The Listening Sky (41 page)

“I thought there was something bad about that Fresno the day he came here.”

“I didn’t know he came here. When was that?”

“Before Doc died. Polly let him in ‘cause he said he was sick. He followed Jane into the surgery and shut the door. I heard
her telling him to open it. I was about to go up and get Herb when he came down. It was when Doc took the bad turn. Herb pounded
on the door for Jane. Fresno let her out, but he was madder than a ruptured goose when he went out the front door.”

“I never knew that was Fresno.”

“Jane wasn’t wantin’ to worry anybody. Doc died right after that.”

Maude was glad for the chance to visit. For a few minutes it kept her mind off what lay ahead. Sometime during the night she
had wondered if she should tell T.C. about Judge Eldon Cottington, but had decided against it. The judge would come here,
smooth as silk, and make her out a liar, a fallen woman he had tried to set on the straight and narrow path, a woman he had
hired to work in his home and who had kidnapped his daughter!

There was one way and only one that Stella would ever be free of him.

I
T
was mid-morning when the knock sounded on the door. Herb, walking down the hall from the kitchen where he and Polly had been
talking with the others about the previous night’s events, went to open it with a smile on his boyish face.

The man who stood there looked to Herb as if he had just stepped out of a mail-order catalog. He was big, robust, and wore
a long, dark wool overcoat and a fashionable square-crowned hat. He carried a pair of fine kid gloves, and a large gold ring
gleamed on the middle finger of his left hand. Snow had not dared to stick to his shiny black shoes.

“Good morning,” he said pleasantly. “I’d like to see Mr. Kilkenny, please.”

“Why shore. Come on in outta the snow. T.C.’s there in the office.” Herb opened the door wide and stepped aside for him to
enter.

The man removed his hat when he entered and smoothed his hair with the palm of his hand. A heavy mustache, fanned out and
curled at the ends, gave him a look of solid respectability.

Herb pushed the office door open and yelled, “Somebody to see ya.”

T.C. rose from his chair as the man entered. He recognized him immediately as the man who had come in on the stage and had
gone directly into the hotel.

“I’m Kikenny.”

“Judge Eldon Cottington, sir. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance. You’ve done a magnificent job here reviving this town.”

“Thank you. Take off your coat and have a chair.”

While this was being done, T.C. sat back down.
Cottington.
The name sing-songed through his mind. Where had he heard it before?

Judge Cottington seated himself, then reached into the inside pocket of his coat and brought out two cigars.

“Would you care for one? I get them special from Cuba.”

“No thanks. But here’s a match for yours.”

T.C. moved a match box across the desk toward him and waited for him to light the cigar. Something about the man’s bearing
and attitude, smooth as it was, put T.C. on the alert.

“What can I do for you?”

“Nothing, really. I came merely as a courtesy to tell you I’m taking my wife and child back to Laramie.”

“I can’t imagine that being important to me.”

“She signed on to work for you. I’ve talked to one of your solicitors, J.E. Askland, in Laramie. He informed me that you have
been put to some expense. You paid her fare to come here and for several days in a hotel. I’ll reimburse you for those expenses.”

T.C. didn’t say anything for a long moment. He leaned back in the chair and studied the man. He was in his late forties. His
hair was thin on top. He had sagging pouches under eyes that were as cold as sharpened steel.
Cottington.
Where had he heard that name?

“Who is your wife?” T.C. asked. He was sure that he knew yet could not believe that Maude would be married to this man.

“She’s calling herself Mrs. Henderson. She has my daughter, Stella, with her.”

The door that had been left ajar was pushed open. Maude stood there. Behind her were Herb, Jane, and Sunday. She had somehow
found the courage to tell them who was in the office with Mr. Kilkenny and why.

“I am not your wife, not your
legal
wife that is.”

“Come in and shut the door, my dear. You needn’t make a spectacle of yourself. Where is Stella?”

“These folks are my friends, the only friends I’ve had for ten long years. Stella is with another one of my good friends.
She doesn’t want to see you. She tried to hide when she heard you come in.”

“We need to talk privately.”

“No. I want my friends here as my witnesses.”

“Witnesses to what, my dear? This is no court of law. I’ve come to take you and Stella home.”

