“Excuse me,” Kyle said, louder this time.
The man’s eyes popped open.
“Yeah, what do you want?”
“Are you Marshal Cummins?”
“No, I’m his deputy.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Yeah, I have a name,” the deputy answered with a snarl. “Do you have a name?”
“I’m United States Marshal Ben Kyle,” Kyle said pointedly. “What is your name, Deputy?”
The deputy tipped his chair forward, then stood up. “The name is Warren. Deputy Ted Warren, Marshal. What can I do for you?”
“I have Deputy Hayes’ body on a wagon out front,” Kyle said. “I want you to take care of it.”
“What? What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
“I don’t care what you do with it,” Kyle said. “I brought the body back, now it’s your problem. Get it off the wagon.”
“How’m I goin’ to do that? I’m all by myself here.”
“Like I said, that’s your problem,” Kyle repeated.
“I’ve got some men in jail, I’ll have them help me,” Warren said.
“Fine, you do that. Where can I find the marshal?”
“More’n likely he’s down at the Pair O Dice.”
“The what?”
“The Pair O Dice. It’s the saloon, just down the street. He ’n’ all the other deputies hang out down there.”
“All the other deputies? How many deputies are there?”
“Eight—well, no, only six now, seein’ as both Gillis and Hayes has been kilt.”
“Six deputies in a town of less than three hundred?” Kyle said, surprised at the number. “My God, man, that’s one deputy for every fifty people.”
“Yes, sir, well, Marshal Cummins, he likes to keep order,” Warren said.
“You get Hayes’ body taken care of,” Kyle ordered. “I’m going to find the marshal.”
“Yes, sir,” Warren said. He took a large key ring off a hook on the wall behind the desk. Walking over to the cell, he opened the door and called out to the two prisoners who were inside.
“Poke, Casper, come help me get somethin’ off a wagon.”
As the two prisoners struggled with the coffin containing Hayes’s body, Kyle left the marshal’s office and walked up the street to the saloon.
The Pair O Dice was the most substantial-looking building in the entire town. There was a drunk passed out on the steps in front of the place, and Kyle had to step over him in order to go inside. Because all the chimneys of all the lanterns were soot-covered, what light there was was dingy and filtered through drifting smoke. The place smelled of sour whiskey, stale beer, and strong tobacco. There was a long bar on the left, with dirty towels hanging on hooks about every five feet along its front. A large mirror was behind the bar, but like everything else about the saloon, it was so dirty that Kyle could scarcely see any images in it, and what he could see was distorted by imperfections in the glass.
Over against the back wall, near the foot of the stairs, a cigar-scarred, beer-stained upright piano was being played by a bald-headed musician. The tune was “Buffalo Gals,” and one of the girls who was a buffalo gal stood alongside, swaying to the music. Kyle was once told that this song was now very popular back East, and was often sung by the most genteel ladies. The Easterners had no idea that the term buffalo gal referred to doxies who, during the rapid expansion of the railroad, had to ply their trade on buffalo robes thrown out on the ground. This was because there were few beds and fewer buildings.
Kyle couldn’t help but make a comparison between this saloon and the Ox Bow back in Sentinel. The Pair O Dice did not come out well in the comparison.
Out on the floor of the saloon, nearly all the tables were filled. A half-dozen or so buffalo gals were flitting about, pushing drinks and promising more than they really intended to deliver. A few card games were in progress, but most of the patrons were just drinking and talking.
An exceptionally loud burst of laughter came from one of the tables and, looking toward it, Kyle saw that all the men were wearing stars on their shirts or vests. There were six men and three girls at the table, which was the largest table in the saloon.
Kyle walked over toward them, then dropped the bundle of wanted posters on the table.
“What the hell is this?” one of the men asked.
“What does it look like?” Kyle replied.
“I’ll ask the ques—” the man at the table began, but looking up, he saw Kyle’s badge. “You’re a U.S. marshal?” he asked.
“I am. The name is Kyle. You’re Marshal Cummins, I take it?”
“Yeah,” Cummins said. He looked at the bundle, then smiled. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “How’d you get a picture of him?”
“Does it look like him?”
“Yeah,” Cummins said. “It looks just like him. What do you think, boys?” he asked.
All the deputies commented in the affirmative.
“Duke, get the marshal a chair,” Cummins ordered. “Crack, you get some of these posters passed out.”
The two deputies got up to comply with the marshal’s order, Crack taking the dodgers with him, and Duke bringing over a chair for the U.S. marshal. Kyle sat at the table with the others.
“Tell me, Marshal, what brings you to Purgatory?” Marshal Cummins asked. “You could’ve just sent these posters.”
“I brought Deputy Hayes’ body back,” Kyle said.
“You brought his body back? Why in the hell did you do that?”
“He was your deputy, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Then I figured this was the place for him. We have enough bodies over in Sentinel now, what with the train wreck.”
“Yeah, I reckon you would at that,” Cummins said. “So, you say you brought Hayes back. Where is he?”
“He is in your office,” Kyle answered.
“In my office? Damn, why did you take him there? What the hell am I supposed to do with the son of a bitch?”
“Well, this is just a guess, mind you, but it’s been my experience that it is generally customary to bury bodies,” Kyle replied.
“Well, yeah, sure, but families do that, don’t they?”
“Does Hayes have a family here?”
“No,” Cummins said. “Fact is, I don’t even know where his family is.”
“I think Hayes was from somewhere in Texas,” one of the deputies said.
“He was from somewhere in Texas? That’s not very helpful. Texas is a big state,” Kyle said.
“Yeah, I know it is. But that’s all he ever told me. He just said that he was from somewhere in Texas.”
“I think he got in trouble with the law back there,” one of the other deputies said.
“He was in trouble with the law, but you hired him as a lawman?” Kyle asked.
“He was a good deputy,” Cummins said. “And when someone comes out here, I believe in givin’ them a fresh start.”
“Then it seems to me that the least you can do is give him a decent burial,” Kyle said.
Cummins stroked his chin for a moment, then he nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I reckon I can do that.”
“Tell me something about Jensen,” Kyle said.
“Tell you about Jensen?”
“Yes, what kind of man is he?”
“He’s a cold-blooded murderer, that’s what kind of man he is,” Cummins said.
“That’s funny, because from everything I’ve been able to find out about him, he just doesn’t fit the picture of a cold-blooded murderer. What was he like before the murder?”
“Don’t nobody know,” Cummins said. “He just come into town and shot Deputy Gillis without so much as a fare-thee-well. Nobody had ever seen him before that.”
“You mean the day he arrived is the day he shot Gillis?”
“Not the day he arrived, the moment he arrived.”
“Did he know Gillis from before?”
“Not that I know of,” Cummins said.
“Did Gillis give him any call to shoot him?”
“No,” Cummins said. “All Gillis done was try and collect the tax from him.”