by Tony Masero
The cowboy jerked a chin in query and Lemon explained Joe’s fears into Brad’s ear. Whilst the story was being told, Joe looked around wanting to keep Lowenthrop in sight. He doubted the man would make a play in plain sight but he did not put it beyond the fellow to try a bit of back shooting if it came to it.
‘Appears to me you’re right,’ Brad shouted above the hubbub. ‘Best get on down there and find some answers. That’s damned worrying. Never occurred the fellow could be a bad ‘un, him being all kitted out like a Scottish baron, and all.’
‘You seen Lowenthrop?’ Joe asked, partly to change the subject.
‘Yeah, he was bragging about what a stud he is a while back.’
‘I ain’t seen him since then,’ said Joe. ‘I think maybe he’s got it in for me.’
‘You know, some boys from the Jayrain was telling me he ain’t heard the last of it since you punched his lights out at the dance. They been rucking him something awful apparently.’
‘Ach! He’s just a blowhard,’ said Brad dismissively. ‘All piss and vinegar and no guts.’
‘Man!’ sighed Joe. ‘If it ain’t one thing it’s another.’
‘Forget it,’ said Brad. ‘Come on I got enough left for another round or two, let’s us get merry.’
But the two distressing notions had put a dampener on things and after a few more drinks Joe decided to take his leave. Lemon offered to accompany him but Joe insisted he stay with Brad who was getting seriously drunk and would need some help back to the ranch later.
The hitching rail outside had been full with tied-off cow ponies when they arrived so Joe had left his horse down at the livery stables. Passing a few drunken cowboys staggering arm-in-arm in the street he made his way towards the stables.
Outside the saloon the night was quiet and the sudden silence rushed in on Joe like a freight train. Mostly folks stayed indoors on nights like this. The cowboys in their cups tended to do wild things, shooting off pistols recklessly and sometimes brawling. It was considered best to give in and let them have their head at least once a month. That way they got it out of their young systems and did not cause any other grief than a busted pane of glass or a few bullet holes in the air.
It was a deserted Strayways town that Joe walked through.
Joe caught the shadowy movement in the alleyway from the corner of his eye.
He looked around but the street was empty, the drunks having staggered off somewhere out of sight. He was alone in the middle of the street.
‘That you, Will Lowenthrop?’ Joe called.
No answer came from the shadowy alleyway and Joe wondered if he was getting jumpy and imagining things.
‘If it is you, get out here where I can see you.’
His answer was a searing heat that coursed along beside his cheek followed by the sound of a pistol shot and a bloom of light from the alley’s entrance.
‘Damn you!’ cried Joe, diving sideways and hitting the dirt street as another shot cracked overhead.
‘I’ll finish you!’ screamed Lowenthrop from the alley.
Joe had his pistol out as Lowenthrop fired again, the bullet spitting up dust into Joe’s eyes.
Joe rolled away blinking furiously to clear his vision.
Lowenthrop was firing wildly now, desperately trying to finish off Joe. Bullets were winging into the night all around and Joe steadied himself. Holding his pistol in two hands before him, he aimed carefully at the site of the gun flashes and pulled the trigger.
A cry of pain came from the alley and a dark shape stumbled out. Joe was about to fire again, when the figure hauled off another shot that flared in the darkness, the bullet going straight into the ground at the figure’s feet and puffing up dust in a small explosion. Lowenthrop made it another few paces. Joe could hear the desperate gurgling sounds he was making. Then the body flopped forward, dropping to the ground in a solid heap and laying still.
‘Damn! Damn!’ cursed Joe, climbing slowly to his feet.
Nobody appeared, it was just the sound of reckless cowboys letting off steam to the town’s inhabitants and so they remained impervious to the gunfire.
Joe cautiously approached the body, which lay face down and unmoving.
‘Will?’ said Joe. ‘You still breathing?’
With enough forethought to kick Lowenthrop’s revolver away, Joe turned the body over.
It had been a lucky shot alright, the only one he had fired and hitting the man plumb through his pump. He was deader than the proverbial doornail.
