The Last Shootist (34 page)

*   *   *

Sam caught up with his young pals having another get-acquainted beer in the Gem, a miner's saloon farther south along Conglomerate Avenue. No upholstered furniture or dancing girls in this smoky, low-ceilinged joint, just working men off the day shift at the mines or smelter, drinking beer in loud groups. The place reminded Graham of the old Brewery, Bisbee's original beer hall.

Gillom had had a few and greeted the outlaw like his long lost friend.

“
Sam!
She ain't in here!”

The Texan grabbed both young men by their biceps and hustled them to a darker corner table. “Think I just saw her.”

“Where?”
Ease shouted.

“Quiet down, boys.… In the alley beside the Blue Goose. Coupla toughs were dragging her up the back stairs, but her cloak fell away and I saw her face. Looked Mexican, but it was dark out. Couldn't be sure enough to start shootin'. Gal struggled, yelled ‘I want to dance!' Then they grabbed her again, dragged her inside.”

“Bastards! Let's go!”
Gillom Rogers rose from the bench, beer mug in hand, ready.

“Settle down, kid.” The older gunman pulled him back down. “Nothing hasty, we've gotta plan this. And not tonight, you've both had too much to drink. You'll never win a gunfight on a bellyful of beer.”

Gillom was belligerent. “We
can't
let her stay there, captive!”

“Yes we can. Let things quiet down with her there, put them off their guard, then tomorrow night we'll strike.”

“How?” asked Ease.

“I'll have to go up those back stairs, try to find her in one of the bedrooms of that cathouse, pretend I'm a lost customer if I'm stopped. Nobody knows me in this town. You two will have to keep his
pistoleros
occupied downstairs.”

Ease nodded. “Simple enough.”

“Yeah,
if
that back door's not locked. And
if
I can find her without gettin' noticed. And
if
you two don't get into a shoot-out while I'm trying to spirit her off. Yours will be a diversion, a trick to give me time while I'm rooting around upstairs.”

“Lot of problems,” mused Gillom, more reserved now.

“Yes there are. And then how do we all get away?
If
we get lucky and don't get shot up.”

“Train,” thought Ease aloud.

“Not a chance,” argued Sam. “His bad boys ain't going to let you get a good night's hotel sleep after her disappearance, catch a train the next sunny mornin'. Or wave you all goodbye on the stagecoach to Solomonville the day after tomorra.”

“Horses,” guessed Gillom.

“Yes. I've got mine, but we'll have to find three more. And saddles, tack, grub, more ammunition.
Mucho dinero,
amigos. Unless you're into horse stealin'.”

“I've got money,” said Gillom.

“How much?”

“About five hundred dollars.”

“Give it to me.”

Gillom hesitated. “Uh, it's all I've got.”

The outlaw frowned. “Don't trust me, huh?”

“Look,” the youth answered. “First thing tomorrow, we'll meet at that stable south of town I noticed on the stage coming in here. See what horseflesh they've got, if it's any good? Ease and I will pick up food, cartridges, enough for four. Then we'll go camp with you, cook dinner, rest up till dark.”

Young Bixler nodded enthusiastically. “Anybody watching will think we left town.”

Sam Graham slammed a palm down on the table, sloshing their beers.

“All right! Meet me at that stable early, bring your money. Go back to that hotel and sleep with your guns ready tonight, boys. I'm bettin' they know we're here.”

They left the Gem separately, didn't shake hands, hoping nobody had noticed them together. If Sam hit another saloon for that whiskey he savored, no one knew. He made sure, though, watching from a distance atop his horse, that these liquored-up youths made it safely back to their hotel first.

Gillom had changed rooms to a bigger upstairs suite with two single beds after Ease arrived, so they could protect each other. They rolled through the Clifton's dusty parlor around midnight with an arm around each other for support as they slipped unsteadily on a big Navajo rug. The night desk clerk stirred off his stool, pitched Gillom his room key since he was the guest paying. Over his shoulder Gillom noticed an old man, seemingly asleep in a stuffed leather chair when they entered, now sitting up and eyeing them from under a brown slouch hat as the youths climbed the hotel's stairs.

