by Bill Albert
I’d never taken all that much to Harry, but I was at a low point right then and a familiar face, even Harry’s, was welcome.
Most men, unless they have religion sitting on them real strong, and that doesn’t always stop them, will on occasion pay a visit to a crib or a parlor house. It’s only natural. Glove had explained that kinda thing to me and with the help of a few friendly crib girls I figured the rest for myself. Nonetheless, I did wonder if Mrs. Orchard was so new why Harry had been visiting with Nebraska Nellie. Then I met the new Mrs. Orchard.
She wasn’t real ugly, but she did seem old enough to be Harry’s mother. Kinda small, hunched over and dried up, like all the juice had been squeezed full out of her. The complete opposite of Harry, who had gotten stouter and more round-faced sleek since Wallace. I saw straight away how she made Nellie, who was herself no barroom painting even in the half-light, look pretty inviting. The only reason I could think of for why he married the new Mrs. Orchard was because she owned a halfway decent house and maybe had a sum of money put by. Of course, it could have been because she reminded him of his mother. Some men are like that.
Harry might well have been one of them. When he got liquored up and slobbering sentimental he regaled everyone with stories of what a wonderful woman his mother had been, how she’d been the only one who’d ever really cared for him, and how he was glad she’d never know the way life had turned out for her adored son. He also told me that his real name was Albert E. Horsely and that he had left a wife and small daughter back in Michigan. I guess he was the first and possibly the last genuine bigamist, motherloving or otherwise, I’ve ever come across, excepting of course for Mormons, who you can’t really count being as they do it as a necessity of their religion.
“Poor boy’s uncle just passed, Ida. Only kin he had in this world. Found him down at the Presbyterian on Fifth Street sayin a last prayer for the dear departed.”
“That’s nice, Harry dear,” she said softly, ducking her head. “I’ll get you some fresh coffee, although might be you’d be wanting a glass of milk, my dear, being young as you is.”
The Orchards’ house, which was more of a rough cottage, was in the south of Cripple Creek on a hilly street packed close to other such cottages and overlooking the Florence and Cripple Creek Depot. It was small and none too fancy. We sat pushed together in their front room. A wooden table and four plain chairs, a sideboard and a rocker, obviously Harry’s. The rough plank floor was covered with brown, flower-patterned oilcloth which was crinkling up at the edges. A sampler asked God to bless their Joyous Home.
Harry rocked back and hitched his thumbs through the sides of his suspenders. He watched with pride as his wife shuffled out of the room.
“Good little woman is Mrs. Orchard. The best, Hyman. Course, wouldn’t do to upset her none, ya understand.”
He winked at me.
“Never told her too much about all that business in the Coeur d’Alenes either. With the train and that, I mean. Nervous disposition and such like since Mr. Toney, her late husband, passed in a roof fall at the Wild Horse.
“Another little thing, boy. Ah, it’s like this, ya see, if Mrs. Orchard thought as how ya were of the Hebrew persuasion, and she would guess that pretty quick with a name like Hyman Budnitsky, I reckon how it would make her pretty unsettled, bein the regular prayer-meetin churchgoer she is. Anyways, it ain’t more than just a little thing. Don’t mind, do ya?”
What I hadn’t had time to explain to Harry is that I already had changed my name. After what had happened with Bartlett Sinclair and with the Army and the authorities in Idaho, as well as the Pinkertons chasing after Hyman Budnitsky, Glove said it would be preferable, not to say prudent, if I discarded my then current name and carried his.
“We will say that you’re my nephew. How does that strike you? A new name will not only make it easier to elude your pursuers but also will simplify things if we have any unpleasantness with the local constabulary from time to time.”
And we did have unpleasantness rather more than from time to time.
Glove christened me Christian.
“What,” he laughed dryly, “could be further from what you are, my dear boy? And besides, are you not on the Great Quest, like your namesake the Pilgrim? Of course you are.”
So, how could I object if Harry wanted a new name for me? I decided to bury Christian Glover together with his uncle. I became Herbert Brown and spared the nervous, God-fearing Mrs. Orchard from being unsettled by my persuasion.
