The Case of the Deadly Desperados

by Caroline Lawrence

  I said, “What is a Local and what is a Scoop?”

  He said, “A Local means a man who reports the local news.”

  “And a Scoop?”

  He said, “It is an unpublished and startling piece of news.”

  I said, “Then, yes. I reckon I have a Scoop.”

  “Please take a seat, miss.” He stepped forward on long legs & swung a chair out from under its desk. It had little rollers on the feet & a green cushion on the walnut seat.

  “My name is Sam Clemens,” he said. “And that there is Dan De Quille, the editor of this paper. He is of no consequence. However, I will help you, if you will help me.”

  Ledger Sheet 15

  THE PROSPECTOR-LOOKING REPORTER named Sam Clemens sat down opposite me.

  “Tell me, little girl, what is your Life or Death Scoop?”

  I sat on the chair & crossed my ankles like a well-brought up girl might do. Then I said, “My parents were murdered and scalped and I am being pursued by a gang of desperados. I am in disguise,” I added.

  The man called Dan De Quille made a kind of choking noise and swiveled around in his chair. He & Sam Clemens both stared at me with wide eyes. I was pretty sure that was Expression No. 4: Surprise. Their mouths were hanging open, too. Then Sam Clemens leaned forward & snatched my bonnet from my head. My wig came with it.

  “Dang my buttons!” he exclaimed. “You are in disguise. You ain’t a little girl at all. You are a boy, and half Apache by the looks of you.”

  “Sioux,” I said. “I am half Sioux.”

  Over at his desk, Dan De Quille chuckled. Sam Clemens narrowed his eyes at him. “Is this some sort of prank, Dan?” he said.

  Dan De Quille shrugged. “I know nothing about it.”

  Sam Clemens then rounded on me. “Who put you up to this?” he said. “Was it Dan over there? Or someone else?”

  “I do not know what you mean,” I said, taking back my wig & bonnet. I planted them firmly on my head. “I am in disguise for my safety. I am being pursued by a gang of desperados.”

  Dan De Quille chuckled again, and turned back to his writing.

  Sam Clemens did not chuckle. He narrowed his eyes at me. That was Expression No. 5. He was either mad at me, or thinking, or suspicious. Or maybe all three.

  “I am not in a joking mood,” he said. “I just arrived in Virginia City. All I know is that the streets are named after the alphabet and the atmosphere is light enough to give you a permanent nosebleed.”

  “Call it ‘Virginia,’ Sam,” said Dan De Quille over his shoulder. “Nobody calls it ‘Virginia City.’”

  Sam Clemens ignored him. “I have just walked seventy miles through a totally uninhabited desert.”

  “I doubt it,” said Dan De Quille, without turning around. “I’ll bet you hitched a lift with one of those mule trains.”

  Sam Clemens said, “I have been living on alkali water and whang leather for the last six months.” He patted his chest so that a cloud of pale yellow dust puffed up. “And as you can probably smell, I only had sufficient of the former for drinking purposes.”

  “Beef and black coffee’s what I heard,” said Dan to the wall. “But I believe the part about you not washing for half a year.”

  “I was nearly a millionaire, but for my stupidity,” said Sam Clemens, pounding the table with his hand.

  “Now that could well be true,” said Dan with a chuckle.

  “I do not have time for tomfoolery,” said Sam Clemens. “I need a Scoop or I will have to submit this story about a passel of danged Hay Wagons.” He put his pipe in his mouth.

  I said, “My news is not tomfoolery. This afternoon my foster parents were murdered and scalped. When I found them my ma was still alive but she died soon after.”

  Once again, Dan De Quille swiveled in his chair & stared at me open-eyed.

  But Sam Clemens’s eyes were narrowed. Expression No. 5 again. “You do not look like a child who has just seen their parents massacred,” he said. “You look remarkably calm.”

  “That is my Thorn,” I said.

  “Thorn?” said Sam Clemens.

  “I cannot express emotions well. Or read them neither.”

  Dan De Quille stood up and said, “Are you a Heathen or a Believer?”

