King of Spades (9 page)

“Window-peeper?” Kitty echoed. She placed a hand on Roddy's shoulder. “Here?”

Roddy suffered his mother a moment, then moved out of her reach. “I said we was just jokin' around about it.”

But Kitty wouldn't let Roddy go. She leaned forward and stroked back his hair. “Tell me, handsome is as handsome does, did Daddy say there was a wild-animal man window- peeking?”

Magnus made another fierce face. His large lips opened just enough to show even white teeth. “Let's shake a leg, Herman. Lead the way.”

6

Four inches of snow drifted down during the day. It gave the little town of Sioux City a ghostly look. It made spectral the Indian dead lashed to stick scaffolds pricking out on Morningside Heights. There was no wind.

Into the silence of pure white a pileated woodpecker occasionally broke and rebroke the air with its rolling clatter on a hollow cottonwood. The steamboat
St. Louis,
arriving for the last time that season, also let go with several shrill shattering blasts.

That evening, light lingered for a long time after the sun went down. Each chimney exhaled a slim white plume a straight thousand feet high. The voices of children playing in the snow suggested angels. People took a couple of steps, then stood and looked. Just looked.

 

Down the path in the snow came slim courtly Magnus again, wearing his usual black hat and a dark Chesterfield coat. He came swiftly, overshoes scuffing out little throws of loose phosphorescent snow to either side. His face was blenched and his eyeballs were slightly protruded. A revolver also flashed in his hand again.

He went around to the back of his house and bounded up the stoop and burst into the kitchen.

Kitty was getting supper ready. Light from a kerosene lamp glowed golden on the bright papered walls.

He started firing the moment he saw her. His first shot caught her along the hairline.

She screamed and ducked down.

His next shot caught her in the hand, nicking the flesh between thumb and forefinger.

She screamed again and tried to hide behind the woodbox.

His next shot exploded in the toe of her left green button shoe.

“Magnus!”

His next shot ripped her belt on the right side. The belt dropped to the floor.

She came up out of her crouch and ran for the bedroom, screaming as she went, “Daddy, please don't kill me! Please. I'll do anything you say. I'll admit anything you say. Oh, God, I'm being murdered! Help! Help!”

He glimpsed her silhouette against the lighted bed lamp and his next shot nicked her left breast. The ball sliced across just below the nipple. Blood spurted.

She dove under the bed. “Help, help! My husband is killing me! Oh, God, God!”

He sank to his knees and elbows and peered under the bed. He spotted the outline of her mouth moving against the yellow wallpaper. He fired. This time he caught the outer edge of her green eye.

In a flash she slithered out from under the bed on the other side and clawed up the wall all in one motion. “Roddy, Roddy! Can't you do something to stop your father? Oh, God!” Then she collapsed and tumbled backward onto the bed.

Magnus got to his feet and aimed directly at the center of her forehead. He pulled the trigger. The hammer snapped. There was no explosion.

He looked down at his gun. He flicked the cylinder open. The gun was empty.

He looked down at Kitty. She was leaking blood on all sides. “I told you, woman, that before God and my son, if you didn't admit you were a bad woman, bad! goddam you, I'd take a club to you. Well, you kept on being bad so I had to take a gun to you.”

There was a click of a gun being cocked.

He turned.

Through the bedroom door, on the other side of the sitting room, he saw Roddy standing with his double-barrel shotgun in hand.

“You see!” Magnus cried. “My nightmares don't lie.”

Roddy raised his shotgun and fired.

Magnus ducked back. A blast of pellets knocked his hat off. Magnus started to lose his balance. “Son! Hey, it's all right. It's only—”

The second blast caught Magnus as he fell on the bed. The pellets traversed the length of his body, ripping his Chesterfield coat to shreds, gouging lines across his face. He landed across Kitty's body.

Neighbors heard the shooting. They came running in the dark. Bodies hesitated a second on the front stoop and the back stoop both; then burst in.

There was blood all over the place: on the bed, on the wall above the bed, on the bedroom floor, in the hall, in the kitchen.

“In the name of God!”

More came running out of the night.

“Poor poor boy. Ahhh.”

Herman Bell pushed in. “Son, my God, you didn't shoot your own mother, did you?”

Roddy stared back with scared green eyes. “Dad did.”

“Who shot your dad?”

“I did.”

“Call the doctor, somebody!” a voice cried. “Hurry, hurry!”

“But it's the doctor who's dead!” another voice cried.

“Maybe we should just call the Reverend,” a third voice said.

Herman Bell's red nubbed face stiffened over. “No use in calling him.”

