Wixson was not alone in facing their collective ire; the doctor had blundered by declaring Mrs. Clifton dead, when clearly she was not, and his hat was knocked from his head and trampled upon to let him know that he, too, was a faker and a cheat. Wixson’s punishment was more severe: not only were his beam balance and wagon overturned, his face and body suffered a degree of battery that would leave him bruised and swollen for days afterward.
Clay knew he was abandoning his duty by following the body to the porch. Criminal assault and destruction of property were taking place behind his back, but Clay preferred to let happen what might, rather than attempt to quell what he saw as righteous anger. Madge was with her mother, and Clay wished to be near Madge. It became apparent, even as Mrs. Clifton was laid down on the split-cane chaise, that she had succumbed once more. There was no pulse, no breath to mist a mirror hastily fetched by Madge, and the old woman’s face was made a sickly yellow by the lamps held above her. Still, no one was prepared to pronounce her dead a second time, and Madge maintained a steady fanning of her mother’s brow, just in case.
“Who’s Johnny?” asked Clay.
“My little brother that died,” Madge said. “He used to fetch Mama’s jug.”
Clay was standing closer to Madge than anyone else. Madge was still a whore, and no one was prepared to risk charges of unwanted intimate contact with her, even by accident. Several of her regular customers were on the porch, watching the pandemonium in the yard, but their wives were there also, so they kept their backs to her.
“You’d better make them quit,” Madge told Clay.
He marched into the yard and smacked together the two nearest male heads, then repeated the action a little further into the melee, only to have his cheek scratched by a woman who resented his picking on her husband so. Clay saw the doctor fleeing the scene with his crushed hat, and looked around for Wixson. The reverend was hunched over his disassembled scales, sobbing without tears, and Clay felt sorry enough for him to make sure nobody else came within punching or kicking distance. “Better leave it and get indoors,” he advised, but Wixson appeared not to hear him. He passed his hands across the brass plates and rods and chains of his beautiful device and continued to sob.
The reporter from Tucson approached, his face lit up by enthusiasm; he had never before been present at so unlikely a series of events, and his editor would be filled with praise for the story; his earlier report on the vigil beside the slowly expiring Mrs. Clifton had been of sufficient interest to his editor that it was forwarded to other newspapers by wire for inclusion on their pages.
“Marshal Dugan, sir, could I have a quote from you regarding what happened here this evening?”
“You can say I think the line between life and death is as blurred as ever, and likely supposed to be that way.”
“Will any of this affect your churchgoing habits, sir?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Thank you. Is she dead yet, can anyone tell?”
“Looks dead to me, but she did before, so don’t go quoting me on that. Maybe you better forget that other thing I said too. I don’t want to be quoted about anything.”
“As you wish, Marshal.”
The reporter went to Madge and began asking questions. Clay wandered around the yard, keeping an eye on what remained of the crowd. Most had left or were in the process of leaving, some of them shamefaced about their behavior, some not. Even the gathering near the porch was thinning. Soon the only persons remaining in the vicinity were Madge and her mother (lying still as a log), the reporter and Wixson and Clay.
Madge went into the house and returned with a tray bearing bottles of beer and glasses, and an impromptu wake began, despite the lack of any official declaration of death for the woman on the split-cane chaise. The evening was fine and warm, with just a hint of breeze bringing the smell of the desert to town, and the chinaberry tree in the front yard could be heard softly stirring. Clay forced a beer on Wixson, and the reverend drained it in four or five lengthy gulpings. Clay handed him another. “You can put it back together with some help,” he said. “Something built as solid as that, you can’t wreck it just by tipping it over.”
Wixson nodded but would not talk, so Clay drifted back to the porch, where the reporter was entertaining Madge with a story he had recently written concerning an incident in Tucson. “I know for a fact, ma’am, how hard it can be to determine a precise state of, uh, deceasement. There was a fellow tried to hang himself down our way just a short while back, and he just couldn’t seem to get it right. He tried three times in as many weeks, and bungled the job each time, and the strange thing is, when people cut him down, he’d tell them, ‘I did it again, I did it again.’ I can see why he’d say something like that the second and third times, but not the first, unless he did it to himself other times before he came to public attention. Smelled of drink, they say, and had some letters on him from a woman in Rhode Island, Miss Sally Quick.”
“You say Quick?” Clay asked.
“That’s right.”
“This feller that can’t hang himself right, is he little and pockmarked, losing hair on the top of his head?”
“That’s the one, Marshal. You know him?”
“Used to handle hangings in this town till just recent, didn’t he, Madge?”
“Mr. Quick disgraced himself a short while back,” said Madge. “He attempted to hang a certain man, and pulled his head clean off.” Madge provided more details of the Maxwell hanging, and the reporter took notes. “Mr. Quick took to drinking after that, I heard, and disappeared. Is he being cared for by someone?”
