Chapter Ten
This here time when a lot of desperate and lonely little tykes was about to be adopted sort of got me riled up. That’s because some of those people circling around the children wasn’t interested in giving the children a home; they was looking for slave labor that’d cost nothing but food and clothing.
It was real quiet there on the courthouse steps. Adults, they were staring at the children, and the children, they were fidgeting and looking like they wanted to be somewhere else. The first to take the plunge was Reuben Cork, who had a mule-raising outfit on the west edge of Puma County. He was a skinny old bachelor, fifty maybe, graying, with cruel eyes and a good eye for horseflesh. He had two ex-jailbirds working for him, mostly to stay out of sight from the rest of the world. I knew him only because he drove his wagon to town to load up now and then, and he brought in mules to sell or ship out.
He was eyeing a skinny kid named Thomas, who looked about as bitter as Reuben, and wasn’t enjoying being poked and prodded.
“You like animals, boy?” he asked.
Thomas shrugged.
“You ever seen a mule before?”
Thomas didn’t answer. There was no need.
“I’ll take him,” Reuben said to the McCoys. “Indenture him. He’s what, nine? I get him for seven years, do I?”
Seven years of hell, I thought. If the kid didn’t run away first. Kit Carson, he was indentured and he ran away and stayed in the mountains, and they never did catch him. The kid, he didn’t move, and looked defeated. He was not the master of his fate. He was a minor. If it wasn’t Reuben Cork, it might have been a fine fate for a city kid, getting out into the healthy fresh air a lot. But Reuben, he was as likely to use a buggy whip on the boy as he was on a mule.
There wasn’t any law against it, and all I could do was watch the transaction, as Cork laid out a few dollars, put his X on some papers because he couldn’t read or write, and motion the boy to climb onto a saddle mule and that was that.
People were watching, and not with gladness as far as I could see.
Next a girl named Sally got plucked up by Alphonse Smythe, the postmaster, and his wife, Mabel. They poked and prodded, and checked teeth, and then anted up the ten dollars, and signed some papers.
“Well, Sally, welcome to our house. We’ve always wanted a daughter, and now we have you, my dear. I think you’ll find your life with us a happy one, if you’re not lazy or contrary,” Mabel said.
Sally clutched the few rags she owned, and quietly followed the Smythes up the street. They lived a few blocks away. People watched them, mostly wondering privately how it’d work out, and whether anyone would be happy with the adoption. At least Sally got adopted. That was a good sign.
A couple of boys got indentured to Puma County ranchers. That looked fair enough to me. Most ranchers were bachelors, and they had a bunkhouse full of drovers, and were always short of help. It wasn’t home, and those boys wouldn’t see much of any mother around, but they’d be sheltered and fed and probably come out fine at age sixteen.
The number of orphans was dwindling some, but there were plenty remaining, and they looked more and more miserable. Then the town’s banker, Hubert Sanders, and his wife, Delphinium, showed up and immediately closed in on a frightened girl in pigtails, who wore a blue shift and ancient shoes that didn’t fit her little feet.
“We’ve been looking at you, my dear,” Delphinium said. “What would you think about joining our family?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
“We have high standards, my dear. You would need to meet them and live respectably, and strive for a well-rounded nature.”
The girl stared.
“What’s your name, my dear?”
The girl glanced at the McCoys, but said nothing.
“She’s Minerva,” Mrs. McCoy said. “We found her wandering free along the Hudson River, half-starved. She said her name is Minny, and that’s all we know.”
“How old are you, Minny?” Mrs. Sanders asked.
The girl shrugged.
“We think about eight, and that’s what we put in the Children’s Aid Society form.”
“Are you respectable?” Mrs. Sanders asked.
The girl shrugged.
“We’re looking for a good little worker, who can do scullery tasks, and soon can cook and clean. Would you like to do that?”
Minerva shrugged.
“Who was your mother, dear?”
“Big and fat,” the girl said.
“What happened to her?”
“She . . . The coppers took her away.”
Mrs. Sanders pursed her lips. “You have much to overcome. Would you like to overcome these things?”
The girl shrugged again.
The Sanders retreated a way, and I watched them engage in a lot of whispered talk, and then they returned to the courthouse steps.
