Savage Texas: The Stampeders (7 page)

Julia did her best to converse with Margaret, but the woman possessed a slurring impediment of speech and Julia understood only some of what she said. What came through was Margaret’s appreciation for Julia’s having been kind to her son, who had spoken of Julia to Margaret with great affection.

Julia was about to thank Margaret for passing on the laudatory words when Margaret suddenly shifted her manner and told Julia, in effect, to draw no closer to her son. Her theme became one Julia had heard before, from Johnny Cross: Timothy was prone to develop fast and easy infatuations, and just like most men, the more attractive the object of the infatuation, the stronger it grew. In Timothy’s case infatuations were extraordinarily intense, and when they collapsed, Timothy went through times of equally intense emotional devastation. The widow spoke it all in much cruder, struggling terms, but the content of her message was clear.

“I understand,” Julia said, and was secretly glad to have stronger grounds for doing what she’d already known she must do: make Timothy understand that she could be his friend, but nothing more.

Timothy heard nothing of what his mother said to Julia, because he had left the two women alone so he could go to the back door of the Cattleman and pick up whatever leftover food the chef might have. He also sought privacy to grieve over the obvious fact that Julia did not care for him in the way he cared for her.

Timothy walked along through his usual back-alley route to the Cattleman, avoiding the street so that no one would see he was occasionally wiping tears from his eyes.

How could she not love him? She was the dearest, sweetest creature he’d ever known. And she’d been kind to him, treating him like he counted, like he meant something. How could he go on like he was, alone, after having met her?

Timothy had never felt more isolated from the world around him or more hopeless of ever finding a woman of his own. And even if he did, it wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t be
her
.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

“Oh! My God, watch where you’re going!”

Timothy was startled by the harsh voice and gaping face of the man he almost ran into while rounding a corner in the dark with a basket of leftover Cattleman’s food in his hand. He nearly dropped the basket. The man he’d nearly collided with stumbled off to one side and almost tripped over his own feet.

Timothy caught a strong whiff of whiskey on the man’s breath. It repelled him. Timothy’s late father had been a hard-drinking man, and as a small boy Timothy had earned some bruises and even scars because of his father’s habits. His mother had protected him as best she could, but often that wasn’t good enough. And when Timothy’s father hurt him, she always tried to smooth over the situation by saying, “He’s been drinking, Tim. That’s why he hit you. He’s been drinking, that’s all.”

It was only natural that Timothy had come to despise liquor and what it did to those who abused it.

The man, a small-built fellow, corrected his stumbling and steadied himself with a hand against the nearest wall. Then he studied Timothy through the thick lenses of his spectacles.

“I know who you are,” he said, tongue tangling and distorting his words. “You’re that feeble-minded fellow who sweeps at the big store. Timothy, I think.”

“I know you, too,” Timothy answered. “You’re that man who takes pictures of people.”

“Otto Perkins, and pleased to meet you.”

“Same, sir. But you’re drunk, Mr. Perkins.” Timothy surprised himself with his own boldness.

“I think maybe I am. I don’t drink much, but today the temptation struck and I visited the Dog Star. I planned to drink only a little, but there’s a photograph there that I made myself, a very unpleasant image of a dead man I and Mr. Sam Heller found on the road some days ago, and seeing that face looking at me off its easel was distressing enough that I drank more and more.”

“My papa drank a lot. It finally kilt him. That’s what my mama says it was. All I know is he went out to pee one day and dropped dead.”

“Very sorry. Sad for you, I’m sure. Why are you out roaming the alleyways just now, by the way? What’s that in your hands?”

“It’s food. The cook down at the Cattleman Hotel shares food with me and my mama.”

“I’m sure that’s a big help. You can’t make much money sweeping for a shopkeeper.”

“No. Who sweeps at your shop?”

“Any sweeping done there is done by me. Which usually means the place stays dirty.”

“I could sweep for you if you’d pay me some like Mr. Lockhart does.”

At another time, Perkins would have bypassed that offer without a thought. Being uncharacteristically drunk, though, he reacted with equally uncharacteristic magnanimity. “That’s a good idea, Timothy. I’d be glad for the help. Can you do it and still have time to sweep at the Emporium, though?”

