West of Dodge/Chapter 5
When it came to the inquest into Bud Sandiver's death next morning. Andrew Hall found himself, mildly speaking, the victim of a surprise. It was a soundly astonished physician, indeed, who sat in the coroner's office in the court house basement, next door to the jail, and heard witness after witness, old and young, mount the chair and swear that they did not know who was the public benefactor whose hand had ridded the county of the notorious ruffian.
According to the unvaried story, Bud Sandiver had collapsed and died on the way to jail a few moments after his arrest in the public square. Nobody had touched a weapon, nobody had laid a violent hand on the man. He merely had sagged down and died. Yes, he had been hurt. Yes, he was bleeding. His forehead was gashed, the bridge of his nose was smashed. Something had hit him, that was a cinch. But who it was, or what it was, no witness could, of his own knowledge and belief, as the coroner invariably put it, swear.
Everybody was well pleased to be testifying in the case. It was a fine thing, undoubtedly, to be rid of so worthless a fellow as Bud Sandiver. There were good-humored expressions mingled with the testimony, plenty of winks in aside, and grins enough to make Damascus bright for a month. Through it all Andrew Hall sat, uncalled upon to add what he could tell of the tragedy, his first feeling of astonishment melting down like a lump of beeswax on a hot stove to a troubled and uneasy state of spirit that had hardly enough force behind it to resent this plain, concocted conspiracy to make him the goat.
Hall's indignation began to mount after a while as he listened to man after man, Charley Burnett among them, to his unspeakable astonishment, swear that Bud Sandiver had just lopped down that way as if somebody had cut his legs off with a scythe, and expired within ten feet of the jail door. Hall took the stand eagerly, when called by the coroner at last, after he had settled down into the fixed opinion that he understood the town's purpose in framing up the case this way.
The justice of the peace presided at the inquiry, by virtue of his office, in the absence of the coroner, the eminent Doctor Ross. The justice's name was Hawthorn. He was a benignant sort of large soft man, gray-whiskered, bald. He held an unlit cigar in a long holder between his teeth all through the hearing. Under his leading, Hall recited the facts in the case as they appertained to himself. When he recounted how he had taken the pistol from Major Cottrell's hand and thrown it at Bud Sandiver's head, the presiding officer nodded, such a satisfied nod, so intense in its expression of lucidity, that it was almost a bow. That nod plainly said: "Now you have enlightened me; now the hidden mysteries of this case are laid bare."
The people who crowded the room received this testimony in a little more intensified spirit of interest. Their faces brightened, they seemed easier and happier than before, although the occasion had been anything but solemn or sad. Their nods and grins seemed to say to each other: "This man's testimony makes it plain. It's as simple as daylight now."
There was such a feeling of satisfaction over Hall's testimony that it amounted to a mild jubilation. One would have thought that Damascus hated a mystery above all things detestable. The coroner indicated that the witness had supplied all that was wanting, that nothing more of him would be required. He waved his hand in gesture of dismissal, elbowing over his notes to give the case into the jury's hands.
Hall remained in the witness chair.
"I'd like to say further, your honor," he began.
"Certainly. If you've got any more to say that will add to the clearing up of this point, go ahead."
"Why, yes," said Hall, crisply, coming at once to the point, "I must say I'm astonished at the general, the unvaried, trend of the testimony presented here, sir. I want to disclaim, emphatically and finally, any and all responsibility for the death of this man Sandiver. It's a fact that I threw the gun at him; it's undeniable that IT hit him and knocked him off of his horse. But there are men here in this room, most of them witnesses who have testified, who came running up just about then and lifted Sandiver to his feet. There is the man, who says his name is Ed Kraus, liveryman, who took Sandiver's handkerchief and tied his hands with it. And there's another one, Dine Fergus, I understood him to give his name, who walked along beside Sandiver holding him by the arm as they started away."
"Certainly, Dr. Hall," said the coroner, regarding him with curious surprise. "This is all part of the record; the clerk has it down in black and white."
"But I want to say that Charley Burnett told me, on the hotel porch not five minutes after they carried Major Cottrell to the hotel, that Sandiver had made a break to get away, and somebody had killed him. I don't want the doubtful honor—"
"I didn't tell you any such a damn thing!" Burnett denied, crowding forward, red to the ears with ill-held anger.
"Repress your language, Mr. Burnett," the coroner blandly advised.
"No man can charge a thing like that up to me and walk off with it!" Burnett declared.
"There's no attempt nor intention of laying a charge," Hall replied, undisturbed by the cattleman's bluster. "I'm just stating a fact that I ought to be able to prove by witnesses."
