Roy Bean's Gold

by W R. Garwood

  The more I studied the coin’s two sides, the more I was positive that the stretched-out letter M represented twin mountain peaks, with the tiny half circles standing for a trio of big rocks or possibly boulders. That Roman numeral IV must indicate a date, probably a month—the fourth month, April?

  I stared at my drawings and cussed to think how long I’d been blind to the meaning of those hen tracks.

  That lop-sided circle was meant for the sun. And in April that sun would be rising or setting between those twin peaks, with the treasure just waiting for me under that middle boulder, all marked neat and tidy with an X. Somewhere.

  Suddenly I was swimmy-headed, and as sleepy as if I’d been up for three nights in a row. I decided, then and there, that I’d better take myself a catnap to be ready for Dulcima when she arrived.

  I tossed the coin onto the dresser and stripped down to my long johns, put the paper under my pillow with my pistol, and turned down the lamp. Then forgetting the excitement of the answer to the coin’s conundrum, I was dead asleep in twenty winks.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I awoke to disappointment once I realized Dulcima had not kept our appointment. An hour later, heading out of the hotel, I was handed an envelope by the desk clerk. I assumed the note would be from Dulcima, but it was not.

  Friend Roy,

  Last night I found that Dulcima obstinada entering your hotel, and am sending her away, again. That the girl is greatly talented, in several ways, I would be the first to admit. However, she’s much too young for such actions.

  We leave this part of California for the present, as Francisco seems to have recovered in fine style.

  Now, if you are still of a mind to warn the authorities of Carlos’s plans, he is determined to carry out his raid on the night of December 2nd.

  We are still devoted to our country’s freedom, but not at the cost of so many lives!

  Rosita

  That afternoon, I went by the Jenny Lind. A notice outside the theater informed all and sundry that, though the drama continued, Miss Lotta Crabtree was appearing in place of Mlle. La Fonte, who was temporarily indisposed. I still bought a ticket.

  The evening’s performance was as good as ever, though I’d learned most of the lines by heart, and Lotta Crabtree seemed to be a lively young filly, with red hair and plenty of spunk. But I don’t think she matched Dulcima in voice or looks—and neither did most of the audience.

  I knew there was just no use getting in the way of Rosita and Dulcima’s differences, and that, sooner or later, the niece would shake the aunt and be back in town. So I lazed around playing poker with Charley Cora and biding my time. Then by Wednesday, I’d made up my mind to hunt up Salazar, and rode down to Diamond Point in the afternoon, stabling White Lightning at the small livery, and took the propeller steamer Kangaroo across the Bay.

  Docking at San Antonio Landing at 3:00 p.m., I trudged up the drowsing main street to the ramshackle, vine-wrapped town hall. There I found Salazar out of town, “somewhere northward at the mines,” chasing bandits. As he was not expected back under a week, I left him a note, telling him that it was mighty important that he reach me at the San Francisco House before the 1st of December.

  I caught the same Kangaroo back at suppertime, along with a bunch of visiting miners. As the steamer only made the bay crossing twice a week, I figured that, though I’d missed the sheriff, I was lucky to get back to San Francisco in one day.

  It was a good thing I did, for Josh arrived on the next morning’s stage and came hunting me before I was out of bed. I roused to recognize Josh’s bellowings in the hallway. Piling onto the floor, I staggered to the door and let in my brother with his armload of carpetbags.

  Then for the next hour, Joshua Quincy Bean, late alcalde of San Diego, sat on the edge of my bed and filled me in on his business and political shenanigans. As soon as he got around to Diamond Dick, I found out why Josh was in such high spirits, despite a long and bone-shaking coach trip.

  “That tinhorn Powers might have finagled me out of office, but he didn’t get in himself for all of his thimblerigging,” chortled Josh. “And when he let himself get caught red-handed at the calabozo, his connections with those midnight lynchings came to the surface. So now he’s under a bond to appear before the Los Angeles magistrate in May.”

  Josh leaned back, lit up a stogie, blew a great looping billow of blue smoke, and grinned like a contented cougar. “Y’know, I don’t think Diamond Dick cares too much for yours truly after I swore out an affidavit holding him responsible for those murders. Best part of all is that he had to sell his dive in San Diego to raise that bond and pay off his lawyers! Here, have a cigar.”

