Leaving Yuma

by Michael Zimmer

  “I wouldn’t turn down another beer,” I said. “We can swing past a hardware store on our way to the Acme, and I’ll pick up a rifle.” I held my cuffed wrists up where he could see them. “Might be time to get rid of these, too. I ain’t likely to abandon a tit as generous as Davenport’s.”

  Failing to see the humor in my comment, Del said, “You ain’t getting no rifle, so you can just shut up on that subject right now.” Apparently coming to some kind of decision, he started down the street at a brisk stride. “Come on, Latham,” he barked over his shoulder. “You’re wasting my time.”

  The last of the light faded from the sky as we hoofed it toward the Southern Pacific depot on the morning side of town. Figuring Bachman intended to sit out the remaining hours on the platform waiting for the eastbound to arrive, I was more than a little surprised when he turned off a block before the station. Our destination was a two-story frame house on the outskirts of town, with a picket fence and rose bushes lining a gravel walkway. We paused at the gate, and Buchman yanked me close. “You try anything funny in here, Latham, and I’ll have your ass back on Prison Hill before they turn the lights out in the cells tonight. Savvy?”

  I stared back silently. I don’t know if it was the cooling breeze coming in off the desert, or the look in Buchman’s eyes, but my scalp had started to crawl.

  Del nodded as if satisfied with my response, even though I hadn’t spoken a word. “Let’s go.”

  We climbed the steps to the small porch and Del removed his hat, telling me with a look and a tip of his head to do the same. He pulled on a knob beside the door, and deep inside the house a bell chimed, announcing our presence. A colored woman answered the ring.

  “Hello, Emma. You remember me, Del Buchman? I’m here to see Miss Goldie.”

  Emma gave me a quick once-over, and I noticed she didn’t miss the exposed link of the cuffs holding my wrists together, even though I had it mostly hidden with my coat and hat.

  “Miss Goldie expecting you, is she?”

  “Yes, ma’am, she is.”

  The dark-skinned woman gave me another disparaging glance, then pushed the door open far enough for Buchman to grab the frame. “You can come on in,” she said. “I’ll tell Miss Goldie you’s here.”

  You’ve probably guessed by now where we were. I’d known Goldie Werner when she ran the Dove’s Roost in Tombstone, and I could tell from the decor that she hadn’t changed her occupation. The wallpaper was ruby red and heavily flocked, and there was a mix of lithographs—manly scenes of huge bucks and rutting buffalo bulls, scattered among more demure prints of cavorting nymphs splashing about in woodland pools and tiny cherubs watching over nearly naked maidens reclining upon plush sofas—that filled the imagination as much as it did the empty spaces on the walls. A richly polished wooden staircase led to the second floor, and I could hear the gentle clack and roll of ivory across the green felt of a billiards table from the rear of the house. There were neither waiting customers, however, nor scantily clad whores batting their eyes for our attention. It was just me and Del, standing there with our hats in our hands like a couple of farm boys on our first trip to the city.

  I think Goldie’s presence swept into the parlor a full second before the actual blood and bone specimen made it. She was a large woman with a heavy bosom, dark-rooted blonde hair, and gray eyes, one lid slightly drooped. She was painted as if for business, although rumor persisted that she hadn’t been upstairs with a customer in over ten years. Not a paying customer, at any rate. Her eyes grew wide when she saw me standing next to Del.

  “Why, J. T. Latham, I thought you were …” She looked at Del. “Is this the jasper you …?” Then she laughed and gave Buchman a friendly poke in the ribs. “You are a card, Delmar, I’ll swear if you ain’t. You’re the one who locked this poor boy up, and now you’ve gone and sprung him and brought him here to …” She stopped, her eyes taking on a faraway expression. “Why, you old cupid,” she said, smiling knowingly. Tipping her head toward the stairs, she added, “At the top, first door on the left.” She winked at me. “We’ll talk later, J. T., there’s someone upstairs who’s going to be real happy when she sees you.”

  I hadn’t said a word the whole time, but that was Goldie, and I didn’t feel slighted.

