The Last Shootist (20 page)

Sheriff White chewed a toothpick as Gillom finished retelling his side of the deadly encounter. “Uh-huh. We've had several street robberies these past couple months. Even got a bulletin here from Tombstone for one Rollie ‘Hard Luck' Harrison, a known footpad. Description matches, but we'll send a death photograph over to our sister city.”

Ease grinned. “Hard luck indeed.”

“If Harrison's identified in Tombstone, you've got $250 coming, kid,” announced the sheriff.

Gillom lit up like Christmas.

“What'd you say your name was, El Paso?”

“Gillom Rogers.”

“Uh-huh. I don't take kindly to shoot-outs in our streets. Even ‘exhibiting a pistol in a threatening manner at another person' wins you a week in my jail. This is a mining community, well financed and sophisticated in its tastes. I'm a Democrat in Democratic Cochise County and usta gettin' reelected. This isn't one of those bang-bang cowtowns on the Great Plains, where the marshal occasionally gets swept out of office along with the corrupt city council. We do things
business
-like in Bisbee, savvy? So, soon as you get your reward money,
if
you do, you'll be drifting elsewhere, Rogers, correct?”

The teenager shook his head. “No, sir. Just got a job this morning. Starting Monday I'm the new guard at the Bank of Bisbee. Mister Pinkham wants me protecting their better customers.”

This was displeasing news to the sheriff.

“Uh-
huh
. Just full of yourself and God's own grace, ain'tcha? And this dustup will only polish your reputation around town, won't it? All our swells will be wanting to meet you, maybe test your weapon skills. I could skin you of those fancy pistols right here.”

“Then I'd lose my new job.”

The pudgy lawman rose and leaned across his desk.

“Kid, Governor Murphy's forming a new detail of Arizona Rangers here right now, but you're too young to join 'em. And I've got deputies bigger and better with guns than you to handle any rough work here in Bisbee. So don't go making any armed bank withdrawals yourself. Or testing your gun skills against some of our rougher customers. It's a new century, sonny. The Wild West has been
tamed
.”

Gillom didn't like being bullyragged. “What if one of your bank's depositors was being robbed?”

“Any more shootings in my town, Rogers, I'm confiscating those fancy pistols and throwing your tail in jail, regardless of your good reasons.”

“On
what
charge? Doing my job? Defending myself?”

Sheriff White flashed an insincere smile. “Disturbing
my
peace.”

 

Twenty-three

 

Mr. Pinkham awaited Gillom's arrival at the bank first thing Monday morning.

“Heard about your shoot-out Friday night. You may have gotten the bastard who robbed our butcher two weeks ago. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir. Just tryin' to do my civic duty in my new town.”

“Except now all our other customers want to meet you. I sent out that mailer advertising your services. They heard about your killing, and now every old lady in Bisbee wants you to walk her down here to deposit her egg money.”

Gillom smiled. “Well, things will settle down, once they get used to me bein' around. That's what you wanted, Mister Pinkham, your customers to feel safer. Maybe you can start charging for my services.”

“We'll see.” The bank president smiled accidentally and Gillom sensed his boss was actually pleased by all the attention his new employee had brought to his banking business. “Go talk to Cunningham. He's drawn up a list of the customers you're scheduled to protect today.”

And that's how it went all day, walking the butcher, the baker, and local candlestick maker from their stores to the bank to deposit their day's receipts, or accompanying them back to their small shops with fresh cash for their registers. The older ladies Gillom tried to discourage, after walking them up one damned mountainside or down another, telling them this new service was really for the merchants. Many just wanted to meet the young man who bested that bandit, and he could stall them with an autograph and a tip of his Stetson. But several middle-aged widows and spinsters were more persistent about his company, effusive in their praise, and invited him to dinner to celebrate his success. Gillom wasn't much interested in older women, so he fended them off with excuses of pressing business or in one pushy lady's case, a flat “no thank you, ma'am.”

He was leg weary when he hit the long bar in the Bonanza after work on a Wednesday. Ease lit up when he saw his pal shuffle in.

