Matt Jensen, The Last Mountain Man The Eyes of Texas

by William W. Johnstone

  “How’s the marshal?” Durbin asked.

  “Dead,” someone replied.

  “Son of a bitch. That’s what, three marshals in the last three months?” one of the other patrons asked.

  “Yeah, somethin’ like that.”

  Durbin opened the barrel of his shotgun, pulled out the empty cartridge and replaced it with another. Snapping the barrel closed, he walked back to the high chair where he had been sitting, observing all the activity of the saloon.

  “You know what? We’ve had three people kilt in town today,” someone said. “That’s a lot, even for Shady Rest.”

  Chapter Four

  The name Shady Rest had been chosen specifically to appeal to the railroad officials of the Texas and Pacific, when the town made an application for the railroad to pass through their community.

  Passengers and settlers will opt for this shady island in the open spaces of West Texas and that will, no doubt, prove to be mutually beneficial, bringing progress to our area and additional business to your railroad. We earnestly appeal to you to give our town every consideration as you choose the western route for your great railroad.

  Despite their sincere petition, the town was bypassed when the T&P chose to go through Van Horn, some forty miles south. Shady Rest survived, though its name took on a more sinister tone when a newspaper in San Angelo wrote a very unflattering article about the town.

  Deadliest Town in America

  The community of Shady Rest, Texas, located in the shadow of El Capitan Mountain, has earned the unenviable reputation of being the deadliest town in Texas, if not in the entire United States of America. The name Shady Rest suggests a peaceful cemetery, and indeed, the population of the cemetery is growing nearly as fast as the population of the town, which seems bent upon reducing its number through almost daily murders.

  Shady Rest has become a town of wild saloons, debauched “houses of pleasure” and disagreements too frequently settled by gunfire in the streets. It is said that the decent citizens of the town, if there be any remaining, are prisoners in their own homes.

  On the very day the article appeared in the San Angelo newspaper, two young men passing through the town stopped in front of the Crooked Branch Saloon. Swinging down from their horses, they patted their dusters down.

  One of them started coughing. “Sum bitch, Pete, you’re like a pure dee sandstorm there,” one of them said.

  “Yeah, well, I know what will take care of it. Come on, Johnny, let’s have us that beer we been talking about.”

  “You ain’t goin’ to get no argument from me,” Johnny replied.

  The two young men went into the saloon, then stepped up to the bar. The saloon was relatively quiet, with only four men at one table, and a fifth standing down at the far end of the bar. The four at the table were playing cards; the one at the end of the bar was nursing a drink. The man nursing the drink was unusual looking, in that he had no hair, nor did he have eyelashes or eyebrows. His head was almost perfectly round, and it sat upon his shoulder with no perceptible neck. His skin was white, and there was so little color in his eyes that they looked almost like clear glass.

  “What’ll it be, gents?” the bartender asked, stepping over in front of them.

  Pete continued to stare at the strange-looking man.

  “Pete?” Johnny said. “The bartender asked what’ll we have.”

  “Oh,” Pete said. “Uh, two beers.”

  “Two beers it is,” the bartender replied. He turned to draw the beers.

  “And I’ll have the same,” Johnny added.

  The bartender laughed. “You boys sound like you’ve got a thirst.”

  “Yeah, you might say that,” Pete said. He continued to stare at the strange-looking man.

  “Hey, Johnny,” he said. He tried to whisper, but the words were spoken too loudly to be a whisper. “Look at that fella. You ever seen anything that looks like him?”

  “Shh, Pete,” Johnny said.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I don’t have no business starin’ at him, but I swear, I ain’t never seen anyone looks like that.

  “Mister, I don’t mean to be buttin’ in where it’s none o’ my business,” Pete continued. “But was you born like that? Or was it some fire or somethin’ that took off all your hair. Hey, do you have hair around your pecker?” Pete laughed at his question, and, though Johnny had been trying to caution him to be quiet, he laughed as well.

  “Hair around his pecker,” he said.

