The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles

Chapter 20-1

Chapter 20The next morning, Katharina, Charley, and I took the

trolley downtown and met Bat in his Palace Variety Theater office.

We told my mother we were going to do a little sightseeing. No need

to tell her about Eichel just yet.

As we entered Bat’s office, he stood up from

his desk and walked toward us.

“I am sorry to see such an elegant lady in

the company of such lowly ne’er-do-wells,” he said, extending his

hand to Katharina.

“It is indeed a disagreeable state of

affairs,” she replied with a laugh. “But sometimes it is necessary

that we suffer the insufferable. You must be that dangerous Mr.

Masterson I have heard so much about.”

“And you must be the baroness Schreiber

William has told me about.”

“Mrs. Schreiber will do… I have relinquished

all patrician trappings.”

“Mrs. Schreiber it is… Won’t you sit down?”

Bat said, motioning to a couch. “And by the way, I think you have

been misinformed. I am as harmless as a bee in butter.”

Charley and I were fascinated by this

exchange. These were two people who were evenly matched when it

came to standing the gaff.

I settled on the couch next to Katharina,

and Bat sat opposite us in a large leather chair. Charley preferred

to stand.

“We best get to it,” Bat said. “I did some

discreet investigating, and this Eichel fellow seems like he’s from

Pinkerton’s San Francisco office.”

“Well, hell, Bat… I could’a told you that…

says as much on that card with that big eye on it,” Charley

said.

“Yeah, but what you don’t know is that even

though Eichel is flash’n that card, he is no longer with

Pinkerton’s. He’s off on his own hook… doing some kind of work for

the kaiser in Germany.”

“I knew it,” Katharina said. “This is all

about Manfred and me and some confidential documents that we have

recently come into possession of.”

I looked at Katharina and then back to Bat.

“How do you know this, Bat?”

“Well, for one thing, my friend at

Pinkerton’s told me they closed the case on Nate Bledsoe a few

years back,” Bat said. “Then when Eichel resurfaced about three

years ago, they sacked him. Apparently, Pinkertons found out that

Eichel’s primary job was working for the German government. He got

nailed to the counter on that one.”

I stood up and walked across the room. Then

I turned around and looked back at Katharina.

“What documents, Katharina? You mean the

ones he was after aboard the China?”

“No, William. These are new top-secret

documents from the German government. They came to me just this

past year from Edeltraud von Gust, one of Heinrich’s sisters.”

Bat looked at me puzzled.

Katharina stood up and walked over to me. “I

will tell you about it later. It is dreadfully complicated.”

Charley then asked the most meaningful

question of the day.

“If this Eichel boat licker ain’t after

information on Nate Bledsoe, then why in bloody blazes did he come

a-knockin’ at my door in Ellsworth askin’ about him?”

Katharina looked at me and offered one

explanation. “Wasn’t there some kind of a reward offered for

information about this man’s whereabouts or his grave?”

“There

was, and Eichel told me the Bledsoe clan was offering

$1,500[6] for any information about Nate

Bledsoe and what happened to him.”

“Well, that settles it… This Eichel is after

that reward in addition to his other work,” Bat said, nodding at

Katharina. “Seems like he’s got a lot of irons in the fire. But I

have an idea how we can buffalo this lickspittle.”

The four of us left Bat’s office and went to

a nearby restaurant to discuss what was sure to be an impending

meeting with Eichel. No doubt, he was after some kind of

retribution after what happened to him in Hong Kong.

Bat’s idea was simple. He would deputize

Charley and me and place Katharina under our protective custody.

Bat was an Arapahoe County deputy sheriff and still held his

commission as U.S. marshal. With Charley and me, deputy U.S.

marshals, Eichel would be violating federal law if he attempted

anything.

“I think he will think twice about doing

anything stupid,” Bat said.

“So am I to be some kind of bait?” Katharina

asked.

“Not exactly… more like a bit of honey on a

log inside a safe. If the big old bear comes along, why, he may

know where the honey is, but he’ll be euchered if he tries to get

at it.”

“Hmmm, I don’t know about this, Bat. This

Eichel is no simpleton, and he does have a score to settle with

Katharina and me. I hate to make her the cheese in a

mousetrap.”

Bat nodded and looked at Katharina. “Didn’t

you say you had some important official papers that belong to the

German government? I don’t think this man is going to do anything

that might jeopardize getting those back.”

“He’s right, William. I think we want him to

come after the documents… That’s why he is coming here, after

all.”

“Does Eichel even know you are in Denver?” I

asked, looking at Katharina. “I mean, you just got here.”

Charley spoke up. “That’s a fair point. But

somehow, he don’t strike me as a man who leaves much to chance. He

seemed like a slyboots to me.”

We decided that Eichel must know by now that

Katharina left Chicago for Denver. He either went to Chicago

himself or hired somebody there to determine Katharina’s

whereabouts.

We devised a plan that would require me

telling my mother about Eichel and the problems Katharina and I had

with him in Asia. After that, my mother and Anna Marie would move

back in with the McNabs. Katharina and I would go about our

business as usual, coming and going, figuring that Eichel or one or

two of his men would be watching us for a few days. Charley

meanwhile would stay in the house, unseen and armed.

“I think the plan is fine as far as it

goes,” Bat said. “But if I were you, I would copper my bets a

little.”

“How?” I asked.

“Let me put a couple of people I know in

play… just in case.”

“Hell, Bat, I don’t want to get anybody hurt

or crossways with the law,” I said.

