TRUCE!
So read the banner headline in the special edition of The Prescott Independent.
The story, attributed to Oliver Knight, went on to say:
It appears that peace has once again prevailed in the Territory. An agreement has been reached between Colonel George Crook, on behalf of the U.S. Army, and Colorados, Chief of the Mimbreno Apaches.
The Butterfield Stage will once more commence its regular run from La Paz to Prescott, Flagstaff and back again. Under the terms of the truce, supply trains, wagon trains, and travelers of all kinds will move through the Territory without interference from the Apaches, who will dwell hereabouts under the auspices of the U.S. Army, and be supplied with necessities by same.
If the truce holds for sixty days without incident on either side, a formal treaty will be signed by both parties. In the meantime, Colonel Crook, known as Gray Wolf among the red men, is working on getting a full pardon for red man Colorados, and have a mutually agreed upon area set aside for our Apache neighbors.
“My name’s Zebelion Barnes, Doctor Zebelion Barnes, and I’m here to see about a potential patient named Obie Silver. Know anything about him?” Doctor Barnes asked Ike Silver at the store.
“Well, I know that I’m his father. Who told you he was sick?”
“Sent here by Belinda Millay, who was told about it by a nun named Sister Somethingorother.”
Ike took a good look at Doctor Barnes, who looked like he hadn’t washed his shirt or even taken it off in a fortnight. His hands were tobacco stained and so was the rest of him. He carried a medical bag that looked as old as he did—maybe sixty. He spoke with a gruff sandpaper voice that sounded as if he’d never heard of bedside manner. Ike Silver liked him right away.
“Well, he’s outside, but he seemed all right to me.”
“Who’s the doctor around here? You, or me, or somebody else?”
All three boys were doing their yo-yos, two of which were recently fashioned by Ben Brown for Jedediah and Obadiah.
“Which one of you is Obie?” Doctor Barnes asked as he and Ike approached.
All three boys stopped yo-yoing.
“I am.” Obie apprehensively stepped forward.
“Oh,” Sister Bonney appeared, broom in hand, “are you Doctor Barnes?”
“I ain’t the King of Rumania.”
“Thank you for coming, Doctor. I know there’s fever going around, and it seemed to me Obie had a temperature. I don’t have a thermometer, but—”
“Stop right there,” Barnes instructed. “I’ll do the diagnosin’ around here. Stick out your tongue, sonny.”
Obie stuck out his tongue.
“Uh-huh. Peel it back.”
Obadiah peeled it back.
Doctor Barnes placed his palm on Obadiah’s forehead.
“Uh-huh.”
“What do you think, Doctor?” Sister Bonney asked.
“I think you’ve wasted my time. This boy’s one hundred percent.”
“But—”
“But nothin’. Boys that age run hot and cold. It’s part of growin’ up. Did he tell you he was sick?”
“No, but—”
“There you go buttin’ again. He’ll tell you when. Meantime, leave the both of us alone.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor.”
“Understand you’re gonna start a school.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me, Sister. Any your students get really sick, let me know. I mean really sick.”
“I will.”
“How much do I owe you, Doctor, for the call?” Ike asked.
“Nothin’. No charge.”
“How about a good cigar?”
“In that case, make it two.”
“Well, boss, we come through with never a sign of a redskin. Seems like they just melted away into the mountains.”
Lessur’s men had pulled up their loaded wagons in front of the warehouse. Rooster and the rest of the teamsters waited for instructions, while Gallagher spoke with Rupert Lessur at the side of the lead wagon.
“We heard about the truce. Seems like it’s working.”
“Yes, but nature abhors a vacuum.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means keep your powder dry.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.”
“You got a real good deal on those Yellow Boy Winchesters you ordered from New Haven. Three crates, forty dollars a lick.” Gallagher pointed toward three oblong boxes, along with several square boxes in his wagon. “And enough cartridges to start a war.”
Lessur smiled, but said nothing.
“You want us to take all this stuff to the fort in the morning?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I want you to take it out now.”
“Now?”
“Are you going to stand there and repeat everything I say?”
“Uh, no, boss.”
“Take everything except the rifles and ammunition.”
“What?”
“Store those in the warehouse, that’s what.”
“Who they for?”
