Chapter Forty

The old man was standing out in front of the livery, chewing his cud and spitting brown rings in the snow. His eyes fixed on Cole and Stevens and the body of Miguel Torres when they pulled up. He wiped a hand across his wet mouth and said: “You not only leave dead men out on the streets, now you’re bringing ’em into town.”

Toole looked at Stevens’s busted lips and nose and saw how the blood had dried on the front of the expensive white shirt. Then he paid closer attention to Torres. “That the lawman?”

“It is.”

The old man took notice of the stud. “Nice horse.”

“You want to do me a favor?” Cole asked the old livery man.

“What’s ’at?”

“Take Mister Stevens over and lock him up in that little log dungeon Johnny Logan kept out back of his office.”

“You want me to lock up this rich man?” Toole asked, showing enough of a grin that some of his remaining teeth stuck out like old corn kernels.

“Yeah, that’s what I’d like you to do.”

“What about him?” Toole asked, pointing toward Miguel Torres.

“I’ll take care of him myself.”

“You leave anybody alive back up in them hills, Cole?”

“A few.”

“I wisht I’d been there. Damned if I don’t.”

“How about it? You want to take Stevens over to the jail and lock him up?”

“Did somebody elect me to office?” he asked, scratching a face that hadn’t seen a razor in a long time.

“You want, I’ll vote for you.”

He shrugged. “Might not hurt if I had some authority.”

“Maybe if you were to take Johnny’s job, become the new constable, how would that be?”

“I reckon that’d be all right,” he said, his eyes glittering with the prospect.

“OK,” Cole said. He searched through Miguel Torres’s pockets until he found his badge. “I’m appointing you the new town constable.”

Toole rolled his eyes. “Just like that? I don’t have to apply or nothing?”

“Look around. You see anybody else rushing to take the job?”

“’At’s about right,” he said, swiping the badge alongside his pant leg to polish it. “Anybody that’d have the nerve or was crazy enough for the job is either dead, or has left town. The last of ’em left just this morning . . . Doc Holiday. Seen him and Kate boarding the stage just before the snow got really bad.”

“Raise your right hand,” Cole said. When Toole did, he said: “You’re hired.”

Toole jerked his head, took the badge, and pinned it to his frayed coat. “How’s it look?” he asked, when he got it pinned on just right.

“Looks like they better get the women and children off the streets.”

His grin touched both ears. “Come along, Mister Stevens,” Toole said, taking the reins of the man’s horse.

“Oh, another thing I forgot to mention!” Cole called after him.

He stopped, turned around, and said: “What’s ’at?”

“As an officer of the court, you have the right to confiscate that horse as evidence. And if they hang Stevens here, you can make a claim to the horse and keep him.”

Toole squinted. “You’re tugging my peaches,” he said.

“Look at it this way, Toole. Being the only damn’ law there is around here, who’s going to stop you from setting the rules?”

“’At’s true.” He nodded. “You’re a pisser, John Henry Cole. I’ll give you that.”

Cole found the undertaker, a man named Clovemyer, and gave him instructions for Miguel’s burial. He asked him to buy Miguel a new suit and a shirt.

“A man ought to look his best,” Clovemyer agreed. “You want paid mourners?”

“No, I don’t think Miguel cared much for strangers. But get him a headstone with his name marked on it.”

Clovemyer said that, if the ground was frozen, he wouldn’t be able to bury Miguel until the spring. “I might have to keep him in the icehouse till the ground thaws,” he stated. “Winter’s a bad time to die.”

“I didn’t know there was a good time.”

“Huh?”

Cole turned to leave as Clovemyer began stripping the body.

“What about his personal effects, his money belt and rifle and pistol?” Clovemyer pointed at the belt tied around Miguel’s waist.

Cole asked how much money was in the belt. Clovemyer opened it and counted out the money. “Nearly four hundred and eighty dollars. Should I take my fee out of this?”

