The Lawmen (6 page)

11

Clay rode back to Topaz. The afternoon had grown sultry. The air was heavy and expectant, with thunderheads building to the southeast. The town’s usually crowded streets were deserted. The few people who were out looked die other way when they saw Clay coming.

Clay returned his horse to the City Stables, then he started down the streets of Topaz, trying to recruit help for his coming battle with the Hopkins gang. Everyone gave him the same answer—no. Yesterday these people had all wanted to buy him drinks. Today they acted like he carried a plague—and perhaps he did. Some of them slammed doors in his face; others flatly refused to talk with him; still others demanded that he keep moving, so that Wes Hopkins wouldn’t think they were on Clay’s side in this dispute.

Clay’s path took him past the Equity Saloon, where all this had begun. The elegant Wes Hopkins was leaning against the Equity’s adobe wall. “Afternoon, Marshal,” Wes said affably. “Having problems?”

Clay met Wes’s gaze but made no answer.

Wes hauled the big Waterbury watch from his vest pocket. “One-fifteen,” he said. “No, make that one-sixteen now. Tick, tick, tick. Time just flies along, doesn’t it?”

“Only when you’re having fun,” Clay replied.

“Well, I don’t want to interrupt you. Go on with your business. I believe you’ll be ready to accept my proposition before long.”

Clay smiled thinly. “Don’t bet on it.” He kept going.

At the end of Tucson Street, Clay turned back through the Triangle. As he walked down what passed for a plank sidewalk on Apache Street, he bumped into a woman coming out of a grocery.

“Sorry,” he said, tipping his hat. Then he saw that the woman was Julie Bennett. “Oh, hello again.”

“Good afternoon, Marshal,” Julie replied. She was carrying two baskets made of Mexican hemp, with her groceries inside. She wore a dress of navy-blue cotton, shiny in places from use. Her pillbox hat sported a drooping peacock feather that was supposed to be jaunty, but merely seemed forlorn. In the daylight, the terrible scars down her cheeks looked worse than they had last night—deep and ragged. It was hard for Clay to imagine the kind of man who would do that to a woman.

Clay reached for the bags. “Here, let me take those.”

Julie seemed almost embarrassed by the request. “Please, you don’t have to act the gentleman with me. ”

“It’s no act,” he replied, taking the bags. “I’m happy to do it.” The bags weren’t heavy—she probably didn’t have much money to spend on food. “You going to your place? I’ll walk you back.”

They started down the street. “Thanks again for helping me out last night,” Clay told her.

“Stop making a big deal of it. I told you, I owed you— though I don’t know how much good I did you, considering the mess you got yourself into.”

The few people on the street were staring at them. “We seem to be attracting a lot of attention,” Clay observed.

The scar-faced prostitute blushed. “Yeah, well, I don’t come out much during the daytime. I guess you can figure out why.” Then she smiled faintly. “ ’Course I never been out walking with a dead man before, either. Maybe that’s got something to do with it.”

“I’m not dead yet,” Clay protested. “I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

“It better be one hell of a sleeve. Wes Hopkins has at least two dozen men in town, waiting to come after you tomorrow. Why don’t you get out while you can?”

“You mean run?” Clay asked.

“Yes. There’s no shame in it. At least you’d still be alive.”

“I ain’t much on running.”

“Maybe you should start.”

“I’ve got nowhere to run to. Even if I did, I’ve got no money to get there.”

“I’ve got a few dollars put aside. I’ll give them to you.”

Clay stopped and looked at her quizzically. “You’d do that for me? Why?”

There was that embarrassed—almost shy—look again. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t, I guess, but like I said, you done me a good mm. That kind of thing doesn’t happen to me often, so I tend to remember it.”

Clay smiled at her. She smiled back, dropping her eyes. Then she grew impatient. “Look, do you want the money or not?”

“No, thanks. Like
I
said, I ain’t running.”

They resumed walking, and Julie said, “I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?”

“A lot of people have been asking me that lately.”

“That should tell you how stupid you’re acting.”

Clay thought for a second. “I guess I’m tired of being a failure, Julie. I intend to do something right for once, even if it kills me.”

“Well, it’s certainly liable to do that.”

“Vance Hopkins killed a man. I’m the marshal. I can’t just look the other way and pretend it didn’t happen.”

“You don’t owe this town anything,” Julie told him. “You only got the job because they didn’t have anybody else to give it to.”

“But I did get it, didn’t I? And that gives me a responsibility. A duty.”

“What about your duty to yourself?”

“Which is?”

“To live.” There was a pleading tone in her voice. “Or do you want to die? Is that it?”

Clay was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t care. Maybe that’s my problem—I need to care about something again.”

