Eighteen
Pack looked out his hotel window. On lantern-lit Rosser Street barkers shouted the praises of crib girls while the big-voiced macs showed off the salient attractions of their painted powdered sporting women who gave gents the benedictions of their professional smiles and awaited escort to their cubicles on the Row behind the saloons.
There were a good many armed men abroad in the night who had never previously graced the streets of Bismarck with their presence. Tempers were short; cool reason was scarce; danger quivered in the town.
Pack returned his attention to the notebook on the desk. He turned up the lamp’s wick and resumed writing:
He is a gentleman of capital whose works are of incalculable benefit to Dakota, and it should be a travesty were Bad Lands desperadoes to have their way in the forthcoming Trial. Outlaws must not be permitted to swagger through the Territory insulting and terrorizing good citizens. It is criminal to persecute a man simply because he happens to be a Marquis. We find it an utter outrage and disgrace that he is being held in a jail cell like a common criminal during the period of the Trial.
When he realized he was hungry he put on his suit coat and went downstairs. It was late and a good many people must have finished supping long ago but the big ornate dining room was crowded to its capacity. He was not surprised to see so many familiar faces. Both factions were represented by strong turnouts. There were, he thought, no neutral parties; you were for the Marquis or you were against him, and in some ways the outcome of this Trial was bound to seal the fates of those on both sides, for it would determine whether the Marquis was to be allowed control over his own empire and a voice in the guidance of its inhabitants.
If there was any justice, he kept telling his friends, the Trial would give the Marquis the benediction of a resounding vindication, and once and for all would silence the disorderly drunken tongues of the Irish louts and the thieving Bad Lands “ranchers” who were so precious to the foolish sentimentalities of Roosevelt, Huidekoper and their soft-hearted ilk.
Still, he was startled to see both sides so strongly represented in this very room. Around an oversized table in the near corner Madame la Marquise sat in conference with the heavy-set Allen brothers and their four co-counsel. They had their heads together and Pack did not wish to disturb what might be a conference of strategic importance so he made his way toward a small table at the side.
The air was perfumed with strains of chamber music from a string quartet in the anteroom. The woodwork was ornate and polished to a gleam; the tablecloths were of excellent linen, the service crystal and sterling. How extraordinarily civilized it all was.
As Pack sat down he saw Joe Ferris at a table in the middle of the room. Joe was dressed in his good grey suit and appeared to have finished his meal; he was sitting back toying with an empty brandy snifter. His choice of company made Pack scowl furiously, for Joe sat—evidently at ease and happy to be seen with them—between Theodore Roosevelt and Dutch Reuter’s wife.
There were three others in the company: Huidekoper, Eaton and a man whom Pack believed he recognized as the editor of a Chicago newspaper. Roosevelt was holding forth in his unpleasant squeaking voice. Pack couldn’t make out the words. He sniffed, allowed a scowl to settle appropriately on his face, and examined the bill of fare.
A moment later he was startled when Joe Ferris said from immediately above him, “When you get done marveling at the prices let me recommend the beefsteak. Real prime bull-cheese.”
“Kind of you.”
Pack felt awkward, for everything in the past year and a half had been building toward this event, and he found it disquieting that of all the people with whom he might be conversing in a public place on the eve of such a decisive Monday, he should be seen in the company of a man who made no secret of the fact that he would be testifying for the opposing side.
Joe said dryly, “It’s all right, Pack. I haven’t contaminated the kitchen. Look over there—you see all the big fat defense lawyers he’s got on his team? Enough legal talent to make the sidewalk groan with their weight. Did you know the District Attorney applied to the commissioners for one or two lawyers to help him? I guess the Markee’s boys got to the commissioners first, because they turned him down. He’s going in there all alone.”
Pack had little sympathy to spare. “Poor Ted Long, left all alone in such a den of thieves and criminals as Bismarck.”
“You see Frank Allen there? The fattest one. With the burnsides. Funny thing, but it seems he just happened to serve as Judge Francis’s clerk when the good judge was practicing law back in Newark, New Jersey. That was before President Arthur appointed his political friend Mr. Francis to the bench out here in the Territories.”
“You’re clutching at straws if you try to make something sinister of that.”
“I guess I must be. Not that there’s any collusion here, of course,” Joe said. “All the same it won’t matter. The truth will out.”
“It most certainly will,” Pack said. Indeed that was exactly what he hoped for.
Joe said, “They’re clowns, all of ’em. I hear the Marquis made the mistake of giving friend Paddock several thousand dollars he was supposed to distribute here and there to make sure the right witnesses showed up. Of course Jerry forgot to distribute it. Maybe it felt too good in his pocket.”
“That’s nonsense. The matter doesn’t need bribery or coercion. Everybody knows the Marquis has always stood ready to clean up the matter then and there.”
“‘Everybody knows,’ hey?” Joe grinned at him.
Pack felt a warm flush. “I hate a man who’ll throw my own words back at me.”
“Hate away. What’re you going to eat?”
“Maybe chicken,” Pack said defiantly.
“That’s right,” Joe said, “I’d stay away from the beefsteak if I were you. It may be De Morès beef and you might break a tooth on it.”
Pack looked past Joe at the table where Roosevelt was talking with the Chicago editor. Mrs. Reuter sat in a more or less civilized costume—it had puffed sleeves—and a hat that looked rather like a small overturned milk bucket, or at least Pack assumed it must be a hat because she wore it on her head. She looked prim and grim. Pack said to Joe, “Tell me. Where have you got Dutch?”
“Who says I’ve got him?”
“‘Everybody.’” Pack grinned at him. “You know it really wasn’t necessary to go to such shenanigans to keep him alive. O’Donnell hasn’t been murdered, has he. And he’s primed to tell the same lies as Dutch Reuter’s. Dutch is safe enough. Where’d you hide him?”
“You can search my room if you like,” Joe said. “You won’t find him there. Let’s just say I have a feeling Dutch is lying low where he’ll be safe until it’s his turn to testify. May be you’re right he’d have been left alone, and may be you’re not. The Markee can handle one eyewitness against him. I don’t believe he can handle two.”
“Then as usual you underestimate him,” Pack said with confidence. “I’ll have the beefsteak.”
When he returned to his room he unfolded the documents he had obtained four hours earlier from the court clerk. On top was the list of jurors’ names: Edick, Frisby, Gage, Griffin, McKinney, Moorehouse, Northrup, Ronass, Wahl, Watson, Williams, Young.
Not one Irish name among the twelve. Luffsey’s death had infuriated every Irishman in the Territory.
There were notes regarding various legal documents. The Aliens had kept filing motions for dismissal—quite rightly pounding home the fact that nobody could know who killed Riley Luffsey, and that nobody could even be sure who started the shooting, and therefore in the event of a long and costly courtroom hearing the only possible outcome was predetermined, for the issue of reasonable doubt was the overriding consideration. The case should never have come to trial.
That was the long and the short of it.