Glorious (22 page)

MacPherson pounded his fist on the table where the housekeeper had set the coffee tray. One of the china cups fell to the floor and broke. The ranch owner ignored it.

“Exactly! And they'll benefit too. I'll pay fair prices, enough so they can go somewhere else and start fresh.”

“Just not in your town.”

“Mr. McLendon, it's a pleasure to talk to a man like you. I'm sure you see your role in all this. Go back into Glorious, be my ears, get a sense of who's discouraged and wants to sell now, who's decided to hold on and see what happens, who may prove too stubborn to be reasonable and so requires additional persuasion. Then, as the town grows, you'll be my inside man on the scene, passing along helpful information. Of course, you'll be handsomely compensated. If it's your wish, I might even see my way clear to let you operate a business of your own, with a proper percentage accruing to me, of course.”

“Of course,” McLendon said. “All this depending on whether they discover silver.”

“And you've heard me guarantee it. They will. I won't allow the town to die. I've invested too much in it.”

McLendon sighed. “I'm sure.”

“Have we an agreement, then? Shall we discuss immediate wages, something for your pocket tonight?” MacPherson stood over McLendon's chair, ready to close the deal.

“That won't be necessary,” McLendon said. Both his head and heart were aching.

“You prefer remuneration at a later date? Of course—for the moment there's little worth buying in Glorious.”

“I decline your offer, Mr. MacPherson.”

“Do you doubt the generosity of my terms? The amount I had in mind—”

McLendon stood. “The amount doesn't matter. I can't do it. These people are my friends.”

“Ah, you're a canny negotiator, playing the friendship angle. So let's say two hundred in gold now where I might have intended to offer a hundred. Then, each time I acquire a business or key property with your assistance, two hundred more. That, plus a guarantee of well-compensated, permanent employment when the whole town is under my control. Are we agreed?”

“You're mistaken, Mr. MacPherson,” McLendon said wearily. “I wasn't trying to negotiate. The founders of Glorious really are my friends. I can't act against them.”

MacPherson hunched his shoulders forward like a man ready to throw a punch. “If they're really your friends, then on their behalf you ought to accept the inevitability of this. Whether you're with me or not, I'll have what I want.”

“I'm sure that you will, but I won't be part of it.”

“Well,” MacPherson said, shaking his head. “You're decided?” McLendon nodded. “Then let me remind you that you gave your
word to keep this conversation confidential. If I find that you've slinked back to town and informed your precious friends of my intentions, I'll be so displeased that no one could guarantee your personal safety. Am I clear?”

“You are.”

“I hope that your friends in Glorious are more reasonable than you've proven to be, Mr. McLendon, for those who will not reason with me are fools.” MacPherson rang the bell again, and when the housekeeper came he whispered in her ear. She left, and MacPherson sat down in his chair. He picked up some papers and began reading them. McLendon still stood a few feet away, but MacPherson made no further acknowledgment of him. It was as though he'd ceased to exist.

Moments later Angel Misterio came in. He took McLendon's arm, not gently, and said, “Come.” He led McLendon outside and motioned for the guards to open the gate in the stone wall.
“Vamos,”
Misterio said.

“Are you coming? Where are the horses?” McLendon asked.

Misterio laughed disdainfully. “There is no guide or horse for you. Make your way back to town if you can.” The head vaquero shoved McLendon forward; as soon as he was beyond the wall, the gate shut behind him and he heard bolts being slammed home.

The inky night enveloped McLendon. He knew that Glorious was somewhere in front of him, but he couldn't see anything. He shuffled ahead, trying to stay positive. Two miles or so wasn't that far. There weren't any mountains between him and town, just the creek, which wasn't deep. If he kept walking he'd be in Glorious soon enough.

He'd thought the valley was quiet at night, but he quickly became aware of noise all around him. McLendon recognized the low moan of the wind, but the other rustlings and creakings dismayed him. He
remembered someone telling him that Apaches didn't attack at night. He hoped that was right. He hadn't thought to bring his gun when Angel Misterio summoned him to Culloden. McLendon knew that there were mountain lions and bears in the Pinals. Did any ever venture down this far? The threat of Indians and wild animals aside, it was difficult just to keep walking. He kept stumbling on soft spots in the ground, and several times he walked right into clumps of cactus. The spines dug into his shins. When he tried to blindly pick them out of his lower legs, they tore open his fingers. He'd never felt so miserable.