“Home? You call that house a home? It was a prison, a torture chamber. I’m not going back. I’ll never go back and neither
will Stella.”

“Now, now, Maude. Don’t excite yourself. You know what happens when you do. You’re unable to think clearly and you make rash
decisions.”

The judge got up from the chair, pulled himself up to his full height and walked toward her with his hand outstretched. He
stopped suddenly when Maude pulled a long, thin cutting knife from her pocket.

“Stay back or I’ll cut you. I swear I will.”

A look of complete surprise came over the judge’s face.

“What has happened to you? Threatening me with a knife could get you into a lot of trouble. I couldn’t have a woman raising
my daughter who had been convicted of threatening a judge.”

“She’s
not
your daughter. I’m
not
your wife, although for years I endured your rutting in order to stay with Stella.”

Maude had squared her shoulders and had not taken her eyes off the judge. Jane and Sunday, standing quietly on either side
of her, were all the support she needed.

“That’s enough!” Cottington said sternly. “I’ll not have your insolence, and I’ll not have you airing our family differences
in public.”

“We’re not a family,” Maude shouted back. “I was a whore working for a roof over my head and taking care of your brother’s
child so that you could spend the money he left her. This”—she waved her hand to include the others in the room—”is a family.
And they have accepted me and Stella as a part of it.”

“I’m warning you, Maude. You’re about to push me too far, and you will suffer the consequences.”

“What more can you do to me than you’ve already done, Judge Cottington? You’ve broken my nose, split my lip, knocked out my
jaw teeth, and broken my arm. You’ve stomped me, screwed me, spit on me and humiliated me. You’ve—”

“Shut your lying mouth,” he shouted. His control had snapped. His face was fiery red; his hands shook.

For the first time in ten years Maude was not one bit frightened by the outburst. The friends behind her, Sunday’s hand on
her back, gave her courage to look into the eyes of the man she had feared for so long.

“You’ll not break Stella’s spirit. She’s got her father’s guts and will stand up to you. You hated him because he’d not knuckle
under to you. Stella is just a child, and you’ve cowed her by telling her that she’s ugly and stupid and that her mother was
a whore. You’ve slapped her face, beaten her little behind till it bled and made her go a full day without a bite to eat.”

“Stop! Or, by God, you’ll wish you had.”

The judge was so angry that he forgot about the knife, and with a hand raised to slap her, he took two angry steps toward
her. Before the judge knew what was happening, the barrel of Herb’s gun was under his chin, tilting his head so that he had
to look down his nose to see Herb’s face.

“Touch her an’ I’ll blow yore head clear back to Laramie while the rest a ya stays here.”

“Get… get away from me, you ruffian. Don’t you know who I am?”

“’Pears to me ya ain’t nothin’ but a duded-up mule’s ass. A man can’t get much sorrier than one that’d hurt a little thin’
like Stella. ‘Sides, I ain’t carin’ if yo’re Abe Lincoln come back to life. Ya ain’t takin’ Maude and Stella back if they
don’t want to go.”

Herb backed the judge across the room until he was up against the wall. Jane and Sunday stared. They’d never seen the mild-mannered
Herb so angry.

“I’ll have a federal marshal here in a week.”

Jane put her arm around Maude and whispered to her. “Don’t worry. You’re doing fine. T.C. and Herb will take care of him.”

“Herb, let him sit down,” T.C. said evenly. He had stood up quickly when the judge had started for Maude but had sat back
down when he saw that Herb was handling the situation. “I’ve just remembered where I heard the name Judge Cottington.”

Herb reluctantly removed the gun after giving the judge’s chin another sharp jab with the end of the barrel.

“I certainly never expected to be assaulted here in your office, Kilkenny. I was under the impression that you were more civilized
than that.”

“Don’t count on
me
being civilized, Judge. Some of my relatives are putting up their lodges right now out in the Bitterroot. It’s rugged country.
A man could disappear out there and never be heard from again.” T.C.’s silver eyes looked pointedly at the judge, and the
man’s cheeks began to quiver under the intense stare.

“You… wouldn’t—The stage driver knows who I am; he brought me here.”

