Power in the Blood (73 page)

Three weeks after the burial of her mother, Madge entered Clay’s office. Clay had attended the funeral out of respect, but had stayed at the rear of the graveside gathering, and hurried away without expressing his commiserations face-to-face with Madge. When he saw her coming through the doorway, his heart gave a guilty lurch before, settling into a steady gallop that carried it nowhere at all.

“Good afternoon, Marshal.”

“Miss Clifton. What can I do for you?”

“I have asked myself that question. May I sit?”

“Help yourself. I mean … please do.”

Once seated, she cocked her head and looked at his face. Clay generally did not like people staring at him; he knew he was ugly, and their stares seemed intrusive and downright rude. He never revealed this, since it would have granted the starers a kind of power over him. But with Madge it was different; she was staring not at the holes in his face but into the eyes behind his spectacles, as if awaiting some kind of revelation there. Clay tolerated the stare because it gave him the opportunity to stare right back, and he found that Madge looked better than he remembered. He guessed she had lost some weight beneath her jaw; in fact she seemed to have slimmed down all over. Clay had heard that this was a fairly common sign of unhappiness and distress, and he supposed it was due to the loss of her mother, even though from Clay’s perspective such a loss would have represented a tremendous relief from familial obligation; but maybe it was different with women.

“I’m leaving,” Madge said at last.

“Leaving?”

“This town and this territory.”

“Why?”

“Why not? Why should I stay here? Mama has left me a little money I had no idea she owned, and the house has been put up for sale. You might make an offer on it yourself. You can’t possibly be comfortable upstairs here. See the agent down the street if you’re interested. I’ll accept a reasonable sum.”

“But why not stay?”

“Because for me there is nothing here to which I am attached, Mr. Dugan, sir. I’m not a popular figure around town, not during the hours of daylight. We have no need to speak in riddles. I’m a soiled dove, as they say, and no longer young. The road from here isn’t a pretty one. I intend remaking my life before it’s too late, and to do that I must go away. Far away. I believe I’ll try California. They say the climate in the northern half is mild. Not San Francisco, no, nothing so grand. A small town, not dissimilar to this in size, but with a touch more … how to put it … a touch more
savoir faire.
I don’t ask for much, just the opportunity to begin again. Mama has given me that. You stare at me. Have you nothing to say?”

“I … well, this is … a surprise, uh, Madge.”

“Life is filled with them, they say. This surely isn’t your first.”

“When are you leaving?”

“I’ve purchased a ticket on the stage line for tomorrow morning. I’m quite excited at the prospect of new horizons. A much-traveled man like yourself must know how that feels.”

“I guess so.”

“You guess so. Indeed. To begin again, elsewhere—that is a worthwhile dream, don’t you agree?”

“I do, yes.…”

“Where no one may look askance at you, because they know nothing of you, and must accept what they see.”

“Yes.”

“I’m not making my plans known to many, just the house agent and yourself.”

“I hope things work out for you in California, Madge.”

“And I hope things work out here for you.” She stood and offered her hand. “Good-bye.”

Clay stood and clumsily took her hand in his. She smiled at him, then turned and left. Clay collapsed slowly back into his chair, surprised at his own sense of devastation at the news. She was leaving. He was not. Her purpose in telling him had been obvious; she wished him to throw in his hand with hers, and start over. They both were misfits, suited for each other on that basis alone. Away from Dry Wash there would be no clucking tongues if they should marry, no disapproval showered on them as they walked down a public street together. She was a whore, but a decent woman regardless. He could love her, and she him. He had only to surrender his badge and buy a ticket on the stage line, as she had done. He did not even have to leave with her, so long as there was an understanding between them that he would follow along as soon as possible. He could ride away from Dry Wash on horseback if he chose, and journey to California by any route he wanted, if only he could be sure that a life with Madge was the thing he needed most in all the world. He simply had to decide. She had presented him with a choice, exerted no pressure at all, and walked out like a lady, leaving Clay with turmoil in his heart and black desperation in his head.

