The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles

Chapter 19

Chapter 19Two days later, I was on my way back to Denver. I

had spent three weeks in Chicago, and even if I had managed to

curtail some of the guilt I felt about being with Katharina, I had

not been able to overcome the guilt I felt about being away from

Anna Marie and my mother.

Katharina and I had agreed to stay in

frequent touch and to use the telephone rather than the U.S. Post

Office to do so. There were telephones in the offices of the

Denver Sun as well as in the McNab house. However, as the

train pulled out of Chicago, I found myself writing a letter to

Katharina in which I told her how much I had enjoyed being with her

and how happy I was that our relationship was moving in the

direction it was. For me, writing my feelings always seemed easier

than vocalizing them.

Two weeks after I arrived in Denver, I

rented a house that was only about four blocks from the McNab

house. The house had four bedrooms—one for each of us plus an extra

for guests. It was newer than the house Mallie and I had purchased

many years before and came with such modern conveniences as hot and

cold running water, an indoor bathroom, and a telephone. A wide

veranda wrapped around two sides of the house, and there was a

small guesthouse in the back along with a structure that could be

used as a stable for a couple of horses.

The McNabs were sad to see us move out, but

they understood that I needed a place of my own. Most of all, they

understood the need for Anna Marie to spend more time with her

father.

The next few months were good ones for all

of us. I had even worked up the courage to tell the McNabs about

Katharina, and to my surprise, they were not only understanding but

also insisted that after more than four years, it was time that I

think about finding a new spouse.

“We know that no woman will ever replace

Mallie as Anna Marie’s mother, but it is not good for a man of your

age to be without a wife,” Mrs. McNab told me one day. It was a

tremendous load off my shoulders. I wrote Katharina and suggested

that she travel to Denver sometime after we ushered in the New Year

of 1898. She agreed, adding in her own contrary way that it would

be intriguing to see America’s “uncultivated outback

provinces.”

Within a few months Anna Marie and I were as

close as a father and daughter could be; and most of all, my mother

had almost forgiven me for my long absence in the Orient. My

position at the Denver Sun was secure, and I had become one

of its managing editors.

I had received an offer of employment from

the Chicago Tribune, but I decided to turn it down. I didn’t

disclose that decision to Katharina in any of my letters, however.

I preferred to tell her in person when she arrived in Denver

sometime after the New Year.

Since my return to Denver, I had also

rekindled my friendship with Bat Masterson, who had grown into a

major celebrity during my absence. While I was away, he began

writing a weekly sports column for a Denver newspaper called

George’s Weekly. He also opened the Olympic Athletic Club to

promote the fast growing sport of boxing. Bat not only followed and

attended boxing matches, but he also developed an uncanny talent

for picking the winners. On many occasions, he also acted as a

timekeeper, promoter, referee, and second.

One day, I decided to surprise him at the

Palace Variety Theater that he still ran. When I walked in, Bat

looked up from the large desk he was sitting behind. He obviously

didn’t recognize me. It had been four years, and I had gained more

weight and grown a mustache.

“Are you that damned Kansas sand cutter I’ve

heard so much bullshit about?” I demanded, projecting my most

menacing demeanor.

Bat was obviously startled and probably

wondered how I had gotten past the grumpy woman outside who acted

as his secretary and gatekeeper.

“And who in the hell might you be?” he said,

leaning back in his chair. As he did, I heard the sound of a single

action revolver being c****d.

“Christ, Bat, don’t you recognize me?” I

said. “You can put that barkin’ iron away.”

Bat stood up and gave me a good going over

with his eyes.

“Well, I’ll be go to hell, if it ain’t that

Dodge City curly wolf Billy Battles.”

He came around the desk and grabbed my hand.

“Damn, Billy, I almost plugged ya. I’ve got more enemies in this

town than friends these days.”

I started to sit down, but Bat grabbed me by

the arm. “Don’t sit. Let’s get out of here.”

We walked to a local saloon that Bat

frequented and settled at a table. For the next hour, I filled him

in on my adventures in the Orient, including my budding liaison

with Katharina.

“She sounds like the most dangerous of your

exploits,” Bat said.

“You may be right. Wait until you meet her.

She’s coming to Denver after the New Year.”

We talked a bit more about common friends

and acquaintances. I asked Bat about Wyatt Earp and his wife,

Josie.

“The last time I saw Wyatt was about two

years ago in San Francisco. I was at ringside when he was

refereeing the Tom Sharkey-Bob Fitzsimmons heavyweight scrap, and

it turned out to be a disaster for him.”

“What happened?”