After a while McLendon felt certain that he must be nearing Queen Creek. Glorious wasn't that far beyond it. He kept hoping to see the lights of the town, then remembered that there weren't that many lights. It was possible, even probable, that if he didn't walk in exactly the right direction he'd miss Glorious entirely. How could he know? All he could see for certain were the stars overhead, and while there were those who could tell directions from the stars, McLendon wasn't one of them. He wondered how long he'd been walking. It seemed like an hour, but surely it wasn't. Where was goddamn Queen Creek?

McLendon sensed movement to his left and panicked. Even though he couldn't see anything, he knew it was human—Apache, or maybe Angel Misterio following along to kill him. He tried to shout, “Get away!” but he was so terrified that his voice squeaked rather than roared.

“No, no, it's me,” a voice called softly, and then someone was right beside him. It was so dark that even then McLendon had trouble making out the newcomer's features.

“It's me,” the man said again. “Juan Luis. You know me from town, the night that I almost killed that man.”

“Yes,” McLendon said, sagging with relief. Then he reconsidered. This vaquero worked for Collin MacPherson. “What do you want?”

“Keep your voice down. Noise carries out here at night.”

“What do you want?” McLendon asked again, quietly this time.

“Careful, you're going right into a cactus,” Juan Luis said. He gently guided McLendon to the right. “You're walking the wrong direction if you're going back to town. Here, this way.”

“I've been thinking I'm about to cross the creek,” McLendon said. “It's got to be nearby.”

“No, it's farther. You aren't that distant yet from the
rancho
.”

McLendon peered back over his shoulder and saw the flickering torches. They seemed disgustingly close. “Can you help me get back to Glorious?”

Juan Luis tugged on McLendon's sleeve. “Let's go, it's this way. But try to be quiet. I don't want Angel Misterio to know I'm helping you. It would make him angry. After they closed the gate behind you, he told everyone that you were now an enemy of the
jefe
and no one was to have any more to do with you.”

“Then why risk this?”

“If, in my rage, I'd killed that drunken
gringo
prospector, Misterio would have killed me. So I'm in your debt.
¡Vámonos!
Come on!”

They made steady progress, though McLendon still occasionally stumbled over plants and outcrops of rock. To his great relief, the water didn't lap over the tops of his boots when they stepped into the shallow cut of Queen Creek. Then McLendon saw a few dots of light ahead, kerosene lamps or candles flickering behind oilcloth curtains. For once, he felt that Glorious lived up to its name.

“Can you go on your own from here?” Juan Luis asked. “If someone in town sees me and tells Misterio, it would be bad for me. He punishes anyone who disobeys.”

“I'll be all right. Juan, thanks. I don't think I would have made it back without you.”

“No, you would have been food for coyotes,” the vaquero said matter-of-factly. Then, in a more urgent tone, he added, “
Amigo
, you've got to get out of here. Go away, leave tomorrow. Bad things are going to happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don't know for sure, but real bad. All those people in town are scared of the
indios
, but there are worse things than Apaches.”

“What things?” McLendon asked, but he was talking to the night. Juan Luis had disappeared into the darkness.

•   •   •

M
C
L
ENDON WALKED
into town and headed for the saloon. Just outside the door he checked his pocket watch: it was only a little after nine. He could have sworn that he'd been gone all night. He went into the Owaysis and saw Pugh, Mulkins, and Mayor Rogers at a table. His immediate instinct was to tell them about Collin MacPherson's plans, but then he thought better of it. What good would telling them do? MacPherson would have his way anyway, and he'd order McLendon killed with no more hesitation than swatting a pesky fly.

“C.M., come join us,” Pugh called. “We've missed your company this fine evening. Where have you been hiding yourself?”

“I took a little walk around the valley,” McLendon said. “Here, let me get the next round.” He'd always had a gift for feigning good humor when he felt the opposite.

•   •   •

T
HE STAGE FROM
Florence wasn't due again for another four days. McLendon's experiences going to and from Culloden Ranch had
convinced him that he couldn't ride or walk out of Glorious on his own. The morning after McLendon's meeting with MacPherson, Angel Misterio rode into town. When he saw McLendon in front of the livery, one of his eyebrows cocked in fleeting amazement. Then he passed by without a further glance.

•   •   •

T
HE MORE
M
C
L
ENDON
thought about it, the more certain he felt that, despite Juan Luis's warning, he didn't have to go right away. Prospectors were still leaving and Glorious was dying by the day. MacPherson's plans might be thwarted after all. It made McLendon feel that he wasn't betraying his friends with his silence. Probably in a matter of weeks, not months, they would have to give up anyway, whether or not they sold out to MacPherson. Maybe that would be the end of Gabrielle and Joe Saint. He thought that it was worth waiting to find out.

