Chapter 5 The Shed

Several people poured out of the various saloons in the town when it became known that a wagon carrying Maverick—who'd been set upon by murderous thieves—had arrived. Taking a look at him, each drifted off to a knot of others to talk about highwaymen, card players running out of luck, where was the sheriff, and such like. The sheriff was finally found—where he was napping. Awakened abruptly, he left the sanctity of the Denver jail and found himself in the street, surrounded by angry petitioners. When would the roads be safe? When would these outlaws be caught and locked up for good? He calmed down some of the more vocal ones with a threatening move towards his six-shooter. Others he simply plowed through as he moved toward the wagon.

"Take him over to the jail. He can use a cot there."

"What about where Doc lives?"

"Doc is only for townsfolk. He's from out o' town. By the looks of 'im, too, he can't be expected to pay Doc's fee. Take him where I said and leave him."

While those kind words lingered in the air, Maverick's body was lifted out of the wagon, carried in a three-man operation towards the jail, not far, and taken inside. The sheriff meanwhile turned to Tommy.

"Tell me where all this was."

"Out on the road, about two hours away. About four miles, sheriff."

"You men," he said, straightening up. "Get some horses and check out the area. Try not to spook the bad guys. I want to have 'em sittin' in jail by breakfast tomorrow!"

Sheriff Hardee, a medium-built man with a lot of grizzle in his bones, gathered up some of the posse himself, leaving Tommy in the darkening street looking after him. The boy turned around, thinking how alone he was, but soon found several pairs of hands reaching for him. He was tired and let himself fall into them, waking up hours later at a loud and rowdy noise just outside the door, hearing it through the thin walls. He lay in the back room of a saloon, he could easily guess, the kind of place where Maverick played cards. The kind of place where ladies in bright, shiny dresses laughed and sometimes swore, where men threw glasses at the walls, where they laid hands on those—

Tommy felt himself being lightly pushed and pulled back and forth.

"Wake up, boy," came a soft, female voice. "Someone's here for you."

Tommy knew it couldn't be Bret, but he hoped it was. He squinted awake and looked up into the face of what seemed like a girl, with powder and rouge and dark eyelashes too long to be her own. He couldn't tell her age.

"What—what do you want?" he asked, drowsily. "I don't know you. Where's Bret?"

"Bret's—" and she said the name familiarly, "resting up in jail. There's a party to see you. Right here."

"He's still in jail? He needs a doc."

"We got up a small collection. Doc doesn't charge much. Only about two dollars, two-fifty. But we had enough. Guess the sheriff couldn't be bothered to fetch him over and pay it. Well, anyway. We got up some money. Two of us went to Doc's house and asked him to visit … ah, the jail." Tommy thought she was about to say Bret's name again, in that low, soft way.

"How is he?"

"Doc saw him, said he needs rest. Had too many blows all at once. His face—" Here she broke off and looked down.

"He'll be alright now?" asked Tommy.

She raised her glittery head again, with its small, feather and sequin hat on top of it. "Why shouldn't he be?" Then without further ado, she rustled Tommy out of bed. "You're goin' someplace."

"Where?" he asked, all suspicion now. She was addressing his suspender buckles and trouser buttons. He shied away.

"A lady has asked to see you. She sent a messenger. You be good to this lady. She's not too well. All the town knows that. You do, too, now. Remember to mind me."

The saloon girl finished buttoning one of Tommy's trouser buttons, while he made faces over it. "I can do that, myself," he said, trying to push her hand down.

"You better mind me," she warned again.

Next he was subjected to an all-out combing. His hair, naturally curly like his friend Bret's, light-brown while Bret's was very dark, like blue-black ink, was knotty for lack of a comb. A washcloth scoured his face with soap and too-warm water, then once rinsed out, came back for a second round. His hands were gone over, too, so that by the time Tommy was ready to go on stage, he felt the part of the very clean boy he was about to play.

"Drink this." The lip-painted she-devil thrust a glass of milk in his hand. "Here's a couple of cookies, too. Eat 'em quick and some out as soon as you're done."

