No, he thought, shaking his head. I don’t know ’em at all.
24
The town of Fury buried Sampson Davis the next day.
The only Jew serving as a pall bearer, Solomon, was aided by Jason, Salmon Kendall, Wash Keogh, Rafe Lynch, Marshal Todd and, of all people, the Reverend Milcher. Solomon had resisted Milcher’s inclusion long and hard, but when no one else came forward, he had to give in. Neither the Reverend Bean nor Father Micah was anywhere in sight.
They carried his body in a casket made with no metal fittings, just pegs and wedges to hold it together, and before the casket left the jail, both Rachael and Judith performed the ritual keriah, or symbolic rending of their clothes. This entailed each of them making a small tear—made where Judith said she could fix it, of course—in her clothing, in lieu of Sampsom having no family present.
When the procession made its way up the street—stopping seven times for reasons Jason didn’t completely understand—and into the cemetery, the “mourners” recited the 23rd Psalm, Solomon recited the memorial prayer El Maleh Rakhamin, the Mourner’s Kaddish, and since they had no rabbi present, the eulogy. It was short but memorable, and during the first part of it Solomon was so nervous that he shook and stuttered a bit. But all in all, it went pretty smoothly, Jason thought, right through the part where they all had to shovel three scoops of earth onto the echoing coffin, say, “May he come to his place in peace,” and then stick the shovel back in the pile of earth where he’d found it. This was to avoid the passing on of death, Solomon told them, as if it were catching.
They all had to wait until the grave was completely filled in, then the pall bearers were told to wash their hands before they left—Jason and Abe used the horse trough—and that was it. So far as Jason was concerned, anyhow.
While nearly the entire saloon had emptied to go and catch a peek at Davis’s funeral, Ezra Welk sat nearly alone in the saloon, deciding if right now would be the best time to go and shoot that goofy excuse for a dog that seemed to be hanging around town. He finally decided against it.
But he was bored silly. This town was getting entirely too calm for him. He was pissed that he’d missed the whole Indian thing, pissed that he didn’t get to see Davis hang, or at least watch them haul the marshal’s body into town over his horse. Either marshal would have done. What was the danged West coming to, anyhow?
He thought again about the dog, and thought something that ugly surely didn’t deserve to live. He’d decided not to shoot it, but now he reconsidered. After all, who the hell’d miss it?
He downed the rest of his beer, stood up, and started for the batwing doors.
Bill Crachit, having been left by Solomon to guard the mercantile against Hannibal, sat slouched in a chair beneath the overhang. There were no customers during the funeral, and he’d spent a peaceful half hour sitting out front, watching Hannibal drowse (and chase imaginary rabbits in his sleep) on the sidewalk outside the marshal’s office.
But as he watched, he noticed a man come out of the saloon. He’d figured about everybody else was at the funeral, but he’d been wrong. He hadn’t seen this fellow before, either.
The fellow started to walk across the street, toward the marshal’s office, and as he walked, he pulled his gun.
Bill stood up, all the hairs on his neck standing on end.
The man stopped in the middle of the road and raised his pistol, pointing it at Hannibal.
“Stop! Don’t!” Bill leapt off the porch and took two long strides before he heard the shot.
At first he thought Hannibal was dead, and then he realized that the gunshot had come from behind him. The man down the street had fallen, while the dog was just gaining his feet, yawning and stretching.
From behind him, a voice asked, “You okay, Bill?”
Tears pooling in his eyes, he whirled about and recognized the speaker, who was just shoving his Colt back in its holster.
Thickly, he replied, “Yessir, Marshal Fury. I mean, Jason.” Then he got some of the stiff back in his spine. He shot an accusing finger toward the body lying down the street. “Did you see? He was gonna shoot Hannibal!”
Jason nodded. There was another man with him. The deputy U.S. marshal, Bill thought, and he was wearing a brand new hat, a heavy-duty Stetson. Mr. Cohen had sold it to him the first thing this morning.
Jason said, “I don’t believe he’s gonna try that again, for a while, anyway.”
“Mebbe not never,” said the U.S. Marshal, and started ahead, on down the street.
Bill heard Jason mutter, “Christ, no . . .” before he took off, running down the street after the older marshal.
Jason skidded to a halt next to Abe, just as he stopped beside the downed man. “Is he . . . is he still alive?” he asked hopefully, his voice shaking almost as hard as his knees. He’d shot men before, but never just for threatening a dog! What had he been thinking?
Abe didn’t answer him, at least, not yet. He had bent to the body, checked for a pulse, and was going through the pockets. He found a worn wallet, stood up, and started going through it.
After what seemed like hours (during which Jason imagined himself going through a trial, then being marched out to a scaffold and hanged, then being read over by the Reverend Milcher in a much less kindly tone than he’d used for Ward), Abe looked up and said, “Thought so.”
“What does that mean?”
“Thought he looked familiar. He was Ezra Welk, wanted for a string’a killin’s and robberies over the last ten, fifteen years or so.” He looked over toward Jason. “Wanted in the Arizona Territory, too. Reckon there’s a bunch’a folks who’ll be tickled pink to close the books on him.”
Jason felt his insides slowly begin to settle themselves again.
“C’mon, hero,” Abe said, thumping Jason’s arm. “Help me drag this dog turd over to the side’a the road.”
They went back to the office when it was over, and Abe pulled out a chair, lit himself a smoke, and said, “Well, I’d best be makin’ my way back up to Prescott.”
“What?” asked Jason. It was the last thing he had expected.
“Gotta file my report. Gotta turn in ol’ Ezra.” He tipped his head toward the door. “Gotta talk to my boss ’bout gettin’ hitched.” He grinned self-consciously. “Gotta arrange a change in duty, too.”
“Electa know about this?”
“Oh, yeah. We talked it all over yesterday. Sure gonna be nice to have her to come home to.”
Abe was fast fading into a waking dreamland, and Jason tried to engage him in conversation. “So, when’re you two tyin’ the knot?”
“What? Oh, next Saturday. I already talked to the reverend.”
“Milcher or Bean?”
“Milcher,” Abe said with a shrug. “He’s the only one what’s got a church. Electa says he used to be pretty pushy, but somethin’ must’a happened, cause he’s got a lot softer lately.”
Well, that was true. But Jason kept on talking. “You find a place to live yet?”
Abe blew out a long plume of smoke before he said, “Well, Electa said that her folks’d be tickled pink to have us move in with them for the time bein’, but I told her that I think I really oughta stick around town. You know, keep in touch.”
Jason nodded. He wholeheartedly agreed.
“So, I reckon we’ll stay at the roomin’ house. I’ve already got a room over there. And Mrs. Kendall says she can give the two of us a bigger one, iffen we want.” He stopped and smiled. “I reckon we’ll take her up on that. Till I can get us a house, that is. Why don’t this town have a telegraph?”
The question caught Jason a little off guard, but he said, “’Cause nobody’s strung the wires, I guess. Don’t know that we’ve got anybody here who knows how to use the damn thing, even if we had one.”