The Case of the Deadly Desperados (13 page)

Ledger Sheet 29

IN SPITE OF THE PREVIOUS NIGHT'S SNOW,
it was almost warm. The early morning sun was painting long blue shadows of the town up the slope of Mount Davidson. It was the strangest weather I had ever experienced. Yesterday it had been hot. Last night it snowed. Now it was clear again & the warm sun was melting the snow. There was just a light dusting of it where the road was still in shadow. The middle of the thoroughfare had already been churned into mud by the never-ending procession of Buggies & Quartz Wagons.

The bright clear day raised my spirits. For once I was not being pursued by desperados with blazing guns. I had my priceless Document & within the hour—God willing—I would be on a stage to Chicago.

I crossed over the muddy thoroughfare to the west side of B Street & my heavy brogans made the boardwalk echo as I continued north. I gave the brown dog outside Fulton's Meat Market a wide berth & crossed Union Street without mishap. Across the street I could see the back entrance of the International Hotel & the 40-foot flag-staff rising up from its roof. When I reached Sutton I turned left up it.

There was no boardwalk there & the melting snow was making it a river. When I was halfway up that short side street, a horse coming down started slipping & he got spooked & his driver almost lost control & I nearly got trampled.

I hugged the brick wall of an end building and made my way up that slippery slope in Satan's Playground & when I reached A Street, I offered up a prayer of thanks that I was on level ground again. Then I took a moment to catch my breath & make sure I was not being followed & also to get my bearings.

Catty-corner across the street was the Territorial Enterprise. And across the street from it was the Recorder's Office. I could see the sign hanging down.

I was waiting to cross over when I saw a tall man loitering on the corner opposite. He had a black slouch hat & a biscuit-colored linen duster coat & the biggest Adam's apple I have ever seen. It was Extra Dub.

My whole body suddenly went cold & my heart speeded up.

Instead of crossing over Sutton, I crossed over A Street to the west side. From this vantage point, I could see another suspicious character about fifty feet up my side of the street. He was leaning on a wooden pillar directly opposite the Recorder's Office. He also wore a black hat and beige duster. When he turned to spit, I saw that he had a broken nose and two black eyes, one of them a little squintier than the other. It was Boz. I looked down real quick so he wouldn't catch my eye.

I took a deep breath, and with my head still down I walked towards him, crossing the muddy street at a break in traffic. I stepped up onto the boardwalk and gave the PONY EXPRESS door of the Territorial Enterprise a businesslike knock. Without waiting for an answer I swiftly turned the handle, praying that the door would be open.

Thankfully it was & I got safely inside.

I was surprised to find the newspaper office deserted and the Washington Printing Press silent.

I went over to the window and peeped out.

If I looked left I could just see Boz, leaning against his column. If I looked right I could see Extra Dub patrolling the opposite corner. Then I turned to study the Recorder's Office across the street. There was a steady stream of people & carts and also some horses hitched to the post outside that blocked my view of the front door. But then a man unhitched one of the horses & swung up into the saddle & rode off. That was when I spotted Walt. He was sitting on a bench right outside the Recorder's Office with his legs stuck out & a black slouch hat pulled down over his eyes, just as if he was sleeping. But underneath his hat I could just see his jaw working now and then on a chaw of tobacco.

He was not sleeping. He was on the lookout for me. And he was not moving anytime soon.

Ledger Sheet 30

I STOOD AT THE WINDOW
of the Territorial Enterprise Newspaper and peeped out. Yes, there was no doubt about it: Walt and his pards had staked out a claim on that Recorder's Office and they were waiting for me.

I thought about what I should do next.

I might be able to pass by them in my rich boy's garb.

But what if Walt had finally guessed that I was partial to disguises? What if he had given his men orders to stop anyone under five feet tall? Even with my brogans and plug hat I was under five feet.

“May I help you?” said a voice behind me.

I turned to see a strangely attired man coming in from a back door. He was doing up his pants and I deduced he had been to the privy.

He was clean-shaven with short reddish-brown hair & jutting eyebrows & some whiskers at the side of his ears. His pants were too big & his flannel shirt was too small. I could smell soap & starch.

“We are closed today,” he drawled.

I said, “I am looking for Mr. Dan De Quille.”

“Dan is not here.” The man pulled a pipe out of his pocket & stuck it in his mouth. It was not lit but it still stank & I instantly recognized the smell: half tobacco & half the remains of some dead critter.

I said, “Mr. Sam Clemens? Is that you?”

