The Last Shootist (21 page)

 

Twenty-four

 

Gillom slept fitfully that night. After a first hour of turning on his feather mattress, the darkness was rent by gunfire, shots echoing up Tombstone Canyon, cowboy yips in the night and clattering hooves from up near the livery stable. A stray bullet busted one of his neighbor's glass windows and he quickly rolled out to hit the floor. Gillom groped for his holstered pistols and pants on the floorboards.

Peering warily through his one front window, Rogers could see coal oil lamps being blown out in shacks in Chihuahua Town atop the denuded hillside across the canyon, so they wouldn't become targets of these wild cowboys on a midweek toot. His landlady, Mrs. Blair, had forewarned him this was a regular midnight interruption; that the sideboards of these miners' shacks were so thin that gunwise residents hit the floor when sport-shooting forays erupted. But he couldn't spot any shooters in the dark below, so Gillom crawled back into his built-in bed with his jeans and pistols still on, ready for trouble. With a nervous shiver, nature's sweet restorer finally overtook him and he slept well past dawn.

*   *   *

Walking to work, Gillom watched a water train climbing uphill, the short-legged, stout little burros each rigged with an iron frame and a ridge pole from which hung a heavy canvas sack on either side, twitched along by Mexican muleteers. Each sack held seven gallons of water from the wells up Brewery Gulch and sold for twenty-five cents, to be poured into the barrel outside the back door of every dwelling.

He paused to watch the Mexican women gathered at the narrow, polluted river in the canyon to beat their clothes clean by hand on the wet rocks. The women gossiped with their friends while smoking hand-rolled cigarillos. Naked babies splashed happily in the gurgling waters at the ladies' bare feet. It was a soothing scene after a restless weekend, and the young man drank it in for a long moment before trudging on to his bank.
Today is gonna be a warm one,
he realized.
Luckily it rarely hits a hundred at this high elevation, Ease said.

Lucky his boss, Mr. Pinkham, hadn't heard about his run-in with the big gambler in the dance hall, so it was an untroubled day. Near closing time, before 3:00
P.M.
, Anel Romero dropped in.

“
Anel!
Nice to see you.”

She was wearing a shawl over her head, although it was too warm for that this late spring day, trying not to attract attention in her flashy dress, but she recognized him.

“Oh,
sí
, Mister bank guard.”

“It's Gillom. Gillom Rogers.”

“
Sí
, Gillom. Putting
mi
monies safe, from last weekend.”

“Good. Are you on your way to work? Tonight?”

“
Sí
.” The Mexican miss looked about, unwilling to discuss her place of employment in public.

He smiled. “I'll walk you there.”

“No
necessario
.”

“Bank's just closing. I'll get permission.”

While Miss Romero made her deposit, Gillom wheedled an okay to escort one of its good customers to work.

“Which good customer?” M. J. Cunningham looked up from his ledger and scanned the bank's floor. “Oh. One of those dance hall girls.”

“Hey, they make good money entertaining. Miss Romero's dollars spend just as well as anybody else's.”

The young banker hesitated. “Don't make a habit of escorting young dollies all over town. You were hired to attend our
better
customers.”

“Yes, sir. But certainly none prettier.”

*   *   *

Next they were strolling Main Street where workers were bricking to pave the entrance to the dirt acreage that was to become the Copper Queen Hotel, still in blueprints. With seventy-five rooms, it was intended to become the territory's biggest and most luxurious. A knot of miners standing about the empty lot smoking and passing a bottle watched the young couple pass. They knew she wasn't one of the town's respectable ladies, not someone dressed that sexy in daylight. Gillom ignored the wolf whistles she was causing.

“Starting to warm up. I heard Bisbee gets more rain in the summers due to its higher elevation. An oasis above these dry valleys around here.”

“Summer rains heavy, yes. Floods.”

“
Si. Muy malo
.” He essayed a little Spanish to impress her.

She smiled. “
Por supuesto
.” (For sure.)

