Mojave (26 page)

I could make out Lucky Ben Wong, behind the dirt pouring from the roof, and the cans scattered around him. I had no gun. All I could find to defend my person—and Jingfei's life—was an empty can of coal oil. So I grabbed it and flung it, and it sailed like one of them baseballs hurled by a ballist, and struck Lucky Ben Wong somewhere on his person.

Don't exactly know where, and I'm still not certain what happened next. Well, I do know. Because once the
Calico Print
got things in order and could publish newspapers again, it had this little notice, which I clip and paste inside this journal.

That ain't exactly how it happened, but I have yet to write a letter to the editor of the
Calico Print
to correct his report.

We shielded our eyes, Jingfei and me, and heard some more explosions—apparently the remaining rounds in the little hideaway gun Lucky Ben Wong was holding went off from the heat. People started gathering around, a few pointing, some looking like it was a Fourth of July fireworks show, and quite a few battling the blaze with wet blankets.

“Oh,” Jingfei said. “My.”

I figured it was time to get away from there. So I helped Jingfei up and led her toward the steps in the rocks and the ladder.

We didn't say nothing for a while. I mean, it had to be a shock. First she learns that the man she was betrothed to was a heel. Then she watches him burn like bacon. She'd come all this way, from Trinidad, Colorado, and now there was a fire consuming what was to be her home—not a loss, I can assure you—but she was a strong woman with a strong mind and strong will.

There wasn't time for mourning, and, well, criminy, it ain't like Lucky Ben Wong had courted her or nothing. They'd exchanged a few letters is all. Hell, she hadn't even laid eyes on the dog till an hour earlier. A son of a bitch like that ain't worth tears or grief.

When we reached the ladder, I asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

A sigh escaped her throat, and she leaned on me. “I was a fool.”

“No.” I lifted her chin, looked into her face. “He was the fool.”

She pulled away from me, and I figured she'd let me have it for being disrespectful about the dead, especially since the dead had been her betrothed.

“If Whip Watson learns that his silent partner is dead . . .” she began.

I finished for her. “He'll figure it means more money for him. He ain't gonna fret over Lucky Ben Wong's demise. And you shouldn't, either.”

“I won't. But this means you have only yourself and Mister Clark. And perhaps Doctor Kent.”

“You don't have to go back to that camp,” I told her, but I knowed what she'd say, and she said it.

“I must.”

I said, because I'd read a few of those half-dime novels writ by that Colonel Wilson J. M. Drury, even though in his stories it's always the woman saying this to the hero: “I know.”

“I have a plan,” she said.

Then the sky behind us lit up. Another can had exploded. I could hear Chinese men directing the wet-blanket brigade.

“They'll be able to see this fire from the canyon,” she said. “I need to get back now.”

“Be careful.” Which is what the girl always tells the hero in Colonel Drury's dreadfuls, too.

She started toward the ladder, but turned, come to me, and kissed me. On the lips. It was a hard kiss, because she had thin lips, and they was all dried and she sort of smelled like coal oil and dirt, but it was a fine kiss. I kissed her back. Then she was starting down the ladder when another can boomed.

“What happened?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Reckon he should have washed out them cans first before using them for walls.”

“What a stupid peckerwood,” she said. “And I almost married that idiot.”

I held the ladder steady, and she hurried down into the canyon, then hitched up her skirt and took off running, but it didn't take long till the darkness swallowed her. Unable to move, I just stood there, smelling smoke, feeling the wind at my back, staring at the darkness, wondering if I'd ever see Jingfei again.

For a moment, I cussed myself, telling me that I never should have let her go, but that spell didn't last long. Hell, I had to admit, I couldn't have stopped her. And, well, there was other lives at stake.

People were gathering across the bridge in Calico proper, pointing at the blaze, so I decided it would be a good idea for me to skedaddle. Down the ladder I went—with only the moonlight and the glow from that ever-growing fire over at the late Lucky Ben Wong's place to see by, and no one holding the ladder steady for me—and found Yago sleeping where I'd hobbled him.