She then left Tommy in peace. He drank down half the milk, ate a cookie, and returned to the milk, repeating the process. When he could delay no longer, he turned the handle of the door and came out, seeing a large, dark-skinned man in a black and white suit standing before him. The hand reaching out to cup his head had a white glove on it. Tommy dutifully started to come, but then stopped.

"Can I see my friend soon?" he asked of the man.

"Of course," he was assured, finding no assurance in the stranger's words.

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Maverick was indeed resting up in jail. Bitterly tired, his limbs sore and face swollen, he just lay, wondering about nothing, not even about the boy. He knew someone in town was looking after him, keeping him from running off somewhere. Dorsey visited him an hour ago, sitting by his side on the edge of the bed, and said she'd take the boy in hand. He was sleeping right then over at the Horse Trough.

Old Billy, another saloon friend of his, who worked in the Trough's kitchen, came by some time after Dorsey had left to go back to the saloon. He brought an old pair of boots. Maverick nodded his head at the gifts, but didn't have enough breath in him to speak his thanks.

One of the town doctors, a gruff, middle-aged man who handled Maverick's swollen jaw with uncomfortable energy, came to the jail with Old Billy. He wrapped Maverick's sprained wrist, gave him a drink with aspirin powder in it, ordered him to get some sleep and then left. He wasn't there more than five minutes. Old Billy sat with him longer than that, letting him sleep, but when he got up to go, he prodded Maverick awake a little, whispering in his ear that his horse was being looked after. No fret on that score.

Maverick sighed, moving his head up and down, but not opening his eyes. When Old Billy closed the cell door, which remained unlocked, he pulled it to with the softest sound. Maverick fell into a less restless sleep a moment after, allowing a total, black silence wrap itself around him. Throughout his long limbs, hands and feet, there was only this utter stillness. His heart beat slowly, oh, so slowly, like a methodical grandfather's clock on a dusty staircase landing. Thought and feeling both ceased operating their wiles. Even the scant echo of Old Billy's voice, and Dorsey's, had fled him.

He didn't wake up until mid-morning the next day. By that time, several things had occurred of interest to him as Tommy's friend.

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Day 5 of his involvement with Mrs. Delacourt's three children, or at least one of them, dawned fairly cool and windy. Maverick saw nothing of the dawn, but later in the morning, while he was shaving in the small jail bath, he took a spare towel and wiped off the film of its single grimy window and stared out. A stockade fence immediately met his eye, with odd, assorted barrels and crates strewn against it. Clouds suddenly passed over the sun still in the south and blocked out the light. He thought seriously about it, then realized that September had arrived, and with it, fall weather.

He dipped his razor once more in the basin water and swirled the soap off it, then applied it to his face again. Raising his head and taking long swipes at his neck, then under the base of his jaw, he was done, wiping off the rest of the soap with his shaving towel. The sheriff had loaned him the shaving razor. After his experiences of the last few days, though his ribs and face still ached, he almost felt like a new man.

He walked out of the tiny room with an air of ease and new strength, though he felt far from strong yet. He had put on Old Billy's boots, vaguely remembering the older man's visit, or Dorsey's before him. But he could remember her cool hands and soft voice. He thought he could at any rate. He'd have to go see them and thank them again for helping him out. He went back to his cell to sit upon the cot for about twenty minutes, feeling lightheaded and queasy, although he hadn't eaten anything that morning.

The shock of the fast stream swirling around his head still lay heavily on him, and, burden or no burden, he planned to leave Denver shortly. Maverick knew when he was beat. He'd go find the boy and still carry out what he had promised Demarest he'd do—take him away without ever telling him the truth about his ma.

He hated to leave sooner than he wanted to, though. He'd miss a chance to earn back some of his lost money—the money in his right boot—and talk with old friends like Old Billy and Dorsey. He was especially leery, too, of going back on the road again where the two thieves were still at large. He left his cell and entered the town marshal's office, ready for a little conversation about his two favorite villains, Harvey and Dan'l. He found the town marshal's deputy reading the paper.

