Part 23 (1/2)
”Sure,” Mr. Barrymore said cheerfully.
”Why, you would have heard about it if you'd gone into the paper, Tess.
The lieutenant was sitting with Ed Clancy and Dec?” Tess stood and stared at Jamie.
”I think I'll take a little walk over to the Wilts.h.i.+re Sun right now.
I'm sure, Lieutenant Slater, that you know exactly how you want everything worded. Then Mr. Barrymore can draw up the papers and I will come back and sign them. Excuse me, will you?”
Jamie and Mr. Barrymore both stood quickly, but Tess was already at the door.
She stormed out, feeling her face red, wondering if she should be furious with the man or if she should run back and kiss him. She wasn't going to do 167 either--she was going to see Ed and find out exactly what had happened.
She walked into the Wilts.h.i.+re Sun office as if she were a battles.h.i.+p.
Harry, the printer, looked up from his plates.
Edward, at work at his desk, also looked up. The naked joy in his eyes as he saw her made her first questions flee. He leaped up to hug her, nearly breaking ~ery bone in her body.
”I knew you were all right, Tess, because I saw Slater.
But, girl, it does an old body good to see you!”
” Thank you, Edward, thank you!” she told him.
Harry, toothless and shy, was standing behind him.
”And you, too, Harry, come here. Let me give you a big, sloppy kiss right on that jaw of yours!”
He flushed a bright red from his throat to his white, tufted hair, but he accepted a kiss and hugged her tightly in return.
”We just kept doing the paper, Miss. Tess. Even when they tried to tell us that you weren't coming back, we just kept the Sun going out on schedule.
Every Tuesday, Thursday and Sat.u.r.day, we had a W~tlts.h.i.+re Sun out on the street!”
”And I'm so grateful and so proud of both of you I” Tess a.s.sured him.
Edward cleared his throat.
”Well, I didn't exactly have the news of the nation going out,” he admitted.
”Ah, h.e.l.l, I didn't really have the b.a.l.l.s to print too much. Von Heusen was breathing down my neck, and I” -- ”You kept it going,” Tess said.
”And I'm grateful.” She gloves and headed for her desk.
”Am I in time a story for the Tuesday edition?”
”Yes, yes, Miss. Stuart! I'll clean out the presses, I'll” -- ”I've just got one story,” Tess a.s.sured him.
”But it's an one. I want it on the front page.” smiled at Edward and inserted paper into the new typewriter she had insisted they buy. She closed her pausing for a moment, smelling the ink on Harry's Then she smiled and started to type. She described the small wagon train, then she described the attack. She described the attackers, who had looked like white men painted up to look like Comanche. She wrote about being saved by the cavalry, then she wrote about Chief Running River and how he had sworn his people had not had anything to do with the attack. Then she wrote that she knew she was an eyewitness. and a survivor. She ended the piece with a bold accusation.
”Certain tyrants in this town will stoop to any means to bring about their chosen results. This town has been mercilessly se'tzed upon. We've seen our friends and neighbors disappear. Some say it was the war, but the war has ended, and all good men are trying to repair broken fences and lend a helping hand. In this town, however, we have been met by evil. Yes, my friends, evil lives in man. The evil that killed a man like Joe Stuart. Joe Stuart's death must not be in vain. We must band together and fight the evil. It does not come from the war. It comes from a man, and no matter how he threatens, we can beat him--if we stand together.” She left it at that. She hesitated for a moment, searching for better words, then shrugged. She had said what she wanted to say.
She pulled the sheet of paper from the machine and handed it to Edward.
”Read this over for me, will you, Ed?”
His eyes were already racing over the piece. He was a swift.
proofreader, and he quickly came to her final paragraph.
His fingers trembled, and the paper wavered within them. ”Tess” -- ”I want it out tomorrow,” she said.
”Tess, he'll come after you lock, stock and barrel” -- ”He already left me for dead once,” she said.
”But, Tess” -- ”Print it, please. And now tell me--what happened at the saloon the other night?”
Edward stared, trying to change his train of thought quickly as she was changing the conversation.
”The 169 night? Why, Miss. Tess, I was just in a little need of companions.h.i.+p-”
”Not that, Clancy, not that! I want to hear about the lieutenant.”
”The lieutenant?”
”Slater, Edward Clancy! Jamie Slater and the yon Heusen men and the blazing guns.”
”Oh, it was something, Tess. Honest to G.o.d, but it was something!”
”Something? Fine. What? Tell me about it, please!”
”Why, he just-come into the bar, and we all kind of greeted him” -- ”Everyone in the place stared at him, wondering if he was : dangerous or not ”
”Right, right. Doc and I were playing cards and we invited him over for a whiskey. He started asking questions right away, then yon Heusen's guns came in. One of them had Hardy the bartender by the throat when Jamie Slater him to stop. The man laughed. Then they were all threatening to shoot up Slater, but that Slater, he had their number!
Before you know it--one, two, three, four! All of were lying on the floor and choking and crying and on like babes. And Slater just stepped over them, as a cuc.u.mber, and walked over to the barber and got a shave and a bath.
”Well, of course, yon Heusen's fellers, they were threat- right and left, but those boys lit out of town as as Doc patched them up, lit straight out of town, they Don't know if they went back to yon Heusen or if they away for good. I ain't seen a one of them since. Of one young feller, he ain't gonna be ridin' anywhere a while, he kind of took his shot in the posterior sec- if you know what I mean.” I think I know what you mean,” Tess said. She gave Ed kiss on the cheek.
”You take care now. I'll be in tomorrow morning. You make sure my piece goes on the front page.”
”Yes, ma'am!”
Tess left the office and walked slowly down the street toward Mr.
Barrymon~'s office.
What had she gotten?
She'd wanted a hired gun. And she'd gotten one. She railed against Jamie for leaving the ranch when he'd been finding out what he could--and shooting it out with some of yon Heusen's toughs at the same time.