Haxan (3 page)

I
reined outside the Haxan Hotel and helped Magra down from the tall horse. I unbuckled my saddle wallet, removed my war bag, pulled my .50-90 Sharps Special from the scabbard, and accompanied her inside the wide hotel lobby.

It was pleasant inside. The floor was white pine overlaid with red Oriental carpets. Red portieres fringed with gold tassels looked as if they’d been imported from Paris. Chesterfield lamps gave plenty of light to read by, and there were lots of overstuffed chairs to sit in.

A clerk in a claw-hammer coat and wearing egg-shaped spectacles worked behind a walnut reception desk itemizing receipts. His black hair was slick with macassar oil.

“You the desk man here?” I asked.

He laid his receipts aside. “Name is Hew Clay, mister. I own this hotel. You want a room?”

“I think I already have one, Mr. Clay. My name’s John Marwood. I’m the new U.S. Marshal here in Haxan.”

“Why, Marshal Marwood, what a great pleasure.” Hew thrust out his hand. It was a good hand, warm and strong. He wasn’t one to let deskwork get in the way of manual labour.

“Sign here, please.” He swivelled the leather-bound registration book around. I signed it with an ivory-handled pen in my usual spidery scrawl. “We’ve been expecting you for days, Marshal.”

“So I gathered.”

He lifted a pass key from a board on the wall. “Your room is number three, Marshal. Top of the stairs and to the left. The window overlooks the plaza. I’m afraid the sun will blind you in the morning.”

“I heard I can get supper here.”

“Room and board paid for by the Haxan Peace Commission, as long as you keep your appointment as marshal. What will you have?”

“Skillet of ham and eggs. Fried potatoes and onions. Hot coffee, black.”

His smile was quick. “Coffee is always hot in my hotel, Marshal.”

“I’ll hold you to that. I also need a room for this young lady.”

He squinted over the rims of his glasses. “Why, I remember you. Miss Magra, isn’t it?”

“That’s right, Mr. Clay,” she said in a tiny voice.

“Goodness, how you’ve grown since I saw you last. How is your father?”

“Her father was killed by unknown parties earlier today,” I said.

Hew Clay’s eyes widened in shock. “You don’t say? Well, I’m downright sorry to hear that. I liked that old Swede. You have my deepest condolences, Magra.”

“Thank you.”

Hew laid a finger across his lips. “Um, Marshal, may I have a word with you in private?” He gave a slight bow in the direction of the girl. “Excuse us, Miss Magra, if you please.”

I followed him around the end of the reception desk. We stood between a potted plant that had been over-watered and a gleaming brass spittoon. Hew leaned toward me like a hungry bird pecking seed.

“Now see here, Marshal,” he began in a confidential air, “I don’t mind having this girl in my place. I treat all paying customers alike. Well, within reason. But it’s going to be the devil to pay if my wife, Alma Jean, finds out a breed is sleeping in one of the upstairs beds.”

I started to say something, but Hew put up his hand.

“Not that I care,” he said quick. “Girl can’t help being what she’s born. I’m sorry her father was killed. I want to help if I can.”

“What are you proposing, Mr. Clay?”

“I can put a pallet in the stock room. She can stay long as she pays full price. That’ll keep Alma Jean quiet.” He scratched the back of his head, mussing the pomade. “For a little while, anyway. Best I can do, Marshal. You won’t get a better offer. Not in Haxan.”

I thought Hew Clay was a nice man who meant well. “I want to see this stockroom first,” I said.

“Why sure, Marshal. It’s clean. I guarantee that. The house cat sleeps there.” He blinked and gulped when he realized what he had said. He rushed on in an attempt to cover up his mistake: “Don’t you want to eat first?”

“The girl, too.”

He was taken aback. “Why, of course, Marshal. Don’t you think we’re civilized?”

I didn’t think he wanted an honest answer so I didn’t say anything.

We went back to Magra. “Clay says he can set you up with a bed in the stockroom. I guess I’d rather you be around people than alone in the jailhouse. Is that all right with you? Leastways, until we find some better arrangement.”