"Sheriff hasn't telegraphed us from anywhere yet that he's caught 'em. Probably hasn't. They're two wily-sharp men, alright. We had 'em here last year. Fooled Marshal Higgett completely. Over 'nd over." The deputy laughed at his memories.

"They've caught me a couple of times when I wasn't looking," said Maverick, dryly, reflecting on the fact that if the boy hadn't been around both times, he might have easily slipped by a couple of lumbering bullies like Harvey and Dan'l. He'd done it before. With his black horses, his black suit, his rabbit-like fleetness of thinking, he could say he'd gotten away from some of the best highwaymen in the country, from Charleston to San Francisco. He could say that, though there were those two shanghai-men in Frisco he almost didn't get away from. That hadn't been so easy.

"I'm going over to the Horse Trough. Any chance the boy's still there?"

"Not a bit. Way I hear it, he spent the night in that rich lady's house. You know, up the street a mite?"

Maverick gasped and sat down in a spare chair as if struck by a hammer. He wiped his hand over his freshly-shaven face and whistled through his fingers.

"That can only mean one thing," he said, not explaining what he meant to the deputy who looked at him dumbfounded. "She knows. Must have seen 'im in the street. I don't think she goes into the saloons—not anymore."

"Who doesn't? Mrs. Delacourt? She's a well-bred lady. Why should she—?"

"I have to go," said Maverick, eagerly taking his black hat down from a wall peg. He was glad somebody thought to retrieve it from the slope where he had lost it, fighting with the robbers.

"Wait! You haven't had your breakfast yet. It's on the county!"

Maverick had fled out the door, while Deputy Sam Barnes murmured, "Don't say I didn't try."

The turning air struck Maverick first. He covered his upper body with his arms again and sped back to the jail. Peeking in the door, he asked, "Where's my horse and saddlebags?"

"Wyland's. You know where it is?"

But Maverick was gone again. He walked briskly over to the stable, the same one coincidentally where he had kept his horse before, and stirred up the stable boy. All of them were just alike, mostly sleeping in the middle of the day. He got his things and freed his long frock coat from one of the bags. Slipping it on over his bloody and torn cotton shirt, he hauled the bags out of the stable and to the Horse Trough the next street over. Paper flew along the sidewalks in the freshening wind. Clamping his hat down on his head, Maverick entered the Trough and hurried to the bar.

"Clem," he began, addressing the barkeep, "can you handle these for a while for me? I have to find that boy who came in with me yesterday."

"Sure," he said, dropping his cloth he was using to wipe up the bar, "I'll take them to the back room. That's where he was sleeping till that lady's servant came and got him."

"You know he spent the night at her place?"

"Well, he went off that way."

"Thanks, Clem. I owe you."

"You always do, lad, when you've run a bad streak."

Maverick laughed and waved as he went out. The sun refused to shine today, and the wind had turned a few degrees chillier since he had entered the saloon. Without further delay, he headed up the street towards the spate of good houses and trees along a small stream. The sound of the water put an additional chill in his bones. He went around back of the big three-story, white house and knocked on the kitchen door. When it opened, he said, simply, "I'd like to see Mrs. Delacourt."

"Mrs. Delacourt takes a nap about this time. If you're after something, you'll not find it here," said a black lady cook who met him at the door.

"Ma'am, I need to see Mrs. Delacourt. I brought a young boy into town with me, and I believe he's here, visiting. She sent for him to come."

"He may be welcome then, but you sure ain't. Look at you. Covered in mud and filth, you're shirt red with somethin' I won't ask about. Looks like you been in a brawl."

Maverick pulled the wide lapels of his black coat a little closer together. He jumped back as the door closed in his face. Knocking again only brought to it a large black youth, one who had forgotten how to smile.

"You want somethin', poor man?"

Maverick swallowed something and said, "I need to see Mrs. Delacourt. It's about the boy, her house-guest last night."