“Why not?”

“I'm afraid they're both in hell by now. The Kings never went to church.”

“What a terrible thing to say.”

Gooseberry June came running in. She stared at the fallen bloody bodies. She clapped hand to mouth. Her black plum eyes rolled up in horror. “Ai-ai-ai!” Slowly she backed away. “What the Knife Child has done.” She ran back to her encampment.

A pool-hall bum also had a look. “Well, so they have both went to their eternal roost, I see.”

Undertaker McVicker appeared. With a single glance his old glittering vulture eyes took everything in. “What happened here?”

“I guess Magnus went nuts and shot his wife,” Herman Bell said. “Then the boy shot his father.”

“What'd Magnus want to do that for?”

“I think he thought she'd gone bad.”

“Kitty?”

“Mac,” Herman Bell said, “if you know of anything between the lids of the Bible that will meet this case, I wish you would name it. Because I don't.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Herman Bell cried. “I believe somebody ought to pray over this.” She folded her fat arms over her rolling bosom.

Undertaker McVicker made an instant survey of the crowd, and decided that to offer a prayer was the thing to do. He folded his hands and bowed his head. “Great heavenly Father. What a fearful thing this is that we have been called upon here to witness. It's a thing upon which a strong man can hardly look without a thrill of horror.” As his
mouth moved, McVicker's gray whiskers glinted in the light of the kerosene lamp. “We have here a case of a man who, from all we have heard, accused his wife of infidelity, who charged her with improper relations with men, when the truth is, a man would've had to be mad to think such things about her. We all knew her personal and we call state for a fact that that's a dirty flat lie. So I say personal it's a case of plain ordinary cool deliberate murder done in the heat of passion. May the arm of heavenly justice properly punish the dastardly assassin. Father, we commend the soul of the woman into your care. Father, look down in love upon this poor tortured innocent boy. We know he knew not what he did. Amen.”

“But where is the boy?” billowy Mrs. Herman Bell cried.

Herman Bell looked around. “Gone.”

 

All the while that the neighbors were milling about, Roddy was running across town.

“I'm a murderer. Just like my dad. I better skip the country.”

Roddy caught the steamboat
St. Louis
just as the Missouri River was floating it away from the wharf. No one saw him climb aboard.

PART TWO

Earl Ransom

1

Two bearded horsemen detoured around an outcropping of fire-gnawed rocks. Each man led a string of four gray mules. The mules stepped along under light packs.

Toothy mountains on the left slowly retracted into the gums of a soft red land. Wind-combed prairies on the right gradually faded off into the mist of oncoming night.

The two men had taken their time coming north out of Denver. The eight mules, grazing mostly on buffalo grass, were silky and high-spirited. The two horses, both tan mustangs, were spunky.

The man in the lead was Sam Slaymaker, sometime freighter and prospector. He was the older, and a powerful chunk of a man. He was inclined to be fleshy when in town in the winter,
and rawboned when on the trail in the summer. His long curly hair was gray, as was his bushy mustache, while his chin whiskers were as black and as scraggly as the beard of a buffalo bull. He wore buckskins from head to foot and was armed with a blue .45. His brown bear eyes continually roved from side to side, ever on the alert, sometimes hard and brilliant when some sign caught his interest, sometimes twinkling and gentle when some merry memory crossed his mind.

The other man was Earl Ransom, sometime swamper and prospector. He was young, at first glance appearing to be somewhere in his middle twenties, and a handsome piece of a man. He was always slim, summer or winter. His cropped hair was black, as was his gambler's mustache and wavy beard. He too wore buckskins and was armed with a six- shooter. His green eyes drifted from one object to another, sometimes dreamily silverish when looking up at the white mountain peaks to the west, sometimes smoky when looking within.

The trail straightened. Shortly, still heading north, they topped a rise. Ahead and below, on a wide light-green plain, lay the new city of Cheyenne.

Cheyenne lay mostly on the other side of Crow Creek. There were no trees. New brick buildings along Main Street lay stark in the sun. On the north side a dozen or so ornate houses with stables in back gave the town a little tone. A railroad lay along the south side, and down the draw on either side of the tracks stood huts, tents, dugouts, shacks, all sorts of ramshackle structures. Plumes of blue smoke from the various chimneys rose straight up to a level of a hundred feet, then bent off toward the east, forming a little cloud deck. An engine puffing in the yards added its deep black plume to the little cloud.

Both men reined in their horses, the strings of mules sauntering up around them. Both men settled back in their saddles and had themselves a long and loving look at Cheyenne.
Even Sam Slaymaker's tan mustang shot its ears forward, listening intently.

