Dead Warrior (25 page)

Good miners the latter were avouched and good men they had to be, but I never got used to them in their anonymous thousands. It was for that reason that I stopped to study a shift of them coming off duty, as I was riding out to get some production figures from Duncan one day. Slouching along in the front rank was a man who avoided my eye when I caught his.

“Short-fuse!” I called.

For a few paces he walked as though determined to pay no attention. Seeing me dismount, however, he came toward me, black with the stains of work and sullen.

“I thought you’d pulled out with most of the other prospectors,” I told him, after we had walked aside a little.

“Nope.” He still wouldn’t look at me, and I knew what
was bothering him. He felt he had lost face by becoming a copper miner. Yet by the time we were seated on a chunk of rock and had our smokes going, he’d thought of a way to defend himself. “I was going to haul my freight, but this outfit asked me to help ’em out for a while. I’m a top hand with black powder, you see — that’s how I got my name — and they knowed I could save ’em a lot of time by judgin’ the fuses just right.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “The only reason I asked is because I haven’t seen you in any of the saloons.”

“Not any of the ones you go in,” he said. “Just the ones for dirty shirts.” He was silent, following that pronouncement. Then he leaned forward, his arms on his knees. “Do you remember the early days of this camp, when most everybody was friends? No, I won’t ask you that. You do, or you wouldn’t have stopped to talk to me.”

Sighting a passing centipede, Short-fuse spat toward it. “We had a fine camp then, and if a man needed help with his claim or the shack he was buildin’, you’d pitch in and help him for nothin’. Or if you was thirsty and didn’t have the price, you’d stop the next fellow you’d meet and get a buck or so from him. Then you might give it back to him or you might not, dependin’ on whether or not you remembered it when you sobered up, but nobody cared. We talked an awful lot about gold in them days, but nobody gave a damn about money.

“The place is no good now,” he echoed Pete’s words, when he had taken that look at paradise lost. “It used to be that if a fellow was all right, that’s all there was to it, and nobody counted the patches on his pants. Now it’s a place where mean squirts ride high, if they can rattle a lot of cash; and nothin’ else matters.”

“What happened to your claim?” I asked, wishing to change the subject.

“Ah, who in hell wants a lousy copper claim?” Fingering the long scar on his face, Short-fuse snorted. “I won three of ’em at poker the night the news broke — makin’ four, countin’ the one I’d had all along. Well, I lost two the next night, and sold the other two, to throw a good drunk with. Then I took this job, so I could keep the whiskey comin’.”

Rising, he clapped me on the shoulder. “I’ve been boozin’ too much, or I wouldn’t have stayed after the place went sour, though I wouldn’t admit it to myself until I seen you just now. I’ll look you up and buy you a shot before I hit the road.”

The day Short-fuse kept his promise had been set aside for the city’s first election of officers. The abrupt resignation of Mayor pro-tem Jackson and his entire administration had jolted the civic program, however. For one thing, the about-to-be issued city charter was withheld, while the mystified territorial officers reviewed the political situation at Dead Warrior.

In an effort to get things straightened out, the interim city commission, appointed to give the town some sort of government in the meantime, had gone to Prescott. Bradford, Holt, and others with whom I had been on short speaking terms since the dissolution of the vigilantes, were members of this body. I was staying late in the office, waiting for news of their success to be brought from the telegraph office, when Roy Sparks dropped in.

He had returned to town after Barringer’s death, so his visit did not greatly surprise me. His opening question did.

“Have you got word from the boys at Prescott yet, pardner?”

The miners excepted, everyone was interested in the city charter. What I found extraordinary was his comradely reference to such men as Holt and Bradford.

“Do you mean the city commission?” I asked, to make sure we had the same topic in mind.

“Yeah. Old Steve and Eben and that crowd.”

“There’s no word yet,” I said. “I hope there’ll be no further holdup on the charter.”

“There won’t be, Baltimore.” Sparks leaned against the wall, pushed back the flaps of his fancy vest and thrust his thumbs under his belt. “They took Horace along with ’em.”

The man I assumed he referred to had recently completed one of his flying visits to observe the progress of his fabulously large new enterprise. I hadn’t seen him, but the very thought of him nauseated me. Among other reasons I had received a piteous letter from Dr. Hatfield, asking what could be done about a bill for the services of a first-line architectural firm. In reply I had asked the doctor to send it to me.

“Bedlington can’t be in Prescott, because he’s in San Francisco,” I said. “They’d better put a guard over the Golden Gate, too, or the swipe will turn it into copper.”

“Old Horace was in ’Frisco,” Sparks conceded, “but Eben had sent him a wire, so he met us in Tucson on his way back East.”

Although recognizing Roy as an authority on the vanished town of Can Can, I didn’t hold him reliable on any other subject. “If you were on that political junket, how did you get back before the others?” I demanded.

