Dead Warrior (19 page)

“Well, Sam and I are half owners in the water company, and I could tap our aqueduct, if I have to. That feeds in on the other side of the butte, though, so I was figuring on damming the creek back there, pumping to a tank on the ridge yonder and getting gravity flow from it.”

She listened while I went on to tell her of Hatfield’s plans, now warmly a possession of my own. “Cut hope in half and you’ll still have something worth buying,” she commented. “Shall we look for a while?”

We had come to the Dead Warrior side of the butte, and all that the valley held was spread out before us. Immediately below was the Dead Warrior shelf, here pocked by amateur digging, there alive with the works of mining companies. The tents and wickiups which had once dotted it were all gone now, for the pull of the town had sucked in such outlying residential areas as it had not stretched out to cover.

Yet it was Dead Warrior, the city, which held me spellbound. The empty wilderness which Seth and I had crossed on our way to the now dried-up water hole held countless buildings, infinite in their variety of shapes, sizes and uses. Some boosters claimed that upwards of twelve thousand people lived there. Dick Jackson and I, who had better means of keeping count than most, were in agreement that the actual figure was nearer ten thousand, though nobody really knew. All that was certain was that new people and new buildings were a present fact and future inevitability.

“That day we drove into Socorro you said you were looking for a town to live in,” Dolly reminded me. “You’ve really found it, haven’t you?”

A little ashamed of having made my enthusiasm so easy to read, I shrugged. “It suits me all right.”

“Pooh!” she said. “It stirs you to dreams like a woman looking into a mirror.” Her face became troubled, I noted,
as she followed a new train of thought. “This whole monstrous region, where anything can happen and so little actually has, stirs some people to dreams that have lost their foothold in possibility.” She swept out an arm that took me beyond the town, across the line of trees that showed the course of Sometimes Creek, up the slope on the other side, and so to the stupendous vista of hills and valleys to westward. “The contemplation of space always maddens, I suppose, so I like your idea of rejoicing in one corner of it.”

Her face, as it again turned toward me, told me not to ask why she had said what she did. “By the way,” I remarked, in the course of our descent, “our old traveling companion, Roy Sparks, was in town for a while. I got the impression he was scouting for Barringer.”

At that Dolly reined in. “After what happened at Midas Touch?”

“Probably because of it.” Catching up, I halted beside her. “Finding himself in the same camp with Barringer, he wasn’t going to make the mistake of being on the opposite side again. That’s just guesswork, but Roy now dresses like a ten-cent bad man, and something must have happened to give him delusions of grandeur.”

“I can see it from Roy’s point of view,” she agreed, “but what use would a fake be to Charlie, who’s the real article?”

“Maybe Sparks came to prove his usefulness,” I suggested, “picking up points by reporting back that the Carruthers of Dead Warrior was his old acquaintance from New Mexico. But in any case he came and went; and while he was here, he made a point of telling me that when the railroad arrives, Barringer does, too.”

“And Slim Sanders, and Randy Sutton,” Dolly said. “Are they really as good with guns as they’re supposed to be, Baltimore?”

“Nobody could be quite that fast,” I said, “but I guess they’re abler than we’d like them to be; and Sanders, at least, is supposed to be an ambitious young coral snake, who’s out to pile up a record. He’s killed a lot of men, but reports indicate that in his haste to win to the top of his profession, he hasn’t always waited for them to turn around and face him.”

When she didn’t say anything, I knew what she was thinking. “Are you afraid Colonel Peters will go for Barringer?”

“I have talked him out of the folly of seeking Charlie in his own camp, but I don’t know what will happen if Barringer and his crew try to walk tall in Dead Warrior.” Shaking her head, she lowered her voice, talking to herself rather than me. “Maybe I can continue to persuade him to put one folly ahead of another.”

Sure that I could supply water somehow, I published my recommendation as to a site for the university, being careful to point out that the selected area had been found sterile of gold. From the first I had been surprised at the amount of interest shown in the projected institution. Making the idea concrete by identifying it with a specific parcel of land increased public enthusiasm, though the hero of the moment was not Hatfield but Bedlington. The educational principles of the learned doctor were accepted as sound, even if they weren’t popularly understood, but Dead Warrior could appreciate the magnificent gesture of weighing gold ingots and putting their dollar value into the academic treasury.