•   •   •

E
VERYONE IN TOWN
knew the end was looming. Their sense of it was reinforced when they noticed that sour-spirited Turner was gone.

“If he's left, that's it,” Mulkins proclaimed gloomily. “No one believed in the silver possibilities more than him. But the only prospector to buy breakfast at the hotel this morning said Turner ain't been seen since two nights ago. It's got the rest of them spooked. I don't doubt there'll be a procession of 'em heading out of town by tomorrow.”

Mayor Rogers agreed. He brought out some crates and began packing his farrier's tools. In the Owaysis, Ella sobbed.

“I haven't nearly the necessary money saved,” she mourned to McLendon. “What's to become of me?”

Mary Somebody overheard and patted Ella's shoulder. “You're still
young and pretty. Somewhere, men will pay for you a good while longer.”

“But I don't
want
to be a whore anymore,” Ella wailed. “I just want to go
home
.” McLendon, still uncertain of his own destination after Glorious, reflected that Ella at least knew where home was.

That night in the Owaysis, the mood was glum. Toasts were drunk to good times that no one any longer believed were really coming.

“Cheer up, boys, maybe things'll look different in the morning,” Bob Pugh suggested.

They did.

T
he dwindling population of Glorious was up before sunrise. The prospectors emerged from their tents, many stumbling down to the creek for morning ablutions. There were only a dozen still in town, but the Tirritos opened the dry goods store for those who wanted canned fruit or buttons or hard candy. Major Mulkins set up for breakfast in the dining room but had no takers. Mayor Rogers waited hopefully in his farrier's shop, but none of the prospectors brought tools for him to mend. At the livery, Bob Pugh and McLendon rented out one mule; the prospector paying two dollars for use of the animal told them that he'd either bring it back that evening loaded with promising ore samples, or else he'd be leaving town for good the next day.

Not much after six, the first early rays of daylight edged over the lower mountain peaks to the east. McLendon, Pugh, Mayor Rogers, and Mulkins stood outside the livery and watched the prospectors disappear into the Pinals and the canyon.

“This is the last day,” the mayor predicted. “It's over. Goddamn it, we tried so hard.”

“God knows we did,” Mulkins agreed. “What the hell. I've got fresh biscuits and coffee going to waste back in my dining room. There's plenty of bacon, too, and a batch of hen eggs I bought from the Chinese. Let's at least go have ourselves a mighty breakfast.”

They had just turned to walk to the hotel when Bob Pugh, the sharpest-eyed among them, pointed west down the valley. “What's that coming?”

They squinted, trying to see past the guardhouse patrolled by the MacPherson vaqueros. The light was still dim, but it seemed to McLendon that several tiny dots were moving toward town. “Apaches?” he asked nervously.

“No, 'Paches wouldn't approach out in the open,” Pugh said. “It's white men for sure. Six, maybe seven, all on foot. I wonder what's their purpose.”

Thirty minutes later the first walked past the guard post, looking curiously at the two armed vaqueros. He carried a huge pack on his back. A pick and a shovel were lashed to the sides of the bulky bundle.

“How do,” called Mayor Rogers. “Welcome to our town. My name is—”

“No time for introductions,” the newcomer barked. “Which way is the strike?”

“What strike?” the mayor asked.

“Shit, you're trying to keep the information to yourselves,” the man said. “I'll find it in spite of you. Where can I rent a mule?”

“Why, right this way,” Pugh said. “Let me escort you to my livery and supply you with the finest mule in Arizona Territory.”

“I want that mule pronto.”

“Pronto it shall be, all yours all day for the meager fee of three dollars.”

“It was two dollars just a few minutes ago,” McLendon whispered to Mulkins.

“Hush,” Mulkins hissed. “A man should always charge what the market allows.”

Pugh hustled his customer to the livery. While he was gone, three more men walked into town from the west, all of them prospectors, two carrying their blankets and tools and the third pushing his possessions along in a wheelbarrow.

“We've been walking two days and nights from Florence,” the wheelbarrow man announced. “Point us to the silver.”

“I'd very much like to, but I don't know what silver it is to which you refer,” Mayor Rogers said politely. “It would be a kindness for you to inform us.”

“Jesus! Look!” One of the miners pointed to the first prospector who'd arrived, who now was leaving the livery in the direction of the Pinals, leading the mule he'd rented from Pugh. “That bastard's ahead of us. Hurry!” All three dashed to the livery, the man with the wheelbarrow trailing.

