The Case of the Deadly Desperados (3 page)

Ledger Sheet 5

I WAS UP & RUNNING
as fast as a jackrabbit, but then someone tackled me & I went down hard. All the air burst out of my lungs & I got a mouthful of dirt. I spat it out. My attacker rolled me over & sat on top of me.

I was relieved to see it was only Olaf, one of the three school bullies. All three lived in Temperance & all three were as mean as skunks, but Olaf was the worst. He nodded to his pardners. Abe put a foot on my left wrist and Charlie stamped down on my right. They were not wearing soft moccasins like me. They were wearing heavy school shoes.

“Why were you running away from us?” said Olaf in a pleasant tone of voice. He was sitting on me & I could hardly breathe. “You didn't think we would beat on you today, did you? Ain't it your birthday?”

I nodded.

Olaf stood up and looked at Abe & Charlie. “Shall we give him a birthday present?”

“Yeah,” said the other two. They took their feet off my wrists.

“Do you like punch, P.K.?” Olaf was smiling.

I am not good at reading people.

Ma Evangeline told me you had to look at a person's face real careful to know what they are thinking. She taught me five Expressions to look out for.

1. If someone's mouth curves up & their eyes crinkle, that is a Genuine Smile.
   
2. If their mouth stretches sideways & their eyes are not crinkled, that is a Fake Smile.
   
3. If a person turns down their mouth & crinkles up their nose, they are disgusted.
   
4. If their eyes open real wide, they are probably surprised or scared.
   
5. If they make their eyes narrow, they are either mad at you or thinking or suspicious.
   

I was pretty sure Olaf was giving me Expression No. 2, the Fake Smile. But the sun was right behind his head & there was dust in my eye & I could not see his face clearly enough to tell.

“Do you like punch?” he said again.

I like punch more than getting beat up. So I nodded, even though I was pretty sure it was a trick question.

I was right. It was a trick question.

Olaf looked at the other two. “Let's give this Freak of Nature twelve punches,” he said. “One for each year. Ha, ha, ha.”

They bent over & started punching me, so I curled up like a wood louse.

All of a sudden they stopped beating on me & Olaf said, “Look. The rest of his filthy tribe is coming to save him.”

“Those don't look like no Indians I ever seen,” said Abe.

“Does that one in front have blood on his tomahawk?” asked Charlie. His voice was kind of wobbly.

“Are those scalps hanging off his belt?” Abe's voice cracked.

I unsquinched my eyes & turned my head to see where he was looking.

Walt & his two fake Indian friends were coming down the road on foot. Walt was holding the hatchet that had been buried in my pa's chest. It was still bloody. They were heading straight towards us with purpose & intent.

“Dang!” cried Olaf. His eyes went real wide. He was either surprised or scared, or maybe both. “Let's skedaddle!”

He & the others ran off towards some scrub pines about half a mile distant. I do not think that was very clever. If you meet a bear & you skedaddle, he will run after you. Sure enough, as soon as they started running, Walt & his gang tore after them. One of Walt's men pulled out a pistol & started firing. It was a Colt's Navy Revolver from the sound of it. This made my schoolmates run even faster. I could hear them yelping like coyotes pursued by a bear.

For some reason Walt & his gang had not noticed me. Wearing my buckskins, I reckon I looked like a little bump on the ground. Also, I think they were too busy chasing Olaf, Charlie & Abe. Those three boys were wearing their black pants & white shirts and they stood out real good against the pale desert.

Meanwhile, the stagecoach had appeared. It was rumbling through town & raising a plume of yellow dust behind it.

I knew it would not stop for a muddy-skinned, buckskin-clad kid like me.

That suited me just fine.

I did not want it to stop in case Walt & his pals noticed.

I just needed it to slow down.

I scrambled back to the sagebrush, pulled out the dead coyote by one of its stiff hind legs & nudged it out into the road so that it would be in the direct path of the horses. It was about the same color as the dirt road and I hoped that meant the driver would not notice it too soon.

Horses do not like to trample on things. Even the best driver cannot easily make them run over a person or animal in their path. This driver was a good one. When he saw the stiff coyote in the road, he tugged on the reins to slow his team & to steer them around it. The coach passed close by my bush & before it could pick up speed again I leapt out & jumped up onto the mail boot on the back.

I clung on like a tick to a dog and prayed Walt and his pards would not notice me.

Ledger Sheet 6

AT THE BACK OF THE STAGECOACH
was a big leather pouch for mail along with some canvas straps for extra luggage. I clung on to the straps for a while and hoped the great cloud of dust would hide me from view.

When I judged we were out of sight of Temperance, I clambered up the luggage straps and flung myself on top of the stage. Sometimes there are crates or luggage up on top but on that hot afternoon there were only a couple of carpetbags lashed to the low rail that ran around the roof. Because the rail was missing at the back, I clung on to the front part so I would not slide off. Then I made myself as flat as a postage stamp on a Letter.