“Wyatt stopped the fight in the eighth round

on a foul. He ruled that after Fitzsimmons’ hit Sharkey just under

the heart with his famous solar plexus punch and Sharkey dropped to

one knee clutching his groin, Fitzsimmons had hit Sharkey again

when he was down on one knee. Thing is, not many that day saw the

punch that Wyatt said Fitzsimmons threw.”

“Did you?”

“I didn’t, but Wyatt blocked my view… so I

can’t rightly say one way or another. I do know that Fitzsimmons

was ahead in the bout, and for him to lose the fight on a foul

didn’t set right with the crowd. They were yelling and throwing

things into the ring. But Wyatt stuck by his decision. He told the

crowd that the Marquis of Queensbury rules say ‘A man on one knee

is considered down and if struck is entitled to the stakes.’ A few

days later, Wyatt and I were having dinner, and he told me that was

the last boxing match he would ever referee.”

“Those bastards in the press think I fixed

the fight,” he told me. “Hell, Bat, my money was on Fitzsimmons,

who was, without doubt, the better fighter.”

“Where’s Wyatt now?”

“Last I heard he was talking about opening a

saloon and gambling hall in Seattle. I think Wyatt is still looking

for the Golden Goose.”

Bat and I agreed to meet again for dinner

when Katharina was in town.

“Emma has never met a real live baroness

before, and neither have I.”

I warned Bat not to bring up Katharina’s

patrician credentials. “She’s a might touchy about that.”

Bat shot me a puzzled look.

“I’ll explain it all to you another

time.”

“Sounds like a yarn that will keep my

attention.”

For the next month or so, I concentrated on

my work at the Sun. Mr. Harris suggested that I write a

couple of editorial essays on the problems of colonialism that I

witnessed in French Indochina. Mr. Harris was a strong isolationist

who believed the United States should, unlike the European powers,

keep out of Asia, South America, and Africa. I tended to agree,

though I wasn’t sure cutting ourselves off politically from the

rest of the world was a smart thing to do.

My mother, the McNabs, and I celebrated the

New Year, and I was looking forward to seeing Katharina again when

things suddenly went haywire.

It began with a telegram from my cousin

Charley Higgins of Ellsworth, Kansas. Charley, who had helped me in

my ongoing scraps with the Bledsoes and had probably saved my life

by getting me to Dodge City after I was wounded by one of Bledsoe’s

men at our Battles Gap homestead, was on his way to Denver with

some disturbing news. The telegram didn’t say what that news was,

but I figured it had to be serious to get Charley to come all the

way to Denver.

He arrived two days later, much to the

vexation of my mother, who was not one of Charley’s biggest

aficionadas.

“Wherever that Charley Higgins is, there’s

sure be somebody kickin’ up a row,” Mother said. “Why, he almost

got you killed.” I was never going to convince my mother that it

was Charley who saved my bacon that day at our old farm.

Charley arrived at our house one blustery

January afternoon around three and was immediately met by mother,

hands on hips. She looked Charley up one side and down the other as

though daring him to enter the house.

Charley hadn’t changed too much since I last

saw him. He was in his early forties, still wiry and trim. He was

dressed in gray pants, white shirt, and long black coat. The

moustache he once sported had grown into a Van Dyke beard, which

made him look a bit ominous.

“Hello, Aunt Hanne,” Charley said, removing

his hat, revealing black hair that was now streaked with strands of

gray.

“Hello yourself, Charley Higgins,” she said,

blocking the doorway. “How’s your mother?” Charley’s mother was my

aunt Edeltraud, one of my mother’s three sisters. Her husband was

my uncle Vernon, a rough and tumble sort of man who had obviously

influenced Charley more than Aunt Edeltraud had.

“Ma’s just fine… She sends her love.”

“Uh huh… and what kind of shenanigans are

you plannin’ on scoopin’ William into?”

Charley looked down at the floor. No man

would ever dare talk to Charley like my mother did. He would have

knocked him galley west, as Charley was fond of saying.

“I think you got it all wrong, Aunt Hanne.

I’m here to help Billy.”

“Pshaw, why, the last time you helped

William, he almost wound up in an eternity box.”

“That’s not fair, Ma,” I said. “It was my

idea to go after the Bledsoe bunch after they almost killed me here

in Denver. Without Charley along, I probably would have been

killed.”

“Well, you best get situated in the

guesthouse out back,” she said, moving aside and ignoring my

vindication of Charley. “We’ll have supper at six. Right now I have

to get to the schoolhouse.”

My mother usually walked to Anna Marie’s

school some five blocks away and walked home with her. I figured

that would give Charley time to explain what was going on. We moved

to the guesthouse.

“So what’s the big mystery, Charley?” I

asked as we walked.