Sam observed his horse's interest. “From the way old Colonel's perked up here, you'd think he was as hot for a whiskey as you and me.”

Ransom grunted.

Sam turned in his saddle. “Ransom, that's enough black sull out of you now. You've had a dally on your tongue all the way out of Denver. What's up with you, boy?”

“Nothing.”

“More bad dreams?”

“Some.”

“They'll pass, son. I used to have 'em myself on the trail.” Sam stroked his mustache. “A long slow drink of good red American whiskey, plus a night with a girl on the line, will fix that.”

Ransom nibbled on his lower lip. The tips of his mustache wiggled.

“Take them mice out of your mouth, boy. And no use to say they ain't there. I see the tips of their tails hanging out.”

Ransom allowed himself a little smile. He touched his hand to his right eye.

“There! You did it again.”

“What?”

“Like you was fixing on a monocle.”

“You're loco.”

“Like you was one of them London swells at the Cactus Club staring the people down.”

“Don't know what you're talking about.”

Sam's brown pig eye drifted off. “I'd give a pretty penny to know where you was born, bub.” Sam waggled his head. “I'll just bet you my bottom dollar you was once some Lord's bastard kid somewhere. At least.”

A young sneer moved under Ransom's black mustache.

“But you don't seem to remember much about who you
was before I picked you up an orphan off the prairie, so I reckon there ain't no use in guessing.”

“No, there ain't.”

“You really can't remember if you was hit over the head or something? Indian massacre?”

“No.”

“Something powerful awful must've happened to wipe out your memory at that age.”

Ransom didn't like the drift of the talk and showed it.

“And that name of yours. Earl Ransom. It smells a little like it was made up.”

“It was.”

“What!” Sam Slaymaker looked around greatly astounded. “Here I've given you the front tit for ten years, and all the mush and milk you want for breakfast, and you've never told me?”

“Well, I'm telling you now.”

“I gave you a home, boy, and you never told me all this time?”

“That's right.”

Sam's brown eyes bored in. “If you made it up, what was your real name then?”

“I don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“No. That's why I made it up.”

“How come you made up just that pa'ticular name? Instead of some other'n, say like Jim Clark or Jack Slade?”

“I don't know. It just come to me.”

“Out of the blue?”

“Out of the blue.”

“Not from some little kind of rememberin'?”

“No.”

Sam sat in silence for a time. At last he heaved a sigh. “Wellsomever, lad, it's all right. But you are full of surprises.”

“Just never thought to tell you.”

“Well, I should've known. Any time a kid tells you he can't remember who he is, yet kin give you a name for himself, he is bound to spring a surprise or two on you in time.”

A long haunting whistle rose white from the puffing engine below in the yards.

“Well, that's milk long ago spilled and dried.” Sam waggled his reins. “Colonel, old skate, hup up. It's time we headed in.” Sam's countenance brightened as he looked down at the little town in the light-green valley. “There's a woman down there that I've got a hankering to play fork with. By the name of Kate. She's the madam at The Stinging Lizard and this time she's gonna play my game no matter what her excuse may be. Broken ass or no. They say no man yet has ever got his horse between her shafts. Well, I'm from Pike County and I don't take no for an answer. Whoopee!”

The two horses, and the mules behind, began to move down toward Cheyenne. Leathers squinched. Hoofs clopped softly in the thick grass.

Ransom swayed with the walk of his horse. A crinkle of a smile lit up his green eyes. “This Kate woman now, sounds like she's got you hooked.”

“You bet. And like a hooked catfish, I'll be glad to flop on the riverbank with her. You can have all the other young pigs she's got on the line there. Even that thirteen-year-old. Me, I like 'em around twenty-five. Like my Kate.”

“A well-broke mare then.”

“Right. Kate tells me she don't like it. But I know better. With that long English foot of hers she can't help but like her men big and horny.”

“You know a lot about such things, don't you, Sam?”

“And this time, boy, you're coming with. It's time you had your pistol polished. And I don't mean your six-shooter.”

Ransom flushed over his brow.

“Ha. You can still turn red, I see.”

Ransom slapped his horse on the neck with the reins. “Prince, hup-up.”

“Boy, that first time can be a wonder. Oh my. I know. Mine was with a widow in old St Loo. She warn't no green girl, man no. She was choice.”

Ransom continued to show red over the cheeks.

“Oh, you'll know when you finally make it, boy. It's like when all the birds fly out of the straw pile.”

Ransom couldn't help but laugh out loud at that.

