Joseph was true to his word, but his questions about Scott’s daughter found no answers that night. Many people knew of Scott, whose habit of hiding his face behind a cloth had naturally made him a well-known figure. But about the daughter no one knew a thing, and soon Joseph stopped asking around about her.
He spent the evening traveling in and out of saloons, speaking to people, smiling, and playing the friendly, protective deputy marshal. But it seemed to him that people looked at him differently from the way they had right after he cleaned out the gang at the freight station. The story of his failure in the Long Branch was surely getting around.
He waited impatiently for his pocket watch to tick off the last minutes of his beat, thinking all the while about the information Liam had gleaned from the lawyer, and finding the thought of leaving town increasingly tempting.
* * *
Unknown to Joseph, Liam was also making the rounds of saloons and dance halls that night, but not for the reason he usually did. He was asking the same question as Joseph, trying vainly to find anyone who knew the daughter of Mordecai Scott. His results were no better than Joseph’s. The strange figure of Mordecai Scott was known to almost all, but about his family in general and his daughter in particular, no one knew. It confirmed to Liam the degree to which Scott, and by extension his family, had lived a life cut off from society. All because of that terrible disfigurement. All because of Liam.
He understood in an intellectual way that what he had done to Mordecai Scott had been in the context of war—that he was, in a sense, not guilty. His heart told him otherwise. No matter what the context of the action, he was the one who had pulled the trigger of that shotgun and changed Scott’s life forever.
Liam was still making the rounds, asking his questions, when Joseph returned to the room in the livery. Joseph wondered where his brother was and thought again of Mack Stanley. He hoped Stanley had moved on. If he had not, any dark corner or back alley was potentially a place from which Liam could be ambushed by the sneaking assassin.
Joseph’s last thought before falling asleep was that he would indeed be glad to leave Dodge City behind.
* * *
Liam came in late, two thirty in the morning. Joseph did not awaken. Despite retiring at a later hour, Liam was the first to get up in the morning. He readied himself for work as usual, had his typical egg-and-biscuit breakfast with Joseph, and set off for the wagon works, riding his horse this time, not walking as he usually did.
Once there, though, he did not set to work as usual. Having already taken one afternoon away from work, he hated to ask Moore for this day as well. But there was an errand he had to run, he told his employer, and it couldn’t wait.
Drake Moore was accommodating, as usual. Liam was given his day. He set off on his horse, westward.
Liam was quite nervous about what he was doing…if he knew what he was doing at all. This wasn’t what he’d had in mind. His rather grandiose vision had involved a triumphant ride to the Scott homestead, bringing with him the straying daughter and the joy of a family reuniting.
It had seemed realistic and plausible the night before as he made his rounds. Now, in the light of day, it struck him as silly and unlikely. He’d not even been able to find out the girl’s name. And even if he had, and had managed to track her down, who was he to think that he, a stranger, could persuade her to reconcile with her family? He didn’t even know what had driven them apart in the first place.
So here he was, alone, riding along with a much less exalted ambition. Today he would locate the Scott home. Perhaps even make contact with the man. Maybe learn something about the situation, the missing daughter. Or find some other way to help out the man and his family.
Whenever he made contact, today or later, it would be clumsy. What could he say? “Hello, Mr. Scott…how you been? I’m the fellow who shot your face off and now I’m here to lend a helping hand. Got a shed needing painting?”
He wasn’t sure at all how he’d handle the situation. But he was certain he was doing the right thing in trying.
The day was somewhat overcast, cooling the air but making Liam wonder if rain would come. If it did he’d be drenched; he’d not packed his poncho into his saddlebags.
Miles fell away. As he’d been told to do, he followed a wagon trail that cut first straight west, then north. The only problem was, there was more than one such trail, and he had no way to be sure he’d followed the correct one.
He forged ahead. The clouds grew thicker and the breeze cooler. Liam sighed. Too bad. It looked like he’d be getting wet after all.
