Boom Town (A Searcher Western

by Len Levinson

  “Don’t work alone.” Stone placed his arm around Slip-chuck’s shoulder, and Slipchuck nearly collapsed onto the floor. “Need this man to watch my back. You may be interested to know he’s the man who shot Frank Quarternight.”

  Slipchuck held his palm up modestly. “A lucky shot, caught him on his blind side. But Johnny here shot Dave Quarternight, and they say he was a damn sight faster’n his brother Frank.”

  “I wouldn’t be here right now,” Stone said, “it weren’t for this man. If you hire me, got to hire him.”

  The ladies and gentlemen at the round table stared at the duo as if they came from Mars. “Extraordinary,” an old dowager croaked, through the lenses of her lorgnette.

  “I’ll pay the old fellow five dollars,” Moffitt said.

  “He gets what I get,” Stone replied, “or no deal.”

  “Ten dollars for this?”

  Slipchuck slapped iron, Moffitt stared down the barrel of a Colt. A woman let out a tiny scream. “Now see here,” said one of the men at the table.

  Moffitt went pale. The cigar trembled in his hand. Slipchuck winked, dropped his Colt back into his holster.

  “Ten dollars a day for each man,” Moffitt said. His eyes fell on Gail goggling oil paintings, upholstered furniture, crystal chandeliers. “What can I do for you, young lady?”

  “I’m with him.”

  Every male eye on the railroad car turned to her, while women sensed a dangerous rival. Mr. Moffitt took her hand and moved her to the center of the car. “Who might you be?”

  “I’m on my way to Lodestone, where my sister lives, and this man protected me from a robber who tore my clothes.”

  They returned their eyes to John Stone.

  “When do we start?” he asked.

  “Right now.” Moffitt turned to Stevenson. “Take care of them.”

  Stevenson led them to the center of the car. “Have you eaten?”

  “Not for a while,” Stone replied.

  They followed him to the dining room. A Negro woman in an apron brought them a tray of chicken sandwiches. They heard die easterners talking in the other part of the car.

  “Never heard of Quarternight,” said the tall, gray-haired man, “but Tod Buckalew was a terror. Killed eight men, and he was only in his early twenties when he got shot.”

  “Hope we haven’t let the fox into the chicken coop,” muttered another man nervously. “We really don’t know who he is, and he’s armed to the teeth.”

  Moffitt’s voice came to them. “She has a face of an angel.”

  “What about the old codger?”

  Slipchuck reached for his gun. Stone placed his hand on the old man’s bony wrist. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “You git a little gray hair, people think you cain’t cut it no more. Let me tell you something. There was this little whore back at Hays City, and I...”

  Stone cleared his throat. “There’s a lady present.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to me,” Gail said with a wave of her hand. “Speak your mind.”

  “Wa’al,” Slipchuck said, “lemme put it this way. When I was finished, she said I did it better’n some younger men.”

  Gail blanched. Stone munched his sandwich. The door at the far end of the railway car opened, and a conductor shouted: “One hour to Lodestone!”

  Chapter Two

  The train pulled into Lodestone at dusk. Moffitt and his entourage debarked first, into the waiting arms of the mayor, city council, and Ladies Auxiliary. A twenty-piece uniformed band blared a ceremonial march, flags fluttered in the breeze.

  Moffitt hooked one thumb in a suspender, held his Corona cigar in his other hand, and said, “Never have I met such a warm welcome in all my born days!” The same line he’d used in every train stop from New York City.

  Mayor Ralston wore a flowing white mustache and derby hat slanted low over his eyes. He shook Moffitt’s hand, to wild applause. “Sir,” he said, “we’re proud to have you in our town! May I remind you, Lodestone is the fastest growing community west of the Mississippi! We have the richest soil, hardest workers, most forward-looking and inspiring community leaders, and loveliest women in the world! On behalf of all citizens, I welcome you to Lodestone, King of the Rockies!”

  The crowd cheered, Stone stepped off the train. He checked the terrain like a cavalry officer planning an advance. Tall ghostly buildings spread across a valley, surrounded by a wasteland of rotting tree stumps on nearby hills and mountains. A terrible stench filled the air, the stamp mill pounded steadily in the foothills. On the other side of the train station, a man in a blue uniform stood on a ladder and lit a lamp suspended from a varnished pole, street full of wagons and horses to their shins in muck.