The boys slept off their inebriation and luckily their locked door wasn't rattled during the night. Gillom awoke to a rooster in a nearby henhouse saying hello to the rising sun. He felt pain behind his eyeballs as he rubbed water over his face from the pitcher on a dresser. He wore his guns belted over his long johns as he walked down the slumbering hotel's hallway to the lavatory. As he returned he crept halfway down the stairway until he could scan the hotel's lobby from above. The old watchman from last night was gone.

Gillom washed up in their room as Ease roused and stretched.

“I could use a little hair of that dog that bit me last night. Any whiskey left?”

Gillom shook his head. He tried to shave stubble off his unlined cheeks, but the barber had removed any stray hairs professionally the day before. He still managed to cut himself near one ear and had to clot the wound with a bit of paper. The sight of his own blood woke Gillom Rogers fully up. This could be the most dangerous day of his young life. He'd better be alert for it.

Gillom paid for his room, five dollars for two nights, dollar extra for the bigger room he'd moved into with Ease. He mentioned to the sleepy night clerk they'd done their business, enjoyed their stay, and were headed back to Bisbee. That was the false trail they'd decided on and it wouldn't hurt to start laying it.

 

Thirty-nine

 

Out on the street the boys hiked along with their warbags and saddlebags.
Leñeros,
or woodmen, were selling bundles of mesquite off their burros, and housewives were buying produce from Chinese vegetable men who had wrapped their lettuces, tomatoes, chiles, and squashes in wet burlap and loaded them into bamboo baskets dangling from either end of a thick wooden pole. The 130-pound loads these slender Chinamen carried reminded Gillom of the extra weight on his own shoulders, and his sore ribs. A loafer enjoying a morning cigarette on a bench against the front wall of Mammon's Chinese Café watched them stroll down the boardwalk, not stopping in for breakfast. The watcher spit, got up to hurry across the street toward the Blue Goose to report their passing.

Hop Yick's grocery at the south end of Clifton's commercial strip provided foodstuffs for their long ride home. Burlap sacks full of slab bacon, hardtack, beans, bread loaves, and steaks for today, salt crackers, coffee, even a wheel of hard cheese.
At least we'll eat well,
Gillom thought,
if there's enough left of us to enjoy it
. Ease remembered to buy several boxes of .44-.40 rounds and .41-caliber cartridges for his lighter Colt. Gillom even gifted his friend with a gun-cleaning kit.

*   *   *

In the Blue Goose's back room, too, preparations were under way. Luther had an oiling kit out on his desk and had his Remington derringer and a .38 Lightning, a smaller, lightweight, double-action Colt, apart for cleaning when Cripes hurried in. This middle-aged man in soiled, raggedy clothing couldn't stand still as he made his report.

“They was walkin' south, Mister Goose, carryin' saddlebags and toting goods. Didn't stop for breakfast.”

“Maybe they've checked out?” Luther chewed this thought while Cripes scratched his scraggly red beard. “See what the hotel clerk says, if they've gone? Then check the train station and stage office, see if they're buying tickets?
You
”—he pointed a cleaning rod at Sunny Jim—“check the stables. They might take a long ride home, but I doubt it. I wanna make sure those bastards are outta our hair, so we don't have to sit here jumpy, waitin' for 'em to pop in to give us a six-chamber hello.”

“Should I plug 'em I get the chance?” It was Sunny Jim, his chief bodyguard.

“No. Let's not get Sheriff English aroused if we don't have to. If those young jaspers haven't heard anything about her, they might just leave town, spare me more grief.”

“Boss, we'll let you know.”

Luther Goose stood up behind his scarred wooden desk, indeed a little jumpy as he poked a stiff thin brush down the barrel of his small revolver and squinted through its empty hole, pondering eternity.