He took a few steps forward & peered into my face. “P.K. Pinkerton?” he said. “Is that you?”

I nodded.

He chuckled & said, “I did not recognize you. What is your transformation in aid of?”

“New disguise,” I said. “Whittlin Walt saw me last night and now he thinks I am a little girl who likes pink. So I cannot use that getup again.”

“That is too bad. You made a rather fetching little girl. As for me, I have been shaved and shorn, bathed and deloused. I am wearing a new suit of clothes, courtesy of Mr. Bach down at Selfridge and Bach's Bath House. Do you like my whiskers?” He lifted his chin and turned to show me his profile. “Bach tells me they are just like those of General Burnside and that they are the Latest Fashion.”

“Where is Dan?” I asked, looking around. “And all the other reporters? Don't you have a newspaper to get out?”

“This morning's issue has already been delivered by an army of small boys,” he said. “And we don't publish on Sunday, so this is our day off. Everybody is either at home or still down at the Old Corner Saloon. By the way, you are now famous.” He used his pipe to tap a newspaper lying open on the big table.

I stepped forward and looked where he was pointing. I saw a small column on page three.

There was a caption saying:

 

TRAGIC DOUBLE MURDER IN TEMPERANCE

 

And beneath it as follows:

 

Reports of the death of the Reverend Emmet Jones and his wife Evangeline of Temperance near Como reached us yesterday evening. Certain witnesses say the couple were murdered by some of the local Paiute Indians, but this claim has not yet been confirmed, so retaliation would be unwise. Do not panic! The couple's twelve-year-old adopted son went missing about the same time as the murder. He answers to the name of P.K. or “Pinky” Pinkerton and he is the prime suspect. It is believed he stole a document of great value from the kindhearted folk who took him in and nurtured him. The boy is not quite five feet tall, with short black hair, dark eyes and a sallow complexion owing to his being half Indian. If you should see him, please turn him in at the marshal's office as he is wanted for questioning. Caution recommended: he could be armed and dangerous.

 

“Who wrote this?” I said.

“Dan De Quille.”

“He makes it sound like I robbed and murdered my foster parents. He does not even mention Whittlin Walt and his pards.”

“This article is designed to appease Walt and his pards, not aggravate them. Dan stopped by the saloon last night to tell us what happened.” Sam Clemens struck a match and tried to light his foul-smelling pipe. “He was in a terrible state. He thinks Walt will whittle him for pretending you were his daughter. Dan was planning to catch the early stage to Carson City.”

I said, “I am sorry he is a fugitive on account of me but that does not give him the right to tell such a story or to ask people to turn me in.”

“He only wrote that about turning you in because he thinks you would be safest in jail. He told the Marshal what really happened. You must not be too hard on old Dan.”

Sam finally got his pipe going & said between puffs, “He also said to tell you he was wrong in advising you to take your Letter to the Recorder's Office. He said you should take it to the Notary Public first.”

“What is a Notary Public?” I said.

“It is a man who will stamp your documents to certify them and make them legal.”

I went back to the window and looked out at Walt and his pards. They seemed to be settled in for the day.

I said, “Do you mean to say I do not have to go to that Recorder's Office across the street? I could register this Letter as mine with the Notary Public?”

Sam Clemens shrugged. “I do not really understand such things,” he said. “But, yes: I believe that is what Dan meant.”

Ledger Sheet 31

JUST WHEN ALL SEEMED DARKEST,
a spark of hope was kindled in my heart.

I turned and pointed to the back door. “Can you get out through that door, or does it only lead to the privy?”

“If you don't mind picking your way around the rubbish pile and Old Joe's chicken run you can get out that way,” he said.

“Do you know where the Notary Public is?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don't,” he said. “But there is a Directory to Virginia City right there. It will tell you where to go.” He went over to a desk & flipped open a book & a few moments later he said, “Here it is: W. Hutchins, Notary Public for Storey County, Nevada Territory, B Street opposite the Virginia City Hotel. And according to this”—here he flipped over some more pages—“the Virginia City Hotel is on the southwest corner of B and Sutton. I guess it is not far from the International Hotel.” He closed the book. “Just a hop, skip and a jump. Come over here, P.K.,” he said. “Have a look at this.”

He pointed to the framed Panoramic View of Virginia City.

It had been dim last night but now I could see it better. It showed Virginia City as a bird flying up from the south might view it. The mountain's peak was on the left and it sort of slanted down to the lower right, with five or six streets descending this slope like steps. Around this cunning scene, the artist had made a border composed of about 30 buildings. They were seen front on, rather than from a bird's-eye view.