“All right,” I told that horse after I'd woke him by removing the hobbles, and tightening the cinch. “It'll be a busy day this morning, boy. But that's all right.” I taken the reins, and swung into the saddle. “Jingfei has a plan.” We rode back toward the Calico cemetery. “The problem is,” I told the Arabian, “she didn't tell me what that plan is.”

But that was all right, too. Because I was coming up with one myself.

 

 

The sign above the door read:

The fellow underneath the sign held one such implement in his right hand, another .41-caliber “Swamp Angel,” which I guess is where the late Lucky Ben Wong had procured his.

“We're closed,” Mr. McCoy said. He wore brown pants, brown boots, and a brown vest. The shirt was white. No tie. No hat.

I didn't move.

“We open at eight,” he said. “Now stop banging on this door and come back then. We're doing our books.”

“I ain't here to buy nothing,” I said.

Which made him take a step back inside. “You must be.”

That's when Mr. Slater, also dressed in brown, come to the door and peered over his partner's shoulder. “Maybe he always dresses like that,” Mr. Slater said.

All right. I didn't have nothing on but that Chinese robe, which didn't fit too good, and certainly didn't come close to feeling comfortable in a saddle. No boots. No socks. Not even a hat. The little Chinese girl had never returned with my duds, and knowing now that Lucky Ben Wong had planned on murdering me, I don't think she was really a laundress or ever planned on washing those clothes.

“I'm here,” I said, “because of the vigilance committee.”

The two businessmen looked at each other. One of them said, “There's gonna be need of some vigilancing today. Real soon.”

Mr. Slater stepped around Mr. McCoy, who lowered the little pistol. “I've seen you before,” Mr. Slater said.

“Yes, sir,” I told him. “I was—”

“With Whip Watson,” he interjected.

I nodded.

The two merchants give each other a glance, then Mr. Slater was nodding at his pard, and the .41 disappeared into the brown pockets, and Mr. McCoy motioned me inside.

I followed them two dudes past shovels, pickaxes, post-hole augers, folding sights, levels and transits, compasses, measuring chains, pans, buckets, canteens, barrels, and a rack of Beadle and Adams five-penny dreadfuls, and to the counter where I saw some duck trousers and shirts behind the glass panels. Mr. Slater walked into an office, and Mr. McCoy held open the door for me. Mr. Slater sat behind a desk, and Mr. McCoy stood at the door. Mr. Slater offered me a chair, but I didn't feel right sitting down in nothing but a bathrobe, so Mr. McCoy taken the chair instead.

“What's this about?” Mr. Slater asked. “You sure you don't want to buy some pants?”

“Business first,” I said. And I told them. Everything.

I talked. They didn't even interrupt.

 

 

When I'd finished, Mr. Slater pulled a cigar from a box on the top of his desk, bit off the end, and fired it up. I guess he felt sorry for me, so he slid the box, and I got myself a Jersey cheroot. He slid the box of Lucifers to me, and soon I had my own cigar smoking. To my left, Mr. McCoy coughed in his chair.

“So Whip Watson is bringing twenty-four whores to town, eh?” Mr. Slater blowed a perfect ring toward the tin ceiling. I'd never been able to blow rings myself.

“Twenty-five,” I said. “The two twins.”

“Yes,” Mr. McCoy said dreamily.

“But they ain't whores,” I had to remind them. “They're being forced into this business.”

“Yes,” Mr. Slater said. Then, in a tone I didn't much care for, “So you say.”

I removed my cigar, didn't try to blow no ring, and leaned forward, pointing my cheroot at a framed photograph of a handsome woman holding a baby girl. “You're married, ain't you?”

He smiled at the photograph. “Indeed I am. Twenty-three wonderful years.”

“Fourteen myself,” Mr. McCoy said. “My second wife. My first one died. Typhoid.”