“Well, I only went as far as Tucson myself.” Giving up hope of getting a drink from me, Sparks pulled out a plug of tobacco. “I got on the train so’s I’d be the last one to put in my application for town marshal.”

In view of developments, Dead Warrior’s forthcoming election — scheduled to take place promptly, should the charter be released — could hardly be representative of America’s two-party political system. The city commission was doing the best it could by offering a slate, and letting opposition take the form of write-in candidates. Bradford himself was ticketed to be mayor, and the merchant clique counted on pre-empting all the other municipal positions except that of police chief. While the commissioners hadn’t announced who their candidate for this office would be, I knew they had interviewed some pretty capable gunmen, whereas Roy was without any but Munchausen’s credentials.

“I hope you remembered to tell them what you told me.” I waved a hand that the lamplight magnified on the wall. “That you were one of the guardians of the Southern Pacific, you know.”

“I didn’t have to tell ’em, pardner. I
showed
’em.” Fumbling in his pockets, Sparks produced a notebook from whose protecting leaves he drew a newspaper clipping. Unfolded, it turned out to be a good-sized article published by a large New York City daily. “It’s that little thing old Dwight Lewis wrote about me, after I’d told him a few of the things he wanted to know,” Roy explained. “You remember him, don’t you?”

“Oh, my God!” I said. “And they believed all that stuff?”

“They had to, old-timer. Folks don’t go around disputin’ things that come out in a New York paper. Them other candidates made their brags about what they could do, but I didn’t have to shoot off my mouth about myself. I just crawled on that train and handed ’em this so’s I’d be fresh in their minds while they was talkin’ things over in Prescott.”

Finding Dolly’s name included in the lead, I read no farther. “Just tell me one thing, Roy. Did your biographer tell
how you and I hunted the fifty-three members of Barringer’s gang?”

“That was the part that convinced ’em,” Sparks said. “They knowed how you finally done Charlie in, so it all added up. Of course, it wouldn’t’ve worked out so well, if he’d nailed you, but you was always good luck for me, Baltimore.”

“Look, Roy,” I said. “I’m sorry to rush you away, but I’m a little busy now.”

“I got things to do, too, figgerin’ out my campaign,” he said. “What I really come in for was to get the street address of old Dwight’s paper, so I can write him after the election. He’ll sure be glad to know that I’ve been made marshal of the toughest town in the West.”

“The ex-toughest town,” I growled.

AS I HAD INDICATED TO Sparks, the town had quieted down to a murmur, although growth and new life seemed represented by the construction of the smelter and refinery. I took heart from that, telling myself that the development of one full-fledged industry would invite others.

In its current unbalanced state the city was showing few of the features I had hoped it would have. All things considered, I nevertheless argued, the trends embodied a more solid approach to municipal greatness than by trying to achieve it in one jump from the hectic beginnings of a boom town. Pursuing a kindred line of philosophy, I felt that Dead Warrior could hold its head up in the face of the criticisms offered by Rogue River Pete and Short-fuse. Justified in themselves, these were no more than saying that a frontier camp had ceased to have that status and the attitudes that went with it.

I developed other wisdoms. Making myself see that I had been boyishly eager to have everything happen all at once, I began to make book with impatience. If the pace of my life had slowed, I was still publisher of the town’s only daily. As such, I could do a lot for Dead Warrior, working for the old goals but computing by years instead of weeks.

My personal life also had to be molded on new lines, and in this direction, at least, progress was perceptible. Faith and I were not engaged, but we were seeing each other with increasing frequency. At some time I knew myself bound to say the unretractable, and I thought I would be accepted. Settling down with such a wife — herself adapted by nature to the new order of things — appeared just one more inevitability of Dead Warrior, the copper city.

I was sprucing up for a call upon the Fosters when Stewart Jenkins, my news editor, came to see me. “The city commission just got back in town,” he announced.

His wide, brown eyes showed excitement, but then he was one of those newspapermen who react to every reasonably big story as though it were the fall of the Bastille. Schooling his callow enthusiasm, I led him into my bedroom and finished putting cufflinks in a clean shirt before I spoke.

“Did they get the charter?”

“Sure they did. Bedlington was with them, and he pulls a lot of Republican weight, you know.”

“I do know, and having discovered that he was called in to pull it, I wasn’t really worried about the outcome.” That said, I started considering what tie I should wear. “Well, well, Dead Warrior’s a legally recognized city at long last.”

“Er — not exactly,” Jenkins said. Instead of explaining what he meant, however, he apparently shifted to another topic. “Did you know that the church groups have been wanting a new name for this town?”

“Yes, they want one that doesn’t sound so barbaric and that won’t be associated with half the shenanigans which have taken place in the West.” My shoes needed dusting, and I picked up my discarded shirt. “They won’t get anywhere, though. They may have lots of influence with the
wardens of Heaven, but they’re no better than deuces with the U. S. Post Office Department.”

