Glorious (23 page)

“Hello, my good friends,” he said to Mulkins, Pugh, Mayor Rogers, and McLendon, who were too stunned by the warm greeting to respond beyond wide-eyed nods. “I'm glad to be back in your company.”

“Sir, you closely resemble a man that I know as Turner, but you
can't possibly be him,” Pugh said. “Turner's a foul-spirited sort who'd sooner spit in your eye than wish you good day. Do you know what might have become of him?”

Turner cackled. McLendon noticed that he was wearing a fine new shirt and pants of gabardine rather than his usual denim.

“Oh, Bob, all that's behind me now,” Turner said. “Let me get this rig put up in your livery, and then I'd admire to join you fine folks over at the Owaysis. I wonder if Ella's going to be free.”

“If you have fucking in mind, you best get to it,” Pugh said. “Come evening, Ella's likely to be kept busy with some of those that your news has attracted to town. Your time might be better spent going out to guard your claim. They're all on the hunt for it, and someone unscrupulous might mess with your markers.”

Turner didn't seem fazed by the suggestion. “Let 'em try. A Culloden vaquero is there standing lookout for me.”

“That's curious,” McLendon said. “Why would he be doing that?”

“Let me get my buckboard and team put up, then we'll all sashay to the Owaysis and I'll tell you. Of course, the drinks will be on me.”

“Well,” Pugh said, “I would think so.”

After Turner stabled his mules, there was further delay at the Owaysis while he went off with Ella. He told Crazy George to serve his friends beer while they waited. Ella's customary fifteen minutes stretched into twenty, then twenty-five. When she and Turner finally returned, he was red-faced and gasping.

“That young lady gives your money's worth,” Turner said. “About the best five dollars I ever spent.”

“I thought it was three,” McLendon said. “But I suppose like every other price in town it was bound to increase.”

“What the market will bear,” Mulkins reminded him. “That's the
choicest of philosophies. Now tell us your story, Turner. We all want to hear it.”

Turner drank some beer and launched into the tale. Four days earlier he had set out from Glorious in the early morning to prospect along the east canyon bisected by Queen Creek.

“Just where we went on your prospecting excursion, C.M.,” Pugh pointed out to McLendon.

For most of the morning Turner searched in vain for promising float. Then, just about the time he was thinking about breaking for lunch—leftover biscuits from breakfast and a cucumber purchased the evening before at the Chinese camp—Lemmy Duke came riding up to him. Turner knew Lemmy from some years back. Though it was well known in and around Glorious that Turner didn't indulge in social conversation, Lemmy hopped down off his horse and started chatting anyway, going on about how there had to be silver somewhere close, just had to be. Turner grunted inhospitably, wishing the man would go away and let him eat his lunch in peace, but Lemmy kept yammering, and what a good thing that turned out to be. He insisted that Turner take a look about a half mile farther east: there was this outcrop just around the bend in the creek, and if Lemmy wasn't so occupied patrolling for Apaches, he'd go there and take a gander himself.

Turner thought Lemmy was full of shit. He knew that outcrop, most of the prospectors did. There wasn't anything there. Lemmy came back at him, saying that was how the prospecting game went. You looked at a place over and over and then one day you saw something that was probably there all the time. Turner figured that if he wanted Lemmy to shut up and ride away, he'd have to go inspect the goddamn outcrop, which he said he'd do if Lemmy would just
leave him alone. So Lemmy rode off and Turner walked to the bend in the creek and poked around the outcrop. And all of a sudden he saw it.

He paused and took a long drink of beer.

“Well, goddamn, Turner, get on with it,” Pugh urged. They were all leaning forward, wanting to hear.

All right, Turner said. At a slightly sharp angle on the upper portion of the outcrop, there was some shine. Maybe the angle was what kept anyone from noticing before. Turner clambered up and twisted around to look and his heart nearly stopped, because it was horn silver, a dozen bits of it spread over the rock like they'd been fired out of a shotgun. He'd heard of horn silver but like most people had never seen any before. He pushed at the bits with his thumb and damned if they didn't squish at his touch just like the stories claimed. Turner let out a whoop—he couldn't help it—and worried right away that he'd called the Apaches down on himself, but instead Lemmy Duke came riding up, asking what had happened to make Turner holler so.

