The Last Shootist (23 page)

The band struck up a favorite, “Turkey in the Straw.” Cowboys yipped and gals squealed as couples swung out onto the hardwood dance floor. Gillom and his girl gave themselves up to the music, sashaying around the loud hall. Anel's black hair flew out to match her swirling white petticoats under her yellow-checked dress as he swung her round. Gillom was transported in her arms into being a better dancer than he normally was, his boots pivoting across the dance floor, barely keeping time with his enthusiasm. His dancing partner could have been a happy farm girl at a hoedown, except for her darker coloring. Four bits a spasm
indeed
!

As they caught their breath after the song ended, he escorted his lady back to the bar. “Gosh, that was a rouser!”

Anel's sweet tea magically appeared from a waitress.

“This'll be fun, Anel. I want to see the countryside. Don't fancy living in this smoky, smelly town forever. Rather have a ranch south of here, near the border, maybe ride into town for work.”

“So you hope sell cows, thieve horses?”

“No, no horse thievin', or cattle rustlin', thank you. I'm an honest cowboy.”

“Bueno.”
She flashed him a Cheshire cat's smile.

He could tell she was foolin' with him. The band commenced again, but they sat this tune out, engaged in each other's flirtations. With his back to the bar, Gillom saw them enter through the batwing front door, swung wide to accommodate the bulk of the man in the lead, Luther Goose, with his henchman William right behind.

“Anel, that's the man gave you trouble.”

She turned to look over the dancers to spot the tall, heavy man in the Prince Albert coat. The gambler smiled slightly when he saw the young couple and nudged his partner toward them.

“No. Is no
problema
.” Her smile had vanished. She stared at Gillom. “Don't make
problema
,
por favor
.”

Where is Ease?
he wondered anxiously.

“Well, well. It's the Texas hellbender.” The gambler's smile spread into a sneer as they walked up. The teenager watched Mr. Goose wrap and unwrap a gold watch chain thick as his little finger around another digit, betraying his nerves. “I want a dance with this young lady.”

Gillom was quick to respond. “No.”

“
Sí
,
señor
.” She noted her young man's scowl. “Gil-lom. I
must
dance. Make monies.”

Luther Goose licked a lower lip. “See. Little lady's smart. Keeps an eye on her bottom dollar.” Then to his henchman, “buy us drinks.” Luther proffered an arm and led Anel onto the dance floor. The youth was left looking at the stoic William, who hadn't said a word. Gillom backed off a couple steps, pushed his wool coat back clearing his revolvers, and nodded to the bodyguard with the apelike arms.

“Care to stand up to the iron tonight?”

William just smiled, tipped his gray bowler forward at a rakish angle, and ordered whiskies and a tea from a concerned bartender. Luckily, Ease Bixler pushed his way between them just then, with his auburn-haired vixen in tow.

“Gillom! Meet Red Jean. She's goin' picnicking with us Sunday.”

“My pleasure, young man. Little country outing. You boys show me a good time, I'll pack us a nice lunch,” offered Jean.

Gillom shook hands with the lady, impressed by her strong grip, never taking an eye off his smiling adversary behind her.

“Thank you, ma'am. We will have some fun.” Normally he would have been bowled over by a damsel as pretty as this one, but he was distracted by the bodyguard and trying to watch Anel flashing past on the dance floor.

“Is Anel going with us?”

“Uh, yes, ma'am. Why don't you talk to her about the groceries?”

The song ended, but Luther kept the girl out on the floor in animated conversation. Gillom motioned her to come back.

“I'll bring the libations. Gillom's in charge of the carriage. Meet you at your house at noon, Jean. After church?” Ease grinned at his little joke. Red Jean cuffed him in the arm.

“Sure, Ease. You can even take me to church
first,
if the good Lord will let us
both
in.”

Anel led her demanding customer back to the little group before she had to dance again.

The redhead piped up. “Anel! You an' me's gotta talk, honey, about this picnic.”

Luther Goose butted in. “Ohh, a picnic?”

“You're not invited,” Gillom interjected.