According to the instructions he’d received, he should be nearing the place where Scott’s sod house would be found. Assuming, of course, that he’d taken the right trail.
Inspiration hit him. If all this timed out correctly, the coming rain might give him a handy excuse for insinuating himself into the lives of the Scotts. He could ask for shelter in their home, strike up acquaintance—no talk of his war history, obviously—and from there seek to build a friendship that would allow him to help the family out.
Liam spotted a sod house just as the clouds grew twice as dark within a five-minute span. Probably not Scott’s place—the odds of finding it right away struck him as unlikely—but he still rode toward it with heart pounding, because one could never know, and sometimes the unlikely happened.
The man who appeared at the door wasn’t Scott. He was a slovenly, fat, unkempt fellow wearing filthy canvas pants and a shirt with the sleeves cut off at the armpits. He had a shotgun and watched Liam with squinting eyes.
“Far enough…. Are you friend or foe?”
Friend or foe? An odd question. “I’m a friend,” Liam answered. “Just a rider hoping to use your shed there to wait out the rain, if that’s agreeable to you.”
“You ain’t sent by the sheriff, are you?”
“No.”
“You better not be…. I ain’t afraid to use this shotgun. If she’s been talking about me again, I guaran-damn-tee you ain’t a word of it true!”
Liam touched the brim of his hat. “I’m not a lawman, but if you’re that worried about it, I’ll be moving on. I’ve got no ambition to get shot today.”
Liam turned his horse and began to ride away. The rain began to fall.
“Hold up there, friend,” the man said. “No reason to be riding in the rain. Put your horse in the shed and come on in. I’ve got a bit of whiskey I’ll share.”
“Cordial of you,” Liam said as he headed his horse toward the shed. He wondered if he was doing the right thing. This man didn’t seem to have the machinery between his ears in good working order. But this was going to be a hard rain, and whiskey would go down well just now, even if it was early.
The man had leaned the shotgun up against one of the dirt walls. He eyed Liam closely. “You sure you ain’t law?”
“I’m not. My job’s at the wagon shop. But I’ve got a brother who’s a deputy marshal.”
The man pondered a moment or two, then brightened like dawn. “Hang my granny—you ain’t brother to the one who gunned down them thieves at the freight house, are you?”
“I am.”
“Well! You get two drinks of whiskey for that!”
“So I’m getting rewarded for being brother to a lawman? I didn’t think you liked lawmen.”
“I don’t. But only when they’re bothering me. If they get thieves and robbers and such, I’m right there with them.”
“Can I ask what the law would be after you for? You ain’t dangerous, are you?”
“Why, I’m as gentle a little kitten as you’ll find. Roll a ball of twine acrost the floor and I’ll chase it. Scratch behind my ear and I’ll purr.”
“I’ll just take your word for that.”
“That sorry harlot of a woman of mine, though, she gets mad at me sometimes and goes off to town for a month or so and tells tales that I beat on her and steal cattle and set folks’ barns afire. All lies. But the sheriff has come calling a time or two, just to get her off his back, you know. Once some fool deputy actually hauled me in and throwed me right in the calaboose for burning down a barn. Hell, the barn wasn’t even burned. It’s still standing! The deputy was just a young fool, that’s all. He didn’t last.”
“I’m Liam Carrigan, by the way.”
“Josiah Poohter, with a ‘h’ in the middle. Never leave out the ‘h.’ Pleased to know you.”
Judging from the man’s general smell, Poohter was a remarkably appropriate last name, but Liam didn’t voice that observation. His host had been moving about, scrounging up a crockery bottle of whiskey and a couple of cracked coffee cups all the while he’d been talking. He poured Liam a generous shot and handed him the cup. Liam observed the crust around most of the rim and turned the cup until he could find a relatively clean sipping point.
Poohter drank his in two swallows. Liam sipped, mostly to keep the whiskey from making contact with the crust on the side of the cup.
“Tell me the news from Dodge,” Poohter said. “I ain’t been to town for a spell.”
