by L. J. Martin
That makes him laugh. “So how long do you want me to wait a’fore I come and tear the damn jail down? Not that I know where the hell the damn jail is.”
“I’m going in when it’s dead dark and not leaving town in the light. I may have to lay low through the next light if we can’t get supplied up with grub, so go to worrying about ten o’clock tomorrow night.”
“That’s real patient for me.”
“You can handle it. Catch a mess of fish and dry them in case we have to get out of here without any grub. In fact come morning slip on upstream aways and drop one of those many whitetail we’ve been seeing and jerk some meat…you can keep busy.”
“Okay, Cap’n, but come ten o’clock tomorrow night, you’re not back, I’m getting my steam up and coming to town.”
“I’ll be back.” I hope.
The sun is only down an hour before we get a bright three quarter moon. This time of year it’s right overhead, and so bright it’s casting shadows. But I have no choice. I’m sure Skunk is hunting us. I hope he’s twenty miles down the Mullan Road thinking we’ll be easy to run down as we’re dragging stock, but then again he looks to be a lazy lout to me. Which is bad news as he may have said good riddance and be leaning on a bar in Benton City.
As there’s a chance of running into him, or worse him and his deputy. I’ve brought along my coach gun, sawed to seventeen inches, shells loaded with cut up square nails as well as a couple of thirty-six caliber balls in each, and have a half dozen extra shells in my pocket.
I have to take the risk, we’ve got to have supplies, so I saddle the buckskin and let him pick his way through the cottonwoods heading downstream the two miles or so to town. And the town is pretty well lit up. There are a half dozen coal oil street lights along Front Street not to speak of the moon and light flooding from the establishments on the inland side and from well lit riverboats along the quay. So I avoid Front Street and stay a block inland until I think I’m even with where I’d spotted Mrs. Ole’s boarding house, and turn that way, toward the river.
And as luck would have it, I’m a block short, but there’s an alley, so, leading the mules, we clomp slowly down it until I see the two story clapboard building. At the front of the building there’s lots of laughing and hooraying as men, and a lady or two, wander up and down Front Street. A buckboard or two passes, as well as more than one pair of horse backers. The wafting odor of a pie cooling on a window sill makes my mouth water. I'm sure it will be a good long while before the wonder of a woman's cooking blesses my pallet.
I tie the animals to a hitching rail on the side street and with little hope of finding Alex in his room, make my way to the window of the room on the southwest corner, where no light burns. I can’t imagine on his first night in town that, after being on board a riverboat for over two months since heading back upriver from St. Louis, that he doesn’t have an itch that only a pleasure lady can scratch.
I decide the alley is a fine way to move through town, however a man dragging two mules with no loads is much more noticeable than a man on foot.
So I ease the cinch off the buckskin and leave the critters tied near what must be Alex’s room, and light out on foot down the alley. I only go a block before I hear a pianoforte and singing, and I recognize that voice. Few sing as beautifully as Madam Allenthorpe. On the next corner stands a partially completed building, with only framed walls but the roof is on. And under the roof is a makeshift stage, lined with a dozen reflecting oil lamps and in front of it are at least forty men, silent and raptured, on boxes and benches made of boards on boxes.
I slip between to thick lilac bushes, heavy with blossoms. The sweet odor reminds me of Pearl and I'm not to be disappointed.
Madam Allenthorpe has them mesmerized with her rendition of Beautiful Dreamer, but I’m more mesmerized by the woman on the pianoforte. Pearl. At first I wonder what Alex meant by her getting fat, then as I move farther along the alley and get even with the back of the building and have a better side-view of her, I realize what early on Alex mistook for fat, is now a very pregnant young lady. In fact, so pregnant I’m surprised she can maintain her seat or reach the keys of the instrument.
It seems she must have quickly put her talents to work on some no account Benton City hooligan or…and the heat floods my cheeks and backbone, Chance O’Galliger, the gold-toothed gambler. I can still remember him looking at her like she was a fine sugared and cured ham hanging in the smokehouse, and he was a week since eating.