“Ol' Bob's gonna make him a fortune today,” Mulkins predicted. “I better get back to the hotel. Some of those boys may desire a room with a view tonight.”

When two more prospectors walked into town and made their way straight to the livery, McLendon thought he ought to assist Pugh. Leaving Mayor Rogers as a one-man welcoming committee, he walked behind the livery to the corral, where Pugh was frantically currying his seven remaining mules.

“Let's get these critters all presentable as quick as we can,” he told
McLendon. “What with the sudden demand, I believe I can ask three-fifty apiece.”

“What's all this about a silver strike?” McLendon asked.

“Damned if I know, and also, at this particular moment, damned if I care. We got customers is all that matters. Get your curry comb flying.”

Within half an hour, all the mules were rented. Pugh smiled contentedly, gloating over the small pile of coins and bills on his desk.

“This calls for a serious celebration tonight,” he told McLendon. “For now, we'll limit ourselves to a beer at the Owaysis. Maybe George or Mary's picked up some information.”

They had. Eager as they were to hurry out into the Pinals, a few of the newly arrived prospectors stopped in at the saloon for a quick, refreshing drink first, and they'd talked about how, two days earlier, word spread in Florence about somebody in Glorious bringing in ore samples the assayer claimed were among the richest he'd ever seen. Almost immediately, the men loitering around the assay office grabbed their tools and started northeast, having to come on foot because the stage wasn't scheduled for another five days. There was no time to waste.

“According to these first boys to get here, we'll have a hundred more in town before we know it,” Mary Somebody exulted. “We're still vague on the details, but who cares? It's happening, and just in time.”

Prospectors continued to arrive throughout the day, all of them eager to go out in search of ore. The Tirritos sold most of their supply of canned fruit. Mayor Rogers wore himself out mending tools at his forge, and Pugh could have rented fifty more mules if he had them.

“This keeps up, we'll have to go to Florence and buy us up a whole passel more,” he said to McLendon. “But being as the current supply
is so limited, four dollars a day—that's what we'll be charging tomorrow. Might think about five. I do love being prosperous.”

“You sound like Major Mulkins.”

“Well, a man should benefit from the good example of his friends.”

Mulkins was a happy man that night. Most of the newly arrived prospectors pitched tents, but five rented rooms at the Elite, the first paying guests Mulkins had since McLendon had checked out.

“I went with three seventy-five for an upstairs room, four and a half for downstairs with windows,” he reported that evening when he, Mayor Rogers, Pugh, and McLendon met at the Owaysis. “Three of them rented upstairs and two downstairs. Next round's on me, but I can't stay late because I need to prepare for the big breakfast crowd tomorrow.”

“So all the dreams are coming true,” McLendon said, wanting to be happy for his friends but distracted by thoughts of Collin MacPherson. How would the day's events affect his plans?

“Oh, we never doubted it,” said Mayor Rogers.

“Didn't I hear you say just this morning that it was over?” McLendon asked.

Mayor Rogers grinned. “Do you know, I just can't recall.”

•   •   •

T
HAT NIGHT
the Owaysis was jammed. Girl was pressed into helping Mary serve drinks. Ella couldn't because she was too busy out back. One of the arrivals from Florence told the story as everyone else gathered around. Bossman Wright and Oafie were right in front. McLendon was surprised to see Preacher Sheridan hanging back on the periphery. To his knowledge, except for the Sunday dance, this was the first time Preacher had been in the saloon.

“I was in the assay office, passing the time of day with ol' Held, the
assayer, and in comes this raggedy-ass looking back over his shoulder like the devil's chasing him,” the prospector recounted. “He says to Held, ‘Clear the room and see what I got here,' which, if he don't want to attract attention, is about the worst way to go about it. Ever'body heard him and all ears pricked right up. Held says to hold his water, let's see what you got, and the raggedy-ass, a man with a sniffer the size of Texas, spills out this sample and it ain't even dark-lined float, it's fucking horn silver!”

His listeners gasped.

“Pure horn,” another of the recent arrivals called out. “Held said afterward that it was so soft, he pushed a silver dollar into it and it left the imprint of the eagle.”

“It wasn't a silver dollar, it was his thumb,” the storyteller grumbled. “Who's relating this tale, anyway? So Held tells the raggedy-ass the obvious, that it's pure and rich, and he better get himself over to the courthouse and officially file his claim. So he cuts out and everybody follows to watch him fill out the documents, trying to read over his shoulder to get the location. And somebody sees him write about the Pinals outside of Glorious, and Old Man Billings at the stage depot tells where this town is and we all light out, and here we are. Horn silver's the surest sign of a massive lode. Soon the news will spread all over the territory and beyond. You folks here is about to become a boomtown. Now I want one more whiskey, then it's off to sleep. Got to get out into the mountains early tomorrow. There's more silver to be found, and I intend to be the next lucky one.”

