Dead Warrior

by John Myers Myers

  “I can stand the separation, if the mules can,” I told Frank. “You’ve been back in the hills, haven’t you? How did the ore look where you were?”

  “Not as good as the stuff on my claim right near here,” he admitted. “Thanks, Pete. I’ll pay you the next time I drop around.”

  Fillmore left us, but we were shortly joined by someone almost as out of place in a saloon as Frank’s horse. “Hello, Bradford,” Dick Jackson said. “Haven’t you got enough customers without coming in here to drag us from the one solace we can afford, after we’ve been squeezed to support a wealthy merchant class?”

  The Bradford General Emporium was the most successful store in Dead Warrior, due in part to the owner’s hard-bargain shrewdness, though in equal measure to his endless capacity for work. Eben didn’t like Dick’s bluff reference to his close dealing, yet he was pleased by the mention of his prosperity. He managed a smile which reflected his mixture of feelings, as he drew forth some money.

  “I have something to talk over with you, and I was told I might find you here, Carruthers; but I’m glad your partner and Jackson are present, too.” Then Bradford looked at Pete. “I’m not having anything, but how much will it cost to give them what they want?”

  “A live one,” Sam commented. “What are we supposed to do in exchange?”

  The merchant had no answer until, as host, he had persuaded us to leave the bar for a table. “I don’t know whether McQuinn will be interested in this, but the rest of you should be,” he said, when he had lighted his cigar, “because you’re among the leading businessmen in town. Gentlemen, I think it’s time that Dead Warrior was organized.”

  Previous efforts in that direction had amounted to nothing, because — as I had told Bradford when he first brought the subject up — the driving energies of Dead Warrior had found too many other outlets. Dick, who liked to buttress his newspaper with direct political power, had been astute enough to see that the town was too big and sprawling to eat out of his unaided hand. Men like Wheeler and Bradford himself had not made civic concerns theirs, being absorbed in catching opportunities on the wing. In their default and my own, a group of petty rogues had formed a government which no one took seriously.

  “Why see here; we’ve got a provisional board of aldermen,” I told Eben, “and we had a mayor until he heard that a Pinkerton detective was on a still hunt here.”

  “I mean formally organized,” Bradford said. “Chartering’s best, because it gives a city more prerogatives; but let’s do it somehow, so that we’ll have official standing that will entitle us to recognition by the rest of the world.”

  “We’ve already got that,” Jackson observed. “Just last week I received a London newspaper that carried an item about the Ophir of Arizona; and if you asked a New York bootblack what was the greatest bonanza ever discovered, he’d say ‘Dead Warrior’ without missing a stroke of his brush.”

  “Yes, but I like what Bradford fished out of the headcheese,” Wheeler declared. “I admit chartering is commonplace, but as things stand, there’s no basis for taxes, and without taxes how are we going to have the graft I’m counting on to support me in my rapidly nearing old age?”

  “It needn’t be entirely commonplace,” Terry pointed out. “We don’t have to charter ourselves as a town or a city, do we?”

  “Of course we do,” Bradford argued, “if we’re going to get permission to be organized under the territorial laws of the United States. What other forms of government could there possibly be anyhow?”

  “Why should we have to ask for permission?” I wondered, after ordering another round. “Let’s charter ourselves as a separate territory, or state even.”

  “We’d have to get permission from Washington to do that,” Dick objected, “and the lobbying would cost too much. We’d be better off if we make Dead Warrior a separate country.”

  “Why that’s treason!” Eben exclaimed.

  “Only until after the revolution,” Wheeler said. “Can I be head of the treasury department?”

  “We can’t give out any patronage until we have an administration,” Jackson demurred. He leaned forward and glanced from one to another of us, his eyes gleeful. “The first step is to decide what kind of country we’re going to be, and the first question is, shall we carry it to the people before or after the decision?”

