Glorious (18 page)

“I thought Joe Saint was your friend,” McLendon said.

“Oh, he is. But so are you. I'm not taking sides in the matter of Miss Gabrielle. I'm just getting myself some much-needed help.”

“You already have so little to do that you spend most of your afternoons in this saloon,” Mulkins pointed out.

“True,” Pugh said. “But if C.M.'s working for me, I can leave him at the livery and come here to drink with a clear conscience.”

McLendon laughed. “Since you put it that way, I'll think on it.”

“Take all the time needed,” Pugh said. “The offer will stand.”

McLendon thanked him and meant it. After he was back in his bed at the Elite, he pondered the possibility of staying in Glorious—not permanently, just for a little while longer. Enough to take Gabrielle away from Joe Saint, or at least to know that he'd tried his best. Then, with or without her, he could go on to California and a fresh start on the rest of his life. Oh, he'd probably still leave Tuesday on the Florence stage. But maybe not.

E
arly on Monday morning it rained in Glorious, first a steady patter of drops and then a punishing storm with booming, bone-rattling thunder. For a change, the window in McLendon's room came in handy. The ground that was mostly sand quickly turned to bog, and in the hard-packed areas the water didn't soak in and turned to writhing rivulets that washed about ankle-high. The lightning was spectacular. It leaped up wide and terrifying from the desert floor. Yet the prospectors still slogged their way out into the storm, determined to search out silver in spite of the weather. McLendon admired their pluck but felt no inclination to emulate it. He happily watched through his window for more than two hours until the storm passed and the dark clouds were almost immediately replaced by the bright, searing sun.

“If you went out into the mountains right now, you'd find much of the rock to be steaming,” Major Mulkins told him in the dining room. “The heat's always extra fearful after rain.”

“Will the stage still make the trip here today after the storm?”
McLendon asked. “I see all the mud and flooding. Perhaps they'll postpone the route this week?”

“Never a chance,” Mulkins said. “The vagaries of weather are sometimes inconvenient, but we've learned to deal with them. The stage will be coming—perhaps a little later than usual but arriving all the same. This wasn't a severe storm, just a decent gully washer. A few months back we had a downpour that would have terrified Noah of the Bible. All the prospectors' tents were washed away, and most of their personal belongings. But the Tirritos lent the boys some blankets and I had some to spare as well. Many of the prospectors slept on the floor of my lobby and others in the Owaysis. A couple of weeks later we got some canvas delivered from Florence and new tents were fashioned. Everybody pitched in. Miss Gabrielle and Mary Somebody were particularly adept with their needles. Soon things were back to normal.”

When he finished breakfast, McLendon strolled over to the livery, trying not to step in the worst of the puddles. The morning's heat was the most oppressive yet and he oozed sweat from every pore. He found Bob Pugh stuffing oats into feed bags.

“Mules don't require any fancy feed,” he told McLendon. “They also need less grooming than horses. At present I may rent out only three or four mules a day to prospectors, but when the time comes that we're a growing community, I'll be making tidy profits. Have you decided to accept my offer of bed and board in exchange for daily assistance?”

“I'm still mulling it over,” McLendon said.

“Take your time, you've got all day and most of tomorrow,” Pugh said. “Come on inside. Familiarize yourself with your prospective accommodations.”

The adobe hut in front of the corral and stalls served Pugh as both
an office and a dwelling. There was a desk and chair—“My modest workplace”—and, in one corner, a low, narrow bed. A small woodstove stood in the opposite corner. A chest apparently held Pugh's clothes and personal effects.

“I generally wash up outside in the trough,” Pugh said. “On formal bath days I prefer a tin tub at the Elite to jumping in the creek. The Major will cut you a deal on bath charges if you're a regular. We would swap off nights on use of the bed; the other can wrap up with blankets on the floor. So you wouldn't be enjoying any luxury, but basic necessities would be satisfied. Perhaps you might take dinner here with me tonight to acquaint yourself with my cuisine. It'll be bacon and beans. That's generally the fare. I season the beans with chiles, a trick I learned from Preacher Sheridan, so they contain considerable kick. That makes it convenient following the evening meal to visit the Owaysis and soothe a scorched tongue with beer.”

“You make it sound irresistible,” McLendon said. “The beans, especially.”