  I told my brother that I’d run into Powers twice since coming to town but didn’t mention Dulcima. “Powers surely has that pokerface, for he never mentioned you, nor his hard times.”

  “Well, an honest confession is good for the soul, they say. but tough on the reputation.” Josh grinned, ringing in another of his old saws. “But Diamond Dick’s got more to trouble his soul than that. I also plagued him good and plenty up here, too. With all his law problems, he couldn’t raise enough money to make a down payment on a champion little gambling saloon over here at Nine Twenty Sacramento that we’d both heard about.” Josh twiddled with his goatee and snorted. “I went over and signed the papers this morning while you were still sawing wood. So we’re in business, Roy . . . until you can lay hands on that danged treasure trove. Yes, sir, I guess Señor Richard Powers had best think twice before he tangles with any of us Beans again!” And Josh waved away any more talk of Diamond Dick, along with our wavering rafts of cigar smoke. He’d also brushed aside thought that Murieta would be able to do him much harm in the middle of the bustling city of San Francisco.

  I’d held my tongue, covering up my knowledge of the upcoming raid at Benicia, in the hopes that Salazar would be able to put the kibosh on Carlos Hechavarría for good—providing he was able to get to me in time.

  * * * * *

  By the middle of the month, Josh and I had the new place, which we’d renamed the Golden Nugget, humming. We had ourselves two bartenders, one Shanghai Bender, an ex-sailor with a wooden leg—and the other, that dusky businessman and cat importer, Peter Biggs.

  Bender came by his name from the fact that he had been sandbagged at least three times down on the waterfront and toted onboard one of the many clippers plying between California and the Far East. After losing his leg to a shark out in the Sandwich Islands, Shanghai worked his way back to San Francisco and hung about the dockside saloons, swamping and washing bottles and glasses, until he was as proficient at the bar as the next man. About a week after we opened, he came stumping into the Golden Nugget. Josh hired him on the spot after watching Shanghai deftly divest himself of his wooden underpin and use it to subdue a big drunken miner who was trying to start a war in our saloon.

  I ran into Peter Biggs about the same time where he was hanging around the El Dorado, looking much the worse for wear and trying to keep his good eye out for some sort of “opportunity,” as well as a place to sleep. I braced him and found that he’d made a tidy fortune peddling his feline rat fighters but had turned around and lost every cent “bucking the tiger.” As I’d been acting as super to Shanghai, as well as dealing some of the games, I fetched Biggs back to Josh and he was hired as assistant to Shanghai behind the mahogany. Thus we had ourselves a pair of bartenders with a grand total of three eyes and three legs, but we still needed a professional dealer.

  It seemed pretty fortunate at the time when Charley Cora sauntered into the saloon one evening. “So, this is why you haven’t been around to butt heads lately! Heard someone named Bean bought this place, but didn’t think of you.”

  He smiled slightly and shrugged when I asked him to step up to the bar for a drink. “Fine, but I can’t buy one back very easy.” He went on to tell us that a high roller named J.J. Bryant, who’d toted a hefty grudge against him for all of the faro games of Bryant�
�s he’d busted back on the Mississippi, had landed in town the week before. The first thing this Bryant did was to buy out the establishment where Charley worked and have him tossed out on the street. “And to make matters even worse”—Cora shrugged—“be damned if an old girlfriend from Natchez hasn’t showed up and is on my trail to marry me. Knowing Arabella Ryan, I’ll bet a dollar to a plugged peso that she finds out some way to corral this here child.”

  “Never bet on a sure thing unless you’re able to lose,” said Josh. “You need to get to work to take your mind off your troubles.” And then and there he hired Charley Cora to handle our tables.

  So the days ran along, with Josh and me staying at the San Francisco House, taking our meals at a little restaurant on Sacramento, and putting in long hours at the Golden Nugget. Charley Cora dealt the pasteboards, and handled the faro bank, with Peter Biggs tending bar, while Shanghai Bender had advanced to bouncer, owing to the lurid gossip about his deadly wooden leg, which put more fear into possible troublemakers than the pair of murderous little Derringers that Charley kept tucked in his vest. With such a team, the place ticked away like a Waterbury clock, and the money came in hand over fist.