“You aren’t listening to me,” Jenkins complained. “The city commission guys all sing in one choir or another themselves; and I guess they must have talked to Bedlington, who put enough into the Republican national campaign fund to own anyhow the right arm of a cabinet member.”

Forgetting about my shoes, I walked over to where Stewart sat sprawled in a chair. “Do you mean to say that that slug has actually written the Postmaster General for authority to change the name of this town?”

“I mean he wired him and got an answer.” Fascinated by news but having no interest in its significance, Jenkins was nonchalant, now that he had broken his story. “The city commission played it right, though, so we get the scoop on the business. They got the Governor to keep mum about the change of names until we hold some sort of ceremony here. I was talking to Bradford — ”

At that point he stopped speaking, because I had grabbed him by the arm. “The new name, damn it! What did those dollar-hearted straddlebugs decide to call my town?”

“Take it easy, Baltimore. It’s going to be the same place, no matter what’s on the railroad station.” Stewart freed himself from my grip and rose. “That’ll be Horaceville, incidentally.”

“You’re fooling!” I accused.

“No, really; and I don’t think it was all due to vanity on Bedlington’s part. Bradford told me that he and the others felt it was due him, for putting up the capital for all the new operations, you know; and for quotation purposes he added that ‘Horaceville will admirably represent the spirit of the city from now on.’”

I did not visit the Fosters that evening. For hours after
Jenkins had left me I sat unmoving in my living room. It grew dark, but I didn’t need light. I was seeing Horaceville.

Without the name “Dead Warrior” and all the associations it had for me, the place in which I lived stood pitilessly revealed. It was not a developing city but a provincial town, whose great days were all yesterdays. Actually it wasn’t even a provincial town in the normal sense. It was a company town, its only real function to provide homes, shopping facilities and services for the men who worked for the Horace A. Bedlington Corporation.

It was a town which would produce great wealth without hope of profiting thereby. All its treasure would be drained off to Philadelphia, to be distributed and pocketed by stockholders on the Eastern seaboard. Splendid cities this wealth might help to build; but they would not stand in Arizona, while those who had the spending of its riches would neither know nor care about a drab industrial community on Sometimes Creek, formerly known as Dead Warrior.

Yet the full enormity of it all did not come home to me until Jenkins handed me a proof the next morning. “Horaceville
Vigilante
doesn’t sound so good,” Stewart said. “Of course, that’s up to you, but I was wondering if we hadn’t better call the sheet something else. How about the Horaceville
Herald?
”

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Have you got the information about that name-changing ceremony yet?”

“Yes, I talked to Bradford a few minutes ago. They’re going to hold it at two o’clock at the post office, with Bedlington himself on deck. What they’ve worked out is an unveiling of the new name, which is being painted on the glass front of the P. O. now. Here are my notes on the details.”

I studied them, but I was still considering the words, “Horaceville
Herald
.” It hadn’t been borne in on me before
that I would be the publisher of a kept town’s newspaper, the voice of a community whose only policies could be those of the company upon which it depended for existence.

“Bradford says that he thinks it would be nice if you, as publisher of the town’s only real news rag, would show up in person,” Stewart remarked, when I handed the notes back to him.

“I’ll be there,” I said. “But use the old name for this issue, as Horaceville won’t be official until after the ceremony.”

As soon as he was busy writing the story of what was to take place, I took my revolver from the desk, slipped it in my pocket, and walked out. I went to the post office, where a painter was at work behind a canvas curtain, so rigged that it could be pulled aside. Mail from the East was being distributed, and among several communications for me there was one from Dr. Hatfield. I stared dumbfounded at the architect’s bill which was enclosed, then I laughed.

Securing a rig, I stocked up with some food staples, tobacco and whiskey. I stopped at the Paradise Enow for the best-tasting drink of liquor since Randy Sutton had mistaken his target and then went on to the bank. Drawing out a few hundred dollars, and obtaining some personal papers I had left there for safe-keeping, I next crossed the street to Bradford’s store, housed in the building once known as the Happy Hunting Ground. Purchasing saddlebags, I drove down to where Sam was watching cattle being prodded up a loading chute.

“My affairs are easily settled,” I told him over the lunch table. “This deed gives Seth my copper claim, so he’ll at least have some stake in mining again. I told Doc Hatfield that I’d foot the architect’s bill before I had any accurate idea of what New York firms charge for making incomprehensible
lines on paper. I found out in a statement I received today, which I’m herewith turning over to you. My share in the newspaper, the water works and the cattle feeding operation should cover it, though I’m giving you power of attorney to use some money that’s left in the bank if it’s needed. Handle it any way you want to and save the residue for young Sam when he comes along.”

