Hangtown

by Paul Lederer

  ‘You are planning on staying that long, then?’ Josh asked, holding his broom with both hands.

  ‘I sort of agreed,’ she said as if it were none of her doing. ‘The trooper that passed through is an old friend of mine.’

  ‘I see,’ Josh mumbled. Then remembering his position, he added, ‘We can’t have those soldiers in the hotel. Town ordinance.’ His voice was harsh but hoarse.

  ‘I realize that.’ Cora circled the room, started to seat herself in a wooden chair, changed her mind and said, ‘That is why I’ve come to see you.’ She smiled wearily, but with seeming good humor. ‘What I had in mind – you have seen the deserted saloon, of course. I was thinking that the girls and I could clean it up a little and make a sort of dancehall out of it. I don’t know what we’d do for music,’ she laughed, ‘but it would make a sort of social club where the boys from Fort Thomas could talk to the girls. These are lonely men, Mayor. It would mean a lot to them.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Josh said, scratching his gray-thatched head. ‘It might be all right. Of course, the marshal would have to look in from time to time to make sure. …’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Cora said, touching her breast with her fingertips. ‘I assure you that my intentions are pure.’

  Josh doubted that, but there was no objection he could think of. It wouldn’t do to have the cavalrymen romping through the hotel. Slowly he nodded, ‘I suppose it will be all right as long as things are kept under control.’

  ‘I promise you they will be,’ Cora Kellogg said emphatically. She smiled again, turned and went out into the night, leaving Josh to wonder if he had made the right decision. But even if he had not wanted to allow it, what were he and Wage to do to stop it? Frowning, he got back to his sweeping.

  After leaving the marshal’s office, Cora made her way across the dusty street to the stable where Gus Travers had made his bed in the back of the Conestoga wagon. There was no light to see by but the glimmer of starlight through the open doors. Cora walked to the tailgate of the wagon and called up, ‘Hey, Gus!’

  The old man was slow in answering, rising from a deep dreamless sleep. ‘What is it, Cora?’ he asked at length, peering out from the canvas flap of the wagon.

  ‘How did that whiskey barrel ride?’

  ‘How did …?’ Gus was still muzzy with sleep. He yawned. ‘It’s all right, Cora. I looked at it this afternoon.’

  ‘Fine,’ she replied, glancing once at the open doors behind her. ‘Tomorrow I want you to roll it over to the old saloon – you’ll find it. Better use the alley to get there. We’re getting ready for a ball, and the boys will want some liquid hilarity.’

  Wage Carson stood leaning against the wall in the large, smoky hotel kitchen. He watched Liza at her work, washing dishes, sharpening knives, scrubbing every open surface. He liked the slender curve of her back, the intense look on her face as she labored. He had offered to help, but she actually pushed him aside, telling Wage that she knew what she was doing and how she wanted everything arranged.

  ‘Why is it that the other ladies don’t help you?’ he asked.

  ‘Because it’s my job,’ she said, hesitating in her work long enough to turn toward him, her large dark eyes briefly challenging. Wage looked into them for a moment and then let his gaze fall away bashfully.

  ‘How exactly did you come to be traveling with them?’ Wage inquired. For him he was being bold. Women usually left him in near panic the few times he had encountered any. Liza was intimidating as well, but maybe because she was his age, he felt slightly more comfortable with her than he ever had with any other. He didn’t think she was going to answer him, but she did.

  Without pausing in her work, she said across her shoulder, ‘My mother was a good friend of Cora’s. They traveled all across the territory together for years. Not too long after I was born, Mother got sick. When I was three years old, she passed away. Cora took me in. Sometimes we lived in towns, sometimes we traveled here and there. Cora always had a few lovely girls traveling with us, dressed up in finery, but she would never allow me to get gussied up. Said that she had promised my mother that she wouldn’t.’

  Liza shrugged. ‘I didn’t really belong with them, you see, but Cora let me stay with her, and where else was I to go out here on the desert? I just decided to make myself as useful as possible to pay Cora back for all that she had done for me, and so I have.’