“What are those little buildings around the picture?” I said.

“According to Dan, those are some Virginia City landmarks. There we are, right there.”

I stood in admiration. One of the buildings was the Territorial Enterprise. It showed the sign and the two flags and the door with
PONY EXPRESS EXTRA
painted on it. There was even a boy about my age selling a newspaper to a gentleman in a stovepipe hat.

“Look,” I said. “There is the brown dog outside Fulton's Meat Market. And there is a hardware store with a stove and coffeepots on the roof.”

“And there is my favorite landmark,” said Sam Clemens. “Piper's Old Corner Saloon. Cunning picture, ain't it?”

“Yes,” I said, and brought my nose right up to admire it.

A notice at the bottom read:
VIRGINIA CITY, NEVADA TERRITORY, 1861. PUBLISHED BY GRAFTON T. BROWN.

Although the town had grown a lot in the past year, I recognized many buildings as unchanged. I saw the spire of the church on D Street, the corrals of the livery stables & the smokestacks of mine buildings. It showed how the streets were laid out on the side of Mount Davidson. I could clearly see Streets A through D and some mine buildings scattered about, too.

“Your Notary Public will be right about here,” said Sam Clemens, tapping the glass above B Street with his pipe-stem.

I said, “Maybe I can go around this way.” I marked out a possible route with my finger.

“Why not just go straight down Sutton and turn right?” he said.

I went over to the window and looked out. “First of all, because it is a slippery river of mud. Second of all, because Walt and his pards are waiting for me across the street,” I said.

He came and looked over my shoulder. “Dang my buttons,” he said. “So they are. Perhaps I will go out the back way, too. I was planning to waltz on down to C Street, in search of a decent suit of clothes. Clothes make the man, you know. Naked people have little or no influence on society.”

I nodded absently. I was considering the best route to take.

Sam Clemens went over to the hat rack. There were two slouch hats there. For a moment his hand hovered over an old one covered in pale yellow dust. Then he chose the other one. It was newer-looking, and coffee-colored. He put it on his head and went to the back door. When he reached it, he turned & said to me, “Would you like me to accompany you as far as the Notary Public?”

I was about to say yes but then I remembered the lesson Virginia City was teaching me: Don't trust anybody.

“No, thank you,” I said. “I will go alone.”

“Suit yourself,” he said. “I wish you good luck. I hope to recognize you next time we meet, but if I don't it ain't rudeness, it's just stupidity.”

“Likewise,” I said.

He grinned & tipped his slouch hat & went out.

I waited for a while and then went to the back door, too.

I opened it a crack and peeked out.

I could see the outhouse & the chicken run & a place where they burned rubbish & the mountainside sloping up.

I went out into the bright morning and looked cautiously around. There was nobody there but some chickens.

Somewhere up on the mountainside I heard a quail say, “Chicago! Chicago!”

I thought, “I'll be on my way soon.”

I picked my way through the waste area and sage bushes, going up the mountain.

I soon reached the street above A Street. It was not so much a street as a muddy track. From here I could see a large white building with a big smokestack and a sign that read
MEXICAN MINE.
Turning to look down over the town, I could see my best route was to go north a block, then down Carson to B Street and then to double back.

I took a deep breath of the thin air & lifted my eyes & gazed out at the 100-mile view. The sun was warm & the air was perfumed with sage & I could feel the comforting thump of the mountain.

I thought, “I am always happiest when I am on my own.”

Then I thought, “Does that make me a Heartless Misfit?”

I took one more breath & then started towards Carson Street up ahead.

A faint crash made me look around.

Down below me, a mine car had dumped a load of dirt & rocks & other trash. Somewhere down in the bowels of the mountain, men were digging like ants. The car seemed to be hanging in space over a cliff but as the dust cleared I could see it had gone to the end of a track propped up by trellis supports, like half a bridge. Now a miner was pulling it back the way it had come. I noticed the tracks led back up to an opening in the mountainside.

“See how man has scarred the mountainside in his quest for wealth?” said a voice behind me. I turned to see a Negro sitting on a collapsible camp-chair. He was sketching. A jagged & upthrusting boulder had hidden him from view until now.

“Holes and pits and dumps,” said the black man. “Some people think it doesn't matter. They think this part of the world is ugly anyway.” He gestured around him with his pencil. “But I think this barren mountain is strangely beautiful.”

“I like the desert,” I said. “I like it a lot.”

