A Good Man (58 page)

Case slaps the reins to the rumps of the horses and grimly says, “Well, I guess we couldn’t dodge a shivaree. Thanks to Joe. Look at him leering at me like a Barbary ape.”

And Ada laughs and taps him on the cheek with a gloved finger. “My boy’s cheeks must be red with the cold,” she says. “Because he’s too old to blush.”

The buckboard waits, hidden by a stand of pines beside Mullan Road. Figgis is on the driver’s seat; Priest and Toomey sit hunched in the back of the wagon, double-barrels on the floor beside them. Every man has a flour sack in his pocket to mask his face when the moment comes to apprehend Case. Dunne is on horseback nearby, eyes fixed on the point where the trail curves behind a clump of trees. When Case appears, the buckboard will block the trail; they’ll seize the villain, cut the team loose, and drive it off, stranding Mrs. Tarr. Dunne wishes it could be otherwise, but someone will find her soon enough, take her into town.

The men are growing more and more disgruntled the longer they wait, are beginning to doubt his assurances that
this
is the day. But what groom would risk a honeymoon without a bed? Dunne has made the rounds of the hotels in Helena, asking whether a Mr. Case had made a reservation for a date on or around the twenty-fifth. He told all the deskmen the same story. The gentleman in question is an old friend and business associate of his, he explained. He wants to throw a welcome party for him, but he needs to know when his friend will arrive. The Franklin House helpfully informed him that Mr. Case had made a booking by wire and was expected on the twenty-third.

The men’s lack of confidence in his leadership annoys Dunne. But before dark descends they will learn that he knows what he knows.

Then they hear a tune, feeble in the distance, and cock their heads, listening intently. Dunne strains in the saddle, striving for a first glimpse of the travellers. Suddenly, four men canter into view around the turn in the road, scarves cinched over their ears, hats tugged down tight against the cold, boisterously singing. The words waft up to the watchers in the trees. “Cotton-eyed Joe, Cotton-eyed Joe, / What did make you treat me so? / I’d a been married forty years ago / If it hadn’t a been for Cotton-eyed Joe.” Dunne recognizes Joe McMullen among them. A cutter follows, harness bells tinkling. Ada and Case are in it.

“Dunne?” says Figgis.

Dunne holds up his hand. “Wait. There’s too damn many.” He watches the procession until Mrs. Tarr’s red tam-o’-shanter, bright as a drop of blood, loses itself in a tangle of trees.

Priest clambers out of the wagon. Dunne feels a hand on his thigh, hears him say, “You have miscalculated.”

“It’s only a matter of time. We’ll get him.” But Dunne is not so certain that in this instance he is indubitably correct.

TWENTY-SEVEN

THE DAY BEFORE
Wesley and Ada are to take their vows before a justice of the peace, Joe McMullen sallies out of Helena’s finest haberdashery with a parcel of smart new wedding clothes tucked under his arm. He has given Ada fair warning, told her if she doesn’t take care to swan herself up in her finest, he is going to pull every eye off the bride.

Ada had said, “Well, Joe, that won’t be many eyes to attract. We’re going to have to drag another witness off the street to make it legal.”

Joe finds this a sad state of affairs. The way these two are getting married is like a Baptist housewarming, all solemnity and seriousness, no whoop and joy. Another face or two more would do no harm to the occasion. At least he’d have somebody to kick his heels up with.

Just then, much to his surprise, McMullen spies Peregrine Hathaway coming out of a bank. Wesley had mentioned that the young deserter had been bound for Helena when he had left Fort Benton by stagecoach, but Case hadn’t been able to say if that was Hathaway’s ultimate destination or whether it was simply a way station on a longer journey. Like a boy licking his lips over a tasty pudding, Joe bustles over to catch his victim unawares. “Hello,” he says, “they must’ve emptied the jails and asylums. What the hell are you doing here prancing the streets like you owned them?”

Hathaway’s shoulders give a startled hitch. His face is pale as paper; Joe notes that he’s lost the brick-red colouring life in the outdoors had given him in his days as a policeman. He must be working under a roof now. “I am employed in Helena,” says Peregrine, doing his best to cover his discomposure and muster a full supply of dignity. He jerks his thumb in the direction of the bank. “There.”

“I might have guessed it from the look of you,” says Joe. “Ain’t you the very vision of bankerdom. Celluloid collar and all. I knew you was going to pull yourself high in the world, but I never thought you’d go so lofty as to sit atop a mountain of gold.”

“It’s a very humble position,” says Hathaway defensively. “I’m being schooled in the business.”

“It’s a tough trade,” concedes Joe, “taking the widow’s mite and turning it into a dollar for the boss. But harden your heart – you’ll make a success of it yet.”

“Well, yes …” Hathaway casts his eyes from side to side as if seeking an escape route, but McMullen seizes his arm and begins to propel him down the road, saying, “But all work and no play make the banker a dull boy. Come along and take supper with some old friends at the Franklin House. If Ada and Wesley was to learn I didn’t bring you to say howdy-do, they’d beat me like a rented mule.”

“Mr. Case and Mrs. Tarr? Here?”

“Mrs. Tarr’s her name for today.” Joe winks. “Tomorrow she changes it to Case.”

“You don’t say!”

“I do say. And they’re short a witness for the wedding. So far there’s only me to stand up with them. How’s your spelling?”

“Beg pardon?”

“They need someone who can write his own name without chewing his tongue off when he does it. Let me put you to the test. Spell me Peregrine.”

“Mr. McMullen, surely you aren’t serious.”