Timothy foresaw no problem with seeing to the needs of both businesses, and within moments an evening’s chance alleyway meeting had turned into a new opportunity for a simple man who encountered few of those.

“Want to come meet my mama, Mr. Perkins? She’d like you for hiring me.”

“Will that food you got there be for sharing?”

“You . . . you can have my part of it, sir. Since you’re going to let me sweep for you.” Timothy gave the warmest grin he could. In the shadow-casting light from a nearby window, the grin gave Timothy a ghastly look, heightened by the puffiness of his eyes. He’d wept hard a little earlier, grieving over his rejection by Julia Canton.

“You all right, boy?” asked Perkins.

“Please, sir, don’t call me boy, if you would.”

“Sorry . . . Tim. Timothy. Are you all right, though?”

“Sir, I was . . . I was weeping some earlier.”

“You hurt? Sick?”

“Heartbroke.”

“Over what?”

“There’s a lady in town, name of Canton. I thought she was a friend of mine and liked me, but she wouldn’t say she’d go to the dance with me. There’s a dance in town before long and I really wanted to have her go with me to it.”

“Canton . . . I’ve seen her,” Perkins said. “She was in my shop once with . . . with somebody.” Perkins had been about to say the name of Johnny Cross, but despite his alcohol-dulled mind, saw prudence in not doing so. Considering that Timothy had just professed his infatuation for the woman, Timothy might get jealous and imagine he could somehow take on Johnny Cross. Timothy didn’t need trouble with an old pistol fighter who once rode with Quantrill and Anderson.

“She’s a mighty pretty woman, Timothy. Maybe the prettiest I’ve ever seen anywhere. Which means there’s going to be a lot of men trying to get with her . . . you might have better luck setting your sights a little lower. Don’t look sad . . . it’s the same with me. Like the saying goes: I could grease up a Chinaman and pin his ears back and swallow him whole quicker than I could turn the head of somebody like Miss Canton, so I just accept things as they are. I’m not going to spend my time trying to do what can’t be done.”

“But I like her, Mr. Perkins. Like her a whole lot. Whole lot.”

Otto Perkins smiled and put his arm around Timothy’s shoulder. They began to walk, going in the direction Timothy had been moving before. “My friend, the first day you come sweep my floors for me, there’s something I want to show you that may give you a different perspective of Miss Canton. You see, Tim, sometimes things ain’t what they appear. And people, too. Most of all people.”

Timothy had no idea what Perkins was talking about, but nodded because he’d learned that it made life easier, as a man of feeble mind, just to pretend and go along with what smarter folk said.

“She was at my house this afternoon,” said Timothy. “She met my mama. She might still be there, I reckon.”

Perkins halted. “Miss Canton?”

“Yes.”

“If she is still there, Timothy, I think we should not go in. I have reasons for that.”

Timothy, who was much less upset now than he had been earlier in the evening, found himself in agreement. They walked on toward the hidden-away shack home of the little Holt family, but the prospect of them actually entering the house seemed lessened now.

They turned a corner and came in view of the Holt shack, and noticed a man standing past it, smoking a cigar and apparently watching the little house. When he noticed Timothy and Perkins, he seemed to start a little, but a moment later took on a relaxed stance and drew deeply on his cigar. “Gentlemen,” he said in a burst of thick smoke.

“Hello, sir,” said Perkins.

Timothy strode up to the stranger. “Why you watching my house, mister?”

“Your house? Here?” The man nodded toward the shack.

“I remember you,” Timothy said. “You were out on the street when . . . when . . .”

“I was,” said the man. “I remember seeing you from across the street. I’m sorry you were treated that way. It wasn’t right.”

Timothy stared at the ground, silent.

Perkins asked, “Why this place, and this little house, on this night?”

“Just out for a walk and a smoke,” the man said. “Name’s Brody. Wilfred Brody.”

“Otto Perkins. And you’ve already met Timothy here.”

“Good to meet both of you. Good evening, gentlemen.” He puffed his cigar, touched the brim of his derby hat, and walked away.

“Nice enough gent, I suppose,” said Perkins. “But there’s something there that just feels a little . . . odd.”

Timothy said nothing. He went to the door of his humble dwelling and put his ear to it. After listening a few moments, he said, “I think Mama’s in there by herself now. Come on and let her meet you.”

