Mistake
by Scott D. Wilson
They arrived with the Sunday morning sun breaking the horizon at their backs. Most of the townspeople lay in bed asleep, curled under their quilts. Early risers were up preparing themselves for the day, making coffee and getting dressed. The three straggling travelers, all dirty and tired, appeared to have been walking all night. As they got closer to the town, a handful of early birds observed them with curiosity and trepidation. In the middle they saw a figure with an unmistakably noble stride, seeming to have a destination in mind. On either side, they saw the others, simply following him, step for step, aloofly, right down the middle of a dusty road that passed for Main Street in Mistake, Texas. None carried a handgun in a holster or rifle across his back. The sheriff’s wife, upon seeing them from her bedroom window, awoke her husband, and next door the preacher peered out his window.
The man on the left was a Native, with a hooked nose and thick, coarse, dark hair cut abruptly at his shoulders. The sheriff’s wife thought she saw a knife in his belt. The man in the middle appeared to be of mixed stock, Native and Caucasian perhaps, his nose and the waviness of his hair not quite fitting the Native ideal, although his skin was dark and his muscles sinewy. On the far right walked a Negro, wearing a vest, scarf, and hat.
The sheriff dressed and walked out onto his porch, unarmed but with his star shining, and the preacher, feeling safe with his clergy collar and the sheriff next door, exited his front door. They exchanged nods and, as the incoming threesome, now still fifty yards away, failed to acknowledge them, Sheriff Amos Haslip quietly asked the minister what he made of them. Parson Cornel Dupree shrugged. Neither apprehended any harm, so they walked together toward the trio, squinting into the sun behind the invaders’ shoulders.
“Greetings, citizens!” called the sheriff, as they got within earshot.
Dupree added, “God bless you and this morning.”
The strangers remained silent, until the middle one walked up to within ten feet of the sheriff. His eyes were mesmerizing, a gold ring on the inside near the black pupil, and blue-green around the outside of the iris. The sheriff could not recall ever having seen such before. The stranger’s air was confident, even cavalier, as he stationed himself squarely before the sheriff. Apparent at this close quarter were pock-marks all over the stranger’s face, which disappeared behind a scruffy beard.
“I have returned,” he uttered.
“Returned? What do you mean?” asked the sheriff. “I’ve lived here all my life and never met you. When were you here before?”
“Is this not the town they call ‘Mistake’?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I am Mistake. This town bore me. I did not know it existed until two months ago and determined then to return to the only town that could have delivered me into this world, to visit my namesake.”
Dupree asked, “Are you saying you were born here? When, to whom, and how long did you live here? Surely one of us would know your folks. You are talking in riddles.”
“I am Mistake. I have always been Mistake. I invented this town as surely as it begat me. We have the same name for we are the same.”
“You say your name is Mistake and you came here because the town is named Mistake. Well, what’s the story on you two, then?” asked Sheriff Haslip, directing himself to Mistake’s companions.
The other two made no move to answer, however. Mistake spoke for them, “We are all seeking to find coherence, integrity, unity…We come here seeking peace.”
Haslip and Dupree glanced at each other. Strangers like these were not likely to find or bring peace to their sleepy town.
Haslip explained, “Son, this town don’t have no mystical reasoning behind its name. The fact is, the cartographer marked down that the railroad was going to come right through here, so folks built up a town, as they had been doing and have been doing since, along the railroad route. Only the mapmaker made a mistake and placed his mark in the wrong place, and the railroad runs eight and a half miles north of here. So you see it was a mistake by the mapmaker, pure and simple, and rightly named. Whereas the folks in Poplar Junction, where we should have been, enjoy the business brought their way by railroad traffic, passengers, cargo, etc. They have two hotels, restaurants, a saloon, a mercantile exchange, everything you’d expect in a regular railroad town. We here in Mistake mainly grow vegetable crops and honey for sustenance and for trade with Poplar Junction, which requires us to use horse and buggy. We have a small school and church and infirmary but we’re basically stranded out here in the middle of the desert, an outpost for those of us who prefer life at a little slower pace. What you’ve got is a simple coincidence. I don’t think this is what you are looking for.”