“We’ll adopt her, and hope for the best,” Delphinium said. “I do need a maid.”
Soon Hubert had filled out the adoption forms, a copy to go into the courthouse, and a copy for themselves, and a copy for the society.
“You want to come with us now, Minny? We’ll have you set a nice table, and serve us a nice lunch, and then you’ll have your first meal with your new parents. You’ll call me Mrs. Sanders, and call him Mr. Sanders. Never ‘Mother’ or ‘Father.’ We won’t allow that.”
Minny shrugged, but let Mrs. Sanders catch her hand, and I watched them walk toward the north side, where the town’s biggest homes and richest folks seemed to collect. I sure didn’t know whether I’d like to be adopted by people like that. I guess mostly I’d just want a ma and a pa smiling at me.
An hour or so dragged by, and no more children got took. The rest of them, they were doomed to go on, shuffling from place to place until someone adopted them. Maybe the ones that got taken were the lucky ones, even though they faced a hard life, and not much more caring than when they were orphaned or found running the streets.
The McCoys were looking about ready to pack up and leave. McCoy was talking to Turk, our liveryman, about buying one wagon and team, since they didn’t need three outfits anymore.
That’s when I noticed the kid, standing in misery, tears leaking down his face. He was freckled, with cauliflower ears, auburn haired, and miserable.
“Hey, kid, what’s wrong?” I asked, knowing what was wrong.
“I just want a mom,” he said.
“Well, maybe next town, you’ll find just the right mom.”
He shook his head. “Three towns already. No one wants me.”
“What’s your name, sonny?”
“Riley.”
“How’d you get that name?”
“My ma.”
“Somebody’s gonna want a Riley. That’s a good name for a boy. I wish I was a Riley.”
“You gonna arrest me?”
“For what?”
“For crying. They always say stop that.”
“Feller can cry all he wants, in my book. My ma always used to say, a boy without a good ma is a boy who’ll never grow up.”
“I’m slow,” Riley said. “That’s why.”
“Boy, join the club. My ma, she always called me slow.”
“How’d you get to be sheriff?”
“I’m fast with, ah, my hands.”
“Like shooting?”
“That’s what got me my job. But I don’t shoot people if I can help it. I just try to keep people safe here.”
“I wish you could find a ma for me,” Riley said.
I spotted Rusty, and just then an idea popped into my head.
“Hey, Riley, would you settle for a pa?”
He looked alarmed. “I never had one.”
“Pa’s are as fine as ma’s are, and can teach you a trade when you get old enough.”
“They can?”
“You bet. Now I’m going to go talk to that feller over there for a minute, but I’ll be back, hear me?”
I got aholt of Rusty, who was looking over the orphans and the crowd.
“Hey, seeing as how you didn’t get any Ukrainian brides, how about a kid?”
Rusty, he was as shocked as if I had fired him on the spot, almost as shocked as if I had just given him a two-dollar raise.
“Who wants a kid?”
“Well, you were fixing to start a family, weren’t you? Siamese twins? You were even going to rebuild the outhouse for them, so they could sit together. Seems to me, Rusty, if you’re willing to rebuild your outhouse, you could adopt a boy. That there boy, Riley, he’s just aching to belong to someone, and that someone’s gonna be you.”
“What did I do to earn this?”
“I’m just trying to console you, Rusty, because you lost your two Ukrainian twins.”
“I’m not fit for fathering.”
“Then try mothering.”
“How’m I gonna raise a kid? I got to be on duty.”
“The whole sheriff outfit, we’ll pitch in. We’ll get the kid raised. We’ll make Riley a deputy soon as he can handle a gun.”
“Well, don’t this beat all,” Rusty said. “I been snookered.”
That was Rusty’s way of saying yes, so we headed back to Riley, who was still leaking tears.
“Boy, here’s a pa—if you want him?”
Riley, he stared upward, looked deep into Rusty’s face, and then ran to Rusty and threw his arms around my deputy and hung on hard as he could.
Rusty, it was all he could do to hide what was crawling over his face.
Twenty minutes later, the Puma County sheriff’s office had a new little deputy, with a star on his chest and two or three daddies.