“You of all people should know what a little money can do. He’d swear he never set eyes on you. He likes driving the stage.
The hotel man is indebted to the company. He won’t say anything either if I tell him not to.”

“That’s called bribery!”

“It is. But none of that will be necessary because Maude is not your legal wife. Stella is not your daughter. And on top of
that, you may very well be in the territorial prison over there in Laramie this time next month. They’ll be better off here
where we can look after them.”

“Don’t try and tell
me
about the law! No judge in the world would think twice about a man making his child mind, or slapping his ah… woman around
a bit.”

“I went to law school. I know how the law works. Damn shame isn’t it? You can be jailed for beating your horse but not your
wife and children.” T.C. picked an ink pen up off the desk and studied it. “Do you know Dr. Nathan Foote?”

“Can’t say that I do,” the judge said belligerently.

“He knows you. I was talking to him yesterday or maybe it was the day before.” T.C. sent a warning glance to the group standing
inside the doorway. “He was telling me about a Judge Cottington who brought his sister-in-law to his office for treatment.
The woman was sick with stomach trouble. Doc gave her some medicine and went to see her a few days later because it was in
the back of his mind that the woman had been poisoned. She was in a deep sleep and died while he was there. Doc swore that
after the judge left his office that day a bottle of laudanum had come up missing.”

“What’s that got to do with me? Is he saying I took it?” The judge jumped to his feet and began to pace back and forth.

“No, but it’s been eating on him. He’s sure you killed that woman. I suppose that was Stella’s mother.”

“You and that crackpot doctor can suppose anything you want to, but you can’t prove anything.”

“Doc knows that. He was thinking of going down to Laramie and talking to the fellow who runs the newspaper. What’s his name?
It escapes me at the moment. He’s a good friend of Garrick Rowe, my partner here. No matter. I can find out later from Doc.
Doc wants to put the story in the paper and see if anyone can come up with something to add to it. If they can, you’re headed
for prison. It nothing comes of it, you’re still done in Laramie. Enough folks will believe it to cook your goose in that
town.”

“That’s… blackmail!” He stopped and faced T.C., who got slowly to his feet.

“By damn! You’re right. I never thought I’d be a party to blackmail. Damn your hide, Judge. You forced me to do it.”

“You… you… backwoods—”

“Watch it. Don’t get Herb riled up. You haven’t shot anybody yet today have you, Herb?”

“It’s only noon, T.C.”

“He doesn’t want to break his record. Tell you what, Judge Cottington. You get your sorry carcass back to the hotel and into
your room. I’ll post a man in the lobby to see that you stay there. Tomorrow when the stage leaves, you be on it. If I ever
hear of you even trying to contact Maude or Stella, you’ll disappear up there in the Bitterroot and not be heard from again
until some hunter comes onto a pile of bones that’s been picked clean by the buzzards.”

Muscles twitched in the judge’s cheeks and his nostrils quivered.

“The law—”

“Not much law here, Judge. Just me. Do you understand the situation you’re in, or do I put it on paper and
in
the paper?”

Judge Cottington jerked on his coat. He fixed Maude with an insolent stare.

“You’re back with your own kind at last. Trash is what you are, and trash is what you’ll always be!”

Herb hit him square in the mouth. The judge staggered back against the wall, raising the sleeve of his fine wool coat to stop
the blood that flowed from his lip. Then he took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his mouth.

“Be careful, Herb, you might hurt him,” T.C. cautioned.

“Ah, shoot, T.C., I didn’t hit him very hard.”

“Don’t hit him again until you get him in his hotel room.”

“Can I hit him then?”

T.C. shrugged. “It’s up to you.”

“Watch him while I get my coat.”

When Herb turned away from the judge, he had a grin on his face and he winked at Maude.

Later, as they were leaving the house, Judge Cottington passed Maude without deigning to glance at her. He went out the door
and didn’t look back.

“Ya want me to break his nose for ya, Maude?” Herb asked cheerfully as he followed the man out.

Jane and Sunday began to laugh.

Maude burst into tears.

“Is it over? Will he leave now?”

“Ah… Maude.” Jane put her arms around the woman. “You’ve had to endure so much. You and Stella will never have to go back
to him. Isn’t my husband wonderful? Didn’t I tell you that he’d know what to do?”