I look at every face in the crowd and decide Alex is not among them, so I reluctantly move on, as Pearl and Madam Allenthorpe launch into Now We Gather At the River. And now I’m more determined than ever to get my mission accomplished and to get the hell out of Benton City and as far from this part of the river as I can.
In the next block I hear the raucous noise of a saloon, and risk moving out onto Front Street. All three saloons are side by side, and the one Alex mentioned to me, Tennessee Slim’s, is in the center. I have to elbow my way through some fellows to get to the bat wing doors of Slim’s. It’s a false front affair with small-paned large six foot square windows flanking the swinging doors and with a tent over fifty feet long and twenty-five wide taking up the rear. I imagine there’s a privy, and maybe cribs if Slim has some soiled doves working.
The bar runs half the length of the place and there’s a small stage in a back corner where a fellow who’s likely all thumbs is making some noise from a banjo. The stench of cigar smoke, so thick you can taste it, and sweaty men permeates the place. Maybe three dozen drovers, miners, and river men crowd the place. Some at round poker tables, some at a wheel of chance, some playing Faro. Alex is standing at the bar…talking to Raymond.
Damn the flies. I don’t need to attract attention by having a ruckus, and Raymond looks to be ruckus on the hoof…at least on one hoof.
I search the place making sure I don’t see a big ugly lawman with a black stripe in his beard, and when satisfied, move down the bar.
If I had a brain I’d wait for Alex to get shed of Raymond, but to be truthful, I can’t help myself.
Chapter 29
So I elbow my way down the bar and sidle up between them just as if I belonged there. My scattergun hangs in my hand, but no one much notices as a good portion of the men in the saloon have long arms on the floor by their chairs, leaning up against the bar between their legs, or against the stair rail along the tent wall.
This time Raymond gives me a nod and Alex offers his hand, and speaks in low tones, “You want to get out of here?”
“No, sir, I want a beer,” and I turn to Raymond. “How’s the leg?”
He shrugs. “What leg, you mean how’s the stub. The stub is sore. Folks tell me it will be sore for a while more. I done get by."
"I guess you can’t expect it not to be sore.” His tone is surly and causes my jaw to knot.
Alex has ordered me a beer and it arrives and tastes like something from heaven. The foam lines my lips and I use the towel hanging under the bar to sop it away, before I respond.
“No, sur, I guess I can’t.”
Ray’s sour look suddenly goes a little sheepish, and he stutters. “Pearly done tolt me you did me right when it happened. Said I’d be flappin’ my wings with the angels had you not…”
I laugh, if a little tightly. “Or shoveling coal stokin’ the fire down below.”
For the first time since we were on the farm together, I get a whisper of a smile from him. “My daddy would agree wit dat down below part.”
“Ray, I saw your daddy, he stood me to a fine meal. I was sorry...my heart still aches at the thought...to hear of your mama's passing.”
“De done tolt me. I miss ’em some terrible.”
“As I miss mine. Are you going back to find your folks?”
“I’m going to the gold fields. Don’t matter you a slave, a son of a bitch from the south, or the king of England out der in the fields…at least that’s what I done be tolt.”
“Go
easy on the south, old friend.” I give him a hard look, but it softens. “You got an outfit…a stake? Maybe you’d like to go along…” I say, but let it trail off.
“Ain’t got nothing but a need. Pearl say she can stake me, soon as she has your baby—”
“What?” I say, stunned. Then stutter. “When…when is she due?”
“Any ol’ day now,” Raymond says, slightly cocking his head like a hound that doesn’t understand a command.
But it’s me who hardly understands. “I didn’t know…I never thought…I can’t hardly believe…” I manage to spit out, my head swimming a little. But I do a quick calculation, and it sure as hell could be.
“She done wrote you a letter.”
“I never got it,” I manage.
“I tolt her,” he said, his demeanor a little defensive, “dat you wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with no baby that was half her. But she said you done outta know, no matter.”
“I had no idea…,” I manage, still in shock.
Alex speaks up. “He would have told me something like that, Ray. Look at him, you might as well have broke one of those beer barrels over his head.”
