see, Bob didn’t go in for anything fancy… wouldn’t feel comfortable in anything too ornate.”

The funeral director moved his pince-nez glasses up closer to his eyes as if looking at the fine print. “How would one hundred and ten suit friend Bob? Think he might rest comfortably at that bargain rate? Of course, that would be all-inclusive. Preparation, a shroud, engraved plate, gloves for friend Bob, opening the ground—”

“What’s a shroud?”

“I assume since we’re talking a value-conscious ‘event’ that you wouldn’t be buying friend Bob a new suit. A
shroud is what they wear at a church choir. It just covers the front.”

Jubal paused. “Can I see him?”

“Yes, certainly, give me a minute, please.”

The cost of death surprised him.

Bob looked pale. Mouth open, hands locked across his chest. “I’ll leave you alone,” said the funeral director.

Jubal heard the door click behind him. The dark room, with several covered forms on long, flat tables, did not spark his curiosity. It was cold. It smelled strange. Jubal looked at the stark mound that had been a laughing, fun-loving human being just hours before. He pulled the sheet down to Bob’s waist and took one last look, then rested his hand on Bob’s vest pocket. He felt the hard surface of Bob’s gold watch that he had been so proud of. Also in the pocket were a couple of gold coins. Jubal pocketed the watch and money.

It would all go back to Mr. Funny Glasses in the end, but Jubal thought it best if it passed through him first. He didn’t want to interrupt his search for Pete Wetherford, but Bob Patterson’s funeral and his own need for food and provisions would have to come first.

Jubal passed a shop with a trio of metal balls hanging from a sign that read
WALT’S HOCK AND TRADE.
While Jubal was looking in the window, the man he assumed to be Walt came to the door.

“How you doing, son?”

“Oh, fine, sir. I’ve got a watch I need to sell.”

“Sell or hock?”

“Sell, I think. What’s ‘hock’?”

“It’s when we loan money on an item, like a watch.”

“I think I just need to sell this, sir.” Jubal took out Bob’s watch and handed it over.

“A Swiss copy. What did you think on getting for this piece, sonny?”

“It were pa’s and I hate to let it go from the family. I’ll need a right good number for it, sir.”

Walt opened the back of the watch and squinted at an inscription. “Was your pa’s name Patterson?”

Jubal nodded, trying to look sad.

“I’ll give you thirty dollars for it. It’s not stolen, is it? I’m not going to get some fella in my shop a-yelling at me that I’ve got his timepiece, am I?”

“I can assure you, that will not happen.”

Jubal decided to return to the livery to ask for directions to the sawmill.

An old-timer with a wad of tobacco in his jaw, upon regarding Jubal’s sketch of the sluice, offered to accompany him.

“A man could describe a sluice to you ‘til sundown and you’d still not understand the lay of it.… Look here.” The bent old miner laid out a series of planks and drew his own sketch in the soft ground. “You need a gentle angle along here so the water and your filings will filter down.…”

It took a while, but in the end Jubal purchased his lumber, bundling it so Frisk could drag it, and then proceeded into the hills to try and make a living.

It was frustrating work. The sluice he built worked better than the way he and Bob had panned, but it would have been much easier with two men.

The ten-foot-long apparatus slanted at a thirty- to forty-degree angle. The high part was about four feet off the ground, then it angled down close to the surface of the stream. Narrow one-inch riffles, there to catch the gold, created a series of dams along the length of the sluice. Jubal would pour dirt from the streambed onto a screen that caught the larger of the rocks. The water then flowed into the top of the sluice, washing down past the little dams, the theory being that as Jubal shook the whole
trough, the heavy gold would settle into the strip of burlap placed in the bottom of the channel.

After a while the screen would become clogged with material that wouldn’t track down the length of the apparatus, and Jubal would stop and clean it out. He would also be careful to glean the small, heavy sparkles stuck to the burlap at the bottom.

