CK put her hand on his. ‘Don’t go tomorrow. Wait a week or two until all your hurt settles.’
‘I go tomorrow,’ Dan said. ‘Ain’t no subject for talk.’
‘Dan, she didn’t mean those words you told me. She’s upset. Her world and her girlish plans have been destroyed. In time, she’ll get over it. She’ll meet someone and want to introduce him to you, proud to be with the man of her choice.’
‘She wants them jaspers as bad as me.’
‘She’ll get over that.’
He tightened his lips and stared at her, his insides empty with loss. CK appeared happier than she had in weeks – months – years. He wanted her happy. Him riding the trail with a young girl couldn’t set good with her. But with Mandy gone now, CK seemed too happy to see it.
‘They wiped out her family,’ he said. ‘She ain’t gonna get over that.’
CK leaned toward him. ‘Do you still think about your brother? Do you remember it as clear as it happened?’
‘I do. What she remembers is worse. She was younger. It happened sooner. She saw her family slaughtered and everything burned up. She ain’t gonna forget, no more than me.’
‘Do you think she should be on the trail with you?’
Dan leaned back and sipped his whiskey. He shook his head. ‘No. It wasn’t good for her. She’ll be better off, soon as she settles down.’
‘And she’ll tell you how sorry she is for those words.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said. He gripped the glass tight, already sorry for what he had done.
‘Of course she will.’
Dan stared at CK’s lovely, happy face. ‘I got a feeling I ain’t never gonna see Mandy Lee again,’ he said.
PART TWO
SHOOTERS
Chapter Twelve
Tucson, Arizona Territory, August, 1876, Dan Quint rode shotgun for the Butterfield Stage Line on the four-up run from Yuma to Tucson. He spent his days sitting a hard plank seat, his ’73 Winchester rifle in the crook of his arm. With the word Monte Steep might be somewhere in the Yuma area, Dan thought he might hear something. He sat while his muscles ached with the lunge and jerk of the coach, rolling amongst sharp, towering rock pinnacles, buttes and mesas; bouncing over dry rolling roads, along wind and water eroded canyons of sandstone. Summer afternoon winds kicked hot desert sand at him, stinging his face with grit. In spring, what little rain came, came quick and heavy and flooded the road or swelled rivers and creeks over their banks. In winter, freezing wind blew through the same path as the hot summer blasts, causing him to hunch into his buffalo coat for a hint of warmth. Nights were spent on wayside station rope bunks, or camping the trail.
While he worked, Dan watched Apaches and waited for an answer to his message.
The Arizona Citizen newspaper out of Tucson carried his message once a week. Dan wanted to know the whereabouts of Jeremiah Dickers, last known residence, Yuma, Arizona Territory. Dan didn’t know if Jeremiah Dickers was in Yuma or not. A reader might recognize the name. The ad showed a hotel contact in Yuma, one in Tombstone, and the newspaper office in Tucson. He had wanted to use his own name but that might have attracted a back shooter from Monte Steep’s gang, or another Gray Putnam after bounty – if Steep was still alive – so he just used Box number D-Q.
The way Dan reckoned, Steep had the tin box with the copper top. He intended to act on it, or already had. Maybe five years had been too long for Jeremiah Dickers to be still involved, but with or without the partner, Steep would have made a move.
There had to be a reason Dan hadn’t heard anything about Steep in three years.
Maybe the ad with the name, Jeremiah Dickers, might flush Big Nose Rox Levant out of hiding. Dan would like Levant to come seeking him. He looked forward to that.
The Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache rode their pinto and appaloosa horses restless and mean-spirited. Occasionally, a brave shot the lone rolling stagecoach out of cussed meanness. They weren’t killing drivers yet, nor killing, raping or scalping passengers, just putting bullet holes in the stage-top luggage. Dan was always ready when he caught sight of them, and they knew it.
Other southwest Indians – Hopi and Navajo, acted more peaceable, tending to their small farms. But Dan saw that the cavalry wouldn’t leave them alone either. Gold was still scratched for in the Chocolate Mountains north of Yuma, and like the Black Hills up in Dakota Territory, the discovery always seemed to be on Indian land, so Hopi and Navajo also had to be moved to reservations.