“And you shouldn't feel ashamed of doing it with a girl on the line. Out in the wilds here a man can't be choosy. Tell you, boy. Many a fine family has had its start with only a whore and a wild-eyed jackass for foundation stock.”

The mustangs, then the mules, began to canter. The fringes on the buckskin clothes of the men threshed a little.

A bird fluttered up underfoot. Prince had almost stepped on it.

Ransom caught a glimpse of a cozy nest woven neatly into a clump of silver sage, and in it four eggs, deep brown speckled, pullet size.

“Nighthawk,” Ransom said. “Hen.”

“Yeh,” Sam grunted. “Now watch close. Watch.”

One of the buff bird's white-marked wings abruptly hung limp. The bird fluttered along as though hurt. It cried whimperingly. The bird slowly veered off to the right.

Sam said, “In nature the female is a sly one.”

“Can you blame her?”

“No. That's her job. To think of her young.” Sam rose in his stirrups, studying the ground. “Now somewheres around here she's got her nest hid.”

Ransom didn't tell Sam he'd already seen it.

Gradually the horses carried them away from the spot, and presently Sam, interest lagging, resettled his broad butt into his saddle.

The mother nighthawk continued to whimper and flutter off in a wide irregular slant to the right, at last vanished into a spread of wolfberries.

Sam fell into a self-study.

Ransom noticed occasional wild flowers: prairie smoke with dusty purple plumes, puccoons with little golden trumpets, wild roses with five little pink tongues.

A jackrabbit squirted out of a whisker of grass, began to lollop off ahead.

Sam hauled up his horse. “Get him, boy! He's your shot.”

Ransom's six-shooter was already out and fired. The jackrabbit knuclded over at the top of its second bound, hit the ground long legs over, and fell dead.

“Good shot, boy. With that hogleg you're just about the best shot I ever did see.”

“Keeps me broke practicin' though.”

“You should worry so long as I pay the freight.”

“I'd rather be an expert at something else. Even go to school somewhere.”

Sam was aghast. “You take up larnin' at your age? When it's time you already had you a family started?”

“Or make a killing somewhere. Strike gold.”

“You will, boy, you will. If we don't make our fortune hauling freight to the Black Hills with this span of rats, we'll make it panning gold. We'll find us some lone gulch somewhere, where the gold lays for the taking at the roots of the grass. Provided the U.S. Army don't keep us out of the Hills.”

“Or maybe I should take to cards full time.”

“No, that I'm agin. No.”

“Well, that's the one thing I do like to do. Playing with chance.”

“Anyways, fresh rabbit first.” Sam slid off his horse, and walked over and got the rabbit. He tied its rear legs together with a whang jerked from his buckskin pants, then, remounting Colonel, hung the rabbit from his saddle. “We'll barbecue this while we water the horses in yon creek.”

Ransom wished Sam was his true father.

Later, while the horses and mules drank their fill, and the rabbit was roasting over a fire of buffalo chips, Sam couldn't
help but let go some more. Clapping the underbelly of his horse with a loud pop, he crowed, “Whoops! I'm eight foot tall, I am, and my home is where the women are horny and the men are up like bulls on two legs. Ya-hoo! My parlor is the Rocky Mountains, my footstool is all of Nebraska, and my privy is the Grand Canyon. Yessiree! I smell like a wolf with his sword out. I drink water out of the crick like a horse. Look out, you short-armed sons of bitches, I'm going to turn loose and sire me up a nation of wild-eyed buckskin bastards.”

Again Ransom couldn't help but smile at Sam's talk.

2

 

Sam got them a room at the American House.

They bathed, slipped into new fancy tan leathers, combed their hair and beards, saw their guns ready for action.

Sam cukked like a cock. “Come over here by the window, boy, and see the ladies. So you'll know one when you see one.” The sun was just setting. “Ah, there goes one now. Whoops! Ain't she a pretty-looking thing? Look, man. Look at her.” Sam waved a long fat smoking cigar. “First a big bump, then two little bumps, and then the good Lord only knows what a wilderness of crimps and frills besides. And a hauling up of her dress here and there.” Sam gave Ransom a dig in the ribs. “Just look at that power of a hairdo stacked up on top of her head there. And that bitty little hat, with its poor lost bird's tail dragging along, ain't that something?”

“Nnn.”

“Somewhere inside all that fooster there you'll find a neat little trick that makes the world go round. Ee-yow!” Sam chomped on his cigar and clapped his sides with the flat of his hands. “It's that that I want and it's that that I'm going to get.”