Wearily, Joe re-holstered his Colt and made his way back to the saloon to let the others know.
Three
Denver in those days was the like of which Joe had never seen before.
A newly formed State, a whole bunch of railroad companies aiming to head their routes through the town and a burgeoning population of thirty-five thousand souls that increased with every day. It was growing and at a hell of a pace. Silver and gold found nearby in Leadville, combining with the first cross-nation railroad system that ran without a break from coast to coast, had both combined to form a thriving city alive with activity.
It dazzled Joe and when he descended from the stagecoach outside the brick built offices of the Holladay Overland Mail and Express Company he did not know he was stepping into a seething city full of opportunists and chancers as well as honest businessmen and workers.
Coming from the open plains, the stink and furor of the place left Joe in a whirl. He was standing in the 1st Ward of West Denver, a part of the Congressional Grant land in an area trapped between a curve of the Platte River and an offshoot called Cherry Creek. Road after road and block after block stretched away from him and people and freight wagons, horses and fancy carriages were everywhere, all of them, it seemed intent on a mission. The thing he did not discover until later was that he had landed in the red light district and that nigh on every house on the streets stretching away from him was either a brothel, a gambling house, theatre or saloon.
Prosperity had indeed come to the city along with the railroads and all that was more devious followed on behind.
As Joe stood there trying to get his bearings he noted a crowd gathering at the nearby street corner and stepping carefully over the many mounds of steaming horse shit lining the dirt roadway he ambled over to see what was going on.
‘There, now watch carefully, my friends,’ cried a bearded man, standing with a folding table and large bag set up. ‘My name is Mister Jefferson Randolph Smith and I’m new to this here town. So saying, I aim to make my way in this fair city and you here people are the first to witness an outstanding chance of opportunity. I’m going to wrap each bar of this fine soap I hold in my hand in one crisp new dollar bill.’ So saying he laid the bill, which, as it happened, looked neither too new nor too crisp, around the blue tissue paper encased bar and then parceled it in brown paper and slipped it into the bag.
‘No!’ he cried loudly. ‘Not only dollar bills but even more, why this here genuine one hundred dollar note will join the bundle. See this, friends? One hundred dollars.’ He snapped the note between his fingers with a professional air and held it up high in both hands for all to see. The sight of which caused a definite buzz of interest amongst his audience. ‘Now then, I’m going to do the very same with this brand new note of small fortune, and one of you lucky people will stand to win this prize.’ Swiftly he packaged the note, wrapping it around a bar of soap and covering it with packaging paper. ‘All you have to do, not only to purchase a fine bar of cleansing soap, but also to win cash money is to buy one bar. Only a dollar each, friends, there it couldn’t be fairer, could it? Just one small dollar, a mere couple of fifty-cent coins for a dip in the bag. Who will try their luck?’
The crowd was pushing forward, at first cautious but then more eagerly at sight of the hundred dollar bill, all of them waiting to see who would be the first to risk their money in this game of chance.
‘I’ll give her a go!’ cried a fellow in a broad brimmed plan
ter hat and high boots. ‘Here’s your dollar mister. Now let me at it.’
He plunged his hand into the sack and the crowd mumbled and drew breath, would he be lucky they wondered, lucky enough to draw that hundred dollars out. Slowly the man unwrapped his package.
‘Well, lookee here!’ he cried, waving a bill in the air. ‘I got me back my dollar. I did indeed. Say, that’s a real swell deal, mister. Ain’t a hundred but it didn’t cost me nothing to find out.’
Soon, others of the crowd descended on the huckster, waving money and plunging their hands into the sack. Some trying several times to win those evasive hundred dollars.
Joe watched it all from the sidelines and studied on how the man in the planter hat sidled off to the street corner and instead of going on his way, stood and kept watch it seemed. There were more cries as winners pulled out their dollar bills and despite his suspicions, Joe himself felt the wave of desire running through the crowd beginning to infect him. A hundred dollars would come in real handy right now, even if he did have a million in the offing.