  Although we had started in merely to annoy Bradford and as a relief from our own boredom, these impulses were no longer needed. “Let’s not start things off with a plebiscite,” I cautioned. “Because if we’re not going to be a democracy, it’ll only be setting a bad precedent.”

  “The Republic of Dead Warrior.” Blackfoot Terry turned to wave Pete on with the bottle again. “No, I don’t like that. The Kingdom of — No. How about the Duchy of Dead Warrior?”

  “I’m not having anything to do with this foolishness,” Bradford growled. Nobody watched him leave.

  “Duchy, eh? I like the alliteration,” Dick decided, “but what are we going to use for a duke?”

  “Seth, of course.” I turned to Wheeler, who was clever at sketching. “You can fix him up a coat of arms, Sam, with an Apache scalp gules and a beaver tail rampant on a field d’or; but that can wait a little, I should say. I think our best political brains should get busy drawing up a proclamation and a constitution in time for Dick to print them in this afternoon’s War Whoop.”

  To say that the citizens of Dead Warrior took to the idea of national autonomy would be less than sufficient. All of the vitality dammed by the recent depressing weather broke loose, and all the spirits soured by the turning of spring in a predominantly stag camp were sweetened into joyousness. There may have been such a wave of patriotism following the Declaration of Independence, but that’s debatable.

  Provisionally the new government established its headquarters at the Anything Goes Variety Hall, and the War Whoop had not been on the street an hour before the Capitol overflowed with public-minded citizens offering suggestions on anything from the immigration quota from Turkey to the importance of having a ducal navy yard on Sometimes Creek.

  At nine o’clock that night Duke Seth the First was crowned with a coronet beaten out of bullion. The old fellow was delighted, as always, to be the center of attention, and it must be said of him that he was equal to the occasion.

  “Men,” he said, with a simple dignity which won every heart, “I ain’t had much practice bein’ a duke; but there ain’t nothin’ too tough for an old mountain man to tackle, so if you want me to be chief of the tribe, I’m your huckleberry. I just got one more thing to say, and that is my government’s put up the money for hooch on the house at all the saloons in town tonight, which is a better deal than you can get from any other goddam country. Let’s have a cheer for Dead Warrior!”

  The mines had to shut down, as nobody worked at anything but national affairs. By the second day we had three political parties, of which one was royalist and one revolutionary, while the third seemed chiefly concerned with declaring war on the Shah of Persia. This last group used up its energies on parades, mass meetings and practice cavalry charges down Apache Street; but the royalists nearly wrecked the Glory Hole when they elected to drive the sans-culottes from that stronghold.

  A military force had been organized by then, but the red-light girls had been unwontedly ignored during the period of political foment, so Hangtown Jennie had encouraged trade by offering the brave troops special rates. This made it difficult to establish martial law, though it did weaken the forces of the rioters, many of whom decided to join the army.

  It should not be inferred, however, that the whole history of the Duchy of Dead Warrior was one of internal dissension. The peaceful arts flourished, and social progress was made.

  As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sam designed the Dead Warrior doubloon. For heads there was the image of a ferocious-looking tiger of the sort found on faro layouts and for tails a high-kicking dance-hall girl. Worth twenty-five dollars, or five pounds sterling on internat
ional exchange, the coins were struck out of pure gold at a blacksmith shop.

  Prime Minister McQuinn, aided by myself, as Minister of the Interior, had meanwhile lost no time in allotting everybody to one of the four classes of society which flourished under His Grace, Duke Seth the First. The nobility, a surprisingly large group for one so exalted, were called the Dependables. These could be relied on to get a skinful every day. Those of some social pretensions, although definitely relegated to the status of commoners, were the Corkbacks. They drank regularly but with the stigma of moderation. The Corkbacks looked down on the Weekenders, nevertheless, for these members of the bourgeoisie only drank after six days of sober toil had been performed. The serf class, a water-drinking proletariat largely recruited from the residential areas developing around the town’s several churches, was known as Wash-swillers.