“No, ma’am; he’s in jail for trying to hang himself all the time. There’s talk he’ll be sent to an asylum if he doesn’t mend his ways. Does he have family out this way that could take care of him?”
“Lived with just a cat, I heard,” said Clay.
“That’s a shame. Well, at least I’m able to clear up the mystery, thanks to you folks. Marshal, I’m told you used to be a bounty man. Care to share with my readership a few of your exploits?”
“No.”
“I believe I could arrange with my editor for monetary compensation if the stories were the right kind, filled with action and derring-do, you know the kind of thing.”
“Not interested.”
“Earp and Hickock, they weren’t famous men till they found their way into the newspapers, Marshal.”
“I wouldn’t care to be famous.”
“Not even a little bit?”
Clay walked off to see if Wixson needed another beer. He was still crouched among the pieces of his beam balance, and would not respond to attempts at conversation. Clay swigged beer and kept his back toward the porch. The reporter had annoyed him. He didn’t like anyone who tried to dig up his past and shine a light on it. He listened as the reporter said good night to Madge, and ignored the man when the same words were offered to him. Clay kept staring into the darkness beyond the yard until he could no longer hear the reporter’s retreating footsteps, then turned around.
“Help me get her inside, would you, Clay?” Madge asked.
Clay picked up the body of Mrs. Clifton and carried it through to the old lady’s bedroom. He set her down carefully, then retreated with Madge, closing the door behind them.
“I’ll send the doctor around again come morning.”
“Thank you.”
“Even he should be able to tell for sure if she’s gone by then.”
“I feel she is.”
“Well, I guess we learned tonight you can’t be sure.”
“What shall we do with Reverend Wixson?”
“Leave him to cry for a while. He brought it on himself, telling folks his contraption could tell the difference between the living and the dead. Last time I met him he was intending to rig up a special camera to take pictures of the soul coming out. Guess he couldn’t afford it. He’s a fool if he keeps on the way he is.”
“We all are fools at some time or oth
er.”
“Could be.”
“Would you care to sit down in the parlor? I have some more beer.”
“No, thank you. I need to be doing what they pay me for.”
“I doubt that the town will burst into flames tonight. People have already let off steam.”
“Most likely they have.”
“Then you may put your feet up.”
Clay was becoming uncomfortable. The temptation to linger inside Madge’s house was strong. They were alone, assuming her mother was truly dead this time, and Clay knew that putting his boots up would result in them being drawn off his feet, purely for the added comfort, and once his boots were off his pants would follow, and the neighbors were probably watching to see if he left or stayed. It would be more than his job could sustain. He was probably going to draw fire in any case for his casual handling of the riot in Madge’s backyard. Tracking wanted men had been a lonely and uncomfortable life, and not even very rewarding financially in the long run, but it had been simple, and he could fill each day and hour with conduct of his own choosing.
He stood up. “I’ll take Wixson along with me and give him a clean cell for the night.”
“As you wish.”
Her face and voice gave nothing away. He moved awkwardly toward the door, nodded and left. Crossing the yard to the overturned wagon, he kicked up clouds of dust and swore at himself and the town and the fool who had caused everything to collapse around him tonight.
“Reverend? Get up. You’re coming with me.”
Wixson made no move to comply, did not even turn his head. Clay grabbed him by the collar and hauled him to his feet. “You can put it back together tomorrow. Right now you need to come with me.” He assisted Wixson for several steps by keeping him upright, then the man found his own legs and began walking. Clay released his collar, and they fell into reluctant step with each other.
“This is the end …,” Wixson intoned.
“Is that so.”
“They believed me, and then … they turned against me.”
“Can’t blame them for that. When she sat up like she did it ruined your pitch, all right.”
“Pitch? I have no ‘pitch.’ I have a message from the Lord, and on this night it was trampled beneath the feet of the ignorant. They do not deserve the opportunity for learning that I offer.…”
“Maybe you should be a regular preacher again. That’s what they like: sermons on Sundays, and to hell with science.”
“They deserve nothing.…”
“Maybe so. You won’t get an argument from me.”
Wixson lapsed into silence, and accepted Clay’s offer of a cell without comment.
In the morning he drank coffee without a word of thanks, then left. Clay had intended to assist him in getting the wagon back onto its wheels, but Wixson’s mood irritated him. It came as a surprise to learn, later in the day, that the preacher had sold his team and wagon to the livery stable, and his beam balance to the blacksmith. He had purchased a saddle horse and packhorse and left town. Now Clay had no reason to go over to Madge’s house, and he blamed Wixson for having moved too fast without consulting him first; Clay would have changed his mind about helping with the wagon before the day was out, just for an excuse to return to Willow Street. Now he could not, and he was irritated all over again because of it.