Perkins was in his own mind ready to go on to his own room at the rear of his photography studio, but instead he joined Timothy and went inside. When the door closed them in, the man they had met appeared again out of the dark. He stared at the house, listening and waiting, then at last whispered to himself, “Well, seems she isn’t in there after all. I sure don’t know how she got out without me seeing her. But don’t you worry, pretty lady. I’ll find you and get you back where you belong. Don’t you doubt it.” He walked away again, this time not to return.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

Her escape had been made by way of a back door, and once out of the rough little dwelling, Julia Canton had managed to move without letting the loitering stranger out in the shadows see her. She had no idea who the man was or why he seemed to be tracking and watching her. She was, however, a young woman whose life so far had involved, three times, the fighting off of unwanted and violent carnal advances. Though no one would guess it to look at her, she often carried more hidden derringers and shivs than a traveling gambler. She knew how to use them all, and a few times had done so.

After leaving the Holt shack, she was glad to have done so before the return of Timothy. She knew she’d hurt the young man’s feelings, rejecting his sweet-but-unwanted invitation to the upcoming town dance. It made her feel bad for him, but also made her not want to encounter him any more than necessary. She was glad, at least, that Timothy’s sad and invalid mother understood her son’s tendency to tie his heartstrings to women with whom there could be no hope of a relationship. If Mrs. Holt had resented Julia for hurting her son’s feelings, Julia would have been greatly saddened.

She made her way through town, keeping an eye out for the man she had detected was following her. She did not see him.

Nearing her boardinghouse, Julia heard the faint strains of Claude Farley’s fiddle, scratching out an off-key rendition of “Soldier’s Joy.” Julia paused, frowning to herself as she imagined going back to her lonely room, suffering through an evening of boredom while listening to an old man practice his fiddling.

An intolerable prospect. Julia couldn’t face the thought of a lonely evening. At the very least she had to be among people, and not the dull residents of a boardinghouse whose idea of excitement was adding honey to their cups of coffee for sweetener. How bold! Julia rolled her eyes heavenward and for a few moments hated the town of Hangtree.

There were, of course, the saloons. She would have a better chance of finding diversion there, but there would also be the inevitable approach of drunken men who imagined they could gain her company and favor with their pathetic attempts at being suave and appealing.

There was only one man in this town who could appeal to her, and she had yet even to meet him. Seen him, yes, met him, no. When that inevitable meeting came, it would be important that she make sure it happened in just the right way, so that it could lead to the right result. That was the very reason she was in this backwater place at all.

She bypassed the boardinghouse and kept walking. Though there was risk in being seen in a saloon—she’d been trying to cultivate the image of a moral, churchgoing young woman, after all—she couldn’t resist taking a few moments to be herself. Her life had involved so many pretenses at so many times that sometimes she was left drained and exhausted.

The Dog Star Saloon was the roughest dive in town, not the kind of place decent young women visited. Just now that made it quite appealing to Julia Canton. She headed there with a determined stride, and when she entered the place, there was a noticeable lull in the level of noise as every person in the place looked at her, stunned to see such perfect beauty in a place of such base ugliness.

As she sat down in a corner so as to have a good view of anyone who approached her, she wondered how Mrs. Bewley would react if she knew her dress shop assistant was camping herself out in a low-class saloon as if she were some common cyprian. It didn’t much matter: The dress shop job was merely a time-passer, and a means of keeping a few extra coins in her pocket so she could leave her main resources safely untouched in the Hangtree Bank. If she lost the job, so be it.

In the Dog Star, most patrons placed their orders at the bar or merely hollered them across the room at the proprietor and barkeep, Squint McCray. In Julia Canton’s case, Squint himself saved her the trouble, walking to her table with a twisted grin on his homely face. “Good evening, miss.”

“Good evening to you, sir.”

“What can I bring you?”

Julia Canton knew fully well that at a watering trough like this one would have limited offerings . . . mostly cheap whiskey, with gin and house-brewed beer to supplement—but she couldn’t forget the image she needed to maintain before the watching public. She smiled up at Squint like an angel and spoke in her sweetest voice. “Might you have any sherry wine, sir?”