Liam shared what news he could. Poohter really wanted to hear the true details of Joseph’s heroism at the freight station. He’d heard only a garbled version so far, from a passing man who had Joseph all but gunning down an entire army with his left hand while rescuing a distressed damsel with his right.
Even without embellishment, though, Joseph’s story was a notable one, and Poohter was duly impressed. He poured Liam a second shot of whiskey, but Liam decided he’d secretly pour out some of it. He didn’t want to drink too much and smell of liquor when he found the Scotts.
Poohter was busy telling stories of other incidents of violent law enforcement involving the Masterson brothers, Wyatt Earp, and others of Dodge City fame. Liam only half listened. The rain was coming down hard, and he wondered how much would have to fall before a sod house got so wet that it gave way. A lot, he supposed. This place looked solid enough, and not a drop was coming through anywhere, other than some puddling at the base of the open door.
Liam waited until Poohter’s storytelling waned, then said, “Hey, let me ask you something. They tell me there’s a man who lives out here somewhere who wears a cloth because he got his face pretty much shot away when he was robbing a bank back east somewhere. Is that true?”
“Oh, there’s a man who wears a mask, that’s true, and his face is shot all to hell, but it didn’t happen during no bank robbery. Worse than that. It happened when the sorry bastard fought for the bluebellies. And I say here’s to it.” He raised his mug as if in toast, then drank the final drops of his whiskey. “I just wish it had kilt him. Him and every other sorry bluebelly who ever crawled. I hate ‘em all.”
“I take it you were a good defender of the rights of the states,” Liam said.
“You, too, I hope. For if not, you’re not welcome in this house.”
Even if Liam hadn’t really been a Confederate, he would be now, talking to this militant. “I fought for the Stars and Bars, just like you.”
Poohter liked that. A big grin split his homely face. More whiskey poured. A toast to the Confederacy. Liam took only the tiniest sip, then poured out most of the drink when Poohter wasn’t looking.
“So does this no-face man live around here?”
“Somewhere within ten, fifteen miles of here. I don’t know just where and I don’t care where, as long as he keeps his damn self and his brood away from me. I got no use for a Yank.”
“All the same, kind of got to feel sorry for a man who has suffered what he did,” Liam ventured.
“Ha! I don’t feel sorry for him. I just wish whoever had shot him had blowed his brains out instead of just messing up his face.”
“You know, I wouldn’t mind taking a look at a man like that. Just to see what it looks like, you know.”
Poohter thought about that a moment, then his eyes narrowed and gleamed. He began to chuckle and grow red-faced. “I’d like to find him and steal his mask and run him to town and dump him out! He’d be running around all squalling and trying to hide that ugly head any way he could! Haw! That’d be a sight!”
Any initial liking Liam might have felt for his strange host vanished. Poohter had just suggested something unforgivably cruel. No wonder his woman wouldn’t stay with him.
“Well, I do feel sorry for the man,” Liam said. “I’d just like to get a look at him, that’s all. You don’t know where he lives, do you?”
“No. I reckon that Stump might know.”
“Who’s Stump?”
“Runs himself a whiskey drinking house up about two mile from here, yonder way.” He pointed toward the northwest. “He knows where everybody lives.”
Liam nodded. He’d make a call on Stump as soon as the rain let up and he could get there.
Poohter started talking again, this time about buffalo hunting, which he’d done in the earliest days of this region, when Dodge was known as a center for that trade rather than as a cattle town. Liam listened as best he could; every now and then something Poohter said sparked in him a moment of real interest, but for the most part he watched the rain and counted the minutes until he could leave. Poohter offered him food, but Liam, who in his time had eaten grubby food spiced with battlefield mud—son-of-a-bitch stew served with rattlesnake meat included on purpose and bugs included by accident—wasn’t about to dine on any fare Poohter could offer.
The rain stopped and Liam made a quick exit. Poohter actually seemed sorry to see him go. Probably it was very lonely out there, especially when his woman had run off to Dodge again.