Stagecoach passengers were tinhorns, prospectors, ranch owners, gamblers, mountain men, gunfighters – all manner of travelers – and the occasional woman, a school teacher or mail-order-bride. A whore who had saved her money and bought decent clothes, now moving to another town to pass herself off as a grieving widow looking to find a new life, preferably with an established, well-off gentleman. And why not? Everybody had to find a way that worked. Dan still hadn’t found his. He still had a quest.
The driver of the four-up was an old, former army scout and stage handler named, Coot Gibbons. He moved through life unwashed, white-whiskered, and cantankerous as his fifty-some years allowed. He carried his whiskey bottle always, and tolerated Dan Quint, barely.
On a warm evening toward the end of August, at an overnight stop out of Pima Village, still two days from Yuma, the four passengers had been fed. The ranch owner, the older well-dressed man who sold buffalo skulls as fertilizer, the travelling salesman, and Coot had bunked down for the night. Only the Indian-fighter remained, sitting on the bunkhouse porch smoking a corn-cob pipe, wearing buffalo hide and buckskin with beads. His white hair hung straight as a flag, warrior-tied and beaded and his white beard all but hid his face.
Dan took his coffee and sat beside the man. He set the cup down and rolled a smoke. ‘When you figure the Indians here gonna break out?’ he asked. He leaned forward offering his hand. ‘Dan Quint.’
The man had a strong grip and piercing blue eyes. ‘It ain’t like they got no reason – cheated, stolen from, lied to by white-eyes with no sense of honor. I’m called Rapids, on account of my water-rapid white hair and beard. It’s the name given me by my Cheyenne squaw. Only she weren’t no squaw to me. To me she was female perfection, fluid in motion, willowy, gentle, bright and loving and she treated me as if I was the center of her universe. Me, nothin’ but a tracker, too much older than her, no meat on my bones, teeth missing, shot four times, three with arrows – still got a stone arrowhead buried in my side too ornery to pry out.’ He shook his white, shaggy head. ‘Why would a woman of high quality set so much on a cantankerous, drifting mountain bear who worshipped nothing but her? I tell you no man could have asked for better, or more.’ He puffed and squinted. ‘Nations up north done broke out, getting slaughtered by the hundreds. Apache are next.’ He dragged deep on the pipe and blew smoke. ‘Governments ain’t nothin’ but jaspers – some with character, some without. To the nations, them authority fellas forgot two important life lessons. Ride for the brand. Keep your promises.’ He cocked his head to one side. ‘Lessee, Dan Quint – seems I recall that name.’ He nodded. ‘Dan Quint, shotgun rider. Interesting. The name I heard was, Deadly Dan Quint, gunfighter.’
‘I’ve been called that. You talk like your wife parted this earth.’
The blue eyes, set back in sun bronzed wrinkles looked out over the dark desert. ‘She has.’
‘Sorry to hear it.’
Rapids shook his head. ‘Typhoid got her, carried by the white dogs.’ His faded eyes continued to look out across the desert. ‘Some days, I’m ashamed my skin is white – damned deep ashamed. You get to loving a woman and she’s part of you, like your arm – or your breath. You get so used to her beside you, the absence hits you icy cold – makes you shiver sometimes for no reason.’
They sat in silence. Rapids tapped his corn cob empty. Horses snorted from the corral. Heat pressed only slightly less in the darkness than the glare of day. A billion stars were sprinkled through the black night. Dan felt t
he warmth against his skin. His eyelids were heavy but he felt no call for sleep.
He said, ‘Why you taking the stage?’
‘Looking,’ Rapids said. ‘Hunting for a place.’ He rubbed a gnarled hand across his lips. ‘Rode stages from the Dakotas to Tennessee, out here across New Mexico and Arizona Territories. Might take a look at Californy, move on up to Washington Territory, cross higher, maybe Alaska.’ He cleared his throat and coughed.
Dan pushed up to stand on the porch step. ‘I can’t sleep good inside with all them stars out. I got a pint in my bundle, ain’t going to no use. Why don’t I bring it on out so we can break the seal?’