“What a fortuitous mistake!” exclaimed Mistake. “Do you have a place where my friends and I may clean up and rest? We will gladly pay you.”
“Of course. Frank, the barber, should be up shortly. You can bathe there,” said the sheriff.
“And when you are ready to rest, I can put you up in the church,” offered Dupree.
After pointing the drifters toward the barber for a bath, Haslip and Dupree conferred. Dupree said, “The leader’s manner and speech suggest some education and intellect but also some delirium or neurosis.”
“I agree, and we have no information about their real identities or where they’ve come from. They may be fugitives on the run. I’ll go down to my office and check the telegraph machine for new telegrams. After they get cleaned up, I’ll offer them a meal and find out what I can about them. Trouble is, this Mistake character talks in circles. I have a feeling I’m going to end up asking them to move along. We’ve got more than we can handle here without more mouths to feed.”
After finding no new messages on the telegraph, Haslip paid a visit to the barber shop, where he found Mistake trimming his beard with scissors, fresh from a bath, a towel wrapped around his waist. The sheriff noticed a mark on his left shoulder, a makeshift tattoo in the shape of a circle with a cross inside.
“Oh, excuse me, I thought you were all done cleaning up. Don’t let me interrupt you,” said Haslip.
“Not at all, sheriff, please, come in. Is there something I can help you with?” Mistake seemed energized from his bath, his face brighter and his voice stronger. The sheriff revised his previous estimate of Mistake’s age from his late 40′s to his mid 30′s. Although his face showed some wear, his body was that of a younger man’s.
“I wanted to buy you and your friends a meal. Surely you must be hungry. As soon as you are all ready, just come on down to my office.”
“My friends?”
“Yes, the Injun and the Nigger.”
“I am Mistake. I have no friends in this world.”
“Well, your traveling companions, then. I want to buy the three of you some lunch, whenever you are ready.”
“I have no companions, sheriff, no Indian and no Negro. I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Now look here, I’m not going to play any games with you. Parson Dupree and I both saw you this morning in the company of two others who were traveling with you. Where are they?”
“Traveling with me? Are you sure? Did you talk with them?”
“I asked them a question, but you answered on their behalf, that you were all three searching for peace or something like that. Then you asked us for a place where you and your friends could clean up and rest.”
“Sheriff, you must be confused. I always and only travel alone.”
“Mistake,” asked the Sheriff, raising his voice now, “where are these other two men?”
“I ask you the same question, for I know not of whom you speak.”
Haslip, frustrated, left the room to find the barber. “Frank, how many men showed up here this morning for baths?”
“Only the one upstairs, sheriff. Why?”
“Never mind.” The sheriff went to Dupree and explained that two of the three drifters were now gone, or at least unaccounted for. Could they have simply moved on, as they had no apparent stake in a town called “Mistake?” Maybe they weren’t interested in hanging around this scrape of dust just for the sake of proximity to their enigmatic friend. But if that were the case, why wouldn’t Mistake have simply disclosed this fact? Why would he have denied their very existence, when they had appeared in corporeal form in the presence of two witnesses—a lawman and a clergyman at that? Dupree and Haslip determined to cross-examine Mistake on this point.
They returned to the barber shop but Mistake was gone, the barber knew not where to. Maybe Mistake had gone to the sheriff’s office and was awaiting him there, to take him up on the offer for a meal. They checked there, but Mistake was not there. They checked the church, where Dupree had promised to put Mistake up to rest after he had cleaned up, but Mistake was not there.
Across the street, however, Haslip and Dupree saw a commotion of people at the infirmary. They crossed over the dusty street at once and pushed through the small crowd at the door to find Mistake at the bedside of a ten-year-old boy who for three weeks had been in a coma following an epileptic seizure. The boy was awake and, though weak, communicating with his family members.
