It was stew, and I could have sworn it had been seasoned with alkali grit instead of salt, but the kid ate all of his and finished mine as well when I put it aside. One of the not-so-good deputies had made coffee, and we drank that from tin cups. We made our meal right there in the cell, sitting cross-legged on the floor. I listened for the jing-jang, but it stayed quiet. I wasn’t surprised. Even if Jamie and the High Sheriff came near one at their end, the wind had probably taken the wires down.
“I guess you know all about these storms you call simooms,” I said to Young Bill.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “This is the season for em. The proddies hate em and the pokies hate em even more, because if they’re out on the range, they have to sleep rough. And they can’t have a fire at night, accourse, because of-”
“Because of the embers,” I said, remembering the blacksmith.
“Just as you say. Stew all gone, is it?”
“So it is, but there’s one more thing.”
I handed over a little sack. He looked inside it and lit up. “Candy! Rollers and chocker-twists!” He extended the bag. “Here, you have the first.”
I took one of the little chocolate twists, then pushed the bag back to him. “You have the rest. If it won’t make your belly sick, that is.”
“It won’t!” And he dived in. It did me good to see him. After the third roller went into his gob, he cheeked it-which made him look like a squirrel with a nut-and said, “What’ll happen to me, sai? Now that my da’s gone?”
“I don’t know, but there’ll be water if God wills it.” I already had an idea where that water might be. If we could put paid to the skin-man, a certain large lady named Everlynne would owe us a good turn, and I doubt if Bill Streeter would be the first stray she’d taken in.
I returned to the subject of the simoom. “How much will it strengthen?”
“It’ll blow a gale tonight. Probably after midnight. And by noon tomorrow, it’ll be gone.”
“Does thee know where the salties live?”
“Aye, I’ve even been there. Once with my da’, to see the races they sometimes have up there, and once with some proddies looking for strays. The salties take em in, and we pay with hard biscuit for the ones that have the Jefferson brand.”
“My trailmate’s gone there with Sheriff Peavy and a couple of others. Think they have any chance of getting back before nightfall?”
I felt sure he would say no, but he surprised me. “Being as it’s all downhill from Salt Village-which is on this side of Little Debaria-I’d say they could. If they rode hard.”
That made me glad I’d told the blacksmith to hurry, although I knew better than to trust the reckoning of a mere boy.
“Listen to me, Young Bill. When they come back, I expect they’ll have some of the salties with em. Maybe a dozen, maybe as many as twenty. Jamie and I may have to walk em through the jail for you to look at, but you needn’t be afraid, because the door of this cell will be locked. And you don’t have to say anything, just look.”
“If you’re thinking I can tell which one killed my da’, I can’t. I don’t even remember if I saw him.”
“You probably won’t have to see them at all,” I said. This I truly believed. We’d have them into the sheriff’s office by threes, and have them hike their pants. When we found the one with the blue ring tattooed around his ankle, we’d have our man. Not that he was a man. Not anymore. Not really.
“Wouldn’t you like another chocker, sai? There’s three left, and I can’t eat nummore.”
“Save them for later,” I said, and got up.
His face clouded. “Will you come back? I don’t want to be in here on my own.”
“Aye, I’ll come back.” I stepped out, locked the cell door, then tossed the keys to him through the bars. “Let me in when I do.”
The fat deputy with the black hat was Strother. The one with the undershot jaw was Pickens. They looked at me with care and mistrust, which I thought a good combination, coming from the likes of them. I could work with care and mistrust.
“If I asked you fellows about a man with a blue ring tattooed on his ankle, would it mean anything to you?”
They exchanged a glance and then Black Hat-Strother-said, “The stockade.”
“What stockade would that be?” Already I didn’t like the sound of it.
“Beelie Stockade,” Pickens said, looking at me as if I were the utterest of utter idiots. “Does thee not know of it? And thee a gunslinger?”
“Beelie Town’s west of here, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Was,” Strother said. “It’s Beelie Ghost Town now. Harriers tore through it five year ago. Some say John Farson’s men, but I don’t believe that. Never in life. ’Twas plain old garden-variety outlaws. Once there was a militia outpost-back in the days when there was a militia-and Beelie Stockade was their place o’ business. It was where the circuit judge sent thieves and murderers and card cheats.”
“Witches n warlocks, too,” Pickens volunteered. He wore the face of a man remembering the good old days, when the railroad trains ran on time and the jing-jang no doubt rang more often, with calls from more places. “Practicers of the dark arts.”
“Once they took a cannibal,” Strother said. “He ate his wife.” This caused him to give out with a foolish giggle, although whether it was the eating or the relationship that struck him funny I couldn’t say.
“He was hung, that fellow,” Pickens said. He bit off a chunk of chew and worked it with his peculiar jaw. He still looked like a man remembering a better, rosier past. “There was lots of hangings at Beelie Stockade in those days. I went several times wi’ my da’ and my marmar to see em. Marmar allus packed a lunch.” He nodded slowly and thoughtfully. “Aye, many and many-a. Lots o’ folks came. There was booths and clever people doing clever things such as juggling. Sometimes there was dogfights in a pit, but accourse it was the hangins that was the real show.” He chuckled. “I remember this one fella who kicked a regular commala when the drop didn’t break ’is-”
“What’s this to do with blue ankle tattoos?”
“Oh,” Strother said, recalled to the initial subject. “Anyone who ever did time in Beelie had one of those put on, y’see. Although I disremember if it was for punishment or just identification in case they ran off from one o’ the work gangs. All that stopped ten year ago, when the stockade closed. That’s why the harriers was able to have their way with the town, you know-because the militia left and the stockade closed. Now we have to deal with all the bad element and riffraff ourselves.” He eyed me up and down in the most insolent way. “We don’t get much help from Gilead these days. Nawp. Apt to get more from John Farson, and there’s some that’d send a parlay-party west to ask him.” Perhaps he saw something in my eyes, because he sat up a little straighter in his chair and said, “Not me, accourse. Never. I believe in the straight law and the Line of Eld.”
“So do we all,” Pickens said, nodding vigorously.
“Would you want to guess if some of the salt-miners did time in Beelie Stockade before it was decommissioned?” I asked.
Strother appeared to consider, then said: “Oh, probably a few. Nummore’n four in every ten, I should say.”
In later years I learned to control my face, but those were early times, and he must have seen my dismay. It made him smile. I doubt if he knew how close that smile brought him to suffering. I’d had a difficult two days, and the boy weighed heavily on my mind.
“Who did’ee think would take a job digging salt blocks out of a miserable hole in the ground for penny wages?” Strother asked. “Model citizens?”
It seemed that Young Bill would have to look at a few of the salties, after all. We’d just have to hope the fellow we wanted didn’t know the ring tattoo was the only part of him the kid had seen.
When I went back to the cell, Young Bill was lying on the pallets, and I thought he’d gone to sleep, but at the sound of my bootheels he sat up. His eyes were red, his cheeks wet. Not sleeping, then, but mourning. I let myself in, sat down beside him, and put an arm around his shoulders. This didn’t come naturally to me-I know what comfort and sympathy are, but I’ve never been much good at giving such. I knew what it was to lose a parent, though. Young Bill and Young Roland had that much in common.