The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  They’d tried military action, and been cut to bits; they’d paid danegeld without avail. Some Mexican officials had even been hand in glove with the tribes, abetting their raids, and the Mexican government had become callous about atrocities it couldn’t prevent anyway. The war with America had made matters worse; with the land in confusion, the Indians had had a field day, and now when America couldn’t, or wouldn’t, put in enough troops, the Indians treated them with contempt, and became more insolent than ever. In effect, they ruled New Mexico except for the civilised strip down the Del Norte, which they ravaged systematically, just as much as it would bear.29 It was enough, says Harrison, almost to make him sympathise with the old Mexican proyecto de guerra.

  “What’s that?” says I. “War project?”

  “So they called it – a polite name for scalp-hunting. Back in the ’30s, the Chihuahua Mexicans were so hard-pressed they paid a bounty for Apache scalps – $100 for a brave, $50 for a female …” he grimaced “… and $25 for a child. I’m afraid there was no lack of degenerates eager to earn the blood-money. The worst was a fellow-countryman of yours, I regret to say – a scoundrel called Johnson who wiped out one of the few peaceful Apache bands and sold their scalps to the Mexicans. Some say it was his massacre that turned the Apaches from regarding white men as allies against Mexico, and made them our bitterest enemies. I doubt it, personally; in my experience Apaches are the most evil, inhuman creatures on earth – if their hostility to Americans is recent, it’s because their acquaintance with us barely goes back a generation. The truth is they hate all mankind. In any event, the scalp bounty brought the foulest kind of white cut-throat to this country; they’re still here, living by murder and banditry – and in Mexico, which doesn’t make our work any easier. No – I couldn’t countenance a revival of the proyecto under American law30… but when I think of the horrors I’ve seen perpetrated by these red savages –”

  He’d been talking grim-lipped, staring at his glass, a young man riding his hobby-horse as only a young man can, but now he broke off in confusion, and blushed his apologies to Susie for offending her ears with such talk. “What must you think of me?” he stammered. “Inexcusable … do beg pardon – gracious, is that the time?” He was just a boy, when all was said, bowing over her hand, and courteously disputing the bill with me. “You are too kind, sir,” says he, all West Point. “When I return I shall insist on repaying your most enjoyable hospitality. Sir – Mrs Comber.” If you return, thinks I; I’d seen too many gallant pups just like him, on the Afghan frontier, and I’d no doubt the Mescaleros, whoever they might be, were just as adroit at subaltern-eating as the Afridis.

  “Isn’t he the sweetest little thing?” says Susie, looking after him with dewy-eyed lust. “Honest, sometimes I wish I was just startin’ in at the game again. I wouldn’t charge ’im a cent.” Fine talk before her lawful wedded, you’ll agree; Master Harrison wasn’t the only one who’d been overdoing the El Paso. “Let’s ’ave a look at the town, then.”

  So we took a turn through the bustling, excited streets in the mellow dusk, admiring the magnificent New Mexican sunset and the colourful crowds in the Plaza. Every posada and place of amusement seemed to be at full steam, and packed with pleasure-seekers, for it was abundantly evident that if many of the immigrants out in the wagons and shanties were on their beam-ends, there was a multitude in Santa Fe with money to burn. I’d seen nothing like it since New Orleans; the booze was flowing like buttermilk, there was laughter and music wherever you turned, and enough gold and silver and jewellery in sight to start a Mint. The fashions were brilliant, in the Spanish style: tall caballeros in fancy shirts and bright mangasb, their flared calzonero pantaloons slashed from hip to ankle and held with silver buttons, purosc clenched between their teeth and embroidered sombreros hanging from their shoulders by silver cords; they sauntered arrogantly by, or lounged on the corners with the gaudy poblanad wenches, or watched as the slim señoritas of the better class swirled past on high Spanish heels, their silks of every colour dazzling in the lamplight. By jove, it was the place for wanton black eyes and sleek black hair and creamy skin and heady perfume, wasn’t it, though, with a great flirting of silken ankles and gracefully-held fans and fringed rebosose – not a buckskin man, or Yankee trader, or vaquero but had a slender hand on his arm, and a pretty dark head nestling against his shoulder as he strode, or reeled, from posada to dance-hall, roaring and singing as he went. There were plenty of wealthy Americans of good class, local ranchers and merchants, as well as Mountain Men, trappers, and miners from the Albuquerque diggings, all getting rid of their pelf as though it was Judgement Day tomorrow; noisy, insistent peasant men and women who hawked Indian trinkets or shrilled and quarrelled round the lighted booths; young emigrant men who still had some cash left and were eager for the flesh-pots – and in the shadows, the beggars and leperos, squatting against the walls, and the Indians. Not just your verminous Indios manzosf, but tall, silent figures in their blankets and serapes, own brothers to the fighting braves we’d seen on the prairies, who simply watched with blank faces, or passed without word or glance through the boisterous throng.

