was attached to Pink Buford's bulldog.
"Boone May is a fact of nature," Bullock said after a while. "There's worse than him around, ones that you can't aim in any direction at all."
Solomon quit scrubbing long enough to say, "He came into our place of business with a human head."
"Once something's dead, Solomon, it's dead."
Solomon began scrubbing again. His ear and all the skin around it were turning red. "It was a wanted man," Bullock said. "A killer of some kind ... a thief. He could of robbed the stage we sent the payment for the kilns." Bullock saw that carried more weight with his partner than just being a killer. They'd put up sixty thousand dollars—Bullock had borrowed his end of it from Solomon—for three kilns. They were on the way now from Sioux City. Bullock saw a day coming when the whole city would be brick.
The soap had gotten up into Solomon's hair, and the gunk he used to keep it slick ran down his neck into his collar. "It isn't like there weren't hangings in Bismarck," Bullock said.
Solomon took the washcloth away from his ear, which was now the color of two-day-old frostbite, and began to dry himself off with a towel. "That's hanging," he said. "It's civilized. A proper gallows is a comfort to the aggrieved, but he came into our place of business with a human . . . head."
"Dead is dead, Solomon," Bullock said. "What you're talking about is manners." Solomon finished with the towel, which was black every place it had touched him, and picked up the mop. He followed Boone May's steps from Bullock's desk to the door, washing what he could off the floorboards. They were pine—there wasn't any hardwood to be had in Deadwood yet—and already warped and uneven. The office was one of the first three buildings erected in the gulch.
Then he washed the door handles, inside and out. When he had finished, Solomon threw the dirty water into the street and went back to the papers on his desk. He didn't say another word to Seth Bullock, and Bullock didn't say anything to him. Solomon Star's talent was money, Seth Bullock knew other things, principal among them when to leave things alone.
Not counting tents or the Chinese establishments, where Captain Jack said he would not set foot, there were sixteen barrooms in the badlands. Some of them had been thrown together in a day, and the ceilings would shift in a wind or a fight. Some of them, like the Gem and the Green Front, were built more slowly, with a stage and a bar and little rooms upstairs closed off the hallway by curtains, and a girl's name written in chalk above each one. The prettiest ones and the singers got rooms with doors.
Charley followed Bill and Captain Jack from one place to another, all that night. Captain Jack would drink only milk, Charley had quit after the Mex left the Green Front, but everyplace they went Bill accepted all hospitalities.
He drank and listened to stories of gunplay. There wasn't a pilgrim in town that didn't have a story to tell Bill Hickok about something he'd done with a gun. Some of them had shot the eyes out of Indians at a hundred yards, some of them had turned the tide of battles in the war. Captain Jack Crawford told the account of his own injuries at Spottsylvania three different times that night, which to Charley was unforgivable for a man drinking milk.
Captain Jack said it was while he was recovering in the hospital that the nurses there came to like him, and taught him to read and write. "If it hadn't been for that Reb ball that found me in the midst of combat," he said, "and knocked me unconscious so I could not continue fighting, I would never have learned to write a word." By then he had read the poem he wrote in the paper about Custer six or eight times.
"Burn the South," Charley said.
Captain Jack shook his head and signaled for silence. "The wounds of war heal," he said, "and we must heal with them, pards. We're all of one skin and one country, and it's best forgotten."
Charley couldn't see what it
"Boone May is a fact of nature," Bullock said after a while. "There's worse than him around, ones that you can't aim in any direction at all."
Solomon quit scrubbing long enough to say, "He came into our place of business with a human head."
"Once something's dead, Solomon, it's dead."
Solomon began scrubbing again. His ear and all the skin around it were turning red. "It was a wanted man," Bullock said. "A killer of some kind ... a thief. He could of robbed the stage we sent the payment for the kilns." Bullock saw that carried more weight with his partner than just being a killer. They'd put up sixty thousand dollars—Bullock had borrowed his end of it from Solomon—for three kilns. They were on the way now from Sioux City. Bullock saw a day coming when the whole city would be brick.
The soap had gotten up into Solomon's hair, and the gunk he used to keep it slick ran down his neck into his collar. "It isn't like there weren't hangings in Bismarck," Bullock said.
Solomon took the washcloth away from his ear, which was now the color of two-day-old frostbite, and began to dry himself off with a towel. "That's hanging," he said. "It's civilized. A proper gallows is a comfort to the aggrieved, but he came into our place of business with a human . . . head."
"Dead is dead, Solomon," Bullock said. "What you're talking about is manners." Solomon finished with the towel, which was black every place it had touched him, and picked up the mop. He followed Boone May's steps from Bullock's desk to the door, washing what he could off the floorboards. They were pine—there wasn't any hardwood to be had in Deadwood yet—and already warped and uneven. The office was one of the first three buildings erected in the gulch.
Then he washed the door handles, inside and out. When he had finished, Solomon threw the dirty water into the street and went back to the papers on his desk. He didn't say another word to Seth Bullock, and Bullock didn't say anything to him. Solomon Star's talent was money, Seth Bullock knew other things, principal among them when to leave things alone.
Not counting tents or the Chinese establishments, where Captain Jack said he would not set foot, there were sixteen barrooms in the badlands. Some of them had been thrown together in a day, and the ceilings would shift in a wind or a fight. Some of them, like the Gem and the Green Front, were built more slowly, with a stage and a bar and little rooms upstairs closed off the hallway by curtains, and a girl's name written in chalk above each one. The prettiest ones and the singers got rooms with doors.
Charley followed Bill and Captain Jack from one place to another, all that night. Captain Jack would drink only milk, Charley had quit after the Mex left the Green Front, but everyplace they went Bill accepted all hospitalities.
He drank and listened to stories of gunplay. There wasn't a pilgrim in town that didn't have a story to tell Bill Hickok about something he'd done with a gun. Some of them had shot the eyes out of Indians at a hundred yards, some of them had turned the tide of battles in the war. Captain Jack Crawford told the account of his own injuries at Spottsylvania three different times that night, which to Charley was unforgivable for a man drinking milk.
Captain Jack said it was while he was recovering in the hospital that the nurses there came to like him, and taught him to read and write. "If it hadn't been for that Reb ball that found me in the midst of combat," he said, "and knocked me unconscious so I could not continue fighting, I would never have learned to write a word." By then he had read the poem he wrote in the paper about Custer six or eight times.
"Burn the South," Charley said.
Captain Jack shook his head and signaled for silence. "The wounds of war heal," he said, "and we must heal with them, pards. We're all of one skin and one country, and it's best forgotten."
Charley couldn't see what it
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