The look on her face told me it was more generous than she was expecting. “Of course. Thank you, Mr. Clay, for your hospitality.”

“That’s what I’m in business for.” His smile was radiant.

“All right,” I said, “bill my office for Magra’s room and board. I’ll see you get paid.”

“Can’t ask better than that, Marshal. Dining room is through those double doors, folks. Food will be out directly. Enjoy your stay.”

He bustled away to get everything prepared.

“I’m going to drop this iron in my room,” I told Magra. “I’ll be down directly.”

“I’ll wait for you here,” she said.

I climbed the steps and found my room. I unlocked the door and stepped inside.

There was a washstand with basin and mirror, and a Morris chair. The bed had a feather mattress and a thick Navajo blanket folded at the foot. Under the bed was a johnny-pot in case I got caught short during the night. A fire rope was coiled in a wicker basket beside the window.

It wasn’t the best room in the hotel, with its bare walls and plank floor, but it would accommodate me fine.

I threw my canvas war bag on the bed and unpacked. Change of shirt, stockings, straight razor and soap. Ivory handled shaving brush. U.S. Marshal’s badge. Leather pouch of Virginia tobacco. There was also a double-barrelled .41-calibre derringer, skinning knife with stag handle, whetstone, extra gunpowder cartridges, lead balls, and caps.

It wasn’t much to show for my years in law enforcement. Hell, it wasn’t much to show for a life.

Then again, I had more than Shiner Larsen did. Maybe I shouldn’t complain too much.

I pinned the badge to my vest and slipped the loaded derringer inside my right boot. It fit snug in a special leather pouch I had sewn myself. The skinning knife went into my pants pocket.

Standing before the mirror with a crack in one corner I washed my face and hands with cold water from the basin. I slicked my hair back with wet fingers.

After checking the loads in my gun I went downstairs to find Magra.

We ate at a secluded table in the corner, away from the open window. Hew was right about one thing: the coffee was hot when the waiter poured it from a two-gallon enamel pot.

I cleaned my plate. Magra finished her pronghorn stew and jalapeno biscuits. When we finished with coffee and pie for dessert I asked, “Do you mind if I smoke?”

“Of course not. Papa often smoked at night and told me stories about the kings and queens of Sweden. I like the smell.”

I filled my pipe with Virginia Kinnikinnick and lighted it. I waved the match out and tossed it into a nearby spittoon. “I’ve got to go to work soon,” I told Magra. “I’ll be back later to see you’re all right.”

“I want to thank you for everything you’ve done, Marshal,” she said. “This has been . . . a long and trying day.”

“I know it has. I hope we can find the men who killed your father.” The smoke from my pipe drifted above the table. “I want you to know I won’t stop until I catch them.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I know that much at least.”

We talked further about inconsequential things. When I finished my pipe I said, “Come on. Let’s see this stockroom you’ll be sleeping in.”

I put a silver cartwheel on the tabletop to cover dinner and we drifted toward the lobby. Hew Clay brought us around back, through the kitchen, and revealed the bed he had made for Magra.

I still didn’t like the idea of her sleeping in a stockroom with the house cat, but once again Hew was true to his word: it was clean.

“This will do for now,” I said. “Thanks for your assistance, Mr. Clay.”

“Call me Hew, Marshal. Miss Magra, you need anything, don’t hesitate to ask. Hear?”

“Thank you for everything you’ve done, Mr. Clay.”

“My pleasure, I’m sure. Marshal?”

We left her to get acquainted with her new surroundings.

“I want that girl protected,” I told Hew once we were alone. “The men who killed her father might try for her next.”

“I’ll do what I can, Marshal.” He pulled me aside again. He liked to stand between the plant and cuspidor. Maybe it was his special place.

“Marshal, listen,” he began, “I really do want to help that girl. You see, my wife, Alma Jean, well, we lost our little boy a time ago. I know what that’s like, losing a loved one. I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“I appreciate that sentiment, Hew. You got any protection in this hotel?”