“I didn't ask you, kid.” The brothel owner frowned. “You should be nice to me, ladies, for all the money I've passed through this joint, and gambled in the Bonanza, too, fella.” He addressed Ease. “Recognize you from behind the bar.”

“Yes, sir, Mister Goose. We appreciate your business.”

“But
not
my company?”

“I didn't say that, sir. It's just a … private party.”

“And these ladies are already spoken for,” added the kid from El Paso.

Luther nodded. “We can take our business to friendlier saloons. Come along, William.” But his tight brown eyes warned.

As they brushed past, the short Cornishman made a sudden feint at Gillom's legs, as if he were going to take him down again. Gillom jumped backward, both hands jerking to his pistol grips and pulling them. The quick move caused William to smile, since he'd deceived Gillom as to his intent. The two older men bulled their way out through the crowd forming on the dance floor for the next tune.

Gillom blew hot air. “I'm tired of running into those jaspers. Got into a wrestling match at the Orpheum last night with that damned bodyguard.”

“Oh, yeah? That William Pascoe's a champion wrestler, Gillom. Hell, most of 'em are. Cornish miners are
strong,
pard, big arms and shoulders from hammering iron spikes into rock all day. Wrestling's their national sport!”

“Found that out the hard way, when he dumped me in the toilet.”

“He
didn't
?” Ease chortled and even the gals were amused.

“Yeah, well, I'd never seen him before and the bastard just tackled me suddenly, no warning. Wasn't wearing my guns.”

The wiser harlot weighed in. “Just stay away from them then. You, too, Anel. Luther Goose is bad trouble.”

They had fun the rest of the evening in the Red Light planning their menu, where they'd go, details Gillom was unfamiliar with, having never double-dated before. When he and Ease pulled out after midnight, they hiked back downtown and then uphill to their miners' cottages, nearly talked out.

He was exhausted when he pulled up his wool blanket and quilt atop his feather pad, but his sore legs were too jumpy to go to sleep immediately. He had to get up again in his long johns to relieve a beer full bladder. With the door open to the outhouse uphill, Gillom rested in the one-holer, contemplating the few lights still on in the large mansions on Quality Hill across the canyon. In the dark, the “dirtiest air in the West” wasn't so noticeable.

Bisbee's a booming town,
he thought.
Everybody here's trying to elbow their way to fortune and not being too choice about how rough they have to play to grab it. I want a little of that luck, too. I cannot allow myself to be pushed around in public by this gambling Goose joker and his thug. All's I got to build on is my reputation as a fast gun, and I've got to protect that at all costs.

From somewhere down the canyon, an accordionist pulled his bellows and pressed the keys and a haunting Mexican air echoed up the Mule Mountains. The song provided mournful contrast to the deep thrumming of the mines' blowers and smelters, which he'd gotten used to. A shout in the night—
“shut the goddamned up!”
—made him smile.

His bladder relieved, his confidence bucked up, Gillom Rogers padded barefoot back into his cottage, retreated under his bedding, calmed by the night air. As he relaxed finally, before Morpheus took him, he remembered his one scrap with John Bernard Books in his mother's downstairs guest room. Books had learned from the old El Paso stableman, Mose Tarrant, that Gillom had sold Books's horse one spring morning without his say-so. The old shootist made him give the hundred dollars back, humiliated him right in front of his mother! Books turned the fraudulently obtained money over to Bond Rogers for the trouble he'd caused her by staying in her rooming house. After his mother had been dismissed, the gunman berated him further and Gillom sassed back, which had gotten him slapped. This precipitated a tussle, banging them both against a chiffonier. Surprisingly, the teenager's strength and suppleness had prevailed over the bigger, cancerous older man as he threw him onto the bed. Gillom hadn't forgotten what he'd yelled at J. B. Books.

“I'm as good with a gun as you! And you can't fight for sour apples, not anymore you can't! So just remember, Mister Blowhard—I've got my own laws now, just like you, and I live by 'em. I won't be laid a hand on, either, or showed up! And I won't be treated like a kid, ever again!”

He meant every word and had lived on those very terms since. After that little dispute, the great gunfighter had given him no further grief. That was the way men dealt with their difficulties and those causing them, straight on, heads-up, and devil take the hindmost. J. B. Books respected that dominant style, too.
From here on, the cautious, the weak, the inferior type of man can just swallow my dust,
he promised himself. Gillom Rogers drifted off with a contented smile.