  “Move out, Latham,” Del said gruffly, thrusting his chin toward the banister and giving me a not-so-gentle shove in that direction. He sounded irritated, as though he hadn’t cared for Goldie’s ribbing, but knew there wasn’t anything he could do about it. That cat was already out of its bag.

  I didn’t protest the rough handling. Ol’ cupid might not know how to respond to Goldie’s teasing, but he’d damned sure put a kink in my tail if I tried something similar.

  We paused at the top of the stairs, and Del checked his watch. “It’s seven thirty,” he announced. “I’m gonna be knocking on this door at eleven sharp, and you’d damned well better have your boots on and your pants buttoned when I do, ’cause I’ll haul you over to the depot buck naked before I waste ten seconds waiting on your sorry ass. Savvy?”

  He handed me the watch with its lid still open, then reached past me to bang on the door. It immediately opened, as if whoever was inside had been listening at the keyhole. She was a little sprite of a gal, with dark hair, alabaster skin, an upturned nose, and wistful blue eyes. She squealed when she saw me, and launched herself into my arms as if jumping off a high bank into deep water. Or at least she tried to. My cuffs prevented us from becoming too intimate right there in the hall.

  “J. T.!” Selma Metzler cried happily. “I thought you was locked up, honey.”

  Del brushed past me to grab Selma’s arm. He backed her into her room, dragging me after him with his free hand. “You listen sharp, sister. I’ve already warned this boy, and I’ll do the same for you. Latham is under my authority. If he ain’t here when I get back, or, if you’ve tried to help him escape in any way, I’ll by damn lock the both of you up and toss the keys into the river. You savvy what I’m telling you?”

  “Hey,” Selma protested, trying to twist free. “You’re hurting me.”

  “I’ll do worse than this if he ain’t here, you just remember that, girlie.” He gave me a look that said he fully expected me to try something stupid, yet felt duty bound to see his end of the bargain all the way through. I don’t know who he’d made that bargain with, unless it was his conscience. “Eleven o’clock,” he repeated.

  “Sure, I’ll be here,” I said. I meant it, too. Those new clothes, a hot bath and shave, beer and a meal, and now this—I had no intention of mucking up any of it. At least not on purpose. But I was getting tired of those manacles. Raising my hands, I jangled the chain linking the cuffs on my wrists.

  “Not on your life, champ,” Del growled. “Them cuffs stay locked until you prove to me you can be trusted, and you ain’t done that yet.” Then he backed out of the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

  “Geez, what an ass!” Selma exclaimed, rubbing her arm where Buchman had gripped it so hard. Then, smiling, she came up against me, allowing me time to raise my arms over her head so that she could slip inside my embrace.

  And that right there is as much as I’m going to say on the subject of me and Selma Metzler, and it’s a lot more than I would have brought up at all if not for what happened at about 10:55 p.m.

  I was sitting on the side of the bed, happy as a lark and as sleepy as a fresh-fed kitten. I was still wearing my shirt and vest because of my manacles, but was naked on south of there. Selma was over by a dresser in a short silk robe, rummaging around in a cedar box sitting on the dresser top. When she came back, she was carrying one of those elastic garters all the fancy gals wore back then. This one was black, with a little red rose embroidered on one side.

  “I’ve got something for you,” she said. I reached for the scrunchy band, but she pulled it away. “Nope,” she said, dropping to her knees in front
of me. “This goes on your leg.”

  I laughed. “If you think I’m wearing a woman’s garter out of here, you’ve gone daffy.”

  She looked at me with a wicked grin. “Just wait until you see how it fits.”

  I could feel my smile starting to slip. “I don’t care how it fits.”

  “You will,” she said, lifting my right foot in an attempt to slide the garter over it.

  “Hey,” I said, jerking my leg back.

  “Dang it, J. T., just let me do this. You’ll like it, I swear you will.”

  “Get that thing away from me.”

  She threw the garter on the floor. “I just wanted it to be a surprise,” she said, pouting. Rising smoothly, she went to the dresser to pull something out of one of the drawers. I recall uttering a startled exclamation when she returned.