“I’ve got a head knocking stick under the front desk. A three-foot long hickory stave, capped with iron.”

“What about a gun?”

“I kept the Navy Colt I used during the war. Never could hit anything with it, though.”

“Best clean and load it and start practicing. Where does the doctor stay in town?”

“Doc Toland’s office is down on Front Street. It’s the first two-storey building you’ll come to, above the tailor shop.”

I followed his instructions and climbed the steep stairs on the side of the two-storey building to a wooden door on a small, railed landing. A brass nameplate said:

R
EX
T
OLAND,
M.D.

S
URGEON &
G
ENERAL
P
RACTITIONER

I knocked and went on through into an empty waiting room.

“Doc Toland?”

He emerged from the back surgery, wiping his hands on a boiled towel. He was a narrow-faced man with grey muttonchops and rheumy brown eyes behind a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles. Late forties, medium size, receding chin. The cuffs of his black frock coat were dusty and there were chemical stains of various colours on his vest.

“Can I help you?” he asked. He stood bent forward at the waist, his shoulders slightly bowed.

“I’m the new U.S. Marshal,” I said by way of introduction. “I’ve come to ask a favour.”

“Happy to meet you, Marshal.”

“Mind if we sit?”

He hesitated a second. “Come on back to my surgery.”

We found a couple of chairs in the room behind his front office. Doc Toland had shelves stacked with bottles of all shapes and sizes holding all measure of minerals, salts, powders, and solutions. A weighing balance, mortar and pestle, and fluted glassware used for reactions and distillation were on a worktable. In a glass-lined case below the window were steel knives, probes of various lengths, and a pair of brass forceps.

The room smelled strongly of lye soap, alcohol, and raw turpentine.

“Brought that equipment with me when I left Atlanta,” he explained with a wink, “under, um, fantastic circumstances which we will not delve into for the sake of propriety.”

“A lady by any circumstance, Doc?”

He leaned forward, animated. “My boy, she was a red-haired siren of a most tantalizing and dubious nature. She was also the wife of the hospital administrator.” He fell back in his chair like a broken doll. “I can still hear the shotgun blast in my sleep.” He put a hand out on a nearby shelf. “Anyway, this gear comes in handy. I’m the only fully equipped medical doctor outside Santa Fe.”

“Doc, that’s what I want to talk about. I’ve got a real job ahead of me and it’s apt to get violent. Both for me and the men I have to go against.”

He was dubious. “Not sure what you’re getting at, Marshal.”

“I’ll say it straight out, Doc. I need a man I can depend on. Not one who’s drug-addled all the time.”

“I see. Well, that’s plain enough.” He opened a cedar box and removed a black cigarillo. His spidery fingers crisped the black leaf as he struck fire to the end. He whipped the match out, tossed it into an aluminum pan.

“So you’ve heard about that?” he asked.

“If you’re talking about the laudanum, yes, I have. Doctor, I need a man who can patch me up using all his faculties. Same goes for the men I might have to bring in.”

Men in this country weren’t sheep. They weren’t liable to come peaceable because I said please and thank you. I had to know there was someone I could trust on the medical end. If not, I would have to push Toland out of town and get someone I could depend on.

I explained all this to him in clear terms. “Believe me, when it’s my life on the line, I’ll sure do it. I’ll post you out of town.”

He squinched through a blue cloud of cigar smoke. “Like coming into a man’s office and telling him what to do, don’t you, son?”

“No, sir, I don’t. We’re both professionals. We have to work together. The law needs the support of medicine as much as medicine needs the law. That means you’ll have to depend on me, too, Doc. I’m willing to accept that arrangement. The question is, are you?”

He smoked in contemplative silence, weighing it all out.

“I heard stories about you, Marwood,” he said at length. “You’ve got a mean reputation. People say you cut a bloody swath up Montana Territory way. You get the job done, but at a high cost.”

“The War Department sent me here at the behest of the Haxan Peace Commission because they thought I was the best man for the job. I’m not out to prove them right or wrong. I just intend to stay alive.”