"You ought to be able to prove anything you say about me, stranger, and be damn sure you can prove it before you begin to talk," Burnett said.
"But from the trend of public determination, as I'll have to call it for lack of any other word, to shift the blame for this man's death from the hands responsible for it, I hardly think it would be any use to call Kraus and Fergus, and the witness who gave his name as Larrimore, back to the stand to substantiate what I've said. They were there on the hotel porch, not six feet from Mr. Burnett, when he told me Sandiver had made a break to get away."
"But I didn't tell you anybody killed him," Burnett said, with sneering triumph that won him a laugh.
The coroner rapped to command silence.
"This is all unnecessary, gentlemen," he admonished with placatory suavity. "Dr. Hall, this inquiry is nothing more than a matter of form to satisfy the requirements of the law in the case. Nobody is going to be prosecuted for killing Bud Sandiver. On the other hand, he will be considered a public benefactor and given the thanks of this community. Who that man was is immaterial. We have established what we started out to establish for the record of this case: that Bud Sandiver came to his death in the act of riot and defiance of the constituted authorities. It was justifiable homicide, and the jury will so find. Gentlemen, this closes the case."
"In justice to Mr. Burnett, I'd like to amend my statement of a little while ago," Hall proposed, turning to the coroner before vacating the witness chair. "When I come to think of it, Mr. Burnett is right. He didn't say anybody had killed Sandiver when he made the break to get away."
"I thought you'd crawfish!" Burnett said, with a strutting manner of contempt.
"Not at all," Hall assured him calmly. "You didn't say in so many words that somebody had killed Sandiver, but you implied it. Your implication was so evident it gave me the same impression as a direct statement in words. I got the impression that somebody had killed Sandiver when he made the break to run. I believe that was the impression you meant to convey."
"You'd better stand around in the sun with your hat off a while and let your head harden if you're goin' to stay in this country," Burnett suggested. "It takes impressions too easy. It might take a dangerous one some of these days if you ain't careful."
"Gentlemen, the case is closed," the coroner hastened to interpose.
Without leaving the room the jury returned the verdict of justifiable homicide, as the coroner had directed. Bud Sandiver, said the jury, had come to his death in the act of riot against the constituted authorities of the state of Kansas and the city of Damascus, but at whose hands the verdict did not state. It was implied, certainly, that Sandiver had fallen at the hands of the constituted authorities mentioned. Public opinion gave the credit to Dr. Hall, the new railroad doctor who had come there to supplant Old Doc Ross.
Damascus was feeling pretty well over what it seemed to consider a comical piece of business all around. Whatever tragedy there had been in Major Cottrell's peril and wounding, whatever heroism in the intervention of this stranger, was overshadowed by the humorous phase of the incident. Everybody agreed it was a rare joke on Bud Sandiver to come to such an end, although as they laughed and passed winks it was evident some greater joke was being kept sequestered among themselves. Hall felt this. He was not slow in coming to the conviction that the town's big laugh was not at the expense of Bud Sandiver, but of himself.
Damascus was afraid of the Simrall shooting men; afraid in particular of Gus Sandiver, who would come on his day to demand a reckoning for his brother's life. How easily Damascus had side-stepped this responsibility by giving the perilous credit to a stranger who was not even one of the town! The story would go to Simrall speedily; the wrath that should have been divided, at least, between Damascus and himself would fall alone upon his head. Truly a plastic head, as Burnett had said, to drive him so thoughtlessly into a quarrel among men as base as all present information indicated both sides to embrace.
Somebody had killed Sandiver. He had not died from that blow on the head with the pistol. Dine Fergus, son of the town milliner, who carried an ice cream, candy and tobacco business on the other side of the room, and a lunch counter across the back, and Ed Kraus, liveryman, were the noble spirits behind that conspiracy. The fatal blow—no shot had been fired—lay between them, Hall believed.
There was something treacherous in Kraus' long, dark face, in his indolent carriage, his rocking, bear-like walk. He was a tall man, sloping in the shoulders, the crudeness of unrefined strength in his long, tapering neck. There was a spark of savagery in him that a word might provoke to give a blow.
Dine Fergus presented a far different type. He was short, alert, active on foot, trimly made. His small round face was ruddy, specked by large freckles which rather added to its shallow, boyish prettiness. His black hair sprang straight from his low forehead, trained in the uproaching fashion so popular with the small-town youth of that day. He was not more than twenty-two, ready with his words, flippant, half impertinent, a typical product of the atmosphere of daring and challenge to authority which had nurtured him from infancy. He was his mother's only child. In her eyes he was a mold contain ing all the ordinary virtues, with several seraphic qualities spread over them, like icing on a cake.