‘Why don’t you just do that, Dan Quint?’ the Indian-fighter Rapids said. ‘I’ll tell you about a fella in Gila City heard about me coming on this here stagecoach, fella says he was told about your newspaper ad there in Tucson, the answer to Box D-Q – says he got something you might wanna hear.’
Chapter Thirteen
Two weeks later, Dan rode Mesa into the small mining town of Aztec, population 116, about twenty miles southeast of Yuma. In an area of subsistent copper and silver claims, feeder tent towns like Aztec kept miners supplied with needs from coffee beans to whiskey to dollar whores. Dan’s Winchester and Colt Peacemaker were cleaned, oiled and fully loaded, as if he expected trouble.
The man Dan looked for was One-Ear Shocky Harris. They were to meet in the twenty by twenty tent with a charcoal-printed plank sign, rope-tied to the front, Saloon. Inside, furniture was crudely constructed from whiskey barrels with more planks stretched across for seats, taller split tree trunks for a bar. About twenty men drank and grumbled inside, dressed miner and dirty.
Dan tied Mesa to the post outside and as soon as he stepped in he heard a shout.
‘Quint! Hey Dan Quint! Over here! I’m Shocky Harris.’
One-Ear Shocky Harris wore a bowler and a buffalo coat with rips and had not known a shave or hair trim or bath in a month or more. The missing right ear left a question-mark scar. He shivered and his hands shook.
‘Let’s get you a whiskey,’ Dan said.
‘Yeah, let’s. I knew it was you on account of you described as a cowboy. You sure-enough punch cattle?’
‘I have,’ Dan said.
‘They said a five-dollar gold piece. The man at the newspaper office said you was paying a five-dollar gold piece.’
‘Depends on the information.’
‘You brung it? You brung the gold piece?’
Dan nodded to the bartender and held up two fingers. He turned to Shocky. ‘And my Colt .45. In case.’
‘Ain’t gonna be no case. He’s here. The man is here in Aztec.’
The bartender’s thick, black mustache covered his upper lip. His straight hair was greased and parted down the center of his scalp. Wearing a dirty pink, button shirt with black arm garters, he brought two whiskeys and plopped them on the bar. Dan dropped fifty cents on the hacked-log surface. When One-Ear Shocky Harris gulped the whiskey in two swallows, Dan held up two fingers again. The whiskey came from corn and was cut with something, maybe water, maybe turpentine.
‘Leave the bottle,’ Dan said.
Shocky nodded with vigor. ‘A wise choice.’ He held his glass up in a mock toast.
Dan drank his down. ‘Is the man here? Jeremiah Dickers?’
‘Yeah, Jerry Dickers, got a tent the edge of town. He thinks he’s a silver miner but he ain’t pulled out enough to feed hisself.’ He looked around. ‘Surprised he ain’t in here. Jerry usually hangs out here at the saloon.’
Dan said, ‘Is this the silver claim he was in with Will Lee?’
‘Don’t know no Will Lee. Jerry, he’s kinda a drunk. Just gits enough outta that mine to swallow. Don’t do much but drink.’
Dan stared at Shocky’s dark eyes. ‘What do you do?’
‘I got a little copper claim, ain’t found much yet.’ He squinted at Dan. ‘I can see you’re wonderin’ about the gone ear, how come it to happen.’
‘Matter of fact, I wasn’t.’
‘Apaches jumped me northeast of here along the Pecos, tried to scalp me but I jumped around too much, all they got was the ear. I got away but I couldn’t find my ear. I went back and looked and looked but it was gone. I guess the Apache think an ear is good medicine. I reckon they took it. Maybe they prayin’ to it or somethin’.’
‘So, what’s next?’
‘Figure I might head up to the Chocolates, try my hand at gold.’
‘You’ll find a crowd.’
With his second glass empty, Shocky poured shakily from the bottle. ‘What do you do, Dan Quint? We all gotta do something, right?’
‘I ride stagecoach shotgun.’
Shocky leaned back. ‘Get outta here. Sure ’nuff, one of them fancy, velvet and polished wood, four-horse rigs? Ain’t you kinda old for that? I hear they got boys doing that job.’
Dan watched Shocky slug down the whiskey. ‘Let’s go find Jerry.’