Horace Bedlington had gone back East, having completed whatever mission had brought him to Arizona, but the good will he left behind him served the Dead Warrior Mining Company well. The coming of the railroad could only bestow its full benefits on that company if it had a spur line running out to its works, and the shortest route would have involved
both the trouble and expense of cutting right through the town. Preferential was a route which would connect with the main line, as soon as it reached east beyond the city. That entailed getting the right of way through quite a few claims, however, my own among others.

Irah Weaver dropped in to see me about the matter. Although the Carruthers and Wheeler freight line hauled for his outfit, my claim was my private concern; and he was careful to recognize that in his approach.

“I know you don’t like Bedlington,” he began, “but a lot of people think he done a right fine thing for the town by promising all that money to the college; and so everybody I’ve talked to so far has thought that the least they could do was to hand him a right of way for the spur line he needs. What about you?”

Getting set to bite the bullet, I reflected that up until recently I had not stood alone in my unwillingness to oblige Bedlington. None of the old prospecting crowd had had any use for the mining companies after the murder of Frank Fillmore; but now everyone was extending the hand of forgiveness, as I was about to do.

“Bedlington did do a fine thing, and I’ll be glad to give him a right of way,” I said. “I’ll put it in writing and have it at your office tomorrow, Irah.”

AT DUNCAN’S INSTIGATION a Pan-Western representative had once offered to appraise my claim, but the summer heat at the time had cooled my interest. Now that the sun had tempered its force, I wanted action, however, and not on my own account. Without aspiring to the munificence of Horace Bedlington, I still wished to make a significant contribution to Dead Warrior University, perhaps taking the form of a law library named for my Uncle Daniel.

The Pan-Western mineralogist was a stocky, dish-faced fellow, Clarence Amherst by name. He had the faculty of looking more interested than it was reasonable to suppose that he was, when he peered at me through his glasses.

“Well, does the gold go all the way through to Asia or does it stop at Hell?” I asked, when he appeared in my office and we both had our pipes going.

“You’ve got some gold,” he said. He puffed a couple of times before he made his next statement. “But I tell you what, Carruthers, your copper ore’s as rich as any I’ve seen hereabouts.”

“Copper!” In a camp dedicated to the disinterring of gold the baser metals were not highly regarded. He might as well
have told me that my claim was nothing but a pile of old fish heads.

Amherst smiled with scientific detachment toward the brutalities of truth. “Copper’s a very useful metal,” he pointed out.

“Sure,” I said. “They make pennies out of it, for one thing, while I’d been counting on double eagles.” As the claim had cost me nothing, I was personally no worse off than I had been, but I sadly watched my vision of a law library float away before I spoke again. “I don’t suppose that Pan-Western buys claims stocked with useful metal?”

“No, the company’s an old California outfit, sharing your views on anything but gold and silver.” Amherst chewed on his pipe stem before commenting. “I don’t blame the directors; they make more money this way and don’t have to invest so much in order to do it. They’d be buying up copper, if Duncan had his way, though.”

Although disappointment had killed my zest for the topic, Duncan’s surprising viewpoint stirred my curiosity. “Why should he want them to fuss with that stuff?”

“For one thing, because there’s much more copper than there is of the so-called precious metals, which owe the attribute to the very fact of their scarcity.” Having disgorged that economic principle, Amherst genially considered it. “Duncan’s got grounds for argument there, you can see; but he isn’t getting anywhere with the directors of Pan-Western, who calculate that there’s enough gold and silver in the West to keep them wealthy.”

“Of course,” I said. “Think of what they’ve got right here in Dead Warrior alone.”

Having long regarded my claim as so much gold in escrow, I felt aggrieved about discovering its true nature. Two days later, though, I was given something else to think about. The
word passed around the saloons was that Barringer, accompanied by Slim Sanders, Randy Sutton and a squad of lesser outlaws, had checked in at the Apache House.

The railroad had by then moved as far east as the old halfway house for our stage line. This had now been engulfed by the terminus city of which Barringer was the overlord. The movable community was due to blend with Dead Warrior in a couple of months, but Barringer had not waited.

My theory was that he had been lured by the reports of the mountainous stakes and gorgeous interiors which had been spread abroad after the reopening of the Glory Hole and the Happy Hunting Ground. Yet the question of why he had come was unimportant. What I really wanted to know was whether a renewal of the feud between us could be expected.

In the belief that Charlie was bound to turn up in at least one of the leading gambling halls that night, I shuttled between them. Dolly Tandy was dealing in the Happy Hunting Ground when I entered it the second time. For once she didn’t have the mesmerized look she affected while gambling. On the alert, she saw me step through the street door of the faro room; and I knew from her expression that she wanted to talk to me.

