Authors: W R. Garwood
Roy Bean's Gold
copyright © 2010 by W.R. Garwood
First Skyhorse Publishing edition published 2014 by arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-62087-827-9
eISBN: 978-1-62873-892-6
Printed in the United States of America
For Tracey
Our Golden Granddaughter
G
old is where you find it and the good Lord knows I'd been hunting it in one shape or other since a shirt-tail young 'un back in Mason County, Kentucky. Now as I hunkered down over my lonely campfire on a windy June evening in 1849, I wondered if I finally might be on the track of a real bonanza.
Maybe, I told myself, my side-winding trail could lead me to a hidden fortune if that gangling stranger I'd run into back in El Paso del Norte spoke the truth. Before his luck ran out he'd shown me what he was talking aboutâa glittering gold eagle. But he insisted it was just penny ante to a hidden outlaw cache out there somewhereâjust waiting for the right man to come along.
Yet that wasn't what had first got me traveling toward California like a wind-buffeted tumbleweed. It was the Bean wandering eye matching the Bean wandering foot that catapulted me westward.
Just a shade past twenty-three I'd already lived several busy lifetimes. I'd flat-boated from Kentucky to New Orleans at fifteen, spent a hitch teamstering cannon balls and gunpowder for General Taylor in the late Mexican fracas, and finally became a counter jumper at my brother Sam's little trading post and groggery in the town of Chihuahua till a few short weeks ago.
Early that explosive morning, as I was dusting off the bar while musing on the local girls, Sam rushed into the place all wrought up. “Gol-dummed knot head!” His eyes stuck out like he'd been punched in the brisket. “Been out tomcattin' again with them Verdugo gals?”
“Might have walked out with one or the other,” I said, wondering who'd been talking. Likely it was that green-eyed cat Conchita Peraltaâand just because I'd dropped a hint or two that she might become Mrs. Roy Bean. sometime. Trouble was I'd worked the same dodge around Chihuahua quite freely since joining Sam.
When I'd gave up freighting after the war, I promptly got visions of becoming a merchant prince using Sam's connections for a starter. I was a go-getter, for one thing! One or the other could wind up as a spouse to a whopping success, which would be me. The only joker in the deck was which little
señorita
to settle down withâand so I kept sampling the merchandise and getting away with it.
But now it seemed my sampling was catching up with me.
“Well, you're sure in one hell of a fix!” shouted Sam. “Esteban Domingo just galloped in filled to the brim with firewater and yellin' for your scalp!”
“Margarita's old beau? Thought he was in a Vera Cruz jail for slicin' up some rival.” A chill plunged down my backbone.
“He must have let himself out to come visitin'. And here he comes now!”
Sam was right. One of the meanest-looking Mexicans I'd ever set eyes on had burst through the batwings, waving a mighty long knife.
“
¡Borrachón!
Puckered-horned toad! Two-faced Coyote!” And these were the kindest of the volley of words shouted as he ran me around the saloon, scattering our early risers and bottles to hell and gone.
Wasting no time for peace talk, I leaped back of the bar to grab Sam's big Walker Colt, hoping for a dry charge.
“Hold on there! I don't know you, you crazy fool, let alone your infernal lady friends!” I cocked the heavy pistol with both hands as the last customer plunged headlong into the street. Sam was already absent.
“
SÃ
, I know you, though, you woman-chasing cockroach!” And with a drunken war whoop he flung himself at me, knife slashing a glittering streak.
Things happened fast. And quickly came the ear-blasting roar of the Walker as the weapon belched fiery lightning. That thunderous crash was still racketing through the building as the late Esteban Domingo thudded onto the sawdust with half his ugly face missing.
For a tingling, humming moment I stood frozen, flat-footed, staring at that sprawled body on the blood-spattered floor, then I dropped his big silver-laced sombrero onto his face, or what was left of it, and staggered out onto the street. As I stood there gulping the air, a head or two poked around the nearby adobes. Other faces peered from behind cottonwoods or stared out of the alley shadows. Feet began thudding, like rolling drums, as Mexicans ran up the street. Groups gathered, big straw sombreros tipped together as their owners whispered and rolled glittering black eyes in my direction.
