Dead Warrior

Part One

A Town Sought

Chapter 1

FIRST THERE WAS THE STAMPEDE to Powder Keg, which I did not join. It emptied out Three Deuces, though, leaving me the choice between going elsewhere and staying on as resident hermit of a ghost town.

Three Deuces was an eight-saloon camp on the right bank of the Little Buck, just below where it cut through the granite cliffs of the Rinkatinks. Civic boosters claimed it to be the biggest town in that part of southern Colorado. As there was no other town to speak of within a hundred miles, the claim stood unchallenged.

The news of the Powder Keg bonanza was brought to us in May of 1877. A Wednesday afternoon, it must have been, for I was meeting my duties as city magistrate by playing poker with the mayor, the city clerk and the town marshal. Sometimes there were other municipal obligations, and if so they were attended to. The ritual of the Wednesday afternoon poker game made it certain that we would all be on deck to do so.

I had been in the West less than a year. It was thus a matter of pride to me that in Three Deuces I was a figure of modest importance. This good fortune had come my way, my greenness notwithstanding, for two reasons. One was the quick eye of Blackfoot Terry McQuinn, who had caught my predecessor in the act of moving chips from a losing card on the faro layout to a winning one. The other was the poor judgment of Magistrate Cadwallader Brown, who had thought he could beat the dealer to the draw.

Inquiry had turned up the fact that I was the only surviving resident with any legal training. I had in fact, and under duress, once read law for nearly three months. It was sufficient in Three Deuces, where I had learned to pronounce judgment in the off-the-cuff way of Solomon rather than with the technical precision of Coke and Bacon.

On the afternoon in question the deal had gone around several times when Tom Cary kicked the door of city hall open. He dropped his overcoat on the floor before taking a chair. In May the snow hadn’t vanished from up in the Rinkatinks, and driving stage over them was cold work.

Cary was an unofficial member of the city hall crowd by virtue of being our chief link with the outside world. Twice a week he drove in from a jerkwater supply point called Chuckwalla, bringing the mail and whatever else in the way of news the railroad or telegraph line might bear. At sight of him we laid down our hands and waited. This was Tom’s big moment, and we knew from experience that he would not be hurried.

One of the advantages of being city officials was that we never had to go to the post office for our letters. Cary, who helped sort the mail at Chuckwalla, held out correspondence directed to any of us. There were letters sticking out of the pockets in his broad stretch of flannel shirt, but there was no chance of getting them until he had jammed a plug of tobacco into his wind-reddened face. When he had softened the chew to the point where he could speak with comfort, he drew forth the letters, while we held our breaths.

And one for you, Baltimore, he finally said.

Mail was always a disappointment to me. I looked forward to the arrival of letters as eagerly as anyone else. The trouble was, though, that I had no correspondents from whom I was anxious to hear. The girls I had known in the East had either got married or found somebody to dally with who was there to handle the job. An occasional old crony still wrote to tell of business affairs and field sports in Maryland; but I had never been interested in the first and no longer had shares in the second. The only other possibilities were relatives of the generation old enough to take family ties seriously.

The handwriting told me that this letter came from my dead father’s older brother. Because he seemed to hope for so much from me, with all the stubbornness with which lost causes inspire some high-minded gentlemen, he had the power to move me to gloom. He did so now in a note that showed how far apart two people with friendly feelings for each other can be.

MY DEAR MOSBY:

We were all greatly gratified to learn of your elevation to the bench. It was my first intimation that you had followed up your legal studies, a pursuit in which I had thought you insufficiently interested, although I never doubted your capacities, once you had made the decision to apply yourself.

The confidence shown in you by your fellow citizens is ample proof that you have found your proper calling. May I say, however, that I hope you will not limit your talents to the narrow sphere of municipal politics. A prolonged association with politics on any level lower than that of a member of Congress — which I think might fairly be your next goal — is a handicap to an attorney, who marks himself as being considered unfit to deal with large affairs.