  ‘I see,’ Wage said, not quite sure if he really did understand. ‘Well,’ he said, nodding at the pile of bedding that he had brought down from his second-floor room. ‘I guess I had better get over to … my office and see if Josh wants me for anything.’

  He shouldered the two bedrolls and started for the door. Just as he reached the threshold, Liza said in a small voice, ‘Thank you for coming by to talk to me,’ and Wage went out of the hotel, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a broad smile.

  ‘Are we going to be pulling out this morning, Jay?’

  ‘Sly is saying his pony is still unfit,’ Jay Champion replied. The big man was sitting cross-legged on his blanket. ‘And ours aren’t in much better shape. It’s not smart to ride yet, Dent.’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Dent answered. The rising sun cast his shadow crookedly across the uneven ground where they had camped. ‘But we’ve got to consider the soldiers. If what the old man was saying is true. …’

  ‘I don’t know if I believed him or not,’ Jay said without rising. His dark hooded eyes remained fixed on the figure he was sketching in the sand with a twig. ‘But if we keep watch, we should see the soldiers’ dust before they get close to Hangtown. Even if they do come across us, how could they have gotten word out of Tucson this soon? No,’ Jay said, throwing his stick into the cold fire where they had roasted their venison the night before, ‘it’s only smart to rest the ponies for another day.’

  ‘I suppose,’ Dent said uneasily.

  Bert was awake now, walking to join them. The youngster’s eyes were bright despite the long ride and heavy sleeping. ‘What’re we doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Staying,’ Jay told him shortly.

  ‘That’s what I figured. Say, Jay, I was thinking I might walk down into town and look around if you haven’t any objections.’

  ‘What is there to see in this place?’ Dent asked with a laugh, waving a hand toward the abandoned, sun-battered Hangtown.

  ‘Nothing, I suppose.’ Bert scratched his head and put his hat on. ‘But if you’ll forgive me, I’ve seen nothing but desert sand and your three faces for two weeks now. Almost anything would be of interest. Who knows,’ he yawned, ‘there might be something laying around that we could put to use.’

  ‘Like rusty pickaxes?’ Dent jibed.

  ‘You never know – people leave all kinds of stuff behind when they’re in a hurry to get shot of a place.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Jay said, ‘do what you like. But don’t get yourself in trouble with the local law. We might not be able to pull you out.’

  As Dent and Jay watched, the whistling kid started walking down the hill away from the mesa toward Hangtown.

  ‘Why’d you let him go?’ Dent inquired. ‘If he does get himself into trouble. …’

  ‘If he does, there’s one fewer man to split the take with. Which reminds me. Rouse Sly out of his blanket, and the two of you find a safe place to stash our goods. If we’re going to stay around for another day or two, it wouldn’t do to have it out in the open where the town marshal might run across it. I haven’t ridden this far to have some small-town lawman bring us to grief.’

  Bert Washburn strode down the stunted-grass slope toward Hangtown, whistling as he went, The sun was warm but not yet desert-hot, the sky clear as crystal. He was going nowhere, but glad to be going. He was weary of straddling his pony, tired of the predictable talk among Sly, Dent and Jay Champion which consisted of alternate grumbling and boasting. Once they split up the loot from that Tucson bank, Bert decided that he was going to get shot of the other three. He had needed to make a
quick stake, and now he had it.

  Hangtown looked no better in full sunlight than it had the evening before. Faded paint, sagging awnings, buckled plankwalks, weeds growing the length of its rutted street. It didn’t matter – he was someplace. Bert peered in the windows of a few abandoned establishments, seeing little of interest – scattered papers, broken furniture, empty crates. The residents of the former silver town hadn’t wasted any time when they had decided to abandon it.

  Bert was growing thirsty. He tried a pump in the center of town where a scraggly cottonwood tree grew, and found it dry as dust. Another reason the town was deserted? He stood in the scant shade of the withered cottonwood and removed his hat to wipe his brow. There was not a horse to be seen, not a single citizen. No bird chirped, no dog barked. He considered – there had to be water somewhere. What about the hotel? If the soldiers were to be billeted there, it seemed there must be a working water pump nearby. He started that way.