“They’re for nature’s vacuum. And don’t ask me what that means. I’ve got to go to a council meeting.”
“Boss, it’s been a long ride. Can we stop over and get a drink before we go to the fort?”
“It’s going to be a longer ride. You can stop over and get a drink after you go to the fort. You can get ten drinks.”
Lessur turned and walked away.
“Ten drinks,” Gallagher said under his breath, “is that all?”
SILVER & CO.
“WE DELIVER THE GOODS.”
“Ten signs on them wagons. That’ll be ten dollars, Mister Silver.”
Tom Bixby had just finished lettering the last wagon as Ike, Jake, Jed, Obie, Sister Bonney, Ben, Melena and Benjie watched.
“There you are, Mister Bixby.”
Ike dropped ten silver dollars into Bixby’s paint-smeared palm.
“Well, partners,”—Ike pointed to the wagons—“how do they look?”
“They look empty,” Jake said.
“It’s up to you and Ben to go to La Paz and fill ’em,” Ike answered.
“And bring them back,” Jedediah added.
“That’s right, Jed.” Ike put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “The first of many, many round-trips. Jake, do we have enough teamsters?”
“Brother, we’ve got a payroll you wouldn’t believe.”
“Anybody else got a sign they want painted while I’m here?”
They all shook their heads.
“Then I’m out of here.”
“Me too,” Jake said. “Scotty’s in the store all alone and I see customers going in.”
“Look, John, if there’s no further business to discuss, I move to adjourn this damn meeting. I’ve got some important business to take care of.” Lessur knocked the ash off his cigar into the ashtray on the conference table.
The weekly meeting of the Prescott City Council was taking place as usual, whether there was any business to discuss or not, in the office of Amos Cantrell, with Mayor John Davis presiding.
The Prescott City Council was composed of five members, all present—Mayor Davis, Amos Cantrell, Gene Sweisgood, proprietor of the best restaurant in town, and Miles Akins, who owned the Hassayampa Hotel.
Lessur, Davis and Cantrell always voted as a block, following Lessur’s lead. The other two invariably went along, since they’d be outvoted anyhow, and besides, Lessur owned the building that housed Akins’s hotel.
“I second the motion to adjourn.” Cantrell raised his hand.
“Just a minute, Amos. Before I recognize the motion and the second, there was one other matter on the docket to be discussed at today’s meeting.”
“What’s that?” Akins asked.
“Whether we want to appoint a sheriff, ’specially in view of—”
“Of what?” Lessur interrupted.
“The truce and everything. The town’s gonna be busier than ever—I even mentioned it to that new fellow, Ike Silver. . . .”
“You did?” There was an edge to Lessur’s voice. “Why?”
“Well, the way he handled things since he came to town—”
“That was damn presumptuous of you, John, without consulting the rest of us.”
“I was just inquiring about the possibility, and he turned us down, anyhow.”
“Not ‘us,’ John. You. And from now on, don’t you go shooting off your big fat mouth without our approval, you understand?”
Mayor John Davis understood that Lessur meant without his approval. It was Lessur who had him elected mayor and had the city council packed so nothing would be approved without his approval.
“We don’t want a sheriff,” Lessur went on, “and we don’t need a sheriff. Once we start with that, people around here will start talking about hiring other officials and having other rules and regulations here in town—along with taxes to pay for hiring and enforcing those officials and regulations—and most of us here in this room aren’t geared for taxes and regulations. Are you?”
“Well . . . no.”
Lessur knew that he had effectively made his point and his voice and manner took on a mellower, more modulated artistry.
“Let’s just maintain the status quo and see what happens in the next few weeks. There’ll be time enough to make changes if and when any changes are necessary. Do we all agree?”
It was evident that they all agreed. Some more reluctantly than others. But they all knew that majority would rule—and majority meant Lessur.
After they all nodded, Lessur once more made his motion to adjourn, and once more Amos Cantrell seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.
He was about to open the door of the bank and walk into the street when someone opened it from the outside. Binky held it open as Belinda Millay entered carrying a black satchel. Rupert Lessur stepped aside and they both entered. Lessur nodded, smiled and once more reverted to his charming façade.
“Good day, Miss Millay.”
“It is a good day.” She smiled.
“I think so too,” Binky added. “In case you’re interested.”