  I said, “I am a Methodist. My dead foster pa was a Methodist preacher and I have embraced his faith.” I quoted Matthew chapter 10 & verse 32: “Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in Heaven.”

  Dan De Quille nodded & took a dusty black book from a shelf on his desk. He stepped closer & held it out in front of me. “Swear on this Bible that you are not joshing us.”

  I put my right hand on the Bible & said, “I swear as God is my Witness that my parents was murdered and scalped.”

  They looked at each other.

  Dan De Quille said, “Are you telling us that the Paiute Indians are up in arms? When did this happen?”

  “About three hours ago at approximately three and a half o’clock this afternoon,” I said. “But it was not Paiutes or any other sort of Indians. The villains who murdered my foster parents wanted people to think it was Indians. I have something they want and they are pursuing me and that is why I am in disguise.” I adjusted my bonnet to make sure it was straight.

  Sam Clemens leaned towards me & gave me Expression No. 5. His narrowed eyes were a blue-green color & very shiny. “And do you know who really did it?”

  “They call him Whittlin Walt. I did not catch the names of the other two men with him.”

  “Ha, ha, ha,” said Sam Clemens. “A desperado named Whittlin Walt. That is rich. I must make a note of that in case I ever decide to write one of those Dime Novels.”

  But Dan De Quille had turned white as chalk.

  “What is it, Dan?” said Sam Clemens. “What’s the matter?”

  Without a word, Dan De Quille stood up & went to a stack of papers on a table beside the Washington Printing Press. He took a couple of sheets from the top & handed one to me & one to Sam Clemens. “We printed up a passel of these yesterday,” he said, “at the request of Marshal Bailey.”

  In my hand I held a wanted poster. There was a picture of a man on it. Above the picture it read: WALT DARMITAGE—ALIAS “WHITTLIN WALT.” Below the picture it said, WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE. And below that it said, REWARD $2,000.

  For the first time I saw the face of the man who wanted me dead.

  Ledger Sheet 16

  THE WANTED POSTER in my hands showed an ugly man with pale eyes & a scar on his chin and a droopy mustache.

  It chilled my blood just to look at it.

  Then I noticed smaller type below the reward price.

  It read as follows:

  Whittlin Walt often travels with Dubois “Extra Dub” Donahue and Boswell “Boz” Burton. There is a reward of $200 for each of them.

  “Is that him?” said Dan De Quille. “Is that the man who murdered and scalped your parents?”

  “I only saw him from up above and from a distance, but I am pretty sure this is him.”

  Dan De Quille said, “They call him ‘Whittlin Walt’ because he likes to whittle pieces off his victims before he kills them and because he often quotes Walt Whitman as he does so.”

  I said, “Walt Whitman the poet?”

  Dan De Quille nodded. “That’s right. Whittlin Walt is the most feared desperado in the Territory. He is trying to take over this whole town. It is just like him to pretend to be a Paiute to stir up trouble. People are still skittish after the Indian troubles we had two years ago.”

  “Dang my buttons!” Sam Clemens put his poster on the table. “A desperado named Whittlin Walt and his colorfully named pards strike in Virginia City. I mean Virginia. This is a Scoop, Dan. We�
��d better get those boys back in here and compose a new front page.”

  I said, “It wasn’t here in Virginia. It was down in Temperance.”

  Sam Clemens looked at Dan De Quille. “Temperance?”

  “Little two-horse hamlet down in the Carson Valley by Dayton,” said Dan De Quille. Some of the blood had returned to his face. He turned to me. “Can you tell us what happened? Quickly and accurately?”

  I told them.

  They both took notes & when I finished, Dan De Quille put down his pencil & pad. He said, “So you were the only witness?”

  “Yes, sir.” I folded the wanted poster carefully and put it in my medicine bag. I had to be able to recognize Whittlin Walt, in case I ever had the misfortune to meet him again.

  Dan De Quille said, “Does Walt know you saw him?”

  I said, “No, sir. He is after me for a Letter my parents left me.”

  “Where is this Letter?”