The nurse stated that Mistake had wandered into the infirmary and sat at the boy’s bedside. She asked Mistake whether he was a relative but he made no response. Instead he pulled up a chair and sat down next to the boy. He took the boy’s hand into his own and held it, and the boy awoke almost instantly. The nurse called for the boy’s family and asked nothing further from Mistake.
She called for the physician, Dr. Kamisar, who promptly came and examined the boy. He opined that the boy simply regained consciousness on his own, without any intervention by Mistake. These comas are of indefinite duration, he explained, and no one can predict the day or hour when one will end. Kamisar concluded that Mistake’s presence at the time of the coma’s end was coincidence and had no medical relation to it. Mistake remained seated next to the boy, no longer touching him.
Haslip noticed that Mistake had apparently paid a visit to the general store, as he was wearing fresh new charcoal-grey cotton trousers and a new brown cotton shirt, as well as new suspenders and shiny new lace-up leather boots.
“I see I’ve caught up to you,” said the sheriff to Mistake. Haslip waved off Dupree with a gesture.
“Good day, Mr. Mistake,” said Dupree, tipping his hat as he walked away.
“Good day, Preacher. Howdy, Sheriff,” said Mistake, rising to greet him.
“Mistake,” nodded the sheriff, “how about that meal now, I’m sure you could use something to eat, and my wife, Penny, is a good cook.”
“Thank you, Sheriff, but I couldn’t eat a bite. I feel sustained by the air in this warm and welcoming place.”
“Well, at least take a cigar and we’ll smoke them on the porch and talk.”
“All right,” he said, as they began walking away from the boy’s bed. “Of what shall we talk?”
“Let’s talk about you. There’s lots I’d like to know.”
They walked in silence, until they sat in the rocking chairs and lit the cigars.
“Like what?” asked Mistake.
“I doubt Mistake is your real name. What is your given name?”
“I know myself only as Mistake. I have never known otherwise.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“I am a child of the world and a child of no one. I have always been responsible for myself. I remember no parents or relatives. I have been on my own for as long as I can remember. I have been treated kindly, and cruelly, and indifferently. I have become an astute judge of character. I can hunt and fish and build and work. I can survive indefinitely in the harshest outdoor conditions. I can reason and I can fight, though I prefer to negotiate. I have read more books than you will hold in your hands in your lifetime. I feel great compassion for man and at times I feel great despair. I have seen many things I do not understand, most of which many men fail to question. Am I a man? Am I a god? And what of you? Is there a difference?” Mistake said all of this earnestly, without a hint of jest. He focused his gaze on the sheriff’s eyes the entire time, locking in his attention and dispelling any notion that his testimony was anything short of bona fide in all respects.
The Sheriff began to realize he was dealing with a puzzle of unprecedented stature and decided to change the subject to something closer at hand. “I see you have acquired yourself some new clothes. Very nice.”
“My old rags were worn through and not even worth keeping. I am glad you like these.”
“Must have set you back some, though, I imagine.”
Mistake inhaled heavily on his cigar, exhaled, then answered, “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these…But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”
The Sheriff puffed on his cigar and made a mental note to check with Shelton at the general store about how Mistake paid for his new clothes, and how much. Surely an unemployed stranger to town would not be granted credit. “What about that boy at the infirmary?”
“I saw a child in there alone and I was drawn to him by pity and humanity. I did not know what his ailment was. I looked upon him and felt moved to take his hand. And he awoke.” And as far as the sheriff could tell, and as Dr. Kamisar confirmed, that is all there was to it.
The sheriff was frustrated with his questions about Mistake’s previous companions and Mistake’s unsatisfactory answers. He decided to ask again, this time assuming they were in agreement that the other two had accompanied Mistake to town. “Mistake,” he began, and puffed on his cigar, “tell me, did your friends not like our little town and decide to move on?”
“Why do you continue to ask me about others who supposedly came here with me? There was no one else.”
“Now, you don’t have to say that just to spare our feelings. It wouldn’t be the first time folks came through here and decided it wasn’t their cup of tea.”
“Sheriff, my patience grows thin with these questions. Please, do not persist.”