Some people might say that changing your name is dishonest, and I reckon it is. But for me it’s been a matter of survival. Maybe Harry’s dishonesty was, too. However, it was on such an altogether different scale that I don’t know whether it’s adequate to call what Harry got up to as simply dishonest. His lies and deceptions came so fast and so often it was near impossible not to join in with them. It made it difficult to know with Harry what was true and what wasn’t. It didn’t seem to be a problem for him though, for Harry wove his stories so convincingly tight you couldn’t have persuaded a virgin’s sigh between the cracks.
“I’m dreadful sorry to hear of your bereavement, Herbert dear. Would you care for another raisin cookie?”
“Thought I might try to get Herbert a job over at the Vindicator Number One, Ida. I’ll talk with Mr. Warren first thing in the mornin.”
“That would be nice, Harry dear, but don’t you think that the boy’s too tender in his years to be working down a mine?”
“Not in the mine, Ida my love, but for the mine. Big difference.”
She squinted lovingly at her new husband.
“My Harry is such a wonderful man, Herbert. A real Christian. But I suppose you know that already.”
I drank my coffee.
I didn’t want a job at the Vindicator or any other mine, underground or on the surface. I’d heard enough about the work, seen at first hand how it crushed men up and broke them down. Aunt May had been right about there not being many old miners. When Mrs. Orchard left the room I wrote thanking Harry for the offer, but told him I would be keeping to my letter writing for the time being.
“How much ya make at that there letter writin, Hy, I mean Herbert? How much, ah say in an entire week? If yer lucky, what, six, maybe ten dollars? Well, I got a job for ya pays twice, three times that much. No, no, don’t worry on that, ya won’t be goin underground, just doin some errand runnin is all it is. Now I’ll explain her. . .”
Mrs. Orchard returned just then.
“I just been sayin to Herbert here, Ida, how it wouldn’t be no bother for him to be boardin with us, what with it being such a big house for two old married folks, and havin that extra room out the back.”
I began to write that I didn’t want to impose, but Harry smiled broadly and laid his hand firmly over mine.
“Of course, Harry dear. Like you say, wouldn’t be no bother at all. Ain’t no less than our Christian duty to this poor unfortunate boy, I reckon.”
“Fellow Presbyterian,” Harry reminded her.
“Yes,” she beamed, “a fellow Presbyterian.”
I had no liking to be anyone’s duty, particularly Harry’s. Besides I already had lodgings at a guest house in Victor and they were fine. But Harry kept saying how we old veterans had to stick together and how Mrs. Orchard would be put out something terrible if I didn’t board with them now she’d offered. I simply couldn’t shake him. Being flat broke after paying for Glove’s burying cut down on my options pretty short in any case.
He went with me on the Electric to pick up my belongings. There wasn’t much, some clothes and a stove-in Gladstone. Glove believed it was best to travel light so when the time came we could light out quick. And quick was how he went in the end, light as well.
“My Harry tells me that you were acquainted with him over in Idaho? You know, don’t you, that he would have been a very rich man by now if on
ly he hadn’t been forced to sell out and leave his claim sudden like he did? It’s the good ones like my poor Harry who suffer in this life, Herbert, the good, God-fearing ones.”
It was a couple of years before that I had heard how Al, Aunt May, and the others struck pay dirt at the Hercules. Those were the fastest traveling kind of stories in the mining camps. Everyone sort of sat back and bathed themselves in a story like that. You could watch them listening with half-closed eyes seeing how it was them who made the big strike, them who would be living in the fancy houses in Spokane or Denver, buying the carriages and the matched pairs and the diamond rings and the beautiful women. They made it their story. I guess, in his own way, that’s what Harry was doing.
No longer a prospect hole, the Hercules became a real mine of carbonites and galena, that is to say silver. It worked out as one of the richest strikes in the Coeur d’Alenes and it made all the partners rich. Benny December had been sitting right on top of his dream and never knew it. I could have felt sorry for him, but by that time I had learned better than to have such feelings for the likes of Benny.
