Blood on the Verde River (4 page)

They made their way down to the town. Saloon girls were sitting in open second story windows ready to talk to any potential customer on the boardwalks or striding in the street.

“Hey cowboys, come see me. The daytime appointments are always sweeter than the nighttime ones and cheaper.”

JD kept his head down. Jesus swept off his hat and smiled at the Latin ones who spoke his lingo. He thanked them and then in Spanish said, “Not now.”

“Where should we land?” JD asked.

“I guess the stables are on the next street or back at that O.K. Corral we passed earlier,” Chet said, busy taking in all the people. They crowded on the boardwalk going back and forth, crossing the street, dodging fresh cow pies plopped down by the last ox to go through.

“Have you ever seen the like?” Jesus asked.

“In Fort Worth at the stockyards,” Chet said. “Same thing as this. But I never saw it out west. I see why it is called the biggest city between St. Louis and San Francisco.”

“What will we do?”

“Stable our horses and make a plan. Come on.” Chet swung his horse around and a delivery rig about ran him over.

“Watch the hell where you're going you damn backwoods hick,” the red-faced man on the reins under a cow-pie hat shouted.

JD laughed at the man's words. “Guess he knew where we lived.”

Back in traffic headed west, they moved through and around the throng of rigs, teams, and wagons to the O.K. Corral.

A man who leaned on the wall sign of the business, shoved off with his shoulder and came over to confront them. “Me name's O'Leary. I can book your animals in here for fifty cents a day.” He looked at the five horses. “Yeah, I got tie stalls. Grain's twenty-five cents more.”

“Isn't that kinda steep?” Chet asked the man.

“Steep it may be, but where else you going to park 'em?”

“Can I store my panniers here?”

“Yeah,”

“We'll take a few days.”

“Good. We're the best in town.” O'Leary stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled loud enough a deaf man could have heard him. Three Mexican youths came on the run from the hallway and collected up the reins.

“We will unsaddle them and care for them, señor,” said the oldest boy.

“Good, put our panniers up too,” Chet instructed.

After stabling their horses, Chet and his men and walked from the O.K. Livery to the nearby street corner. He wanted a place their conversations might not be overheard.

“We can sleep in the hay at the livery tonight. Jenn said that her daughter worked last in the Lady Rose Parlor. That's on the left in the next block and upstairs. You ready for another ride, JD?”

“Sure.”

“Her friends were Ivory, Red Rose and Eclare. Find one of them today and ask her about Bonnie Allen. All you can find out. We'll even pay her for more information.”

“What if none of them are working today?” JD asked.

“Ask for one of them anyway. Someone may know something.” Chet gave him five dollars.

JD thanked him.

“We'll meet back at six o'clock and go to supper. Jesus, I bet they have some putas around here.”

“Oh,
sí
. I can find them.” He nodded his head and smiled.

“Have you ever used one before?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Maybe one of them knows something about her disappearance—Bonnie Allen.”

“I can find that out.”

Chet handed him five silver dollars. “Be back here at six. We will go to supper together.”

“Give me some quarters. A dollar is too much for one of them,” Jesus said with a grin of mischief.

Amused, Chet took back two of the dollars and replaced them with four quarters.

“That is good. I will be here then.”

Smiling to himself about his plan for the investigation, Chet headed for Big Nose Kate's Saloon halfway down the block for a drink at the bar, hoping he could find out more about Bonnie Allen. His wife and Susie may kill him if they ever learned he'd sent those boys off to use saloon girls for information. What they didn't know wouldn't kill them, anyway.

After a block of rubbing elbows and dodging drunks among the boardwalk pedestrians, he pushed in the swinging doors and went to an open spot at the bar. Some woman of the night with her skirt gathered up exposing her bare legs was riding a guy's lap in a chair at a side table. She was screaming so damn loud it hurt his ears.

“Damn. Is she always that loud?” he asked a man in a dust floured suit beside him who was watching her antics.

The suited man looked mildly back at Chet. “That's Ruby Jo. She sings and does several other things. Yeah, she's that loud most of the time.”

“Hurts my ears.” Chet turned away from the bar when he heard a ruckus break out over someone cheating at cards. Chairs scraped the floor. He saw one man pop up, reach over for another, jerk him facedown on the table, and slam him in the head with his knuckles. Once, twice—that was enough.

Upset that no one had moved to stop him, Chet moved in and jerked the two men aside and caught the beater's arm. “That's enough.” Eye to eye, he read the man's defiance.

“Who says so?”

“Me.” Chet gave him a haymaker to the chin with his right hand. His blow left the man sprawled on his back among the onlookers and he remained limp on the floor.

“Holy cow, mister. You knocked him plumb out.” One mouthy guy wanted him to look at the downed gambler. Chet didn't give a damn about the guy. He watched the crowd for someone who wanted to take up his war. No one made a move.

A bartender brought over a bucket of water and without even a grin, poured it in the man's face. The liquid spread out underfoot on the floor. A ragtag bum came and began mopping it up. Two men carried the unconscious man out the front door and came back too fast to have delivered him anywhere else but the boardwalk.

When satisfied he had no threats for his actions, Chet turned and the bartender had a whiskey bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. “How much do you want of this?”

“I don't drink whiskey.”

“This one is on the house.”

“You want to buy me one, make it a beer.”

The barkeep shrugged. “Whatever. I'll get you a beer.”

Chet spoke to the man next to him. “Who was he—the man I knocked out?”

“Billy Bragg.”

“Who's he work for?”

“Old man Newt Clanton.”

Chet nodded. “Might as well break in my first day in Tombstone society with a guy like him.”

“What's your name?”

“Chet Byrnes.”

“I heard of you. You're the guy ran down some rustlers and hung them?”