The Sheriff puffed heavily on his cigar and sat up in his chair. “Mistake, my patience is growing pretty thin, too. Now you show up here in my town with two other men, seen by myself and my preacher, no less. An hour later they are gone and you deny they ever existed. And a short while later you are wearing nice new clothes. I don’t know where any of you came from or who you are, you may be some sort of criminals, fugitives on the run, maybe you killed your partners for their share of the recovery and you’re walking around with all of it now. I try to have a regular conversation with you to get some straight answers and put my mind at ease but you only raise more questions with your replies. I have a mind to put you in a cell until I can figure this whole thing out, at least find these other two who were with you.”
Mistake let his half-smoked cigar fall to the ground and put it out with his boot. “Sheriff Haslip, I have not said or done anything inconsistent with the proposition that I am independently wealthy, perhaps through some inheritance or investments, rather than some criminal activity. I have told you I prefer to travel alone and had no companions. I suggest you find some bodies before you put me in a cell. Surely it is not a crime for me to fail to produce figments of your imagination. I have traveled much and know that here on the frontier the local law enforcement does not always observe the niceties, but without bodies, you have nothing. And I am educated as to the remedies available to me in the event you misstep. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have somewhere to be.” And Mistake stood up and walked away.
As he got about 30 yards away, Mistake pulled a flattened glass bottle out of the back pocket of his trousers, removed the cork, took a swig, re-corked the bottle and placed it back in his pocket. Haslip suspected this was moonshine, produced by an unlicensed still, possession of which may give him grounds to arrest Mistake. But, Haslip reckoned, with his recent luck, the bottle probably contained something perfectly legitimate, and he wanted no further embarrassment, so he left Mistake alone as he walked away. But he decided to follow him at some distance to watch his movements.
Mistake walked to the church/school, where he met Parson Dupree and asked if there were a place he could take a nap as he was in need of rest. Dupree set up a cot for Mistake in the library with clean sheets, and Mistake thanked him and stretched himself out on the low cot.
Haslip observed this and then walked over to the general store to check on Mistake’s purchase of new clothing. But Shelton knew nothing, he had seen no new customer. Haslip’s memory confirmed that indeed Mistake had never admitted purchasing anything from the general store. But where had his new clothes come from? There was a seamstress in town, but she could not possibly have worked that fast, and the sheriff was certain she did not have the fabrics he had seen, nor could she have produced the boots. And the clothes were all brand new, not taken off one of Mistake’s companions.
For the remainder of that day, Sheriff Haslip had much to puzzle over. He ran through in his mind everything he had seen, replayed his conversation with Mistake, and tried to fit an answer that made sense. Unsuccessfully. His wife, Penny, saw that he was troubled and gave him some moonshine to help him sleep.
The morning brought an unexpected visitor, whom Haslip greeted through his moonshine hangover. It was U.S. Marshall Ted McBride, responsible for the whole territory, and he was hunting train robbers. In response to his questions, Haslip revealed that three strangers had appeared in town the day before, at least one of whom was still there—a mysterious, uncooperative man currently sleeping on a cot in the library.
The two of them walked to the library, the Marshall with a slight but noticeable limp, and found Mistake asleep, three-quarters of the moonshine bottle empty beside him. McBride kicked Mistake’s leg to wake him. When Mistake opened his eyes, McBride identified himself and asked Mistake what his business was in the town of Mistake.
“My business here?” asked Mistake, rubbing his eyes, “Must I have business? I may be just passing through. Or I may see about taking a job as a teacher or farmhand or some such. I only arrived yesterday, so I don’t know. But it seems like a nice enough place.”
“Where did you come here from?” asked McBride abruptly, pacing back and forth as he interrogated Mistake.
“I came from the east. What town is east of here, I do not keep track, I have been traveling several months.”
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“Then it is likely you will keep traveling west, is it not?”
“Likely west? I suppose so, but who knows when, as I have made acquaintances here, and my plans are not set.”
McBride suddenly changed topics, as though in an attempt to catch Mistake unawares. “What do you know about a train robbery two nights ago?”
