“They discovered gold,” Patton said, “three or four years back.”
The ore had to be high grade, McMasters understood, to support a town of that size.
He caught a few phrases as the gambler kept talking. He thought about Colonel Berdan and all those campaigns they had fought during the late war. He heard Berdan’s in his memories.
* * *
“They call us snakes in the grass. Say we’re not regular soldiers. Some even say we’re cowards. Cold-blooded killers. They don’t know anything. We’re like any soldiers in blue or in gray—before we go into battle, we study the country. You’ll be alone, most likely, in unfamiliar country. Find a way out. An escape route. Don’t get boxed in. Don’t be where you have to shoot uphill. That’s a challenge, even if you have a scope on your Sharps. If we are in a pitched fight in a town, move from building to building till you find the perfect spot. But don’t pick something that’s obvious. And make sure you have a way out. And, for God’s sake, try not to get killed. Sharps rifles with telescopic sights are damned expensive. And I’d hate to be shot with one that was found by a fool wearing gray.”
* * *
Following Berdan’s directions, McMasters looked around. He saw only one way in and the same way out of town. That was good. It could also turn out bad if he had to leave in a hurry.
He could not see much about the town, but the noise coming from above told him that there would be plenty of people up on that hilltop. The law? He pressed his lips down and studied what he could see.
“Got herself a post office,” the gambler went on.
McMasters only half-listened. He studied the road that led up the hill to the town called Goldfield.
A post office, yes . . . but no telegraph. That might mean no one in town had heard about him and Bloody Zeke The Younger and all the others with him. Risky. But McMasters had gotten used to taking risks.
“And a cemetery for that law dog,” Patton was saying. “He’s getting ripe, McMasters. This is the place to bury him.”
McMasters ran various scenarios through his mind then kicked the horse into a walk. He stopped when he came alongside Bloody Zeke The Younger, and kept the shotgun’s barrels trained at the killer’s side.
“Take out that Army Colt,” McMasters ordered.
“It’s still empty,” the cold-blooded murderer said.
“I know that. Take it out and shove it in your saddlebag.”
The dark-eyed man sighed, but his left hand reached down and withdrew the converted pistol. He unfastened the leather covering to his saddle bag, dropped the revolver in it, buckled the covering shut, and looked back at McMasters. Those dark eyes hardened when he saw what McMasters held in his left hand. The right remained on the twelve-gauge, two fingers touching lightly the pair of triggers inside the guard.
“Put these on,” McMasters said. Without waiting for a reply or an argument, he tossed the pair of handcuffs to Bloody Zeke.
The man caught them, cursed, but said nothing more as he clicked one cuff on his left wrist, then the other on his right. He did not make them tight.
That was fine with McMasters.
“All right. We ride into Goldfield. You’re my posse.” He shot Bloody Zeke a glance. “He’s our prisoner.”
“Why do I have to be the damned prisoner?” Bloody Zeke complained.
“Look at yer clothes, idiot,” the Reb said, and shoved the last of his tobacco into his cheek.
Bloody Zeke glanced at the filthy striped shirt and pants he still wore. He sighed, and shook his head. “Shoulda changed these duds a long time ago.”
“They’ll fix ya up with a new pair when ya’s back to Yuma,” the Reb said.
“Shut up,” Zeke sang out.
“Or maybe even a real suit when they bury ya.”
“That’s enough,” McMasters said. “We ride in. We find an undertaker. We ride out.”
“Well . . .” The big Negro, Alamo Carter spoke.
McMasters turned around the buckskin, and studied the old scout. He waited.
“The deputy marshal needs buryin’ that’s for certain,” Carter said. “But we won’t likely come across a town this size again. And there’s no tellin’ how long it’ll take us to find Butcher in those mountains, that desert. Hunted for Apaches in those hills long time back, whilst I was scoutin’ with Tom Horn and Al Seiber for Gen’ral Crook. Man can hide a long time in that country.”
McMasters waited.
