He stopped in the hall and stood there, hat in hand, for a long, long time. His eyes seemed to have sunk into their sockets. His mouth was a thin, straight line. His hands shook slightly, and there was an ache in his chest, an unaccustomed tightness in his throat. Slowly, softly he turned the knob and stepped inside. He closed the door quietly behind him.
Now he stood with his back to the door, smelling the smells peculiar to a physician’s office, seeing the small body lying there on the table covered with a sheet. Like a sleepwalker he crossed the room. Carefully, gently he took the edges of the sheet and folded it back. He stared down into the white, pale face of the little girl. She was a pretty thing with dark, silky hair framing her waxen face. Her eyes were closed, her long, dark lashes lying on her cheeks. If only he had known. If he had only known that Sylvia and her daughter were here. They might not have been in the street today. Perhaps he would have been with them some place else. But he hadn’t known, and now it was too late. The little girl was dead, and nothing could bring her back.
He heard the door behind him and swung his head in time to see the doctor enter. The man was gaunt and untidy and ugly, but his eyes held an incredible amount of sadness as he glanced at Sloan, then glanced away. Sloan said, “You weren’t here,” wondering at the need he felt to explain himself.
The doctor said, “It’s all right. I wish every man in town would come and look at her.”
“How’s Sylvia?”
“Sleeping. You know I gave her a sedative. A neighbor woman is with her now.”
“Where the hell is her husband?”
The doctor frowned. He walked to the window and stared down into the street. With his back to Sloan, he said, “She has no husband.” He turned, his face a study of indecision. “Are you going to stay here? Are you going to take that job as marshal?”
Sloan nodded briefly.
The doctor shrugged. “Then I suppose I had better tell you. Sylvia is … oh, for Christ’s sake, I’m getting as mealy-mouthed as some of the women hereabouts. Sylvia is living with Jeff Burle. She has been for a couple of years. It’s why she’s alone now, except for that neighbor of hers that I had to practically drag over there just now.”
Somehow or other the news did not surprise Sloan as much as he thought it should. He supposed he had expected something of the sort when he saw no one come forward to comfort Sylvia in her grief. He asked harshly, “Then where the hell is Burle?”
The doctor tossed his head in the direction of the lower end of Texas Street. “Down there, I suppose. He never liked the little girl much. Thought she was in the way.”
“How long before Sylvia will wake up?”
“Two or three hours, I suppose.”
Sloan nodded. He took a last, long look at the still face of the little girl, realizing that he didn’t even know her name. He felt his throat constrict and his eyes begin to burn. He went angrily out into the hall, closing the door firmly behind him. He strode down the outside stairs into the noisy street, across the street, and into the hushed hotel lobby, then up the stairs to his room.
Sid Wessell was washing noisily at the washstand. He turned his head as Sloan came in. He was a bit white and shaky, but otherwise appeared all right. It was hard for Sloan to believe that so much had happened to him in the past twenty-four hours, while Sid stayed here in the room getting drunk and sleeping off the subsequent hangover. He said, “You look better. Maybe you’re going to live.”
“I feel like I might, now. For a while there I didn’t even care.”
Sloan asked abruptly, “Want a job?”
“What kind of job?”
“Marshal’s deputy.”
“Who’s the marshal?”
“I am. Or at least I think I will be.”
“Are you crazy? In this town a star will just make a damn good target.”
Sid was tall, stringy as a bean. There was surprising strength in him, however, and Sloan had never seen him tired. Sid’s face was heavily freckled, his eyes blue, his whiskers spotty and thin. His nose was always sunburned and peeling, and when he was out in the sun too much, it sometimes got raw and scabbed.
Sloan said, “Maybe so.” And waited.
Sid peered at him while he dried his face. “How many men are you going to hire?”
“Just you.”
Sid stared. “Why the hell are you taking the job, anyway? You don’t need the money. This town doesn’t mean anything to you.”
Sloan didn’t reply because he hadn’t yet answered that question to his own satisfaction.
“You won’t last three days.”
“Maybe not.”
He heard the heavy tread of many feet on the stairs, heard them approach along the hall. At the first knock, he opened the door.
Dryden, Lake, Graham, and the others were standing in the hall. Sloan jerked his head in a curt gesture of admittance and stood aside while they filed in.
Dryden said, “We’ve accepted your proposition. We have a contract here.”
Sloan said, “Leave it. I’ll look it over and bring it to the bank.”
Dryden said, “One thing …”
Sloan stared at him, puzzled at the way his anger flared. He said, “Let’s get something straight right now. There are no conditions. I clean up this town just as I see fit. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t think that drunk killed that little girl at all. I think you did. You watched this town turn wild and did nothing to stop it because you were afraid you might lose business if you did. I don’t want this job, and I’m taking it purely for reasons of my own. But I’ll do it my way or not at all.”
He could see hostility growing in their faces, and he didn’t care. Better that they be hostile from the start. Better that they understand exactly where he stood because, after the first day on the job, the whole town was going to hate him anyhow. Nor could he expect support from anyone—save perhaps from Sylvia, from Merline Morris, from Doc, and from Sid. Before he was through, the things he would have to do might turn even them against him.
Dryden nodded curtly and led the way into the hall. The delegation marched angrily down through the lobby and into the street.