While giving his testimony a flicker of a smile had played around Dine's mouth, making a merry little dimple in his ruddy cheek. It was such a notable piece of humor they were framing on the strange doctor, Dine had difficulty holding in a laugh that would have given it all away.
That appeared to be the attitude of Damascus now. Many approached Dr. Hall when the inquest was concluded, all of them grinning in appreciation of this comical notoriety he had attained. There was something behind the grins, invariably, which the grinner shrewdly believed the simple stranger who took a gun by the wrong end could not see. Such is the common attitude of mankind who has been initiated into more or less mysterious things. One sees the same glimmer of humorous superiority in the eyes of secret brethren when they try grips on strangers who do not respond. What the grinner knows is little worth the trouble of concealing, and does him no good in the world.
Dr. Hall left the court house with a feeling more of resentment than concern. He was not so much troubled over his personal danger as he was concerned about his professional dignity. He had just come from a long service in the railroad hospital at Topeka, taking this outside position for the picturesque appeal it carried and the experience that it proffered. He knew railroad men, from jerry to president. It would be an uphill business to win their respect, their confidence and esteem, appearing before them in this false guise of a ridiculous fellow who had killed a man with the wrong end of a gun.
Still, there was nothing he could do to alter the situation. It would not make the town any more pleasant for him if he were to take a gun in hand and lay out the humorous citizens who had conspired to fix the responsibility for this worthless outlaw's life on him, after they had made away with him in their truly comical manner themselves. That would not help it at all. He might have taken a crack at Burnett, the fellow's crookedmouthed smirk had been provocative almost past endurance, probably to have Kraus and all the valiant pack pile on him and batter him out of shape.
Thus considering his present case in relation to his future success, Dr. Hall directed his steps toward the railroad station to make inquiry of the agent concerning the whereabouts of Pete Farley, general superintendent of that part of the railroad. Farley had engaged to meet him in Damascus that day, and give him official installation as company physician.
Dr. Hall proceeded about this business moodily, head bent as he pondered the troubles which appeared to grow blacker and more portentous as he drew off to give them perspective. Beyond the livery stable he was overtaken by a man, who fell easily into stride with him after passing the greetings of the day in friendly and respectful way.
This overtaking stranger was a tall gaunt man of sixty-five or more, dry and well-preserved. There was a flaccid appearance about his waistcoat, which hung as if it touched him nowhere, a white garment originally, now yellowed through age and poor laundering. A watch-chain of large, heavy links dangled the badge of a popular secret brotherhood almost as big as a hardware sign. This man's smoothly shaved face was brown and lean, leathery, ascetic, stern. He carried himself with a preoccupied stride, although it was plain enough that he had his eyes about him, and very sharply about him, at that. This stately, seemingly abstracted, carriage made Hall think of a gander pacing along by the roadside with his head held high.
"I am Judge Waters," the stranger introduced himself.
"Hall is my name; a newcomer, the railroad doctor."
"Yes, I know," said Judge Waters. He stopped, offering his hand. "I want to thank you for your courageous action in behalf of my old friend, Major Cottrell. They'd have got him if it hadn't been for you."
"Maybe not," said Hall modestly, embarrassed by this frank acknowledgment.
"I was slow getting into action," Judge Waters explained. "I'd put my gun away, hadn't loaded it for a year or more. I made the mistake of trying to believe we could get along without guns out here west of Dodge, but I guess that time hasn't arrived. By the time I got down to the square the damage had been done, and those scoundrels were lopin' out of town. I appreciate your service to Major Cottrell, to all of us. He was my partner in this townsite; we laid it out."
"I'm not sensible of having done anything but make a sort of spectacle of myself," Hall replied. "There's a public disposition to give me entirely too much credit. I don't appreciate it."
"I noticed that disposition at the inquest, Doctor."
"I didn't kill that man Sandiver. The blow I gave him with Major Cottrell's gun, so funny to these comedians here, only stunned him for a few seconds. He was as clear in the head as I am right now when they started to walk him to jail."
"I guess some of the young sports were practicin' on Bud," Judge Waters said.
"Did they frame their testimony at the inquest just to have the laugh on a green stranger, or because they really want to get out from under the responsibility?"
"The gang that rushed in and picked Bud up after the danger was over isn't notable for any high courage," Judge Waters explained. "They're not a fighting crowd, take them as they run. Ed Kraus drives over to Simrall with a drummer now and then; he's around the country a good deal of the time these days locating settlers or carryin' the surveyor here and there. He couldn't afford to have his name involved in the affair, you see. Larrimore—he's a skulker, he's a wolf."
"That Fergus boy?"
"He's a petty gambler, a ten-cents ante boy. He's not worth the room he covers when he's standing still."
