Cherokee

by Giles Tippette

  With the train arranged me and Hays rode back down the street to what appeared to be the best hotel in town. They advertised the best meals in town and baths on request. It was starting to chill up again, what with night coming on, and I figured a good hot bath and a shave would be just the ticket. We put our horses and the packhorse in the stable, leaving the pack in one of the stalls, and then swung our saddlebags over our shoulders and went on into the hotel and got a big room with two beds. Bastrop was a pretty big town, running, I figured, close to four thousand inhabitants. It appeared to be a pretty lively place judging from the number of saloons and dance halls. I’d seen Hays taking special note of the dance halls as we rode through the town. Didn’t take no Gypsy fortune-teller to figure out what was on his mind.

  They had baths in the room, though you had to get boys to bring up hot water from the kitchen if you wanted a hot bath. I arranged with the desk clerk for two baths and told him to add two dollars to my bill for the boys carrying the water. I also ordered up two quarts of the best whiskey they had and inquired about supper.

  The clerk said, “Open until nine, sir. Best steak around. Special tonight is fried chicken with cream gravy and hot bread and honey. And it ain’t boardin’-house style. You can sit right down at yore own table and be served by yoreself. I can tell you’re a genn’lman is the only reason I mention it.”

  We had a room on the second floor and, climbing up the stairs, Hays said, “See? What’d I tell you?”

  “What are you talking about, Hays?”

  “Why the way that room clerk treated you, calling you a genn’lman and tellin’ you how they served supper.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything? What makes you think I ain’t a gentleman? At least by some standards.”

  “Ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. It’s the gold. This much gold kind of puts out a power, kind of power you can practically feel. It draws like a poultice.”

  “Why don’t you keep talking about it? Maybe everybody in the hotel didn’t hear you first time. The reason he called me a gentleman was partly because of the size of room I ordered and partly because I told him to add something extra on my bill for the boys lugging the water. Most folks thinks when they order a bath that the labor of the boys is included in that. They don’t know that the boys are working for what the customer is willing to pay them.”

  “Oh,” Hays said.

  We went in the room and dumped our saddlebags down. I got the last bottle of whiskey out of mine and got a glass and poured myself out a drink. There was a pitcher of water setting on the washstand and I added a little water in the whiskey. I had plans for us both to take it a little easy on the liquor while we were in charge of so much gold. While Hays was getting himself a drink I said, “Now, I know what you got on your mind and here’s the way we’ll work it. It’s plain that one of us has got to stay in the room at all times?”

  “Why?”

  I gave him a look.

  He said, “Oh, yeah! I forgot.”

  I just shook my head. I did that a lot around Hays. “So what we’ll do—I’ll take a bath and get cleaned up and then go downstairs and eat supper while you are getting cleaned up. Then, when I come back you can go out and get your ashes hauled or whatever you got in mind.”

  His face lit up. “I taken note was some pretty likely-looking places a man could find what he was looking for.”

  “Well, that’s all right. But you better not do one thing. You better not get drunk and go to letting your mouth run.”

  He looked hurt. “Awww, Boss.”

  “Don’t ’awww, Boss’ me. I know you, Ray. Don’t get confused in your mind that this is a holiday. We got a job of work to do and we ain’t going to do no celebrating until we get it done. You understand that?”

  He was still acting hurt. “Well, of course. I ain’t no idjit.”

  “Just watch the drinking. You can fuck all you want, but you do your drinking up here with me behind a locked door. Now, you got enough money?”

  He shrugged. “I think I got about ten dollars.”

  I gave him a twenty. I said, “That ought to be plenty. You spend more than that you are having too good of a time.”

  There was a knock at the door. It was the boys with the buckets of steaming water. There was a built-in galvanized tub in a little alcove in the room. It had running cold water, probably from a cistern on top of the hotel. I went over and turned on the tap and started taking my clothes off as the boys came in.

  I had the fried chicken and cream gravy with the hot bread and honey for supper. It was all right, but it wasn’t much threat to put Nora out of business. Still, if a man is hungry enough his own cooking will taste pretty good. I didn’t hurry, but I didn’t tarry either, knowing that Hays was upstairs chomping at the bit ready to get out on the town. I climbed back up the stairs and knocked on the door and he let me in. He was all slicked up with his hair combed and the dust knocked off his boots. Fortunately we’d thought to bring a clean change of clothes with us to the room, so we were both clean at the same time.

  I said, “Now, Ray, it’s half past seven. You eat a good supper and then go on out. But I want you to bear in mind we are going to be turning out early in the morning. We’ll have to be down at that depot by seven to get the horses loaded and taken care of, and that means we’ll be needing to turn out of bed before six. So you better not be staying out until all hours. I ain’t going to be able to get any sleep until you get in, and I don’t want to be setting up here until all hours.”

  “Hell, I can jest take the key. Let myself in.”

  I shook my head. “You forgot what is under my bed in them saddlebags? You reckon I want that key floating around some whorehouse?”

  “All right, all right,” he said. “I’ll cut ’er short. Won’t play no cards, won’t be sociable with nobody at the bar. Jest get out there an’ git my business done and get on back.”