  Stone hadn’t seen anything like this since Kansas City. Slipchuck tugged his shirt sleeve. “Where the hell you goin’ pard?”

  “Aren’t we looking for a hotel?”

  “How you know what hotel to go to?”

  “I thought we’d walk down the street and look around.”

  “You’ll end up in a shithole full of the worse riffraff and backstabbers in the territory. Only way to find the best hotel, ask some upstandin’ citizens. Best place to find upstandin’ citizens is the best saloon. You stick with me, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

  Slipchuck walked ahead forthrightly, saddlebags over his shoulder, spurs clanging, passing ladies, gentlemen, miners in filthy clothes, eyes bleary with fatigue. They came to an alley. A man sat with an empty bottle in his hand. Slipchuck shook the drunkard’s shoulder. “Wake up!”

  The drunkard opened his eyes.

  “What’s the best saloon in town?”

  “Graaaaannnd. Paaaalllaaacce.”

  The drunkard collapsed against the wall, exhausted by his effort. Slipchuck strolled to the sidewalk and buttonholed the first man he saw. “Which way to the Grand Palace?”

  “Down the street, left at the first corner.”

  Slipchuck stopped to ogle a little blonde. He had a weakness for little blondes. Stone lifted him by the scruff of his neck and carried him a few paces, then set him down again. They passed a barbershop, pawnshop, and bakery. Halfway down the next street, a huge lighted sign said GRAND PALACE.

  The saloon and casino occupied most of the block. Lanterns shone in windows, the sound of a band could be heard. Slipchuck stopped in his tracks. “Now that’s what I call a saloon!”

  “We already passed six hotels.”

  “You’d wake up in the mornin’ with a bullet in your head.”

  A deputy in blue uniform and badge walked past. On his head was a funny cap with a shiny black visor, similar to the one worn by the railroad conductor. Slipchuck plunged into the traffic, dirty white pants absorbing muck like a blotter. Stone’s dark blue britches were tucked into his boots, cavalry style, each boot carried a knife. They reached the sidewalk in front of the veranda running the full length of the building. Four doors were crowded with patrons coming and going, others sat at tables, waited upon by a small troop of men in white shirts and black vests.

  Slipchuck ambled toward the closest door. Stone followed him, stepped out from the backlight. An immense area stretched before him, filled with people of every description, bars, dance floor in back, chuck-a-luck wheels spinning around, flight of stairs leading to the second floor. He’d seen smaller barns.

  “What’s yer pleasure, gents?” asked the bartender, black hair parted in the middle and curled around his forehead like mouse tails.

  Slipchuck spat into the cuspidor on the floor. “Whiskey fer me. Near beer for my son.”

  Everybody in the vicinity looked at Slipchuck’s “son.” Nobody said a word. The bartender poured the drinks; Slipchuck flipped coins onto the bar. “Just stay where you are, barkeep, ’cause I’ll be a-needin’ a refill directly.”

  Slipchuck tossed the fiery liquid down his throat in one shot and slammed the glass on the bar. “That’s some fine whiskey. Think I’m a-gonna like it here.”

&
nbsp; “The plan was make money and move on.”

  “Tomorrow we might be daid!”

  Stone sipped the awful near beer, craved good whiskey, but was trying to stop drinking. Whores in brightly colored gowns sashayed by the bar. One dug painted fingernails into Stone’s shoulder. “Buy me a drink?”

  “You’ll have to ask my banker.” He pointed to Slipchuck.

  She looked at Stone curiously as Slipchuck called the bartender. Her black-gloved hand held a black lace fan, her lips painted blood red.

  “Don’t believe I’ve seen you in town before,” she said. “What’s yer name?”

  Before Stone could answer, Slipchuck elbowed him to the side. “What’s yer goin’ rate, sweetheart?”

  “Three dollars.”

  “How long?”

  “Long as it takes.”

  “You got yourself a deal.”

  Stone grabbed Slipchuck’s shoulder. “We’re supposed to be looking for a hotel. We don’t have much money. This is no time for the riding academy.”

  The whore looked coldly at Stone. “Mind yer own business.”

  “He is my business.”

  She rubbed against Slipchuck. “You gonna let this big galoot tell you what to do?”

