“Then, you’d hire him?”
“How do they say it? In a New York minute!”
Before Solomon could stop him, Jason was on his feet and heading toward the door, saying, “Thanks, Solomon, you’ve been a real help.”
Solomon shot to his feet. “Wait!”
Jason stopped stock-still. “What is it?”
“Jason, I have a small problem, as well.”
Jason came back to the shoe section and sat back down beside him. “Tell me.”
Solomon did, right down to the last horehound drop, then asked, “What should I do? I can’t be asking young Bill to give away his dog, but I can’t have him here. The only time I’m safe from his pillaging is at night, when he’s locked up in the back room with Bill.”
Jason pursed and relaxed his lips several times, a sure sign he was considering the matter. Suddenly, he looked up from the floor and said, “If you want to talk this over with Bill, I’d admire to take that dog, and Bill can see him any time he wants. I’ve got a strong liking for Hannibal. And I know that Hannibal would admire Jenny’s cooking.”
Jason grinned at him, and Solomon felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He still had to talk to Bill, but he felt he had his bases covered. He said, “Wonderful, wonderful!” and both men rose.
He walked Jason to the door, but halfway through it, Jason stopped and turned to face him. “I almost forgot to mention it, Solomon. Sampson Davis died this afternoon. We’re gonna bury him tomorrow, I guess, barring any religious ceremony . . .”
Automatically, Solomon muttered beneath his breath, “Blessed are You, Lord our God, King of the Universe, the true Judge,” then he held up a hand. “Wait. Someone should be sitting shiva for him, someone needs to—”
This time, Jason was the one with his hands in the air. “Hold on. None of this makes any sense to me, you know. Is this something only Jews can help with?”
Sadly, Solomon nodded his head. “Some is best with a rabbi, but only Jews, yes.” And then he realized that there would be no need for them to sit shiva. That was to be left to his people in California.
When Jason didn’t speak, Solomon asked, “Could we have the use of the jail? The body needs to be prepared for burial.”
“Well, I already sent him over to the undertakers, but I reckon we can get him brought back. That be okay?”
Solomon nodded. “It’s a start. And we’ll need a coffin. Plain pine, with no metal, no nails. Only wooden pegs.” He sighed, thinking, then looked up again. “I’ll go get Rachael.”
23
Over at the saloon, Ezra Welk was innocently gathering information as quickly as it came in. He had got to be on a first-name basis with Nicky, one of the few barmaids who worked the day shift, and Nicky was his new font of information.
Sampson Davis had perished sometime during the day, and had been moved from the jail to the undertaker’s, then from the undertaker’s back to the jail. Nicky wasn’t certain why, but after she reported, a short time later, that Rachael Cohen (wife of Solomon Cohen, the mercantile owner) had entered the jail carrying packages and clothes, he managed to put two and two together.
They were all a bunch of Jews!
Which meant that Davis was one, too. Or had been.
It figured. He’d known there was something wrong with Davis right from the very start, hadn’t he? He wasn’t a religious man—far from it—but the term “Christ killer” rolled nicely on his tongue. And he’d never admit it, but he liked having somebody around he could feel morally superior to. He congratulated himself on his prescience, and ordered another beer. There was just enough time to drink it before he needed to be back at the boardinghouse. That was, if he wanted a share of that big turkey that he’d seen Mrs. Kendall put into the oven this morning.
His stomach rumbled at the thought of it!
That evening found Rachael in the jail, quietly attending to Davis’s body. It was dark and she was alone, so when she heard the door open she jumped.
“Solomon?” she said, scolding herself. But the next voice she heard didn’t belong to her husband.
“Mrs. Kendall told me you were preparing the body for burial,” said a female voice.
“Yes,” said Rachael, then, “Who’s there?”
“Sorry,” said the voice before its owner stepped into the feeble light of the solitary lantern Rachael had lit. Judith Strong peeled the light gloves from her hands and shrugged. “Ich, auch, bin Juden,” she said, indicating that she, too, was of the Jewish faith and heritage.
Rachael was so shocked and happy that she nearly fell to her knees and kissed the woman’s hem! After all this time, all these years, another Jewish woman!
Instead, she began sobbing. “Praise be to Jehovah!” she gasped through her tears.
“You mean it’s just us?” the woman asked, and when Rachael nodded, she shook her head. “No chverah kadisha, then?”
Rachael’s head shook, to indicate there was no sacred Jewish burial society. How could there be, when she and her family were—or had been—the only Jews in town?
“America,” the newcomer muttered, shaking her head as she went to the basin and began to wash her hands. “Small towns. My name’s Judith, by the way. Judith Strong.”
“R-Rachael Cohen.”
“I know. I’ve seen you before. Your husband, he owns the mercantile?”
Rachael sniffed. “Yes.”
“And you just had a baby, I hear?”
Rachael smiled, just a tad. “Yes. Little Sarah.”
Toweling her hands, Judith Strong nodded. “I heard she was very sickly. She’s better now?”
“Thank you, she’s much improved, knock wood.” Rachael had a grip on herself by this time, and wiped her eyes with her hankie. She accidentally glanced at Judith Strong’s hands, and saw the many tiny scabs covering her fingertips. She said, “You’re our new milliner and dressmaker?”
Judith smiled and said, “My hands give me away every time.”
“I’m sorry,” Rachael said self-consciously, and flushed. “I didn’t mean to stare.”
Judith’s smile widened and she put a hand on Rachael’s shoulder. “It’s all right, my dear. Do you have tachrichin?”
Rachael nodded, and pointed to a paper-wrapped package on the desk. She only had the tachrichin left from the long ago journey west, because she had been afraid that either she or her husband would die during the journey. She had wanted to be sure there was enough of the plain, white shroud—this one was hand-loomed from cotton, not linen—to wrap the body and bury it. And now it was going to wrap the body of a killer, the man who had murdered their friend Ward Wanamaker.
“Very good, then. And I know the prayers for each part of the ritual, if you don’t.”
Rachael said, “Please. Yes, you preside, please.” A small smile crossed her lips. Imagine, a woman knowing an “official” part of the preparation of the body! She added, “And then we will sit and be shomerim? Through the aninut?” she added, to make certain that she wouldn’t be left alone with him again until he was in the ground.
“Yes,” said Judith, curling her long arm about Rachael’s shoulders and directing her back toward the cell, and the body. “We will both stay to guard him. Sehr gut?”
Rachael’s head bobbed up and down. “Ja,” she said in her pidgen Deutsch, which Judith seemed to be speaking more than pure Yiddish. “Sehr gut.”
Very good.
Outside the town walls, Father Micah was burning the midnight oil, quite literally. Just south of where the wagon train had been parked, he sat on the ground with his lantern beside him, forming a mixture of Arizona’s plentiful caliche earth, plus straw, plus a mixture that Mr. Cohen had given him, into adobe bricks. He picked up another handful of mud and pressed it firmly into the wooden mold before him, then turned it out, upside down, besides the countless others he’d made during the day.