  “I ain’t sayin’ you can’t have no fun. I’m just telling you to get back at a reasonable hour.”

  “You’re the boss,” he said. He put on his hat.

  I said, “You ain’t going to wear a gun?”

  He looked down at his waist. “I kind of figure it’s safer in a strange town. I ain’t armed, I don’t give nobody no trouble, nobody gives me no trouble. You can always run into a drunk thinks he’s tough. But it’s less likely if you ain’t packin’ a revolver.”

  I shrugged. “I apologize, Hays. I never thought you give that much thought to anything.”

  After he went out I took my boots off, got up on my bed, poured myself out a drink of whiskey, and then watered it down some. I figured it was going to be a late night. Ray’s intentions might be of the best, but you turn him loose in a whorehouse with money in his pocket and he wouldn’t be back until the money ran out. I couldn’t really blame him, though. Now that I was married I didn’t see how them cowhands of ours, or cowhands that worked for anybody, could get by just getting into town once a week or even if they were lucky. Sometimes, during a particular seasons of the year, we worked seven days a week. I’d let a man off to go to church, but he better come back knowing the sermon by heart. Of course it had practically been the same for me. I hadn’t gotten away that much myself unless I was traveling on business, and it had even been harder on me because I never got much out of being with whores. Not that I had anything against them. I just didn’t like the idea of all them tracks that had been laid down before me. Any man that had ever rented a stable horse would know what I meant. Of course I had chances to meet women my hired hands never would, but they were so quick to sigh and giggle and say yes. Getting into some of their britches had required a good deal of time and effort and money. And then there’d been some you were sorry about later. They were the ones who swore you’d mentioned something about marriage or love or maybe both. Sometimes it had gotten mighty complicated.

  Hell, I’d of probably been better off and saved a hell of a lot of trouble and bother and expense if I’d
of done like Ray and his cohorts. But it was Ben, I figured, that was heading for trouble. I knew for a fact he was lifting a lot of skirts and getting in amongst a lot of silk and lace, and one of these days his antics were going to backfire on him.

  It was hard just laying there waiting. I was wishing I had something to read, but I’d searched the room over and there wasn’t so much as a religious tract. I figured there ought to be a newspaper of some kind in the lobby, but I hated to leave the room that long. I got up and went to the window. We were on the second floor at the front of the hotel. I could see right down on the main street, and even get a pretty good look at some of the intersecting streets. Nearly all the businesses appeared to be on the main street, but there were some nice-looking residences on the side streets. It was a quarter until nine by my watch and the town appeared to be going pretty good. Right across the street was a saloon. I could see a little movement over its batwing doors, and hear some laughter and now and again the sound of a piano playing some tune. It would have been nice to have been over in that bar, having a drink and watching the people. I was a little sorry now that I’d given Ray so much rope. I should have told him, “Just go get on the first girl you can find, and as soon as you buck off get right back on over here.” Then maybe I could have gone out and sampled a little of the sociability of the town myself.

  I went back and laid down on the bed, propping myself up on the two pillows that had been provided. My gun belt was laying right beside me, and I took out my revolver and worked the action and spun the cylinder, making sure it was in good working order. I carried a .42/.40 Colt. That was a. 40-caliber bore on a .42-caliber frame. The .40-caliber slug was big enough to stop anything you hit in the right place, and the heavier frame gave the gun a better balance with less barrel deviation. I had the one in my hand that had a six-inch barrel on it, and the one in my saddlebags had a nine-inch barrel. I never carried the nine-inch barrel when I thought there was the slightest need for some quick work, because that extra three inches could cost you a precious fraction of a second clearing the leather. That could get you killed. But that extra three inches was also mighty handy for accuracy in a long-range gunfight. I shoved the revolver back in its holster and put my hands behind my back and yawned. That damn Hays probably wouldn’t get back before eleven o’clock, and if he did, I was going to make his life miserable.

  I was still laying there thinking dire thoughts when, about fifteen minutes later, I heard a light tap on the door. Obviously we’d kept the door locked so somebody couldn’t just come busting in and catch one or both of us unawares. And naturally, I hadn’t let Ray have a key. I got off the bed saying, “Hold on,” and walked across to the door. I twisted the key to unlock it, then turned the knob and pulled it backwards toward me. There was Hays, and I was fixing to say something about him getting back before dawn when he suddenly came stumbling into the room and I saw there was a man right behind him holding a steady-handed revolver. The man was a tough-looking middle-aged hombre—about forty, I reckoned. For some reason he reminded me of Rex Jordan. In the instant I had to think I calculated it was because they were both kind of short and stout. The man wasn’t dressed like a cowhand, but then neither did he look like a businessman either. He had on a gray wool coat and khaki pants. He was wearing a narrow-brimmed Stetson. He was just a step into the room. Hays had come to a stop to my right and just behind the door. I glanced over at him, my eyes telling him what I was going to do to him if we got out of this. He looked miserable. But he said, “Boss, it ain’t—”

  But the stocky man cut him off. Motioning with the fingers of his left hand he said to me, “All right, Mister Big-Wad-of-Money, let’s have it! Get it out! Now!”

