Glorious (11 page)

“That's fine,” McLendon said politely. “You know, I still don't see why you call that bartender Crazy George. He seems the farthest thing from it.”

“I expect that you're about to find out,” Pugh replied. “Keep a sharp eye on that fellow mishandling Girl.”

Ella had just taken her latest customer to the whores' cribs behind the saloon, and one particularly hulking, hairy prospector seemed disinclined to wait for his turn with her. He grasped Girl's wrist and began talking to her, his bearded face pushed aggressively next to hers, and she tried to pull away. Mary Somebody hurried over. She said something to the prospector; McLendon couldn't make out the words over the ongoing drone of conversation throughout the room, but Mary seemed to be explaining that Ella would be back soon and that Girl wasn't suitable for him. The prospector pushed Mary away and grabbed at Girl again.

“Call the sheriff,” McLendon said to Pugh and Mayor Rogers. “That man's going to hurt someone.”

“Sit tight and watch,” Pugh said, and gestured toward the bar. “It's about to get real good.”

McLendon had taken Mitchell for a small, hesitant man, but now the barkeeper straightened and McLendon could have sworn that his back and neck swelled with new muscle. Mitchell tossed aside his glasses, reached down and pulled a length of lead pipe from his boot, and vaulted over the bar. Roaring with inchoate fury, he took hold of the prospector's collar and raised the pipe to strike. The prospector, suddenly appearing much smaller, let go of Girl and fled from the saloon while the other patrons hooted and cheered. Mitchell stood with the lead pipe raised until Mary Somebody patted his back
and whispered something to him. Then he pushed the pipe back into his boot and walked behind the bar, seeming to deflate with each step. Someone handed him his glasses; he put them on and resumed nearsightedly pouring drinks as though nothing had happened.

Pugh laughed and said to McLendon, “Like I told you—Crazy George.”

A
s he served McLendon his breakfast of coffee and biscuits on Wednesday morning, Major Mulkins said, “I hope that you're finding your stay in our community to be acceptable.”

“The Owaysis was diverting,” McLendon said. “Crazy George Mitchell is worthy of the name. But I still look forward to boarding the stage back to Florence. My first act on arrival will be seeking out a laundry. Every item of my clothing is soiled from travel and constant heat.”

“Florence is the bigger place, but we're not without our own conveniences,” Mulkins said. “A laundry operates behind this hotel, on the fringes of the prospectors' tents. If you take your dirty clothes there after you finish your breakfast, they'll likely be returned clean and fresh-smelling to you around dinnertime. It's a Chink laundry, to be sure, but I think you'll discover that the pigtailed race has a knack for efficient service.”

After eating, McLendon rolled most of his clothing into a loose bundle. He located the adobe laundry just where Mulkins said. He
went inside and found it difficult to breathe in the ferocious heat. Water boiled in a huge kettle over a fire. Two large tin tubs stood against the back wall. An elderly Chinese woman bent over one of them, wringing out a pair of overalls. She carefully hung the overalls on a line stretched along a side wall; they dangled there alongside several other pairs as well as a number of dripping shirts and drawers and a few dresses. McLendon thought he recognized the daring frock worn the day before by Ella in the Owaysis.

The elderly woman noticed McLendon and held out her hands for his bundled clothing. She picked through, separating drawers and shirts and pants, and said, “Two dolla.”

Two dollars seemed steep to McLendon, but he needed clean clothes. “All right,” he said. “When will my laundry be ready?”

She frowned and repeated, “Two dolla.”

“I understand the cost. I'm trying to determine when I'll get the cleaned clothes back. Major Mulkins mentioned one-day service.”

“Two dolla.”

A younger Chinese woman came in, hauling two sloshing buckets. She said to McLendon, “My mother wants you to give her two dollars now. She requires payment in advance because too many people have cheated her, taking their laundered clothes and then refusing to pay.”

“I wouldn't do that,” McLendon said.

“I'm sure, but Mother still wants the money now.” She watched as McLendon handed over two dollars, then gestured to several piles of clothing stacked near the washtubs. “There are some things to be laundered ahead of yours, but if you come by around late afternoon your clothes should be ready. Washing dries quickly in this hot climate. Now, if you'll excuse us, we'll get back to work.”

The morning stretched ahead for McLendon. He thought it was
too early to go into the saloon. Instead he wandered to the farrier's shop, where he watched as Charlie Rogers mended a cracked pickax head for a waiting prospector. Rogers used tongs to place a strip of heat-softened metal over the crack, tapped it firmly into place with a hammer, and then plunged the ax head into a bucket of water to cool.

