'Like I said, it wasn't legal or formal or anything. The only mayoring he ever did was to marry folks every once in a while, and he always worried about it because he didn't think he had the authority to marry people. Then when the men at the Pair o' Dice decided the town needed a marshal to keep the Saturday-night mayhem down to size, it was Pa who had to pin the badge on the man they chose. And later on, when…' She stopped and lowered her eyes. 'Later on, when this marshal left town, he gave the badge back to Pa. He did it as a sort of slap in the face.'
'Slap in the face?'
She looked at him long and levelly, deciding whether or not to share this with him, and he could see miniature candle flames in each of her eyes, like those on the ball points of the badge. 'I guess you better be getting to your new home,' she said.
'All right. I'll see you tomorrow at dinnertime. Oh, here. You'll be wanting this marshal's star back.'
'No, you keep it.'
'Well… thanks! Gee. Well, I guess I better be saying good night, Ruth Lillian.'
'Good night, Matthew.'
BY THE LIGHT OF his new lamp that burned with that nose-tingling new-lamp smell, he began to unpack and arrange things. He had taken almost everything of value from his home-well, there hadn't been all that much, really. He not only had a blanket and his clothes, but also a kettle, a frying pan, a coffee pot, his ma's hand mirror and comb (genuine animal bone), a mixed assortment of mugs and knives and forks, three chipped enamel plates, and a tin wash-up basin and pitcher. These he arranged on a shelf by the stove to make himself a kitchen of sorts.
Think of it! Living in the marshal's office. The Ringo Kid, marshal. Hoo-birds!
From other deserted houses, he had scavenged a bed, a big table and a smaller one, three straight-backed chairs, and a bentwood rocking chair that squeaked like his ma's used to-not the same note, but just about the same place on the back-push. He wasn't sure what he should do with the awkward old shotgun he had carried so far and with such effort. He should get rid of it, really. He'd meant to do that right from the first. Maybe he should bury it. But it was dark out, so he hung it on two square-cut nails over the doorway. And as he was doing this, it occurred to him that the marshal had probably driven those nails in to put his rifle up there, where it would be handy to hand, should there be trouble out on the street. He took from his pack the canvas sack that held twelve handmade, wax-dipped shells for the shotgun along with his other treasures: a small blue glass bottle he had found buried in the back yard of one of their many temporary homes (What used to be in it? Who had owned it? And, most mysterious of all: Why had they buried it?), a marble with an American flag suspended in the middle (How did they do that?), a rock with gold flakes in it that his pa said was nothing but fool's gold (but which might be real gold because, after all, Pa didn't know everything). To these treasures he added the six-pointed marshal's star that Ruth Lillian had given him. A badge for the man living in the marshal's office. He looked around for a safe place to stash his treasures and ended up pushing the canvas sack far back under the bed.
After spreading out his blankets (Whew! He'd have to take the straw-filled mattress he'd scavenged and hang it in the sun to get rid of the mildew smell!), he arranged his collection of books on the small table. All but one of them were well-thumbed, cardboard-bound Ringo Kid books; the other was a broken-backed dictionary a teacher had given him. He loved looking up words in his dictionary and saying them over and over to himself until they were his. That night, he looked up chameleon, but it took him a while to find it because he began looking under 'k,' then under 'ca.' When he was satisfied that chameleon was forever his, he selected The Ringo Kid Deals Himself In, and settled back into his rocking chair in the middle of his house and began reading by the light of his lamp. It had been a long day, and he was dozing and dipping over the pages when he was jolted awake by a sound out in the street. Somebody was moaning… moaning and sobbing. His first fright-flash was that it might be one of the ghosts Ruth Lillian had mentioned, but the voice cried out in a whiskey-smeared voice that it was a sinner! A fornicator! A slave to the appetites of the flesh! Not worthy-No, Lord, not worthy! — to be a vassal of the Risen Christ and a vessel of His Sacred Word!
