A Congregation of Jackals Read online

  “About the vision,” Dicky prompted him.

  “Right. The most important part!”

  The attendant, awakened by the old man’s exclamation asked, “Somebody need something?”

  “Get the hell back to sleep!”

  Dicky heard the attendant resettle in his cot; within an instant, the steady noise of his susurrations resumed.

  “So I sees this vision that night in the storm. In it, I’m sittin’ in a hotel lobby on a green couch, wearin’ a blue suit. It’s dawn an’ through the window you can see a royal blue sky an’ just a little bit of the sun poking her head up from the grass like a gopher—pretty like in a paintin’. I’m sittin’ there, drinkin’ a tea”—Blackie pointed to a cup resting on the table beside him—“and I’m watchin’ the sun come up an’ this woman comes into the lobby. She is . . . she is . . .” The old man shook his head, the joy and sadness that struggled for control over his vocal cords made them warble. “She is beautiful. She asks the attendant for a room an’ her voice reminds me of the way my mama’s sounded when I was a little kid over in Hackett. I invite her to share tea with me an’ she comes over an’ sits right where you are now and I pour her a cup. We start talkin’ about the sunrise an’ things an’ at some point I realize that we’re sittin’ close an’ holdin’ hands. She tells me her name is Isabel an’ then I woke up.”

  The oldster ruminated for a moment and then said, “I wish it went on longer, but that was it. I moved into this hotel not long after, so I could be close to this room.”

  Dicky felt heartsick for the old man.

  Blackie added, “Maybe it seems crazy to you that I come here every morning, but let me tell you somethin’. I never saw this lobby when I had good eyes—they hadn’t builded it yet. But I knew the color of this couch,” he said, patting the green couch. “And I knew about that window,” he said, pointing to the window on the eastern wall. “And I knew about the carpet,” he said, stamping his left shoe on the Oriental rug beneath him. “I knew it all without nobody tellin’ me. I saw ’em in my dream, an’ here they are for real. Explain that? You can’t! So that’s how I know Miss Isabel will come an’ have tea with me an’ sit close an’ hold hands an’ talk to me with that voice that sounds like my mama’s.”

  “I do not know anything at all about visions, but it definitely sounds like you have had one.”

  “It’s always disappointing when she don’t turn up, but then there’s another dawn comin’ up before you know it.” Blackie turned his blank gaze back to the window. The eastern horizon was beginning to glow.

  Without warning, the old man said, “Get out of her seat. I don’t want it occupied when she gets here.”

  Dicky stood up, shook Blackie’s cold hand and left the apparition to await his spectral mate.

  Halfway up the stairs, Dicky turned and looked back down at the old man; the light from the window had painted his suit blue.

  Chapter Twenty

  Penultimate Breakfast (and Afterward)

  Beatrice sat opposite her father at the oak table; the vapors from the eggs, cheddar biscuits and panfried pork chops with onions rose up between them.

  Her father inhaled deeply and said, “Smells like the best breakfast yet.” (He said this about half of the time.)

  “Thank you.” Beatrice tilted her head forward, clasped her hands together and closed her eyes. “Come dine with us, Lord Jesus, be a guest in our home. Let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  She opened her eyes; her father looked at her and said, “I’m making breakfast tomorrow. You aren’t cooking for some old man on your own wedding day.”

  Beatrice nodded her head appreciatively.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes, T.W. lustily nodding his approbation over the food, which Beatrice agreed was particularly flavorful that morning. At one point he asked if she would set aside a chop, some gravy and a biscuit for Goodstead, and she informed him that she already had. Her mind ordered the many things that she intended to do that day prior to the social she and her father had arranged for the wedding guests (and any townsfolk not invited to the ceremony who simply wished to join in the celebration).

  “There’s something I wanted to get at for a moment,” her father said, and then wiped his mouth.

  Beatrice knew that he was going to say something about her mother. Her father rarely spoke of the woman, and whenever he did, there was a preamble.