  “See, you’ve got to learn to trust me,” she admonished, handing me the gun. She knelt in front of me again, and this time I didn’t resist when she slid the garter over my ankle. “Do you know how it works?” she asked.

  I nodded, turning the pistol over in my hand, examining it from every angle. It was a nickel-plated semiauto, long and awkward in my hand after a lifetime of handling revolvers. There was a rearing mustang embossed on each hard rubber grip, with the word Colt above it. From information stamped on the slide I learned it was a .380 semiauto, rimless and smokeless, which meant it fired a .38-caliber slug using the newer, less corrosive gunpowder.

  “Goldie gave me that about a month ago,” Selma said, leaning back on her smooth, white calves to regard the garter’s positioning with a practiced eye. “She took it off a railroad dick that was roughing up one of the girls. Goldie gave him a tap on the noggin with a sawed-off baseball bat to teach him some manners, then took this pistol and a wad of cash from his pockets. She claimed it would enhance the learning experience. She also tossed his pants on the garbage heap down by the tracks, then had Tony … that’s Goldie’s man, the one she hired to take care of things when customers get too rowdy … anyway, she had Tony haul him to the depot and dump him in the middle of the platform.” She giggled. “I surely would have loved to have seen his face when he woke up.” Mocking a stern expression, she lowered her voice to as close to a masculine rumble as she could. “I’m the head bull on the Southern Pacific, and if you don’t think my word carries plenty of weight around here, you don’t know who you’re dealing with, missy.” She laughed and looked at me, and then her eyes turned misty. “It was me he roughed up, J. T.” She worked a shoulder experimentally. “Wrenched it something frightful, he did.”

  I leaned forward to run my fingers gently through her hair. “What’s his name?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. “I won’t tell you. If I did and you saw him, you’d do something silly and get yourself thrown back into that hellhole.” She smiled. “It’s OK, though. Tony managed to drop him a few times while carrying him to the depot in a wheelbarrow. Goldie says she reckoned he’s learned his lesson. He sure ain’t been back here since that night. Goldie says, if he ever comes, she’ll kick his hind end over the line into Mexico and let the bandits have his hide. Goldie takes good care of us.”

  “She’s a good woman,” I agreed. “How long have you worked for her?”

  “She left Tombstone the same year you got sent to the Hill. I came here a few months after she got set up.” She took a deep breath, then plucked the Colt from my hand. “This here thing over the barrel moves backward, see?” She quickly went through the instructions for cocking and firing the semiauto that someone had obviously recently given her. Then she handed me the pistol and a single, seven-round magazine. “I’m giving you this, J. T., only I don’t have any extra bullets. Just what’s already there. I want you to have it on account of you was always real nice to me when you came through Nogales. You was real nice to all us girls.”

  Right about now, you’re probably thinking I’m some kind of monster for frequenting whores with enough regularity to be recognized and liked by them, but you’ve got to understand that things were different in those days. It was a simpler time, before we all got caught up in prim and proper. I’m not saying I’d do it now, but I’m sure not ashamed of having done it then.

  I’ll say this, too. I never roughed up any of the girls I visited along that border region. I treated them with respect and as much understanding as a rough-necked ol’ boy like me could muster. Selma wouldn’t have given me such a means of escape if I hadn’t. Unfortunately I had to refuse her gift. Setting the pistol on the bedside table, I said, “I thank you, but I can’t take it.”

  She looked surprised. “Why not?”

  “Because the first thing Buchman’s going to do when he comes through that door is search me for contraband.”

  Selma thought about that for a moment, then got a big grin on her face. “Then let’s give him something to find.” She shoved to her feet and walked around the bed to a dressing table. She came back toting one of those old, single-shot Philadelphia derringers, the kind you loaded through the muzzle. I laughed when I saw it.

  “Where’d you get that thing?”

  “I’ve had it since I was a little girl. Don’t make fun of it, J. T., it works just fine.”

