If I could not get to grips with the Territorial Legislature, how would I report back to Jace?
That was when a dog and a monkey came to my rescue.
I WAS IN DANGER of getting a bad case of the Legislative Mulligrubs when I felt something warm and wet on the nape of my neck. I had leant back against the low platform behind me. I let my chair thump forward. I turned to look at the dirty white dog who had come to the front of the podium to lick me. It was the same white dog whose scrabbling had almost exposed me at the St. Charles Hotel. He was wagging his tail and panting happily.
I do not like being touched by people but I do not mind being licked by a dog.
“That is President Pugh’ s lapdog,” said Barry in my ear. “Pugh got a bill passed last year about estray animals just to protect him. Bully, ain’t he?”
I nodded & scratched the lapdog behind his ear. I felt better already.
The dog had eyes like black buttons & a pink tongue. He was about the size of a small cat, with a tail like an all-wool capital O curled over his back.
At that moment a ripple of laughter went around the room as something scampered across the shoulders & bare heads of the legislators until it reached our table. It was a small brown monkey.
Barry said, “That there monkey is feuding with the lapdog.”
There was something wicked about the critter’s leathery little face, so like that of a man and yet so inhuman. He was hopping up & down on the desk in front of us, directing a stream of monkey profanities at the dog.
I said, “Is the monkey an estray animal?”
Barry laughed. “No, he belongs to Van Bokkelen.”
The monkey had got a pack of Lucifers and he stopped cussing & started striking them & throwing flaming matches at the dog. Luckily, none of them reached the platform, where the lapdog stood uttering a strange wheezing bark.
The legislators started laughing and cheering. They were so loud that Barry had to speak right into my ear, “They say the reason Pugh’s lapdog cannot bark is that a bullet once creased his neck in a shooting affray.”
The dog’s owner was banging his gavel and calling for order.
Finally, order was restored as a scowling man with black muttonchops stomped over & picked up the chittering monkey & put it on his shoulder & went to sit down again.
I put my mouth close to Barry’s ear. “What are their names?” I asked.
He said, “Pugh, Van Bokkelen, Hall, Hannah, Luther, Pray—”
“Not the men,” said I. “The monkey and the dog.”
He said, “I will tell you the animals’ names once you have learned the names of the Legislators.”
I said, “I will learn the names of the Legislators if you tell me something strange or memorable about each one.”
He said, “Like when you remember cards?”
I nodded.
He said, “I will tell you something strange or memorable about each one if you teach me how to remember cards.”
I said, “I will teach you how to remember cards if you teach me the Squiggly Worm Writing.”
“Deal,” said Barry. He spat in the palm of his hand and held it out.
I hate touching people & I hate shaking hands & I hate shaking spat-on hands most of all, but this was important to me.
So I spat in my right palm and we shook on it.
(Then I secretly wiped my hand on my trowsers.)
Barry pointed to the owner of the dirty white dog. “Let’s start with the lapdog’s owner, the man who got them to pass that law against estray animals. He is Dr. John Pugh from Aurora and he is President of this Council.”
I looked at the President of the Council. He had dirty white hair and bright black eyes, a bit like his dog. “I will call him ‘Lapdog’ Pugh,” I said.
Barry indicated the fierce-looking man with black muttonchops, who had retrieved the monkey. “And Van Bokkelen is the owner of the monkey,” said Barry. “He’s a vigilante from Frisco.”
“I will call him ‘Monkey’ Van Bokkelen,” I said.
In this way, Barry helped me memorize the different legislators.
For example, Augustus Pray was a devout ex–sea captain who never touched a drop of liquor. He observed Sundays to the extent that he would whip anyone he found working at his sawmill up at Lake Bigler. He had introduced a bill prohibiting gambling on the Sabbath, so Barry and I gave him the nickname “Sabbath” Pray.