  “A Soiled Dove named Belle Donne stole it off me, along with a twenty-dollar gold coin that belonged to my ma.”

  Dan De Quille’s pale cheeks grew pink. “I know Belle,” he said. “She has a crib down on D Street and she often dines over at the Colombo Restaurant about this time of day.”

  Sam Clemens looked at Dan De Quille from under his eyebrows. “Man is the only animal that blushes,” he said. “Or that needs to.”

  Dan cleared his throat and said, “I’d better go tell the Marshal what happened down in Temperance. We don’t want to start another Indian War.” He took a plug hat from the hat tree & looked at Sam Clemens, who was beginning to rearrange the little metal letters in their tray. “And don’t you dare print that story.”

  “Not print it? What do you mean?” said Sam Clemens.

  Dan De Quille said, “Whittlin Walt is the most sadistic and feared desperado we have seen in a long time. If you so much as put it in the paper that Walt knocked an old lady’s prayer book from her hand he would most likely chop off your nose. Imagine what he would do if you accused him of bloody murder. Why, he would whittle us both up for kindling!”

  “But it is a Scoop, Dan,” said Sam Clemens. “A veritable, bona fide Scoop.”

  Dan De Quille looked at me. “What is your name?”

  “P.K.,” I said. “Though my foster ma used to call me Pinky. That is short for Pinkerton.”

  “P.K., are you certain Walt does not know you witnessed this crime?”

  I said, “I am sure. He is after me because he wants that Letter and he suspects I have it. He does not know I witnessed the crime and he does not know what I look like. But he knows I sometimes go by the name of Pinky and he knows that I am twelve years old. That is why I am in disguise.”

  Dan De Quille turned to Sam Clemens & said, “If we print that article, then Walt will know that P.K. was a witness. We may as well sign this poor child’s death certificate right here and now.”

  Ledger Sheet 17

  DAN DE QUILLE PUT ON HIS HAT. “I am going to tell the Marshal to ride down to Temperance and tell people there not to start another war with the Paiutes. Sam, will you stay here with P.K.? The Marshal might want to question him before he leaves. But don’t you print anything until I say so.”

  He hurried out of the room, closing the door behind him.

  I looked at Sam Clemens & he looked at me.

  Then he heaved a deep sigh & sat down. “Well,” he said, “as my hopes of a Scoop have been dashed upon the rocks of Prudence, I may as well try to salvage something from this wreck. Tell me about yourself. How does a pint-sized half Indian like you come to be living with a Methodist preacher and his wife?”

  “My original ma was Lakota, which some people call Sioux,” I said. “She was sent away from her tribe for taking up with a fur trapper when she was fourteen. Later she met my pa. She liked his buttons and his beard. She fell pregnant with me and when she felt her time coming she crouched down behind a bush and out I popped. It was outside a town called Hard Luck near Mount Disappointment in the Black Hills. She named me Glares from a Bush because she said I never smiled nor cried, but just glared up at her like an evil maggot.”

  Sam Clemens chuckled. “Glares from a Bush,” he said. “Good name. What was your ma’s name? Was it something romantic, like Malaeska or Little Doe?”

  “Her name was Squats on a Stump,” I said.

  Sam Clemens grinned. “And your pa?”

  “His name was Pinkerton.”

  Sam Clemens took the foul-smelling pipe out of his mouth. “Allan Pinkerton? Wasn’t he the man who saved President Lincoln’s life last year?”

  I nodded. “He has a famous Detective Agency based out of Chicago.”

  “And he’s your pa?”

  I shook my head. “My pa was his elder brother Robert. He was a detective, too.”

  I took the Pinkerton RailRoad Detective Button out of my medicine bag and held it out.

  Sam Clemens put his pipe back in his mouth & took the button & studied it. “Pinkerton RailRoad Detective,” he read, & then handed it back. “I didn’t know Pinkerton had an elder brother,” he said.

  I said, “Pa stayed with us for a while and then he vamoosed. I don’t even remember what he looks like. After that, my ma was left to fend for herself. In the summers we trapped animals & in the winter we lived in towns & she made Indian medicines for sick people. Then one day about two years ago she got it in her head to set out for the Washoe. I am not sure where that is.”