“Hey,
Gillom
! You look like the walkin' deceased. You gettin' used to our sulfurous air? Folks say this furnace smoke protects 'em from diseases, like the smallpox, but I don't know. They built us a pest house on the outskirts of Bisbee, just in case. Price of prosperity.”

Rogers shook his head. “Up and down these mountainsides escorting ladies to the bank is wearing me out. I'll either turn into a mountain goat or have to have my boots resoled.”

Ease Bixler chortled as he opened the beer spigot on a draft for his pal. “Widows are givin' you a run for their used money, eh?”

“They want to meet the man who shot that awful bandit, and then they're surprised I'm so young. I should be meeting their daughters, not them.”

“
Me,
too!” interjected his young friend.

Ease dried his hands on a bar towel, rolled down his white shirtsleeves, and stashed the black silk garters of his uniform.

“Well, the boys are still talkin' about your shoot-out. Let's pray none of his criminal pals come lookin' to avenge their dead pard.”

“Don't think so,” said Gillom, shaking his head again. “Sheriff White said footpads are usually lone operators, maybe just one partner. They aren't like train robbers, which takes gangs of fellers.”

Ease slapped his pal on the back as he emerged from behind the bar.

“Hope not. Or I'll have to start goin' armed, too, just to go out to supper with you.”

*   *   *

They made do with stringy beef sandwiches and the free countertop fare at Cavetto's Saloon, first door north of the city jail. With Ease as his chaperone, he was being introduced to all levels of society, high and low, in this bustling burg. Gillom noticed men were murmuring, pointing him out to their friends. He enjoyed the sudden attention, the false camaraderie of men who liked hanging around somebody a little dangerous.

They were feeling their hops when they hit the Red Light around the upper bend of Brewery Gulch. It was a midweek night, slower, so the proprietor didn't hire a band. Live music came from a hurdy-gurdy man, who played a hand organ with strings, twenty-three keys in two rows similar to a piano keyboard with wooden wheels inside the machine. Any tunes that came out of the contraption sounded like a bagpipe, only with a better melody and faster rhythm.

Wednesday night didn't provide a full complement of hurdy girls, but Gillom spotted Anel talking to another girl on the dancers' bench. The boys ordered more beers as Ease elbowed his partner.

“That's her, ain't it?”

Gillom nodded.

“Gotta be a dancin' queen to make her money. Wednesday night's about the slowest it ever gets in here, so take her a cold tea, pard, and warm her up!”

Ease laughed and Gillom did just that.

“Anel, you're looking pretty tonight.”

She couldn't blush under her face powder, so she batted her eyelashes. “Thank you. Dance?”

Gillom handed her a glass of tea, the price of a spin round the floor.

“I'd rather get to know you. Where do you live in town?”

“I live with Rosa.” She pointed to a plump, older Mexican gal in a red skirt and mass of petticoats, sashaying around the dance floor on a cowboy's arm to a sprightly tune from the hurdy-gurdy man. “She works in the Brewery, most nights.”

“Whereabouts you two live?”

She pointed upward. “Top of the mountain.”

“Uh-huh. I'm up the far side of Tombstone Canyon. Near my friend, Ease, over there. He's a bartender in the Bonanza. I'm the new bank guard, remember?”

“
Sí
. Where I esave
mi
monies.”

“Yes. Come in and say hello sometime.”

“Hokay.
Ahorita
.” (Soon.)

He didn't know what else to ask her. But the man in the blue beret and striped shirt onstage cranked his instrument again to drum up business. It was a popular song, “Pop Goes the Weasel,” so Gillom extended his arm and off they went. He twirled her right up to the less crowded bar when it was over. Several customers saluted their dancing prowess with upraised drinks.

“Ease, this is my new friend, Anel. What's your last name, darlin'?”

“Romero.”

“Romero. From Zacatecas.”

“Famous silver mines down there,” agreed young Bixler. They continued chatting up the lovely, buying her and themselves drinks, and didn't notice new arrivals to the Red Light. Only when these new men elbowed in beside them did the lads pay them any heed.

“Two whiskeys, bartender, and a drink for the lady here.”