“I got to go to her,” I say, and spin on my heel, but I’m going nowhere as I’m face to face with Wade Jefferson, Skunk, or Silas Jefferson Holland…all of his names suddenly come to me.
And he’s wearing a copper badge and holding a revolver, aimed dead center at my gut.
“If it ain’t McTavish. I got a warrant for your worthless ass." He grins like a wolf eying a helpless fawn. "I don’t suppose your running mate, Hollihan is about?”
“He went to Oregon,” I lie, my eyes narrowing. And Skunk’s not alone, he’s got two fellows backing him up. Fellas he took a swim down the river with a few months ago. Cornel Proust and Horst Gauss, the German boys we chucked over the rail of the Eagle alongside Skunk. Both of them wear copper badges as well. And Proust has a revolver hanging loose at his side, not as well armed as Gauss who has a coach gun, much like mine, cradled in the crook of his arm.
I look from man to man, and laugh, although I see little funny about the situation. Without taking my eyes off them, I say to my drinking chums, “I’d suggest you two find another spot to lean on the bar.”
With that, I cock both barrels of my scattergun, even though it’s still aimed at the rough board floor.
Skunk glances down then back to glare at me. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Rather than answer him, I speak to Proust. “You raise that scattergun a half inch and you’ll be the first to get a belly full from mine.” Then I turn to Skunk. “And that’s a single action Colt, you gotta cock. You cock it and I’m giving you both barrels right in your fat gut.”
Skunk laughs low, but unsure. “There’s three of us, and I’m two feet with this .44 that’ll blow your backbone out. I suggest you drop that bird gun.”
“A sane fella would,” I say, and laugh again. “However, I never been accused of being sane. This coach gun ain’t loaded for birds, it’s loaded for skunks and other vermin. If you don’t blow my backbone out, maybe even if you do, I’ll get you for sure and this cannon will blow you in half. Hell, there won’t be enough left to feed the hogs—not that the hogs would eat your rotten ass.”
Alex and Raymond have moved away, but the bartender, a tall slender fella who I presume is Tennessee Slim, leans over and snaps at Skunk. “Marshal, you take it outside. Won’t be no shooting in my place.”
“This man is wanted—”
Sometimes you just have to take the initiative, and I make sure I’m loud enough they can hear me in both adjoining saloons. They can surely hear me in this one, as it’s so deadly quiet you could hear a mouse burp. “And you’re a goddamned thief and a murderin’ coward of women and children who rode with Bloody Bill Anderson. Did all these fine Union boys in Benton City know that when they hired you on?”
I can hear the men in the saloon begin to buzz with that revelation.
“The hell I did,” Skunk says, but his face reddens.
“Your name is not Wade Jefferson, it’s Silas Jefferson Holland, Captain Holland as I recall. I think I heard it was Hack ’em up Holland and some said you liked Take Their Hair Holland.” I’m lying through my teeth as I’d never heard of him before we met on the Eagle, but you got to make do at times.
“None of that matters,” he stammers. “You’re under arrest.”
“Matters to a lot of these fellas…hell, some of them may have had relatives in Centralia or God knows where else you did your dirty work. I’ll bet you still got that string of ears you showed me aboard the Eagle. Ears cut off of folks you bushwhacked…innocent folks.”
Spittle flies as he yells. “You son of a bitch, you rode with the south, with Mosby, and—”
“Damn right I did and proud of it. And I didn’t kill women and children.”
The bartender has rounded the bar, carrying a scatter gun as well, and he steps between us, facing Skunk, his accent is soft as a southern maiden's, so I’m sure I know his sympathies. “Marshal, y'all get your ass out of here and take these two Hessians of yours. Take this out in the street. These three shotguns go off and half my customers will be leaking beer outta holes in their bellies. Get out, now.”
“Bullshit,” Skunk manages, but the bartender has no back up in him.
The bartender stands his ground, and pokes with his double barrel. “You fellas go out the front, Jefferson. I’m sending this fella out the back. You can take it to the street, but it ain’t gonna happen in my place.”