*   *   *

Mrs. Blair was sweeping her porch the next morning as Gillom went out late to do some errands. The widow fixed him with a hard eye.

“At least you're quiet when you bump in so late.”

“Yes, ma'am. No singing or playing the gui-tar.”

Her gray hair up in a bun, she smiled, in spite of herself. “Start boiling any water you drink, anywhere. There's a touch of typhoid in town again, they're sayin'. Spring down at Castle Rock's tainted. That fever can kill you, young man, so be careful of what they pour you in restaurants.”

“What about the water off the burro trains?”

“It's supposed to be drawn from the one uncontaminated well way up Brewery Gulch, but I wouldn't trust it. Unless you'd like to die with your brain on fire.”

“No, ma'am. I'll stick to coffee then. And beer!” he yelled back up at her, now brushing her front stoop.

“They've gotta hurry digging those wells south near Naco, pump us clean water up here before we're all diseased.” Mrs. Blair was talking mostly to herself, for Gillom was already taking the wooden stairs two at a time to get out of focus of his landlady's all-seeing eyes.

*   *   *

The same pockmarked man was mucking mules' stalls when Gillom strolled up to the O.K. Livery that Saturday afternoon.

“Howdy. I'm lookin' to rent a carriage tomorrow. Gonna have four of us to pull, so we'll probably need a matched team.

“A
matched
team.” The liveryman leaned on his rake. “Kid, we don't rent show horses here.”

“Well then, the best you've got. Taking some ladies on a picnic.”

“Ah, well then. An unmatched team should work just fine for you. Picnics are pretty popular on summer Sundays. Our surrey and two spring buggies are already spoken for, tomorra.”

He left his rake and escorted Gillom to the side of their barn next to the mountain where this commercial operation stored its wheeled conveyances in space not large enough for corrals.

“This here's a Jersey wagon the railroad used to haul baggage and passengers to the Bessemer House. They've bought a couple lighter carriages now, with that spur rail in closer. This'n still's a smooth ride, though, and we can put the leather top on 'er if you want? You got plenty of room for your baskets and gear in back.”

“How much for the day?”

“Oh, three dollars, since it ain't our fanciest rig.”

“That'll be okay, I guess. Fix a top on it and I'll pick it up around eleven tomorrow morning.”

The teamster showed stained front teeth, essaying a smile.

“Okay, son. We might even find you a matched team to pull this heavier wagon.”

Gillom decided to stay home Saturday night to rest his weary legs after a long week escorting bank customers, inflating their sense of self-worth, that they actually made enough money daily to require armed protection getting it back and forth from their tills to the bank's safe. He didn't need any more late-night confrontations with the big gambler from Clifton, either. He wanted to be fresh for the morrow.

 

Twenty-seven

 

Next morning as he walked along the road to the stables in the upper portion of Tombstone Canyon, Gillom came upon his bank's cashier, M. J. Cunningham, sitting in his white Locomobile peering back at whisps of steam seeping from the brass exhaust pipes beneath its rear boiler compartment.

“Mister Cunningham.”

“Gillom! I could use a little assistance, young man. This automobile stalls sometimes, trying to get up hills. If you could help me push, turn her around, I can coast back down to town.”

Gillom went to the back of the boiler compartment, while the driver in his seersucker suit yanked the metal tiller hard to the right, turning the forty-spoke bicycle tires in front to the left. The wooden car body weighed about seven hundred pounds, plus the two passengers, so the teenager had to put his shoulder to the frame as the banker released the band brake under his foot. It was difficult for Gillom's boots to get traction in the dirt, so the driver hopped off and helped push against the dashboard from the right-hand side.

“Is it in gear?” asked Gillom.

“No, in neutral.”

Together they got the vehicle turned sideways, but Cunningham had to jump back in to hit the brake and stop his automobile from rolling into a ditch across the road. The teenager walked around to the front of the seven-foot-long Locomobile and smiled at the young lady perched on the cushioned seat. His bank paymaster looked perturbed.