  We looked in at a fandango, one of the famous public dances held in the sala, or ballroom, at one side of the Plaza – it was simply a great hall, bare as a riding school, with benches against either wall, one side for men, t’ other for women, and a dais at one end for the musicians, a demented group of grinning greasers who thrashed away on bandolins, guitars, tambourines and drums. It was mostly that gay, heady Spanish stuff, which I like; I’m not a dancer, much, but I love to watch experts at work, especially female ones, and the sight of those bright-eyed, laughing poblanas, in their polka jackets and short skirts, whirling as they stamped and clattered their heels, would have done you good to see. They wheeled, graceful as gulls, whoever their partners – elegant, hatchet-faced dagoes in mangas, red-faced sports sodden on Taos whisky or vino, bearded miners in slouch hats and red shirts, or great clumsy buckskin brigadeers who whooped and yelled and capered like Indians. It says a lot for the band – or the liquor – that there was a Latin sarabando in progress at one end of the hall while an obstreperous bunch of trappers were performing a Virginia reel at the other, to the satisfaction of all. But even the drunkest gave room when a fat little chap in belled sleeves and sash took the floor with a tall, crazy-eyed virago in a scarlet silk manga and flounced skirt; they weren’t the bonniest couple there (her moustache was a shade thinner than mine), but she clacked her castanets and surged like a stately galleon, and the little chap, perspiring buckets, clapped and twirled and fairly rattled round her; as the pace increased, everyone yelled and stamped, “Viva! Vaya! Olé! Hoe en toe, little greaser! Hooraw, bella manola! Bueno!” and when they danced side by side from one end of the long sala to the other, both bolt upright and progressing at a snail’s pace although their heels drummed the floor too fast for the eye to follow, and concluded with a great flourish and stamp, the roof was like to come off. They bowed, panting, to the storm of applause, and the spectators showered them with gold and silver and even jewels: I saw one beauty undo her earrings and toss them, crying “Brava!”, on to the boards, and the stout ranchero with her flung his diamond pin.

  “Well, now,” says Susie, tapping my arm, “let’s see what else they do for recreation,” and we visited one of the many gaming-houses off the Plaza, where the punters crowded round tables heavy with doubloons, pesos, and dollars, staking on faro, vingt-et-un and every other fool’s game you could think of. I’d gathered Santa Fe was an extravagant, wide-open community, but even I was astonished at the amounts I saw change hands that night; the gamblers of Santa Fe, whether they were drunk traders, flash greasers, desperate immigrants, cold-eyed swells with pistols prominently displayed in their waistbands, or even the couple of tonsured priests who had an apparently bottomless satchel of coin and crossed themselves before every cast of the dice, were evidently no pikers. They were artfully encouraged by the croupiers, many of whom were
Mexican belles in low-cut bodices who took care to bend low over the table when gathering in the stakes, which always makes the loss seem lighter. Presiding was the celebrated Dona Tules, a Juno with long dark-red hair and splendid shoulders who smoked a cigarro and lounged among the tables with a court of admirers in tow.

  “Cheap an’ showy,” sniffs Susie, “an’ her paddin’ shows, too. Well, that only leaves one other entertainment, doesn’t it?” So to my embarrassment we sought out the best bordello in town.