Gillom was still bending Anel's ear. “Maybe you an' me an' Ease here, and one of these other gals, could go out on a picnic sometime? Nice May weather, Sunday afternoon, we'd rent a surrey.”

The heavyset man in a black suit and black Stetson leaned in to their conversation, passing the drink glass to the dancer. “Dance, pretty lady?”

“What do you think, Anel? About a picnic?”

“Maybe.” She took her new customer's arm as he led her onto the dance floor while the hurdy-gurdy man began strumming a more sedate tune, a waltz. The big man was surprisingly light on his feet dancing in his soft leather, pointy “toothpick” boots.

Gillom leaned close to his buddy, frustrated. “Damned hard to talk to her. Somebody always cuts in.”

“You've got to meet her outside, pard, on her day off.”

“What about a picnic?”

“Sounds fun to me. I'll rustle up a dancing queen, you set the date.”

They watched as the dance ended, but the couple remained on the floor, her partner conversing animatedly with wide hand gestures. Ease was startled.

“My God. That's Luther Goose.”

“Who?”

“Remember last weekend, in the Bonanza, the guy who braced our faro dealer for cheating?”

Gillom nodded.

“Luther's a heavy gambler, so the casino owners don't bother him. But he tries to recruit our saloon girls to take up to Clifton, to work in his own brothel there. Bar owners and madams don't like him comin' down here, hustlin' our women.”

“
Me,
either.”

“Well, you can argue her out of dancin', but be careful of him.” Ease was now aware of a shorter man right at his other elbow wearing a derby, listening to them.

Luther Goose walked Anel over to the dancer's back bench instead, where he continued his earnest appeal.

Gillom counterattacked. “Bartender! Another tea for the lady.” He was irritated at his picnic offer being thwarted by an older man. When the short glass was filled, he grabbed it and walked it over to his intended, ignoring Ease's warning.

Gillom presented the beauty her fresh drink. “Miss Romero. I believe this next dance is ours.”

Luther Goose peevishly pulled his large nose. “Young lady's talkin' to me.”

“Doubt you'll have anything to say she wants to hear.”

“You wet-earred pup! Get the hell out of here before I put my boot to you!”

Swart John on stage had started cranking his hand organ, but stopped at this altercation.

The man in the cheap suit at Ease's elbow was suddenly at Luther Goose's side. Gillom was focused on the large diamond mounted on a stickpin in the pimp's flowing tie. This was his “headlight,” a top gambler's very expensive affectation, if it wasn't pinchback jewelry, made of paste. Gillom's hands came to rest on the butts of his Remingtons.

“Save the bullshit for your garden, mister.”

From a corner of his mouth, the gambler talked to his side man. “Can't believe this whoreson's brass. You have any notion who I am, kid?”

Gillom smiled, a little cocky. “Yeah. I'd say some deck is shy a joker and you're it.”

Suddenly florid of face, Mr. Goose took a step toward his young antagonist, his big hands coming up outstretched for a throttle.

Gillom's quick hands pulled both revolvers and stretched them forward. Two clicks in the silence announced he'd earred their hammers back.

Ease stepped in to suppress any bloodshed.

“Hey,
hey
! Gillom, he's
unarmed
. Give my friend a little room here, Mister Goose.”

“He's vexing me.”

“Well, all's fair in love and war, especially in disagreements over women. So I'll jus' escort this young lady back to her seat, while you gents cool off.” The young barkeep took Anel by the elbow. She shook her raven hair in admonishment.

“Crazy gringos. Always hurry.” But she allowed Ease to walk her away from the argument. The dance hall's bouncer showed up to intervene.

“Why don't you gentlemen both take a smile, on the house. Opposite ends of the bar, though, please.”

Luther Goose's brown eyes were as hard as rocks. “See you again, buckshot.
Around
.” Gillom now noticed a dark mole over Luther's right eyebrow, to go along with his big ears and long nose. Nothing was very attractive about this big hustler, besides his penchant for flashing his fancy jewelry.

“Counting on it,” agreed young Rogers, reholstering.

Goose's companion, the smaller man with the longer arms, looked Gillom Rogers up and down, estimating his weight and fitness, saying nary a word.