  The bartender put the beers in front of the two boys and they each picked up one.

  “I’d like to buy a drink for my new friend down there,” Pete said, putting another nickel down on the bar.

  The bartender picked up the nickel, then put a drink in front of the man who had so caught Pete’s interest.

  “There you go, mister, I bought you a drink,” Pete said. “Now, that you ’n me’s friends, why don’t you tell me how come it is that you look like that.”

  “I don’t drink with sons of bitches like you,” the man said, speaking for the first time, and sliding the drink back toward him.

  “What the hell did you call us, mister?” Pete asked, bristling at the man’s comment. He turned away from the bar to face the man.

  “Easy, Pete,” Johnny said, reaching out for his partner. “Maybe he’s just real embarrassed by how he looks, and he don’t like it that you brought it up.”

  Pete glared at the man, but the expression on the man’s face didn’t change. In fact, Pete didn’t know if the man’s expression could change.

  “I just don’t intend to stand here and be insulted by that hairless, glass-eyed, chalk-faced peckerwood.” Pete said. He put up his fists. “I’m going to mop the floor with his sorry ass.”

  The hairless man smiled, or at least, his mouth moved in that expressionless face into what might have been a smile, though if it was a smile, it was certainly a smile without mirth.

  “You’re wearing a gun, cowboy. If we’re going to fight, why don’t we make it permanent?” he asked. He stepped away from the bar and turned toward Pete.

  “Now wait a minute!” Pete said, pointing at him. “Hold on! There’s no need to carry things this far. This isn’t worth either one of us dying over.”

  “Oh, it won’t be either of us, cowboy. It’ll just be you,” the man said. “Well, actually, it will be both of you,” he added, looking at Johnny. “You came here together, you are going to die together.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you saying that you are willing to go up against both of us? One against two?”

  “Well, that’s not quite what I’m saying,” the hairless man replied. “Wade, are you up there?”

  “Yes sir, Mr. Foster, I’m up here,” Wade replied. Wade was sitting in a high chair overlooking the saloon. He was holding a rifle.

  “What? Wait a minute!” Pete said. “This ain’t right. If there’s goin’ to be two of you, you should both be down here.”

  “There aren’t two of us, cowboy,” Foster said.

  “What do you mean there aren’t two of you?”

  “Actually, there are three of us,” Foster said. “Luke, are you following this?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Foster, I’m ready,” Luke answered. He had been one of the four men sitting at the table when Pete and Johnny first came in. The other three at the table had moved out of the way, leaving only Luke. Luke was no more than twenty feet away from the two boys, and to their side. He already had a pistol in his hand.

  “You feel better now?” Foster asked. “Luke is going to be a part of this fight, and he is down here with us.”

  “But, that’s—that’s three to two!” Pete said. “And both of them are already holdin’ guns.”

  “Well, they are holding guns, because that’s what I pay them to do,” Foster said. “You see, I own this establishment.”

  “No!” Johnny said. “This is gone too far now. Look, we’re sorry if we offended you, but me ’n Pete will just be on our way now.”
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  “It’s too late for that,” Foster said. “I’m afraid you two boys have already brought this to a head.”

  “We ain’t goin’ to draw on you. If you shoot us, it’ll be in cold blood, in front of all these witnesses.”

  “What witnesses would that be?” Foster asked, looking over toward the three men who, earlier, had been sitting at a table with Luke, but were now standing back against the wall. “I don’t see any witnesses,” he added.

  Taking their cue, the three men hurried out the front door, followed by the bartender. Pete’s knees grew so weak that he could barely stand, and he felt nauseous.

  “Please, Mr. Foster, we don’t want no trouble,” Pete said. “Why don’t you just let us apologize and we’ll go on our way?”

  “Like I said,” Foster said. “Pull your guns.”

  “The sheriff,” Pete said. “How are you going to explain this to the sheriff?”