Do not take this word of caution as belittling your progress to date. For a young man of 27, who had but the merest smattering of law when you left here last year, you are doing remarkably well.

Affectionately,

DANIEL CARRUTHERS

P. S. I understand that your mother is well.

The postcript made me grimace. Although now remarried, my mother had never forgiven my uncle for surviving the late war, in which he had served the Union cause, while my father had given his life for the Confederacy. As a divided state Maryland was in some ways an unhappier place than the ruined deep South, which was one reason I had been moved to get out of it.

Stuffing the letter into a jacket pocket, I took note of my colleagues. As editor of the Three Deuces Democrat, for which I myself worked on a part-time basis, Dick Jackson had more mail than anyone else. His long, sharp nose was still pointed at one of several communications when Cary spoke up again.

When the mail come to Chuckwalla yesterday I spotted a letter for Fred Wilkins.

You’ll have a hard time delivering it, I said. The grizzly that walked off with part of Fred and the wolves that got the residue didn’t leave any forwarding address.

That’s what I know. Three weeks ago, wasn’t it? Tom milked his quid and let fly out the window. Well, I figured that if a man had took the trouble to write a letter somebody ought to read it, so I did.

He had so clearly found something he thought of general interest that nobody interrupted him with questions. It was from Mike James, who used to be a prospectin’ partner of Fred’s, Cary went slowly on. He said to keep it secret, but he had made a big strike up by the falls of the Powder Keg.

That didn’t excite me, but the others came to the alert like pointers that have just spotted quail. Anything to it? asked Sam Wheeler, the city clerk. He fiddled with his drooping mustache, blond where it didn’t show traces of gray, the way he always did when in earnest. I mean have you heard anything but a squeal of ‘Eureka’ from one hunch-drunk prospector? If there’s really bullion in the rock, he’d yell loud enough to start an echo, anyhow.

The train engineer had heard somethin’ from a chippie he was with in Pueblo the other night. Cary spread out his booted feet and tipped his chair back. Them things’ll never be secret until prospectors stop tomcattin’ when they hit town.

Is it supposed to be big? Town Marshal Jim Powers knocked his stack of chips over when he leaned forward to put his elbows on the table, and he started picking them up with his thick, blunt fingers. Of course, I know the strikes all sound like there’s gold clear through to China, when you hear about ’em, but what do you think?

I go by what Mike James said in his letter more than anythin’ else, Cary answered. Mike’s seen too many diggin’s to get excited for nothin’ at all.

Let’s play poker while we think it over, Wheeler suggested. How many chips are you buying, Tom?

They played with a lack of zeal that puzzled me, but from which I profited. I had just raked in a pot on the strength of one pair and a lot of gall when Mayor Jackson spoke musingly. This camp wouldn’t last much longer anyway.

They’re still mining plenty of gold here, I protested.

Yes, but it’s getting so they have to work up a sweat for it, Sam remarked. He fed the pot and peered at Cary. Going yourself?

Well, I got a stage line, but it’s no good if there ain’t no town to serve, Tom told him. That’s what I thought I’d find out about when I brung the news.

We ought to face the fact that we’ve been going downhill for some while, Dick pursued his train of thought.

That’s right, Powers agreed. The gamblin’s fallen off.

I don’t see how you make that out, I said, as I signaled for two cards. We’ve got eight saloons, and six of them run some sort of game every night.

There should be eight, Wheeler declared. What’s more, the stakes are shrinking like drying rawhide. Not being an alarmist, I hadn’t wanted to bring the subject up until we’d spotted a better town to run, but it’s been a matter of deep civic concern to me for some while.

The real indication that we’re slipping is that the top-notch dealers no longer give us time. Dick shrugged slim shoulders. We haven’t had a real headliner since Blackfoot Terry lit out after making a carcass of the Honorable Cad Brown.

You used to have a string of them, Cary said. Why you even had Droop-eye Peters and Dolly Tandy.

There was brooding silence as I raked in chips for the second time in a row, and the deal passed to the mayor. Dolly Tandy, he murmured, closing his eyes over a vision he evidently found choice. You weren’t in camp when she was here, were you, Baltimore?