  “Pretty soon it may not be appropriate for me to talk about certain things with you. People change some when they get married and I imagine that you will too—and that’s fine. So this is what I wanted to discuss now: I suppose that you and James plan on having children?”

  Beatrice’s cheeks suffused with warmth at the remark, but she did not look away from her father when she responded, “We both like the idea of children.”

  “I figured as much. You know what happened to your mother when she gave birth to you. I wanted to let you know that Bonnie, your mother’s mother who you never met, also had difficulties in giving birth to your mother. Did I ever mention this to you?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “She survived, but was always weak blooded afterward and never fully the same. I hate to tell you about this, but you should know that when you are with child, you need to take special care.”

  “I shall.”

  “For a lot of years I’ve saved up my extra money—all of my bonuses and those two big rewards I collected when I was a marshal—so that I could hire a private doctor from the East to watch you for the last part of your term and deliver the baby when the time came. I’ve got enough money to do it twice. Maybe three times.”

  Beatrice’s eyes filled with tears. Of the many kind things her father had done for her during her twenty-nine years, this was perhaps the kindest of all.

  “Don’t get upset.”

  “I am not upset, I am—” She stood up, walked around the table, stood beside her father, leaned over and threw her arms around him. She squeezed him fiercely and kissed him on the forehead. He hugged her in return.

  “Better let go. I’m full of biscuits and pork.”

  “Thank you, Daddy.”

  He grinned and said, “You haven’t called me Daddy in a while. Just hearing it makes me feel younger.”

  Beatrice, at a loss for words, just repeated, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  The man picked up his napkin and Beatrice picked up hers; the two of them wiped tears from her cheeks, smiling.

  In Beatrice’s estimation, Big Abe’s Dancehall of Trailspur was very far from ready for the evening’s festivities. The piano was there, but the chairs and the tables and the festoons and the welcome banner she had asked for were all absent; the floor needed to be polished as well.

  The only person in the area was a Mandarin woman who sat upon an overturned bucket in a corner, poking and pulling a needle through the rent crotch of a very large pair of yellow trousers that almost certainly belonged to the proprietor.

  “Pardon me, ma’am,” Beatrice said.

  The woman looked up and said, “What!”

  “Do you know where I can find Big Abe?”

  The woman raised the pants and said, “Big Abe.”

  Beatrice said, “Do you know where he is?”

  “His pants,” was her reply.

  Beatrice pointed east and said, “Big Abe?” The Mandarin woman shook her head. Beatrice pointed west and said, “Big Abe?”

  The Mandarin pointed her needle at the ceiling and said, “Big Abe up.”

  Beatrice, befuddled, stared at the woman for a moment; the Oriental jabbed her needle at the ceiling a second time. A loud thump sounded on the roof and Beatrice, comprehending, nodded to the Mandarin.

  “Sheh-sheh,” Beatrice said, the only Chinese she knew. The woman laughed, nodded and then replied in kind.

  Beatrice walked outside Big Abe’s Dancehall of Trailspur and circumnavigated the gaily painted building (purple and yellow wi
th some green) until she came upon a ladder angled against the south facade. Without hesitation, she applied herself to the rungs and climbed. When she reached the roof twenty-four feet above, she earned herself a splendid view of Big Abe’s posterior, so large and looming that it looked like the back of a lavender buffalo.

  “Big Abe?”

  The man stood up as if poked, turned around, bowed his bald, sun-reddened head and said, “Miss Jeffries. Good afternoon.”

  Beatrice stepped off of the ladder and walked across the planks toward the rotund proprietor.

  “What brings you to my roof?”

  “Is the dance hall going to be ready for tonight?”

  “You entertain doubts?”

  “The space is empty, other than the piano, and the last time I heard that particular piano, it only had one octave that was correctly tuned.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself, my dear. Everything will be organized by tonight. And correctly tuned.”