  “Oh, the sheriff don’t even come to Shady Rest,” Foster said with what could be called an evil smile, if indeed it could be called a smile at all. “He says it’s too dangerous for him.”

  “What about the marshal? Don’t this town have a marshal?”

  “I don’t know whether we do or not. We keep killin’ them off, you see. Luke, do we have a new marshal yet?”

  “Not yet, we ain’t,” Luke answered. “Our last marshal got hisself kilt down at the Pig Palace, last week. Remember?”

  “Oh, yes, I do remember. Well, this is going to work out just fine, isn’t it?” Foster asked. “The sheriff never comes to Shady Rest, and we don’t have a marshal. I don’t reckon we’re goin’ to be bothered by anyone at all.” His evil smile grew broader. “So, anytime you’re ready, cowboys.”

  “Please,” Pete said, his voice now nearly a whimper.

  “Pete,” Johnny said. “These sons of bitches are goin’ to kill us, and there ain’t nothin’ we can do to stop it. And I don’t plan on goin’ out like any kind of a snivelin’ coward. So buck up. Let’s at least go down fightin’.”

  Pete took a couple of deep breaths to get hold of himself. Then he nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

  The two young men looked at each other; then, with an imperceptible signal, they started their draw. They were badly overmatched in this fight, not by the skill of their adversary, but by the way the odds were stacked against them. It was two to three, but not even that told the story. Two of three men they were going against were more favorably positioned, and, they both already had their weapons in hand.

  Pete and Johnny made ragged, desperate grabs for their pistols.

  So unfavorable was their position that the first shot, a rifle shot from Wade, who was standing up on the landing, struck Pete in the chest even before Pete was able to clear his holster. Johnny went down when Luke shot him in the temple from almost point-blank range.

  Although Foster drew his gun, it wasn’t necessary because both men had already been shot. Foster walked through the cloud of gun smoke and quickly looked through the bodies of the two men. From Billy’s pocket he took a twenty-dollar gold piece, and twenty dollars in paper money. Johnny had no gold pieces, but he had sixty dollars in cash. Foster’s men divided the money, and the three were calmly sipping their whiskey by the time a few of the citizens of the town got up the nerve to look inside.

  On the afternoon of the day that the shooting occurred, the Shady Rest Merchants Association held an emergency meeting. It was attended by most of the business owners in town, though the owners of three of the four saloons were absent. So, too, were the owners of the dance hall and gambling house, as well as Abby Dolan, the whorehouse madam.

  Gerald Hawkins was there. He owned the Texas Star. The Texas Star was not to be confused with, or compared to, the Ace High, the Crooked Branch, or the Pig Palace. Fist fights were a daily occurrence in those saloons, and knifings and shootings happened with alarming regularity. The bar girls in those three saloons generally came from a whorehouse, the saloons being their last stop before they were no longer able to ply their profession.

  There was one woman present at the meeting, and that was Annabelle O’Callahan. Annabelle was an attractive, and some said “feisty,” redhead in her mid-twenties, who owned the Elite Shoppe, a dress-making shop in Shady Rest. Because she was a business owner, she was very active in the Shady Rest Merchants Association.

  The first time she attended a meeting of the Merchants Association, Jacob Bramley, who had on that day made one of his rare appearances at the meetings, had protested.

  “What’s she doin’ here, anyway? I mean, women can’t even vote.”

  “We’re not voting for the president, congress, or even the mayor,” Annabelle had said. “We are discussing how to improve business for Shady Rest merchants, and that involves everyone who owns a business. Now, if you don’t want me to participate, I can always move my store outside the town limits, and pay no taxes at all to the town.”

  “Miss O’Callahan is right,” Mayor Trout had said, defending her, and also the rather substantial municipal taxes she paid. “She has as much right to be here as any other legitimate businessman.”

  “Or businesswoman,” Annabelle had added. That had been two years ago. Now Annabelle was not only a regular attendee of the Merchants Association meetings, she was also a most welcome member, since she often came up with solutions to problems.