“We had a visitor to the ranch the other

day, and guess what he was lookin’ to find out?”

“No idea.”

“He was lookin’ to find out what happened to

Nate Bledsoe.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “What?”

“Yep, a big husher from Pinkertons. Gave me

this card.”

Charley pulled a small business card from a

pocket and handed it to me. My knees almost buckled when I saw the

name: Oskar Eichel. I looked for a chair and sat down heavily.

“I’ll be go to hell… That son-of-a-bitch

came all the way to Kansas.”

“You know this cockchafer?”

“Do I know him? Why, he almost got the bulge

on me in Hong Kong.”

“Hong Kong? What the hell, Billy.”

“It’s a long story… I’ll explain it all

later. Ma should be back pretty quick with Anna Marie, so for God’s

sake, hobble your lip about this around her.”

As Mother promised, the four of us ate

dinner around six-thirty; and much to Mother’s annoyance, Anna

Marie and Charley hit it off very well. Charley, who was still a

bachelor, nevertheless had a way with children. They just seemed to

take to him. Maybe it was because he talked to them as adults

rather than as children. Naturally, before long, Anna Marie was

referring to Charley as Uncle Charley.

After Mother and Anna Marie went to bed,

Charley and I returned to the guesthouse and I filled him in on my

adventures in the Orient, beginning with my first visit with a

Pinkerton man aboard the SS China before it even left San

Francisco harbor. I told him about Katharina and her problems with

the German government after the death of her husband. I wasn’t sure

I wanted to tell him how the baron had died, at least not yet. I

ended by telling Charley how we finally got rid of Eichel.

“You had him shanghaied? Jesus, Billy, no

wonder the snollygoster came all this way.”

“Did he ask about me?”

“Never asked about you… He just said he knew

where you were.”

“s**t. And how did he find you?”

“He tracked down that beaner sheriff in New

Mexico—Lopez I think his name was—and he gave him my name along

with yours. He didn’t recall the Makepeace brothers names, but I

guess he gave him old man Coker’s name too and how to get to the

Coker ranch.”

“Dammit… I wonder if Coker told him anything

about what happened at our old homestead.”

“I doubt it… Why, he’d have to be off his

chump to say anything. And we all agreed never to talk about what

happened or where we planted them Bledsoe mudsills.”

“None of that explains why you had to come

all this way, Charley. Why you could have sent another telegram or

used a telephone.”

“Telephone, why, that contraption leaves me

about as pixilated as a duck in a desert. ’Sides, I figured I’d

best be here when that rusty guts shows up.”

“Shows up here? What do you mean?”

“I figure him and a couple of his Pinkerton

friends are only a day or two behind me.”

My mind was suddenly racing. “How do you

know?”

“That Eichel feller told me his next stop

was going to be Denver. He didn’t make no secret of it either.

Kind’a smiled when he said it, like he wanted me to let you

know.”

This was all unbelievable. The last time I

saw Eichel, he was lying semiconscious on the floor of a Hong Kong

office about to be put on a ship to Africa. Now he was on his way

to Denver. Incredible. What now? I would have to send a telegram to

Katharina telling her about Eichel and that she should delay her

trip. I needed to formulate some kind of plan to deal with Eichel

when he arrived. I decided I would talk to Bat.

“This isn’t your fight, Charley,” I said

finally.

“The hell you say. I was at your place and

probably beefed as many of them Bledsoe bastards as anybody. So

it’s my fight too.”

“I guess I was thinking about what happened

aboard the SS China and in Hong Kong.”

“That don’t matter none… This Eichel feller

got me about as sore as a frog on a hot skillet, and I ain’t never

been on a boat or in Hong Kong.”

The next day, Charley and I paid a visit to

Bat at his Olympic Athletic Club. When we walked in, he was

watching a couple of heavyweights flail at each other in one of the

club’s boxing rings.

“Jesus Christ!” Bat yelled at the two men in

the ring. “Why neither of you could hit a bull’s ass with a banjo.

I’m wasting my time.” With that, he noticed Charley and me walking

toward him.

“Here comes trouble, and that’s as plain as

red paint.”

“Got a minute, Bat? I need some advice,” I

said. Charley, who knew Bat from Dodge City, hung back a bit.

“I guess I do… Let’s go to my office. And

you needn’t be so shy, Higgins, unless you got a posse campin’ on

your trail.”

In Bat’s office, I spent the next several

minutes filling him in on Eichel, Charley’s meeting with him, and

his expected arrival in Denver.

“I know the Pinkerton chief here in Denver…

I’ll have a word with him and see what’s what. In the meantime,

just sit tight. Don’t get into a row with this lick finger when he

gets to town. Just avoid him.”