  “Do I have your word? By five o’clock, the floors shall be polished and the chairs, tables, welcome banner and festoons shall be artfully arranged?”

  “You can have my word. Or a sentence. Or some handshakes. Or we can go to Judge Higgins and draft some forms if you’d like—if that would dispel the doubts that currently assail you.”

  “That is not necessary.” She returned to the ladder, descended one rung, stopped and said, “Please do not put rum in the fruit punch.”

  “I shan’t.”

  Beatrice climbed down the ladder, the dirt road rising up to meet her brown, two-inch-heeled boots.

  When she was a yard from the ground, she heard Big Abe say, “The rum goes into the rum punch.”

  The lobby of Hotel Halcyon was occupied by a dozen people, one of whom noticed her and waved, though she did not immediately recognize the amiable brown-haired gentleman. He stood up from the green couch, her name on his lips; a woman and a shy teenage girl rose up beside him. The family approached her.

  “You look just like your mother,” the brown-haired gentleman said to Beatrice.

  The woman beside him said, “We haven’t seen you since you were twelve. We’re the Albens, cousins of your mother’s, if you don’t remember us.”

  “I most assuredly remember you. Thank you for coming out for the celebration,” she said as Mr. Alben took and kissed her hand. She then hugged the women—the mother, followed by the shy teenager. Beatrice first met the Albens when she and her father had visited Colorado (accompanied by her father’s cousin Robert) when she was twelve years old, though the shy girl had not yet been born. She recalled that they were successful in oil, pleasant conversationalists and intelligent. Mrs. Alben had written several news articles for the Rocky Mountain Tribune (under a man’s name), which had impressed Beatrice thoroughly at the time, and inspired her earliest contribution to the Trailspur Gazette five years later.

  “Is the groom around? He must be a handsome one to win a gorgeous woman like you,” Mrs. Alben said.

  “Thank you,” Beatrice replied, blushing for the second time that day. “He is currently showing his guests the town of Trailspur.”

  Two more people approached Beatrice and introduced themselves as Smith and Smiler—men who used to marshal with her father back in Arkansas. Both of them were over sixty and moved slowly—one walked with a cane—and they just stared at her smiling throughout their interaction, as if her existence was an answer to a long-posed question and the words that came from her mouth were negligible, albeit pretty, bird sounds.

  “I didn’t understand half what you said, but it all sounds smart,” remarked the one with the gaping smile.

  “I can’t believe somethin’ like you came outta T.W.,” the one with the cane said. “He’s a good man, but . . . but you’re like a queen or something.”

  For the third time that day, Beatrice blushed. The old marshals vied for her right hand; Smith jabbed his cane into his companion’s thigh to win the privilege. He delicately clasped her fingers, raised them to his mouth and kissed her bare knuckles, the bristles of his mustache tickling her. The moment he released her hand, his peer snatched it up and pressed it to his lips so gently that she barely felt the contact.

  “Tell T.W. that Smith and Smiler are here whenever you see him.”

  “And ask him if he knows who your real father is.”

  “Smiler! That ain’t at all appropriate to joke about,” Smith reprimanded . . . but then started to laugh himself.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Enthralled by Wilfreda

  Oswell, Godfrey and Dicky sat on the wide bench that furnished Lingham’s porch, watching the sun fall from the sky. The slatted door behind them opened and the tall carpenter emerged, holding the handles of three tin cups of coffee in his right hand (one needed long fingers to do that) and a fourth cup in his left hand. Lingham handed each man a coffee and was thanked with a nod. The coydogs strutted from the woods toward the porch.

  “Jesus has returned,” Dicky remarked.

  Lingham hooked a stool with his boot, slid it across the deck and sat down; he blew upon his coffee and sipped. The tall blond man scratched Jesus’s nose and then Joseph’s.

  “This is good coffee,” Godfrey remarked.

  “Thanks.”