  The need of a national anthem had early been recognized, and Dink Flinders had been drafted to compose one. He in turn called for the assistance of a touring song-and-dance team, which presented it to a deeply moved populace, assembled in the Capitol the night after the coronation.

  Here’s to the land

  Where we all take our stand

  With a foot on the long brass rail;

  A land that we love,

  Where we’ll stick till we shove

  To escape going back to jail.

  The singers had been capering through an illustrative charade, but they now paused in mid-stage to remove their hats and present their canes in salute.

  O-h-h,

  There never was a land so bright and sunny,

  With so many card decks stacked so funny

  Or with so many girls to scrounge for money

  As in our Dead Warrior!

  Concurrently with these steps forward, Jackson had been faithful to his duties as Minister of Foreign Affairs. The approach of the railroad, moving west from Yuma, had lately brought us within the orbit of telegraphic communication. Dick had employed this utility to let all the large newspapers of the United States know that a new sovereign power was sharing the continent.

  Some of the notified journals had remained dourly silent, but a number had wired congratulations; and the New York Sun had wanted to know whether our intentions toward the U. S. A. were peaceful. To this Foreign Minister Jackson replied: “We prefer to deal with other autocracies, but we’re not necessarily hostile to republics if they behave themselves.”

  This and other messages relative to international policy were evidently given wide circulation. On the fifth day of the duchy’s existence Prime Minister McQuinn lurched into the Capitol trailed by a group of strangers.

  “I was on the way back with this bottle,” Terry said, “when I ran into these fellows. I think we’re being invaded.”

  One of the newcomers, I realized after I had blinked at them a moment, was Deputy U. S. Marshal Bill Gunn, but the rest weren’t dressed as plainsmen. In addition to a man in the uniform of a captain of the United States Army, there were three fellows in formal town attire.

  “I’m Interior,” I reminded McQuinn. “You or Foreign Affairs there ask ’em what they want.”

  At that Bill Gunn, who had been looking on in a mixture of amusement and embarrassment, spoke up. “This is a delegation from Prescott, Baltimore.”

  The territorial capital had by then moved from Tucson to the more northerly city. Wheeler’s comment was to snore from where he sat slumped in a chair; but Terry, Dick and I exchanged looks, as Gunn went on. “The Honorable Oscar Balcom here is the Governor’s personal representative.”

  Mr. Balcom was a tall man of affairs with a face ringed by bushy whiskers. He removed his stovepipe hat with a ceremonial flourish but dropped something of his dignity when he had to shift several glasses aside in order to find a place for his headgear on the ducal council table.

  At precisely this juncture Seth raised his head from his arms. “Set down, Oscar,” he invited. “Hell’s fire, man, don’t stand there like you had an egg in your pants pocket.”

  Potter let his head fall forward again, but the Governor’s personal representative had lost points he didn’t feel able to win back. “What’s this all about?” he asked plaintively.

  “If you’ll tell us why you’re here, we’ll be in a better position to answer,” Terry suggested.

  “Well, look at this,” Balcom said. He did sit down, and started to fish in his briefcase, so the others also found seats for themselves. In the meantime their chief had brought forth a telegram. “We saw the accounts of your — er — new country in the Prescott papers, but the Governor wasn’t too concerned until Washington jumped on him. It seems that journals back East ran stories to the effect that you favor alliances with countries other than the United States.”

  “We might reconsider,” Dick said, when Balcom looked up inquiringly. “You see, our main object was to give our community a formal organization, which it had never had before.”

  There was a loophole for conciliation here, and the Governor’s representative saw it. “Wouldn’t it be possible to organize along more usual lines?”

  A great weariness was coming over me. “Mr. Balcom,” I said, “if we consent to annexation by the United States, do you think we could arrange to have Dead Warrior chartered as a city of that country?”