I guess the fact the bartender has the double barrels pushed up against the side of Skunk's generous belly is fairly convincing. The bearded city marshal begins to back up.
“Get on out,” Skunk instructs the Germans, and they turn and head for the batwings. Skunk keeps his eyes on me, but he’s backing toward the door.
The bartender says over his shoulder, my way. “I suggest you get out the back…now.”
And I do, but as I head that way, I note that Alex and Raymond are slipping out the framed opening that serves as a back entrance.
When I push through the canvas hanging under the frame, they’re both waiting.
“This is my fight,” I snap as I pass them and head for the alley.
I hear Raymond clomping along behind me. “Mr. Strobridge may not owe you, but I do, and I’m in it.”
I stop and turn. “Ray, you and your family paid for all your lives on McTavish Farm, you don’t owe me nothing’.”
Alex yells at me. “I’m going to get your goods together. I’m no gunman but I can at least get you ready to get on the trail.”
“Please do, my mules are tied near your room,” I yell back, and he heads back into the saloon, I guess to go out the front and down Front Street to fetch the mules.
Ray palms an Army Remington he’s had stuffed in his belt under his shirt. “You gonna flap your jaw or are we gonna get set up and ready for these murderin’ bastards? They hung a friend a mine, so this ain’t all on you.”
“Good, Pearl would never forgive me I got you killed for my own reasons. Let’s hope they split up,” I say, and turn down the alley back toward where I’ve tied the buckskin and mules.
Before we reach the end of the alley and the cross street, I’m not surprised when Skunk and his two deputies fan out forty yards in front of us.
Only this time there are five of them. It’s too dark to see if the other two wear badges, but I’d guess not. It’s likely he gathered up a couple of townsmen who want to be in on the action.
“Stay back,” I say over my shoulder to Ray, who’s clomping along behind me.
“Why?” he asks.
“That Army your carrying is good at a distance. I need to get closer with this scattergun. Get some cover.”
Ray stops at thirty yards and moves to the side next to some crates and empty beer barrels, but I want to close another ten at least.
I think they’re surprised I keep coming.
“Some bum out in the alley. Nothing to do with me,” I lie, which I’m getting pretty good at. I stop thirty yards from the five of them. “Who’s that with you?”
“All deputized,” he yells back.
“All ready to die for some redleg son of a bitch?” I ask.
“What,” one of the two I’ve never seen before snaps.
“You didn’t know. This ugly bastard you think is Wade Jefferson is actually Captain Silas Holland, recently a cohort of Bloody Bill Anderson.”
“This ain’t our fight,” the man says, and grabs his friend by the arm and they ease away.
We’re back to three of them.
I’m using the scattergun in my left hand, and have palmed the Colt in my right, all three hammers are cocked.
“Skunk,” I say, my voice a bit lower, “you got thrown over the rail for being a thief and those two German jerks followed for the same reason. You can turn around and walk away and leave me be, so I can ride out of here and not see you again, or you can die in the street.”
“Big talk for one man against three, lay down your weapons,” he says, his revolver is leveled at me, as is Gauss’s, but it’s Proust who concerns me most as he has a scattergun much like mine.
“All right, all right,” I say, my voice sounding resigned, and I start to bend as if I’m going to set the shotgun on the ground, but instead drop to one knee, a barrel roars and lights the night, as I give one barrel full of cut up square nails to Proust, who’s blown back flat on his back, both his barrels lighting up the night as they discharge into the air.
At the same time I fire with the Colt but it goes astray, and both Skunk and Gauss fire.
It’s dark as hell in the alley except for the lightning-like muzzle flashes, and now our vision is further occluded by gun smoke and we’re firing at those muzzle flashes.
And I take one in the side and I’m sure through a rib, and spin. The pain rips through me and it seems a lightning bolt has gone off in my face and burned its way to my toes…but I land facing forward flat on the ground, an even more difficult target, and I can hear the roar and see the flashes from Ray’s Remington firing behind me and those of my enemies through the smoke.
