The Sporting House Killing G. Powell (best free novels .TXT) 📖

He wiped a tear.

It was a fine day to lay the past to rest and get on with living. He’d borne the weight of Houston’s death long enough. Sometimes it’s easier to forgive others than yourself. Too late to change the past, but other clients still needed him, and he felt the fire in his belly for the first time in a very long time.

He sipped the Strathisla. The water of life tasted sweet again.

It was such a fine day.

“Papa?”

“You know, son, maybe Brann has the last word for Houston, too. Did you read his piece in the San Antonio paper?”

Harley shook his head.

Catfish shoved the folded newspaper across the table. “Last page.”

He sat back and nursed his cigar as he watched Harley read to himself by the light of the lamp.

Thus ended the case of THE SPORTING HOUSE KILLING. Cicero Sweet was bound for the state penitentiary in Huntsville to serve his time. Thanks to Catfish Calloway, he cheated the hangman. Audi alteram partem. One side shouted TRUTH, the other MERCY, but God demanded both. “Mercy and truth shall go before thy face.”

But what is the truth about Cicero Sweet and Georgia Virginia Gamble?

Truth and only truth is eternal. It was not born, and it cannot die. It may be obscured by the clouds of falsehood, or buried in the debris of brutish ignorance, but it can never be destroyed. It’s all that is, or was, or can ever be. It exists in every atom, lives in every flower, and flames in every star. When the heavens and the earth shall pass away and the universe returns to its cosmic dust, divine truth will stand unscathed amid the crash of matter and the wreck of worlds.

Falsehood is an amorphous monster, conceived in the brain of knaves and brought forth by the breath of fools. It’s a moral pestilence, a miasmic vapor that passes like a blast from Hell over the face of the world. It may leave death in its wake and disaster dire. It may place on the brow of purity the brand of the courtesan and cover the hero with the stigma of the coward. It may degrade the patriot and exalt the demagogue, enslave a Horatio and crown a Humbug. It may cause blood to flow and hearts to break. It may pollute the altar and disgrace the home, corrupt the courts and curse the land, but the lie cannot live forever.

But what of us who cannot wait until the lie is dead and damned, who must move forward in its backwash? For us, there is only one truth which matters. It is the truth declared by twelve citizens, good and true, for it is their truth which dictates the further progress of human affairs. We must accept that truth and go about our lives accordingly; otherwise, there is no peace.

For the slayer and the slain, only divine truth matters. Whether it is known or unknown to the rest of mankind is of little consequence.

—William Cowper Brann

The San Antonio Express

July 8, 1894

Author’s Notes

Some may doubt whether Catfish Calloway ever existed, since there’s no mention of him in historical records. Likewise, some may dismiss other characters as pure fiction for the same reason: Harley and Miss Peach; Cicero Sweet and his father; Jasper Cantrell and Bootblack Ben; Miss Jessie, Miss Sadie, and Big Joe; Sterling and Peter DeGroote; Cooter Shaughnessy and Thaddeus Schoolcraft.

None may doubt, however, that Judge Levi Goodrich presided over the Nineteenth District Court in 1894, that Tom Black was the County Attorney, that Warwick Jenkins was the county judge or that he and his brother, Cicero Jenkins, were both veterans of Terry’s Texas Rangers in the Civil War.

The historical record proves without doubt that Champe McCulloch was the mayor of Waco; that Bud Orman was convicted twice of killing Bud Houghston; and that Bob Lazenby owned the company that made Dr. Pepper famous. No student of late 19th century America would doubt that William Cowper Brann penned eloquent essays exposing human weakness and became quite well known for it across America, his circulation mounting to 100,000 before publication ceased. Indeed, his concluding commentary about truth chronicled in the last chapter may be found—mostly verbatim—among the pages of The Iconoclast.

Likewise, none may question the existence of the places inhabited by Catfish and his contemporaries. Sanborn insurance maps, photographs, and extant newspapers remove all doubt about those places. While the wonderful, noisy old McLennan County Courthouse at Second and Franklin designed by Wesley Dodson was torn down long ago, as was the city hall, the historic suspension bridge still spans the Brazos River. Bronze longhorns now scramble toward it, reminding us of Harley’s reminiscence of Chisolm Trail herds crossing that bridge when he was a boy. Catfish’s home remains intact on Washington Avenue, though title records for some reason don’t reflect his ownership. Also standing today are Harley’s boarding house, Wade Morrison’s home, and Mayor McCulloch’s home. A terrible tornado devastated downtown Waco in 1953 and took Sam Kee’s Chinese Restaurant and Bismarck’s Saloon, as well as many other places well-known to Catfish, though photos of them remain. Photographic evidence also confirms the existence of the Law Offices of Calloway & Calloway, though the name on the door isn’t quite visible. Photographs show the famous Old Corner Drug Store, operated by Wade Morrison, where a pharmacist named Charles Alderton invented Dr. Pepper, and soda jerks sold eager customers a “Waco.”

The Reservation, on both sides of Barron’s Creek, operated as only one of two such legal districts in the entire country until just before America entered World War I, when the city decided it wanted the 45,000 soldiers of the proposed Camp Macarthur more than it wanted the whores. The madams of the Reservation believed both would get along nicely side-by-side, but Uncle Sam insisted otherwise. Women like Miss Josie Bennet and Miss Ada Davenport had plied their trade in the Reservation for almost twenty years. All that remains today