  “You want me to go in?” says I, taken aback. “What, you’re coming, too? Here, they’ll charge me corkage!” But she told me not to be lewd, and shoved me inside. It was a poor enough place, with a slatternly madame who eyed Susie suspiciously, but drummed up her tarts on request, and an indifferent lot they were.

  “I see,” says Susie. “No, thank you, dear, the gentleman’s not stayin’; ’e’s a clergyman, seein’ the world.”

  When we were back in the coach and rolling out to camp, she said suddenly: “Well, that settles it! They can keep Sacramento – for the present, anyway. Why, there’s more loose money an’ good custom in this town than ever I hoped to see in California – an’ I’m about sick of wagons an’ Indians an’ travellin’, aren’t you? A million, did I say? With gels like ours, an’ the kind o’ style we can show ’em, it’ll be like pickin’ it off the trees. I think we’ll just settle down for a spell,” says she to my consternation; she patted my knee with a plump hand and settled back contentedly. “I think we’re goin’ to like Santa Fe, dearie.”

  * * *

  a Not to be confused with the better-known Las Vegas, Nevada.

  b Mexican cloak.

  c Cigars.

  d Working-class beauty.

  e Fringed scarf worn round the head.

  f Tame Indians, as opposed to “bravos”.

  Chapter 9

  There was no sense in arguing, so I didn’t; for one thing, I had no wish to plunge ahead into the kind of horror we’d experienced on the plains, and the prospect of a brief rest in Santa Fe was welcome. On the other hand, I’d no wish to linger in America, and was determined to get out of Susie’s fond embrace as soon as the chance arose. One pressing need would be money; like so many of my women (including my dear Elspeth, I regret to say), she seemed devilish reluctant to let me get my paws on the purse-strings – they’re a mean sex, you know. So I had to take stock, and see what offered, while pretending a great interest in the establishment of our brothel.

  Susie got her eye on a likely place just off the Plaza, a fine, one-storey house with plenty of rooms and a good-sized courtyard, all enclosed by high adobe walls. It belonged to the church, so she paid a rare price, “but never fear,” says she, “we’ll make four hundred per cent on this when we come to sell.” Then she hired labour to make it habitable, engaged servants and porters, and furnished it with the gear from New Orleans which had survived our journey. My respect for her increased when I saw all the stuffs, carpets, curtains, china and crockery, tables, chairs and beds – including the famous “electrical mattress”, too – and realised that she’d never have come by anything half so fine west of St Louis; up went the mirrors, chandeliers, and pictures, and out came the girls’ assorted finery; Susie saw to the very last detail of their personal apartments, and to the appointment of the public rooms, which included a large reception chamber where the wenches could be on view between engagements, so to speak, flirting with the customers while they made their selections; a buffet, and a gaming-room which I undertook to supervise – for there’s no call, you know, for a man about the bawdy-house, apart from the porter-bullies, and I didn’t care to be seen as a mere jack-gagger;g also it occurred to me that I’d be able to accumulate some private funds, with careful management.

  We opened for business, with Susie dressed like a dog’s dinner queening it in the hall, her cashier in an office to one side, and a broken down medico in a little room on the other – “for the only thing they’re goin’ to leave here is cash,” says she, “an’ if they don’t like bein’ looked at by the pox-spotter, they can take themselves off, double-quick.” The girls were all got up in their most alluring finery, lounging artlessly in the reception on their couches under the shaded lamps, while Flashy, resplendent in new coat and pants and silk cravat, shuffled the decks in the gaming-room and waited for the gulls – and I’m here to tell you that I did a damned thin trade. You see, they could gamble anywhere in Santa Fe, but they couldn’t fornicate in the style to which Susie’s charmers quickly accustomed them; it was like a madhouse out yonder for a couple of hours, until she closed the doors, having made appointments for clients who kept us busy until four in the morning, and when I joined her at dawn and saw the pile of rhino on her office table – well, there was a cool four thousand dollars if there was a cent. “Mind you, I won’t ’ave the gels workin’ at this pace other nights,” says she. “It’s important to make a good impression at first; the word’ll spread, an’ we’ll attract good custom, but then we can pick an’ choose the real genteel – an’ put the prices up. I’m not ’avin’ those dirty buckskin brutes in ’ere again, though; they’re just savages! Pore little Marie ’ad to call the porters twice, she was that terrified, an’ Jeanette might ’ave been ’urt bad if she ’adn’t ’ad ’er pistol ’andy.”