  The problem they were discussing today, though, didn’t seem to have an immediate solution. They were discussing the incident that had happened in the Crooked Branch earlier in the day, when the two young men who had been just passing through town had been shot dead.

  “Gene, where are the bodies now?” Melton Milner asked. Milner owned the Milner Hotel.

  “They are down at my place,” Gene Ponder said. Ponder was the undertaker.

  “Do you know who they are, or where they came from?”

  “Foster said they called each other Pete and Johnny. He never heard their last names, or where they came from.”

  “Did they have any money on them?” Roy Clinton asked. Clinton owned the apothecary.

  Ponder shook his head. “They didn’t have one thin dime,” he said.

  “Which is damn hard to figure out,” Milner said. “I mean, those boys obviously weren’t from around here, which means they were traveling. And who travels with no money at all?”

  “If they didn’t have any money, who’s paying for the burying?” Gary Dupree asked. Dupree owned the emporium.

  “Mayor Trout said I could sell their horses and tack. That will be enough to pay for the burying.”

  “That’s right,” Mayor Trout, who had been silent so far, said. “I told him he could sell the horses and tack. I got the approval of the city council.”

  “But, if we don’t know who they are, or where they came from, we won’t be able to contact their folks to tell them what happened,” Annabelle said. “That’s such a shame.”

  “They’ll be but two more of more than a dozen just like ’em that we have in the graveyard,” George Tobin pointed out. “Unknown, and unlamented.”

  The railroad having bypassed Shady Rest, their only connection with the outside world was the Shady Rest–to–Van Horn Stagecoach line. Tobin owned that stage line.

  “Yes, well, that sort of brings us to the purpose of this meeting, doesn’t it?” Hawkins said. “Did any of you read that article in the San Angelo newspaper last week?”

  When no one spoke up, Hawkins pulled out the paper and read it to them. After he finished he looked back at the others.

  “Deadliest town in America. Citizens, prisoners in their own homes,” Hawkins said. “Is that the kind of reputation we want?”

  “Of course not,” Clinton answered. “But what is the solution? What can we do about it?”

  “I have a suggestion as to what we can do about it,” Hawkins said. “But the moment I make the suggestion, you people, and everyone in town, will think it is a self-serving suggestion.”
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  “I know what you are going to say,” Milner said. “And you are right, it is what needs to be done. But you are also right, if you push closing down the other saloons, it will seem self-serving.”

  “It wouldn’t be self-serving if I pushed for it,” Annabelle said. “I think we should close those saloons, the dance halls, the gambling house, the prostitute cribs, and the two houses of prostitution. What do you think, Mayor?”

  “I don’t know that the city has any right to close them,” Trout said. “They all have business licenses, and they pay their taxes on time. And where I might see closin’ down Abby’s Place, as far as Suzie’s Dream House is concerned, well, the doc says she runs a clean house. He checks the girls regularly. Besides, Suzie doesn’t allow any misbehaving in her house, not even drinking.”

  “What about the Chinaman?” Ponder asked.

  “What about him?”

  “He’s runnin’ a laundry. Does he have a business license?”

  “He’s using my license,” Cook said. Earl Cook was the barber. “The building where he runs his laundry is right behind my barbershop, and I own it. That means my license is all he needs.”

  “Yeah, but a laundry isn’t all he runs back there,” Ponder said. “He’s runnin’ an opium den too.”

  “Yes,” Mayor Trout said. “But at least the men who go back there to take the pipe just lie around without bothering anyone. There haven’t been any killings in the opium dens.”

  “Mayor, when are we going to get another marshal?” Milner asked. “It’s been some time now since Jarvis was killed, and we still don’t have a marshal. You know, I know, and we all know, that Wash Prescott isn’t up to the job. He’s a pretty good deputy, but he’s not a marshal.”

  “Nor does he want to be,” Trout said. “But there is a young man who worked as a cowboy out at the Double R Ranch who has applied for the job. I talked to Mr. Richards about him, He said he’s a good man.”