“Don’t worry. These hushers can take care of

themselves. They keep the peace in my club, and both have already

been thorns in the law’s short ribs.”

We put the plan into effect the next day. My

mother was not happy, but she went along because it didn’t make

sense to expose Anna Marie to any danger that might unfold. Of

course, the fact that Katharina and I would be living together

unmarried in my house didn’t set well with her either. I tried to

ease her qualms, but I wasn’t very successful.

“Charley will be there with us, and then

there’s Bat’s two friends.”

“Pshaw, is that supposed to

make me feel better about this arrangement? I think not.” A few

minutes later, she walked out of the house with Anna Marie.

“Well, it will only be for a couple of

days!” I yelled after her. My mother didn’t look back. Fortunately,

Katharina was upstairs when the exchange with my mother

occurred.

Bat’s two bouncers arrived that evening.

Like Charley and me, they wore deputy U.S. marshal badges. We put

one inside a vacant rental house across the street and the other on

the back porch. Charley took up a position at a second-floor window

from where he could see the street below and the walkway leading up

to the front door. Both of Bat’s men came heeled with revolvers,

but I gave the one across the street my Winchester and a box of

ammunition.

Just before dusk, Katharina and I walked out

onto the front porch holding cups of coffee and settled into a

couple of rattan chairs. If we were being watched, we wanted to

make sure whoever was doing it got an eyeful. Even though it was

late February, the weather in Denver was mild—at least until the

sun went down. Then we moved inside.

The next morning, Katharina and I left the

house together and took the trolley downtown to the Denver

Sun office. One of Bat’s men trailed us, in case Eichel or his

men might attempt something while we were out of the house.

I had asked Mr. Harris for two weeks off to

take care of some personal business, but I thought it might be a

good idea to introduce Katharina to him. I had told him about her

and talked about her often enough.

“A baroness, eh,” he had said when I told

him of Katharina’s background. I explained that Katharina was not

keen on being referred to as baroness.

When we walked through the Sun’s

newsroom, all eyes were on Katharina. In the chaotic and cluttered

confines of the grubby newsroom, she was a revelation of elegance

and grace. When we got to Mr. Harris’s office, he was already

standing with his hand extended to Katharina.

“This must be the baro… that is to say, this

must be the Mrs. Schreiber I have heard so much about,” he

said.

Katharina took his hand. “And this must be

Mr. James Harris, William’s very tolerant publisher.”

For the next several minutes, Harris

recounted a recent trip he had taken to Vienna, the capital of the

Austro-Hungarian Empire. Katharina listened politely to Harris’s

views on the political unrest in the non-Austrian areas of the

empire, but I could tell her patience was wearing thin.

“In my opinion, Emperor Franz Joseph and the

Hapsburgs will ultimately prevail over the Hungarian and Czech

nationalists,” Harris said, summing up his lecture on the political

situation in Eastern Europe.

“I wish I could agree,” Katharina said. “But

I believe the empire’s days are numbered. It is simply too large

and too fragmented, politically and geographically, to continue as

both an Austrian Empire and a Hungarian Kingdom.”

Katharina’s knowledge of European politics

always astounded me. But then, for eight years, she was married to

a man from the upper echelons of political influence in Germany,

and a knowledge of German and Austrian politics was practically an

involuntary consequence.

“German and Austrian politics rubbed off on

me like powdered sugar from a Berliner,” she told me once. A

“Berliner,” I learned, was not only a person who lived in Berlin,

but it was also a German version of a donut without the hole.

When we left Harris’s office, there was

little doubt he was besotted with Katharina, even if it was in a

purely platonic way. As we walked out the door with Katharina

leading the way, he grabbed my elbow, stopped me, and whispered,

“My god, man… beauty and brains in one magnificent parcel… You have

done well.”

Later, as we walked along the street,

Katharina asked me what Harris had whispered. I told her.

“I am not sure if I relish being referred to

as a parcel but given the part of the country we are in, I guess I

can make proper allowances.”

For the next two days, Katharina and I

continued our routine. Sometimes I left the house alone. We decided

that Katharina should not do that. Charley and Bat’s men were

getting weary of the watch and wait game. I sympathized with them.

It was a boring proposition.

Finally, late one afternoon after the third

day, Bat relieved his two men with two new men. Poor Charley

remained put, however. I was beginning to wonder if Eichel and his

men had discovered our trap when there was a loud pounding on the

front door. When I opened it, I found my mother on one knee, blood

streaming out of a gash in her scalp.

“Oh, William,” she sobbed. “I’m… I’m…” Then

she fainted.

I picked her up and carried her inside. It

was then that I noticed she was wearing only one shoe. A torn

stocking only partially covered her other foot, and her dress was

torn and covered with mud.

“My god, what’s happened?” Katharina said as

I carried Mother to the kitchen.

“Get some hot water!” I yelled at Charley,

who had run downstairs at the sound of the commotion.

I helped Mother onto a chair at the kitchen

table, and Katharina began to wipe away the blood from her face and

eyes. She seemed to revive a bit as the cold water ran over her

face.

“What happened? Did you fall?” I asked.

Then, looking at the size of the cut, I decided we needed to get a

doctor. Our old family doctor had passed away a few years before,

but I recalled Mother telling me of a new one who lived just a few

blocks from us.

“Mother, what is the doctor’s name that you

go to?” She looked at me and fell unconscious again. Moments later,

she opened her eyes.

“What?”

“Your doctor… what’s his name… where does he

live?”

“Doc Scofield… over on Thirteenth Street…”

Then she passed out again.