‘Nobody’s been lucky enough to discover that hundred dollars yet,’ called the huckster. ‘Look here, there’s only a few bars left in the sack. It has to be one of them, am I right or ain’t I? Tell you what, I’ll auction off these last few to the highest bidders, how’s that for a deal? Somebody has to win, it makes sense, don’t it?’
It was here Joe began to smell a rat and decided that the whole thing was a scam and as the eager and gullible raised their bids higher and higher he knew that nobody would be lucky enough to win that bill.
Then they were gone, as suddenly as it had appeared the table; sack, soap, huckster and hundred dollars vanished. His departure, it appeared, guarded in retreat by the man in the planter hat and several other shills who had demonstrated winnings.
Joe snorted a laugh and swinging his saddlebags over his shoulder, he set off to find himself a rooming house.
He settled on a hotel at 341 Blake Street, a road that ran north of Holladay, situated over the bridge in the second ward across the creek bed. It was small and looked a little run down but appeared to suit Joe’s pocket at the moment. The place was called The Elephant House and although not quite matching up to its name in size it suited the cowboy. He received instructions from the landlady as to how he might find 17th Street and determined to visit the offices of Gilcudy and MacPherson the next day.
Shucking off his boots, Joe lay on his bed and with memories of overcrowded bunkhouses; he reveled in the luxury of a soft bed in a room all to himself. Leaving the blind up he propped up the pillow and stared out of the window as the evening light turned the sky a darker shade of blue and the night lights of the city came on with their own brand of daylight.
It had been a speedy few days that had brought him here and his mind hadn’t yet had time to settle all that had gone on.
First there had been the shooting. The Jayrail boys had been somewhat suspicious until Lemon had pointed out that Joe had fired the one shot and Lowenthrop had an empty pistol lying next to him. It was well known the enmity Lowenthrop had felt towards Joe and the men had needed no more conviction to accept that their man had waylaid Joe and he had fired in self-defense.
After that Joe had approached the boss of the Double-Ought and explained his situation to Mister Aimes and the need for some time off. Aimes was an affable enough boss and had conceded that he would hold Joe’s position open for a month, after that he would have to let him go and replace him with somebody else.
Joe took what cash he had and packed his saddlebags, leaving his pony and rifle in the care of Brad and Lemon but keeping his Colt and the few changes of clothes he owned. He took the stage down south through the Wind River country and across the Shoshone Rez to Rock Springs, then across to Cheyenne and finally from there by stage to Denver.
It had been a busy time full of new and disconcerting events all told and it jaded and rubbed Joe’s nerves somewhat. He had never shot and killed a man before and although he knew he was justified in the action it still felt bad to have snuffed out an individual’s existence. He was glad of this evening’s moment of peace to settle his brain and get his thoughts in order and as he lay dreamily attempting to do that he listened vaguely to the sounds of the city.
The air he breathed through the open window was full of the enticing scent of evening meals cooking, although he himself was not hungry. Outside the squeal and lurch of heavy wagons passed on the road, distant shouts and somewhere a piano jangled tunelessly. It was the general growl of a city where the daytime folk settled down and the creatures of the night awakened.
But before the moment came for full restitution of his thoughts, Joe was asleep.
The offices of Gilcudy and Macpherson were in a prepossessing brick-built edifice six stories high, a printers shop occupied the ground floor and Joe had to enter through a side door marked with gold lettering on a glass panel.
He climbed the narrow stairs and entered a busy room with long rows of desks each occupied by a clerk. Messengers ran from station to station, clasping folders and files in their hands and there was a general hubbub of low noise. Joe stood there unsure of what to do, his hat held before him in nervous fingers.
Finally a fellow in shirtsleeves and ink stained fingers at a nearby desk looked up.
‘Help you?’ he asked.
Joe pulled out the calling card and waved it vaguely, ‘I’d like to see Mister Maclean.’
‘Maclean’s not in the office right now, may I ask what this is concerning? Maybe somebody else can help.’
Joe explained his situation and the clerk studied the business card for a moment.
