The Floor of Heaven by Howard Blum Read Free Book Online Page B

Charlie reckoned this was the wrong direction. Neverthless, he respected Garrett; Charlie had once seen the sheriff wing a drunk in the arm rather than shoot him down. So he turned over two men of his men to the posse and wished Garrett luck.
    By the time Charlie and his outfit got to White Oaks, the Kid had fought off an angry mob, killed a deputy sheriff, and escaped. And it was just a week later that Pat Garrett trapped the Kid and his gang in a one-room stone cabin up by the Los Portales road. After a day without food and water, the Kid surrendered.
    Charlie hadn’t given Brown another thought until he rode into Caldwell and saw the outlaw sporting a lawman’s gold star. Figuring it would be best to deal directly with this odd turn of events, Charlie went straight up to Brown and shook his hand. Next thing Charlie knew, Brown was asking—begging him, really—not to give him away. I’m a reformed man, he insisted.
    Charlie listened, not saying a word. It wasn’t his nature to judge people too harshly. He knew that in the West a man down on his luck might find himself doing a lot of things he’d one day regret; and besides, Brown hadn’t been part of the gang that had stolen LX cattle.
    Your secret’s safe, Henry, he finally told the marshal. No need to worry about any kind of loose talk from me. For more than two years, Charlie had kept his promise. Still, that afternoon he could understand full well the marshal’s hesitation.
    So Charlie was taken aback when Brown jumped up from his seat and headed for the chair in the center of the room. Perhaps the marshal didn’t want to seem as if he had anything to hide. Or perhaps he’d decided he really didn’t have much of a choice; they’d keep yelling his name until he “volunteered.” Whatever the reason, Charlie watched with a curious anticipation as Brown took his place in front of the blind phrenologist.
    Playing to the audience, Brown made an exaggerated bow, then slouched in the chair with an indulgent grin on his face. Without any further preliminaries, the phrenologist began touching the marshal’s head. He moved his fingers with a careful, deliberate slowness. Each probing was a journey, a small, intense drama. The phrenologist seemed as if he’d fallen into a trance. As the examination continued, Brown grew increasingly uncomfortable. He was no longer amused. He squirmed in his seat, but he did not attempt to get up.
    When the phrenologist finally spoke, his tone was solemn, and as condemning as a judge’s decree. You are a man who does not mind bending the truth, he announced. A man of deeply flawed character. A man who should not be trusted.
    A collective gasp went up from the audience. There were exclamations of disbelief. The marshal’s face had turned a bright crimson. He started to rise from the chair. But with surprising strength, the old man put his two hands on the marshal’s shoulders and held him in place. He was not done. He had a final revelation.
    You will meet an untimely death, he predicted. A most unfortunate and ignominious demise. “You will die with your neck in a hangman’s noose.”
    The crowd hooted derisively. The joke was on the phrenologist. He was as blind as a bat, so how was he to know he had impugned the character of and predicted an outlaw’s death for none other than the town marshal? With his own words, the man had proved himself to be a fraud.
    THE PERFORMANCE, however, continued. Public entertainment was a rarity in Caldwell, and so any diversion, no matter how far-fetched, was appreciated. An indignant Marshal Brown stormed out of the hotel parlor, but everyone else remained in their seats. Only now the townspeople’s mood had shifted. They were openly skeptical. Without doubt, the man was a charlatan. They had no faith in the phrenologist’s revealing any hidden truths or making any reliable predictions. They simply wanted to have a good time.
    So they laughed and catcalled when Theodore Baufman, the portly