Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.
It was distressing; really, really most distressing.
One did what one could for these people, really one did. And how did they repay you? Hounding! Hounding one to the ends of the earth.
Mr Boyd, that much loved local gentleman - so wonderful with the children - so kind to the poor and indigent - so regular at church and so beneficent when the collection plate was handed around - he who ran the newly established Kalispell Drug Store and Pharmacy, was diffidence itself as he entered the Marshal's office on this fine May afternoon, his hat being wringed nervously in his hands.
"Oh Marshal, I am so very distressed to have to bother you, but I am afraid that a most unhappy calamity has befallen me... I... I hardly know where to turn and... oh dear, it is a most, most distressing turn of events... I believe that you are the only person that can help me!" he whimpered, looking, it had to be said, close to tears.
"I am afraid that my life is in danger!"
"The law is the law."
"Mining's not everyone's choice of hobbies, it just happens to be mine."
"Now, slow down, Mister Boyd. Have a seat." Speed offered, "Who is threatening you? And why would anyone pose a threat to you, sir? That is outlandish, and yes, I'll put a stop to that behavior." He gestured toward the chair next to the desk."Cup of coffee?" The man looked distressed, so Speed was going to do everything he could for him, complete with writing out a complaint.
"I'll need to write down the particulars, getting to be a real chore to help folks these days with complaints and reports, you'd think this was Helena. Gone are the days when I'd get a name and go and take care of it. But that's what's expected. So now, if you'll tell me all about this threat you're facing, from whom, and some of the details."
It had started slowly, the influx of paperwork that was required for anything that came across the Marshal's desk. Of course, with anything that was in progress, like fights, robberies, that sort of thing, then the reports came later, after the intervention by the law. Somewhere, someone had gotten wind of what they were doing in the big cities, like Helena, Billings, or Missoula. Speed saw no need in most cases to bother with them, but it was required, thank you Richard Orr!
Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.
"Now, slow down, Mister Boyd. Have a seat." Speed offered
"Oh, thank you Marshal, that is most kind of you." the urbane, rather fussy little man nodded as he took a seat.
"Who is threatening you? And why would anyone pose a threat to you, sir? That is outlandish, and yes, I'll put a stop to that behavior."
"It is more than a mere threat, this man... he fully intends to kill me!" Mr Boyd pulled out a large white handkerchief and dabbed his forehead with it.
"Cup of coffee?"
Boyd shook his head. "Oh dear, no... my nerves are all a jitter... I can hardly keep my hands from shaking" he exclaimed holding out two sets of shuddering fingers "... unless, er, you have something you can put in it... er, of a medicinal nature" He was alluding to a glug of whiskey, perhaps.
"I'll need to write down the particulars, getting to be a real chore to help folks these days with complaints and reports, you'd think this was Helena. Gone are the days when I'd get a name and go and take care of it. But that's what's expected. So now, if you'll tell me all about this threat you're facing, from whom, and some of the details."
Boyd took a deep breath and began.
"Before I came to Kalispell, I ran a profitable little pharmacy in San Francisco, much favoured by those of high station but I also often provided my services and prescriptions at very low cost or even free gratis to the lower elements of the city, even the blacks and Chinese." He looked up to see if the lawman was getting all this down.
"Without wishing to brag, I became became quite expert in the ways and etiquette of the Chinese folk there, and I was always careful not to offend their social mores in any way whatsoever... perhaps the only white man in our nation ever to do so on his home turf, so to say. Again not to brag in any way" Indeed, most white people saw the Chinese coolies on the railroads and their laundrymen cousins in the cities as, at best, a necessary evil.
"However, one day I was called upon to help a lady of the Japanese nation, whose etiquette I know not so well... she was an opium addict, suffering from a blockage of the bowels for which I had prepared a very commonplace laxative in the form of a suppository. I fear to say, and by some inadvertent mistake of etiquette, I know not what, I was considered by her husband to have disgraced his lady in some way!" he took a breath and dabbed his brow again.
"The Japanese, Mr Guyer, are a ferocious tribe, touchy of pride, hiding a bestial love of violence below a gracious and unassuming air of quiet good manners. This husband, Takahashi by name, immediately put his wife to the sword, she was found horribly sliced up later, and set out to next kill me! I was warned by a well wisher what was afoot, and ran, I do not mind admitting it, for my very life!"