"He yours?"

"No, but—"

"Then you ain't got no business at this door. Didn't you hear who was napping about this time? You go away now."

He closed the door in Maverick's face, too. The forlorn card player didn't give up though. He sat down against the wall outside, hugging his coat to him and feeling foolish. Why hadn't he just used the front door? Maybe because of the mud, filth and blood.

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To his right lay the single slab of stone that served as the back door step. To his left were large, green, untrimmed bushes. He didn't have much room to sit between the single step and the sharp twigs of the greenery. He felt hungry. It'd been a long time since breakfast yesterday, the last time he'd eaten anything, or felt like it. After about ten, long minutes, the door opened again and the young man poked his head around the side of it. Then his tall, narrow shoulders emerged. Maverick partially opened his still sleep-heavy eyes and turned to look that way. He said nothing about why he was still sitting there.

"You better make tracks, mister, before I come out there with the broom handle."

Maverick merely nodded, then laid his head back against the clapboarded kitchen wall, closing his eyes again.

"I'm goin' to get it," muttered the youth as he disappeared, slamming the door shut. Maverick opened his eyes again, then moved out of his warm nook and got on his feet again, believing what his pappy liked to say just before making one of his own 'sudden' departures.

"Discretion's the better part of valor. Dam' good advice he gave me, sometimes."

He strode around the bushes at the back of the house and had walked only two or three yards beyond them when he stopped short. He stood under a huge, over-spreading tree, in some shadow, but despite that, he was easily enough seen. Two or three men were slipping off their horses in the sandy road running before the house. With more discretion than valor this time, Maverick turned tail and dodged back around the house. There stood the young man with the broom, a bundle of straw and handle. By the time he turned again, he knew he'd be facing Demarest's men. And he was. He backed up in the direction of the man with the broom, then stopped. Looking over his shoulder at him again, he turned back suddenly as Demarest himself stepped out around his men.

"Didn't think I'd be seein' you again so soon, gambler. I just got word at the jail that you'd hightailed it out of there. Figured where you'd be. Any why. Idiot question, but what are you here for?"

"That's a matter between Mrs. Delacourt and me."

"Though it was," said Demarest, matter-of-factly. "What are you going to do with you? I don't like killing anyone, but if it's necessary—"

"Kill 'im, Mr. Demarest? He's just trespassin', ain't he?"

"Henry, this is none of your business. Take that frightening weapon in your hand and go back inside to stir the soup. See if Mrs. Delacourt has arisen."

"Don't kill 'im, boss. I don't want to be a part of—"

"Henry, go!"

Henry disappeared, broom, too, back into the kitchen.

"Nothin' I tell him ever sinks in," said Demarest, shaking his head.

"Maybe he's just decent."

The stout, older man raised his eyes. "Maverick, don't make it worse for yourself." Demarest began to turn this way and that, hemming and hawing for a moment or two, thinking out his next plan, groping for answers. "I've got to see Catherine," he muttered, half to himself. Then louder, he ordered, "Take him to the shed over there by the stables. Tie him up good and gag him. He must be quiet."

It wasn't long before his men had done just that, though they ended up a little the worse for the wear. A long iron pole in the center of the room held up the ceiling of the tiny shed. Maverick was tied to it, sitting down, then gagged with an oily rag. He turned bloodshot, hate-filled eyes up at the men as they left him there, gagged with his arms bound behind him. He had to pray for a miracle this time.

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Some while passed. Demarest must have seen Mrs. Delacourt in that huge space of time, and the boy again, too. In the meantime, Henry slipped out of the back door, walked into the yard, then bravely enough crept past Demarest's men sharing a smoke over by the woodpile. When he reached Maverick's new prison, he lifted the latch of the shed door. He came in and knelt beside Maverick's knee, prodding him awake by his shoulder. Maverick slowly opened his eyes and looked at the earnest young man. Henry untied the gag and pulled it from his mouth.

"There, feel better?"