“Lemmy must have been close by,” Pugh said. “That canyon just swallows sound and spits it out in odd directions.”

“Probably so,” Turner said. “Anyway, Lemmy helped me hack out the horn silver and mark my claim. Then he told me to head out for Florence right then. I said I wanted to look around some more—there might be more silver nearby. But Lemmy reminded me there were other prospectors at work in the area, and I'd better get my samples assayed and my claim legally filed before they saw what I'd seen and beat me to it. He said he'd put a guard on the spot quiet-like while I was gone, so nobody could jump my claim, and off to Florence I went.”

“Your actions there precipitated a frenzy,” Mayor Rogers said. “As a result, our town is going to flourish. What's next for you, Turner?”

“Mr. Held in the assay office telegraphed some mining concerns in California,” Turner said. “They're sending representatives out here immediately. Major, I expect they'll want lodging at the Elite. They'll have their own assayers inspect my samples, and then they'll bid on my claim. I'll sell to the highest. Held predicts rich offers. I'll be set for life.”

“We're grateful to you,” the mayor said. “You've saved Glorious.”

“Hellfire, I only made my discovery because Lemmy Duke wouldn't leave me alone. Should I see Lemmy, I'm going to stand him to drinks and a turn or two with young Ella. As you might imagine, I now hold him in considerable high regard.”

•   •   •

W
HEN THE
F
LORENCE STAGE
arrived on Tuesday, it was so crammed with passengers that two had to ride on the roof. All eight arriving men represented mining companies. They booked rooms at the Elite through the entire week, and didn't blanch when Major Mulkins charged six dollars a night for upstairs and nine for downstairs with windows. They ate dinner in the hotel dining room and asked Mulkins to send to the saloon for postprandial whiskey. Mayor Rogers and his wife Rose greeted them in the dining room, and the mayor reported afterward at the Owaysis that these were exactly the kind of businessmen Glorious wanted to attract.

“When they buy up claims and their companies build mines, then we'll have engineers and the like moving to town,” he said. “They'll bring their families, and before you know it, we'll have to be opening a school. Joe Saint will be teacher, of course. That's always been his hope, an eventual return to the classroom.”

“I remember that was his calling back east,” McLendon said. “I still don't know how he ended up in Glorious.”

“That's Joe's story to tell you, if he ever so chooses,” Mulkins cautioned. “Out here a man's past is his own business.”

“Even so,” McLendon grumbled. He was in a terrible mood. So many customers flocked to the Tirritos' dry goods store that they were sometimes packed two or three rows deep in front of the counter. When McLendon came in and tried to catch her eye, Gabrielle said that she was too busy to visit. But to his dismay, she still managed to make time for daytime chats and evening meals with Joe Saint. McLendon glumly reflected that he should go ahead and leave town. Because so many people wanted passage to Glorious, a daily route to and from Florence had been established; he could go anytime. With no town collapse imminent, and daily reminders that Gabrielle had chosen the sheriff, there was nothing to keep him. With Killer Boots still undoubtedly trying to track him down, McLendon knew that it would be smartest to keep moving until he reached the relative anonymity of some major California city. But he surprised himself by choosing to stay awhile longer. For better or worse, McLendon wanted to see what happened next in Glorious.

•   •   •

T
URNER MET INDIVIDUALLY
with mining company representatives in their rooms at the Elite. After a final early morning meeting with representatives of Sears and Sons, a renowned mining concern headquartered in San Francisco, he emerged, beaming, and marched to the Owaysis. He asked Mary Somebody to bring him a full bottle of whiskey. Turner sat alone at a table and drank it all, continuing to smile and ignoring everyone else in the saloon. When the last drops in the bottle were gone, Turner stood and walked unsteadily to the livery, where the stage was about to depart on the return trip to Florence. Still grinning, and without carrying any luggage, Turner climbed
into the carriage and the stage clattered off. No one in Glorious ever saw him again. Rumor had it that he'd sold his claim to Sears and Sons for $80,000, maybe more. Bob Pugh stabled the carriage and mule team that Turner had brought back to town. After a week went by, he announced that they were now his property, and he began renting them out.