‘Will you excuse me a moment, Mister Alberplas. I’ll see if Mister Gilcudy is available.’
He hurried off and Joe was left watching the busy room all of which ignored him completely. Joe felt out of his depth in the strange environment and backed off to wait standing awkwardly by the wall behind.
The clerk returned with a disconcerting frown on his face, ‘Will you follow me, Mister Alberplas. Mister Gilcudy will see you right away.’
Joe followed him the length of the room and was shown into a room paneled in wood with bookshelves holding a mass of heavy law tomes and carrying a gloomy air of prestige and solemn dignity.
Gilcudy sat in an impressive leather-backed chair behind a hefty desk, holding the business card in his hand. He waved the card at a chair stationed in front of the desk.
‘Please sit, sir,’ he said. ‘I am Cairns Gilcudy.’
He was a stout man in his fifties, with thinning white hair on a balding head and with deep sideburns much in the fashion of the old Union General, Ambrose Burnside, who had started the style back during the war. Gilcudy was dressed in a heavy, dark woolen suit that seemed to be a size too big for him and Joe supposed was unbearably hot although Gilcudy showed no sign of it.
‘Joe Alberplas,’ Joe introduced himself offering his hand, which Gilcudy loftily ignored, and Joe sat down.
Gilcudy said nothing for a moment, pouting his lips with his attention fixed on the card he held between his fingers.
‘I was wondering….’ Joe began but Gilcudy held up a finger.
‘One moment. The clerk is fetching the file.’
They sat in awkward silence for a long minute until the clerk hurried back in with a large ribbon-bound folder full of papers and laid them on Gilcudy’s desk.
‘Thank you,’ breathed Gilcudy. ‘That will be all.’
Joe noted the man’s voice held a trace of the accent that Maclean had portrayed and guessed that they were both originally from Scotland. He watched as the man ponderously studied the file, turning the handwritten pages over slowly and continuing to pout in a habitual manner.
‘Well, sir,’ he said, finally looking up and studying Joe from beneath lowered eyebrows. ‘There seems to be some confusion here.’
Joe frowned, ‘What, exactly?’
‘I fear I have some sad news to tell you. Miste
r Wesley Alberplas did indeed leave a healthy sum for dispersal. But I have to tell you our Mister Maclean did not come to Strayways to visit you. He is and has been for some six months running our associate branch in Philadelphia.’
‘Then who was it came up to see me and what about that card?’
Gilcudy sighed openly, ‘I fear you have been duped, sir. As indeed have we. It is obvious to me that you are the genuine and rightful inheritor, as I could see no purpose in purporting to be so after the bequest has already been made. The moneys in question, you see, were dispersed two weeks ago. Mister Joseph Alberplas or whoever came in here purporting to be the said gentleman, appeared with full information of his heritage and a total confirmation of his identity. There was little we could do but fulfill our duties and allow him release of the funds.’
‘He did what!’ gasped Joe, with a sinking heart.
‘Indeed,’ Gilcudy continued. ‘He came in when we were on the eve of sending our contact man out to find you. Pipped us at the post, it would appear. See here his signature, is this yours by any chance?’
Joe looked at the signature on the sheet Gilcudy offered. It was an exact copy and he realized that he himself had given his mark to Maclean when he signed off on his details.
He nodded and stared aghast at Gilcudy, ‘You mean its all gone! The million dollars?’
‘After deductions, one million two hundred thousand dollars and eighty-seven cents, to be precise.’
‘Well, what can we do?’ Joe asked desperately.
‘We shall, of course, immediately report it to the authorities but the man held a note on the full sum and to be honest, Mister Alberplas, he could have taken it anywhere and cashed it in.’
‘Can we trace it?’
‘We’ll do our best. With a large sum like that it should be easy to find which bank he checked into. But that, of course, is if it is here in Denver, if he went elsewhere, to another large city like New York or Baltimore for instance, then it will be a problem.’
‘Dear God!’ breathed Joe. ‘The guy was so convincing.’