Mayor Rogers stood up and waved for attention.

“As mayor of Glorious, I feel responsible to inform you that we are presently under particular Apache threat. It need not be of overriding concern if you all go out in groups.”

“No groups!” shouted a grizzled prospector. “I ain't sharing a rich find.”

“It is, of course, a matter of individual decision,” the mayor said, and sat down. “I was obligated to make the announcement and suggestion,” he said to his three companions. “The silver frenzy is so upon them that I felt the Apache information wouldn't drive them away.”

“Nothing will drive away a prospector with the scent of a strike in his nostrils,” Pugh agreed. “Say,” he called out to the man who'd told about the scene at the assay office, “did you happen to catch the name of the fellow who made the horn silver discovery?”

“I believe that he was named Turner.”

“Turner,” Mulkins said. “Well, it's only right. He got here first and stayed the longest. Good for Turner.”

“The surly bastard'll have to be back here soon so he can sell off the claim,” Pugh said. “I hope at the least he'll buy a round of drinks for the house.”

“Why would he want to sell his claim?” McLendon asked. “Wouldn't he just dig all the silver out of it himself?”

“It don't work that way,” Mulkins explained. “You get horn silver when pressure in the rock squeezes a few bits out, but mostly the silver's going to be part of mineral deposits way down deep. So you need miners to dig underground shafts, and then machines to crush all the rock into sand and washes to extract the ore and finally it gets processed into what you'd recognize as silver. The whole setup costs considerable, half a million or more, and no prospector's got that kind of scratch. So Turner's got to sell his claim to some outside company that'll come in and build and run the working mine. They'll make the profit off the finished silver.”

“That hardly seems fair.”

“Oh, Turner'll come out of it just fine. With horn silver, he'll get a considerable number of bids, and he'll walk away a rich man. Don't you be fretting for Turner.”

The new prospectors in the Owaysis quizzed everyone about where Turner might have found his horn silver. Did the man usually work high up in the mountains, or maybe along the top of Apache Leap? The locals couldn't help them. Turner always went out alone and never talked about anything, let alone the locations where he went prospecting.

“We'll keep an eye out for his markers,” one prospector said. Pugh and Mulkins explained to McLendon that prospectors staking out a claim marked the 1,500-by-600-foot area allowed by territorial law with piles of stones set up on each corner.

“What's to keep someone from moving someone else's markers?” McLendon asked.

“With no silver finds up to the present, that hasn't been a problem,” Pugh said. “But in light of today's news, I predict that it soon will be.”

McLendon sidled over to where Martin Sheridan stood near the bar. Preacher was drinking coffee, not beer or whiskey, but his eyes were shiny all the same.

“It's odd to see you in the Owaysis,” McLendon said.

“This is it,” Preacher said.

“The change in fortune for the town?”

“The sign from God that I'm meant to stay.”

McLendon looked around the room; everyone in it seemed to radiate near-hysterical energy. “I doubt that for a while there will be too many people willing to sit and discuss their salvation. They'll all be out in the mountains, frantically looking for silver.”

“And I'll be there with them,” Preacher said. “Horn silver! The ways of the Lord are mysterious and full of wonder.”

McLendon looked at Preacher and then at the prospectors clustered in excited, babbling groups all around the saloon. The avaricious glow radiating from Sheridan was identical to theirs. “Well, good luck to you,” he said, and went back to the table where Mulkins, Pugh, and Rogers sat.

“Preacher's got silver fever same as the rest of them,” McLendon said.

“Don't sound so disapproving,” Pugh said. “Ol' Sheridan was a hardscrabble prospector long before he got to preaching. Godliness may come and go, but once you catch it, the silver itch never does get cured.”

•   •   •

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Mayor Rogers estimated that at least fifty prospectors had arrived in Glorious over the last twenty-four hours. Many wanted to buy supplies and rent mules. The dry goods store and livery did brisk business. They all sallied out into the Pinals and, during the day, more kept coming into town, a few now arriving from the south because word of Turner's strike had reached Tucson. Then, around three in the afternoon, Turner himself reappeared, seated on the bench of a fine buckboard and holding the reins to a team of two mules. The taciturn prospector who never smiled or spoke was grinning so widely that the corners of his mouth seemed to extend all the way to his ears.