They were climbing the steps to a two-story brick building with a façade of plastered arches. It was at the south end of Brewery Gulch, where its posters and hanging signs could be seen by everybody. The Orpheum was Bisbee's opera house, erected in 1897 and containing one of the biggest dance floors. Its main attractions were the traveling shows which arrived several times a month for four-day runs, sometimes held over depending upon ticket sales. Frush's Oriental Circus from San Francisco had just been there, and the couple paused to admire its colorful posters plastered on billboards outside. Shakespeare's plays, minstrel shows, wrestling, and boxing matches had all played to good crowds at the Orpheum.

“Anel, look. Another show coming. Wanna go?”

“I work.”

“Aww, you can get a weeknight off. Opens Thursday. I'll buy tickets. The Raymond Teal Musical Revue from Chicago. Sounds like fun.”

“Thursday. Hokay, I try.”

“Bueno.”

They were soon at the Red Light's front door.

“Thank you, Mister Gillom.”

Gillom's excitement over their first date was contagious. “Drop by the bank tomorrow, Anel. Tell me you've got the night off, so I can buy those tickets. And tell me where you live, so I can pick you up Thursday evening. For dinner first.”

“Hokay, mister. Bank, tomorrow.”

“Swell!”

His reward was a kiss on his smiling cheek.

*   *   *

When he returned to his miner's cottage that night, Gillom got his rags and wire brush and gun oil out and cleaned his Remingtons. Reholstering but not reloading, the young gunslinger retrieved poker chips from his warbag and placed one of them upon the back of his right hand, which he held out waist-high. His holster was still on, hung low on his waist with the leather tie-downs tight around his thighs. He let the chip drop. Before it hit the floor, Gillom had his revolver in his right hand, its sightless, nickel-plated barrel thrust forward, as he cocked and dry-fired the single-action .44 twice.
Click-click
.

Hell. Harvey Logan of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch could supposedly cock and fire three times before his poker chip dropped.
“Hafta practice,” he grunted.

And so Gillom Rogers did, right hand, left hand, both together under poker chips, cross-draws, midair exchanges, forward spins, backward, over-the-shoulder tosses, thumb-cocking and dry-firing at the end of each trick.
Click-click-click
. By the glowing lamplight, as the night slowed to a lonely crawl, he practiced his gunplay.
Click-click
. Until his arms were too tired to pull iron anymore.
Click
.

*   *   *

Anel dropped by the Bank of Bisbee next day to tell him she'd gotten Thursday night off. She would meet him at the theater instead, so he wouldn't have to pick her up.
Maybe she doesn't want me to see where she lives?
he thought.

Gillom also dropped by Sheriff White's office to pick up his reward. “Hard Luck” Harrison's photograph had been identified in Tombstone, so a money order worth $250 was all his now, although the sheriff wasn't in to congratulate him on his killing.

 

Twenty-five

 

Gillom was outside the Orpheum at quarter to eight the following night. He'd stopped by Bisbee's only flower and seed shop to pick up a rose. Milling in the crowd entering the theater, he kept the flower cupped behind his back, not wanting to look like some smitten country bumpkin. Gillom hadn't attended a variety show before; his widowed mother never had the money to spend on such frivolities in El Paso.

Someone plucked the flower from his fingers. He turned to find it was her! Anel wore a more subdued dress with a higher neckline, not emphasizing her bosom. It was pale green, the color of her eyes under the boardwalk's yellowish lamplight.

“Anel.”

“Thank you, Mister Gillom. Left your
pistolas
home. Good.”

“Yes. I'm off-duty.”

She let him pin the rose on her chest, fumbling so as to not prick her. She pirouetted around flirtatiously. “My dress. Flower matches.”

“We like our roses yellow in Texas.”

Gillom took Anel by the elbow and escorted her up the stairs and inside the second story. The Orpheum was shaped like a wedge, squared off to an entrance with the ticket booth inside. Across the small lobby from the ticket booth, a young ticket taker directed customers up the stairs to the third story if they'd bought seats in the small back balcony. Atop that stairwell awaited “wine girls” to usher the biggest-spending patrons into curtained boxes along both sides of the three-story concert hall.