  To get shed of the saloon grind, I’d taken Josh to several of the local theaters, including the brand-new Metropolitan, where we saw the Starks and their company give smashingly good performances of The Rivals, Much Ado, and Pizarro, along with a couple of rollicking comedies. But I always seemed to come back to the Jenny Lind, where the two Edwin Booths, father and son, were bowling over their audiences in their production of The Iron Chest. Little Lotta Crabtree was still on stage during intermissions and winning herself a strong following, while Lorette La Fonte became a fading name.

  I’d inquired of Dulcima’s whereabouts several times, but Colonel McGuire, who looked down-in-the-mouth about it, could only announce that she was still indisposed. I took that to mean that Rosita’s express orders kept her under lock and key at her finishing school. McGuire had not had a word from Powers, either, and Josh and I figured that Diamond Dick was lying low trying to beat his indictment.

  There’d been several items in the papers concerning Captain Love and his expeditions, but actually little to report beyond the fact that the gallant officer remains on the trail of the Murieta Gang as well as other dangerous law-breakers. At 10¢; a mile, Love and his flock were not doing too badly, whether they ever caught up with anyone.

  On the last day of November, I had a visit from a real lawdog at last when Salazar himself stumped into the Golden Nugget out of a drizzling rain about suppertime. After shaking hands with Josh and myself, he tugged off his flopping sombrero, which looked more like a damp mushroom than ever, and sat down at a table with us.

  Declaring himself mighty happy to see us, Salazar looked over the noisy room and made small talk until Josh got up to tend to some business at one of the tables, then he tackled me. “Well, young Bean, and what’s all this business? For, let me tell you, by Saint Lazarus’s spotted pups, I only got back from the American River half a day ago.” He picked up one of the beers that Biggs had fetched over and lifted it in a quizzical salute.

  Keeping my voice down, I let Salazar have both barrels. The place. The time. And Murieta.

  The little sheriff’s eyes about stuck out of his head with excitement, and the top of his vanished scalp positively glistened as I repeated everything except where I’d come by the information.

  Presently Salazar leaned back and lifted his forgotten drink, sipping at it with great satisfaction. “You have done the world and me a great big favor, young Bean. But I notice you do not say how you came by the welcome news.” Then he shrugged. “Well, no es importante, for I know you to be . . . how do the Anglos say? . . . the straight shooter. This I also knew when I heard how you put a hole through this low-down picaro of a Powers.” He tugged at his ox-horn mustaches and smiled broadly. “And I have heard some other things. Among them that you ran away with his horse while rousting that rattle-headed Haraszthy, and that you may have tried to do the same thing. running away with Powers’s little niña amiga.”

  Before I could start to defend myself, I stopped, for if it came out that Dulcima had been bundled out of town, the talk might turn to Red Rosita. So, I only kept my jaw clamped and ordered another round of drinks from Biggs.

  “And to speak of that little beauty Señorita Dulcima, I behold you still have the eye for the ladies, and, by all the pretty angels, there’s one over there dealing cards.” Salazar nodded his shining head in the direction where Charley Cora’s curvesome brunette girlfriend dealt poker to a grinning group of sailors and miners—winning as usual.

  “That’s Belle, Charley Cora’s girlfriend. He convinced Josh that we needed someone to dress up our games, and she was hired a week ago.” As if she knew we were talking about her, Belle glanced over, flashing one of her wide red smiles, then turned back to trimming her customers.

  “Sí. Now I know her. She and this gambler, Cora, got into a row at the mining camps along the Sacramento not long ago. Señorita Belle, as you can see is mucha bella. And this Señor Cora, a devil at faro. is also the very devil when jealous. He shot a bullet through the leg of one of the señorita’s admirers and the pair had to leave that camp in a hurry. That Belle. She’ll get that young man hung yet.”

  Presently Salazar arose, thanked me again for my information, donned his serape and shapeless sombrero, shook hands with Josh, and went out into the rainy night.

  “Now, what in tunket was that about?” Josh wanted to know. “I thought he could be here to haul you in for horse theft. You know, that little sawed-off horned toad never wastes much time or effort.”