Had anyone else asked that question at any other time, Squint would have damned him for a fool and uppity swell. No such treatment for such a lovely as this one, though. And as luck would have it, he actually did have a small supply of quite good blackberry wine given to him by a male cousin who had passed through town a month before. The cousin’s wife, recently deceased, had loved the stuff and her husband couldn’t stand it, so when she passed on he dumped the remaining wine on good old Cousin Squint, who went on to secretly develop a taste for the wine and often sipped a small glass of it before retiring to bed.

Squint told Julia that while he had no sherry, he could offer her an “excellent blackberry wine” from his own stores. He beamed down at her in anticipation of a grateful thank-you and broad smile, but Julia was disappointed and unable to hide it for a couple of moments. Her plan had been to put on a pretense of “settling” for whiskey in the absence of wine, but Squint’s brother-in-law and his cast-off blackberry wine ruined that game for her. Forcing out a smile, she accepted Squint’s offered wine with seeming gratitude. Squint strode back to his little office behind the bar to fetch her drink, thinking himself both clever and lucky.

Julia sipped the wine, which was better than she anticipated, and looked at the room around her, mostly using peripheral vision to avoid looking directly back at the many men in the place blatantly staring at her. Sending signals of returned interest could in this kind of setting be not only socially awkward, but downright dangerous. There was already one man creeping around in the shadows at her heels; certainly she did not want an entire parade of such.

Squint had recently persuaded one of the local soiled doves, Petunia Scranton, that she had missed her calling, and should have been what he called a “French dancer.” By this he was referring to the three-decades-old dance style known as “can-can.” The girl, who hated the life of giving herself to foul and unwashed men who treated her merely as a receptacle, had taken Squint’s assessment to heart. When she begged him for the chance to perform the can-can in his saloon to entertain customers, he’d felt obliged to give her the chance. He built a tiny stage in one of the front corners, just big enough to accommodate one person, and hung it about with dark curtains borrowed from the local undertaker’s funeral parlor. On her tiny stage, and wearing a flouncing skirt, petticoats, ruffled drawers, and a literally painted-on smile, she’d begun performing her high-kicking dance in her corner and drawing hearty applause, especially in her first days, when her poorly secured and oversized shoes had tended to kick off her feet and hit members of her audience in the face.

The music for her dance was provided by Charlotte Pugh, another local whore who had at some time in girlhood been taught to play three songs on the piano. One of these was a slow waltz, totally lacking the speed and rhythm required by can-can. The other two were old camp meeting hymns, mournful and dirge-like in their original form, but danceable enough when sped up to three times their normal pace. Thus, evening after evening, Petunia Scranton found herself doing the can-can (sometimes, when Squint wasn’t watching closely and she could get away with it, without her drawers) to a fast-paced piano rendition of “I Will Arise and Go to Jesus.” It made the tiny, lingering bit of “decent girl” left in her feel horribly irreligious, but she figured it was at least better than selling herself to drunks in back alleys.

The music began and the high kicking followed, drawing men to the front where they could get a good look at Squint’s “French dancer.” Julia thus found herself in the pleasant circumstance of being in a public setting and yet not being stared at by anyone, at least as best she could tell. She took a sip of Squint’s blackberry wine and had a moment of authentic, pure enjoyment of her life.

When one was accustomed to the constant sting of probing stares, one longed for privacy with a passion approaching lust. Julia had learned that lesson even before she came of age.

She noticed the photograph of the dead Toleen brother standing on an easel in the corner opposite the little dancing stage, and a chill struck.

“Miz Canton, I believe,” said a man’s voice from somewhere to the side of her. Startled, she turned her head and saw Sam Heller only a couple of yards away. He’d managed to approach her in utter silence and without any stray movements to pull her eye his way. She knew who he was because he had been pointed out to her one day as he came out of the Hangtree Bank while she was dodging the heat of the sun on a shaded porch nearby. She’d watched his impressive form closely that day, and at this moment, was equally drawn to his handsome and weathered face.

“Mr. Sam Heller, I think?” she said, setting her wineglass on the table and pushing it aside a few inches. Heller possessed a drink as well, whiskey in a shot glass that looked absurdly tiny in his big hand. Julia flicked her eyes toward the empty chair on the other side of the little round table, and Heller moved there, scooted it back with his foot, and sat down. The chair creaked under his weight.

