The Last Shootist (33 page)

Unlike in Bisbee, the sixty-five Chinese in Clifton were allowed to reside in town and they stuck together for safety, most residing in shanty houses pitched together on the riverbank. Their real socializing, tong meetings, and pleasurable interludes took place in a network of caves and tunnels the celestials had dug underneath their houses, where they were wont to retire evenings for a peaceful pipeful. Fat Choy, who'd gotten his name from a Chinese New Year's greeting—
“Gung hoy fat choy,”
or “Good fortune”—was indeed fat and jolly to the white citizens who knew him, but his real good fortune came from running the biggest opium den in town.

His stonewalled basement was reached via a trap door and stairwell under Fat Choy's otherwise unimpressive house by the river. It was there Young Ah Gin hurried after his breakfast shift at the Chinese Café. The waiter was an irregular opium smoker. He couldn't afford to indulge much on his tips from Mammon's restaurant. But he knew the elderly Chinese lookout on the back porch of Choy's house and thus had no difficulty entering and pulling aside the oriental rug in the kitchen, knocking three times, and then raising the trap door in the wooden floor and descending into heaven, or perhaps hell if you smoked too much.

Little kerosene lamps lit the smoky gloom of the den he climbed into down the stairs. It wasn't fancy, some cheap rugs on the dirt floor, greetings inked in Chinese characters on rice paper banners stuck to several walls. The proprietor greeted him at the bottom. Mr. Fat Choy wore a mauve satin tunic accented with gold braid, too flashy for street wear and unusual for him in the daytime. Most of his regulars smoked nights, after a hard day's work. Ah Gin could see only one Chinese smoker reclining on a bamboo mat on one of the board beds propped two feet off the floor, against the stone wall. The dope fiend was lighting a stained bamboo pipe by moving a small lamp wick under the small porcelain bowl near the end of the pipe to heat a bead of refined opium held in the bowl by a needle. The little gumlike ball of opium bubbled from the heat. The Chinaman took a deep draw on the pipe's metal tip and motioned Ah Gin to join him. The waiter shook his head, but he could smell the pungent black smoke in the damp room. Smoke issued from the fiend's nose and seemingly, even his ears. Relaxed, the
yen shee
man lay the pipe down and put his head back on a wooden block that served as a headrest, as he drifted off again to an exotic dreamland.

Always ready for business, Fat Choy asked his customer if he wished a pipe?

“Not now,” was the waiter's answer. “Is woman here?”

“Which one?”

“Mexican girl.”

The proprietor gestured toward a beaded curtain covering a doorway to a smaller room.

“She not ready yet for customer.”

“Somebody looking. Young man show me picture today, in restaurant. Eat Chinee dinner last night, too. Never see before.”

“He say why so?”

“No. Only want find her. Girl-friend may-be? Not family. He white. Carry two gun.”

Fat Choy patted his customer on the shoulder. “Thankee. Next time, smoke free.”

Young Ah Gin grinned.

*   *   *

Gillom walked downstairs refreshed from his long nap, his bowels certainly cleansed. He nodded to the desk clerk and strode through the short lobby to the front door, when who should appear from the street but his best friend from Bisbee.

“
Ease!
What in hell you doin' up here?”

The road-weary barman grinned as they shook hands. “Came up to check on my buddy's health. Manny at the Bonanza gave me more time off to heal this calf. Wound was paining me standing behind the bar all day. Now I'm a known gunslinger, boss wants me to help keep order in his saloon. See, even bought my own pistol.”

He showed Gillom a Colt .41 Thunderer contained in an open-front Lightning Spring shoulder holster under his coat. “Just have to practice my fast-draw and learn a few spins and I'll be as fancy as you, amigo.”

“Good. I've got just the spot to heal you up, pal. Local hot springs. Let's put up your luggage and grab another towel. I was just on my way out there to soak my bent ribs.”

In short order they were walking along the boardwalk up Conglomerate Avenue, the town's only street on the east side, soap in their pockets and both carrying towels. Gillom moved a hand around under his longsleeved cotton shirt. It was too warm for his wool coat, and he noticed moisture as he checked his sore chest.
Sweatin'. Must be nerves,
he figured.