  Slipchuck gazed shamefacedly at Stone. “I always thinks better after I had a little nooky.”

  Stone sighed in defeat. His near beer smelled like horse urine. Why can’t I control my drinking? He turned to the bartender and opened his mouth, but words froze in his throat. He remembered the time he awakened on a pile of horse manure. The bartender wiped his big gnarled hands on a towel.

  “You got sarsaparilla?”

  Stone heard a voice beside him. “How old’re you, boy?”

  Stone turned to a big strapping man with a bushy black beard and suspenders holding up his pants. “Old enough.”

  “That stuff’s for the little ’uns. Have a whiskey on me. Bartender?”

  The bartender filled the glass in front of Stone. Amber fluid twinkled in the light of coal-oil lamps. Blackbeard slapped Stone’s shoulder. “Drink up, friend.”

  Stone stared at the whiskey laughing at him. He didn’t feel like fighting a miner, but feared the devil’s potion.

  “I thought I said drink up!” The smile vanished slowly from the blackbeard’s dusty visage. Stone stepped away from the bar. Here I go again. “I’m trying to quit drinking,” he explained. “It’s nothing personal. You want to sit down, I’ll have supper with you, but if I start drinking, I’ll end up dead.”

  The miner stared at him for a few moments, blinked, then lowered his hands. His murderous scowl became thoughtful. “’bout time I et, now that you mention it. There’s an empty table over thar!”

  Stone followed him across the congested floor. Croupiers spun roulette wheels, dice rolled over green cloth, cards snuffled. They came to an empty table in the middle of the hall, covered with empty bottles and glasses. The miner swept them to the side with his big arm and sat down.

  “Name’s Kevin McGeachy. I owns the Great Monarch Mine.”

  “John Stone, on my way to San Francisco.”

  “What the hell fer?”

  “Joining my fiancée.”

  “Congratulations.” McGeachy held out his hand, Stone shook it. “I been married a few times meself, but ain’t no fun. There’s one thing I lamed about wimmin. They all nag. Larn it from their mommas at an early age.” He lunged toward a waitress carrying a tray of drinks, she nearly spilled them onto the floor.

  “Are you crazy!” she screamed. “What the hell’s the matter with you!”

  “Bottle of whiskey an’ two steak platters with all the trimmin’s.” The waitress walked away in a huff. “That’s the way to treat ’em. Don’t take no back talk. You listen to me, you’ll larn somethin’.”

  “How’s the Great Monarch Mine doing?”

  McGeachy wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “A few more feet, I’ll hit the mother lode.”

  “I’m new in town. What’s a good place to stay?”

  “’pends on how much money you got.”

  “Not much.”

  “The tents on the far side of the railroad tracks is yer best bet. Fifty cents a night. Let me tell you somethin’ about drinkin’. I know what it’s like to wake up in jail for committin’ a murder I don’t even remember. But I won’t drink sugar water. The trick is to pace yourself. I’ve been drinkin’ since Monday, but I ain’t fallin’ on my face, am I? You have to be strong inside.”

  The waitress placed a bottle of whiskey and two glasses on the table. Stone stared at the amber fluid as if it were liquid dynamite. McGeachy said, “You weren’t afraid of me, and I’m more dangerous than any bottle. The problem is you, not the whiskey. You got to wrestle the demon and cut his Goddarned throat. Ain’t good fer a man’s spirit to be afraid of somethin’. It’s only whiskey.”

  Stone thought: Can I drink that stuff and not fall apart?

  “When you git dizzy,” McGeachy said, “back off a little. Otherwise stay out of saloons.”

  Stone couldn’t stay out of saloons. A man needs to talk with people. But he hesitated. McGeachy placed his hand on Stone’s shoulder. “At a time like this, a man wants to be alone.” He walked toward the back door of the Grand Palace.

  Stone stared at the bottle.

  ROCKY MOUNTAIN WHISKEY Finest Blended Spirits

  A little taste wouldn’t hurt. If I can’t control my drinking, how can I control other parts of my life? He uncorked the bottle. If McGeachy can pace himself why can’t I? What the hell.