  I saw there was more to this business than I’d imagined – but, by George, wasn’t it a paying spec, though? Better than stock-jobbing or Army contracts, and just as respectable, really.

  We throve astonishingly in that first week, just as Susie had predicted; our fame spread, and the dago quality began to come in, not only from Santa Fe but from the valley below Albuquerque even, and the rancherias in the country round. We had a rare platoon of bullies on the gate, and took no riff-raff; even so, there was no lack of customers, and since they weren’t the kind to haggle, she was able to exact prices that she confessed she wouldn’t have dreamed of charging in Orleans. Oh, she knew her business; taste and refinement, says she, are what we’re after, and she got it, I’ve known rowdier drawing-rooms in Belgravia. The tarts seemed to thrive on it, too; you’ve never seen such airs.

  One thing that alarmed us both, though, was the amount of cash that piled up in Susie’s strong-box in that first week; it would have given you the frights anywhere, never mind in a town awash with sharps and slicks who’d have cut a throat for twenty cents. In New Orleans she’d have banked it, but here there wasn’t a strong-room worth the name. Trust Susie, though: in no time she’d reached an arrangement with one of the governor’s aides, and every second or third day the box was hefted across the Plaza by a couple of bluecoats and the blunt stowed under military guard at headquarters – I fancy the aide’s fee was free use of Eugenie every Friday, but I’m not certain; Susie was close about business arrangements. But she confided that she still wasn’t happy about keeping large sums on the premises between times, and perhaps we ought to hire a reliable guard. I remarked that I was on hand, and she went slightly pink and said, yes, love, but I couldn’t be awake all the time, could I?

  “I was thinkin’ we might employ Nugent-Hare,” she added.

  I didn’t care for this. He and Uncle Dick Wootton had been paid off with the arrieros and teamsters on Susie’s resolve to settle in Santa Fe, but while Wootton had gone off with a hunting party, the bold Grattan was still about the town. I was against taking him back, I said; I didn’t care for him.

  “’E’s been a loyal servant to us, you can’t deny! Wot’s wrong with ’im, then?”

  “He’s Irish, and his nose is too long. And I’ve never trusted him above half.”

  “Not trust ’im – ’cos ’is nose is too long? Wotever d’you mean?” Suddenly she burst out laughing, catching my hand. “’Ere, I do believe you’re jealous! Why, you silly big thing – come ’ere! You are, aren’t you?” She was bubbling with delight at the idea, and kissed me warmly. “As if I could ever think of anyone but you!” She was all sentimental in a moment, her arms round my neck. “O
h, Beachie, I do love you so! Now, then, let’s chase them blue-devils away …”

  The result was that Grattan was sought out and offered the post of chief of the knocking-shop police, which he accepted, pulling his long nose and bland as you please. I was surprised – because while I’ll do anything, myself, he didn’t strike me as the sort who’d lower himself to being a whore’s ruffian, which is what it amounted to. We discovered why he’d been so ready, two days later, when the son-of-a-bitch slipped his cable with two thousand dollars, which fortunately was all that had been in the office desk. Susie was distraught, damning his eyes and bewailing her foolishness in not heeding me; I was quite pleased myself, and comforted her by saying we’d have the scoundrel by the heels in no time, but at this she clutched my hand and begged me not to.

  “Why the hell not?” cries I, dumbfounded.

  “Oh, it wouldn’t do! Honest, I know it wouldn’t! Let the thievin’ little bastard go, an’ good riddance! Ow, the swine, if I could lay ’ands on ’im! No, no darlin’, let it be! It’ll be cheaper in the long run – it gets a place like ours such a bad name, you see, if there’s any commotion with the law! Really, it does – I know! Anyway, Gawd knows where he’s gone by this! No, please, Beachie love – take my word on it! Let it go!”