“Feels dangerous in this town, Ease. Clifton's got a long reputation for violence and its few Laws evidently look the other way. Everybody here knows everybody else, and the few I've asked haven't seen Anel. Haven't run into Luther Goose yet. Not sure he even knows I've arrived.”

“If he doesn't, he soon will. Might as well finish it here, Gillom, cook this Goose. So he doesn't have someone come stalking me again after work, when I'm alone in Bisbee.”

The young men paused to check the display windows in the Arizona Copper Company's store, dry goods and sundries for miners on credit. Gillom looked down the street and across it to the two-story Blue Goose Saloon, where he saw a large Chinaman in a navy blue tunic waddling into the entrance. No batwing doors outside that fancy-looking establishment. Conglomerate Avenue was the business center of Clifton and also its saloon row.

“Gotta get us somethin' to drink.” Gillom popped into Hovey's Saloon next door, which from the crowd inside he took to be the town's social center, full of workers eager to cut the smelter smoke from their throats at the end of another hard day in the mines. He came back out wrapping three pints of whiskey up in his bath towel.

“I could use somethin' to drink with hair on it, but
three
bottles?” Ease inquired.

“Want you to meet somebody.” They limped on, or Ease did with his leg wound, heading north toward the residential end of town. “Can't tell you how much I appreciate you showin' up to help me, Ease. This ranicaboo is gonna be over pretty quick. Anel's either here or she ain't. I don't need to get into a gunfight just to learn that.”

“Me, neither. But I've been lookin' for a reason to see this lonely part of Arizona.” He slapped Gillom on the back. “I guess what Doc Holliday said to Wyatt Earp before that little fuss over in Tombstone applies.”

“What was that?”

“Pardner, I will back your play.” Laughing, the two injured youths ankled off into a dying day.

 

Thirty-eight

 

Fat Choy tasted trepidation entering Luther Goose's back office. Luther had his pointy kid leather boots up on his desk as he chewed a silver toothpick. Mr. Goose was the owner of the fanciest cathouse in the eastern side of Arizona Territory and ran a temper to match that entitled roost. So the Chinese boss made sure to bow low as he was ushered into the sparsely furnished office by one of Goose's honchos. Luther did not get up to greet his guest.

“Mister Choy. What can I do for you?”

“This girl, Mexican. Somebody look for her.”

“Oh? Someone bothering you?” The brothel owner put down his boots, sat up.

“Young man ask waiter at Mammon's, show picture.”

Mr. Goose stopped picking his teeth. “When was this?”

“Breakfast. This morning.”

“And he came to your house?”

“No. Waiter tell me. Young Ah Gin, customer of me.”

“I see.” Luther Goose stood up. “How's the girl?”

“Sleepy. Want me give more?” He pantomimed giving a shot.

“
No
. No more injections. We'll move her here, after dark. Don't know if she's ready to take on customers, but she can smoke that dope here. Send a pipe and kit along.”

The saloon owner reached into his pocket and pulled out a double eagle, a twenty-dollar gold piece, slapped it in Fat Choy's hand.

“Thank you, Mister Choy. Come Chinese New Year, let me know if you'd like anyone special.”

Realizing the meeting was already over, the Chinaman bowed again and left. Goose's main man, Sunny Jim, a hard-eyed hombre with a thin mustache framing a steady smile, awaited orders.

“Get Hite, Cripes, Dan the Duck, and that old man runs errands, what's his name?”

“Sofus somethin'. He's a Swede. Got dusted lungs.”

“Get 'em all in here, pronto. We gotta button Clifton up.”

*   *   *

The outlaw awaited them, six feet of him immersed up to his coffee-soaker of a mustache in the water, as the boys arrived at the hot springs in twilight. The two-hundred-foot-high bluff close to the San Francisco River threw long shadows across the open canyon.

“Just us chickens, Sam! Don't get jumpy … Ease Bixler, this is my friend, Sam Jones, who I broke horses with this past spring up in the San Andres.”

They didn't shake hands, merely nodded, as Gillom handed the outlaw his gift bottle of whiskey.

“Ahh, tongue oil. Thanks.” Graham uncorked it with his teeth.