“Hathaway, you are the sweetest, most innocent thing. Being a banker ain’t changed you a bit, has it?”

When begins, Hathaway is blanched white with mortification. Surely Mr. Case views him with contempt for the irresponsible way he evaded his obligations to the Police. He is embarrassed for his drunken display the last time he saw Mrs. Tarr. But when not the slightest hint is made of how shamefully he had behaved, and when both she and Mr. Case question him with genuine interest about his prospects at the bank, little by little he grows more at ease and expands on his new life. Several times during the course of the meal Mrs. Tarr actually leans over, smiles, and pats him fondly on the knee as if to say, Well done. You’ve sailed through a dark patch. We are proud of you.

Hathaway is so pleased with his reception that when he notices that Mr. Case is looking a little listless, appearing to flag, he orders two more bottles of wine to keep the party going. But no sooner is the first bottle uncorked than the groom-to-be is rocked with a spasm of coughing, and, once it has ended, begs to be excused. “I’m feeling a little out of sorts. But please, don’t let me spoil the occasion. Carry on, enjoy yourselves.”

“Wesley,” says Mrs. Tarr, beginning to stand.

“I just feel a little tired and very warm,” he says, motioning her to keep her place. “They overheat this dining room. Truly, it’s nothing. Stay and have another glass of wine with our friends, my dear.”

But when Case is gone, she cannot conceal her anxiety, and this puts a pall on the general mood.

“Go on up to him,” McMullen finally urges her. “No need to hang about here.”

“I’m sure he’s fine, but if you don’t mind –” Ada swallows the last of her wine, rises with napkin clutched in her hand, and carries it away with her in a state of worried abstraction.

By midnight, Case is shaking with chills. No matter how Ada piles the blankets on him, he complains of being cold, says that every breath he takes slides a painful blade between his ribs. Both of his cheeks are flushed a hectic red, and he is racked with fits of coughing. By morning, he is burning with fever. Ada summons Joe and sends him to find a doctor. By the time McMullen returns with a physician, Case is delirious.

The diagnosis is pneumonia. “I will apply a linseed poultice to the affected side,” the doctor informs Ada. “And it is imperative his temperature be lowered. See to it Mr. Case is sponged hourly. A little Dover’s powder should help him sleep. When he wakes, dose him with brandy in milk. That will stimulate the action of the heart.”

Ada merely nods. She does not inquire what Wesley’s chances are. She is terrified what the answer might be.

Dunne senses things slipping out of his grip. Since the fiasco on Mullan Road, Figgis has grown ever more saucy and disrespectful. He hands Dunne the same looks his father used to, as Mr. Hind used to, as Mr. McMicken used to – the face you show to a soft-brain. Worse, Figgis encourages Toomey and Priest to treat him likewise. When Dunne asks how could he be expected to know that Case would fall in with other travellers, Figgis retorts that’s not the int. And he doesn’t say it to him, but directs his comment to Priest and Toomey. “Some carpenters measure twice and cut once, but Mr. Dunne is a carpenter who measures and measures and measures and measures. A board is safe with him. It ain’t never going to feel the saw’s teeth” is what that scoffing bastard says. And Toomey giggles. And Priest contemplates his white hands and long, shapely fingernails as if he were admiring a string of pearls.

“There’s time yet,” Dunne replies.

Of course Figgis jumps on that. “Same answer you give Priest on the Mullan Road. I suppose there’s time according to your calendar. One thing is sure. I ain’t going to need to tell my grandchildren about this exploit. They’ll be here to see it.”

Dunne lies awake all night, reheating Figgis’s insults, seeing again the scum of derision on his face. He knows he must assert himself, regain control. He must
general
them. Generals search the terrain for opportunities. They construct a strategy from
facts
. This is what he will do.

Next morning, he saddles his horse and heads off to Helena to survey the ground. These are the facts he winnows after he pays a visit to the Franklin House and takes a prowl about the premises. Case is quartered in room number 208, at the end of the hallway near a door that gives access to a fire escape. The door is secured from the inside by a flimsy hook. The fire escape descends to a narrow alley. The alley is shadowy and dark. Only by peering directly into its mouth could anyone make out a wagon parked there.

Better still, when he asks the man on the desk if Case is in, he is told, “Yes, but he’s not to be disturbed. We don’t even clean his room. He’s caught some ailment or other.” This is cheering news. With Case an invalid, it seems that they will have only one able-bodied man to deal with, in the person of Joe McMullen.

When Dunne gets back to the cabin he states his plans with the authority and confidence of a true commander. This is the situation. This is what we will do.

But when he finishes, he sees the dunderheads haven’t understood. No one congratulates him, no one even asks a question. Toomey gently stirs his coffee as if it were a cup of blasting oil. Priest looks up at the ceiling as if he expects to see the sun shining down on him from there.

Abruptly, Figgis says, “We took a vote. We ain’t taking orders from you no more. You dilly and dally like an old woman. When we snatch Case, Priest’s in charge.”

To no one in particular Priest says, “ ‘Let this cup pass from me.’ I do not want it, but I bow to the wishes of the majority.”

“Oh no you don’t,” says Dunne. “This is my show. From the start. I give Collins the idea. Collins put me over you.”

“Collins ain’t here,” says Figgis. “He don’t know you for the muddler we know you for.”

Priest says, “No need to humiliate Mr. Dunne, Figgis. Tomorrow we will accomplish this thing and we will all be friends in. Won’t we, Mr. Dunne?”

Dunne says, “Nobody is running this but me.”