The Hercules would have made Harry rich too if he hadn’t blown his share in a poker game. That was Harry’s luck, but it wasn’t Harry’s story. He had one for his new wife and a different one for me.
“I know, Herbert, sure I lost her in that game. Won’t deny that. But, you see Mrs. Orchard, she can’t abide the gamblin. Ya know how it is with them strict Presbyterians. Anyway, if it hadn’t been for those damn nigger soldiers comin in like they done I was gonna win her back. Sure as I’m sittin here I was. Don’t you recollect me sayin just that very thing to May Hutton and Al? Never had the chance though. Them two and Harry Day and the others must be havin a damn good laugh about Harry Orchard. Ya can bet your life on it!”
I had no intention of making any such bet. Glove had tutored me too well for that. Or so I thought.
8
Who is the Harry Orchard whose story put me here in the State Penitentiary? According to McParland, Harry is a repentant sinner, a man who has returned to Jesus and has saved his everlasting soul. I’ve got nothing against that. Saved is fine and dandy, and if anyone has ever needed his soul saving, Harry’s got to be up there at the top of the list. Mainly, though, it’s the needing to be saved from Harry Orchard that most people have had to hope for. Like Governor Steunenberg. Like a lot of people who didn’t know about needing to be saved from Harry until it was too late.
When I met up with him in Cripple Creek, he was a miner, dynamiter, high-grader, gambler, champion liar, and bigamist. Except for the bigamist, there was nothing too special about him.
Most miners high-graded if they could. When you asked, they said they picked up glommings to have a “little extra for the vest pocket.” The scale of Harry’s operation was more steamer trunk than vest pocket. He and a few others were taking out a couple of hundred pounds of high-grade a week from the Vindicator.
Now a miner in Cripple Creek made three dollars a day, whereas good quality high-grade could run two or three dollars a pound. If you work out the sums it’s not difficult to see why high-grading was such a popular touch. For Harry it was a necessary one. It was the only way he could cover his gambling debts.
It was usually easier for the owners to use dynamite to scare off the assayers who bought the purloined gold than to go after individual miners who might be high-grading only a couple of pounds. For Harry and his ring they made an exception. He got the word detectives had been hired to follow them. It had become too dangerous to sell the goods themselves and that’s where I came in.
“Ain’t no risk to it, Herbert. Promise ya on that. No one here knows ya. Just another boy goin about his business. Ya do like I tells ya and yer gonna be just fine. And a lot richer as well!”
It wasn’t that I believed him. The problem was I didn’t not believe him enough to turn down the offer. You see, I was real smart, clever-handed, saloon wise. Hadn’t Glove shown me how to deal with mugs like Harry? I figured to get a good look at the business, pick up a pocketful of traveling money and then jump clear of the district. Maybe go out to California, the farthest west you can get without having to start swimming. Damn clever I was.
The miners arranged with Johnnie Neville, a friend of Harry’s who owned a run-down saloon near the depot, to unload the ore at his place when they came off shift. It was a natural drop, miners being the drinkers they are. The detectives would have been hard pressed to notice that some left Neville’s place five or ten pounds lighter than when they went in, especially as so many walked in and staggered out. Every morning from the back of the saloon I collected as much high-grade as I could carry in a satchel.
I don’t know how many assay shops there are in the district, but for the two weeks that I ran high-grade I never visited the same place twice. One day I’d walk into Cripple Creek, the next take the Interurban to Independence, then to Altman or Elkton or Goldfield or Victor. Most assayers figured me for a dumb little kid and tried to bilk me on the price. I’d just stare at them, close up the satchel, and start to walk. Nine out of ten times they’d call me back and settle on a better price. I think it was my complete silence that turned it. Like Glove said, if you knew how to play it, your greatest strength can be found in what others take for your greatest weakness.
“Didn’t I tell ya not to worry, Herbert?” Harry asked as we sat, Neville, Bob Clarke, Steve Adams, and me, in the back room of Neville’s saloon, dividing up the second week’s take.
