“No sir, I’m heading back down to Texas, to my
Maria and my lovely brats, all five or six of them . . .”
Roy paused in his oratory only long enough to add
a bit more gin to his Mexican Widow, tasted it and
then smacked his lips in approval.
“What’s in that box?” Tall John the undertaker
said, nodding at the small leather-strapped box one of
Roy’s feet rested upon.
“My worldly possessions,” he replied. “Every-
thing I own is in that grip: two striped shirts, a pair of
checkered trousers, bone-handled razor, cigar box full
of Indian Head pennies I’ve been saving for my
youngsters, and Mr. Blackstone’s law book. Might
even be a Bible in there as well, I can’t remember
rightly if there is or not.”
“Who will be mayor, and who the judge with you
gone?” Otis Dollar, the merchant asked.
“Why, Otis, you can be mayor, and Tall John, you
can be the judge.”
“Don’t know nothing about the law,” Tall John
said. “All I know about is the dead.”
“Sometimes you have to judge when a man is to
live and when he is to die,” Roy Bean said. Ten o’-
clock and already half in his cups and beginning to
sound profound.
“I could be mayor easily enough,” Otis said, ad-
miring the idea in his head.
“You boys could flip a dime and decide who’s who
and what’s to be what. I hate to leave you high and dry
like this, but I got a letter from my Maria just yester-
day and it was writ in her usual Mexican jibberish—
which I ain’t yet learned to decipher, but it seemed to
me by its brevity that she is highly put out with me,
and I’m afraid if I don’t return to her soon she’ll leave
me for some vaquero down there on the pampas and
take my brats with her. I admire them kids, I truly do
and would hate to see them end up in some poor ca-
ballero’s hovel eating nothing but frijoles and fry
bread and being worked like mules.”
Roy sidled down to where Jake stood, Jake in the
middle of a personal reverie about the woman who
had done him wrong; odd thing was, he was thinking,
he still loved her. What is it gets into a man’s head and
his heart would make him still love a woman who’d
betrayed him in the worst way, he wondered. He
didn’t know. I had the answer to that one, I’d be the
smartest man alive and there is no such thing.
“Can I mix you one of these Mexican Widows?”
Roy Bean said. His eyes glittered like a dance hall
girl’s who’d put too many drops of belladonna in
them.
“No, too early of the day for me, Judge.”
“How you settling in, son?”
“Other than that original business,” Jake said, re-
ferring to the shootings of primarily Bob Olive and
Deputy Smith, “it’s been something of a cakewalk.”
“Ain’t that what I told you it would be, easy as
herding dogs.”
“You did.”
“Town like this, you don’t get too many bad actors.
Bad actors all tend to drift toward the big cities and the
lawless places—Miles City, Dallas, and Tombstone—
places like that where there is more mischief to be had.
Sweet Sorrow ain’t nowhere near any of them in the
mischief department—might not ever be and the town
might be the better for it if it never gets as cosmopoli-
tan. Still, I will admit, that once in a great while or so,
bad actors—like old Bob and Teacup and some of
them others, tend to find out even far-flung places like
this . . .”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
Roy Bean leaned in close so none of the others
might hear.
“It’s been nearly five months now and if they was
sending anybody else after you, don’t you think
they’d come by now?”
Without admitting to anything, Jake said, “The
world is full of surprises; I’ve always felt it better to
be prepared for the worst.”
“These folks here’d back you, I do believe, no mat-
ter what it is you may have done in the past. Being
here, doing what you do for them. And I don’t mean
just jailing the drunks and breaking up fisticuffs, I’m
talking about how you doctor them, too . . .”
Jake waved his hand.
“I don’t doctor them,” he said. “I just help like
anybody would with what little I know.”
“Okay, we’re clear on that. But whatever it is
you’re doing for them, they appreciate it and I don’t
think they’d just stand by and let some yahoo ride in
here and spirit you away without putting up a fuss
and a fight.”
“Maybe so,” Jake said. “But the way I look at it,
why bring trouble down on them that don’t deserve it.”
Roy tossed back the rest of his cocktail, took a fore-
finger and swiped it inside the glass and sucked the
taste off.
“Who knows,” he said, “maybe I’ll make it back
up this way some time or other if things don’t work