The young bank guard towed his date across the second story's main floor and found a couple of wooden chairs off to one side, nearer the stage. Gillom beckoned a wine girl brushing past to bring them two glasses of white wine.

In the small orchestra area to one side of the raised stage, the musicians struck up Von Suppé's
Poet and Peasant
Overture, and the hubbub began to die down as the patrons found seats. Anel's eyes widened as the heavy curtain was drawn aside to reveal all thirty performers perched around the stage on papier-mâché rocks, standing under fake trees or seated on camp stools. Even some of the Orpheum's wine girls were onstage, dressed alike in white dresses with red stockings and a red sash across a shoulder, spinning red parasols. A blond ingénue in curls under her bonnet and a yellow dress of ruffles and petticoats strolled from the wings singing “Mother Has a Sweetheart, Daddy Is His Name.”

She waltzed off to loud applause and a few whistles from the mostly male crowd. The young thrush was followed by Frank Bryan from under his tree, a comedian known for his self-composed parodies.

A song that always gets my goat …

Though some folks think it's fine

To get stewed and bust your throat

While singing “Auld Lang Syne.”

They wore tight pants and homemade shirts

And went to bed at nine.

And I'm damned glad I never was born

In the days of “Auld Lang Syne.”

Gillom Rogers paused, laughing with the crowd, to explain to Anel what this ditty referred to, but his young lady was distracted by a banjo player walking onstage picking a lively tune. It was Raymond Teal, the proprietor of this musical revue. This strolling musician led the orchestra and wine room girls into a hoedown dance with younger males from the regular cast. The flying petticoats, whoops from the young men, and squeals from the girls as they crossed hand-in-hand to twirl on their partners' arms and circle and cross again in tricky combinations absolutely captivated Anel. Eyes shining, she rose from her seat to applaud the dance troop when they finally sashayed off. Gillom joined her on his feet to shout approval and get a hug from his girl.

Their rousing praise caught the attention of two men just settling into a large upper box across the hall. Luther Goose was dressed again like a prairie knight in a black suit and a bib-front cream shirt with pearl buttons. The big man ostentatiously shot his French cuffs. It was the shorter man in the nondescript gray wool suit and gray derby who pointed out the young gunsmith below to his boss.

“That him?”

Mr. Goose peered into the yellowish gloom cast by the coal oil footlamps on stage.

“That
is
the kid who gave me the hard time in the Red Light.”

“Out with the girl you fancied,” added his companion.

The brothel owner squinted. “Is he armed?”

“Don't see any pistols. Could have a hideout.”

“Perhaps you should say hello, William. For me.”

“Yes, sir.” William got up from his front chair just as a wine girl arrived with their drinks. The blond pixie handed William a beer, poured champagne from an iced bottle for Mr. Goose. Luther had eyes on the distant bank guard. He swallowed a gulp, but immediately spit it on the floor.

“This is swill! Awful pear cider! Tell the bartender I want
real
French champagne up here. Immediately!”

“Yes, sir.” The chastened waitress followed Luther's bodyguard out of the balcony box.

Gillom waved to one of the wine girls coming off the stage for another round. His ladyfriend was riveted, watching a feisty brunette march about the stage to a snare drum's beat, carrying a rifle. From backstage a stagehand pulled a barely visible black string to rip off her costume to reveal a washerwoman's shirt and blouse. The music changed, her rifle was tossed, a broom caught, and she began performing an Irish jig. Another pull on a strip string and presto!—the pretty gal was in a short skirt and skipping a rope tossed her by the stagehand. Gillom's and Anel's mouths were open, having never seen anything like this transformation dance. Yet another rip of her costume and the miss was a policeman in shorts and buttoned-up tunic, singing a patriotic song. She marched off to whistling, foot-stomping applause.

“Anel! Here's two dollars for our drinks. I'm going to the washroom.”

She nodded and smiled as Gillom pushed his way through the miners, cattlemen, and gamblers milling about the center aisle to the back of the dance hall. This variety show was continuous throughout the evening, repeated once entirely, so patrons wandered in and out through these lengthy shows.