Later at home, a telegram was waiting for

me. It was from Katharina. She was not staying in Chicago, as I had

urged her to until I dealt with Eichel. In fact, she was leaving

the next day for Denver and would be arriving a day later at four

o’clock. That was Katharina in spades. Nobody told her what to

do.

The news pleased my mother. “I’m eager to

meet the baroness and speak some Deutsch.”

“I didn’t know she was Dutch,” Charley

said.

“I said Deutsch, not Dutch, Charley Higgins.

My, my… you need to get out of Kansas more.”

Two days later, I was at Union Station to

meet Katharina. Charley didn’t come along but decided to make the

rounds of downtown Denver. We agreed to meet later at home.

My heart jumped when I saw Katharina

disembark from the Pullman car. As usual, she was dressed in the

latest fashion, with a navy-blue skirt and white blouse adorned

with a blue tie. Perched forward on her head was a straw sailor hat

trimmed with a red ribbon. She carried a small valise, and when she

saw me, she ran toward me. When we met, she dropped the valise and

put her arms around me. We stood there in a close embrace for a

good half minute, and then Katharina pulled away.

“What a trip. I have never seen so much

desolate country in my life.”

“You came through the Great Midwestern

Desert—at least that’s what some folks call places like Nebraska

and Kansas.”

“Well, I’m here now, and we have some

important business to discuss.”

“Is this all you brought?” I asked, looking

at the valise on the ground.

“You must be joking. What woman would ever

travel with only a valise?”

A moment later, a porter arrived with a cart

loaded with a trunk and two large suitcases.

“These all, ma’am?” he asked.

“You mean it’s not enough?” she replied.

Katharina was obviously planning to stay a while. I hailed a

hackney, and twenty minutes later, we pulled up in front of my

house. My mother and Charley were sitting on the front porch with

Anna Marie. Katharina and I were not going to get into the house

without encountering a reception committee. I paid the hackney

driver, and Katharina and I walked up the steps to the house.

“Mother, Charley, Anna Marie, I would like

to introduce Mrs. Katharina Schreiber,” I said as we stepped onto

the porch.

My mother was the first to speak. And she

did so in German.

“Ein sehr herzliches Willkommen in Denver

Frau Schreiber,” she said, extending her hand to Katharina.

“Vielen Dank, Mrs. Battles,” Katharina said.

“Ich bin sehr glücklich, endlich hier zu sein.”

Charley looked at me and then at Katharina.

“I don’t know what y’all just said, but I’ll second whatever it was

Aunt Hanne said. I’m Billy’s black sheep cousin, Charley

Higgins.”

“Nice to meet you Mr. Higgins,” Katharina

said, extending her hand to Charley. “William has spoken of you

often.” She paused a moment and looked down at Anna Marie, who had

moved next to me.

“And who is this?”

“I’m Anna Marie, and this is my Papa,” Anna

Marie said proudly, looking up at me.

“Yes, he is, and what a lucky man he is to

have such a beautiful and clever daughter.” With that, she produced

a white Steiff teddy bear from her valise and handed it to Anna

Marie, who grabbed it and held it close to her cheek. High-quality

Steiff toys from Germany were hugely popular back then.

“I have a brown one. Now I have a white one

too,” Anna Marie said. “Thank you.” If there was any ice between

Katharina and Anna Marie, it was now broken. I wasn’t so sure about

my mother. Her thawing time was quite a bit longer, and she was not

one to be bribed by a stuffed animal or any other gift.

“Well, let’s get you settled,” she said.

Then looking at me, she added, “I moved in with Anna Marie so Mrs.

Schreiber can have my room.” With that, she led Katharina into the

house and up the stairs to her room. Charley and I wrestled

Katharina’s trunk up onto the porch and then up the stairs.

“Christ, I’ve lugged eternity boxes lighter

than this,” Charley whispered as we reached the second-floor

landing. “What the hell is she pack’in? Gold? Lead? Or both?”

“Neither, Mr. Higgins,” Katharina said.

“Just a bit of ladies’ plunder. Was it too heavy for you two

hushers?”

That comment brought a loud guffaw from my

mother, who just emerged from Katharina’s room. “A little hard work

is good for these two lazy galoots. God knows they will never drown

in their own sweat.”

I felt the ice cracking a bit between Mother

and Katharina. The thawing continued throughout dinner, and

finally, after we had eaten, my mother invited Katharina to take a

walk with her. A good sign.

“Let these two scrub the porcelain,” she

said. “They can use the practice.” Then the two women put on their

coats and walked out of the house.

“Leave it to females to put flavor in yore

grub,” Charley said, grabbing a towel. “You wash. I’ll dry.”