Episode 28
More Law Than We Want
The Mayor of Mercury Wells took another sip of blended rye. He knew it would only stoke the fire in his belly. But what was a man to do? Not for the first time he envied the wretches lying insensate down in the tents run by the Chinese. A pipe of the black smoke might be just what was called for given the recent developments in town.
He crumpled the yellow paper of the most recent telegram and tossed it across the upstairs drawing room of the Majestic. He kicked at the little Negro whore who was sharing the settee with him. She’d been rubbing his bare feet and shrank from his sudden lashing out.
“Something troubling come down the wire, Geoffrey?” Marcelle DeGeaux said from a flocked velvet chair behind a desk of carved black mahogany.
“Nothing but trouble comes down the wire from as far as Chicago,” Tuchman said and shifted on the settee. His hand reached out to pat the little hand of the black girl. He tapped the flat of his hand to the cushion beside him. She joined him on the settee, smiling with shy eyes.
“Our masters are not pleased?” DeGeaux said with maddening calmness. He’d told the mayor that it was his natural sang froid. Tuchman thought the pimp was as coldhearted as a river snake.
“They are not. They tasked me with finding a lawman. I took Nostrand’s suggestion and hired this Wiley fellow,” Tuchman said as he idly played with one of the young whore’s teats.
“This is trouble?”
“It damn sure is. The man’s doing his job a sight too enthusiastically. And now he’s brought these Dugans to town.”
“I have heard of them.”
“You damned sure have, Marcelle!” The mayor snorted, startling the whore with a sharp squeeze. “They’re a pair of bloody-handed murderers! They settled that range war up in Wyoming. They’re still finding dead nesters up there. And that massacre in Oklahoma. They’re not lawmen. They’re exterminating sons of bitches.”
“I do not see what it matters. We want law. We have law.” DeGeaux shrugged.
“We might end up with more law than we want. There are long term plans for this town that go beyond cow shit and water for steam. A lot of money has been poured into this godforsaken corner of Texas. And the men who do the pouring expect a return on their investment.”
“You are a man who worries. It is not good to worry. Life is to be enjoyed moment to moment.”
“I wish I shared your damned Gallic sense of the trivial.”
“I see that you are inconsolable. And so, I shall leave you to the attentions of little Nubia,” DeGeaux said, standing from his chair. After taking a last draught of brandy from a tumbler, he stepped from the room, securing the door behind him.
“Well, what shall we do then, my dear?” the mayor said, turning from the door to the impish smile of the child now crawling over the cushions into his lap.