  The men sipped at and blew upon the steaming ebony held in their tin cups. Oswell tried not to think about Elinore and the kids.

  He said to Lingham, “We should be watchful at that dance. You said anybody can come?”

  “The whole town is invited. We can only get one hundred and twenty into the church, and some folks wanted to be involved with the marriage even if they couldn’t hear us say the vows. That hall can hold more than three hundred.” He sipped and then added, “Beatrice is popular in this town. So is her pa.”

  “From what we saw walking around today, so are you,” Godfrey remarked.

  “They like the James Lingham I showed ’em.”

  Oswell said, “I know how things went back then. This James Lingham is you. Bad luck and other folks made you become that other one.”

  “Lots of folks had troubles and didn’t do what I done,” Lingham said. He shook his head morosely. “It’s all gonna come out one way or the other, I suppose. Things will get settled for good.” He sipped his coffee and tapped his fingers upon the tin mug.

  Oswell asked, “Is the sheriff going to approach us if we’re wearing guns at the dance?”

  “He will. He monitors that stuff close. And you can’t do no shootin’ in a hall full of people anyway.”

  The rancher responded, “Of course we won’t. Be we should be able to defend ourselves if we get called outside or get ambushed along the way.” To Dicky, Oswell said, “Put a couple of ten-shooters and a couple of fives in that valise and bring it.”

  “I already packed them.”

  “Good. And give us each a knife in case the wrong fellow asks us to dance.”

  The quartet rode their horses from Lingham’s property; the sun knelt on the earth behind them, casting their shadows forward like jet-black pillars. Oswell and his brother wore blue suits, Dicky wore his brown three-piece outfit with a maroon tie and gloves and Lingham wore a dark green suit and matching shirt. Each man held a revolver in his free hand and watched the woodlands.

  “Did Beatrice pick out that suit for you?” Dicky asked.

  “She did.”

  “Was the inspiration green beans?”

  “Shut up Dicky.”

  “I was only joking. You look very nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ve never seen a vegetable ride a horse before.”

  “It’s a wonder we never shot you,” Oswell said. “Lay off of Lingham or I’m gonna get off my horse and go a round with you.”

  “How about you go to hell with your threats, Oswell.”

  Godfrey and Lingham grew tense; Oswell looked at Dicky.

  The New Yorker continued, “Not one of us knows which way tomorrow is going to go—all I am trying to do is hav
e a little fun. You have been a gloomy bastard since I met you at the train depot, as if you were the only one who has suffered for what happened back then. You are not the only one, Oswell Danford: we all have. We all have the same weight upon us—you have just decided that your burden entitles you to be an ornery louse. Well it does not entitle you to such behavior. Godfrey is civil and so is Lingham and so am I.”

  Dicky reined his horse close to Oswell’s and continued, “And furthermore, I have seen you clamber up and down that mare. I am fairly certain that I would be standing and you would be eating dirt in any dustup between the two of us. If you want to attack me in a valiant effort to defend Lingham’s dumb suit, go ahead.”

  The four men rode on in silence. Oswell wondered why Dicky’s japes had pricked him so deeply, angered him so much more than they ever had before. He ruminated.

  After his horse had taken a dozen strides, the rancher said, “I suppose I’m not very tolerant of any of us having fun, especially at the expense of someone else. I figure that’s how we all got into this mess in the first place.” Oswell shook his head. “But I shouldn’t come at you as I have been. You showed up for this and some men might not have. Most men, probably. You’re here to own up to what happened the same as me and my brother and Lingham, and I shouldn’t be all over you the way I have been.”

  Oswell and the rest of the crew were surprised when he extended his right hand to Dicky. The New Yorker clasped and shook it.

  The four men tied their horses amid the forty-three others fastened to the posts outside of Big Abe’s Dancehall of Trailspur and walked toward the large double doors, from which emanated the sounds of a piano and a mirthful throng of people. Oswell held the valise within which all of their revolvers had been placed.