  “Just a friendly visit,” I said, looking a bit more closely at Charley Cora where that gambler sat keeping one eye on his game and the other on his buxom girlfriend.

  * * * * *

  The next thing we heard of Salazar was a front-page story in the Alta California four days later, on December 3rd:

  MURIETA THWARTED!

  SHERIFF SALAZAR SAVES ARMORY

  BANDITS DRIVEN HEADLONG FROM BENICIA

  MANY SHOTS EXCHANGED

  Acting upon reliable information, Sheriff Salazar of ­Alameda County, and a number of his posse men, laid in ambush at the Benicia U.S. Armory, north of Oakland—San Antonio Landing—on the night of December 2nd, and attacked the Joaquín Murieta Gang, when those rogues attempted to gain entrance into the Fort close on to midnight.

  After hailing the goodly body of brigands, who’d come equipped with two wagons to haul away their proposed plunder of weapons and ammunition, Sheriff Salazar opened fire. The ball was immediately begun, and the entire gang, under California’s most notorious bandit chief, returned the lawmen’s fire with a will, before, at last, abandoning their rolling stock and fleeing for their lives into the western mountains. It is estimated that over a hundred shots or more were exchanged in the darkness.

  One bandido was cut from the saddle and later identified as Pío Hidalgo, one of the most brutal robbers. Two of the sheriff’s group were slightly wounded. It is not known the exact extent of the damage inflicted upon the ubiquitous Joaquín, aside from the obvious thwarting of his grandiose plans to arm some of the dissatisfied villains, who still lurk in the wilds.

  Well, that put the kibosh on Carlos Hechavarría for the time being, but I had a feeling that if he ever found out who tipped off Salazar, it would go mighty hot for both Rosita and myself. And it was more than likely that Carlos “Murieta” had gotten word that Josh was in San Francisco.

  I surely wished that Salazar and his bunch had shot straighter.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  As if Salazar’s stand-off with Carlos Hechavarría at Benicia wasn’t enough, Josh had himself a falling-out with Charley Cora at the end of that week, and practically heaved him out of the saloon, along with his girlfriend, after Cora had stuck one of his pet Derringers into the face of a high roller who’d tried to get fresh with the bold-eyed Belle.
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br />   “Think I did right, Roy, tossing out that hothead and his calico cat?” Josh fussed while we sat at supper. “Can’t have him throwing down on someone every time they pat his tootsie’s rear. There’s just bound to be a shooting, sooner or later.”

  “Charley’s a good man,” I said, “just about the best I ever saw with a faro bank, in front of it or behind it. but we don’t need any more rumpus. I’ve got enough on my mind as it is.”

  Josh looked narrowly at me, and wagged his head. “I guess you’re just champing at the bit to get out after that gold cache, and I won’t be a bit down-hearted if you find it,” he mumbled, between bites of pie. “But, like you’ve said, there’s got to be dozens of twin peaks out there. Looks like you got yourself a gold needle in a haystack of mountains.”

  I agreed.

  * * * * *

  Dulcima appeared in town two days before Christmas. And Diamond Dick was with her!

  I discovered this when the hotel clerk handed me a note as Josh and I came down to breakfast:

  Mister Roy Bean,

  Friend Roy, here I am back in San Francisco, for a moment. But go out with Colonel McGuire’s touring company in the morning, in order to be at Rabbit Creek for our Christmas performance. We have Mart Taylor, Mrs. Sinclair, and several other live wires. Colonel McGuire agrees that Mr. Powers, who has been through some bad times, should be our manager. If you still wish to see me, I’ll be at the same hotel, the Oriental on Montgomery, for most of the afternoon.

  Dulcima Stevens

  I went over to the Oriental in the early afternoon and sent up word that I was in the lobby. In a few minutes the porter brought down a message for me to go up to room 200. And I didn’t waste a moment in climbing those stairs.

  When I knocked, the door opened immediately, and there stood Dulcima, in a fancy embroidered yellow dressing gown, golden hair piled upon her head—and with a drink in her hand. It would have been perfect, save for the fact that Diamond Dick Powers, dressed in a flashy checked suit, flaming red necktie, and polished boots, lounged in one of the two easy chairs.