  Trained in politics, Balcom was not going to make a difficulty where his goal was being peaceably gained. “I am positive of that,” he said, as he rose. “Do I have your assurance that you are annexed, gentlemen?”

  In Terry’s eyes and in Dick’s I read the same relief I knew to be in my own. “You do,” I said, making the last official pronouncement on behalf of the duchy. “This thing of being an independent nation is just too hard on the system.”

  It was another two days before I had more or less recovered, making a week in all since I had seen Faith Foster. She had not been short of company, for all sorts of young Wash-swillers had not participated in the nationalist movement. Nevertheless, I foresaw that she might have resented my defection.

  Faith had not come to Dead Warrior until the rectory built by her father had been completed. During the few weeks since her arrival she had established the custom of holding Thursday-night gatherings, attended by the spiritually elect. Previously I had dodged these, but on this occasion I felt that meeting Miss Foster in a crowd would be the most comfortable way of breaking any ice that might have formed. In due course, accordingly, I made my presence known and waited for an opportunity to cut her out of the herd of young fellows with which she was surrounded.

  “How did you manage to tear yourself away from that disgraceful orgy?” she asked, when she finally consented to give me any notice.

  “You don’t leave an orgy,” I explained. “It throws you off, like a mustang, when you can’t hold on any longer.” Not willing to be lectured, I thought the best counterirritant would be jocularity. “But anyhow what makes you think I had anything to do with the business to which I assume you are referring?”

  She looked as coldly contemptuous as a pretty girl can while in the act of forking a morsel of layer cake into her mouth. “The newspapers did, among other things,” she declared, when she could speak with decorum. “But I would have known you were mixed up in it, because of the kind of places you frequent.”

  The rich, sweet cake made me feel sick, but I ate some in order to show her that I was at home in a gentler milieu than that offered by Apache Street’s saloons. “Like the Foster home?” I asked.

  “I don’t know whether you’ll be welcome in the Foster home much longer,” she snapped. “Nobody else that we associate with had a hand in that outrageous business.”

  When I looked at her fresh, clean-cut features, I momentarily felt abashed about the rowdiness in which I had recently rejoiced. My mood altered, however, when my eyes searched out the other occupants of the minister’s living room. There was one other girl and two or three married women, but most were young men. They worked in the Dead Warrior Bank and Trust Company,
or in the offices of the various mining companies, and in their way of life they still belonged to the placid respectabilities whence Bedlington or some other corporation executive had dredged them.

  “You should bemoan the fall of the duchy,” I told the girl. “If we hadn’t been overwhelmed by the superior forces and the imperialistic ambitions of the United States, you might have been elevated from serfdom to the nobility, and in the capacity of a minister of state at that.”

  Like most strained efforts to draw a smile, that one failed. She moved as far away from me as was possible on the love seat we shared. From that still intimate distance she glared.

  “This is the first I have heard of any such marital intentions.”

  I hadn’t mentioned intentions, merely a contingent possibility; but it was still bad. Her position was that she didn’t like such a subject introduced in fun, and my dilemma was that I couldn’t drop it except at the cost of saying nothing was further from my mind. “Of course, my expectations aren’t what they were,” I said, lamely trying to do a balancing act before an unappreciative audience, “so I am no longer a real catch.”

  “Not for anybody with any sense,” she agreed. “Excuse me now, Mosby.”

  My luck continued to be poor. Moving aimlessly about, I was caught by the Reverend Foster. That night I wasn’t up to handling his baffling mixture of religious and financial views; and before I could get free from him, he passed me on to Mrs. Robert Weatherby.

  Wife of the superintendent of the Manhattan Mining Company, she was personable but not impersonal enough for my taste. She wasted no time in crowding her shapely bust close to me and butting into my private affairs.

  “I’ve seen you out driving,” she said, meaning that she had seen me out driving with Miss Foster, “but I haven’t seen you in church, Mr. Carruthers.”

  “Have you been at all of them?” I temporized.