I had heard a great deal about the beauty, charm and cleverness of this female gambler, but not much I was inclined to believe. More fascinating were the two queens Dick proceeded to deal me.

No, I said, peeling a couple off my stack of blue chips. She and Peters were both before my time.

We should have known we were on the skids when they left, Dick continued. I’m not ringing Miss Tandy into a rat-and-sinking-ship parable — or if she’s a rat, I’d take pleasure in being a well-acquainted rodent of the opposite sex — but these real high-rolling dealers are the first to smell carrion when a camp starts to die.

All that’s needed to knock out the props is a short-fuse blast about a new find, Wheeler said dreamily. Are you going to put it in your paper, Dick?

Of course he won’t, Jim said. There’ll be enough ahead of us as it is.

If I hadn’t just drawn a pair of sevens to go with my queens I would have paid more heed to the implications of his words. As it was, my attention didn’t leave the game until Dick spoke, a couple of minutes later.

"The Democrat doesn’t have to be the Three Deuces Democrat. It could serve truth and the public just as unflinchingly in Powder Keg."

What’s wrong with Three Deuces all of a sudden? I demanded. My query was not unreasonable, as up until the past twenty minutes Jackson had been the town’s most vociferous advocate. As for this other place, it doesn’t exist. All you’ve got to go on is a rumor picked out of the dead-letter office.

Nobody seemed to think my objection worth noticing. I’ll put out an extra this afternoon, Jackson decided.

Anybody want to buy a stage line? Cary asked.

Powers was as displeased as I was, but for a different reason. You’re loony, Dick. How’re we goin’ to get ahead of the rush, if you tip off a lot of gents that maybe have faster broncs than ours?

How’re we going to be sure of getting elected, unless there are enough people around the new joint whose votes we can count on? Jackson wanted to know. He put his cards down and laced his hands behind his mop of dark hair. We’ve got a complete slate here. I figure we could organize the town, if we follow the precept of the rebellious but sage General Forrest and get there first with the most.

They’ll be grateful to Dick for letting them in on the ground floor, and we can coast in on his coattails, Sam commented. Some will drift to other places when this burg breaks up, but we can count on keeping the hog’s share of our enfranchised stud.

Like Jackson, he was all but in a town which as yet had no known inhabitants but Fred Wilkins’s former partner. Gazing at the rest, I read the same news. They didn’t want to believe there was anything further to be said for the place where they were. They were as avid for change as women for new fashions, and nothing else would suit them.

That much I saw. I was still so ignorant of the West as to doubt that their feelings would be shared by the remaining townspeople. I myself did not share them, being well content where I was. Three Deuces was the first place I had ever been where I had been accepted on terms at once agreeable to myself and to society.

I’m staying here, I growled. Is anybody going to see me?

Loyal but lonesome, Dick said. "There won’t be anybody here to see you pretty soon. You’d better come along, Baltimore."

We need you on the ticket, Sam declared. You look like the kind of fellow who would know something about law, even if you probably can’t tell a mandamus from Hangtown Jennie’s bustle.

His words nailed down a curious fact about me. Below brown hair that usually managed to stay neatly in place I had a set of noble-Roman features which poorly represented nine tenths of my character. I appeared so like the ideal young professional man that some members of my family could not be persuaded that my tastes were in general those of an inquiring opportunist. It was largely to escape the resultant difficulties that I had gone West.

Yet it was the odd tenth of my nature, a moral strain which sometimes rose up to plague me, which found itself responding to the present situation. To begin with, it had been stirred to life by my uncle’s letter. My appointment as magistrate had struck me as a huge joke, and I had spread news of it in the faith that others would be as amused as I. The reaction of Daniel Carruthers, himself a distinguished member of the bar, had reminded me that other people did not find judicial responsibilities funny.

Wheeler’s appraisal of my legal knowledge hit upon this sore spot before it had had time to heal. In place of giving the counterthrust he had every right to expect, I looked at him glumly.