He sighed and put his face in his hands.
"The police, their hands were tied: what could they do? The Japanese mission was involved, they could do nothing about the man butchering his wife and slicing her up like so much baloney; ... and as for me, they would not step in unless I was actually attacked, but the man, a sword wielding maniac, had sworn vengeance upon me, I suppose in his mind, he had twisted the blame for his actions upon me. Me! Who had merely tried to help the poor women!"
"The end of the story, you know: I felt I had to escape from this man. I sold up my flourishing business in San Francisco and moved out here... to the wilds! Oh, but at least I was safe, Mister Guyer, safe! Until this very afternoon, when, looking out of my window, I saw him - HIM! - Takahashi, riding down the main street, tying up his horse and walking into the Stardust Saloon!"
He finished his tale and slumped in his seat.
@Flip
"The law is the law."
"Mining's not everyone's choice of hobbies, it just happens to be mine."
"And he blames you for his killing her? Odd. The police were hamstrung? That's a hard one to believe, but I suppose with foreign nationals, I somehow don't see how that would make any difference at all, regardless of the Japanese mission, but then, sir, what do I know of foreign policies, and how that affects crimes perpetrated on American soil by non-ciotizens." Speed responded to the man's story.
"I would think that it would make no difference at all, however, with the man here in town, and you having a business here. I'm sorry, but I need to be clear on this: the man butchered his wife in the manner that you have described. You gave the woman a harmless laxative suppository, which he insists is the cause of the murder. She was the one to supposit this laxative, I take it. I cannot fathom why he was not arrested and tried in San Francisco. But that is not the problem we are facing here today." Speed paused, trying to understand how this could have unfolded, and the husband could have gotten off scot free. That made no sense to him at all.
"I guess I'll just head on over to the saloon. You say he's there right now? And I'll bring him in for questioning about all of this." Speed decided. He could wire San Francisco in the morning.
Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.
The marshal repeated his story out loud to himself and to be honest, there was a note of doubt in the suspicious lawman's inflections. Damn! Then again, Boyd had a lot of good cards dealt in his hand: for a start, it was over two years since he had enjoyed the Japanese woman: every second of her suppository humiliation, her sexual abuse and her final murder and mutilation. Ironically, she was one of his more complete 'jobs' - an opportunistic murderer, he had so often had to leave 'jobs' undone or half-baked - yet she had unfortunately lived long enough to speak to her husband. But anyway, time was on his side. And even if anyone in San Francisco could remember the case, the police had been spectacularly uninterested at the time in the death: as far as they were concerned, it was just another Chinese woman conveniently removed. In fact, a year later, the Page Act of 1875 banned Chinese women from entering the United States to prevent the settlement of families, although it continued to allow Chinese men and their labour into the country.
The difference to them between Chinese and Japanese was, to them, of very low interest.
They had actually been more interested in the fact that a white man was being pursued by a mad, sword wielding oriental: but at the end of the day, the detective he had spoken to (Boyd was brazen enough to have gone to the police about his own murder!), Fish, had advised him to either lay low or ship out.
"I guess I'll just head on over to the saloon. You say he's there right now? And I'll bring him in for questioning about all of this." Speed decided. He could wire San Francisco in the morning.
Boyd waved his hands in fear.
"Oh Marshal! You do not propose that I stay here while you do that and meet the lunatic face to face?! The man is a maniac! He carries a enormous sword, with which he has sworn to remove my head!!" he virtually screamed.
"The law is the law."
"Mining's not everyone's choice of hobbies, it just happens to be mine."
"Easy now, Mister Boyd. I'm not sure what law you've dealt with, but the very last thing one does is put the victim and the accused face to face for any reason. I certainly have no intention of doing that. It would be best if you went on home, maybe close up shop as well." Speed clarified for the man, obviously frightened out of his wits.
"I'll just amble on over there in a bit, giving you some time to get to your shop. Not a long time, but ample time." Speed added. It was some tale that was for sure. And a man wielding a sword, to Speed, that would be worse than being shot. He got to his feet, "You hightail it, and I'll wait a bit before I go over to the Stardust and confront this man. Be easy enough to distinguish him from the others in the place, and then bring him over here. How's that?"