  “That is here,” said Sam Clemens. “It is the name of a tribe of Indians who live in the basin valley between here and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. So your ma wanted to cash in on the Silver Boom?”

  “I am not sure,” I said. “She had a gentleman friend by then, a man named Tommy Three. Ma sold our tent & ponies and we bought places on a Wagon Train heading west. We were in Utah Territory when our wagon got separated from the rest. A band of Shoshone attacked us two days later and slaughtered my ma and Tommy Three and Hang Sung, our cook.”

  Sam Clemens looked up from his notepad. “All three massacred?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Are you joshing me?”

  “No, sir, I am not.”

  “Why didn’t the Shoshone kill you, too, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t remember what happened. I found myself sitting by the burning wagon. The Indians had taken our provisions and horses. But they left me alive with the bodies. I was wearing my old buckskins that day,” I said. “Maybe that is why.”

  “So you are a double orphan?”

  I said, “Yes, sir.”

  Sam Clemens took his pipe out of his mouth and examined it. “Then what?” he said. “What happened after the massacre?”

  “Another wagon train came along two days later,” I said. “They found me digging the graves.”

  “When was that?”

  “Two years ago,” I said. “Summer of ’60.”

  “First year of the Silver Boom,” said Sam Clemens. “How old were you then?”

  “I was nine years old,” I said. “Almost ten.”

  Sam Clemens put the pipe back in his mouth. “And you were trying to bury the dead yourself?”

  “Yes, sir. It would not have been right to leave Ma and Tommy Three and Hang Sung for the coyotes and buzzards. Especially Ma.”

  Sam Clemens was blinking rapidly. “Blasted alkali dust,” he said. “Stings your eyes.” He took out a handkerchief & wiped his face. I could not see how that would help. His handkerchief was as powdered as the rest of him. After a spell he said, “And the next wagon train took you on?”

  “Yes, sir. The Reverend Emmet Jones and his wife were on that wagon train. They took pity on me and adopted me. Ma Evangeline said she had been trying to have a baby for years but the Lord had never
seen fit to bless her with offspring. Pa said it was God’s Will that they show me love and mercy. They were real good to me.

  “We went to a place near Salt Lake City and Pa tried to preach to the Mormons. Ma taught me to read and write and Pa taught me Scripture. Half a year ago the Mormons asked Pa to move on. About the same time, the Lord told him to found a town called Temperance in the Comstock, to be an Oasis of Holiness in a Desert of Sin. We got here in the spring and now he is dead and I do not think the town of Temperance will last much longer without him.” I stared down at the floor. “Pa used to say that Virginia City was Satan’s Playground. And now it has killed him.”

  Sam Clemens slowly shook his head. “To lose two parents is a tragedy,” he said. “But to lose four is just plain careless.”

  I did not know what to say.

  Sam Clemens narrowed his eyes at me. That was the fourth time he had given me Expression No. 5. “You know,” he said, “it is disconcerting to see what appears to be a sweet little girl talking about such things with no apparent emotions. I am not entirely sure I trust you.”

  I said, “It is my Thorn.”

  He puffed his pipe for a few moments. Then he said, “You are a strange creature, P.K.”

  Without another word he stood up, reached into his pants pocket & took out a small revolver.

  Ledger Sheet 18

  AS SAM CLEMENS DREW his small revolver, I slid under the heavy wooden table as fast as a greased snake down a gopher hole.

  “Come back up, P.K.,” said Sam Clemens. “I mean you no harm. On the contrary, I mean to do you a kindness.”

  I raised my head up above the table.

  “I do not believe in violence,” he said. “I only ever shot at a man once in my life, in the first days of this War between the States we are now embroiled in. I don’t know if it was my bullet that done for him or not, but it chilled me to the marrow of my bones. That is one reason I came west, to escape the carnage of that accursed War. Nonetheless, I am going to give you something that may save your life. Here. Take it.” Sam Clemens extended the revolver towards me, butt first.