Thomas “Loverboy” Hannah was a clean-shaven, talkative dandy from Gold Hill who was being courted by a pretty yellow-haired lady in a tall bonnet. She was in the gallery and kept blowing him kisses. Barry told me she was still married, which explained Hannah’ s eager proposal of a bill to make divorce legal.
We called Gaven D. Hall “Hothead” on account of his red hair & fiery temper.
“Six-Shooter” Luther kept leaping up from his chair to oppose “Monkey” Van Bokkelen’s proposed bill against citizens packing pistols. Luther was all for packing pistols. He packed three himself, viz:—a Colt’s Army Revolver with an ivory grip, a smaller Smith & Wesson’s pocket pistol like Jace’s and a pretty little Deringer of a type I had not seen before. Luther kept this smallest pistol on his desk. He would amuse himself by spinning it and seeing at whom it pointed when it stopped.
At about 4:15 p.m. the monkey got hold of Six-Shooter Luther’s small pistol and commenced firing it. Everybody hit the sawdust & President Pugh hid behind his podium & banged his gavel & adjourned the meeting for the day.
When the monkey had shot his load, Master Barry Ashim lifted his head from the sawdust and grinned at me. “Lucifer,” he said.
“Beg pardon?” I said.
“Lucifer,” he repeated. “That is the name of Van Bokkelen’s monkey, because he is addicted to matches and guns. And the dog is called Sazerac, or ‘Sazzy’ for short.”
WHEN I GOT BACK to my boardinghouse, I found Miss Carrie Pixley loitering on the boardwalk outside my window. I remembered I had asked her to meet me there daily at 41/2 p.m.
“You better make it six p.m. from now on,” I said. “We adjourned early today because of a pistol-packing monkey.”
“P.K.?” she said. “Is that you? You look different with bangs and spectacles and a stovepipe hat.”
“Don’t forget my false front teeth,” I said, and added, “Looking different is the point of a disguise.”
She said, “Do you have any news about my Beloved?”
“I only saw him for a few minutes,” I replied, taking out my teeth. “I am in what is called the First House and he is in the Second House.”
She said, “One of Old Abe Curry’s daughters is getting married on Tuesday night in the Legislature. All the reporters will be there. Will you go and tell me who my Beloved dances with?”
I took off my stovepipe hat and scratched my head. “I don’t know if I have time,” I said. “Jace asked me to write reports for him and I only have the evenings to do that.”
“Oh, please!” she pleaded. “I simply must find out who he likes.”
“Tomorrow is Saturday,” I said. “The First House is not meeting but the Second House is. I am going because I want to know who the other legislators are so I can get a grip on this Legislature and do a good job for Jace. Why don’t you come along, too, and stand in the gallery? Maybe when Sam sees you he will invite you to go with him to the wedding.”
She clapped her hands. “Oh, what a bully idea!” Then she added, “Do you want me to send another telegram? I will take it to E.B. and everything.”
I remembered what Jace had told me and nodded. I gave her this message for Miss Opal Blossom aka Miss Jane Loveless: J. at Legislature by day, poker by night & not stepping out with anybody. Peter Clever.
As I tore out the page and handed it to Carrie, I felt bad about lying to Opal Blossom, but I did not dare oppose Jace. I wondered h
ow long it would be before Opal Blossom angrily summoned me back from Carson and asked for a refund of my expenses.
That was why I was surprised by Opal Blossom’s reply the following morning.
It was the first telegram I had ever received. Mrs. Murphy brought it with my cold potato.
At the very top it said OVERLAND TELEGRAPH COMPANY.
Then someone had filled in a blank by hand: November 15, 1862
Then: BY TELEGRAPH FROM Virginia City 1862
Below that was: TO MASTER PETER CLEVER
And finally: GOOD WORK. SEND SUMMARY OF LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS DAILY BY STAGECOACH NOT TELEGRAM. MISS J. LOVELESS
At first I thought it strange that she wanted to know about legislative business but then I figured that—like me—she was interested in anything that interested Jace.
