“We could quibble the finer points of the law, but we won’t,” Adolphina told him.
“No?”
“Not at all. Our concern is that you intend to take the bodies with you. We would rather you didn’t.” Adolphina smiled sweetly. “You see, we have plans for them.”
“What in God’s name are you talking about?” Seamus was at a loss.
Chester and Adolphina came around the counter and Adolphina took Seamus’s arm in her hands. “We would rather you see for yourself. It will save a lot of explaining.”
Confused and curious, Seamus permitted them to lead him down the street to the livery. The Mexicans had disappeared and the wide double doors were closed. But on the doors, in freshly painted red letters, was the answer.
“I’ll be damned,” Seamus Glickman said.
Chapter 7
Frank Lafferty tried not to fidget in his chair as he waited for his editor’s decision. He was dressed in his finest suit and had paid the barber a visit to give the best impression. So much was riding on the outcome that a fine sheen of sweat covered him from crown to toe. He hoped the editor would not notice.
Ezekiel Hinds, or Zeke as those at the Times called him, had been in the newspaper business for more years than everyone on the staff combined. A seasoned journalist who knew all there was to know and then some, he was responsible for hiring and promotions.
Lafferty desperately desired to move up. He had been at the Times for a year and a half, half of that as Edison Farnsworth’s assistant. Farnsworth had regarded himself as God’s gift to journalism and treated Lafferty as little more than his personal errand boy. He once told Lafferty, “The only way you or anyone else will ever fill my shoes is if I die.”
Lafferty had resigned himself to being an assistant forever, and then Farnsworth had done something wonderfuclass="underline" He had gone and gotten himself killed.
Now the suspense was killing Lafferty. Hinds had read the piece twice and was reading it a third time. Unable to keep silent any longer, Lafferty quietly asked, “Well?”
“Not bad, son.” Hinds always called men younger than him “son.” “Not bad at all. You stuck to the facts.”
Lafferty felt the tension drain from him in a rush of release. “Thank you, sir.” He beamed. He saw the job as his. He saw himself as the rising star of Dodge City journalism, and once he conquered Dodge, who knew? New York City, perhaps, or San Francisco.
“But it is not enough,” Hinds said, bursting Lafferty’s bubble.
Panic welled, nearly constricting Lafferty’s throat, nearly making it impossible for him to squeak, “Sir?”
Hinds leaned back in his chair. He was slight of build and gray of hair. Those who did not know him would never suspect his unassuming appearance hid as keen a mind as anyone could ask for. “The facts are not always enough. Sometimes they need to be embellished. Surely you read a lot of what Farnsworth wrote?”
“He had me go over everything for spelling and grammar,” Lafferty said. As much as he hated to admit it, he rarely found a mistake. Farnsworth had a swelled head, yes, but he had the talent to justify the swelling.
“Didn’t you learn anything?” Hinds asked, not unkindly. He placed his forearms on his desk. “Listen, son. The newspaper business is not cut-and-dried. It is not just the facts and only the facts. Facts are dry. Facts are boring. They are the bare bones, if you will, and what our readers want is the juicy meat. Do you follow me?”
Lafferty was not quite sure what the editor was getting at, but he responded, “Of course, sir.”
“Then follow his example. Take this and rewrite it. Throw in some emotion. Stir people up. Decide whether you want this Frost character to be the hero or the villain and slant your account accordingly.”
“The hero or the villain?” Lafferty had always been under the impression that a journalist’s first and foremost responsibility was to be objective.
“A hero. A man who shot a card cheat and then defended himself when the cheat’s brothers sought revenge. A villain. A man who cowardly shot another man in the back and then murdered the brothers while hiding under a table. You decide which you want him to be.”
Lafferty could not keep quiet no matter how much he wanted to. “But shouldn’t that be for the readers to decide? Is it right to lead them around by the nose?”
Hinds sat back and thoughtfully tapped the edge of his desk. Finally he said, “What is the Times, son?”
“A newspaper.”
“What else, son?” Hinds asked, and when Lafferty did not answer right away, he said, “The Times is a business. All newspapers are. They exist to make money. If they don’t make money, they fold. Therefore it behooves them to do whatever is necessary to increase their circulations so they make as much money as they can. Follow me?”
“I never thought of it in quite that fashion,” Lafferty admitted.
Hinds smiled. “That is because you are young and an idealist. I was the same at your age. Ideals are fine and dandy, but we must never let them get in the way of reality, and the reality is that people don’t want just the bare bones—they want juicy meat, and the more of that meat we feed them, the more of them buy our paper. Follow me now?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I will tell you what,” Hinds said, sliding the piece across the desk. “Rewrite this. Throw in some juice. Do a good job and we will run it in the afternoon edition. Do a really good job and I will let you fill in for Farnsworth on a probationary basis.”
“Probationary?”
“You must prove yourself, son. Show me you have what it takes and the job is yours. That’s fair, isn’t it?”
“More than fair,” Lafferty said, excitement bubbling in him like bubbling water in a hot pot.
Hinds grew thoughtful again. “In fact, now that I think about it, write two pieces. One about Frost and another about Farnsworth. Make Farnsworth out to be a lion of journalism. Lament his loss to the good people of Dodge City, and to the world.”
Lafferty took a risk. “I don’t mention he was in love with himself and thought most people are idiots?”
Hinds laughed. “No, you do not mention he was an egotistical ass. Praise his virtues, and if you have to, make up virtues to praise. Stir the emotions of our readers. That’s the juicy meat, son.” When the younger man did not leap up and run off to rewrite the story, Hinds asked, “Is something else on your mind?”
“I was thinking, sir,” Lafferty said. “I can turn this into a series of articles. Milk it for all it is worth.” Now that he knew what was required of him, he saw all sorts of possibilities.
“That is fine but don’t get ahead of yourself. Do the rewrite and we will talk some more.”
Lafferty rose and offered his hand in gratitude. “Thank you, sir. I have learned more from you in the past ten minutes than I ever learned from Edison Farnsworth.”
“Flattery, son, will get you everywhere.”
The white one-room schoolhouse sat by itself five hundred yards beyond the town limits. That was Ernestine Prescott’s doing. When she answered the appeals placed in several Eastern newspapers for a schoolmarm and came to Dodge City only to find they did not have a schoolhouse, she politely but firmly requested that it be built outside town, where her young charges could pursue their education in relative peace and solitude. Noisy streets were not conducive to study.
Dodge’s civic leaders were happy to oblige. Schoolmarms were hard to come by. There were not enough of them to meet the growing demand on the frontier, and Ernestine’s credentials were impressive. She had taught school for six years in Hartford, Connecticut, and for another six at a country school in the Catskills.