They turned south of Grant Street, onto the Line. The district seemed even more squalid and tawdry by daylight than it had last night. The stench of garbage and stale vomit hung heavily in the heat. Here and there drab-featured whores with unkempt hair lounged in front of their doors, wearing dirty dresses or shifts, regarding Clay and Julie with eyes puffy from last night’s carousings.

“Here we are,” Julie announced. “Home sweet home.”

“I seen worse,” Clay told her. “Lived in worse.”

“My—you have led a charmed life, haven’t you?”

They came to her crib, or shack, made of cheap frame with a tar-paper roof. Julie paused before the ill-fitted door. There was no lock on the door, such a precaution would have been useless—the door was so flimsy that anyone could have kicked it in. “Come inside?” Julie said.

“No, thanks,” Clay replied. “I’ve got to get back to my office.” Then he had an idea. “Say, what time does that stage leave for Tucson? “

“Half past two, if it leaves on time, which it usually doesn’t.” Julie brightened. “Don’t tell me you’ve come to your senses and you’re getting out?”

“No,” Clay said, and Julie’s features fell in disappointment. Clay went on. “If I give you a message, can you get it to the stage driver without Hopkins knowing about it?”

“I think.”

“Good. Tell him to deliver it to the U.S. Marshal in Tucson. If the marshal comes quick enough, we may still be alive. You got a pencil and paper I can write with?”

“Sure.” With a smirk she added, “Now you have to come in.”

They went inside. Clay set the hempen bags on the floor and looked around the one-room shack. There wasn’t much there—a crude bed and chest of drawers, cheap window

shades, grain sacking for rugs, a sheet-iron stove. Everything was disorderly but clean.

“Not much to show for twenty-five years of life, is it?” Julie said.

“You’re twenty-five? I thought you were . . .”

She finished for him. “Older?”

“No, I didn’t mean—”

“It’s all right,” she said. “I get that reaction all the time. Sometimes it seems like I been in the business a lot longer than I have. You want a drink?”

“Another time,” Clay said. “How long
have
you been in the business?”

“Nine years.” She began rummaging through the mess on the top of her chest. “I was a ‘bad girl’—you know, the kind who stayed out late with boys, drank corn liquor, and smoked tobacco. My father wanted to lock me in the cellar. He also had a husband picked out for me—a God-fearing farm boy. Well, I wasn’t ready to get married, and I sure wasn’t ready to live on a farm, so I ran away. There ain’t many occupations open for a girl ’cept this one, so I sort of naturally fell into it.”

She went on. “I worked some good houses, had some good times. It was always my dream to save some money and open my own place.” Involuntarily, she touched her scarred cheek. “Not much chance of that happening since I got these. I barely make enough to cover the rent now. You know, I was always afraid of dying old and neglected. I might be neglected, but I doubt I’ll be very old. I figure I got five years left, if I’m lucky.”

Clay snorted. “I probably ain’t got five days left.”

She stopped what she was doing. “Guess my troubles seem pretty tame compared to yours, huh?”

“Trouble’s trouble, no matter how you get it.”

Julie turned back to her chest. “Ah, here’s the paper and—yes, a pencil.”

She handed him a yellowed pad and a nub of a pencil. Clay wrote his message, taking his time, trying to make his usually mangled handwriting legible. When he was done, he folded the paper and gave it to her. “Thanks. Remember, it’s for the U.S. Marshal.”

She nodded. “Anything else you want me to do for you?”

“There is one thing I’d like,” he said. “A watch.”

“A watch?”

“When you don’t have much time left, you like to keep track of it.”

She looked dubious. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks,” he said again, and he straightened. “Well, be seeing you.”

“Yeah,” she said with a smile and a little wave. “Take care.”

Clay left Julie’s crib and headed for his office. He had a funny feeling. He couldn’t describe it; he hadn’t felt anything like it in years. He almost burst out whistling. It was a stupid feeling for somebody with maybe less than a day to live, but he couldn’t get rid of it.

He was still in a good mood when he got back to his office. Pete McCarty was waiting there, his massive shoulders slumped.

“You ready?” Clay asked him. “Where’s your gun?” He saw the glum look on Pete’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Pete looked down. “I’m not going to be helping you, Marshal.”

In his cell, Vance was sleeping. Clay closed the connecting door so that Vance wouldn’t hear. Quietly he asked Pete, “Why not?”

“My wife won’t let me. She says she and the children will leave if I get involved in this.”

“What about the notice?” Clay asked. “You’ll still print it up, won’t you?”

Pete shook his head. “I can’t. While I was gone, Lee Hopkins and some of his boys busted up my press. ”

Clay ran a hand across his unshaven chin.

Pete said, “Marshal . . . Clay, I—”

Clay held up a hand. “It’s all right. I understand. I think I’ve known from the first I was going to have to do this by myself.”

“Sure, and I want to help, but my family . . .”