  I glanced at Ray. He was nodding vigorously. He said, “Boss, the man wants your cash. For gawd’s sake, let him have it.”

  The man said, “Hurry up, goddammit! I’ll put one through you.”

  Then it hit me. What Ray had meant wasn’t what I’d thought. The man wanted the cash in my pocket. I slowly put my hand in my right-hand pocket and pulled out the roll. The man said, “Hurry up. Give it here!”

  He switched his revolver to his left hand from his right and stuck out his right to take the roll I was holding out. He was just starting to stuff it in his pocket and to back out of the room when Ray suddenly kicked the door hard with his boot. The door hit the man’s gun hand and he yelled and the gun flew out of his grasp. Before I could react Ray had reached around the end of the door and grabbed the man by the hand in both of his. He jerked the man into the room and flung him. The man went staggering across the room, off balance. I was standing there, still about a fraction of a second behind, when Ray charged across the room and hit the man and knocked him to the floor. Money went flying everywhere, but Hays wasn’t paying any attention. He’d got the man turned over on his back and got astraddle of him and was whaling away with both fists. I just stood there watching. I had never seen Ray Hays so furious. He was hitting the man with long, hard punches, timing his words with the blows. He said, “TRY ROB MY BOSS YOU BASTARD! GIT MY ASS IN TROUBLE SONOFABITCH!”

  I said, “Ray. Ray! Stop!”

  “BEAT THIS FUCKER TO DEATH! SONOFABITCH ROB ME AND—”

  I went over and got him under the arms and pulled him back until he was clear of the man laying on the floor. Ray hunkered down there panting. I looked at the would-be robber. He was knocked colder than a tombstone and his face was all-over blood. Ray had nearly beat him to a pulp. Now Ray just squatted there panting. I went around the room picking up money. I had misjudged Ray and I was going to owe him an apology. It was clear what had happened. The man that had tried to rob me had seen me at the desk with my wad of money out arranging for our bill and our baths and the extra couple of dollars for the bath boys. Or maybe he’d seen me paying for my supper in the dining room. He hadn’t known anything about the gold; all he’d known was that I was carrying enough cash to make him a pretty good payday. No doubt he’d seen Ray go out, and had come up and tried the door so quiet that I hadn’t heard. When he’d found it was locked he’d waited on Ray, and then followed him upstairs and stuck a gun in his back as soon as he’d knocked. There was no way Ray could have done any more than he did. And I had thought Ray had been running his mouth about the gold and had brought me some company I didn’t want. I was going to have to apologize to Ray and I didn’t have the slightest idea how.

  Just then I looked up. Ray was opening one of the windows facing onto the street. There was no screen. Before I could think what he was doing he’d gotten the robber to his feet and half carried, half dragged him over to the window. I saw him stick the man’s head out into the cold air and I figured he was trying to bring him around. Only when I saw him lift the man’s legs and start him out the window did I realize what he was doing.

  “Ray!” I said. “Wait!”

  I got to the window just in time to see the man fall the few feet to the slanting, porch roof, roll down that, and then fall to the street. Because of the overhang of the verandah roof I couldn’t see how he’d landed in the street. I stood there staring as Ray shut the window and then, still panting, went over, sat down on my bed, and took a big gulp of the whiskey I’d just fixed for myself. He swallowed it down, still panting, and said slowly, “Too much wa—water.”

  I went over, picked up the bottle of whiskey, and poured him out a straight shot. He had it down before I could upright another glass and pour myself one. I gave myself a drink and then poured another one for him. Then I crossed the room and sat on the side of his bed. He was still sitting there trying to get his breath, his elbows propped on his knees, his hands and his head hanging down. I could see his knuckles were skinned and bruised. I lit a cigarillo and waited for him to come back to himself.

  When he got ready he was good and ready. He jumped that last drink down his throat and then started at a run. “Justa, I know how it musta looked to you, but I swear that man wasn’t after what’s under the bed. I swear I never said a word to
nary a soul about what we’re packin’. Fact of the business is I never said nothin’ to nobody ’cept the woman, an’ that was jest to ast her how much. See, I wuz really tryin’ to git back quick’s I could, ’cept I had to have seconds with ’nother one I seen I hadn’t seen when I walked in the place, and I—”

  I kept trying to interrupt him, trying to let him know that I understood what had happened. But he had to keep on going with the head of steam he had up. He went ahead and told me what I’d already figured out, that the robber had followed him up from the lobby and put the gun in his back just before he got to the door, and he’d of warned me if he could’ve thought of any way to do it without gettin’ himself shot, but that he already knowed the man was after the cash on account of he’d said somethin’ ’bout did I always carry as big a wad as—

  I yelled, “RAY!”

  He stopped and looked up at me, startled. “Huh?”

  “I already had it figured out.”

  But he said, “I kept tryin’ to give you looks, let you know he was after your roll so’s you wouldn’t say anything about what was under the bed. I mean, I was tryin’—”

  I said, “Hays, you beat all. Do you reckon I’d of taken him by the hand and led him over to the bed and got down and pulled out the saddlebags for him so he wouldn’t have to stoop over?”