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I’m going to tuck it under your shirt so Delmar can find it.” She hurried on when I started to shake my head. “He’ll check your boots and pockets and around your belly first, but he won’t think to check halfway up your leg. When he finds this,” she tapped the Derringer with a slim finger, “he’ll figure he’s got you cold, and won’t look no more.”

  Glancing at the garter, made for a slimmer leg than mine and already digging into the flesh just above my knee, I had to chuckle. “So that’s what this is about?”

  “Uh-huh, Mister Smarty. Ain’t you glad you come to see me, instead of one of them other girls?”

  I told her I was, and didn’t mention that this was Buchman’s doing. I did wonder, and still do to this day, if Del had known about Selma and me back in Nogales. Although I never asked him, I always kind of figured he did, that it might’ve been something that came up when he was nosing around about my habits, before slipping below the border to arrest me in Moralos.

  I slapped the magazine back into the grip-well and chambered a round. The action worked smooth as silk, and I was still smiling when I slid the pistol under Selma’s garter. I shifted it around to the inside of my lower thigh, and made double-damned sure the hammer was lowered to the safety notch. Then I pulled my pants up, and dang if they didn’t cover the pistol’s budge pretty well. Those old Levis had baggier legs in those days. I slid my suspenders over my shoulders, tucked the Derringer behind the waistband at my back, then stooped to pull on my boots. I was just stomping my left heel into place when the door burst open.

  “Stand back!” Del barked, startling a quick squeal out of Selma. He had his revolver drawn and his eyes were shifting rapidly as he stalked into the room.

  “My, ain’t you all big and bullish,” Selma said in that breathy little voice she sometimes used when she wanted to charm a man.

  “Save it for the rubes, girlie,” Del growled, his eyes boring into mine.

  “Howdy, Del. Did you have a good time, too?”

  “Don’t get cocky, Latham. I ain’t in a mood for it. Stand up.”

  I did as told, automatically raising my hands and turning my back to him to be searched. He chuckled as he returned the revolver to his shoulder rig. “They taught you pretty good up there on the Hill, didn’t they?”

  “They were insistent,” I replied mildly. I was trying to keep my tone light, but I knew it would be only seconds before he discovered Selma’s Derringer hidden under my shirt, and I wasn’t sure how he’d react. I was hoping he’d overlook a little pea-shooter like the muzzleloader—judging from its bore, I’d say it couldn’t have been larger than .32 cal
iber—but if he found that Colt, I’d be lucky if he didn’t send me straight back up the Hill into Rynning’s custody. I’ll tell you what, at that moment I was strongly questioning my decision to try to smuggle a gun past an old lawdog like Del Buchman.

  Well, I was lucky, and I won’t deny it. As Selma had predicted, Buchman started at the top and worked his way down. He found the derringer almost immediately, and his face turned to thunder as he yanked out my shirttails and grabbed the gun. Then he spun me, chest first, into the wall, and I’ll swear the whole building seemed to shudder under my impact. I started to reel backward, but he slammed a fist into my spine, right between my shoulder blades, and pinned me there. I felt the derringer’s muzzle digging into the flesh behind my right ear and closed my eyes. I squeezed them even tighter when I heard the hammer snick back to full cock.

  “Jesus, Del, don’t shoot!” I shouted, my words nearly lost under Selma’s scream.

  For a long moment the only sound I heard was the roaring of my own pulse. Then Del pulled the muzzle away and laughed. “You stupid con,” he said. “There’s no cap on this nipple. What were you gonna do, try to club me with it?” He pulled me around and shoved me back into the wall. “Damn, criminals are dumb.” He laughed again, then tossed the derringer across the room and turned to Selma. “I ought to kick both your asses up over your ears.”

  Selma was shaking her head rapidly, as if she hadn’t a clue as to where I’d found the gun. I didn’t fault her for looking after her own hide. Hell, Del knew she was at least as guilty as I was, but that odd bit of luck with the missing cap had saved us both.

  You might be wondering about that cap. I know I was. I’ll swear it was on the gun when Selma handed it to me. I guess it came off either when Del yanked my shirt out of my pants, or while I was fumbling around trying to shove it under my waistband with cuffed wrists.