“There you are,” he said to the prospector. “It'll be three bits. Shall I put it on your tab?” The prospector, dark eyes glittering on either side of a hooked nose, nodded, took the tool, and left the shop without saying a word.

“Is the fellow a mute, or merely rude?” McLendon asked.

The mayor blotted perspiration from his forehead. “Oh, that's just Turner. He never talks much. But among all the prospectors so far, he's the one who most believes that he'll make his fortune here.” Rogers motioned for McLendon to follow him outside, and pointed to a small shack apparently constructed from rough wood planks and parts of packing cases. The shack was about fifty yards beyond the rest of the prospectors' tents. “He proved he's here to stay when he put up a permanent place on the hill. I suppose he built it some distance away because he don't often care for company. It's all right. We welcome all kinds. Meanwhile, I hope you're enjoying a pleasant morning?”

“I've just dropped off laundry with the old Chinese woman. She was adamant regarding payment in advance.”

“Well, you can't hardly blame her. They set up that shop maybe two months ago, and some of the early customers neglected to pay. Many have no respect for the yellows—don't think of them as real people. Myself, I'm glad we've got some. Their vegetables and the laundry come in mighty handy. Rose has got a delicate constitution. I wouldn't want my jelly bunny wearing herself out over a washboard.”

McLendon passed the rest of the morning in the hotel lobby, chatting with Mulkins and reading
The Last of the Mohicans
. Mulkins was impressed.

“It's a fine thing to be an educated man,” he said. “I can read some myself, but I never took to books as such. What's that one about?” After McLendon summarized the story, Mulkins said, “That sounds like a stem-winder. We've got a few readers in town, the sheriff especially, and others who aspire to the skill.”

“Are there many books here to be read? I assume that they're in short supply.”

Mulkins mopped his brow with a bright blue cloth. It was very warm inside the hotel. “Well, the sheriff has some, and also Miss Gabrielle. They share with the few who can sufficiently decipher them. And, thanks some to him and mostly to her, more can all the time. What they do is—”

The Major was interrupted by the Mexican woman who cleaned the Elite. She asked in halting English if Mulkins wanted her to mop the floor of the lobby or the dining room next.

“I think the dining room, Mrs. Mendoza,” Mulkins said. “Take your time and make a thorough job of it. Now, Mr. McLendon, I was telling you about Miss Gabrielle.”

McLendon was trying hard not to even think about Gabrielle. To change the subject, he said, “You mentioned earlier that Mrs. Mendoza lives on Culloden Ranch across the creek. Does her husband live there too?”

“Quickie Mendoza is one of the vaqueros employed by Collin MacPherson to protect his ranch and, happily, this town,” Mulkins said. “I believe that there are about twenty vaqueros in all, separate from the several dozen hands he employs to tend his cattle. Mr. MacPherson sells beef to the Army at its various camps and also to us
here in Glorious. Without that, we'd be mostly reduced to eating jackrabbit stew, if we were able to catch the rabbits.”

“I saw two riders in town last night that I took for MacPherson vaqueros,” McLendon said. “They struck me as sinister.”

“They look like hard men because they are, and that's what's required to keep the Apaches at bay. I understand Mr. MacPherson's foreman recruited them right out of Sonora in Mexico, where they fought Indians on a daily basis. He mounts them on the best horses and arms them with the finest weapons. Last night, did you notice the pistols those riders carried? They're double-action Remington-Riders, very costly and hard to come by out here. I believe they were ordered directly from the eastern manufacturer.”

“I know very little about guns,” McLendon admitted. “I have a Navy Colt that I purchased in Houston, and I know how to load and, I suppose, fire it. But I have no idea of what ‘double-action' means.”

Mulkins launched into an extensive explanation. Most frontier handguns, including McLendon's Navy Colt, were single-action. Their hammers had to be cocked by the shooter's thumb before he pulled the trigger with his index finger to fire—so that was one action at a time. Double-action models, just beginning to be widely manufactured, were better because pulling the trigger cocked and then fired the weapon—two actions in one. “That provides a faster rate of fire than single-action. I believe that within two or three years double-action models will be the rule rather than the exception.”

“So Mr. MacPherson really does provide his men with the very best handguns.”

“Yes, and the best repeating rifles as well. Most of us in Glorious have old-model Henry repeaters or shotguns. We're none of us gun hands, and unlikely to hit what we aim at. It's the town's good fortune that Mr. MacPherson looks after our welfare as well as his own.”

They sat for a few moments in companionable silence. McLendon could hear the swishing sound of Mrs. Mendoza's mop on the dining room's wood floor. “I haven't seen any of the MacPherson vaqueros get down off their horses and spend leisure time in town,” he said. “Are they forbidden to trade with you?”