After a week of sluicing, he figured he had enough of a stake that it would be worth making his way back down the mountain. He hid his sluice behind some pine trees and headed for the assayer’s office.

“Eighty-seven dollars, mister. What’s you gonna do with all that cash?”

“Bury some sad memories.”

Jubal paid the funeral man and saved himself five dollars by hooking Frisk to the carriage wagon with flower-etched windows. They headed up the long hill to Pisgah, a rundown cemetery at the top of a verdant mound overlooking the tight little valley.

Mr. Apoptic, a preacher for hire named Reverend Everett, and Jubal stood silently after a short few words and benediction. The funeral director signaled for Jubal to begin filling in the damp grave. It had rained the previous night, and the sides of the grave were washed down, the wooden casket settling halfway into a puddle of mud. Jubal carefully tamped the shoveled earth alongside the box and proceeded to fill in the wet hole, wishing he had Bob’s five-dollar gloves.

Mr. Apoptic and Everett disappeared down the hill with Frisk and the black-filigreed wagon, Jubal briefly
considering charging the pair a fee for using his horse on their way back.

He had many thoughts along those lines, mostly about injustice and greed. Jubal stopped himself from feeling put-upon and morbidly sorry for allowing people to take advantage of him. He resolved to be more tough-minded and resolute, and to direct his feelings in more positive directions.
Here I am, worrying about a trifle in terms of rudeness by this bastard Greek funeral director and a for-hire illiterate preacher, while my friend Bob lies at the bottom of a wet grave—his fingers still locked across a cold chest. Heaven help us.

Frisk stood, head down, still harnessed to the funeral wagon.

“I hope you were satisfied with the service, Mr. Jubal.” Mr. Apoptic appeared at the back door of the home. “I had to charge you, of course, for the ice to keep friend Bob comfy. I also took the liberty of advancing Reverend Everett ten dollars extra for his thoughtful address. I felt confident you would agree and reimburse me for my foresight. In beloved friend Bob’s memory.”

Jubal unhitched Frisk and dropped the weighty harness to the ground. “Mr. Apologetic, your foresight and taking of liberties with my money has astounded me. I would have thought people in your position, dealing with folks who have lost those they care for, would be a little more sensitive. Would you like to take a ride with me to the Methodist church? We’ll ask the kind Reverend Ev whether he received a gratuity or not. What do
you say? It’s worth an additional ten dollars to you if he says yes.”

The funeral man ducked back inside his dark house and slammed the door.

Jubal rode Frisk back into the street. He withdrew his pistol and hit the large reception-room window with the butt end. The glass crazed into a beautiful star shape. He knew it to be childish, but it satisfied him.

Jubal passed a school that looked closed for the day. A few boys played hide-and-seek, their shouts of joy as they searched out their playmates a delight to Jubal’s ears. He pressed on without really knowing where it would lead him, and even considered riding through the various shantytowns and calling out Pete Wetherford’s name, like a child.

But justice wouldn’t happen that way.

Jubal,

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye need know.”

Your note was refreshing and found me in both good spirits and fine health. I walk a little further each day and my appetite has returned.

Both Marlene and Cybil are doing well and send their regards.

I hope you’ll excuse the beginning of this note’s partial quote from John Keats. It is one of my favorites and held me in good stead, my years on the bench.

You have a way about you, young man. Your
honesty and forthright behavior will, I think, be the bedrock of your life’s work. Whatever that turns out to be.

I am flattered you took my incident of physical harm to such heart. Cybil described to me your sensitive help with Doc Brown and how her own woozy behavior led to her comfort and support by you. My most humble gratitude.

If you will be kind enough to indulge an old man, “heed ye these morsels of ancient wisdom”?

Stop constantly putting your life on the line, dammit. I know you have been through much and that you are headstrong and independent. But Jubal, my son, think about the consequences of your actions, please. I understand your need for revenge but if it jeopardizes your life, is it worth it?