“Sorry to hear that. Well, the way I figure it, we can post vigilantes on the roofs. Let Watson parade his girls right down Main Street, right to The Palace of Calico. Then when the last of the girls is inside, y'all cut loose. Shoot them dirty dogs down like the dirty dogs they are.”

“Twenty-four ladies of the night.” Mr. Slater whistled.

“Twenty-five,” Mr. McCoy corrected. “Here. In Calico.”

“No more Betty,” Mr. Slater said.

I stood real straight, all indignant. “You want prostitutes in town?” My voice, however, sounded weak.

“Those twins,” Mr. McCoy asked. “You say they're Southern and Irish? And they'll be in one room?”

“They ain't prostitutes,” I snapped. “They're good women. Come here thinking they were mail-order brides.”

“Mail-order whores.” Mr. Slater sniggered.

“I wonder if the post office is aware of this.” Mr. McCoy giggled.

“I don't think, Jeddah, that the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act covered this subject at all.” Mr. Slater and Mr. McCoy had a raucous belly-laugh that got Mr. Slater coughing from his cigar, and Mr. McCoy was wheezing so bad, he laid the pocket pistol on the top of the desk, had to fetch a handkerchief from his vest pocket, and dabbed his eyes.

When the laughter died down, Mr. McCoy was about to make another comment, but I said first, “Y'all won't do nothing to help those poor girls.”

“At Calico prices,” Mr. Slater said, “they won't be poor for long.”

“They'll be richer than Lucky Ben Wong is,” Mr. Slater said.

“Was,” I corrected.

They wasn't laughing now. They was staring hard at me. I give them a grammar lesson that would make Kermit of the Calico Water Works . . . Incorporated real proud. “
Is
is present tense.
Was
is past tense. Lucky Ben Wong is dead.”

They blinked.

“Y'all didn't see that fire last night, early this morning rather, in East Calico?”

Their heads shook.

“Home and business burned down. With him in it.”

“And his records?” Mr. Slater asked. He wasn't looking at me. He was staring hard at his pard.

Everyone was silent for a moment. Then one of the Dover clocks begun to chime. And the Regulators. And the Seth Thomases. And the Monarchs and the Recorders and the Kings. It was 7
A.M.

When the echoes faded, Mr. McCoy said, “If Wong's records burned . . .”

“Then there's no record.” Mr. Slater smiled.

“We don't owe that damned Chinaman anything!” Mr. McCoy jumped up and pumped his fist in the air. “Especially since the yellow-skinned dog is
dead!
”

“The women!” I reminded both of them merchants.

Mr. Slater shouted something real indelicate about what I could do with the women, and it was something I had dreamed about, and thought about when I saw Jingfei . . . and maybe every now and then, the Lannon twins from Savannah by way of County Cork.

“We'll all be doing that!” Mr. McCoy yelled. “Probably starting tonight!”

It was a good plan. I still say so. If Jeddah McCoy and Max Slater had any decency flowing through their money-grubbing veins, my plan would have worked, and things might have turned out different. But they was pecker woods. They was men. And I was mad as hell. So while Mr. McCoy was dancing a little jig, and Mr. Slater was making vulgar displays with his cigar, I snatched the “Swamp Angel” off the desk and broke Mr. McCoy's nose with the barrel.

Down he went, wailing, trying to keep the blood from spraying the desk, and I aimed the .41 between Mr. Slater's eyes.

“I can't leave you two here,” I told them. “We're going for a walk. If you talk, yell—shut up, McCoy, and be a man—if you do anything I don't like, I'll kill you in the streets. And remember them eight boys that got buried here week or two ago. Remember what I done to that assassin and the second-story corner window of the bank.”

Mr. McCoy stopped whining. Mr. Slater nodded his pale head.