“Nothing.”
“And yet, the timing of this whole situation . . .” began McBride.
“Marshall, I see you favor your right leg, and your right ankle appears stiff.”
“I was in a battle with Indians six years ago and tried to jump off my horse but landed awkwardly and painfully. I learned after the fact from a doctor that the ankle was not set properly at the scene, and the ligaments and cartilage are not holding the bones in the correct angles. Any attempt now to correct it would almost certainly be futile.”
“Is it painful?”
“I have learned to live with it. I feel the pain after a long day or if I step on it wrong.”
“Would you mind taking off your boot and letting me have a look at it?
“Why? Are you a doctor?”
“No, but what harm can come from letting a layman take a look at your injured foot?”
McBride removed his boot, and Mistake took his foot and ankle into his hands. He removed the sock and massaged the skin. He squeezed here and pinched there. McBride was in no discomfort. After a couple minutes of massaging, Mistake asked McBride to stand up on it and see how it felt. McBride complied.
“I feel no pain…but it is early morning and I do not usually feel much pain at this hour.”
“I saw you favor the ankle just ten minutes ago.”
“It was out of habit only.”
“Well, try walking around on it.”
McBride walked around on it normally, with no discomfort and no limp. “It feels like before the accident. How did you do that?” McBride stood on just the one formerly-injured foot and hopped up and down. “It’s a miracle! How?!”
“Surely it has been healing naturally all this time, the ligaments working the bones back into their proper places, and you have been favoring the leg ‘out of habit,’ as you say. Perhaps your body has done its job and you have failed ‘til now to recognize it. Congratulations, I am happy for you.”
“Yes, that must be it. But I have wasted time limping when I could have been walking naturally.”
“That limp has become your intimidating trademark, though, and useful to you.”
“Perhaps, but what about the occasional pain?”
“It may persist, unfortunately. Who knows? Let us hope not.”
“Yes,” nodded McBride, eyeing Mistake. “Let us hope not.”
After a brief pause, McBride blurted out, “That was an interesting diversion, but let’s get back to the train robbery of two nights ago. What do you know of it?”
“I thought we were done with that. I answered you that I know nothing of it.”
“I do not accuse you. I am looking for information. Perhaps if you think about where you were two nights ago and what you saw, who you were with, what you heard, there may be information useful to me in solving this train robbery.”
“Two nights ago I was asleep under the desert stars, in the company of no one. I neither saw nor heard anything that can be of help to you, and I am sorry of it, but it is the truth.”
“The sheriff and the preacher have told me you arrived here yesterday morning with two other men. Where are they?”
“The sheriff and preacher have told me the same thing, but I came in alone and neither the sheriff nor the preacher has produced either of my alleged companions, so I say they are nowhere.”
McBride took a seat in a hard wooden desk chair and stared at the ground, discouraged.
After a pause, Mistake asked, “How much was lost in the train robbery?”
“About $21,000 that was headed for the Pacific Express Bank in Poplar Junction.”
“As I have intimated to the sheriff, I am independently wealthy. I can replace that amount easily. I understand replacement of the money in this way does not lighten the stain on your law enforcement abilities, but still it would restore to the bank customers their money.”
McBride took off his hat and scratched his head. “Why would you spend your own money just to see the bank’s customers not suffer losses?”
“There is no need for the bank’s customers to lose money, and I will barely feel the loss of $21,000. But you still have incentive to capture the robbers, and if I were you I would waste no more time talking with me.”
“How do you claim to have amassed your fortune?” inserted Sheriff Haslip.
“I hardly consider that I have a ‘fortune.’ My father was a scientist of some standing at a university back East. He wanted me to get out on my own and explore the country and gave me a small amount of capital as a start. I have made a couple good investments since then. But mainly, it’s just that I don’t require much to live on.”
“Now hang on there, Mistake. I know for a fact you said that you had no memory of your parents. I recall it ‘cause it was so strange the way you said it.”