“I’m not,” Lessur replied without charm, and pointed to the satchel. “Making a deposit?”
“A considerable deposit.”
“The saloon business must be good.”
“Very good, and I expect it to get even better. To bad you can’t raise the rent for the next five years.”
“Oh, I can get by very well without raising your rent.”
“Can you? How’s the freight business now that you’ve got competition?”
“I hadn’t noticed much competition.”
“Really? I’ve got a feeling that you will.”
“So have I,” Binky said. “In case you’re interested.”
This time Lessur did not reply.
“By the way,”—Belinda held up the satchel—“business is so good that I just might make you an offer one of these days.”
“What kind of an offer?”
“For the Emporium building.”
“Two corrections. One, it’s the Lessur building. Two, Lessur isn’t disposing. He’s expanding. Good day, Miss Millay.”
He brushed by Belinda and Binky and went out into the street.
Rupert Lessur didn’t like the way that things were going. Didn’t like it at all.
He didn’t like the fact that John Davis, a former hog farmer who had failed at other businesses, and whom he had handpicked to be mayor, was beginning to believe his title—going so far as to talk to Ike Silver about becoming sheriff.
Moreover, he didn’t like Ike Silver, an interloper who set himself up in business as a competitor in freighting and brought Crook and Colorados together in an unwelcome truce.
He didn’t like some uppity whore lording it over him with caustic remarks in public.
There were a lot of things he didn’t like, and it was time to make a preemptive strike—or strikes.
During the meeting, Rupert Lessur had said that he had some important business to take care of. He was on his way to the Butterfield Stage and Telegraph Office to do just that.
It had taken him years to achieve his present position. Years of struggle and infinite loneliness since his mother died. As he walked toward his destination, he thought about those years and about his mother.
Amanda Lessur, it was generally agreed, was the most beautiful young lady in Charleston, perhaps in the entire state of South Carolina and beyond. Delicate, flaxen-haired, blue-eyed—a perfect personification of a Southern belle.
The question was, why did such a desirable young lady marry such an undesirable, unredeemable old man named Marcus Beaudine—a parrot-faced scarecrow of a man, above average in height, with piecrust skin, huge hands and feet? Part of the answer, people speculated, was his money. The other part became evident when she gave birth to a “premature” son seven months later. It was the first time anyone could remember that a premature baby weighed ten and a half pounds.
As he grew older, Amanda Beaudine saw to it that her son Rupert had every advantage she could accord him; or rather every advantage that Beaudine’s money could accord him. The best schools, “lothes and upbringing. Rupert’s “father” satiated his lust and barely spoke to his offspring.
For years, Amanda bore the burden of Beaudine’s abuse for the sake of her son, until she could bear no more and she became ill and of no service to her husband. At that point, he gratified his venereal appetite with a beautiful copper-complexioned house slave named Selena.
On her deathbed, she told her son what others had surmised and what he was now old enough to understand. She had been in love with a young naval officer. They were to be married when he returned from duty at sea. But he never returned, and she had to have a father for their child. Marcus Beaudine became that father, but in name only.
When Amanda died, Beaudine disowned Rupert, who was barely sixteen, and turned him out without a penny.
Rupert took his mother’s maiden name and made his way by wile and wit. He stole. He cheated—and when he was old enough he discovered the illicit slave trade and prospered.
Rupert Lessur had no allegiance to anyone or anything. Not North nor South.
When the Yankees burned Charleston and Marcus Beaudine’s mansion and his decrepit body with it, Rupert Lessur smiled for the first time since his mother died. He smiled and turned west with what wealth he had accumulated and put to use his wile and wit in Prescott and the surrounding area of the Arizona Territory.
As he walked, he thought of his mother and recounted the years of struggle and success.
Rupert Lessur had no intention of allowing anything or anybody to stand in the way of his continuing that success.
Not George Crook; not Isaac Silver. And while he was at it, he was not about to allow a reformed whore to stand in his way either.
Lessur thought of an old saying. “Even a hawk is an eagle among crows.” Lessur didn’t consider his enemies crows. They were hawks. But among those hawks he considered himself an eagle.
At the Butterfield Stage and Telegraph Office he sent two wires.
One to a gambler.
The other to a gunman.