“They're quite tasty, what I call my Preacher beans. Dine with me tonight and see for yourself.”

McLendon helped Pugh fill the feed bags and also to rake clean hay in some stalls. When the chores were done, he excused himself and went to the laundry, where Sydney and her mother were hard at work. The older woman glared at McLendon.

“Mother says that because you made me dance, now all the other white men think I'm a whore,” Sydney said. “She says they'll be offering me money to go off to their blankets with them.”

McLendon was appalled. “I had no idea I was damaging your reputation in that way,” he said. “What should I do to make things right?”

“Don't do anything,” Sydney said. “Mother is just anticipating the worst; it's a natural expectation among Chinese in America. So far, no
one's approached me in any indecent way, and if someone does, I'll discourage him. Meanwhile, are you leaving tomorrow or not? If you are and have clothes to be laundered beforehand, you should bring them to us now. The men who've gone out today will return fearfully dirty from the mud, and their laundry will have Mother and me fully occupied all day long tomorrow.”

“I'm still thinking about it,” McLendon said. “In any event, I apologize for whatever distress my impulsiveness yesterday may have caused.”

“Oh, it was something to have danced,” Sydney said. “Though I don't believe I'll ever do it again, I can see why people like it. I suppose I should be grateful that, in the most selfish, thoughtless way, you forced the experience on me.”

McLendon went back to his room and gathered a bundle of laundry. He was probably going to leave, but even if he didn't he still wanted clean clothes. After he dropped the bundle off at the laundry, he went on to the Tirritos' dry goods store to buy a bandanna. He couldn't stand the idea of wearing Joe Saint's. Gabrielle was behind the counter. She handed McLendon a box of bandannas. He looked through them and selected one.

“Fifty cents,” she said. He handed her the money. She put the coins in a cigar box under the counter and said, “Thank you for dancing with Sydney yesterday. It was a bold act and this town will be better for it.”

“I fail to see how,” McLendon replied. “Almost everyone there obviously disapproved, and the mayor is shunning me. Sydney's mother believes that I ruined her daughter's reputation.”

“Nonsense. A white man danced with a Chinese woman and the world didn't come to an end. It will help everyone realize that the Chinese are human beings too. You did a good thing.”

McLendon couldn't resist. “Would your sheriff have ever asked Sydney to dance?”

“We discussed it afterward. Next time he will. So, are you leaving tomorrow?”

McLendon shrugged. “I'm still deciding.”

Gabrielle began rearranging small items on the counter. It seemed to McLendon that they were already properly in place, but she rearranged them anyway. “I hope that if you do choose to stay longer, it's not for the wrong reason,” Gabrielle said. “You've startled me, because it seems as though you really may have changed, at least a little. But there's no chance that I'll change my mind. Do you understand that?”

“I can make you happier than Joe Saint.”

“In your opinion, but not in mine. And my new attachment aside, you have more pressing concerns. Aunt Lidia's letter telling how you abruptly left St. Louis contained additional information. She wrote that, following your disappearance, a large, sinister man came to see her and Uncle Mario. He wanted to know if they had seen you or had some notion of where you might be. He mentioned a reward for useful information. You failed to tell me when you arrived last week that you're a fugitive from your father-in-law.”

Even in the suffocating heat, McLendon thought of Killer Boots and shivered. “What did your aunt Lidia tell him?”

“She said that she had no idea where you were. But clearly Mr. Douglass has the notion that you're responsible for his daughter's death. Oh, don't worry. I know you're no murderer. Whatever happened, even if you were involved, must have been accidental. But don't you think I should have been told about this when you asked me to go off to California with you?”

“All that is in the past,” McLendon said. “Powerful as he may be,
I doubt Mr. Douglass's reach extends to Arizona Territory and California.”

“News out here may travel slowly, but it eventually gets around all the same,” Gabrielle said. “You can't be certain that word of your whereabouts won't eventually reach Mr. Douglass in St. Louis. You're still in danger, and anyone with you will be too. So there's that, and also the other thing, what happened between us before. All right, you've changed, but how much? If I went off with you to some great city in California, what would prevent you from deserting me again the first chance you had to take up with another rich girl? No, we're done and I'm staying here with Joe.”

“He'll never be anything but a small-town sheriff.”