He walked a lot for the rest of that day, unable to sit in the office while thoughts rampaged through his mind, thoughts in favor of accepting Madge’s implicit offer, and thoughts against. She was a whore, an ex-whore; who knew what diseases lurked beneath her skirts. She appeared healthy, but that was no proof she would not infect him with a slow poison for which no real cure existed. Clay recalled Captain Switchback, the pitiful syphilitic from Keyhoe, and shuddered.’ No, he could not risk such a fate. And yet he knew he would be able to talk with Madge Clifton and understand her, and she him, until they died. She wanted him, and knew he wanted her. It was up to Clay.

He walked and walked, and ignored all greetings directed at him on the street. Should he go directly to Madge’s house and declare himself hers, or wait for darkness? Should he slip a note under her door, or simply loiter in the neighborhood like a smitten schoolboy. It was infuriating that he could not make up his mind. He was sure of nothing but the risks involved. To go with Madge, or not. He need do nothing but avoid the stage line’s depot the following day in order to absent himself from Madge’s future. He need not see her or talk to her. She had made it easy for him by letting him know in advance of her proposed movements. She could be his; he could be hers, in a new place where they might be together as husband and wife, if he cared to bite the bullet and fall in with her offer.

But he could not. Hour upon hour he paced the streets of Dry Wash, and could not make up his mind. As evening fell he avoided the area around Willow Street and concentrated his attention on the usual haunts a marshal was supposed to patrol. Duty first, he reminded himself, and believed not a syllable of it. He was cheating fate, walking backward, ignoring the obvious, and denying all of it. Clay drank in every saloon his routine patrolling brought him into, and as the night wore on, became drunk, too drunk to think, and he took a bottle with him when he retired to his narrow bachelor bunk to celebrate with more whiskey the lonely freedom of the celibate. He poured liquor inside himself like never before in his life, knowing while he did so that he was a coward and a fool who did not even deserve the opportunity for change that had been proffered by a woman who, although she was a whore, almost certainly was stronger and smarter than he. No man with Madge’s qualities would have allowed himself to become the stinking, blubbering thing Clay Dugan was reduced to, before alcoholic oblivion swept him up in its mighty wing to plummet between the stars until well after dawn.

Clay knew, when he awoke, that the time of the stage’s departure was long past. He had successfully avoided any real confrontation with the option Madge had opened for him. She was already gone, with no hint from him regarding his intentions, no verbal commitment to hold inside her for comfort on the long road to California. He had let her down, and could not forgive himself. It was obvious even to such a lowly fool as himself that the opportunity, once lost, could never be regained. He had made his choice by not choosing—the coward’s route of last resort—and in doing so had sacrificed a portion of himself, offered up to nameless gods a piece of the man he had been just hours before, and become less of a man for it. He could not face himself in the mirror over his basin and jug, nor examine his shadowy self in store windows. He was a non-man, a slinking, furtive yellowbelly who drank shame from the air and did not choke.

It was noticed around Dry Wash that following the departure of Madge Clifton the marshal became morose, and his condition worsened by the day, if not the hour. He smelled of liquor, day or night, and did not change his clothing at all. He would ignore greetings directed at him, and walk away from anyone attempting to engage him in conversation. Clay Dugan had become a shambling, drunken wreck of a man, and it only confirmed what many people had begun to suspect before Madge left town—that she and Clay had been more than just whore and customer. Clay Dugan must have been in love with her! It was an unlikely pairing, but the only thing that accounted for his pathetic behavior of late. He was becoming a joke among the community.

Judge Poudre held himself partially responsible for the situation, since it was he who had suggested that Clay be elected as town marshal, and he who sent him to Madge’s house in the first place to hire her for Maxwell’s last night of love. The judge went to Clay’s office to confront him.

“Dugan, you’re making yourself look bad. What the hell do you mean by conducting yourself this way? What happened to you? You look like a worn out mongrel someone ought to shoot. Do you have anything at all to say to me, Dugan?”

“Not right now.”

Judge Poudre stabbed a finger at him. “You’ve got just twenty-four hours to pull yourself into shape and start acting like a law officer ought to, or I’m calling a special town meeting to have you fired, you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“You can begin by getting over to the bathhouse and soaking for an hour or so, and have your clothes taken care of, why don’t you. One more thing—she was only a whore.”