For several weeks his life was without incident. He stayed away from Madge, arrested drunks and settled minor barroom disputes by his presence alone. The riot over Wixson’s religious gadgetry had not harmed his reputation, nor that of the town. Copies of the Tucson newspaper reached Dry Wash, and its citizens were pleased to find themselves portrayed as commonsense types with a sharp eye for snake oil. The humorous account of “Wixson’s folly” and the subsequent act of communal vengeance was like something out of a book, it was said, by those in town who happened to have read a book.
Copies of the article were passed around until tattered, then preserved in family Bibles for future generations to enjoy. Clay was less than pleased to find himself rendered in dark tones, a journalist’s notion of a tough and forbidding lawman who was opposed to the farcical goings-on before they even began, and who ran the perpetrator out of town with the same ruthlessness with which he had in days gone by hunted down outlaws. He could not recognize himself, but no one seemed to mind that their law officer had been misrepresented; the important thing for Dry Wash was that its name had found its way into print, and there was talk of setting up a local news sheet to cover future stories, although two such ventures had already failed in the recent past. In short, Dry Wash was filled with pride and self-congratulation.
Clay felt none of this, and despised those who did, thereby placing himself silently at odds with the community that he served. It was nothing new for Clay to feel that way, but he hated to walk down the street and be obliged to respond with smiles to the cheery greetings that came his way from people for whom he had no real affection or respect. Nothing that they felt so good about had actually happened, at least not the way it had been depicted in the Tucson paper. They had swallowed whole a misrepresentation of themselves because it was more flattering than reality. They had been dupes, then angry dupes, that was all, and Clay had done nothing to stop any of it. If he could see the truth, why could no one else? It angered him, and made him drink. He would have liked to throttle the reporter who had concocted so amusing a fantasy, or else make him retract the entire story and rewrite it the way it actually happened.
There was one individual in town who would have understood the way he felt, but he had promised himself never again to venture anywhere near her house unless it be on official business. He had even gone so far as to cross the street rather than confront Madge for the blandest exchange of greetings. Madge Clifton would have agreed with him that the incident in her backyard and its aftermath were a sour joke on the town, and they could have laughed together over the prevalence of fools in the region. But he couldn’t talk to her, let alone share a beer and privacy. So he drank alone in his cramped room above the office, or in the saloons at a corner table, which amounted to the same thing. The things that were inside him were obliged to stay there, like it or not.
Three weeks after the burial of her mother, Madge entered Clay’s office. Clay had attended the funeral out of respect, but had stayed at the rear of the graveside gathering, and hurried away without expressing his commiserations face-to-face with Madge. When he saw her coming through the doorway, his heart gave a guilty lurch before, settling into a steady gallop that carried it nowhere at all.
“Good afternoon, Marshal.”
“Miss Clifton. What can I do for you?”
“I have asked myself that question. May I sit?”
“Help yourself. I mean … please do.”
Once seated, she cocked her head and looked at his face. Clay generally did not like people staring at him; he knew he was ugly, and their stares seemed intrusive and downright rude. He never revealed this, since it would have granted the starers a kind of power over him. But with Madge it was different; she was staring not at the holes in his face but into the eyes behind his spectacles, as if awaiting some kind of revelation there. Clay tolerated the stare because it gave him the opportunity to stare right back, and he found that Madge looked better than he remembered. He guessed she had lost some weight beneath her jaw; in fact she seemed to have slimmed down all over. Clay had heard that this was a fairly common sign of unhappiness and distress, and he supposed it was due to the loss of her mother, even though from Clay’s perspective such a loss would have represented a tremendous relief from familial obligation; but maybe it was different with women.
“I’m leaving,” Madge said at last.
“Leaving?”
“This town and this territory.”
“Why?”
“Why not? Why should I stay here? Mama has left me a little money I had no idea she owned, and the house has been put up for sale. You might make an offer on it yourself. You can’t p
ossibly be comfortable upstairs here. See the agent down the street if you’re interested. I’ll accept a reasonable sum.”
“But why not stay?”
“Because for me there is nothing here to which I am attached, Mr. Dugan, sir. I’m not a popular figure around town, not during the hours of daylight. We have no need to speak in riddles. I’m a soiled dove, as they say, and no longer young. The road from here isn’t a pretty one. I intend remaking my life before it’s too late, and to do that I must go away. Far away. I believe I’ll try California. They say the climate in the northern half is mild. Not San Francisco, no, nothing so grand. A small town, not dissimilar to this in size, but with a touch more … how to put it … a touch more savoir faire. I don’t ask for much, just the opportunity to begin again. Mama has given me that. You stare at me. Have you nothing to say?”
“I … well, this is … a surprise, uh, Madge.”
“Life is filled with them, they say. This surely isn’t your first.”
“When are you leaving?”
“I’ve purchased a ticket on the stage line for tomorrow morning. I’m quite excited at the prospect of new horizons. A much-traveled man like yourself must know how that feels.”