“Perhaps not, but when he says he'll love me forever, at least I know that he means it.”

They were silent for a moment, and then McLendon said, “In your conversations with Joe Saint about me, did you mention that I'm on the run from Rupert Douglass? Because if the sheriff ever sent word—”

Gabrielle cut him off. “I've not told anyone—not Joe, certainly not my father, who despises you so much that he very well might contact Mr. Douglass if he knew. Though you treated me badly, my life has turned out better for it. I don't wish you any harm. Go to California.”

•   •   •

M
C
L
ENDON GLUMLY REPAIRED
to the Owaysis for lunch and a beer. He sat by himself at a table. The few other customers were prospectors who'd decided not to go out in the muck and heat, Old Ben and Archie among them. They leaned against the bar and talked about moving on to more promising places, maybe California City or the area near Camp Grant, where some sort of vigilante army had
recently wiped out a large Apache band. It was likely, they agreed, that there were no vast silver deposits around Glorious after all.

“Bullshit to that,” said Crazy George, who'd been listening as he washed shot glasses and refilled mugs of beer. “It'll happen here anytime now. You leave and you're going to miss out.”

“Jesus, George, face facts,” Old Ben retorted. “People have been out here looking for more than a year and nobody's found much more than the occasional trace. If you had any sense, you'd be ready to pull out too. You can't sell drinks in a ghost town.”

George slammed down the mug he'd been washing. “Ben, you fucking give up if you want!” he bellowed. “Get your sorry ass out of my saloon and out of this town. Soon enough you'll regret it. You'll see. You'll see.”

Mary Somebody hurried over and put her hand on George's arm. “Now, Sugar Pie, there's no need to be losing your temper. These boys are just hot and worn-out, that's all. How about a beer all around on the house and we're friends again?”

The prospectors were willing, and so was Crazy George, though he grumbled a bit and only poured the beer after Mary whispered to him a little more and kissed him on the cheek. When she was certain that things had settled back down at the bar, she came over to McLendon's table to take away his empty plate.

“Generous of you to be giving away beer,” McLendon said.

“I'd rather have them drinking than bitching,” Mary said. “What we don't need is people saying there's no silver. Talk like that can spread not just around here but out in the rest of the territory. George and me put every cent we had into building this saloon. This town has just got to work. But if somebody don't make a big strike soon, if the place dies and we have to move on, God knows how we'll manage. We
won't have money to open a place somewhere else. George is near blind and I'm too old to earn a decent living whoring.”

“Oh, now, you're not that old,” McLendon said, not meaning it but wanting to soothe. He liked feisty Mary Somebody. She had considerable spunk for a woman her age, which he estimated was on the far side of fifty, maybe even a bit beyond sixty.

“I turn forty-three next month,” Mary said. “Don't look so surprised. Life's hard on women out here in the territories. The sun and troubles wear us right down. If I have to turn myself out again, all I'll be able to get will be pennies from Mexicans.”

“Maybe it won't come to that,” McLendon said. “Some prospector might come back to town today with great news.”

“I'm praying it's so. The thing is, in the last month, most of the prospectors here have stayed on, maybe twenty-five or thirty in all, but there ain't any more new ones coming in. They congregate around the assay offices and courthouses in Florence and Tucson waiting for word somebody's struck a seam someplace, and then they all rush off there to try and share in the find before it's overrun. While they wait, they gossip about all the places where they wasted their time. That's the goddamn beginning of the end—every prospector in creation will believe Glorious is a place to avoid. If we don't have some kind of find here, and soon, then we're done.”

“Really?” McLendon asked, calculating. “How much longer, do you think, if there's nothing found around here and Glorious shuts down?”

Mary glanced at the prospectors grouped at the bar. They were laughing now, relishing their free beer, and Crazy George was laughing with them. “Two months more, three at most,” she said. “Then one morning all the tents will be gone. George and me and the mayor
and Rose, Bob Pugh and Major Mulkins and the Tirritos, will have to pack up what we can carry and take a stage out before the Florence office shuts down the route.”

“I suppose Sheriff Saint would move on too.”

“Like the rest of us, he wandered in and he'd have to wander out,” Mary said. “But I won't waste further time on these depressing thoughts. You want another beer? Those goomers at the bar got one free, so I guess we can offer you one on the house.”