Clarke and Adams were the two miners Harry worked the high-grading with at the Vindicator. Clarke was a small runt of a man who never looked at you when he talked. Adams, on the other hand, had a pair of droop-lidded gray eyes that prowled at you as if searching out a weak point. The word was that he was a killer and had blasted a mine manager in Telluride who crossed him. He made me awful jumpy.
“Let’s see here, I count this out at three hundred and sixty-two dollars. That how ya got it, Herbert? Ain’t too bad at all. Five percent for you, same like last week. What’s that work out as? Somethin like fifteen dollars? Here, you take . . . No? Ha! Ya sure?”
He’d tried the same stupid trick the previous week.
“Ha! Ha! Ya know old Harry, never was too clever with the figurin. What have ya writ there? Eighteen dollars and ten cents? That right? Well, I’ll be damned. I am truly sorry about that, Herbert. Here ya are. No one can say Harry Orchard don’t pay off.”
Harry was never so happy as when he was counting out money and trying to cheat himself a bigger share of it.
“Hey, Harry,” said Neville, coughing into his hand. “What say we lay off for a week or so?”
Johnnie Neville was about fifty years old. He had been made an ex-miner with the help of a widow-maker drill that got loose in a stope. He walked with a hitch limp and did plenty of nervous coughing.
“Johnnie boy, what kinda talk is that? We got her goin so fine right now, why stop? This is real sweet, ain’t it? Three hundred and sixty-two dollars, the most we ever got.”
“That’s right enough,” chipped in Bob Clarke. “And we sure ain’t gonna hit on a seam of sylvanite as rich as that again too soon.”
“What’s the matter, Neville,” Adams snarled. “Ya goin weak sister on us?”
“It’s them mine detectives. I seen ‘em hangin ‘round.”
“When was that?” asked Harry.
“Yesterday it were.”
Clarke looked worried but Adams spat full on the floor without trying to locate the spittoon. I began to sweat. Only Harry took it without a ripple. It took more than a couple of detectives to rattle him. Most blustery men bluster to cover up their being scared or nervous. Not Harry. He ran on ice water, not blood.
“How ya know they was detectives?”
“How do I know when the sun’s shinin?” replied Neville, annoyed at having his judgment questioned.
“They see the
boy here?”
“Don’t think so. They were only out front at the bar, but could have had someone out the back as well. Reckon we should lay off. Gettin too close they is. Don’t want to have me no trouble here. You don’t want to be gettin this lad in Dutch neither. Only a tyke after all.”
I nodded my head at Harry. He ignored me.
“Shit!” Adams called out, stamping his feet in a rage.
“Ain’t gonna be no trouble, Johnnie,” cooed Harry. “Can’t prove nothin, can they? Just ya rest easy.”
“Don’t have to prove nothin neither,” Neville said. “Ya know what they done to them assayers. Do the same to me, I reckon. Burn me out and that’ll be that.”
“Listen to me, Johnnie and the rest of ya. And don’t you be pullin at me like that, boy.”
I let go and sank back in my seat.
“I reckon,” continued Harry, “as how we don’t got us much more time for this here anyways. If that seam don’t go dry on us, then the boys are talkin strike, ain’t they? Once that breaks we’re out of business. Best to make the most of it while we got the chance.”
“They was talkin strike a few months back and look what happened,” Neville said. “You been listenin too much to that Altman crowd and they is always mouthin on at strike, strike, strike. I say we take what we got now and lay low at least ‘til them detectives ain’t buzzin around so busy like.”
“Listen, boys,” Harry said. “All of us got responsibilities to be takin care of. Can’t do that on no three dollars a day.”
They couldn’t decide what to do, so they had a few more drinks. That only helped them decide to put off the decision until they were sober.
It was on the way back from Neville’s that Harry and I got caught by two men dressed like miners, only too clean to be miners. They stopped us and asked Harry for a match. Harry was eyeing them up carefully as he reached into his pocket, but the careful eyeing didn’t do him any good. One man grabbed his hand and held it down in Harry’s pocket while the other, wearing a pair of brass knuckles, punched him hard in the stomach and shoved him gasping and spitting into an alley.