“No. A man pays all his life for the living he does, he shouldn’t have to pay for the dying. You take that money over to the Miners’ Retreat . . . you know the place?” Clovemyer nodded. “You give the money to a girl name Josephine, tell her it’s from Miguel Torres, Bobby’s brother. She’ll know. Tell her Miguel wanted her to go see her people up in Canada. Tell her that’s what the money’s for. That and whatever else she needs.”

“And his weapons?”

“Sell them if you like, he won’t be needing them.”

Cole rode up into the hills, following the directions Toole had given him to the cabin. It looked peaceful the way it was nestled in a narrow valley. A curl of black smoke rose from the stone chimney and the long shadows of the pines stretched across the sparkling snow.

Jazzy Sue opened the door and offered Cole a warm greeting, saying how she was happy to see him as she let him into the cabin. Rose rushed to greet him like she was his daughter. “I was worried about you,” she said. “I’m glad you came back.”

Lydia Winslow sat in a high-backed rocker by the fireplace. She had not moved, but her gaze met Cole’s. “John Henry,” she said as she stood, smoothing her skirts, then the loose strands of hair around her face. She seemed slightly flushed.

“We need to talk, Liddy.”

She blinked like she already knew what he had come for. She looked at the other two women. The room was small, not a place to hold a private conversation.

“I’ll get my cloak,” she said. “We’ll go for a walk.” She was wearing a checked shirt and breeches and boots that laced up. She put on a gray woolen capote that draped over her shoulders.

The clouds had lifted and been replaced by a dome of blue sky and a warming sun that seeped through their clothes. The weather had turned surprisingly mild, and it was a welcome relief. Maybe the worst of it really was over, Cole told himself.

They walked a short distance from the cabin. Cole was trying to figure out the best way to ask her about the truth and the lies.

“Tell me,” she said, breaking the great silence that surrounded them in that place. “Is it finished?”

“All but one thing,” Cole said.

She didn’t say anything for a time and they walked in among some pines. The air was thick with their scent. “Winston told you about us,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Then you know my secrets.”

“I know it’s damn’ confusing. And I sure as hell don’t appreciate being lied to.”

She turned and put her hand on Cole’s wrist. “Don’t. Don’t accuse me of things you don’t fully understand.”

“Then explain it.”

She sighed and removed her hand. “My mother was once an actress,” she said. “In New York. She was quite beautiful, but not very talented. Her beauty earned her parts in plays that she might not otherwise have got. She was smart enough to know it wouldn’t always be that way. One evening, a man came to see a play she was acting in. He immediately became smitten with her and began to pursue her. He was very wealthy, very charming, and very attentive to her, sending her rooms full of flowers after each performance. Mother found it impossible to resist him, and in short order he asked her to marry him and return with him to his home in England. She agreed because she’d fallen in love with him, and because she’d become pregnant with me.”

The sun collected in her hair as she talked, and they weaved in and out of the light that splintered down through the pines.

“His name was Arthur and he had a small son waiting for him to return. The boy’s mother had died giving birth to the boy. I was born shortly after Mother and Arthur arrived in England. So, you see, the timing was good.” She had tried to make light of it, but the effort was painful. She moved among the trees, touching them as she talked, lost in a world of memory she had not visited in a long time, judging by the sound of her voice as she recalled the past. “For several years I lived a very charmed life as the daughter of a rich man. We lived in a large house on a bluff that overlooked the Thames. And in the summer we could see the young college men racing their boats through the green water. It was such a happy time for me.”

Her voice broke slightly as she stopped long enough to turn and look at Cole. “As I grew into a young woman, my half-brother, Winston, began to prevail upon me for my affections. At first I thought very little of it. It started out as a game we played whenever no one was around. Winston said he was my handsome knight and I was his fair maiden. He would sometimes pretend to rescue me, and then kiss me. And the more we played the game, the more serious he became. After a time, I thought of myself as being in love with him.” Her hands trembled as she averted her gaze. “As it turned out, on one occasion when everyone was gone from the house, I allowed myself to be taken by him. It was a house with such large rooms. I remember at one point hearing the hall clock sounding as if it were the heartbeat of an old man beating in the great silence. . . .” Her voice trailed off and a gust of wind swept over a ridge, lifting a tail of snow high in the air.

