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left the station. He felt an abiding sadness to think of
his Birdy picking nits from Doc s hair and doing for
Doc what she d once done for him out of love and
adoration. It left his stomach sour enough to want a
drink.
Roy Bean looked and saw the moon and it made
him think of his wife and children in Texas, for they
seemed as far away from him now as the moon did.
I don t know why nothing s ever worked out right
for me. I ve been a good man, mostly. I always tried
to do right by others. I believe in the law and justice
and I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. What more can
anyone expect of a man than those things?
Something nudged him.
He looked down.
208 Bill Brooks
It was that beer-drinking dog.
What you want?
The dog didn t answer.
Okay then, but just one, then I need to go get my
rest.
The dog followed him back into the Rosebud.
Two beers, Roy Bean said to Peg Leg, neither
man knowing that by breakfast the next day Peg Leg
would be shot and bleeding near to death by what
used to be the law in Sweet Sorrow.
Peg Leg looked at the two of them.
Next thing I know, folks will be bringing bears in
here to eat the buffet.
Roy looked down into the cur s miserable wanting
eyes and said, I know exactly how you feel, old
timer.
Toussaint halted the wagon along a thin stream a
feeder that ran off from Cooper s Creek and no wider
than a garter snake.
Mule needs water and a rest.
Both men had sweated through their shirts, turning
them dark and causing them to stick to them like a
second skin. The boy in the back said little, fore-
warned as he had been to keep his mouth shut.
Preacher Pike had fallen into a sleep, a well of jangled
dreams wherein he was tumbling through a field of
colored glass.
We best put him under the wagon, Jake said.
The sun is frying his skin.
Dakota Lawman: Last Stand at Sweet Sorrow 209
They lifted Pike down and put him in the shade the
belly of the wagon provided.
What about me? Waddy said. I m about burnt
to hell, too.
Crawl in under there if you want, Jake said.
Toussaint watered his mule from the feeder then let
it crop the tender grasses along the piddling banks.
How far are we yet from town? Jake said. All
this land looks the same. A man sure enough could
get as easily lost out here as he could in a forest of
trees.
In the winter it s nothing but a plain of snow and
just as disorienting, Toussaint said, unfolding some
dry rabbit jerky from a cheesecloth he pulled from
inside his shirt. He offered it to Jake who took a piece
and said, What about them?
Toussaint looked at the two men under the wagon;
the preacher was snoring, the boy looking at him like
a stray dog.
Hell with him, he said. I don t feed killers.
Jake handed him back the jerky. Toussaint looked
at him, shrugged, and chewed silently staring off
toward the nothingness.
I m sorry about what happened to Dex, Jake
said.
Toussaint did not reply.
I ve been thinking about something, Jake said.
Toussaint removed his hat and ran a sleeve over his
forehead then settled his hat back on his head again.
He didn t ever recall such a hot relentless summer as
210 Bill Brooks
this one. It was a mean time, everything about it was
mean and it made folks mean and it made some of
them crazy and led some to commit murderous acts
upon themselves and others. The boy s name kept
repeating itself in his head: Dex, Dex, Dex.
I ve been thinking that it s not merely coinci-
dence that things are happening as they are, Jake
continued.
What do you mean? Toussaint said as he
checked the mule s traces.
The craziness that seems to have hit people
around here. The man killing his wife, the one drown-
ing himself, the woman who brought you her dead
baby the preacher there. Something s causing it, or
someone.
You ever seen anything like it before? Toussaint
asked suspiciously.
No, nothing on the same scale, individual cases,
but nothing like this widespread.
Individual cases, huh?
I was an orderly in the war. I ve seen lots of trou-
bling things happen to people.
Well, it has nothing to do with me, Toussaint
said. Let s get these fools into town.
But Jake wasn t convinced that the madness had
nothing to do with Toussaint. The possibilities were
endless, but he d been thinking about it for a while
because his physician s curiosity would not let him
not think about it. Medical mysteries were always
challenging. Medicine itself was a mystery half the
time. No, he did not think that what was happening
Dakota Lawman: Last Stand at Sweet Sorrow 211
to the folks in Sweet Sorrow was at all a coincidental
event, nor a random one, either. And he hadn t forgot-
ten the bite marks on Gerthe s arms and legs. They
could have been the young killer s, but he asked him-
self why he would do such a thing, then be so protec-
tive of her? There was one other possibility: it wasn t
the boy who attacked the girl, but Dex who had.
Maybe the boy was defending her and shot Dex in her
defense.
A hot dry wind followed them all the way back to
Sweet Sorrow.
17
gh
un gone now, the darkness on them, they could
Ssee the lights of Sweet Sorrow in the distance.
Home, thought Toussaint disdainfully. What is
home? He was weary, bone weary, as tired as he d
ever been. It wasn t the heat, nor the long travel, but
the weariness of a man with a heavy heart. He told
himself that tomorrow he d go see Karen, take her
something a gift or flowers the things that it was
said a woman wanted, things she needed to cheer her.
Karen needed to feel like a whole woman again,
needed to know she wasn t alone in the world. Maybe
he needed it, too. Maybe he needed it more than
Karen did.
In the back, Waddy Worth had been doing little
more than planning his escape.
Dying was one thing, how you died was another. If
he had to die, he d rather die trying to live than to let
himself be hanged like a dog. If they shot him trying
Dakota Lawman: Last Stand at Sweet Sorrow 213
to escape, then they shot him. At least it would be
quick, he told himself.
Elias Poke was muttering to himself, still feeling
the effects of whatever it was that had put the crazi-
ness in him. His flesh stung like a thousand bee stings.
He tried his best to hide his nakedness from the boy s
curious glances. He tried figuring out how he d come
to be trussed up and knocked around in the back of a
rough wagon. He didn t recall much, his head felt like
a bucket of mud.
Jake was wrapped in his own thoughts.
So much death, such strange events. Was his world
to be forever this way? Had he, as Toussaint sug-
gested, been carrying a curse with him? He was a
man of science more than one of spiritualism, but it
was possible that anything was possible the way
things were turning out. And in spite of everything,
he knew he still loved the woman who had betrayed
him. That was the worst part.
They pulled up in front of the little jail. It was
dark.
Let s take them inside and lock them up, Tous-
saint said.
Jake stepped down from the wagon and helped
Toussaint get the two men out of the wagon and
inside. The interior of the jail was hot as an oven. The
one cell and its cot empty. No one around to watch
the place.
They found a key lying atop a small handmade
table.
214 Bill Brooks
Look at this, Toussaint said, picking it up.
Some jail they got here.
He opened the cell door and shoved the boy in.
Jake cut the rope from around Poke, said, Go on in,
Preacher.
Elias Poke went in meekly as a sheep, naked as a
newborn.
Toussaint closed the door and locked it.
Now what?
I imagine they could use something to eat and
drink, Jake said.
Toussaint snorted, walked out the door, Jake on
his heels.
You do what you want with them, Toussaint
said. Me, I m going to my place.
Jake watched him climb up on the wagon, take up
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