The men from that company and the other mining concerns kept their rooms at the Elite. They had their own assayers with them, and they made it known that they were ready to examine samples and, if warranted, make purchase offers for claims on the spot.

That drove all the prospectors into heightened frenzy. There were almost two hundred of them now. Everyone wanted the next $80,000 deal. At daylight they swarmed into the Pinals, ignoring the threat of Apaches. Where earlier it was possible to hunt ore in relative isolation, now men jammed promising locations within a few feet of each other and bickered about who was in which spot first. Fights broke out in town at night between prospectors accusing each other of moving claim markers. Joe Saint couldn't get the fighting under control. Pugh, Mulkins, Mayor Rogers, McLendon, and even Crazy George with his lead pipe had to assist him. They'd drag the combatants off to the adobe jail; with only two cells, most nights it couldn't hold all the brawlers. Angel Misterio brought a welcome offer from Mr. MacPherson: the overflow could be held overnight in the guard posts on either end of town. MacPherson also said he'd supply vaqueros to serve as deputies should the sheriff need them.

The fights weren't the only problem. Prior to Turner's strike, Glorious had been a relatively clean place. There weren't enough people living there to create much trash. But now there were, and the town was littered with empty cans, discarded boxes, and drained bottles. The refuse attracted great waves of rats. Major Mulkins's feral cats
were filched by prospectors who tethered the felines in their tents. Glorious began to smell bad too. Previously, two outhouses—one behind the saloon, the other behind the dry goods store—had been sufficient. But now they overflowed, and it became a common sight to see prospectors relieving themselves out in the open. No one had time to construct additional facilities.

The most constant concern was shortages of everything. Every room at the Elite was taken, and Major Mulkins got three dollars apiece each night from a dozen more men who rolled up in their blankets and slept on the lobby floor. The tent camp on the west side of town now extended all the way down to the creek and a quarter mile beyond the guard post. Sydney Chau and her mother couldn't keep up with the mounds of dirty clothes accumulating daily at the laundry, and couldn't recruit other Chinese to help because they were all needed growing, harvesting, and selling vegetables from their camp gardens. Fresh-picked onions became especially prized treats, bringing a dollar apiece. The prospectors peeled the onions, then gnawed them like apples.

Feeding the town was a constant struggle. Every day, supply wagons arrived alongside the stage from Florence, their beds packed with boxes of comestibles. But never enough. Major Mulkins regularly ran out of flour and coffee. The Tirritos could never stock sufficient canned goods. Fresh meat was also scarce. Before, it was usually possible for hungry prospectors to pot deer or jackrabbits. Now the waves of men spreading out into the Pinals scared off much of the game.

At the Owaysis, beer and red-eye ran out at some point every night. Crazy George increased his liquor orders, but no matter how many barrels he ordered daily from Florence, thirsty prospectors drained them all and clamored for more. There wasn't enough of Ella to go around, either. The English girl could have worked twenty-four-hour
shifts of fifteen-minute sessions and still not satisfied demand. Mary Somebody announced that Ella would only be “on the job” from seven p.m. to midnight daily, at ten dollars a turn. Anyone wishing a special appointment during the day would pay twenty dollars for the privilege, and then only if Ella felt up to it.

“She's terrible worn-out at the end of every night,” Mary told McLendon. “She fears that if the pace continues, she'll walk crooked for the rest of her life. I tell her that she ought to be pleased. Every one of 'em she takes on brings her that much closer to steamship passage home. Of course, I've upped her share of the proceeds. Now she gets two dollars per.”

With Ella constantly occupied, Girl was also in demand. Before sending them back to one of the whores' cribs with her, Mary spoke to each of her customers, stressing that only the most basic sex act was allowed. The charge for Girl remained one dollar. As soon as the initial rush of arriving miners was over and there was time to get a breath, Mary said, she'd take trips to Florence and Tucson and recruit more whores. It wouldn't be easy; she wanted them to be young and fresh, and Mary believed that there were few such in the entire territory. She wanted her saloon to build a reputation for having the finest pleasure girls around. Until she recruited additions, the two current Owaysis whores had to work nonstop. Even so, some nights men had to leave the Owaysis unsatisfied, since Ella and Girl were so booked up.