Matthew blew out his lamp, took the old shotgun down, and quietly opened his door. A full moon hung over the foothills, filling the street with a slanting slate-blue light. And there, staggering down the street from the direction of the Traveller's Welcome, was a tall, black-clad figure wearing a round 'parson's' hat. With each stumbling step, his boots raised a little puff of dust into the moonlight. A drunk! A stinking, slobbering drunk! If there was anything Matthew hated…! His hands tightened on the shotgun, and he forced himself to take slow, calming breaths, like his ma used to make him do when he was in a blind rage. Then he pressed his door closed and hung the gun back up over it. With a convulsive shudder he scrubbed his hands against one another to get the feeling of gun off them. Why had he hung the damned thing up there in the first place? He hated the sight of it!
Without undressing-without even taking off his boots-he lay down on his rustling straw mattress and stared up into the darkness. The smell of mildew blended with the smell of just-blown-out lamp.
From far down the street: Punish him, Lord! Chastise this foul and fallen sinner!
And a little later, in a more distant voice:… but forgive him, Lord! Oh, please, please, forgive him!
Late into the night, long after the drunken voice had gone silent, Matthew watched the door through a small peek-hole in the blankets he had pulled up over his head.
THE NEXT MORNING, MATTHEW sat on the edge of his bed, his head throbbing, his blood thick, his eyes stiff. All night he had been pursued from one nightmare to another by… he couldn't remember exactly what. But it had a slimy texture and it… argh! He didn't want to think about it! He grunted to his feet and poured water into his basin and splashed it up into his face, snorting loudly to drive off the last clinging tendrils of dream.
As he slowly dressed, numb-fingered, he considered his situation in Twenty-Mile. So far, things had gone pretty well. He had wormed his way in; now he had to make himself indispensable. During a childhood spent moving from town to town and school to school, he had developed his own technique for gaining admittance into new 'gangs,' one based upon his gift for role-playing and his particular thirst for respect. It was a two-step system. Step One: break your way through the gang's tough protective membrane in any way you can: lie, cheat, flatter, fight, amuse… whatever it takes. Step Two: once inside, you show yourself to be friendly, helpful, willing to play by their rules, and the gang will come to accept you, maybe even respect you. He never actually reaped the fruit of these tactics, because every time he started to settle in, his family moved on again. Mr. Delanny had assumed that Matthew's social ploys were devices for conning the marks; in fact, they were strategies for survival.
After dragging his ma's genuine animal-bone comb through his wet hair, he went forth to show the Twenty- Mile gang just how accommodating and friendly a man could be.
He found Jeff Calder in the hotel kitchen, cursing the Dayton Imperial stove and batting at the thickening smoke with a rag. Matthew's sunny 'Mornin', sir!' was ignored as the veteran raged against goddamned-useless- sonofabitchin' stoves in general, and this goddamned-useless-sonofabitch of a stove in particular! And these new- fangled Diamond 'book' matches! Either they don't strike at all, or the whole book burns up at once… and your goddamned fingers with it!
'Say, now!' Matthew said. 'That's an idea!' He set the flour, baking powder, and corn syrup he had bought at the Mercantile onto the drain board.
'What's an idea?' Calder growled.
'You were going to try opening that thingamabob-that grating at the bottom. And I think you're right, Mr. Calder. That just might do 'er.'
Jeff Calder located the air vent and tapped it open with the lid-lifter, and instantly the fire caught with a soft pop, and started burning so vigorously that it sucked back into itself some of the nearby smoke.
'You got it!' Matthew said with unconcealed admiration.
'Yeah, well… one thing the army teaches a man is how to get things done.'
'Thanks for giving me a head start with the stove, sir,' Matthew said in a busy, bustling tone as he took off his jacket. 'I'll take her from here. You said you wanted your breakfast set up at a separate table from Mr. Delanny's, is that right?'
'Ah-h… well… Yeah, that's right.'
'You're the boss. Breakfast'll be ready in two shakes. Oh, by the way. Do you like biscuits?'
'Sure.'
'Well, biscuits it'll be, sir. Just like my ma used to bake.'
'I THOUGHT I SMELT biscuits!' Queeny cried when Matthew set the steaming plateful on the girls' table and, with a flourish, snatched off the towel covering them. Beside the dish, he placed a bowl of corn syrup and a spoon. 'And you said I was crazy!' This last was directed to Frenchy, who cut open a biscuit, drizzled corn syrup over half, and popped it into her mouth.