Clay wanted to launch himself across the desk and choke Judge Poudre until he coughed up an apology, but he found he couldn’t move. It was partly advanced inebriation, and partly shock at having his secret heartache stepped on so brutally. Did everyone know? When the judge left, Clay took off his badge and tossed it onto the desk, but the gesture lacked drama since he was alone. He repinned the badge to his vest, and began thinking hard. He had made a fool of himself, but it was not too late to reform and present a professional front to the public again. He would do that, beginning immediately. Losing a woman was no excuse for losing a job. He would make himself clean, as the judge had ordered. It was difficult to accept that he had fallen so low, but the truth was plain; if he did not turn himself around and recover the respect of the citizens, he would lose the job they had elected him to, and become a drifter again.

Clay Dugan was seen on the streets next day with a freshly shaven face, a completely new outfit of clothes, and a rock-steady gait as he marched up one street and down another, essentially parading his remade self before the public for their approval. He tipped his hat to every female and responded heartily to all greetings cast in his direction. Even his spectacles seemed to glint and gleam with renewed civic purpose. He was once again in control of himself.

Clay was fairly sure he had passed muster with the citizens, but to convince himself he was truly over his infatuation with Madge Clifton, he strode down to the stage-line depot to walk over the ground she had last stood upon before departing. He had avoided the place until now, and a casual stroll in the area would set the seal on his overnight rehabilitation. When that task was done with, he would ride around the town on horseback, looking as imposing and businesslike as possible, just to make sure everyone understood that he was a reformed character, ready once again to take charge of the law. His horse was at that moment being saddled and made ready for him, so sure was Clay that his plans for the day would roll along on oiled wheels.

The morning stage had already pulled in as Clay approached the depot, and passengers were disembarking to slap the dust from themselves and stretch their backs while luggage was being passed down from the roof rack and the boot. Clay paused to watch the scene.

One passenger in particular caught his eye, a woman in a dark skirt and broad hat. She seemed familiar, although her back was to him, and for one delirious moment Clay imagined that Madge had returned. She seemed taller than Madge, and her hair was darker, under the gray trail dust powdering the bun beneath her hat. Clay shook his head. It wasn’t Madge at all. He was being a fool all over again. Yet the woman did seem to have about her something that made him think she was known to him.

When she turned, he saw that he was right. It was Sophie Stunce, who became Sophie Dugan, his wife and the mother of their child; Sophie who had shot Clay’s wonderful horse, Sunrise; Sophie who was his wife still, for all Clay knew. And she had seen him too.

They stared at each other without expression. Clay saw her through a haze that was more than mere dust; she was the past come to haunt him after all this time, and his head was filled with a strange humming as he stared. Sophie, his wife, had found him, had come hundreds of miles to see him again. She must have read about himself and Dry Wash in the newspapers, in the story of Wixson’s soul-weighing device. It had been a good story, if distorted, and must have found its way even to Kansas, because here was Sophie, standing still as a tree, clutching a little tote bag at her waist.

Clay felt a curious mixture of guilt and longing overcome him. She had sought him out for reconciliation, he knew, for a resumption of their marriage now that time had healed the grievous wrong she imagined he had committed against her. Sophie had seen the light and decided that forgiveness was wiser than hatred, and had come to deliver that message to her husband. Clay felt light-headed, almost faint, and he made himself take a hesitant step or two toward his wife, a smile struggling to shape itself on his face.

Sophie moved toward him, and her hands began to loosen the drawstring around her bag. Clay stopped. Sophie drew a pistol from the bag and lifted it to aim at his heart. Clay made himself jump sideways, his body made sluggish by the unreality of what was happening. The first shot whined past his ear, and the second passed through the armpit of his new jacket. By then his hazy, dreamlike state of mind had become sharpened by the need for flight. He had no gun, and could not have brought himself to use one in his own defense anyway, not against his wife, even if she was determined to kill him. A crazy woman, he told himself, and ducked from the path of a third bullet by flinging himself into an alley beside the depot. His legs found strength and began propelling him to the safety of the next street, where the livery stable was. The instruction to have his horse saddled up had been given less than ten minutes before; would the boy have had time to carry it out?