“I never saw my name in the paper.” With a sip of the beer, Chet studied himself in the mirror back of the bar. He'd knocked out one of the most powerful men in the territory. What a good start he'd made the first day.

“I heard of your name,” the guy beside him said under his breath. “They say you're tough. In the next few hours, you're going to learn how tough you are. His men will gather up to go home and when they hear that you knocked out one of their own, they'll come looking for you with their teeth bared.”

“How many?” Beer in his hand. he turned to study the crowd. “How many of them in here worked for Clanton?”

“A half dozen, maybe more,” the guy said. “They consider if anyone hurts one of theirs, they have to even the score or better it.”

“Anyone ever stopped them?”

The man tossed his head. “You come in here over Boot Hill?”

“Sure.”

“It's full of folks picked a fight with old man Clanton.”

Chet downed his beer and grimaced. It didn't taste that good. Next thing to do was to locate his men and get a plan working. Damn. He could get himself in the damndest deals. He set the empty mug on the bar and headed outside through the batwing doors. On the boardwalk, he had to sidestep the crowd gathered near the downed man. Lying in the back of a wagon, he was surrounded by people trying to revive him.

In a few steps, he was lost in the masses and headed back toward the O.K. Livery, stopping at the saddle repair shop on the corner to wait. His two would show up sometime.

Jesus showed up first. “I didn't learn anything, but I made some friends among the Mexicans who live here. They say she might have been sold into slavery and taken to Mexico City. But they did not know who kidnapped her—most of them did not know her.”

“But someone did know her?”

“One boy had seen her on the street several times and said she was real pretty.”

Chet nodded. “There was a fight in Big Nose Kate's. This guy had another facedown on the table and was hitting him in the head with his fist. Made me mad and I tried to separate them. The puncher kept trying to break by me, so I cold conked him with a haymaker.”

“Wow. What happened?”

“Last I saw him, they had him laid out on his back in a wagon bed, trying to revive him.”

“You kill him?”

“I don't think so. But his name is Billy Bragg and he works for old man Clanton.”

Jesus opened his brown eyes wide. “That is the big outlaw, huh?”

“Clanton is.”

“What should we do?”

“When JD comes back we'll talk about it. I never asked, but does that six-gun of yours work?” Chet nodded toward the well-oiled looking side arm.

“Oh,
sí.
I can hit tin cans with it. I have practiced much with it.”

“I hope you don't ever need it, but these people we face will be mean and would kill you for ten cents.”

“Oh, I know that, señor.”

They lounged on the porch waiting for JD. Jesus saw him coming. “There he is.”

JD shook his head when he reached them. “I found Eclare. She had some cock and bull story how Bonnie Allen ran off with a cowboy.”

“You didn't believe her?” Chet asked.

“Aw, she was so sold on herself, I really found her a boring liar.”

“Tell him about the fight,” Jesus said.

Chet explained the incident in the saloon and JD agreed they'd have to be on their guard.

“Let's go find this famous diner and eat supper. You talk to anyone else in the parlor house besides Eclare?”

“No, they were all sleeping, except her. And I couldn't shut her up.” JD shook his head in defeat.

Chet and Jesus laughed at his obvious disgust over the experience.

Nellie Cashman's restaurant was impressive. Chet would have expected to find such an establishment in a major city. The hostess put their hats on a wall rack and promised they would be there when they were through with their meal. They filed to their table behind her. Grizzly-faced, dust-floured prospectors and men and women in formal dress ignored their passage, all busy eating or reading the fancy menus.

Seated across from Chet, Jesus peered around from behind the menu. “I will have what you order.”

Chet agreed amused, but he was somber when he realized that Jesus could not read.

“Says here, oysters when available,” JD said. “How would they get them here?”

Chet shook his head. Obviously the most sought after delicacy in the west, he once saw where such seafood was twelve dollars a pound when they made it to Preskitt. “Better ask the waiter.”

They ordered sliced roast beef, potatoes, and sweet corn. Chet offered a short prayer before they ate and Jesus crossed himself after “Amen.” The rolls were made with yeast in the dough and they melted in their mouths. The coffee served in china cups was delicious and the cherry pie mouthwatering. The meal went smoothly.

“We better eat at a street vendor after this,” JD said, after wiping his mouth on a linen napkin.

Chet laughed. “I was celebrating the three of us getting here.”

Both of his men nodded that they approved of this place. Chet paid the bill for seven dollars and they went back to sleep in the livery their first night in Tombstone. A few gunshots woke him once and he decided that some drunk cowboy was taking target practice at the moon and went back to sleep in the sweet smelling alfalfa hay.

In the morning, they saddled up and went to look for a place to stay. They found a rancher out on the flats west of town. His windmill by the corrals creaking in the wind, he shook their hands.

“Ira Hampton's my name.”

“My name's Chet Byrnes. These are my nephew JD and Jesus. Ira, we're down here looking for a young lady who disappeared and no one seems to know where she went. I wondered if we could board here, pay for our horses' feed, and sleep under a tree.”

“You're ranch folks?”

“Yes, our ranch is outside of Camp Verde. Quarter Circle Z is the brand. This girl is a daughter of a lady who befriended me when I came to Arizona to find a ranch.”

Ira nodded. “I wouldn't charge you three a damn thing.”

“Oh, we'll do something for you.”

“Come meet the boss. She's up at the house.” He smiled at them and shook his head. “Someone has to be the boss on the place.”

They agreed. A slender attractive woman in her thirties came out to meet them. Her hair tinged in gray was braided and piled on her head. She wore an apron over her dress.

“Bee, these cowboys need a place to stable their horses and spread their bedrolls.”

“Why lands, Ira, what did you tell them?” The woman frowned at him. “Land's sakes, we can sure board them.”