Now he had heard some tales in his time behind the badge, but there had been no story like this one. As far-fetched as it sounded, there was a definite possibility that it was exactly what happened to the poor woman, and Mister Boyd. Hopefully, the Japanese man spoke and understood English; otherwise, well, it would be a one-sided case. Maybe ship him off to Helena if there were any Japanese there to translate. He would face that when the time came.
Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.
Guyer suggested Boyd went home, and the man agreed with alacrity.
"Y... you don't have to tell me twice Marshal!" he nodded.
"I'll just amble on over there in a bit, giving you some time to get to your shop. Not a long time, but ample time." Speed added.
"Don't worry, I can oil-up my insides when I need to!" Boyd declared, pushing on his hat and making for the door.
Speed got to his feet, "You hightail it, and I'll wait a bit before I go over to the Stardust and confront this man. Be easy enough to distinguish him from the others in the place, and then bring him over here. How's that?"
The druggist hovered by the door, scanning the street for the Japanese man, and then turned to bid farewell to the lawman.
"Good luck, Marshal! And just be careful... that feller's crazed, I tell you, and he won't think twice about slicing through you with that giant bowie knife of his to get to me! I tell you... if he makes one false move, I'd plug him... he won't give you more than a second before... swish!" he made a sweeping motion with his hand and then legged it out the door and down the street to lock himself in his store and peep through the net curtains.
All women look the same in the dark - most critters, too
Having given Mister Boyd enough time to run back to the Druggist's and establish some form of 'Safe room', the Marshal's slow progress toward the saloon was further impeded by Jimmy Miller, who came staggering up the street holding onto his arm (which had actually stopped hurting by now) and with the look of a martyred innocent on his face.
"Marshal! Marshal! You gotta help me! I just been attacked by a mad Chinaman in the Saloon! He used some kinda Chinese monkey magic to break my arm - just cause I tried to stop him touchin' up that blind girl, Frances Grimes! Flandry and Cantrell had him cornered when I..." what, ran away? "... when I said I'd rush and find help... 'spite ma grevious injuries." He slumped against one of the balustrades that flanked the boardwalk, panting heroically.
"I wish I could come and help you lock him up but..." he winced and gripped his bicep with a grimace "... it's m' arm!"
"The law is the law."
"Mining's not everyone's choice of hobbies, it just happens to be mine."
"Hold on, Jimmy, this just happened?" Speed wanted to know, "You need to get to Doc Danforth, or Doc Boone, and get that set right away, you don't want to lose it because you waited too long. This Chinaman, he's still there?" A second question from a man who was going over the statement from William Boyd, so that he was firm in how he would go about his questioning of the man, now accused of breaking Miller's arm.
"You need help to get to the Doc's?" Speed wanted to know. He needed to get to the bottom of two complaints on the same man in the same place. It should be easy enough, but getting Jimmy some help for his arm had to take priority. Locating a Japanese man in Kalispell would be easy, since currently, there was only Elias Steelgrave's Chinese houseboy.
Something did not feel right about any of this.
All women look the same in the dark - most critters, too
"Hold on, Jimmy, this just happened?" Speed wanted to know
Jimmy just nodded, wincing in pretend pain.
"You need to get to Doc Danforth, or Doc Boone, and get that set right away, you don't want to lose it because you waited too long. This Chinaman, he's still there?"
Jimmy started a little, his arm wasn't actually broken. He wasn't about to go to the doctor and pay for nothing. He answered the second point instead. "Yeah, he's still in there - Lordin' it over all the white folks" he said, trying to ramp up the race element to all of this.
"You need help to get to the Doc's?" Speed wanted to know. He needed to get to the bottom of two complaints on the same man in the same place. It should be easy enough, but getting Jimmy some help for his arm had to take priority. Locating a Japanese man in Kalispell would be easy, since currently, there was only Elias Steelgrave's Chinese houseboy.
"I'll be alright, maybe it's just strained" he said, trying to look brave and forestalling any later enquiries in Doc Danforth's direction.
Miller knew nothing of Boyd's visit to Guyer, and vice versa: but perhaps Amatsu-Mikaboshi, the Japanese spirit of stars and evil, a formless being existing in a realm of darkness, a force of absolute domination feeding on human emotions, leading to destruction, had had something to do with this unfortunate coincidence.