“He just left,” she said, when she had turned the game over to another dealer. “Just looking the town over now, I think.”

Glances locked, we traveled to Midas Touch and back. “Was he alone?” I asked.

“Not counting the four thugs that were with him, of whom one was Sanders, I think.” I waited for her to go on, and she did. “Charlie isn’t here to let bygones go chase themselves.”

“How’d he let you know that?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you in a moment.” A waiter had brought her a glass of the white wine she preferred while dealing, and she refreshed herself with a swallow. “I treated him like any other customer, naturally, and he gave no sign of recognition during the first few turns. Then he tried to see what I would do if he picked up chips he had lost. When I gave him a look at my derringer, he laughed and raised his hat. ‘I remember a town you made me leave, too,’ was what he said.”

“Pretty plain language at that,” I agreed. If Barringer held his grudge against Dolly because she had made trouble for him by reporting his activities, there could be no doubt as to how I stood with him. “Well, I’ll pass him the time of day anyhow,” I said. “That red dress is mighty becoming, Miss Dolly.”

She put her hand lightly on my chest and moved it until she could feel the gun slung under my loose tweed jacket. “That’s very becoming, too,” she returned the compliment. “You haven’t seen the colonel, have you?”

I realized then that the problem of what Droop-eye would do was causing her more immediate concern than either my safety or her own. “Not this evening. Will he start trouble?”

“No,” she said, more wearily than I had ever heard her speak. “He won’t do that, because he promised me not to; but there’s nothing to prevent him from doing things which nobody else could distinguish from taking the aggressive. Tell him I’d like to see him, if you run across him; will you, please?”

Having just missed Barringer in a couple of other places, I found him when I once more tried the Glory Hole. He and what I took to be his henchmen were bucking Blackfoot Terry’s tiger. I waited until McQuinn was collecting and paying off.

“Mr. Barringer, I believe.”

A quick man, he placed me in short order. Inevitably he had coarsened, but when he spoke, his voice and manner were still indicative of the breeding I had once remarked.

“Why it’s Carruthers, the wandering coach driver.” Bigger and taller than I had remembered him, he stared down with pale eyes that promised the death he had formerly failed to administer. “It’s a funny thing,” he went on, supporting my hypothesis that Sparks had reported to him about me when he did so, “but until recently I never connected the name with that of the local stage tycoon, whom I thought to be a more important man. We’ll ruin your business, won’t we?”

In putting it that way he was claiming partnership with the railroad, on whose business he and his gang fattened. It was, of course, true that the coming of the trains would destroy our stage and freighting trade; and Sam and I had already made plans for liquidation.

“That’s all right,” I told Barringer. “I pretty well ruined your business once.”

Involuntarily the arm broken when I shot his horse from under him twitched. Thinking he was preparing to draw, I raised my arm to the level of my solar plexus. Charlie laughed harshly.

“That’s what I call pilgrim’s progress. When we first met, you wouldn’t draw a gun without an order from the War Department. You’re Big Indian with the stranglers here likewise, so they tell me.”

“Oh, we hang people that deserve it,” I said. The killer of a store owner who resisted robbery had followed Ace Ferguson into the air. I was therefore justified in using the plural. “What’s more, when
we
decide to hang a man, he doesn’t get away.”

In addition to pulling that scab off him, I wished to stress the fact that I was as ready with my organization as he with
his. I was turning away, with the intention of giving him time to think my words over, when a trim figure in gray entered the gambling room from the bar.

Up to that time I had not glanced at Terry, although I had been conscious of his silent interest in proceedings. Now we swiftly exchanged looks.

“I am told there is a gang leader named Barringer here,” Droop-eye said loudly, when he had lighted one of his small cigars. “Will he be good enough to make his presence known?”

Before Charlie could react, Joe Trimble, the portly owner of the Glory Hole, lumbered forward. “Not in here!” he begged, clutching Peters by the arm. With one of his own he indicated everything from the room’s luxurious carpeting to its gilded molding. “It’s all new, and I’m still paying for it.”

“Don’t be an ass, Trimble; I have no intention of creating a disturbance.” Droop-eye thrust the landlord aside. “If Barringer is here, he and I can settle our business quietly.”

Droop-eye had the malignant assurance of a scorpion as he stood there, and I was glad of not being the one who must find out what he wanted. Barringer himself was not fully at ease, I thought, but he managed a swagger when he stepped away from the faro table.

