Dorothy Clark - The Law and Miss Mary

The words came, muted but distinct. She grasped on to them like a lifeline. Twelve o’clock—the beginning of a new day. And all is well. Pray God it might be so.

Sam leaped back from the slashing blade, grabbed the mountain man’s thick wrist and twisted. The double-edged skinning knife clattered to the floor. He grabbed a fistful of the cursing drunk’s buckskin shirt and shoved him toward his deputy. “Take him to jail and let him sleep off his meanness. I’ll run him out of town in the morning.” He picked up the weapon and walked outside.

A roar of voices calling for whiskey or beer erupted behind him. Music started playing. The din mixed with the noise coming from the other saloons, the lapping of river water, the churning of paddle wheels and the blasting of steam whistles to make St. Louis’s own peculiar sound of revelry.

“Twelve o’clock and all is well.”

Twelve o’clock. Time to go home and let his lieutenant and the night guards take over.

Home. Sam snorted, adjusted his hat and started up the road. Home was a room in Mrs. Warren’s boardinghouse on Walnut Street, handy to the jail and courthouse. True, it was a vast improvement over the broken-down hovels he had lived in as a kid. Or the open fields, hay mows and sheds that had been his only shelter after he had run away from his drunk of a father. But it was far from what he had planned. Still, he was getting close. He had made some smart investments that were swelling his bank account. And now, he was gaining entrance to St. Louis society by courting the mayor’s daughter. Yes, he was getting close.

He turned onto Walnut, glanced up at the dark, star-littered sky and smiled with grim satisfaction. Remember when I was seven years old and I begged You for some warm clothes for Daniel and Ma and me, God? Remember how I begged You for a house without holes in the walls and roof so we could be warm and dry? For somebody to come and help us? A hard knot of resentment twisted in his stomach. Remember how Danny and Ma sickened and died from the cold? I told You then I would make it without You. That I would be “somebody” someday, and no one would sneer at me ever again. Remember, God? Well, keep watching, because I am almost there.

He threw a last disdainful look at the sky, took the porch steps two at a time, pulled open the door and went inside.

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