"Are they fair samples of this town's citizens?"
"No, not at all, sir. We've got respectable people here, two or three dozen of them that could be counted on to defend the town, I expect—at least I hope so. They've never been called to the test before, except by voting for it."
"There's no very great incentive to fight for it, that I can see," Hall said, with more frankness than diplomacy.
"We've got our homes, our investments and our prospects," Judge Waters replied. "You have a stranger's misconception of the importance of Damascus. It will dominate this corner of the state within two years. There are ten undeveloped counties tributary to us, all filling up fast. We are their natural supply point; the future of this town is written large."
"As you say, I've got the stranger's view of it, nothing more than can be seen and felt from the surface. Maybe I'm wrong. I'd like to see you have a second Kansas City here."
"We'll outstrip Kansas City in fifteen years," Judge Waters declared, striding along a little faster as his enthusiasm grew, the city of his vision no doubt plain to his inner eye. "We've got a certain amount of riff-raff here now, it's always that way with frontier towns. People that are thrown off and driven out by the orderly places naturally drift to the new ones and stay till things begin to stabilize and settle down. We've got a lot of that kind in Damascus, tin-horn adventurers, I guess you might call them. Real estate sharpers, crooked storekeepers, men that run shady little games of one kind and another, all of them with some kind of a crooked side to them. They're only temporary; they'll drift along to the next town that starts up."
They had come to the railroad station, where they paused beside the plank platform flanking the two-story red building, running parallel to the track.
"I'm looking for superintendent Farley," Hall explained.
"If he was in town his car would be on the house track back of the depot," Judge Waters said, looking around for that evidence of the superintendent's presence. "No, he's not in town."
"Frankly, Judge Waters, I'm troubled over this scrape I've got into," Dr. Hall confessed. "I didn't want to mix in the affairs of this town and county. Do you suppose they're going to report it around that I killed Sandiver?"
"I'm afraid that's the move. I suppose the boys figured they'd have a little fun with a stranger, maybe thinking you wouldn't be here long enough to be in any danger. But, of course, you will be in danger the minute that story gets over to Simrall."
"You mean Sandiver's brother will come gunning for me?"
"He's likely to, he's nearly certain to."
"One thing has struck me as strange through all this affair, and that's the absence of the sheriff. Where is he? What's he doing that he can't protect this town?"
"He was out servin' subpoenas yesterday, and hasn't come back yet. I guess that's why the Simrall outfit made their dash. They wouldn't want to embarrass their friend."
"Oh, the sheriff leans that way?"
"So hard he'd fall and break his neck if somebody was to jerk the prop from under him. It's going to be done, too, and that before long."
"I can't expect much protection from the side of the law, then, if I stay in this man's town," Hall said.
"I hope you're not thinking of quitting us?"
"No, I hadn't thought of it. But I didn't come here to take on arow. I'm a physician, not a fighting man."
"If you stay here," Judge Waters said weightily, "I expect you'll have to throw a shot or two sooner or later. Can you sling a gun pretty well?"
"I don't suppose I ever fired a pistol a dozen times in my life."
"That's unfortunate," Judge Waters said, frowning, pushing back his hat. "Well"—hopefully—"you've got plenty of room down by the river to practice, and I suppose you'll have plenty of time. Shoot with a limber arm, that's the style of the best gunmen out here. You can pick it up fast with an hour's practice a day."
"And how about this man Ross?" Hall inquired, thinking it just as well to go through the list of his troubles while about it. "I've been told there's more trouble waiting for me when he sobers up and takes to his legs. Is he as dangerous as he's represented?"
"If anybody was to offer me Old Doc Ross' hide," said Judge Waters, "I wouldn't consider it worth stakin' out—in the sun to dry. I'd forgotten you've come here to take his place as company doctor. Yes, he used to botch around at it as a side line to his general practice in town, but he was so erratic, Pete Farley told me, he was more harm than good. No, there's nothing to fear from Ross when he's sober. When he's drunk he's as mean as a briar. I expect likely you'll have a visit from him."
"It looks like I've stirred up a mess of trouble in this town," Hall said gloomily.
"That's something mighty hard to leave behind a man," Judge Waters said. "But you're not thinking of quitting?"
"Not the slightest notion of it," Hall returned.
He was standing with legs apart in that way of his that suggested bracing to face a hard wind, or a hard blow, or a hard tussle of any kind. He raised himself to his toes with the easy, confident strength of a man assured of himself and his destiny; settled back to his heels, looked Judge Waters in the eye, and smiled.
Judge Waters offered his hand again, his own close-fitting lips parting from his teeth in the thread-width crack that passed with him for a grin.