“I like it, too,” he said.

I had never seen a Negro up close to talk to. His cheeks were smooth & I reckoned he was not much more than twenty.

“Are you a runaway Slave?” I said.

He laughed. “No,” he said. “I am freeborn. Born in Philadelphia.”

I came closer to him & saw he was making a neat sketch of Virginia City. His style of drawing looked familiar. I looked back up at him. “Are you Grafton T. Brown?” I said.

His eyes opened wide in Expression No. 4: Surprise.

“Why, yes, I am,” he said. “Have we met?”

I said, “We have never met but I just saw your Panoramic View of Virginia City in the office of the Territorial Enterprise Newspaper. I think it is the best drawing I have ever seen in my life.”

He showed even white teeth in a No. 1 Genuine Smile.

“And you remembered my name?”

“I'm good at remembering names,” I said. “But not faces.”

He nodded & put down his pencil. “I have the same problem, believe it or not. But I have a trick,” he said. “A trick of telling people apart.”

“I would like to know that Trick,” I said.

“My trick is ears.”

“Ears?” I said.

Grafton T. Brown nodded. “If you can't tell one person from another, just look at their ears. A person's ear is very distinctive.”

I said, “That is easy for you to say. You are an artist.”

“Anyone can do it,” he said. “It is just a matter of training yourself to look. You, for example, have quite a delicate ear. It has a flat, squarish earlobe & a smooth upper whorl. The lobe is the part ladies pierce for earrings,” he added, “and the whorl is the swirly bit around the ear hole. Do you see anything distinctive about my ears?”

I examined his left ear & said, “Your ears are quite round and small for your head. And your lobe is also rounded.”

“Good.” He pinched his own earlobe between finger & thumb. “Would you call mine plump, thin or in between?”

“Plump,” I said. “But I will not have trouble recognizing you again. You are about the only Negro I have seen here.”

“You would be surprised,” he said, “at how many of us there are here in Virginia.” He showed his teeth again in a smile. “White people claim we look alike, but all those bearded miners look the same to me. And I have trouble telling one Celestial from another. Indians are difficult to distinguish, too. That is why it is good to look at people's ears as well as their faces.”

“Do you live here in Virginia?” I said.

“No,” he said, “I live in San Francisco. I only come here once or twice a year to clear my head and update my views of this town. You would not believe how much it has grown in just a year.”

I said, “Have you ever been to Chicago?”

“Once,” he said. “It was very cold there and that wind is fierce. Is that where you're from?”

“No,” I said. “But I hope to go there one day.”

“You should come to San Francisco,” he said. “Now that is a fine city. A lot like this one, in fact, but with the ocean instead of desert. And fine balmy weather.”

In the few moments we had been talking, the wind had got up & had begun to spit grit & flecks of sagebrush in our faces.

“Here comes the Washoe Zephyr,” said Grafton T. Brown. “That marks the end of my sketching for today.” He put his pencil in his jacket pocket & closed up his drawing pad.

The wind moaned & tugged at our hats.

As we started down the hill I said, “This wind is real strong. What did you call it?”

He said, “They call it the Washoe Zephyr. It has been known to fling away roofs and even whole buildings.”

I said, “Our dictionary at home defines a zephyr as ‘a warm breeze.' This is more like a gale.”

Grafton T. Brown smiled. “Virginia humor,” he said, hunching his head into his shoulders & putting up his lapels. “They are a perverse people. They call a hee-hawing mule a Washoe Canary and a gale like this a Zephyr. They don't stop the mining for church on Sunday but they'll be stopping it for the funeral of that poor murdered Hurdy Girl.”

“Hurdy Girl?” I said. I stopped walking and so did he.

“A Hurdy Girl,” said Grafton T. Brown, “is what they call one of those girls who lives down on D Street. A Soiled Dove.”

For a terrible moment I thought he meant Belle. But I had left her tied up to Isaiah Coffin and locked in his studio less than an hour ago.

“What was the name of the murdered Hurdy Girl?” I said.

“Her name was Sally Sampson. People called her Short Sally. Got her throat cut from ear to ear.”

“Who did it?” I asked. My throat was dry.

“They don't know,” he said.

I felt sick. What if Walt and his pards had mistaken Short Sally for Belle? They were coldhearted Killers who would stop at nothing.

The wind buffeted my back, as if urging me back towards town.

What was I doing loitering on the slopes of Mount Davidson?

I needed to deliver my Letter to the Notary Public as fast as I could.