  The road to perdition was paved with what the hell’s, but Stone wrapped his fingers around the glass. Slowly, as in a dream, he raised the liquid to his lips. His hand trembled. He was afraid, and set the glass down. Behind him, a table of miners pushed their chairs back. Hitching their gunbelts, buttoning their coats, they headed for the door. A newspaper lay atop one of the chairs. Stone reached for it. The Lodestone Gazette, three days old. The headline said: GOLD DISCOVERED ON RAPAHORN!

  Front page covered with mining news. A listing of stock closing prices ran down the right gutter. The bankruptcy of a mining combine. A stagecoach holdup. Every story filled with breathless excitement. Ragged miners arriving with holes in their shoes were multimillionaires three days later, living luxuriously on the top floor of the Sheffield Hotel, while others blew their brains out after sinking everything they owned into a hole in the ground.

  Stone turned to the next page. National news. The Fifteenth Amendment passed. A new warship christened in Newport News. Whaling industry in deep trouble. ROBERT E. LEE DIES.

  Stone’s heart stopped. He read the headline again. Choking sensation, confusion, the world crashed about him. Not Bobby Lee. A man like that couldn’t die. The words floated before him.

  Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Army of Northern Virginia during the Rebellion, died today at his Lexington, Virginia home. He was sixty-three. Considered by many the greatest general of the war, and a hero of the South, he’d been in failing health for the past several months, according to his family.

  Stone felt nauseous. General Lee, noblest man in the world, gone. Gamblers tossed chips into the pot at the next table, a croupier spun his chuck-a-luck wheel.

  “Round and round she goes, and where she stops, nobody knows!”

  Stone looked at his glass of whiskey. I’ll make you feel better. He reached toward it, saw General Lee’s war weary face. Stone pushed the glass of whiskey farther away and returned his eyes to the news article.

  Bobby Lee spent the last years of his life as president of Washington College in Virginia. When he assumed the position at the close of the war, the school had forty students and four professors. The hero of the Confederacy chose to educate the young, while Grant consorted with multimillionaires and waltzed through the White House.

  Stone remembered Bobby Lee on his white horse, trooping the line, splendid in the saddle, like an old Roman god. Solid, steady, brilliant, unswerving, a
man of honor to the core. Not even his worst enemies said anything bad about his character. He gave everything to the Confederacy, the war shortened his life, he didn’t even believe in slavery. Bobby Lee freed most of his Negroes before the war, but had to defend the Southland against the armies of the North.

  Stone served under Jeb Stuart, and many thought Gettysburg was lost because of old Jeb’s wild antics.

  The cavalry was General Lee’s eyes and ears, but instead of reconnaissance, Jeb led his command in a wild spree through rural Pennsylvania, tore up railroad tracks, communication lines, burned supplies, lived off the land, great fun and high adventure for men barely out of their teens, but General Lee was defeated at Gettysburg due to lack of intelligence information. The Confederate Army was never the same again, thanks to good old Jeb.

  General Lee never scolded Jeb. But the cavalry let General Lee down. Maybe that’s why Jeb got killed at Yellow Tavern. He attacked a numerically superior Yankee force, and got shot.

  Had he taken the chance to make it up to General Lee?

  Stone met the general personally in 1864, after Bobby Lee assigned one of Wade Hampton’s brigades to Fitzhugh Lee, the general’s nephew. Wade Hampton rode to General Lee’s headquarters with several officers to protest the move. The general was camped in a wilderness, weather damp and cold. Hampton introduced his staff, and young Captain Stone shook General Lee’s rough old hand. “Keep up the good work,” the general said. Then he and Wade Hampton retired to the commanding officer’s private office.

  Stone and the others waited outside, the walls of a tent thin, Hampton stated his case in low tones. Then they heard the slightly lower voice of Bobby Lee. “General Hampton, I expect you to follow orders. If you cannot, I would not care if you went back to South Carolina with your whole division.”

  Wade Hampton was pale with humiliation when he left the tent, but Bobby Lee had no patience with petty jealousy. He was fighting a war, wrong decisions cost lives, heavy burdens for a man in his fifties. On top of everything else, he’d been sick at Gettysburg.

  A week never passed when Stone didn’t run Gettysburg through his mind at least once. Thousands of men on horseback hacking each other with cavalry swords. Horror without parallel in his life, blood ran in rivulets on the ground. He fought in mad frenzy. Wade Hampton caught a saber on the skull and nearly died.