Although Esteban Domingo had been a no-good drunken troublemaker, he came from an old Sonora family with plenty of
pesos
, which had been the main reason he'd lasted as long as he had. He'd also served in the Mexican Lancers and was rated a jim-dandy Yankee sticker. Well, he'd sure enough stuck his last Yank!
Two of our regulars, Siquio Sánchez and Garcia Tayopa came pussyfooting in through the front door, brittle smiles lurking under their handlebar mustaches. More Mexicans broke away from the growing crowd and eased their way into our place to gawk and mutter.
Our Anglo traders began to show up. Big Jim Wilson and cock-eyed Frank Burns dashed over from Portales Street with old Solomon Fancher, of the freighting company, waddling at their heels. My brother was with them and he tugged me off to one side.
“Wait a minute, that bunch in there'll steal us blind unless someone watches them,” I told him.
“Don't fret yourself over some bottles of pop-skull or a few yard goods. and give me that weapon.” Sam grabbed the Walker out of my fist and jammed it into his waistband. “Take a look at that.” He jerked a thumb at the growing crowd.
Although it was still early in the day, the whole town of Chihuahua was up and out on the streets.
“Git yourself over to th' wagon yard and hitch up old Zack and Betty and damned
muypronto!
” Sam gave me a shove and Solomon Fancher pushed me along through the milling Mexicans. He waved a hand at the wagon yard when we got there.
“Thanks to you, Mister Quick Shot, me and your brother and every
gringo
's got to pull freight fast, if we don't want our throats cut by those jumped-up
chili con carnes
. They're good customers but gol-damn' hot enemies when their dander's roused. I oughts to know. I was at Goliad!”
Fancher waddled around, yanking his beard and flinging orders. “When we heard Domingo was after your hide, we knew one or t'other would hit th' deck. And you . . . you unconsiderate imp . . . had to come out on top. Jest listen at that!”
The shrilling of women and bellowed curses of the menfolk began to rise around town. I wondered if Margarita Verdugo was helping in that caterwauling while I was mighty busy hitching up our Dearborn wagon. Most of the American merchants used the big, heavy Conestoga freight wagons or lubberly Chihuahua high-wheeled carts with double-yoked oxen. I'd always felt that it gave us style to drive a span of horses, and now it looked as if we could use them to move in a hurry, for the uproar was swelling like the mutter of a coming storm.
“Hustle! Hustle! They're about to start th' hull darn' war over again!” Sam was back again, wild-eyed and sweating as he mounted the squeaking seat of our Dearborn. By now just about every
Americano
was on the streets or gathering in the wagon yard with all of their weeping women and bawling kids.
Those glowering knots of Chihuahua citizens, milling about, waving fists, had been neighbors, customers, and apparent friends ever since Sam and I and the other
gringos
moved in after the signing of peace back in March of 1848. Since then we all had dug in and made the fur fly with our businessesâtrading, grocery, drygoods, and the rest. But now it seemed the honeymoon was over for good.
Not a man in all those staring crowds made a move to stop our leaving. Even the local
jefes
kept their distance as our makeshift wagon train began to rumble, cart and wagon, up Galagos, past the rows of stores and
cantinas
, but the racket over on the other streets was getting louder. There came the brittle clash of broken windows and the hollow thud of scattered shots.
Hearing those sounds, every one of us whipped up our horses more briskly.
Some of our party made several hurried stops on the way to save trunks and other valuables. I got a small chest and some other oddments from our comfortable adobe on Jalapa, leaving our Yaqui house servant, Texutla, behind to watch the place against our return.
It gave both Sam and me a wrench to pull up stakes and leave our business and our dandy little home with its walled patio garden and dozens of flowering plants. There, in a corner, our huge chimoya tree, festooned with a rainbow of orchids, lorded it over a regular little Garden of Eden, rioting with lemons, kumquats, grapefruits, and golden oranges. Nothing like it in old Kentucky! And now we were being driven headlong from that Eden.
As I dashed out of the house with the last piece of luggage, old Texutla, her broad brow creased more than ever with furrows, held up gnarled hands, wailing: “Return, oh,
señores
, return!”