Once or twice I lifted my head & glanced back to see if Walt & his pards were in pursuit, but the dust obscured everything behind me. I tried listening, but it was too noisy to hear anything apart from the horses' hooves pounding & their harness jangling & the coach rattling & creaking beneath me.

We had been rocking along for a few minutes when I heard the driver cry “Whoa!” & I felt the coach slow down.

I was praying, “No, don't stop.”

I kept my eyes tightly shut until I heard him say, “Off! You get off now!”

I glanced up. Sure enough, he had twisted round on his seat and was glaring down at me.

He raised his whip & said, “No danged Heathens allowed. You savvy?”

I lifted up my head & said, “Please, sir. Please keep driving. My life is in danger. I am not a Heathen. I am a Methodist. Also, I can pay.”

The driver narrowed his eyes. “You the reverend's foster kid?” he asked.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

He spat some brown tobacco juice onto the ground. “I'll let you come along, but you have to stay there. Can't have your sort riding down below.”

Ma Evangeline used to say it is a mark of ignorance to despise folk who have different-colored skin, because everybody's blood is the same color. I know she is right about this—I have seen enough blood to know—but I always felt different from her and Pa Emmet. Not just from them, but from everybody. I nodded to show the driver I would stay put.

He flicked his whip & the coach rocked forward again.

The dust was settling, so I darted a look behind to see if Walt was in pursuit. There was nothing but sagebrush and desert behind us. I was mighty relieved.

I clung on to the rail & pressed myself back down onto the smooth lacquered roof of the coach. It was hot that day & I felt like a fried egg on a griddle as we rattled towards Dayton. I tried closing my eyes, but every time I did that I saw a vision of my ma & pa lying in a pool of blood. So I turned my head to the right & watched the dusty plain pass by.

It wasn't long before the coach slowed a little and I heard the rumble of the wooden bridge as we crossed the Carson River. I lifted my head and saw the flash of a coin flipped by the driver to the toll house keeper. Then he whipped up the team again, and shortly after we arrived in Dayton.

I go to school in Dayton, but this was the first time I had ever taken the stage to get there.

Dayton used to be called Chinatown because there were so many Chinamen living there. But most of them moved up to Virginia City, or went off to work on the new RailRoad back east. So now it is called Dayton. Pa Emmet told me it is the oldest town in the Territory, though Mormon Station also makes that claim. Both towns came into being in 1849, which makes them 13 years old, a year older than me. But I am older than Virginia City, which has only been around for three or so years.

When the stage stopped outside the Nevada Hotel on Main St. in Dayton, I lifted my head a little. It was real quiet all of a sudden. I could hear the horses snuffling & snorting, also the voices of men & a woman laughing. The stage rocked a little as someone got on or off. I couldn't be sure & I didn't want to look, in case I betrayed my presence on top.

I could hear a bird singing & I could see the line of cottonwood & willow trees that marked the riverbed. I thought of the schoolmarm, a spinster named Miss Marlowe. She had always been kind to me. I was tempted to get off & ask her to hide me. Maybe I should have.

But I wanted to get as far away from Walt and his gang as I could, so I made the mistake of staying on that stagecoach.

Ledger Sheet 7

NOT LONG AFTER THE STAGE
left Dayton, we came to that new toll road that goes up through Gold Canyon. The road curved & twisted between yellow-turning cottonwoods and giant gray rocks. At first the sun was in front of us, for it was late afternoon & we were heading west, but soon it traveled along beside us as we headed north. That new road was so smooth that we hardly jounced at all, but the grade was so steep that I had to hang tight to the rail at the front or I would have slid back off the slippery top of the stage.

After maybe half an hour we slowed to a stop. The driver called out “Silver City!” & picked up one of the carpetbags strapped to the rail beside me & tossed it down. Its absence made me feel exposed, so I kept my head down while someone got on. Soon we were off again.

Although Virginia City is only a few miles from Dayton, I had never been there before. Ma wanted to look around when we first arrived, but Pa forbade it. He called it Satan's Playground.

He said Virginia City was the vilest place on earth, even worse than San Francisco. He told us that the first twenty-seven men buried in the graveyard had all been murdered. Pa said that you were considered of no account until you “killed your man.” He said the most respected man in Virginia City was not the preacher or the police chief, but the saloon-keeper with a big diamond pin on his lapel.

Pa once told us there is a whole street for “Soiled Doves.” When I asked what a Soiled Dove was, he said it was a low-class woman who sparked men for pay. He said you could tell the Soiled Doves by their gaudy dresses trimmed with black lace, and by the fact that they did not wear corsets. I asked him what “spark” meant. He said it meant to kiss & cuddle. He was going to tell me more but then Ma shushed him.