Gillom sat down and quickly began yanking off his clothes. “Ease was with me in that shoot-out in Bisbee, Sam, with Luther Goose's wrestlers. He came up to these medicinal baths to help heal his leg wound from that affray.” Both men could see the bandage wrapped around Bixler's calf as he undressed.

“Another triggerman. Foundation of your own gang, kid.”

“No, no.” Gillom held up a hand. “We ain't outlaws. Promised my ma and Gene Rhodes I'd ride a straight trail. Ease is gonna own his own saloon someday. We're both just up here to rescue Anel.”

Sam took another slug of whiskey as the other two men eased their naked, bandaged selves into the bubbling water. “How you intend to do that?”

“Well, thought we'd check all the saloons tonight, just lookin'. Don't know if Luther knows I'm in town yet? But you'll have to check the Blue Goose again, Sam. We'd be recognized.”

“Okay, but if your girl doesn't turn up tonight, I wouldn't hang around Clifton looking to tangle with this bad honcho. Never met Mister Goose, but he's got the fanciest muff mansion in these parts and is sure to have some tough jaspers to help him run it. You're both young fellas, got a lot of life to live yet. Gunfights over gals who may be long gone just ain't worth it, boys.”

“Anel may even be back in Bisbee, Gillom, by the time I return. I'd sure let you know quick,” added Ease.

Gillom Rogers nodded. “Can't argue with either of you. If she doesn't turn up tonight, or tomorrow, the day after Ease and I will be on the stage to Silver City. We want to see a little more country before headin' home.”

“Silver City's cattle country now. Government repealed that Silver Purchase Act back in '93 and overnight thousands of silver miners went broke. So that area's silver boom petered out. Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch used to work on a ranch down there between robberies, and the Laws tamed the Hall Gang from around there six years ago. Good outlaw territory.”

“I'll drink to that plan.” Ease clinked glass pints with Gillom, then Sam joined, all tapping bottles like good old boys.

“You sure know all the hottest spots for outlaws, Sam,” said Gillom.

“Well, I like to keep track of my friends.”

“
Ahhh,
this hot water feels good! My wound's healing already.” And then young Mr. Bixler slid almost fully under, one hand holding aloft a half empty pint.

The boys didn't dine with Mr. Graham that night. Gillom and Ease ate in a little steak joint the south end of Clifton. The outlaw had advised them not to return to the same restaurants, the same businesses, so their movements wouldn't be easy to track around town. Picking their teeth afterward, the young gunmen hit the rest of the saloons on the eastside, having a friendly drink in each. They didn't ask any questions, or catch many hard looks, and kept their coats buttoned over their weapons. They checked the Midway, the Office, and the Richelieu for Anel Romero, but didn't spot her.

*   *   *

After cooking a steak and beans at his campsite, the wily Mr. Graham rode back toward Conglomerate Avenue, hitching his horse at the edge of town and walking behind the lit buildings of business row, staying just inside the edge of darkness. Sam made a beeline for the Blue Goose, where he was pretty certain any action would be with the girl, if she were even around. It was a warm summer's night. A light breeze finally stirred the smelter smoke in the air, and he sunk into shadow under the eaves of the building next door. He wished he had a whiskey to occupy his time. He turned his head slowly from the saloon's back entrance to its front door, watching who came in and out.

He'd been there maybe a half hour and needed to take a piss. Across the street from another alley a small cluster of people hurried toward him. Somebody was in the middle with a cloak and hood over their head, being hustled along by two rough-looking cowboys. They didn't go to the Blue Goose's front entrance, but jounced into its side alley. Sam pulled back against the wall, not breathing as they whipped past. As the trio reached the back stairway to the second-floor landing, what seemed to be their captive suddenly spun from the men's grasp.

“I want to
dance
!” Her hood fell off as she twirled in the moonlight. Peering intently, Sam could make out a younger woman's darker skin, her long tresses. One man grabbed her across the mouth and literally dragged her up the second flight.

“No!”
she squealed. The captive appeared to swoon, slumping down like she was passing out, but the guard shoving her from below pushed her up onto the top step. Graham heard another smothered squall, then the second story door was yanked open and she was pulled inside the building. The rear door banged shut. The outlaw took a deep breath, pondering this new problem, then stepped out into the alley. Nothing moved nearby, so he lit out.