  The day was beginning to warm rapidly, and he moved to the plankwalks on the north side of the street, welcoming the ribbon of shade the few sagging awnings offered. He was within half a block of the hotel when he froze in his tracks, scooted into a narrow alley between two buildings and peered around the corner. A smile slowly formed itself on his lips.

  There she was, crossing the street toward the boarded-up saloon opposite. A woman in yellow silk. He could not see her face. A minute later a second woman, wearing bright red followed, holding her skirts up to keep them from trailing in the dust.

  ‘Be damned,’ he muttered to himself. It figured in a way, he supposed, if the army was sending troopers here to be billeted. These women had a knack for finding cavalry camps. He decided to head back toward the shadow of the mesa where there was water to be had. He had something to tell the others now.

  Starting up the alley, he nearly ran into Wage Carson.

  ‘Morning,’ the hulking baby-faced marshal said.

  ‘Morning,’ Bert responded uneasily. He was never comfortable around a man with a badge.

  ‘You boys doing all right up there?’ Wage asked. There seemed to be some emphasis on the last two words.

  ‘We’re fine,’ Bert answered.

  ‘Good. Think you boys will be riding on soon?’ The question may have been asked in all innocence, but Bert took it for a suggestion from the lawman.

  ‘Probably another day. Our ponies were pretty beat down.’

  ‘Well, luck to you,’ Wage said with apparent candor. Then he nodded and started up the alley while Bert, after watching Wage’s wide back for a minute, started back toward the outlaw camp.

  Wage Carson continued across the street to the saloon. Stepping up on to the plankwalk, he entered the deserted building. It came as no surprise to him to find Liza, scarf tied over her hair, sweeping up the place while two of the ladies – Rebecca and the blonde they called Madeline – walked around the saloon commenting on its dilapidated condition.

  ‘Need some help?’ Wage Carson asked. Liza looked up from her work and shrugged.

  ‘Don’t you have other duties to perform?’

  ‘Not just now. Things are slow,’ Wage said.

  ‘Well, if you really have the time: there’s a bucket and a mop over there. You could mop behind me as I sweep … if you really don’t mind.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Wage said, rolling up his sleeves. ‘Besides, I’ve nothing else to do.’

  ‘Where’ve you been?’ Josh Banks asked later that afternoon when Wage returned to the marshal’s office, which remained cool in mid-afternoon due to its heavy walls and double ceiling designed to deter escape attempts. Wage told him and Josh nodded; he should have been able to guess. Find that little dark-haired girl and you’d find Wage nearby.

  ‘I need you for a little while. I want you to lift up that corner of the desk while I pound a few support nails into the leg.’

  ‘This place is starting to look like an office,’ Wage said appreciatively. ‘You’ve been busy too.’

  ‘Not bad, is it? Considering what I had to work with.’

  ‘Josh. …’ Wage faltered. ‘While I was walking around this morning, I met one of those strangers looking the town over.’ Josh Banks’s eyebrows lifted. ‘And, as I was helping Liza clean the saloon up, that old man, Gus, came in the back door rolling a barrel. Josh – I’m pretty sure it was whiskey.’

  ‘Cora is getting ready for the soldiers, it seems,’ Josh said. ‘Damnit, I guess she played me for a fool.’

  ‘What do we do now, Josh?’

  ‘First we fix this desk, then we oil the hinges on the cell doors.’ Josh was thoughtful. He added, ‘When you go out from now on, Wage, why don’t you carry your rifle with you? Not that I think you’ll need it, but when people see you carrying a long gun it puts them on notice that you might mean business.’

  ‘You’re thinking about those men camped up along the mesa?’

  ‘I’m thinking about them, the women, the soldiers and the barrel of whiskey,’ Josh Banks said. ‘Come on, hoist that desk corner for me.’

  FOUR

  Laredo sat his big buckskin horse on the rock-strewn knoll just south of Hangtown. He had nearly lost the trail of Jay Champion and his gang of robbers, but had found it again as they emerged from the sand dune country. They could not travel long and far, not without water, not with the shape that their horses were in. They had to be holed up in or somewhere near this ghost town.

  He cuffed the perspiration from his brow and studied the ramshackle town, the brooding mesa beyond it and then started on his way. His horse was in no better shape than those ridden by the Champion gang, his thirst no less.