According to Pa Emmet, Virginia City was also full of Chinamen, Mexicans, Indians, Cornishmen, Irishmen, Miners, Desperados, Gamblers, Gunmen & Lawyers. He said the Lawyers were the worst of all. He called them “the Devil's Own” & said those smooth-talking crooks could make you give them all you had. He said he would rather dine with a Soiled Dove or a Mississippi Gambler than with one of those Lawyers.

“Devil's Gate!” cried the driver, and I lifted my head to see two demonic rocks rearing up on either side of the road and the stagecoach about to pass between them. As we passed between them, the driver slowed down for a toll house. I glanced behind me. I could see no riders in pursuit. Should I get off now while the getting was good? Before I could decide, the driver tossed the toll-keeper a coin and lashed the horses & said “Heeya!” and we were off again.

There was no going back now.

As we climbed higher & higher up the canyon road, I felt like something was pushing my ears, making them hurt. Then there was a kind of pop in my ears & my head felt empty & I could hear more acutely than ever.

That was when I first heard the music of Virginia City.

It was faint at first, but soon I could hear it even over the noisy stagecoach: a kind of thumping dirge, deep & low. Mixed up with the rhythmic pounding of horses' hooves and the jingling of the harness it became something like a song. Any noise with a strong slow beat has a peculiar effect on me. It makes me feel calm & floaty, and time seems to dissolve. As the coach went higher, the music of the mountain got louder & I went into a kind of trance. I don't know if it lasted a few minutes or a few hours, but the sudden jolting halt of the stage combined with a shrill mine whistle brought me to my senses.

“Gold Hill,” called the driver. “Next stop Virginia City!”

I came back to the world like a swimmer surfacing from a deep-flowing river. We had stopped by a hotel near some of the biggest tailings I had seen, like giant anthills streaked with yellow & gold & orange in the hot afternoon sunlight.

I could see some mine buildings further up the sage-dotted slopes & I realized the rhythmic thudding came from the many Quartz Stamp Mills within them. One of these mills stood outside the building rather than inside. It was a door-shaped frame twice as high as the stagecoach with eight metal rods, pumping up & down like the legs of a dancer. Miners shoveled rocks from behind and the pulverized quartz was delivered into the mine building to be turned into silver. Miss Marlowe had explained it once but I did not understand. I reckoned there must be a thousand of them in Virginia City to make the ground throb as if a giant's heart was beating beneath it.

Soon the stage was off again, but slowly this time. Once again the road was climbing steeply & making the poor horses strain. At last we topped a rise & I saw the dome of a barren mountain blotting out half the sky ahead of me. Six or seven streets descended like stairs on that steep mountainside with the top of the stairs on my left and the bottom on my right. Each step was a street of brick or wooden houses with a few tents scattered here & there. We were now following some hay wagons and our pace had slowed considerably. As we reached the outskirts of the town we ground to halt.

“C Street, Virginia!” cried the driver. “This coach goes on to the International Hotel but you can get off here if you like. You'll probably be there before us,” I heard him add under his breath.

Below me one of the doors opened & I felt the stage rock a little & I peeped down to see a pink & black parasol get off. I glanced back one final time to make sure Walt was nowhere around. He wasn't, so I sat up & tapped the driver on the shoulder & when he turned his head I held out my gold coin.

“Shoot,” he said, & spat a stream of tobacco juice at the ground. “I ain't got change for a twenty-dollar gold piece. You pay me next time you see me. Get your reverend pa to put in a kind word for me with the Good Lord. Name's Jas Woorstell. Two
o'
s and two
l'
s.”

I nodded & closed my eyes & silently prayed, “Dear Lord, as my pa is dead and cannot ask you I am asking you myself: please bless Jas Woorstell—two
o'
s and two
l'
s—for his Christian kindness.” Then I eased myself down off the back of the stagecoach & jumped onto the dusty ground.

An empty buckboard had pulled up behind us and there was more traffic behind it.

I thought, “This C Street appears to be the Main Street.”

Then I thought, “I'd best get off it, in case Walt and his pards are still in pursuit.”

Feeling breathless and dizzy, I scrambled down a steep road between some sage bushes & shacks & a Mine Building and then I turned left along a dusty but level street & hurried along with my head down for a while.

By and by I thought, “I have arrived in Satan's Playground. I had better get my bearings.”

So I stopped and looked around.

Dayton has two Chinese laundries, but this appeared to be a whole street of them, along with a lumberyard & a brewery & some more tailings. Steam & smoke rose from the roofs of wooden shacks crammed side by side. I could smell lye and starch. Lines of clothing flapped in the late afternoon breeze & some sheets were even laid out on the roofs of the shacks. There were Chinese people everywhere. A few signs were in Chinese letters but most were in English. They said things like
SEE YUP, WASHER & IRONER
and
SAM SING & AH HOP, WASHING.

There was a water pump outside one of the laundries right there at the side of the street. I was mighty dusty from riding on top of the stage, so I went over to it & pumped some water & splashed it on my face. Then I pumped some more and bent my head to drink when a woman's voice called out, “Stop! Don't drink that! It's poison!”