It was Saturday and the members of the Council were not meeting but the other group of legislators were. I guess the Second House had to hammer out some bills tossed to them by the First House, like in one of my doodles.
The Representatives met in the biggest upstairs room of the Great Basin Hotel, the room where I had fainted a few days before.
Barry was not there because it was his Sabbath. So I sat near Mr. A.J. Marsh—the famous inventor of Phonographic Shorthand—on account of he had told me to ask him for help.
Instead of just thirteen legislators like in the First House, the Second House had twice that number. Most of them sat in four curved rows of desks rather than just two. I did not think I could memorize another 26 men.
So to help narrow it down, I asked Mr. A.J. Marsh which of the Representatives were important. He pointed out a man named John D. Winters who had introduced a bill called the Corporation Bill last year. That bill was so controversial that fistfights had often broken out between those “pro” (for it) and those “con” (against it). John D. Winters had even pounded on “Monkey” Van Bokkelen with a piece of firewood in the Ormsby House Barroom.
“Did they hammer that bill into a law?” I asked Mr. A.J. Marsh, using my newly learned vocabulary.
“No.” He laughed. “They are still trying to beat it out. In fact, Winters’ s brother punched Gillespie on the nose just three days ago, ‘drawing the ruby’ slightly.”
I decided to give John D. Winters the nickname “Firewood” and I dubbed his brother “Ruby.”
Mr. A.J. Marsh told me who was pro the bill and who was con. I duly made a list, even though I did not understand the bill.
It being a Saturday, the gallery at the back of the chamber was full of bystanders, of whom about half were women. Miss Carrie Pixley gave me a secret wave; she recognized me because she had already seen me in my Jewish Phonographic Boy Disguise. Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville had never seen me in this disguise but was also watching me with narrowed eyes. Had she recognized me, too? When she saw me looking at her she turned away & started talking to a good-looking young man with floppy chestnut hair.
“What are those women doing here?” I asked Mr. A.J. Marsh.
He looked up from taking notes. “Some are here to support their husbands and others to pray, but I believe most of them want Toll Road Franchises.”
My ears pricked up. “Toll Road Franchises?” I said.
Mr. A.J. Marsh nodded. “See that lady with the dark hair in the gray dress? That is Margaret Ormsby, the richest woman in town. She owns the Ormsby House Hotel and lots of other property hereabouts.”
I said, “Is she the one whose husband was killed by Indians two years ago?”
“That’s right. They named this county after him. I believe she is bidding for a Toll Road Franchise from Clear Creek to Lake Bigler.”
“What is a Toll Road Franchise, anyway?”
“It is a kind of private bill that will give you a few miles of road. You take care of it, put up a toll house and you can make up to half a million dollars a year for hardly any work.”
I said, “Half a million dollars a year? For a few miles of toll road?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mr. A.J. Marsh. “There is big money to be made in many ways apart from silver mining. Toll roads is one of those ways.”
I said, “Who can get a toll road?”
“Anybody, in theory, as long as you get one of the legislators to propose your name and it is voted through.”
“How do you get one of them to propose your name?”
“You have to lobby them.”
“Lobby?”
“Yes,” said Mr. A.J. Marsh. “Lobbying a politician is a little like wooing a woman. You have to be charming and make them like you. You take them out to dinner or the theater. Then, when you are friends with them, you tell them what you want. Tell them you know surveyors or road builders who would make a nice road. Tell them you will not charge too much. Tell them how you will give them free passage on your road. Of course, if that doesn’t work you can always resort to bribes, threats or fisticuffs.” He winked at me and went back to writing his squiggly worm writing.
Ma Evangeline told me when people wink at you it means they are just joshing.
The reporters were passing around an amusing map drawn by one of the legislators and it came to me. It showed Nevada with so many toll roads that the ends of them hung over the border & looked like a fringe.
“They are already calling this the Legislature of a Thousand Toll Roads,” said Mr. A.J. Marsh with another wink.
When the Second House adjourned at 2 p.m., I did not even go back to my boardinghouse but headed straight to the stables to see Cheeya.