“You’re doing the right thing, Pete. Go on back now, get that press fixed. There’ll be better times in Topaz one day. You’ll be able to write about them.”

Pete held out his hand. Clay took it. “Good luck,” Pete said.

“Thanks,” Clay said. Then Pete left, shutting the door behind him.

Clay’s earlier good mood dropped away as if it had been pushed off a cliff. A cold weight descended upon him—the certainty of death. It was going to be him alone against the Hopkins gang. And he was going to lose.

Still, he would not run.

He went to the coffeepot. It was empty, and the fire was out. He wondered where the coffee was kept. Johnny Evitts had always made it before. He squatted, pulling out the lower drawer of his file cabinet. Inside, among the mouse droppings, he found coffee and sugar.

Behind Clay the front door opened. “Pete?” he said, thinking that McCarty had given in to his conscience.

“I come about the deputy job,” said a deep voice.

“Great,” Clay said, rising to his feet. “We can use—”

He stopped. The man before him was close to Clay’s own height. He was well-built and looked like he could take care of himself. Some people might have considered him handsome. He was also as black as the ace of spades.

12

The excitement drained from Clay’s face. “I need a deputy, not a shoeshine boy.”

The black man clenched his bearded jaw. His voice was soft for someone so big. “You heard me—it’s the deputy’s job I’m here about.”

Clay stared at the man more closely. His wool, beehive-shaped hat looked like it had been trampled by a buffalo herd; his checked shirt and trousers were patched and faded. Beyond the shabby clothes, though, he had bright, alert features, a face with character. “Sorry,” Clay told him. “We don’t hire niggers.”

“What I hear, you ain’t got no choice,” the black man said.

“The hell I don’t. Look, stop wasting my time. You know you can’t be a lawman.”

“Why not?”

“I told you, we don’t hire niggers.”

“Them Hopkins boys shows up tomorrow, you’re going to need another gun on your side, and I don’t see nobody lined up for the job but me.”

Clay was struck by the man’s persistence. “What’s your name, boy?”

“Essex Johnson.”

Clay grinned. “Essex?”

“Ol’ Massa named me that. Essex’s where his folks come from in England, or some such shit.”

“You were a slave?”

“No, I come to this black man’s paradise of my own free will. Of course I was a slave.”

“And what kind of work you do now?”

“I’m a bank president.”

Clay just stared at him.

“All right, I’m a day laborer. Whatever I can get.”

“Can you shoot?”

“Would I be here if I couldn’t?”

Clay got the coffee and sugar from the filing cabinet. He toyed with the empty coffeepot, drumming a tuneless rhythm on its side with his fingers. “You know what you’d be getting yourself into if I hired you—which I ain’t going to do?”

“I know.”

“You’d most likely end up getting killed.”

“What the hell difference would that make? I been kicked and starved and slept in shit all my life. Death’s about the only thing I ain’t tried yet.”

“Why are you so hot to get yourself mixed up in this?” Clay asked him. “Nobody in town besides you is willing to risk his neck. Is it because that dead man—Pompey—was black?”

“It’s because he was my friend. He took me in when I first got to this town, let me stay with him. He was a good man. Now he’s dead.” Essex’s soft voice grew more intense. “It’s because just for once I’d like to see justice done to a black man in this country.”

Clay laughed derisively. “Justice? For niggers? That’s rich. Everything I ever had I lost because of you people—my farm, my parents.” He paused, “My brother.”

“Well, now, I’m sorry. I guess for your sake we should have stayed slaves, and been happy to have done it. A lot of fools thought we was happy bein’ slaves, anyway. I suppose you was a rebel, huh?”

“I was a southern patriot, and I still am, and I’m damn proud of it.”

“Yeah, you look stupid enough to be proud about something like that.”

Clay put down the coffeepot and started forward, then restrained himself. He had enough trouble.

“Now what about that deputy job?” demanded Essex.

“I told you,” Clay said, “you ain’t getting it. Who the hell ever heard of a nigger lawman—’cept for the ones the carpetbaggers installed back home?”

“And I told you—you ain’t got no choice. And stop calling me ‘nigger.’”

“All right. ‘Sambo,’ then.”

“You know, it ain’t like it’s my life’s ambition to be working for some peckerwood marshal.”

“Get out of here,” Clay ordered him.

“Not without you give me the deputy job.”

“Let me put it in words that even you can understand. I don’t like you. I don’t want you around.”

“But you need me. And you’re going to hire me, ain’t you?”

Clay ground his teeth and closed his eyes. “All right. Anything to shut you up. But as a temporary deputy only. When this is over, so’s your job.”

Essex grinned. “ ’Course it’s temporary. We both gonna be dead tomorrow. Don’t get much more temporary than that.”

“One more thing you better know,” Clay said. “I hate Negroes.”

Essex’s grin hardened. “No more than I hate whites.”