I said, “We're going. But first I need a pair of pants, any color but brown. A shirt. Some undergarments. Socks. Boots. Vest. Bandanna. Nothing brown. Bring anything in this room brown, and you'll rue your mistake. A hat. A Winchester rifle. Box of cartridges. Better make that two—no, six boxes. A Colt revolver. Some extra bullets for this peashooter.” That sounded like all I'd need, but then I saw that box. “A box of Jersey cheroots. And some Lucifers.” Recalling the recent chiming of the store's clocks for sale, I realized I must have lost my pocket watch when I'd crashed through the wall of coal oil cans. “A Seth Thomas pocket watch. Hunter's case if you have it, but open face will do.” That sounded like enough. “No.” I stopped Mr. McCoy from going out to fetch my plunder. “You'll bleed all over my clothes. You go.” Mr. Slater got going. “A deck of playing cards if one's handy. Two decks.” Mr. Slater was behind the counter, fetching my clothes. I looked at Mr. McCoy. “Put it on Lucky Ben Wong's bill,” I told him.

 

 

The sign below the sign that read S
LATER AND
M
C
C
OY, PURVEYORS IN IMPLEMENTS
& SUNDRIES said this:

Mr. McCoy had real nice handwriting, and his nose had stopped bleeding, so there was no blotches or stains on the piece of paper Mr. Slater tacked onto the door.

“Let's go,” I told them two birds, and we walked down the boardwalks, where there were boardwalks, and dirt, where there was dirt.

Now, I had no respect for Lucky Ben Wong, but leaving that sign would let Whip Watson know that Lucky Ben Wong was dead. That would likely cause him to relax, maybe get a little overconfident, and it would explain, I hoped, why Mr. Slater and Mr. McCoy wasn't around when Whip come in to rouse up everybody and parade the women down to The Palace of Calico.

My Seth Thomas watch—open face, but that was fine, and lever set, and the biggest size the company makes—told me it was 7:42. Most businesses in Calico opened right at 8:00, but the cafés was already serving, so town was coming to life. I looked toward the schoolhouse, which got me to frowning. Smoke still rose over the roof, the last traces of Lucky Ben Wong.

“Is there school today?”

“It's Sunday,” Mr. Slater told me.

“You don't observe the Sabbath?” I asked.

“You're asking
me?
” He shook his head, then said, “There is no Sabbath,” he said. “In Calico.”

“No school today, though.” Mr. McCoy's voice was all nasal, as his nose had swollen up to the size of an Idaho potato and I was certain it was broken. “Miss Flint, the schoolmarm, won't allow it.”

“She'll be singing at the services over at Sioux Falls,” Mr. McCoy added. “No real preacher. Just singing and reading the Bible. Followed by a picnic. Starts at ten.”

“They even let Betty attend,” Mr. Slater said.

“Won't end till sundown,” Mr. McCoy said.

“All right.” That relieved me some. Women and children and Christians and Betty would likely be in the Upper Calicos, so they'd be out of danger from gunfire that was likely to commence this day.

“Smile,” I instructed the two men walking in front of my new Winchester. “Tip your hats.”

They done what I said, and I give one of the ladies who run one of the boardinghouses a friendly nod as we passed by the bank with the second-story window still boarded up. As we walked, I kept looking behind me, dreading the sight of dust or of a Columbus carriage heading into town. I also had my companions slow down as we passed any saloon, none of which observed the Sabbath, either, and looked through the windows or open doors.

Luck remained with me. Still no sign of Whip Watson or his boys.

“Cross the street,” I ordered them.

J. M. Miller's store was already open, with some husky fellows loading boxes of blasting powder from the Giant Powder Depot into the back of a wagon with “Silver King Mine” writ on the side in handwriting much cruder that Jeddah McCoy's.

We stepped onto the boardwalk, the scent of fresh-cut lumber real strong and sawdust still on the planks. The plate glass windows were already installed, and stenciled in real pretty script, in gold with blue outlines, was THE PALACE OF CALICO.

Through the windows, of course, I could see the insides was real spartan. But there was a back bar. With liquor bottles on it. My throat was a bit dry.

“Open the door,” I told Mr. Slater.

He jiggled the handles on the twin fancy doors.