“Well, Ned, since you’re so insistent—what I want is to tell you and Amy that visiting hours are over. I didn’t have to let her back here to see you in the first place. Let alone let her bring you a fine meal. But now the time’s up.”
“I want you to let her out the back door.”
“Now why would I do that, Ned?”
“Because I don’t want her raped.”
“You sure don’t have much faith in me.”
“I don’t give a damn what you do to me, Cain. But let her out the back door.”
“I hope you’re touched by this, Amy. Your little friend here has gone noble on us. I don’t know about you but I’m deeply moved by this. I didn’t think the little man had it in him.”
Amy swept up the plate and her purse and stalked to the door. “I don’t know when or how, Cain, but I’m going to kill you with my own hands when this is all over.”
“Then I take it this is the wrong time to ask you to marry me?”
Amy looked back at Ned. “I love you, Ned. I’ll be back in the morning.”
“Just to show you what a law-abiding lawman I am, Ned, I’m letting her out the back door. Even after she threatened to kill me. Now you be sure and tell Fargo what an upstanding lawman I am, will you?”
He laughed the whole time he lifted the heavy bolt off the door and let her out into the alley.
13
Pushing through the batwings Fargo saw how crowded the Gold Mine saloon was. The long bar was packed as were the tables. On the surface this might have been nothing more than one of those nights when a large number of men decided to spend a little time drinking before going home to their families and supper. But that would have meant a jovial mood among most of the drinkers and the mood here was anything but jovial. The sure sign of this was how none of the drinkers paid any attention to any of the saloon girls. Usually they’d be joshing with them or flirting with them. A few of them would be going upstairs to partake of their services.
But not tonight. Tonight there would be only one topic of conversation. And that would be Ned Lenihan.
When the bartender saw Fargo, he shouted, “Here’s the man who brought him in!”
A few dozen shouts went up in the smoky air. A couple of men near Fargo patted him on the back. Admiration and appreciation shone in every eye. Fargo was the man of the hour.
By the time he reached the bar, the bartender had his schooner ready for him. Two men parted to make room for him. The bartender said, “This town owes you a debt of gratitude, Mr. Fargo.”
“Well, time will tell.”
“Well, you got him, didn’t you?”
“We’ll have to see.”
The conversations around him stopped. Men wanted to hear what Fargo was saying. And Fargo wanted to be heard. Though law and order had come to a good part of the frontier, the people of Cawthorne had lived through a frightening month. Three of their own young men dead. And the lingering and ever-increasing suspicion that Ned Lenihan, one of the most trusted people in the entire town, was behind it all. The rage would be setting in just about now. Fargo had seen it too many times. One or two of the men would start stirring up the others, suggesting that they had the right to take the law into their own hands. Suggesting that maybe even Tom Cain himself would throw in with them. Suggesting that since Ned Lenihan had killed some of their own—that they had the right to kill Lenihan themselves, to hell with judges and juries. At first most of the men would disagree. They would rightly see these men as hotheads, as troublemakers. But one by one and then two by two and then in larger numbers the other men would give in to their own anger, the alcohol consumed only making it easier to do so, and what had been unthinkable a few hours ago would now seem like the absolute right thing to do.
“You don’t sound real sure about Lenihan, Fargo,” the bartender said.
“I’m not. He might be guilty and he might not.”
“Well, you arrested him, didn’t you?” The man was chunky but powerful-looking with angry dark eyes and a black beard. “That’s good enough for me. Far as I’m concerned he’s the one who killed my cousin Clete.”
“This is Dave Teale, Fargo. He’s only a shirttail kin of Clete but he makes it sound like they was brothers.”
The men around him laughed.
“You think it’s funny, do you?” There was real peril in his voice—peril for the bartender. And the bartender knew it. He moved back a few steps. Dave Teale had the floor. “You arrest a man and you’re not sure he’s guilty? Meaning what—that you could let him go?”
“That’s how it works sometimes. You arrest a man but then later you find out he wasn’t guilty so you let him go.”
“Well, I say he’s guilty.” He shouted at all the men in the saloon, men now paying close attention because they thought there might be a fight about to happen. And who wanted to turn down a good old fight?
In every town, burg, city there were Dave Teales. Hell, even in Washington, D.C., there were Dave Teales. Men who weren’t satisfied unless they were rattling sabers and stirring up trouble. Here was a man who was Clete Byrnes’ shirttail kin—if that—and he was talking like the boy had been his blood brother. And the men listening to him, genuinely angry over the events of the past weeks but also bored and looking for relief from their everyday lives, heard in Teale the voice of the righteous and reasonable. A man was arrested therefore the man was guilty. Later, after more alcohol had been consumed, Teale would push for his real purpose—to demand that Cain let Teale and his men take care of Lenihan themselves. In every town, burg, city there were Dave Teales.
Since Teale had been addressing the men, Fargo took a turn at it. “Maybe Teale here’s right. Maybe Lenihan is guilty. But he’s behind bars and you can bet that Cain won’t let him go. So there’s nothing to worry about. If you think Lenihan is guilty then you can rest easy because there won’t be any more killings. You and your families can rest easy.”
The men were still sober enough that Fargo won them to his side—temporarily at least. He could see in their faces that his words had made sense to them. For now, anyway, they realized that the situation was well in hand. But a long night was ahead and Fargo wondered how long they’d stay reasonable.
Teale shook his head. “It ain’t right. Why should he draw even one more breath when them three boys are dead?”
“Well, if you’re right, Teale, I imagine Lenihan won’t be drawing a breath as soon as his trial’s over.”
“Trial? You sound like you’re on his side, Fargo.”
“Teale, you’re starting to piss me off.”
Teale snorted his disdain for the Trailsman but he didn’t say anything.
Fargo looked directly at Teale. “I’ll be headed back this way real soon and I don’t want to see you trying to start any trouble. You hear me?”
To emphasize his point he thumped Teale on the chest with his knuckles. Then he nodded to the bartender and left.
The words came in torrents, in gushes. And they were good words, fine words, the best words since O’Malley had been working in Chicago before he turned into a human whiskey bottle. He sat at his wobbly desk in his cell-like hotel room, a lantern at hand, his pen scratching out a steady rhythm. He had within reach not a whiskey bottle but a cup of steaming coffee. His moment had come at last and he wanted nothing to spoil it.
The story began with the revelation of the killer’s name. After that was a recap of everything that had taken place over the past weeks. He noted how Lenihan was set up by whispers as the guilty man. The story read like a piece concocted by Edgar Allan Poe.
There in the golden glow of the lantern a rebirth was taking place. Maybe he’d be drinking again very soon. Maybe the old ways were just too difficult to change. What would the world look like through sober eyes? he wondered. He smiled to himself. Maybe it would be like staring directly into the sun—blinding him. He’d always told himself that in the bottle was truth. Maybe he’d been wrong—maybe in the bottle were lies, self lies.