Examining the bill I had handed him, Sam whistled. “The not-yet-born pride of the Wheelers will be an architect, and I thank you for letting me know that such larceny is legal. Let’s see; we owe something on the shell of that theater you wanted, but I can get enough out of the sale of the property to cover it. What about your house and so on?”

“Oh, sell it and keep the change, and give the books I leave to the library.”

“I’ll pinch a few for keepsakes, Baltimore.” Sam inspected me with genial interest. “When I heard about ‘Horaceville’ this morning I was wondering when the explosion was going to frighten the echoes. I can be the fox that steals the chickens and people can’t tell me from the dog that guards them, but you have no hiding place; and I happily predict that you’ll be in an uproar all your life. Are you going to kidnap the preacher’s daughter?”

“I’ll see her at the ceremony,” I said.

Returning the rig to the livery stable, I rode Spanish Monte to my house, packed my saddlebags, filled my canteen and shoved my rifle in its boot. I was humming to myself as I strode back inside, to make sure I hadn’t left anything I really wanted.

The humming was toneless to match my feelings, but the moment of severance generated a certain harsh pleasure, and I let it find expression in dramatizing finality. I jerked dresser drawers all the way out and let them drop to the floor. I
kicked over any piece of furniture I happened to find in my path. And when I picked up anything, in order to appraise it, I flung it from me, to fall where it might. It was this practice, indeed, which netted the one reward of my final search. While an old pair of trousers was in midair, something fell from it which I caught up with a yelp of satisfaction. It was a Dead Warrior doubloon, and with its finding, I looked no farther.

Later I would transfer it to a hip holster, but my newly oiled and loaded pistol was out of sight under my jacket when I hitched Spanish Monte nearby and rattled my spurs along the boardwalk toward the post office. There was a fair crowd when I arrived, though not a representative one.

The miners were not interested in the forthcoming function, and many others were busy at that hour. The Ladies’ Progressive Community Group was there in strength, however, and quite a few of Apache Street’s merchants were on hand. Bradford, as the mayor-to-be, was master of ceremonies; and Sparks, as marshal-to-be, was there to control a singularly peaceful gathering. Bedlington was there, to acknowledge the honor being done him. The Reverend Foster was there, to speak a benediction. Faith stood beside him, looking very pretty in a new hat with flowers on it. She waved to me, but as I was not a member of the official party, I could do no more than smile in return.

Stephen Holt started the oratory by explaining what a forward step the town was taking in dropping a name which had come to symbolize frontier crudity and adopting one which would be recognized everywhere as a synonym for brilliant industrial progress. The Reverend Foster next took over to assure the audience that God heartily approved of what was being done. Then Bradford came forward with the guest of honor.

Holt and Foster hadn’t left Eben much in the way of unused compliments, and in any case it was not in his nature to fawn. What he could see was that the trade of Apache Street merchants had been assured by the Horace A. Bedlington Corporation, which would supply large, regular payrolls indefinitely, and that Bedlington himself was the man who had made commercial stability possible. He said so briefly and left the field to the tycoon himself.

It had not dawned on Bradford that he had become a minion of Bedlington’s, and perhaps it never would, but the financier knew himself lord of all there. Despising him, I had to admit that he was superb. He was dressed to emphasize the space between the peerage and rustics. He did not act condescending, however, not feeling the need to stress such an obvious thing as his superiority. He was at ease and affable. When he jested, he bore with the roars of following laughter gracefully. Nor was he insincere when saying that he was pleased at the honor being done him. He knew there was more money to be made out of men who were satisfied with their lot.

“And now,” he said in conclusion, “if I understand my instructions correctly, I am supposed to usher in a new era simply by pushing aside the curtain in front of the post office window here. Let us see if it works.”

When he moved, so did I, stepping a couple of paces clear of the encircling throng. I watched the curtain sliding back to show the big expanse of glass, freshly gilded with letters. My hand darted under my jacket. The clapping which had started was drowned out by the sound of my shot. The enthusiastic murmurs changed to cries of dismay, when the glass shattered under the impact of a bullet.

Bedlington stood gazing at the great jagged hole, as though he were looking at a map and failed to find Philadelphia.
Everybody else seemed likewise too amazed to do anything but stare. Not waiting for comment, I began walking to where Faith stood, clutching the arm of her father.

Bradford was the first to recover. My act of vandalism was unbelievable to him, but he glimpsed my motive.

“You didn’t have any right to do that just because you don’t like the name ‘Horaceville,’” he reproached me.

“This place is Dead Warrior, as long as I’m here, but that will only be for a few minutes,” I rasped. “What do you want, Roy?”

“Well,” Sparks said, “I ain’t a man to play favorites with an old friend, so I was goin’ to arrest you. But as long as you say you’re leavin’ town, I’ll let it go this time.”