"Not much," he said, hoarsely. He coughed to clear his throat.

"I brought a cup of water," said Henry, raising the cup to Maverick's lips. The gambler drank long and steadily until he'd finished it, then laid his head back on the pole.

"Now, I feel some better."

"Did those men beat you up like this? What'd you do, mister?"

"Nothing. Only I know something Demarest doesn't want known around."

"He kill somebody else?"

"He hasn't kill me yet!"

"Will you be the first?"

"I hope not, nor any other number. Can you untie me and let me get out of here?"

"They'd kill me," said Henry, with a fervent nod at the far wall of the shed.

"Oh, I see. I guess they would be guarding the shed. How did you get by them?"

"They're smokin', by the woodpile. Neither one was lookin' this way."

Maverick breathed out. "For that, I'm glad," he said, really meaning it. "Maybe my luck's turning. Just like the leaves."

"I better get along now, but I hope everything works out."

Henry scooted back to where he could stand up again, then taking a last look at the prisoner, bent down and gagged him again. Maverick didn't offer any complaint. He knew Henry had done a whole lot just bringing him some water, and he still had to get back by those men out there. He watched him go with dull eyes, wondering when his own time would come to leave the shed, however he left it.

Henry didn't make it. Caught coming out and closing the shed door behind him, he had some quick explaining to do. Maverick heard him, tilting his head that way, anxiously chewing on the rag in his mouth. Thinking bleak thoughts for long seconds, he finally had the impression that Henry had got away with bringing him water. That's all he'd done anyway, but Maverick, thinking of his kindness and courage, knew he had done more. Much more. He had given the card player some renewed hope. Not much, but some.

Next thing he knew, the two men came into the shed. They made sure his hands were still tied, and even retied the gag with a firmer knot at the back of his head. Gazing up at them with tired eyes, he watched them go, too. A couple of long hours had passed already since he had been tucked away in here. How much longer? And then what?

Demarest appeared after night had fallen and the owls had awakened. Maverick listened quietly to the hoots in the trees surrounding the property, though his bloody wrists were telltale evidence of his struggles to free himself. Sitting there, hour after hour, he eventually couldn't stand it any longer. He wanted to call out, shout, give a terrific yell for anyone to hear, even if Demarest or one of his men heard. He chewed on the gag and tried to roll it out of his mouth by brushing his chin against his shoulder. He had no luck there, either. He started at a voice out of the blue.

"You won't believe this, Maverick," said Demarest from a spot near the half-open door of the shed.

Maverick, still mute, looked up at him with a wondering eye.

"But now I'm the guardian of the three children. Catherine had the attorney in, just this afternoon," he rambled on. "She won't marry me now, she says, on account of the children. I'm real put out about that, too. I aim to make you pay for it." He coughed into his hand. "But I manage their inheritance. Catherine's so good to children she hasn't seen in over three years. Real good. I know what she's worth, too. A couple hundred thousand. Last husband speculated in railroads and had some interest in a Cathay shipping line."

Maverick looked away, his interest gone.

"I'm sure there are some schools where children who are bothers to their elders can go. I'll send each of them somewhere. Then, in time, maybe I'll give them a portion of the money."

Maverick looked up at him again, as if to say, "Oh, yeah?"

"But then, there's you. You know too much. You'd ruin Catherine's reputation with what you know, saloon talk. I can't let you do that."

Maverick began to make speech-like noises signifying that he would like to be ungagged now.

"Not just yet," said Demarest, faraway-like, lost in his thoughts again. "I can't untie you until we're ready. There's a moon out. Be gone in a few more hours, maybe five or six."

Maverick grunted again, but went unheeded as Demarest flew out of the shed and slid the metal latch back through its slot again. He squirmed and cried out through the gag, his panic rising. He was very tired. All afternoon spent trying to free himself, on top of all his other hurts, had left him weak and dazed. What with the near-drowning, and the number of times he'd been in luckless fights lately, he almost didn't have the strength to make it on his own, if he did free himself.

