Blood at Bear Lake (19 page)

Joe scowled. Some of those creeks provided a fair catch of beaver. Now they were being ruined. And yes, he knew good and well—too damned well—that beaver wasn't worth much these days. Still and all, he hated to see good country ruined with the presence of pork eaters who did not know how to make a trap set and had never seen a hostile Indian. Assholes! Joe had had a bellyful of them.

On the other hand, he thought, his expression lightening, wherever there were gold miners there was whiskey. And he had not gotten all the whiskey he wanted back at Fort Laramie.

Denver City, as they were calling it now, smelled of smoke from all the supper fires that were burning in all those buildings. Joe shook his head. There must have been five thousand people here now. Maybe more.

It took him a moment to realize what was wrong about the scents in the air. Coal. It was coal smoke he was smelling, not wood. Somebody must have started digging coal around here; they surely could not haul it all the way out from back East. The country was coming to ruination for certain sure if women were here cooking with coal.

That stink was not enough to keep him out of the first saloon he came to.

He had to ride two more blocks to find a livery stable that was clean and had a hostler who looked trustworthy.

“Evenin', friend,” Joe said as he dismounted and led his animals into the barn alleyway.

“Evenin' your own self,” the young man said, rising off the rat-proof grain bunk where he had been perched. “What can I do for you?”

“I got a powerful thirst on me, son, and I want t' make sure my critters are safe an' tended to while I'm about the business o' satisfying that thirst.”

“I can assure you they would be safe here. Your trappings, too, if you like. Put the animals in the second stall on that side there. You can pile your gear inside the tack room there. I sleep in there and won't nobody come in and bother your things during the night.”

Joe nodded and reached into his possibles pouch. “You want I should pay you now?” He grinned and added, “Just in case there's none o' this left by the time I get back?”

The young hostler laughed. “I know what you mean. Sure. I charge fifty cents per night per animal.” He looked at the huge Shire and said, “Maybe I should raise my rate for that one, though.”

“What you think is fair,” Joe said.

“No, no, I won't be asking extra for him. Why, I count it a privilege to have a fine animal like that staying in my place. He's a Shire, isn't he?”

“So said the man I bought him off of.”

“Did he come all the way from England, then?”

Joe could only shrug. “The man didn't say.”

“My, my, he is a beauty. Look at those feet. He must take five pounds of iron in every shoe. How are his shoes, by the way?”

“Fair. Big as he is, he wears on them fast.”

“Would you like me to shoe him while you're here? I'd love a chance to work on something like him.”

“How much?” It crossed Joe's mind that this young man might be making a show of fairness with one hand so he could inflate his prices with the other.

“Twenty-five cents a foot,” the young fellow said. That price was more than fair, it was generous. Twice that would have been fair, and Joe was more or less expecting a dollar a hoof or something equally outlandish.

Joe pulled out some cash. “I'll pay you to shoe both animals, then, and board them two nights.”

The hostler looked down at the currency in Joe's hand and quickly shook his head. “Sorry.”

“What's the matter?” Joe asked.

“I'm sorry, friend, but I don't take paper money. Hard money only.”

“What the hell is that about?”

“Friend, it's obvious that you're new here. You might say that Denver is a border town. There are Unionists to the north of us and Confederates to the south. Right here we have both. Try to spend paper money, and you're apt to offend by giving Union paper to a Reb or offering Con-fed'rate money to a Yank. Feelings on the subject tend to run hot. Most merchants avoid conflict by dealing in hard money only, gold and silver being sound regardless of who minted the coins.”

Joe shook his head. “Where I been, son, I tend t' forget there is such a thing as a war back East. I got a little hard money on me, but not much. Is there anyplace I can exchange paper for coin?”

“The banks will take Union currency and exchange it almost straight up. Some of the hotels will let you buy coin from them, but you have to pay a premium, a little if you're holding Yankee money but a lot if your paper is Confederate.”

Joe dug deeper into his pouch and came up with a ten-dollar eagle. Handing it to the hostler, he said, “This will keep my boys for a few days. Now please point me to one o' them hotels that will change soft money for hard.”

The young fellow walked to the front of his barn, and only then did Joe see that he was crippled, his right leg twisted and shorter than the left. “Down there on the left. The Weymouth, it's called. I've never stayed there myself, but I've heard the rooms are cleaner than most.”

“All right. Thanks a lot.” Joe carried his gear into the tack room and piled everything in a corner where it should be out of the way, then picked up his bedroll—more out of habit than necessity—and headed down the street to the Weymouth Hotel.

He was looking forward to a bath and a real bed. And even more to a few mugs of whiskey.

Another day or maybe two should take him to Manitou, he calculated, and a showdown with Ransom Holt.

50

“I NEED A ROOM for a night or two an' I don't want to share the bed,” he told the graybeard at the Weymouth's desk.

“Huh. I wisht we had enough business to be packing them in two or three to the bed. We used to, you know, back when we first opened. Not no more, though. It's two dollars a night. In advance.” He pushed a canvas-bound ledger at Joe. “Make your mark here.”

Joe chose a pen with a narrow nib and dipped it in the inkwell, then signed his name. He still experienced a flush of pride and pleasure whenever he did that. He could by damn read now and write, too. Not just everybody could do that.

“Room Three. Top of the stairs, Mister, uh”—the old fellow turned the ledger around and peered at the signature— “Mr. Moss.”

“Is there a key?”

“Nope. The locks was cheap pieces of shit to begin with and they're every one busted now. If you have any valuables, you can leave them with me. I got a safe in my room there if you want to use it.”

Joe shook his head. Anything of any value was over at the livery. His bedroll included his camp bed and a change of clean socks and underwear and that was about it. “No need, thanks. How 'bout a bath?”