Cole wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any more, but Liddy seemed compelled to tell him everything, as though she had to say the secrets she bore or they would suddenly kill her.

“He came into my room. I was watching the boats on the river. He came up behind me and touched me through the fabric of my dress. . . .” She raised her chin, her eyes staring into Cole’s. “I won’t say that I didn’t like it, I did. I was fourteen, he was nearly twenty. I lived in a land of castles and tales of brave knights who slew dragons for the honor of maidens.” She shook her head, biting down into her lower lip. “I had grown to believe that Winston really was my brave knight.”

“You don’t have to tell me any more,” Cole said.

“No. You asked. I will tell you.”

Cole found his makings and rolled a cigarette. His hands felt heavy and he seemed to have run out of words to say to her that would make a difference in her pain.

“As soon as it was over,” she went on, “I knew what a terrible mistake it had been. The next time Winston approached me, I tried to deny him. But by then he had already made up his mind that he was no longer going to be my knight. It happened several more times after that. Each time I tried to fight him. I begged mother to take me away, back to America, to New York, the place she’d told me so many wonderful stories about. I saw it as a way out of my situation. At first she refused. But then I told her what had happened. She went to Arthur and he sided with his son. He looked straight at me and said that I was tramping around with the local boys, that Winston was too well bred to have done such a thing. Then he accused Mother of having lied to him about her pregnancy. He said that I was not his child to begin with. . . .”

Cole wondered, as she told him these things, if he hadn’t made a mistake in not finishing off Stevens when he’d had the opportunity.

“It broke my mother’s heart to have Arthur turn on us, and she immediately left him and returned with me to New York. It ended up costing her life. She contracted tuberculosis from someone on the ship on the voyage over. She died within the year. I was then fifteen years old, alone in a city where orphans slept on the streets and ate other people’s garbage to survive. I decided I would never eat garbage or depend on a man for my survival. Look what it had cost my mother. Shortly after, I saw an ad in the papers advertising for young women to go West with a local touring group of actors. At least, that was what the manager in charge called us at first. Later, in the cow towns of Kansas, he called us something else. The fact is, we were called lots of things other than what we were.” She gave Cole a weak smile, the pain still there, buried deep, trying to rise to the surface. “The names men have for their whores,” she said with a toss of her head. “Chippies, Cyprians, doxies, bawds, brides of the multitudes.”

“And fallen angels,” Cole said.

Her gaze revealed something tender. “Yes, and fallen angels, lest we forget. Clever names to hide the truth. Do you think it is easer, John Henry, that men call us those names in order to justify their own lust?”

“Maybe so, Liddy,” Cole answered, remembering what Doc Holliday had said about truth. “How was he able to find you here?”

“Purely by accident, as far as I know. I had arrived in Deadwood only a few weeks before Winston. I couldn’t believe it when I ran into him. He wanted to start up with me again. I told him I would die first.” Liddy hesitated, the emotion of it cutting off her words.

“But still you saw him again,” Cole said. “That’s the part I don’t understand.”

She took a deep breath. “I have a daughter,” she said. “She is back East, attending a Boston finishing school. She is Winston’s daughter, a result of his raping me. I did everything within my power to keep her protected, to keep her from finding out the truth of her birthright.” Her hair shone rich and red under the blades of sunlight piercing through the tops of the trees. “Winston somehow learned of her. He threatened that, if I did not see him again, he would go to her and tell her the truth about me. His version of the truth, whatever that was.”

“Why would a man do that to his own daughter?” Cole asked.

“Because he enjoys his own madness.”

“So you gave in to him?”

“What choice did I have? Even if I had left Deadwood, he could still find me, or find our daughter and tell her whatever lies he wanted to.” Liddy paused. “Her name is Angelique.”

“Like in angel.”

“Yes, like in angel.”

