He always felt relieved when he killed a man who was trying to kill him, but he never felt satisfied. Killing a man was not something he enjoyed, even though he had been forced into getting good at it.
He stopped at the general store and picked up three more three-for-a-nickel cheroots. He was going to sit in front of the hotel again, relax, keep his back to the wall, and wait for the poker games to get started in the saloon. Tonight he might try the Alhambra. It would be nice to play without having Ryerson looking over his shoulder.
He settled back into his chair—the armchair Ben Thompson had brought out from the lobby.
Marshal Fred Singer entered Mayor A. B. Webster’s office and neither man was very happy.
“That gambler killed a man on the street, Marshal,” Webster said. “He should either be in your jail, or run out of town.”
“In order to do that,” Singer said. “I would have had to go up against Ben Thompson. How would you like to try that, Mayor?”
“It’s not my job to do it, Marshal,” Webster argued, “it’s yours. That’s what you get paid for.”
“You want my badge?” Singer asked. “Is that what you want?”
Webster sat back in his chair and said. “Fred. Close the door, sit down and calm down.”
Singer did as he was asked, but he was still fuming.
“I got word that Peacock has sent for some…assistance,” Webster told him.
“What kind of assistance?”
“The kind that will help him get done what he wants to get done.”
“You mean help getting’ rid of Jim Masterson?”
“I mean help,” Webster said. “I don’t really know what Peacock’s intentions are. Only he knows that.”
“What are you tellin’ me?”
“That I think you did the right thing today,” Webster said. “Upon reflection, I mean.”
“What?”
“Now that I’ve thought about it,” Webster explained. “There was nothing else you could have done.”
Singer looked surprised.
“Thank you, Mayor.”
“And when Peacock makes his move,” Webster went on, “I think you should do the same thing you did today—stay out of it.”
Singer fidgeted in his chair.
“You’re tellin’ me that Peacock has sent for some gunman to handle Jim Masterson for him—and probably Neal Brown—and when they get here you want me to do nothin’?”
“I think it would be in your best interest, and the town’s,” Webster said. “That’s all I’m saying.”
It took Singer a moment to realize that Webster was done talking, and he had been dismissed.
On the boardwalk in front of City Hall Singer fingered the badge of his chest—the badge that had belonged to Jim Masterson. He had nothing against Masterson. At one time he might even have described them as friends. But he knew once he accepted the job as marshal, he and Jim Masterson were on different sides.
What he had to decide now was just how different the sides truly were.
CHAPTER 53
April 16, 1881
Butler decided to stay in Dodge City for the next week for several reasons. His luck was running so good and he was building up quite a stake for himself. When your luck is going that good you don’t want to break it yourself, you have to wait for it to break on its own.
Secondly he wanted to see the results of the telegram he’d sent. He’d figured it would take about a week, so he waited it out.
Ben Thompson, however, had moved on several days before.
“It’s quiet,” he’d said to Butler, “too quiet, and your damn luck is going too good. Time for me to move on. I know I said I’d watch your back, but that was while I was here.”
“You don’t need to explain anything to me, Ben,” Butler had told him. “You’ve got to do what’s right for you.”
“I know you don’t want to break your string of luck, Butler, but if I was you I’d leave, too. This quiet ain’t gonna last forever. This is what they call a pregnant quiet, if you know what I mean.”
“I know what you mean, Ben,” Butler had said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Catch up with you somewhere down the line, then.”
The two men shook hands…
Butler took to sitting in front of the hotel every day now. His mouth started to taste like crap from the cheroots, so he stopped smoking them. Instead, he started whittling. He’d found the same boy who had bought him the first cigars and sent him to buy a block of wood.
“You know what you’re doing there?” Neal Brown had asked him the first day he brought out the wood and knife.
“Yep,” Butler said. “I’m marking time.”
“But can you whittle?” Brown asked. “Do you know what you’re doin’?”
“Oh,” Butler said, “hell no, I don’t.”
So for one full morning Neal Brown tried to give Butler a course in whittling. It didn’t help much, and the more time that went by, the smaller the piece of wood got, and it resembled nothing. At the end of the afternoon, before he quit his position to go and play cards, Butler would clean up all the wood shavings that had fallen at his feet.
He was, indeed, simply marking time.
Updegraff was getting impatient, but Peacock was not.
“I finally got it figured,” Updegraff said to his brother-in-law on the morning of the sixteenth.
“Got what figured?”
“You know when they’re getting’ here, don’t ya? That’s why you’re not impatient.”
Peacock smiled at Updegraff.
“By God, Al, you may not be as dumb as you make out to be.”
“So you do know.”
Peacock produced a telegram from his desk drawer.
“Got this yesterday. They’ll be on the Santa Fe today.”
“Jesus Christ!” Updegraff said. “Why didn’t you tell me!”
“I told you now,” Peacock said. “You and me, we’re gonna meet that train, Al. And it’s all gonna end today.”
“Well, thank God,” Updegraff said. “The tension’s been killin’ me.”
Peacock laughed.
“Imagine what it’s been doin’ to Masterson,” he said. “And his friends, Brown and that gambler, too.”
“That gambler bothers me,” Updegraff said. “He guns that bounty hunter, and then stays in town. For what?”
“The way I hear it, he’s cleanin’ out every poker player in town.”
“Then maybe one of them should get rid of him for us.”
“That could still happen,” Peacock said, “but stay ready, Al. I’ll let you know when we’re gonna head for the depot.”
“I’ll be ready,” Updegraff said. “I been ready for this for a long time. I’m gonna put a bullet right in Jim Masterson’s back.”
It had not been a good week for Marshal Fred Singer. He was still struggling with what Mayor Webster had told him. He was supposed to stand by and watch Jim Masterson be killed. It didn’t sit right with him, but if he did something about it, he’d be switching sides—again. For at one time he’d been perceived as a Masterson supporter, until he’d accepted the badge they’d taken away from Jim. Now, if he switched back, he’d be branding himself as a man who couldn’t make up his mind which side he was on.
In truth, he was on Fred Singer’s side—he just didn’t know, lately, where that put him.
He got up from his desk and walked to the door. Looking out the window he could see the Lady Gay off to his left, and the Dodge House off to his right, where Butler sat each day, whittling. The man looked completely relaxed. Maybe that was what Singer needed to do, sit out in front of his office with a block of wood, and relax. Let whatever was going to happen happen.
He was sure that would not have been Jim Masterson’s solution if he was still wearing the marshal’s badge.