“It's more that they have little need for such,” Mulkins said. “The Culloden Ranch has its own blacksmith and cook, and there's a bunkhouse for the single men and adobe huts for the married men and their wives, so most of their needs are seen to there. And when they do choose to mingle in town, it sometimes gets uncomfortable. By nature they seem quick-tempered and prone to find insult where none is intended. We've had a few incidents, all thankfully resolved without too much damage. Sheriff Saint steps in, or if necessary we summon the ranch foreman. He's the hardest man of them all. Angel Misterio, ‘the Mystery Angel' in English. If he's an angel, he's a dark one. But he keeps those vaqueros in line.”

“You make it sound as though without MacPherson and his vaqueros, you might not have a town at all.”

Mulkins finished his cigarette and began rolling another. “There's no way to know, but I'm glad we haven't had to find out.”

McLendon took lunch at the Owaysis: more pickles and some spicy beef jerky. He drank beer, being careful to pace himself this time. Bob Pugh came in for pickles and jerky, and when he said he couldn't stay to talk because he had to muck out stables, McLendon offered to help. It was something to do. At Pugh's livery he took off his suit coat, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and set to work. The stables were behind the livery and next to the corral. Flies swarmed there, but the roof blocked the worst of the sun. After two hours Pugh suggested a water break and told McLendon that he was impressed.

“You may not be a rider, but you're a natural hand with a shovel and pitchfork,” Pugh said. He and McLendon cleaned stalls, laid down fresh straw, and fetched water for the mules from a nearby town well. When McLendon finally glanced at his pocket watch, it was just after five.

“I need to go pick up my laundry,” he said to Pugh. “Perhaps after dinner I'll see you back at the Owaysis.”

When McLendon returned to the laundry and stepped inside, he was dismayed to see Gabrielle talking animatedly to the young Chinese woman. Gabrielle nodded at him politely, gathered up some laundered clothes, and left.

“Your clothes are ready,” the Chinese woman said. She piled the folded shirts, drawers, and pants in his arms and said, “Thank you for your business. Come again.”

Still unsettled by encountering Gabrielle, McLendon said, “You speak very good English.”

She gave him a quizzical look. “Were you born in America?”

“Of course.”

“So was I. We both speak good English.”

McLendon, his arms full of laundry, retreated outside. He almost collided with Gabrielle, who was waiting for him.

“Let's not be foolish,” she said. “We're not going to be able to completely avoid each other. This is a small place, and you're here until the stage leaves next week. We can say hello and be polite.”

“After our previous conversation, I'll find that hard,” McLendon said.

“It doesn't have to be. We'll keep it short and painless. I hope you pass a pleasant evening. Now I must go fix dinner for my father. Good night.”

•   •   •

M
C
L
ENDON WENT BACK
to the hotel and changed into a freshly laundered shirt, drawers, and trousers. The clean clothes felt wonderful. He ate in the dining room and then decided to walk next door to the Owaysis. There didn't seem to be any other places in town to find evening diversion. But before he could go inside, he was hailed by a rangy fellow whose hatband sported a jaunty feather.

“Can we have a moment?” the man asked, extending his hand. “I'm Lemmy Duke, and I work for Mr. MacPherson of the Culloden Ranch. Perhaps we might have a word in a quiet place? The lobby of your hotel would do nicely.”

They went back inside the Elite and sat in adjacent lobby chairs. Duke rolled a cigarette and offered the tobacco and papers to McLendon, who declined. After he had his cigarette properly lit and had asked McLendon's name, Duke said, “Those of us at the Culloden always take notice of unusual newcomers. You're not a prospector, it's clear, nor a drummer on a sales call. I hope it's not presumptuous to ask your purpose here in Glorious.”

“I've already been asked this by the mayor and the sheriff. My response remains the same. I came to see an acquaintance.”

Duke took a long drag on his cigarette and blew a perfect smoke ring. “So you don't intend, say, to open yourself a little business? Another hotel, perhaps, or a shop or dining establishment of some sort?”

“Hardly. I'm eager to leave, and intend to on next week's Florence stage. But I don't understand why my plans are of any interest to you or your boss.”

“They aren't, so long as they don't pose a threat to the fine businesspeople here. Major Mulkins with this hotel, Mayor Rogers and his farrier shop, old Pugh with the livery, and the Tirritos with their store.
These are fine people who've risked a lot to establish themselves, and who deserve the opportunity to prosper when this town does. They don't need competitors now when there's so little business to be had, and it's their right to reap the profits when that grand time comes. So we of the Culloden like to gently discourage additional businesses just now. Later on, I'm sure there will be no problem. But not at present.”

“That's the opposite view of Mayor Rogers. He practically begged me to stay in any capacity that I chose.”