“We lost most of our food, what little we had, during that set-to with the Pimas,” Carter continued. “Lost some shells for our guns, as well. And . . . we could use fresh horses.”
“So could Moses Butcher,” McMasters pointed out.
“You know as well as I do that he likely already has his,” Carter said. “We catch him and he takes off a-runnin’, you ain’t gonna catch up to him no time soon. Unless we have fresh horses.”
“Food,” McMasters said, “and horses cost money. I don’t have much, and I know you don’t have any.”
The Negro shrugged. “I was just sayin’. You’re the boss man. Two shavetail lieutenants didn’t listen to my advice a time or two whilst I rode with Crook.” He grinned. “One regretted it. The other likely did, too, but never said so on account he was dead. Led us straight into an ambush. But he was green. You ain’t.”
“I am broke,” McMasters said.
“But that can be rectified, my friend.”
McMasters turned to face the man in the yellow vest, who grinned as he pulled off his hat and began fanning himself again. “Many a wise businessman has staked me for a percentage of my winnings. Usually ten percent. But for you, good man, I’ll give you twenty-five. The math is somewhat easier to figure than fifteen and I never cared much for the number twenty.”
“And if you lose?” the redhead asked.
“I never lose,” Marcus Patton said. “At anything.”
“Forty years in Yuma?” McMasters countered.
The gambler smiled and placed his hat on his head. “I’m not in Yuma . . . yet.”
“You can’t guarantee you’ll win at cards,” Carter told him.
The gambler laughed again. “Like I said, I never lose.” He paused. “I cheat.”
McMasters thought on that, but not for long. He found himself easing Berdan toward the gambler on the bay horse and pulled his wallet from a pocket. He removed a few bills and a gold piece and stuck those in the pocket of his vest, but handed the rest to Marcus Patton, who counted the greenbacks and coins.
“Thirteen dollars and seventy-nine cents.” He rolled his eyes. “This could take a while.”
“How ’bout that stiff deputy?” Emory Logan called out. “Like as not, he’s got some money he ain’t never gonna spend in hell.”
“No.” McMasters’s word sounded like a gunshot.
“But—”
“We’re not robbing the dead, damn you. I’m not Quantrill. And this isn’t Lawrence.”
Logan spit, but said nothing else.
“You surprise me, McMasters,” Patton said.
“Don’t lose,” McMasters said. “You swing into a saloon. I’ll find the undertaker. You try running out on me, you try some double cross, you come out of that saloon and I think that Starr looks loaded, I blow you in half.”
The gambler shrugged. “Now why would I want to run out on my friends?”
“You’ll find it mighty hard to do. I’ll be taking your horse with us when we leave you.”
The gambler frowned.
“To trade at the livery,” McMasters said.
“Well, if ya’s makin’ out a grocery list, I need some tobaccy,” the one-eyed bushwhacker said. “Plug rather than twist, but I ain’t that particular.”
“No list. We might not even get into a store.” McMasters looked up the road. No point in putting things off anymore. Staying on the road, jabbering, wasn’t a good idea. Anyone who happened to look out a hotel window or decided to ride into the desert in search of the Lost Dutchman’
s Mine might wonder what the posse was all about. “All right. We ride into town.”
“Can we eat?” Bloody Zeke asked. “What we’ve been eating ain’t righty fit for hogs.”
“I suppose you want us to find some fine café,” McMasters said.
“Well, there is . . . er . . . was . . . a fairly reputable place when I was last here,” Patton said.
McMasters spun around in the saddle. “You were here before?”
The gambler nodded. “How do you think I know so much about Goldfield?” When McMasters kept staring, Patton laughed. “Don’t worry. I did not kill anyone here.”
Doubts crept into McMasters’s mind, but the horse carrying Daniel Kilpatrick’s body snorted, and McMasters knew he had to find a grave for that poor deputy marshal. He wanted a real cemetery for him. And this would be the only chance he had.
Besides, he thought, if it doesn’t work out, if everything goes to hell, well, it won’t be the first time.
What had gone right, or even according to plan, since he’d started out on Butcher’s trail?