That’s just about right, Sam; and it’s one reason I’m not stringing along. I’ll finish out my term here, as long as I’ve accepted the post, but I won’t inflict my ignorance on the court of any other town.

My Uncle Daniel himself could hardly have made that pronouncement with more dignity. Wheeler took off his glasses, polished them with his handkerchief, then examined me through them.

Could have sworn we’d met somewhere before, he said, counting out enough chips to call me. What’ve you got?

My queens proved as good as they were beautiful, but while I was scooping in their bounty Dick Jackson rose. Keep the game running, he urged. I’m going to write the obituary for Three Deuces. I’ll be back later to wind up civic affairs, though.

The fact that a decision had been reached left the others free to play poker, and I no longer had things all my own way. Nevertheless, I was still somewhat ahead when Dick rejoined us.

Read all about it. He tossed copies of a broadside on the table. Cato couldn’t have done a better job of calling the turn on Carthage.

Strike of the Ages Found on Powder Keg, I read. Beneath the big black letters were several lines of boldface, upside down. As I turned the paper to find out what was hidden by this printer’s blunder, I had a vision of hundreds of others, all being trapped by the same curiosity.

For a last service to the people of Three Deuces, I was then informed, "the Democrat breaks the secret of a fabulous treasure west across the Sliding Stone range and up the Powder Keg. Prompt action now will enable our citizens to reach this new mother lode before the rest of the world is aware of its existence."

By turning the broadside around again, I learned that Prominent Citizens Make Plans for Immediate Departure. I read the statements of well-known prospectors with growing astonishment.

Are these fellows really leaving?

Jackson looked at me indulgently. You’ve never seen a town break up, but you’re about to. Have you come to the part where it says The Mayor declares his intention of resigning, feeling that he will no longer have a community to serve’?

It won’t be official until I write it down in the book. City Clerk Wheeler pushed back his chair. Take my deal, Jim, while I go out to get a bottle and have supper sent in from the Chinaman’s. By the time we’ve eaten, we can get a pretty good idea of how things are moving.

As we stepped out in the street for the suggested tour of inspection an hour and a half later, I could hear voices indicative of excitement. Most of them were coming from saloons, but by no means all. A storekeeper two doors down from city hall was moving things from his shop to an already half loaded wagon. There were other packers in sight, and people were hurrying back and forth, calling to them as well as each other.

Are you all set to go? I heard one demand.

Nope, he was answered, but I will be by sunup.

All this shook my confidence. Yet it was when we filed into the Rinkatink Palace that I became convinced that the plan to assassinate Three Deuces would be successful. Our entrance was a moment of political triumph; or at least Dick’s entrance was.

There’s the guy who found out about it, one miner shouted his welcome. Here’s to good old Jackson!

I’m buying for the square shooter who didn’t keep it to himself, another announced with the solemn hospitality of half-seas over. Give the other boys what they want, too.

Your turn don’t come till the house has bought, the barkeep said. He lowered his voice as he put the whiskey before us. I ain’t askin’ what you’re figgerin’ on doin’, Dick, but let me know if you want my vote when we get to Powder Keg.

What I couldn’t get over was how delighted everybody was at the idea of moving. This wasn’t a wake for a dead town, it was a celebration of the one to come. The lid of human burdens was removed from all spirits, leaving them in a joyous state wherein the cares of the present were dropped and only confidence in a wonderful future remained.

I only saw one person who showed disgruntlement over the wreck of the status quo. At the Bucket of Nuggets we found our way blocked by the massive figure of the town’s leading madam. The false front of her hennaed hair had slipped a little, but she was in good voice.

Dick Jackson, she boomed, waving the glass in her hand for emphasis, the bitch ain’t been whelped that’s low enough for you to be the son of.

What have I done now, Jennie? Dick wanted to know. Have a drink with us while you tell me about it.

