Chapter 9

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.

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.

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.