“So you don’t mind if I sit?”

“Not at all, Mr. Heller. I’m glad for the company.”

“How is it you know me?” he asked her.

“I saw you in town and asked someone who you were. And how do you know me, sir?”

“First off, don’t call me no sir or nothing. Nor mister. Just Sam.”

“Only if you’ll call me Julia.” She gave him a smile that would have thawed a man made of pure ice into a spreading puddle.

“To answer your question, I know you because, just now, I don’t think there’s a soul in Hangtree who don’t know who Julia Canton is. You turned the heads and caught the eyes of every man in this county the day you got here.”

“Every man in the county, you say? Well, I’m impressed with myself if that’s the case.”

“Don’t get too proud, ma’am. It’s a small county.”

She laughed and Heller broke into a grin. She thought it a beautiful style and him a handsome man.

“So where’s my old compadre Johnny Cross?” Heller asked.

She sipped her wine and shrugged. “I wouldn’t know, nor know why I should be expected to know.”

“You been seen with him a good deal these last days, walking beside him in the streets, eating meals with him at the Cattleman.”

“An appealing man asks to keep me company or buy me a good beefsteak, and I’m not one to turn that down.”

“Julia, I don’t know whether you find me appealing or not, but there’s something I’d like to ask of you, if Johnny ain’t beat me to it already.”

“Ask away.”

“There’s a dance coming up, and if you’re the dance-going type, I’d like to ask you to accompany me.”

She finished her little glass of wine and studied the dark droplets lingering in the bottom of it. She caught Squint’s eye and raised the glass to ask for a refill. He hustled to get the bottle.

“The truth is, no one has asked me already. And yes, Sam, I’d be pleased to go with you. Though I admit to dreading hearing the fiddle music. The man who plays it lives in the same boardinghouse and has been practicing a lot where I can hear it. He’ll not likely win any fiddling contests.”

“Claude does the best he can.”

“Why don’t I find that encouraging?”

Heller laughed. “I understand. I do. But I got to like Claude. He’s a good man.”

Squint showed up with the bottle of blackberry wine and refreshed Julia’s glass. He was forced to explain to Heller what the blue-black libation was, and how he’d come to have it. Heller turned down an invitation to try some for himself.

Squint returned to the bar and Heller and Julia fell into conversation, getting to know one another, sharing what parts of their backgrounds they felt comfortable with. Heller, who had possessed a strong interest in the southernmost states since knowing many southerners during the war, quizzed her closely about her Georgia childhood. Only when he noticed she seemed to be made uncomfortable by the questions and unable in some cases to answer readily, did he desist.

He tried not to think about it, but something just didn’t feel quite right in it all.

“Now, let me ask you some questions,” she said. “When I was a little girl, my Sunday school teacher told me that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Then I got to Hangtree, Texas, and heard from most around me that, no, it ain’t the Lord, it’s Sam Heller who owns those cattle. Is that right?”

“If you’re counting on cattle on hills, that’d amount to a small herd to own for either man or Lord,” Sam said. “Not many hills worthy of the name to be found around here.”

“I noticed.”

“But if you’re talking about longhorns in general, hill cattle or flatland cattle, well, I reckon I do own my share of them, and a few more shares besides.”

“Richest man in the region, I’m told.”

“Is ‘rich’ an important thing to you?”

She reached over and laid the flat of her forefinger on the nail of one of his. “Let’s say that it doesn’t lessen my interest, and in fact might just make it all the stronger.”

He smiled and grasped her hand, holding it in his there on the tabletop. She did not pull away, and it pleased him.

“Why do you carry such a strange weapon?” she asked. “I saw it on you one day when you came out of the bank. More of a rifle than a pistol.”

“I’ve found I naturally favor it,” he said. “I’m a better shot with it than with a standard pistol, though sometimes, like tonight, I’ll switch it out for a Colt if I’m going to be in town and don’t want such a showy weapon on me. But I prefer the mule-leg. Other folks have trouble with mule-leg guns, but me, it’s like a natural extension of my arm. I just think of what I want to hit, raise, and fire, and nine times out of ten I’ve hit what I wanted.”