He pointed at Patton. “When we leave you in the saloon, you have as long as it takes me to find an undertaker and a livery with horses for sale or trade. That’s it. You see us waiting out on the street, you politely collect your winnings—if there are any—”
“There will be,” Patton said, “but maybe not much seeing I won’t be there long and this time of day doesn’t bring out the fools who can’t play cards.”
“You just come outside, get on the horse.”
“What about food, powder, and lead?” Carter asked.
“Let’s see how much money we have.” McMasters pointed.
Nodding, Alamo Carter kicked the sorrel into a walk. That started those riding behind to follow. Those ahead of him also kicked their horses and began climbing the road up the hill to Goldfield.
“If we have any money at all,” McMasters whispered to himself. He brought up the Remington twelve-gauge, resting the stock on his right hip and keeping the barrels pointed at the blue sky. He kept his fingers out of the trigger guard, but close . . . just in case. The reins he held in his left hand. Sweat stung the cuts on his neck. Hunger made his stomach tighten. So did the fear of what might wait for them in the booming gold town.
“Or,” he said in an even hoarser whisper, “if we’re even alive.”
CHAPTER 27
From the bottom of the hill, Goldfield looked big but not sprawling. Once they reached the top, however, the town resembled Tucson. The hill wasn’t that big, so as many buildings as possible were crammed within a few streets and alleys. It stank of congestion and confusion.
The major mines lay on the far edge of town, and the cemetery was on the only way in—or out—of Goldfield. They passed the cemetery first.
“It’s filled up a mite since my last visit,” Marcus Patton said.
One wooden cross had toppled over a recent mound. Most of the other graves had been covered with rocks. Two black men were busy slamming pickaxes into the earth, digging a new one.
“Musta knowed we was comin’,” said the Reb, who pulled Daniel Kilpatrick’s horse—and the deputy marshal’s body—behind him.
“Shut up.” McMasters studied the street and the people. The men—he counted only a handful of women— ignored the procession until they saw Kilpatrick’s horse. They also stared at the living riders. They did not speak. They did not point. They just looked, lips flat, eyes hard.
Mary Lovelace led the way, followed by Emory Logan and the hallowed cargo. Next rode Marcus Patton. Then Bloody Zeke The Younger, his handcuffs reflecting the noon sun, and Alamo Carter. McMasters brought up the rear.
They passed the first saloon, named, naturally, The First Saloon. Then the second, which was next to a brewery. That made sense. Brewing beer in a place like that had to be cheaper and more practical than trying to get kegs sent up from Phoenix or Tucson. They had a ways to go before they reached the blacksmith shop down the street and off to the right. A few more people came out of saloons and businesses. They watched.
McMasters and the others rode on.
Past a butcher shop. A boarding house, called Mother Ida’s. A competing hotel called the Goldfield Hotel with a stagecoach out in front, pulled by a team of six mules.
He looked to the other side of the street. An assayer. The post office. And another saloon.
“That’s the one.” Marcus Patton wheeled his bay from the line and rode toward it. Only a few horses were tethered to the hitching rail.
“Why this one?” McMasters asked.
The gambler grinned. “I didn’t play poker in this one on my last visit.” He dismounted and pointed to the building across the alley. “And I figured it’s convenient. For you.”
McMasters looked at the building and frowned at the sign hanging out front.
JOSIAH AMBROSE
Undertaker
Licensed Gambler
Notary Public
“In case you need anything notarized.” The gambler’s face changed, hardened, turned serious. He drew in a deep breath and put his hands on the top of the batwing doors. Then, keeping his hold on the doors, he turned his head toward McMasters.
“I’m betting that you would not be so inclined to allow me a few rounds for this Starr.”
“I told you what would happen if you walked out of that saloon with a loaded gun,” McMasters said.
“There’s always the chance,” the yellow-vested man said, “that I won’t be walking but running, and that the Starr will be empty by then.”
He laughed, and without waiting for a response from McMasters, pushed his way into the Dismal Saloon.