I badly needed to clear my head, for it was clogged with strange images of Eyes & Noses & Duck Bills & Fringed Maps & Pieces of Firewood.
I reckon that is why I did not notice the man following me.
I HAD A NOTION to take Cheeya for a long ride before supper so that the sagebrush-smelling breeze would blow all the confusing words and images from my head.
As I went through the open stable doors, I wondered if the stable boy would recognize me in my Jewish Phonographic Boy Disguise. But he must have been in one of the other stalls, so I entered unnoticed.
I went into Cheeya’s stall and was about to close the door when Cheeya gave a warning whinny & rolled his eyes. I whirled to see someone was right behind me, blocking my escape.
It was a burly man in a yellow plug hat and dark blue coat wearing garish yellow & blue checked trowsers. He was about the ugliest man I had ever seen, with a pockmarked face & eyes that look two different directions & puffy ears like two cauliflowers.
“Hello, Stonewall,” I said. “How are you?”
He said, “P.K., is that you?”
“Yeah, it’s me. This is my Jewish Phonographic Reporter Disguise.” I took out my false front teeth and removed my glasses and put them in a pocket of my frock coat.
Stonewall is Jace’s friend & bodyguard. The first time I had met him, he threatened to blow my brains out with his Le Mat pistol.
I like Stonewall.
I have since discovered that he is a devout Presbyterian and would probably not have blowed out my brains that first day.
Stonewall stared down at the hay-scattered floor of the stall. “Jace sent me,” he said. “Wants to know why you have not given him a report on yesterday’s session.”
I said. “It is not that easy. Before I write a report I have to understand it. Is he real mad at me?”
“He is a little riled,” said Stonewall. “But then he is riled with me, too.”
“Why?” I asked.
Stonewall shrugged. “Maybe because of that Mrs. Violetta De Baskerville he is spending all his time with. I do not like her.”
“Me neither,” I said. “People call her a Black Widow. There is a rumor she has buried three husbands and is still married to a Desperado. I tried to warn Jace but he would not listen.”
“Yeah.” Stonewal
l scuffed at the hay with his shoe. “He told me about that.”
“Stonewall,” I said, “what is a Black Widow?”
Stonewall knit his brows. “I think it means a woman who marries men and then kills them for the money they leave in their wills.”
I said. “That is what I thought. Doesn’t Jace know what she is?”
Stonewall said, “He has heard the rumors. But he don’t believe them. We got to bring him to his senses. We got to find evidence of her malfeasance.”
I said, “Beg pardon?”
He said, “We got to get the bulge on her.”
I said, “Beg pardon?”
Stonewall said. “We need proof that she is up to no good. Savvy?”
I nodded. “Now I savvy.”
“So you will keep your ears open and your eyes peeled? And if you find out anything, tell me? I am staying in room number thirty-two on the third floor of the St. Charles Hotel.”
“Yes,” I said. “I will tell you if I get anything bulgy about Violetta De Baskerville.”
“And don’t forget to send Jace some reports on the legislature, or he will get mad.”
I said, “Ask him to give me a few days. I need to learn how to read and write A.J. Marsh’ s Reformed Phonographic Shorthand first.”
And I did. The next day was Sunday so I skipped church to spend the day with Barry. We alternated me teaching him how to remember cards and him teaching me Squiggly Worm Writing.
We started just after dawn, working in a little room upstairs behind the store. It had a cast-iron stove to make it cozy and his mother brought us plates of Jewish food like sour green pickles & chicken liver paste on crackers. It was strange food but I soon got a taste for it.
Learning Marsh’ s Phonographic Worm Writing was like reading signs in the wilderness when you are tracking a critter. Soon those worms and squiggles began to make sense to me and mean things. They stood for sounds and those sounds made words.
By the end of the day I could read Squiggly Worm Writing as easy as English.
P. K. Pinkerton and the Pistol-Packing Widows Page 9