“I’m the man you’re looking for, sport.”

“The name is Colonel Peters,” Droop-eye said.

From the way Barringer held his right hand, I felt sure he carried one of his guns under the flap of his jacket. “I knew it,” he announced, “unless you’ve taken to using an alias. I was in Fort Worth when you killed Ron Tuttle.”

“In ‘seventy-five,” Peters nodded. After making that rejoinder, he peered up at the taller man. “For reasons we need not examine, I will not kill you; but stay away from the saloon where I deal, which is the Happy Hunting Ground.
I have learned that you were there, and I do not wish the visit repeated.”

It was a minute before the outlaws could grasp the enormity of the words so matter-of-factly spoken. A young fellow with snake eyes and a silky yellow mustache recovered from the shock of the effrontery first. While Barringer was still gawking unbelievingly, this man glided past him.

I had already decided who he was, and departing patrons confirmed my guess. “That’s Slim Sanders,” one man whispered to another, as they hastily made for the street. “He’s killed more than Wild Bill Hickok.”

Smiling as though he beheld someone he was pleased to encounter, Sanders stopped a few feet short of the colonel. “You’re the one they call Droop-eye, eh?”

“I believe I have some such
nom de guerre
” Peters agreed. His cigar was in his left hand, held as he had held the lighted match that day of our first meeting in Tucson; and although he looked at the other, it was without apparent interest. “But nobody uses it to my face,” he remarked.

“Then I won’t, neither.” Still smiling, Slim drawled soothingly. “I’ll just — ”

He had started to draw as he spoke, his hand as hard to follow as a darting lizard. Yet before his gun could be leveled for action, the colonel’s had jumped into view and barked twice. The first shot staggered Sanders. The second shattered the revolver he would never live to replace.

As I backed toward a corner, watching to see whether I would have to take a hand, I saw Terry deploying in the other direction. The most fearless onlooker there wasn’t thinking about fighting, however. Frantic with the thought that damage might be done to the room’s expensive
décor
, Trimble sprang past the collapsing gunman.

“No, gentlemen!” he pleaded with the remaining four outlaws.

Getting between them and Peters, he might have died a martyr to the cause of interior decoration. By that time, though, Barringer had had time to appraise the situation. He had us outnumbered four to three, but we had the advantage of position.

“Easy, boys,” he ordered. “Nobody asked Slim to butt in here.” He looked from the bleeding corpse to Peters, who had stepped free of the settling cloud of black powder smoke. Then, to my surprise, Charlie addressed me. “How about it, Mr. Vigilante? What view will the upright citizens of Dead Warrior take?”

“Your man started first; everybody saw that.” Still poised to draw, I feared a trick, but Barringer nodded and spoke to the anxious Joe Trimble.

“Don’t worry about your premises. I like them myself.” Having made that observation, he at last addressed Droop-eye. “I accept the decision of the disinterested bystanders. It was self-defense.”

“I shall report as much to the magistrate,” Peters said. “I’m sorry about your carpeting, Trimble. Send me the cleaning bill, and if there’s any permanent stain, I’ll replace the whole thing.” Prior to leaving, the colonel bowed first to McQuinn and then to myself. “Thank you, gentlemen. Perhaps I can have the pleasure of a glass with you later in the evening.”

Having relit his cigar, he was puffing on it as he turned toward the men now pouring back into the room. They made way for him like minnows dodging a muskellunge. Then the corpse was the center of attention.

I had looked for excitement over the death of Sanders. I
was not prepared for the emotions mixed with it. Slim was well known by repute as a hobby killer, a man who deliberately went in search of trouble, so that he could add to his prestige at the cost of somebody else’s life. His demise should have been a source of gratification, if anything; yet such was not the general reaction. Instead I found that the chief feeling was disappointment over the destruction of a legend.

What was hard for me to get straight was the difference between the accepted facts and the conclusions popularly drawn from them. It was not Sanders, the multiple assassin, that had emerged from the stories about him but Sanders, the hero because always victorious. The fact that he had achieved success while yet young also entered into it; and the combination of youth and talent cut off in their prime stirred a loose-brained sentimentality.

“It’s sure too bad,” I heard one fellow opine. “There’s no tellin’ what he could’ve done if they’d’ve give him only ten more years. He might’ve beat out Quantrill and everybody.”

From there it was an easy step to the belief that this champion could not have been downed unless unfair advantage had been taken of him. “Something ought to be done about that Droop-eye,” a member of a tongue-wagging group remarked.