“So to hide the truth from me, you made it sound like he was just someone in your life when the subject came up between us that night?”

“Yes, and I would do it over again if it was to protect my daughter. I would tell whatever lies I had to, do whatever it took, to protect her.”

“And you never suspected that Stevens might be behind the killings?”

“No. I knew he was after me, that he wanted me, to control me, to keep me for his own private sickness. But I never suspected he had anything to do with the murders. Did he confess them to you?”

“No, Leo did.”

“You have them both?” she asked.

“Leo’s dead. I’m taking Stevens back to Cheyenne to stand trial. If the law doesn’t hang him, I will.”

“Then that’s the end of it,” she said.

“Yes, I guess so.”

“What about us? Have you thought about us, John Henry?”

“I have, Liddy. I’ve thought about us a lot.”

“And what did you conclude?”

“I figure you knew from the beginning that Stevens was behind the killings, Stevens, Leo Loop, and Johnny Logan. You couldn’t kill them yourself, so you did the next best thing. You wrote to Ike, asking for his help, and then, to hedge your bet, you offered a reward, enough money to attract men like King Fisher and Kip Caine. Ike, or all of them combined, would even the score and set you free. You never really cared about those murdered women. You wanted Stevens out of the way, and, if it meant that Ike or any of the others got killed, eventually one of them would get Stevens, no matter how many guns he had around him. It was a long-shot gamble, but it paid off for you. In that set-up, where do you figure I fit in? So, what about us? Nothing about us. The job’s done and Stevens will no doubt be hanged, if not for killing the women, then for murdering a deputy U.S. marshal in the performance of his duty. I was there. I saw him do it. I heard Miguel Torres’s last words. I even know why Miguel had to bring Stevens in. I have some memories I need to put to rest before I can move on. I’m afraid you’re one of them.”

“I see,” she said. “But might there still be a chance for us later, when you’ve forgotten about those things?”

“Yeah, maybe, but why? I did the job you wanted done.”

“I’d like to believe that there’s some chance, John Henry.”

“Well, I’m catching the morning stage to Cheyenne. Maybe you could lend me the money for a pair of tickets.”

She nodded. “It’s the least I could do.”

“Another thing. You now know that Miguel Torres was murdered in the shoot-out we had with Stevens and Charley Coffey. I told the undertaker I’d come by before I left town and take care of Miguel’s bill.”

“I’ll see to it,” she said.

“You think you’ll stay here in Deadwood now?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking of perhaps going to Boston and see Angelique and maybe find something there . . . teaching, maybe. I’ve always thought it would be a worthwhile vocation, teaching.”

“The pay’s not so good.”

“Oh, I’ve a little saved,” she said, a slight smile curving her mouth. “Which brings me to the matter of the reward money. You’ve earned it.”

“Just the stage tickets,” Cole said, “and Miguel’s funeral expenses. The rest you can send to Ike directly.”

“Can I ask a kiss of you one last time before you go?”

“I’d be damned disappointed if you didn’t.”

It was for Cole warm and gentle, the way she kissed him, but it was also a sad kiss as well, and it would stay with him for the entire ride back to Cheyenne and for a long time after that.

Before Cole left, he asked Rose what her plans were. She said Miss Lydia had asked her and Jazzy Sue to go to Boston with her.

“You ever been to Boston?” Cole asked.

“No, Mister Cole, I haven’t,” she replied. “Do you think I should go?”

“I think you’d like it,” Cole said, “but I’m not sure Liddy would be a good influence on you, teach you what you will really need to know. If it doesn’t work out for you, just you remember you can always get hold of me through the Ike Kelly Detective Agency in Cheyenne.”

“Me and Jazzy Sue have become the best of friends,” Rose said, “and, despite what you say, Liddy is nearly like a mother to me.”

Cole kissed her on the top of the head. She said: “That ain’t hardly a kiss at all.” So he kissed her lightly on the lips, and said: “That’s all the kiss you’ll get from me.” She smiled, and hugged him.