Sid stared at Sloan for a moment, his forehead touched with a puzzled frown. Sloan glanced up. He was beginning to understand his own anger, his own unpleasantness in the face of it. In the first place, he didn’t want the marshal’s job. The war had sickened him of killing and the stink of death. The months of hunting buffalo had compounded that sickness. In the second place, he understood how he would be feared and hated if he tackled the taming of the town in the only way it could be accomplished successfully. He said, “This town’s been wild too long to accept law and order now without a fight. There’s only one way to make it stick … knock the damned town flat on its ass, then kick it every time it starts to get up again. By the time I’m through, I’ll be lucky if there’s still one person in the whole place that has any use for me.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
Sloan’s face was sober. “Go over to Doc’s office and look at that little girl they killed. That might have been my daughter if it hadn’t been for the war. I was going to marry her mother.”
He sat down and read the contract Dryden had left. He went over to the desk, dipped a pen in ink, and signed it. He got up and crammed his hat onto his head.
Sid said abruptly, “I’ll take the deputy’s job.”
“Good. Go get yourself some supper. We’ll start tonight.” He went out, down the stairs, through the lobby and into the street. He crossed to the bank and went inside. Dryden and the others were grouped in Dryden’s office. The place was blue with smoke.
Sloan laid the contract on the desk. Dryden opened the drawer of his desk and took out a gleaming silver star upon which the word marshal was engraved. “I had this made today. I’m glad you’re taking the job, Mister Hewitt. You can count on us to back you all the way.”
Sloan nodded.
Dryden said, “I don’t know whether I’ve got the authority to administer an oath or not, but as long as there’s no one else to do it, I will. Raise your right hand.”
Sloan did.
Dryden said, “Do you solemnly swear to uphold the laws of this town and the State of Kansas to the best of your ability?”
Sloan said, “I do.”
“Good. We’ve got men working right now converting that empty building next to the hotel into an office and jail for you. I’ll serve as judge until we can get a real judge to take over.” He stepped around the desk and pinned the star to Sloan’s shirt front. “We’re indebted to you, Mister Hewitt.”
Sloan grinned wryly. “Tell me that a week from now.”
He went out and strode downstreet to the livery barn. He bought a horse and saddle, the tallest, blackest horse in the place, and rode out on the horse’s back. He had learned in the cavalry that there is a certain advantage inherent in looking down upon others from the back of a horse. He also knew he would need every advantage he could get.
Dusk lay softly in the street. The voices of the barkers had raised in pitch, as each vied with the other for customers wandering along the street. At the upper end of town, storekeepers were locking up for the night and heading home. The day had ended for them, but down here it was just getting started. In the cattle pens a bull bellowed, and behind Sloan, in the corral behind the stable, a horse nickered shrilly.
Sloan drew rein and stared at the town. He could feel tension mounting within himself, the same tension that had come to him during the war, just before an attack. He thought about Sylvia, sleeping in the house at the upper end of town. He wanted to see her, and yet he felt reluctance, too. The thing between them was over. He wondered at the reasons that had made her leave and disappear before he returned from the war. He thought of the little girl lying dead in Doc’s office over the bank and wondered if the child was his. It was a possibility chronologically, he knew.
Sitting there, he saw a man come from one of the larger saloons and stand before it while he carefully bit the end off a cigar and lit it. The man watched him steadily for several moments, then crossed the street to him. He was not an exceptionally tall man, but there was something in the assurance of his walk that seemed to convey upon him a height he did not possess. He was broad through the shoulders, and his chest was so deep that his shirt stretched tight across it. There was a diamond stickpin in his tie that caught the light and gleamed yellow each time it did. He wore a sweeping mustache, and as he came up before Sloan, Sloan saw that his eyes caught the same yellow light as the stickpin did. The man said affably, “I’m Jeff Burle. You must be Hewitt, the marshal.”
“I’m Hewitt.”
“You’ve taken on a man-size job.”
Sloan didn’t reply. He knew he shouldn’t start off disliking Burle, but he couldn’t help himself.
Burle studied him carefully in the growing darkness. “How far are you going to go?”
“I’ll let you know.”
Burle’s voice grew a bit tight. “Nothing’s accomplished in a day. These things take time. I’d advise you to go a little slow.”
Sloan said sourly, “Thanks for your advice.”
Burle puffed thoughtfully on his cigar, studying Sloan. “The people in this town don’t want a clean town. They just want a nonviolent town. They’ll make you walk a narrow line.”
“I’ll walk it then.” He stared down at Burle, trying to fathom him. What kind of man was it who could know that death had come to the daughter of the woman he was living with and not even go to her? An arrogant man, certainly, and an unfeeling one. He fished his watch from his pocket and looked at it. Three hours had passed since Doc had given Sylvia the sedative. She ought to be waking soon. He said, “Doc gave Sylvia a sedative to make her sleep, but she ought to be awake by now. Are you going to see her?”
“You know Sylvia?”
“I knew her before the war. I was going to marry her.”
“Was Debbie your daughter?”
“I don’t know. Are you going to see her?”
“Not tonight. I’m afraid I just can’t abide a hysterical woman.”
“Then I’ll go.” Watching Burle, he thought he sensed a change in the man.
Burle turned his head and his eyes gleamed yellow. Burle said evenly, “I don’t think I’ll like you, Marshal.”
“I wouldn’t want you to.”
Burle stared up at him for a moment more, his face hidden in shadow. Then he turned on his heel and stalked away. There was a peculiar, catlike grace about the way he walked. There was animal power in him not concealed at all by the clothes he wore. Sloan sensed that Burle, while undoubtedly attractive to women, was completely ruthless, without gentleness, without concern for anyone but himself.
Then, forgetting the man, he turned his horse, lifted him to a trot, and headed up the street toward Sylvia Flint’s small house.