  Nearing the weather-beaten town he saw that it was not totally abandoned. A surrey sat behind the sun-blistered stable. A horse wickered. Along the rutted street the figure of a man could be seen, and farther along what appeared to be a small woman in man’s clothing emerged from a building to throw out a bucket of water.

  Laredo approached slowly, partly because of the weariness of his mount, partly because he had no idea who any of these people were, or whether Champion and his crew had made their base here – for all he knew Hangtown was an outlaw hideout. Asking questions in an unknown town was always risky.

  Laredo knew. He had been in the business of pursuing men for a long time.

  It had begun because of a man named Jake Royle. Down and out, Laredo had been eyeballing the bank in a small town called Carmel in southern Arizona. Laredo was hungry, tired and broke. While he stood considering the bank, a man who moved on cat feet slipped up beside him in hot shade of the alleyway and introduced himself.

  ‘Jake Royle’s my name,’ he said, stuffing the bowl of a stubby pipe with tobacco.

  ‘Pleased to meet you,’ Laredo said shortly. He was not in the mood for idle conversation with a stranger.

  ‘Working in town, are you?’ Royle persisted, lighting his pipe.

  ‘Not at the moment.’

  Royle nodded, blew out a stream of blue smoke and studied the tall stranger. ‘I, myself, am employed here,’ he said. Laredo cast annoyed eyes on the stocky old-timer. ‘For now, that is. I travel all around,’ Royle continued, indicating all of the territory with a wave of his pipe.

  ‘What are you, some kind of drummer?’

  ‘No. I am employed, my young friend, as an operative in the enforcement arm of the Territorial Bank examiner’s office.’

  ‘Oh?’ Laredo felt cornered suddenly. The inoffensive little man apparently had some standing. Laredo wondered how Royle could have known what he had in mind that hot, dry, desperate day.

  ‘Yes’ Royle went on, ‘you know, men will try to stick up these little banks in isolated areas, and very often succeed. Then, once they have beaten the town marshal to the city limits, gotten out of the county before the sheriff can catch them, they figure they’ve gotten away with the job. They’ll ride on to Mexico, California, anywhere, free as birds. Or so they think. The local law doesn’t have the time or resources to expend hunt
ing them down. Me,’ Royle said with a gnome-like smile. ‘I’ve got all the time in the world, son. All the time in the world.’ With that the little man nodded and walked away. Laredo stood watching. If that had not been a warning, it was the next thing to one.

  It wasn’t until late afternoon that Laredo traced Royle to the hotel room where he sat shirtless, bare feet propped up.

  ‘Mr Royle,’ Laredo said, ‘how’s chances of getting hired on in a job like yours?’

  Now Laredo studied the desert-defeated town of Hangtown from the cactus-stippled knoll to the south. He didn’t much like the idea of riding into a potentially deadly situation, but his horse was beat-up, he was out of water, and it wouldn’t be the first time he had been forced to walk into a situation blind.

  Besides, up until the day of his death, Jake Royle had repeated endlessly: ‘They can run, but they can not hide. Not from us.’

  Laredo patted his big horse’s neck and started down from the knoll.

  Wary of an ambush, he rode cautiously, eyes flickering from point to point. None of the four men he was pursuing should have known him, but perhaps there were others around who knew Laredo’s face and profession. You never knew. Six months earlier he had been caught in a trap near Scottsdale and spent five weeks on his back recovering from the gunshots. Laredo was not eager to repeat the experience.

  Unexpectedly, he found himself approaching what a faded sign declared to be the town marshal’s office. So there was some sort of law here. The door was open and a gray-haired man with a beard was sweeping off the porch.

  Laredo swung his faltering horse that way.

  ‘You the marshal here?’ he asked from horseback. Josh Banks shifted his eyes to the well set-up, trail-dusty stranger.

  ‘Not me,’ Josh replied. ‘I’m just helping out. I’m the mayor here. Marshal’s busy just now, and there’s a lot to do around town.’

  ‘I see. Well, I need water and feed for my horse. Is there a place I can stable him up?’