“Sheriff, I said no such thing.” Mistake paused and drank the remains of the moonshine bottle, then looked up again at the two men. “Perhaps we should get going. I’ll accompany Sheriff Haslip to the bank, Marshall, and you can resume your pursuit of the robbers. Just let me get dressed.”
Mistake put on his clothes from the previous evening, adding a felt hat, creased right down the center of the crown, with dents in each side. “Marshall, if you don’t mind my saying so, it seems unlikely the robbers would have run straight into a place like this, with many people around and where they may be seen and recognized as strangers. It seems much more likely they are headed north of the tracks, into the desert, where they may have already set up a camp to receive them after the robbery.”
“Well, not all robbers are as sensible as you, and lots would head straight for a place like this where they could spend some money and get into more trouble. And when I heard the report of you and your two friends showing up here when you did, it added up perfectly.”
“Yeah,” said Mistake, adjusting his hat. “Maybe you did have cause to come looking down here, but now it’s time to take the chase elsewhere. I’ll tell the bank you took a sensible position in coming here.”
***
Haslip and Mistake rode up toward Poplar Junction and were on the outskirts of town by noon.
“We must stop here,” said Mistake, as they approached a large tent set up near a pre-existing unused shack, with much activity and people moving around.
“What’s going on?” asked Haslip.
“It’s a smallpox hospital,” said Mistake. “The obviously infected townsfolk have been moved out here for quarantine. As you can see,” he continued, pointing to his pock-marked face, “I have already contracted the disease and recovered, so I am immune to it. The disease is highly contagious but its transmission requires close contact and occurs after the onset of the rash, and the infectious stage is short. But I need you to come into town with me to explain my giving the money to the bank. You should be fine if we ride quickly by the area, but, especially as you’ll have to ride this way coming back, I will take this opportunity to deliberately infect you with the virus by rubbing a small amount of smallpox pus into superficial scratches in your skin, ideally resulting in a localized smallpox infection. This should result in your immunization from the disease, at least for a few years, and it is much less dangerous than the usual method of transmission. Wait here, please.”
Haslip spit some tobacco juice on the ground and rolled up his left sleeve while Mistake rode toward the hospital to get a small amount of infectious pus. He watched Mistake enter the large tent and talk with the nurse who greeted him at the door, explaining what he needed. When Mistake returned to the Sheriff with some pus on a small cloth, Haslip scratched his forearm with a tree branch, and Mistake gently rubbed the pus into the shallow lacerations. Then Haslip rolled his sleeve back down to protect the area and make sure the pus stayed in place in the scrapes.
Mistake advised Haslip to ride quickly through the area and await him on the other side of the quarantine, as he was going to stop in the hospital for a moment to comfort the patients and acknowledge the brave and tireless caregivers. The Sheriff did as he was asked.
Mistake stopped at the smallpox infirmary and went inside the main large tent. He took off his hat and approached the head nurse, who was in the kitchen ordering provisions. He smiled at her silently, and she politely smiled back at him, clearly not wanting to be distracted. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt and pulled it away from his shoulder to reveal his mark, the cross within the circle, a replica of the mark on her right palm. Upon seeing his mark, the nurse knew at once she had treated him in the past. She met his eyes, to see whether he had suffered partial blindness as a result of the disease. She recognized his face now, and threw her arms around his neck.
“If you will,” she said, “you can heal these people of this disease.” Her eyes begged him to do what she knew he could.
“I will,” he said. “They are healed.” And all of the affected persons, young and old, no matter how severely afflicted, experienced changes over the next few minutes. Rashes disappeared, as did red spots on mucous membranes. Temperatures went down to normal. Macules on the forehead and face disappeared, pustules flattened out and emptied of pus. Scabs fell off but left no scars or discolored skin underneath. All the patients watched in wonder. Even two stricken persons from the town who were making their way to the hospital saw their symptoms cease to exist.
The former patients all got up and danced with joy. They gathered their things and hugged each other and began to return to their homes and families. Mistake said no more but rode out to meet the Sheriff, and as they rode into town they were overtaken by some of the former patients who told them of the miracle that cured them all of the disease that threatened their lives. Haslip and Mistake agreed the whole episode was quite curious.
