The Floor of Heaven by Howard Blum

Oklahoma scout, waddled to the chair in the center of the parlor. Baufman sat there with the proud air of a king as the blind man studiously ran his hand over his head. At last the phrenologist declared, “Ladies and gentlemen, here is a man who, if the Indians were on the warpath and he should run across one lone Indian on the plains, would tell his friends that he had seen a thousand warriors.” The crowd whooped in agreement. And a roar of rowdy laughter followed the deflated scout as he trundled back to his seat.
    Mamie, although usually shy, went next. When she sat down, Charlie had already made up his mind to intervene if the phrenologist started to cast aspersions on his wife. But there was no need. The blind man ran his hand over Mamie’s head just once and then said, “Here is a good-natured little somebody who cannot tell a lie or do a wrong.”
    Then it was Charlie’s turn. He volunteered because he had grown intrigued. It wasn’t all guff, as he’d expected. In fact, Charlie had to admit, the phrenologist had said some things that were pretty accurate. Now Charlie was curious to hear what the blind man would say about him.
    The phrenologist laid his hands on the top of Charlie’s head, found a spot, and began rubbing it as energetically as a bartender polishing a glass. “Ladies and gentleman,” he finally said after a good deal of determined rubbing, “here is a mule’s head.” When he went on to explain that his subject had a large stubborn bump and therefore undoubtedly was as stubborn as a mule, Charlie hooted merrily along with the rest of the audience.
    But the phrenologist was not done. He added that the subject had “a fine head.” A head that indicated he would one day make a very successful detective.
    A detective? Like some desperate character in a dime novel? What a darn ridiculous idea, Charlie silently raged; he might as well have predicted that I’m going to be president. Having some fun was one thing, but Charlie was touchy about anyone thinking they could play him for a fool. He got up so abruptly that the chair he’d been sitting in nearly toppled over. Whatever spark of interest he’d previously had in the performance had been extinguished. The blind man, he informed Mamie with a renewed conviction as he led her out of the hotel, was just another of the West’s army of con men, and not a very good one, at that.
    YET CHARLIE soon would find himself recalling the blind man’s words. And wondering.
    Five months after the performance in the Leland Hotel, Marshal Henry Brown, along with his deputy, Ben Wheeler, and two cowboys rode into Medicine Lodge, Kansas, and held up the First National Bank. They charged into the bank with their six-guns drawn, and when both the bank president and the cashier refused to open the vault, they shot the two men in cold blood. Then they grabbed whatever cash they could find and rode off. It didn’t take long for a hard-charging posse to catch up with them. Before sundown the gang was locked up in the Medicine Lodge jail. And later that night an angry mob stormed the jail and dragged the four men out. The cowboys and the deputy made a break for it, but they didn’t get far before they were cut down by blasts of buckshot. Henry Brown didn’t try to escape. So a noose was slipped over his head, and he was strung up from a nearby tree until his neck broke. They left him there, the rope squeaking against the bark of the heavy limb as his body swung in the night.
    Just as the blind phrenologist had predicted.
    FIVE
    ear ye! Hear ye! Come gather round me, fellow citizens, and rejoice, for I am going to invite you to a feast where money is served with every course,” Soapy would typically bellow, as loud as a trumpet, when shortly before noon as he’d drive the light buggy pulled by his big bay horse up to the Union Depot clock tower. As a bemused crowd, mostly travelers coming off an arriving train or waiting for the next one to take them out of