“Just around the corner there's a barbershop that has a tub.”

Joe nodded and felt his face and the back of his head. He hadn't taken time for a haircut in a spell. It might make a nice change to let someone else cut it. A trim off the beard, too, while he was at it. He smiled and thanked the man, then paid the fellow five dollars in U.S. currency.

“One night?”

“Could be two. You can give me my change when I leave.”

“That's fair,” the clerk said.

Joe tramped up the stairs and looked around Room Three. Not that there was much to see. There was a rope-sprung bed with a thin mattress and two aged blankets. A series of pegs on one wall for hanging clothes. And that was about it.

The floorboards squeaked when he walked across them. Joe liked that. It meant no one could approach in the night without alerting him.

He dropped his bedroll on the foot of the bed and immediately turned back around and left, the Henry still trailing from his hand. He did not intend to leave the repeater unattended. There was no sign of the desk clerk when he went downstairs. Joe went outside and turned in the direction the man had pointed for that barbershop. A bath was going to feel good.

Joe paused, though, outside the open doorway to one of Denver's many saloons. A bath would feel good, but it would feel even better if he had a drink in his belly to warm his innards first.

And the aromas coming out of the place . . . beer and whiskey and cigar smoke . . . were purely tantalizing.

Yeah, the bath could wait just a little.

“Beer for you, mister?” the barman asked.

“Whiskey,” Joe answered, leaning the Henry against the front of the bar. He dug into his pouch for another piece of paper currency, a twenty. He hadn't gotten around yet to exchanging his paper money for coin. Tomorrow maybe.

The barman eyed the bill, then said, “A drink costs more if you don't have hard money.”

“How much?”

“Fifty cents.”

The price was outrageous, but Joe nodded acceptance of the highway robbery.

The barman made change with a mixture of coins and paper, then poured a generous tot of bar whiskey into a mug. The place did not skimp on its measure.

Joe checked to see that there was no Confederate money mixed into his change, then tried the whiskey. It was the real thing, not Injun whiskey, smooth on the tongue and fiery in the gut. He had a second swallow, then set the mug back onto the bar before turning sideways to the bar and propping an elbow next to his drink.

He liked the place. It did not pretend to be anything but a place for a man to have a drink and relax. There were no wheels or faro or dice. No piano or dancing girls. Not even any whores.

There were a good many men in the place, most of them in the rough clothes of working men with not a batwing collar or a boiled shirt among them.

A large man with a black beard and whiskey-flushed cheeks stopped beside Joe. “Is that one of them newfangled Henry rifles?”

Joe nodded. “Aye, so 'tis.”

“Can I pick it up and feel the heft of it?”

“Sorry. No,” Joe said. “I don't let anybody handle my weapons.”

“I been thinking about trying to buy me one of those,” the bear of a man said.

“You won't be sorry if you get one,” Joe said, then pointedly turned to face the counter, giving his shoulder to the fellow. He picked up his mug and had another very small sip of the whiskey. Like all whiskey, it was getting better-tasting the more he had of it.

“I just want to touch it. I ain't gonna run off with it.” The fellow's voice was rising and taking a hard edge.

Joe craned his head around and looked the fellow up and down. The increasingly belligerent fellow did not seem to be armed. Joe looked him over, then turned back to the bar.

There was a piece of polished steel on the back wall instead of a mirror. It was sufficiently reflective that Joe could keep an eye on this gent while ignoring him.

It was a shame, but the thought of a second whiskey was becoming less and less attractive.

Joe raised his mug again. A couple more swallows would finish this drink; then he could go get his bath.

The big man reached in front of Joe and wrapped his hand around the barrel of the Henry.

Damn, Joe thought. Just damn it all to hell anyway.

He whirled, his elbow slamming into the fellow's face. There was a satisfying crunch of breaking cartilage, and blood sprayed for four or five feet around.

The man's eyes went wide. He tottered backward two paces and shook his head like an old buffalo bull that is already dead on its feet but does not yet know it. Then the fellow threw his head back and roared.

That sounded like a bull, too, Joe thought. A little.

The fellow lowered his head and charged straight ahead.

51

JOE STEPPED AWAY a pace and took a sharp, backhand swing with the Henry. The octagon steel barrel caught the fellow across the face and caved in his cheekbone.

The man cried out. But he did not quit. He blindly reached for Joe with one hand while he wiped blood out of his eyes with the other.

Joe rather admired the son of a bitch's grit. But not so much that he was willing to let the fellow put hands on him. Instead, Joe took another step backward and brought the butt of the Henry up into the tough son of a bitch's nuts.

There was no outcry this time. The guy simply folded up and collapsed. Passed out cold as a trout.

“Mister, you'd best not be here when Dinkin comes to. He's the meanest sonuvabitch in the territory.”

Joe picked up his whiskey and drained it. “Was maybe,” he said. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, nodded a friendly enough farewell to the gents who were standing around gawking, then took the gentleman's advice and left. He still wanted that bath, after all. Make that
needed
.

Off to the west, the sun had already slipped below the mountain peaks, and there was a decided chill in the air, but the barbershop was still open. There were a couple gents inside playing some sort of game on what looked like a checkerboard but with different-shaped pieces. One of those fellows turned out to be the barber.

“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”

“I'm needin' a bath. A trim might not go too bad since I'm already here.”

“Sit in the chair there. I'll be with you soon as I make this next move.” He did something with one of the pieces on his board, and the other gent scowled. Judging from that, Joe would have to figure that the barber was winning.

Joe propped the Henry against the wall and settled into the chair, a proper barber chair that lay back or swung around in circles and was bolted to the floor.

Joe had not seen a chair like that in a very long time. In San Francisco, would that have been? Or Santa Fe? He was not sure, but it had been years back. He was positive about that much.