*   *   *

So the boys were well laden when they walked up to the stable corrals south of town. Sam Graham awaited them, looking over the horseflesh. The horsebreaker had already picked out a couple five-year-old geldings from the limited string there, a bay and a buckskin, and Gillom quickly liked a paint pony for his missing girlfriend. Since they were buying several mounts, they were able to wheedle a deal for saddles and bridles and several well-used saddlebags to carry their food from Henry Hill, the stable owner. The bill rounded off to four hundred dollars, greenbacks, with a sack of oats and a morning's feed for Sam's nervous stallion, which he also talked the stableman into. This big, skinny racer was the best of the bunch he'd broken for Gene Rhodes over in New Mexico, and Sam had trained the new horse well on his long ride west. Gillom felt lighter in the moneybelt sewn inside his holster as he buckled it back on. His worldly wealth was now down to seventy-five dollars, and his posse expected him to keep paying for this rescue ride as long as it was under way.

After adjusting saddles and bridles and tying saddlebags to the new mounts, the boys practiced on these three horses, reining and starting and stopping them around a side corral to ascertain how well these animals handled before the men were finally ready to ride.

“Looking forward to greeting old Bisbee again,” Gillom said loudly, making sure Henry Hill heard him as they loped away. The saddled paint pony ran on a long lead rope trailing Ease's horse, carrying no rider. The three amigos rode south, on the stage road that would soon angle off to the right, southwest, toward Solomonville. As soon as they were out of the stableman's view, though, the young men looped around north, riding back toward Clifton through the brush.

*   *   *

The trio dry-camped north of town, where they could see Clifton in the distance from atop the low hill they squatted behind, hoping no one would come out to investigate a midday campfire. While Sam cooked fresh-cut steaks and beans, Ease tried his new gun-cleaning kit while Gillom oiled his leather holster. Over a sizzling pan, the outlaw eyed Ease working on his new pistol.

“You like that Thunderer?”

“Just bought it used, but it hefts lighter than a bigger Colt and has an easy double-action pull. Rubber grip, six-inch barrel, shoots straight, I like it. Now I have this sudden reputation in Bisbee as a shooter, my boss at the Bonanza wants me to display a sidearm, to help prevent shootings inside. I tried a hip holster, but it got in my way mixing drinks. This shoulder holster fits better, but I don't fancy toting this lump of metal under my arm for eight hours drawing beers. You ever drink in the Bonanza?”

Sam Graham shook his head.

“It gets rowdy weekends sometimes. Last Fourth of July, they picked one guy out of a corner next morning, thought he was just sleeping off a drunk. Little bullet hole under his left ear and no one heard a thing.”

“I thought the Bonanza was a
gentlemen's
club, Ease?” Gillom added.

“Not
every
night.” He and his pal chuckled.

Gillom looked over at their cook. “How you wanna do this, Sam? Take 'em about midnight, after they've been drinkin?”

“No. Early, just after dark, when they're still thinkin' about what they'd like for supper. We get away clean, then we'll have all night to ride southeast, hide out at daybreak.”

Ease's curiosity got the best of him. “You goin' to Silver City with us, Mister Jones?”

“Might. This Goose may send men on the stage to check Solomonville, or wire ahead to have the trains watched for you all in Lordsburg. Silver City's the most unlikely spot to be caught right off.”

“Or head the
other
way, up into Apache country north a' San Carlos,” said Gillom. Graham just smiled. “Gonna ride that outlaw trail till you die, Sam?”

“I dunno. Gettin' worn down. Robbin's hard work and now they've gone and put numbers on the banknotes. Makes stolen money easier to trace by the damned bankers. I may retire to a life of leisure, runnin' cows back in Central Texas, where my brother's got a ranch.”

“I'd
pay
to see you proddin' cattle for an honest living. We're not breaking any laws, you know, rescuing a girl held against her will,” argued Gillom.

“Brothel owner won't see it that way,” answered Sam. “Think of whores as
their
property.”

“She's
not
a whore!”

“Just explaining that a fickle woman is like a careless man with a gun. They're both apt to hurt somebody.”

“She's not
fickle,
either! Whatever the hell that means?”

After a good meal the three drowsed in the summer sunshine, resting on blankets or propped against a rock. A temperature inversion was holding the warm air still and close to the ground so the smelter smoke lingered, irritating their noses and throats with sulfurous acid in the air. Nobody moved around much, hoping for a cleansing breeze. Gillom nudged Ease and they both watched dumbstruck as Sam stirred his hot coffee with the barrel of his .45, absent-mindedly flicking off the wet drips before reholstering.