Butler's Wager

CHAPTER 17

Butler had not meant to become so infamous in Dodge City. His intention had been to simply come there and play poker. It’s all he ever wanted to do when he came to a town. Fact of the matter was most of his trouble—that which didn’t come from the East—came because he could not mind his own damned business.

And he couldn’t very well have stood by and watched Jim Masterson get shot in the back. He hated back shooters, had managed to avoid a couple of them himself. He respected men who came straight at him to try to kill him, but when they came from behind they deserved no less than what they themselves were trying to dole out.

As he walked through town earlier, heading toward the Dodge House, he’d guessed that some of the folks who saw him on the street had probably not yet read the newspaper. Now it was afternoon, and he felt he was being recognized more often, likely from the article. Suddenly, he noticed that he was right across the street from the office of the Dodge City Times, and he decided to go in.

When he entered he smelled ink and oil in the air, both coming from the silent press. There was another room; he saw a man and a woman in there, involved in what appeared to be a heated discussion. That was just as well. He wasn’t even sure why he was there and what he wanted to say, yet. Let them finish their argument first.

He waited a good ten minutes, and when he realized the argument was nowhere near being completed he stepped forward and knocked on the door. Both of the people inside turned and looked at him through the glass. They both looked like they were in their twenties, and the resemblance was too close for them to be husband and wife. He put his money on brother and sister.

The man moved first, coming to the door and opening it.

“Yes?”

“I’d like to speak to the editor of the paper, please.”

“That’s me,” both of them said, and then glared at each other.

“Okay,” the man said, “we’re both editors, and reporters.”

“For now,” she said, “and only because I don’t want to argue in front of this gentleman”—she took a good look at Butler and added—“who, if I’m not mistaken, is Mr. Butler.”

“Butler?” the young man said, taking one step back.

“Oh, take it easy, Lou,” she said. “He’s not a killer, he’s a gambler.”

“He killed a man last night,” Lou pointed out.

Butler decided that the woman was the older of the two, but probably only by a few years.

“She’s right, Lou,” Butler said. “I’m a gambler.”

“Why don’t you check the press, Lou?” she suggested. “I’ll talk to Mr. Butler.”

“Yeah, well, why not?” Lou asked. “You wrote the damned story.” He looked at Butler. “Mister, my sister thinks it okay to invade people’s privacy just because we run a newspaper. You tell ’er.”

With that Lou left, pulling the door closed behind him.

“So that’s Lou,” Butler said. “And you are?”

“Is that my paper in your coat pocket, there?” she asked.

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, my brother’s right,” she told him. “I wrote the story about you.”

Butler pulled the paper out and opened it.

“Says here the writer was somebody named…M. J. Healy.”

“That’s me,” she said. “Mary Jane Healy. What can I do for you, Mr. Butler? Did I print anything that wasn’t true?”

Mary Jane Healy about twenty-eight, tall, well built, her blond hair pulled into a ponytail and tied with a black ribbon, or something.

“Nothing untrue, Miss Healy,” he said, “just some truth that might get me killed.”

“Killed? Isn’t that a little melodramatic? Thinking people are out to kill you?”

If she only knew, he thought.

“Ma’am—” he said.

“Oh God,” she said, putting her hands to the sides of her face.

“What is it?”

“Do I look like a Ma’am, now?” she asked. “Has it been that long since a good bar of soap?”

Butler paused and looked at her. She was trying to put him off balance, fishing for a compliment.

“Miss Healy,” he said, “I really would rather you didn’t write about me in your paper anymore.”

“You’re a very well-spoken, polite man, Mr. Butler,” she said. “Are you from the East?”

“Are you trying to interview me, Miss Healy?”

“M.J., please,” she said.

“All right, M.J.”

“And would you be willing to be interviewed?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s bad enough that you wrote about me in one issue, I don’t need to be in two.”

“Editions.”

“What?”

“We call them editions, not issues.”

“Whatever you call them,” he said. He grabbed her hand and slapped his copy of the paper into it. “I don’t want to be in another one. Understand…Ma’am?”

As he turned and walked he heard her laugh, and say, “Now that was just mean.”

Damn it, I like her, he thought.