Sure, I’ll drink with you; I ain’t got nothin’ against snakes. Hangtown Jennie switched around to show the ample bustle of which Wheeler had made mention, and we followed it to the bar. But just remember, she warned, as she hooked her foot over the rail, that I hate your guts for puttin’ me out of business.

You’ll be opening at Powder Keg, won’t you? Tom Cary asked while Dick was calling to the bartender.

Not till you get it built up I won’t, she told him. I’m too old to get a boot out of tent cities, and I’ve got too much jack to need to scratch nickels out of love among the wigwams. I’m puttin’ my girls on their own while I go to Denver for a while.

Leaving Jennie to her consolation drinks, we returned to city hall. Let’s get business attended to before we finish the game, Sam said. When he had lighted the lamp which hung above the table, he went to the desk in one corner of the room and fished out the city clerk’s minutes book.

Mayor Jackson, he went on, there has been a rumor to the effect that you are resigning.

I confirm it, Dick said, looking at his watch. It’s 9:30 post meridiem, and you are mayor, by the authority of constitutional successions, as of this minute.

Wheeler noted as much. My first act in office, he then announced, will be to declare a dividend of the city’s treasury. There are five hundred and twenty-eight dollars and seventy-one cents in the municipal kitty. As there’s no other use for it, and as it would be a sinful waste to leave this many rocks behind, I will allocate it to table stakes.

We had never played for blood in our Wednesday poker sessions. The treasury of Three Deuces gave us leeway for more sizable bets than we were accustomed to, and the pace of the game picked up.

Canny though he was about a good many things, Jackson was not a good poker player. In the first place he was too fond of juggling circumstances to have patience with such an inflexible thing as odds. His refusal to make truce with them tripped him now. After two expensive bluffs misfired, he tossed the few chips he had left into the middle of the table.

I’m packing up for that gold-paved town I created out of poor Fred Wilkins’s mail. He rose, looking down at me, as long and thin as a whooping crane. You won’t be going, Baltimore?

If he hadn’t looked so smug about his coup, I might have changed my mind. A few drinks helping, some of the fever of the stampede had infected me, too. But Jackson, under whom I worked as a newspaperman as well as a member of the municipal staff, had always treated me with a condescension which didn’t allow me to forget my tenderfoot ignorance. Irritated over the plot to ruin the town, and the success it had achieved in the face of my skepticism, I came to a decision. If I went to the Powder Keg or anywhere else with these fellows, it would be as the tail of Dick Jackson’s kite, and I had had enough of that.

I’ve spent my last winter freezing in Colorado, I replied. I’m heading for where it’s warmer.

Wheeler was the best hand at poker in our crew, but his luck was off duty that night. After backing a straight against a flush, and four sixes against four nines, he reached for the minutes book again.

It’s eleven forty-eight, and I am resigning. Parliament never got around to covering this case, so we’ll play the shot on office seniority. You’re mayor, Jim.

Powers lasted a half hour longer. I won’t bother to write it down, he declared, when we had cleaned him out. You’re the only city officer left, so you get both my jobs. Removing the marshal’s badge from his shirt, he pinned it on mine. You ain’t too big, Baltimore; you better start packin’ a gun.

Because the reference to my size grated a little I was quick to have an answer for him. That one you’ve got on is city property, I reminded him. Hand it over, or you’ll spend your last night here in jail.

I always liked my Smith and Wesson better anyhow, he said, as he unbelted the weapon. Next he threw down a key to land on the table beside it. I’m glad you mentioned the clink. You’ve got a prisoner there.

The devil I have. I buckled on the gun, but left the key on the table, so I’d be sure not to forget it. Who’s that, Jim?

Rogue River Pete. You sentenced him to stay in the jug until he was sober. He ought to’ve been out days ago, but that Ute squaw of his keeps passin’ him bug juice through the window.

When Powers had gone, Tom and I settled down to see who would get the pile. I was way ahead, having held good cards most of the evening; but he had better than a hundred dollars’ worth of chips until he thought I was bluffing, when I actually did fill a straight after splitting jacks to make the try.