Shocky grabbed the bottle. As they pushed through drunken miners and overweight, underdressed whores toward the entrance, Shocky said, ‘How come you dress cowhand when you ride stage?’
‘Comfortable. Suits me. Which end of town is Jerry?’
‘It ain’t much of a town. We can walk there in five minutes. Why don’t you give me the gold piece soon as we meet him, OK?’
‘When I’m ready, Shocky. You going to get tough with me?’
‘Hell no, I’m a lover. I ain’t even got a gun. I just wanna make sure you got the gold piece for when we meet up with Jerry.’
‘I bought the whiskey, didn’t I?’
‘Come to think on it, you sure ’nuff did.’
Outside the saloon, Dan untied Mesa’s reins and led the chestnut as he and One-Ear Shocky Harris walked the dusty dirt road past a series of various sized tents to a small rise. Shocky took a pull from the bottle and shoved it in his buffalo coat pocket with the neck sticking out like a tree branch. The sun hid behind marshmallow clouds as the air turned cool. They climbed the rise to a canvas box tent with a peak roof about ten feet by ten feet.
Outside the flap, Dan said, ‘Jeremiah Dickers?’
‘Hey, Jerry,’ Shocky said. ‘Fella here to see you.’
A grumble came from inside the tent. ‘Go away,’ the voice, said.
Dan opened the flap and stepped in. He saw boxes of many sizes. Empty whiskey bottles littered the dirt and sand floor. One lantern sat on a box, the lens so black it looked impossible that any light would show. The cot was against a wall. The heavy man on the cot wearing a thick brown cloth coat over red long-john underwear covered himself in a black wool blanket. White hair spilled over a gray-stained, striped pillow. The snowy hair grew down his cheeks and below his chin to his chest. He looked like a destitute Santa Claus. He smelled like an outhouse.
Dan said, ‘Are you Jeremiah Dickers?’
One-Ear Shocky said, ‘The fella is here to see you, Jerry.’
‘Why does he call me Jeremiah? Nobody has called me that in years. I ain’t talking to him.’
Dan knelt beside the cot. ‘What about your partner?’
‘I got no partner.’ He remained with his face turned away.
‘Jeremiah,’ Dan said. ‘I wanna talk to you about your silver claim partner, Will Lee, and his eight thousand dollars.. You remember, Will Lee?’
Jeremiah Dickers began to turn around on the cot. ‘What are you saying?’
Dan said, ‘Will was on his way west in a Conestoga, coming with his copy of the partnership papers and eight thousand dollars. He brought his wife, Elizabeth, boy Willy, and his daughter, Mandy. They were gunned down on the trail.’
Jeremiah showed Dan his bushy face, his bloodshot, spiritless eyes. ‘Gunned down?’
‘All killed ’cept the daughter, Mandy.’
‘Where is little Mandy?’
‘She ain’t little no more. What happened to the claim?’
‘A low-life villain swindled me out of it.’
‘By th
e name of Monte Steep, right?’
‘No, his name is Zack Deller.’
Chapter Fourteen
When Dan handed the five-dollar gold piece to One-Ear Shocky Harris, Shocky said he planned three stops. First, he’d buy a bottle of whiskey, then get a decent meal, then visit the whorehouse for a poke. No mention of bath or shave or haircut.
Dan found a ten-dollar mule for Jeremiah, got the man fed, cleaned and shaved, and decently dressed in denim shirt and jeans, and a thick, tan cord coat. Together they rode to Yuma where they got two hotel rooms. Dan ordered more coffee than whiskey and started Jeremiah eating decent meals during the days that followed.
Still, the story of what had happened came in spurts as sporadic as the mind process of Jeremiah Dickers.
Four days before Christmas, in the morning, Dan and Jeremiah sat in the hotel cafe. Wreaths tied with red strips hung on the walls. A bushy fir decorated in ribbons and candles stood close to the corner, reaching almost to the ceiling. Fir needle smells did not overpower what came from the kitchen. The clang of silverware on china plates filled the room over a background of low talk.
‘I can’t afford endless hotel stays,’ Dan said. ‘I think you’re well enough to stay on the trail.’
Jeremiah Dickers shoveled in his morning ham and eggs. ‘Whatever you say, Dan. I don’t know what else to tell you.’
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