By the time they arrived in Poplar Junction, some there had attributed the disease’s departure to Mistake, saying they had heard him speak against it at the head nurse’s urging. But most thought this idea was nonsense, as almost all had wished out loud that the disease would leave, and any of them could have been thought responsible on this ground for the disease’s disappearance.
Mistake was different from the patients who had merely prayed for the disease’s exodus, as he was now entering Poplar Junction with the sheriff of the little town that bore his name, with the intention and ability to restore to the customers of the Poplar Junction bank all of the money that the robbers had stolen just a few nights previously.
The people of Poplar Junction had questions. Had Mistake stolen the money himself, or with his rumored confederates, and now had a change of heart? If so, why should they feel grateful to him? Where were his allies, whom not only the sheriff but the parson had stated they saw? Had he harmed or killed them? What was his agenda? Was he trying to clear his conscience? Should they not take him into custody on suspicion of the robbery? There was as much circumstantial evidence here as in most cases.
And what of the rumors of his involvement in some miraculous cure of the smallpox outbreak? Only the most gullible would fail to dismiss such as mere rubbish. Was he trying to claim credit and position himself as some sort of deliverer? Little was known about these smallpox flare-ups; some had been known to run their courses quickly without much intervention. This pock-marked dandy was up to something, concluded the city fathers. Upon his entry to the bank with Sheriff Haslip, the Mayor and Sheriff of Poplar Junction immediately seized Mistake.
Mayor Price McNealy had been Mayor for three terms and stood on a law-and-order platform, beside his virtual running mate, Sheriff Jefferson Grey. McNealy and Grey led the people, offering safety and protection from any irregular or unusual occurrences and personalities.
Grey and McNealy questioned Mistake in the public square.
“Why are you giving of your own money to restore the bank customers’ losses?”
“I can afford to and they should not suffer as a consequence of robbers.”
“Where are your co-travelers?”
“I have none and never did.”
“Do you claim any role in the smallpox healings?”
“None.”
The questions continued and spiraled in circles. The spotlight was unkind to Mistake. McNeely and Grey finally provoked him to exclaim impatiently that none of these questions mattered one whit. If he had robbed the train, which he did not, he could be thought of as returning the stolen booty, and he had harmed no one. Whether he had companions at one point was immaterial to anything; no one had produced these supposed individuals or any evidence that he had harmed anyone. He did not have supernatural ability to cure smallpox, but even if he did, he had harmed no one. The crowd perceived Mistake as belligerent and hostile, and they clamored for him to be taken into custody.
As such, Mistake created his destiny. As evening fell, he was taken to a cell on suspicion of sedition. Sadness overtook him, secondary only to his feeling of helplessness.
Sheriff Haslip remained in Poplar Junction but Grey did not allow him to visit Mistake that night. He did witness Sheriff Grey and Mayor McNealy exchanging words at Nally’s Saloon that night, and he wondered what their next step would be. Haslip took a room at a hotel across the street from the saloon, determined to find a lawyer the next day, which may mean traveling to the next town up the tracks in order to find someone who would not be influenced by these two powerful men.
The next morning, Sheriff Haslip awoke early and walked to the jail to ask Sheriff Grey whether he could visit briefly with Mistake.
“I’m afraid your friend tried to escape last night, Haslip. I had to shoot him. You want to bring him back to Mistake for burial or shall we bury him here?”
“Tried to escape?” Haslip was incredulous.
“Just past midnight. He forced that old lock on the cell door and was making a run for it. I happened to be making a final check after coming in from Nally’s. Where you wanna bury him?”
“Mistake,” Haslip said, swallowing his emotion. “He should be buried in the town that bore him, in the town he invented.”
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About the Author
Scott D. Wilson has published poetry in online literary journals as well as published several articles in legal journals on legal topics. He is a practicing lawyer and holds his law degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
“Mistake” © 2013 Scott D. Wilson
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