Cary had no margin of capital with which to buck me then. I was ready for the kill on the next hand, especially when I drew two aces. Tom, after looking at his own cards, slowly put them face down in front of him.

I tell you what I’ll do, he said. The stage won’t be no good to me until Powder Keg amounts to somethin’, which’ll take a little time. The outfit’s worth a lot more; but I’ll bet the coach and team against what’s on the table, draw and show down.

His offer was a sufficient warning of his strength. However, I still liked my aces. A pair of them pack a lot of power in a two-handed game, and I had the feeling that my luck had not run out.

Give me two, I said. One of them turned out to be a third ace. I was shaken, nevertheless, when Cary dealt himself but one card. He could have begun with four of a kind, or filled out a full house, a straight or a flush.

Whatever he had, it made him smile. That was more than I could do when he nodded to indicate that I was in the position of having to put my hand down first.

One, two and three, I counted my aces as casually as pounding pulses would permit. Can you beat ’em?

His face showed me he could not, even before he spilled a hand showing three kings. How about loanin’ me your pony? Tom inquired.

Chapter 2

THE DOORS TO OTHER ROOMS of the Golden West Hotel were open when I finally got around to leaving mine the next morning. In passing I caught sight of abandoned belongings and open, empty closets. I saw no one until I went downstairs, where the rotund landlord was checking inventory.

It looks like I’m going to have to move before you pull the hotel out from under me, I said. Would you like to get paid, Harry?

I would, kind of, he grinned. Your stuff will be safe till you’re ready to haul freight, though; there’ll be nobody much to steal it.

He didn’t grumble at the complete loss of trade. On the contrary his face showed the same cheerful pleasure at the new state of affairs as had all the others. Dick Jackson and Sam Wheeler left about an hour ago. They said to tell you ‘so long.’

I’m a lot more interested in knowing whether your cook has left or not. I fished out a fifty-cent piece. Any chance of getting breakfast?

They’re packing up, but you can get something if you don’t mind eating in the kitchen. Take it easy, Baltimore, in case I’m not around when you’re through.

Three passing riders waved to me, when I left the hotel a half hour later. The bar of the Rinkatink Palace was being loaded on a freight wagon, but the Bucket of Nuggets was still in the process of shooing away trade.

But, Jennie, the bartender pleaded. We’ve got to pack our stock.

Look here, son, she checked him. It’s first drink time after a hard night of doin’ the right thing by Three Deuces. Stand out of the way or get blasted out of the way.

But Ollie told me to shut everybody off, the barkeep insisted.

Damn Ollie, and if the polecat’s got any friends, damn them, too! By the time Jennie had said that, I had drawn near enough for her to catch sight of me. It was evident that she took note of my marshal’s badge and gun, for she made an appeal to my authority. Baltimore, I want you to arrest this varmint for resistin’ a customer.

It was not so much concern for her rights which halted me as the fact that she had reminded me of my own future necessities. The best thing to do is to hand her out a pint, I told the bartender. Here, bring one for me, too.

Having shoved the flask in my hip pocket, I continued with my errand, which was to make sure that some stampeder hadn’t moved off with my transportation. Whitey Bannister was glad to see me, when I walked into his livery stable.

I was just about to hunt you up, he said. We’re fixing to take off, and I wanted you to know that if anybody lifted your nags it wasn’t me.

The fact that he had used the plural showed that Cary had explained the transaction of the night before. Is the coach back by the corral, Whitey?

Yep, and Tom took your pinto. It sounded crazy to me, but you sure wasn’t getting hurt in the deal, so I let it ride.

With the feeling of being one of the last survivors of a dying civilization, I walked back upstreet. The rooms behind some of the windows had been emptied of furniture, but in the rest everything had been left standing. The fixtures of stores were in place; only the stock and the owners were missing. I observed, too, that the frugality of the Rinkatink Palace’s landlord had not been imitated by the proprietors of several other saloons. The bars still remained, already gathering the dust which would deepen with the days, weeks, months and