He lay his head back again, his eyes watering and his chest heaving. He looked sideways at nothing before him and just rested, the fight gone back out of him for the time being. Then he heard footsteps again on the patchy ground just outside the door. The shed latch softly pulled back, and the door swung outward. In the sky behind the figure in the doorway, Maverick could just make out the shape of the full moon, though he hardly had to see it to tell that the tall, thin Henry had come back. He stood in the doorway, looking down at the prisoner tied to the metal pole, then he noiselessly closed the door behind him. Maverick didn't squirm anymore or try to speak. Too tired for that. He just waited for Henry to make the first move.

"I heard everythin'," said Henry. "I was coming with this," he offered up another cup of water. Maverick's feverish eyes lit on it and it seemed for a moment that that was all he wanted. Henry obliged. Kneeling down again, he fidgeted off the rag clamped between Maverick's teeth and gave him the cup of water to drink. A long, silent minute passed.

When he could speak again, Maverick begged, "Untie me. My hands … are so bloody. My left wrist hurts—I sprained it when I fell."

"I can't untie you," Henry hissed. "I don't rightly know what to do. What to make of Mr. Demarest. He's talkin' of those children like they were pests or something'."

"To him—" Maverick stopped, coughing, "they are."

"Do tell."

"Henry, you said you don't want to be a part in murder. Right?"

"But he won't do that to you," the younger man protested. "He's a big businessman in these parts."

"Yeah, he owns a store, a nice store. But he wants to be rich. Katie—ah, Mrs. Delacourt won't marry him, so he'll use the kids. He'll pay his men to murder me."

"They might talk, blackmail 'im. With them around, he won't kill you."

"Henry, there's more to this. I just don't have it all figured out yet.

"I don't like any of this."

Maverick straightened up slightly, grimacing. "Right now, Henry, the boy's all I care about. Who's to say that Demarest won't decide to kill him, too?"

"Ah, he wouldn't do that."

Maverick laughed slightly, feeling that he was the only one who could see the truth about Demarest.

"So you want me to untie you?"

"Please."

"He'll skin me."

"No, he won't. If he catches me, I'll say I got away. By the way, where are those men of his?"

"They went inside to dinner. Shucks, I've got to serve 'em. I just came out 'ere for a minute, and now look. I'll be late. They're sure to skin me."

As if in answer to Henry's worry, he heard his name being called.

"I've got to go. Maybe later."

"No such thing," said Maverick, despondently.

Henry bolted up and ran out of the shed and over to the stables as quick as a lick. When Demarest caught up with him, Henry was throwing hay into one of the horse troughs.

"Didn't you know, boy, you're wanted at the table?"

Henry didn't like that word, boy. "I forgot, Mr. Demarest. I got to workin' with the horses and plum forgot myself. I'll be in directly." He nodded and tried to look sheepish.

Demarest grunted, then walked out and over to the shed. He thought he'd check on Maverick again. Inside, he bent down over him and pulled on his wrist ropes, making him cry out and his eyes water again. His frequent, and because of his pain, very sudden tears washed tracks of dirt and grime down his cheeks. He looked up at the once-handsome, but now stout storekeeper. The moon coming through the shed door on Demarest's right carved deep shadows along his nose and cheekbones, making him almost skeletal, thin-faced.

"I'm sorry," murmured the businessman. "I didn't mean to pull so hard. In a little while, after Henry serves us dinner, my men and I will take you out."

Maverick grew nervous and tried to move around, wincing.

"Your wrists bad?" asked Demarest.

Maverick looked away and down. Demarest took that as time for him to leave. He straightened up with some effort, not a young man anymore. Placing his hands on his knees, he pushed himself up by them. Maverick turned his head back and looked his way again, following his back as he went out of the shed door and closed it again. Then he gave way, turning his head to the side. Half the day, he'd been tied up, struggling fruitlessly to free himself. His head ached, his fight bruises still hurt, and he had lost feeling in both legs. He wouldn't be able to walk out of there, not even to his own death.