Dismal. McMasters shook his head. It certainly looked dismal. He turned Berdan and headed to the next building, motioning for the others to follow.
McMasters dismounted in front of Josiah Ambrose’s business.
“You”—he pointed at Logan and Carter—“bring Dan. Be careful.”
“Why do you need me?” Bloody Zeke asked.
“I’m not leaving you out here alone,” McMasters said.
With a shrug, Bloody Zeke slid from the saddle and handed his reins to Mary Lovelace. “I can’t tie up with my hands tied up, lady,” he explained then stepped onto the boardwalk and pushed back his hat.
“This is much more pleasant, out of the sun.” He watched the black man and the bushwhacker carry the corpse off the street and onto the boardwalk.
Mary Lovelace finished hitching her horse and Bloody Zeke’s black to the rail, and stepped into the shade. McMasters fished out the bills he had taken from his own wallet before he had handed it to the gambler and held out the money to Mary.
“What’s this for?” she asked.
He signed and pointed to the next building. The sign read BATHS. HOT. 50¢. Painted underneath in bleeding red letters in a scrawl that had been applied with more sloppiness than even those over Josiah Ambrose’s door were the words No damd kredet
Her eyes narrowed. She did not take the money, but when McMasters put the bills in her hand, she closed her fingers around the cash.
“This is more than fifty cents.”
“There’s a millinery next door. Your hat’s trashed. You can meet us at the general store across the street.”
Without waiting for her protest, he moved away and entered the undertaker’s shop, carrying his shotgun with him.
Josiah Ambrose looked like he was ready to be embalmed himself, but that wasn’t a possibility in Goldfield.
“We don’t embalm. We bury. The way I see things, worms don’t like those damned embalming juices. Gets ’em drunk.”
“I just want a burial,” McMasters said. “And a real funeral.”
Ambrose was thin, pale, a man of maybe thirty-six years who looked sixty-three. His brown hair was thinning, he had not shaved in two or three days, and he wore black broadcloth pants, scuffed boots, a white shirt with ribbon tie. His coat hung on a peg behind his desk. He rose, picked up a pad and pen
cil, and motioned with a long, crooked finger at a table off to the side.
“Lay the gent on the table, men.”
He stared at Bloody Zeke, then back at McMasters.
“I’ll have to examine the body. We don’t have a coroner in Goldfield. I do the best I can.”
“Would you like us to leave?” McMasters asked.
“I’d like you to tell me what I will find.” He suddenly broke into a rough coughing fit, doubling over, and turning around to brace himself by planting his left hand flat on the desk. His right dropped the pencil and pad back on the pine top and found a handkerchief, which he pressed to his mouth. After the fit passed, the cotton was flecked with blood. He returned it to his pants pocket and retrieved the pencil and paper.
The undertaker suffered from consumption.
“It’s fitting,” Ambrose said when he realized McMasters had seen blood on the handkerchief. “The dying deals with the dead.” He coughed slightly again, turning his head out of politeness, and smiled when he looked back at McMasters. “If you tell me what I’ll find, it’ll save me the trouble.”
“He fell off his horse, over a cliff, and onto rocks.”
“Fell?” The undertaker trained his eyes on Bloody Zeke.
“He was pushed,” McMasters said.
Ambrose wrote on the pad. “By him?” Without looking, he pointed the pencil at Bloody Zeke.
“No.”
Ambrose shot glances at Carter and Logan.
“The man who did it is dead.” McMasters put the Remington across his left shoulder.
“Well . . .”
McMasters withdrew Daniel Kilpatrick’s badge from his pocket and showed it to the undertaker.
“You’re a lawman?” he asked.
Without lying, McMasters returned the badge and nodded at Bloody Zeke. “You know who that is.” It was not a question.
“I’ve seen his likeness in the Phoenix and Tucson papers we get up here when the stage comes through,” Ambrose said.
“Lately?” McMasters said, trying to keep his voice from betraying him.
“Not since his escape from Yuma. You’re taking him back?”
Remington 1894 Page 21
