The Gentleman Outlaw and Me-Eli (12 page)

With Caesar lying quietly at our feet, Calvin and I sat back in our plush seats and watched Durango slip away into the past, already no more than a vivid dream.

The tracks ran along beside the Animas River, short for
el Rio de las Animas Perdidas,
according to Calvin. The name rolled off his tongue like poetry, but when he told me its meaning, I shivered.
The river of lost souls
—that's what those pretty Spanish words signified. I wondered how it got such a grim name. And hoped it didn't bode ill for us.

After a while, the train began climbing, twisting and turning, following the very edge of a steep cliff. The river dropped farther and farther below us. Soon I had to lean out the window to see the water churning over boulders at the bottom of a chasm. Lost souls ... the name made more sense when I looked down at the river from this height.

Beyond the Animas, the mountains rose up, high and stern and pointed, bearded with pines. Big white clouds hung motionless above the peaks. The sky was the bluest I'd ever seen. Except for the everlasting cinders and smoke from the locomotive, the air was fresh and pure. It was a fine ride, made even better by a plush dining car and a delicious meal of pheasant, elk, and buffalo.

In Silverton, we took a room at the Grand Hotel, on Greene Street, an establishment nearly as fine as the Strater. The food in the dining room was good
and plentiful, and I soon got into the habit of eating steak tender enough to cut with my fork. Even developed a taste for oysters, which Calvin said would put hair on my chest—highly unlikely, I thought.

As Calvin had predicted, saloons and gambling halls were plentiful in Silverton. The first thing we did when we entered one was take note of the dealer. If he seemed the equal of Jack McGraw, we tried another place. No sense taking chances when you don't need to.

To insure our good luck, Calvin devised new methods of cheating. Besides his quick fingers and polite ways, he kept an ace up his sleeve and marked his cards. He also bought himself a pretty glass ring that looked like a diamond but was even better because he could turn it to reflect other players' cards. Of course, he wasn't above using me to send him silent signals. Not too many men paid heed to a pitiful orphan hanging around the table. Night after night, our winnings grew.

***

One evening while we were enjoying dinner in the hotel dining room, Calvin surprised me by bringing up the subject of his father. He hadn't said much about Mr. Featherbone, Senior, since I'd questioned his honesty in card-playing way back in Pueblo.

"I imagine Father spent a lot of time in this town," he said, looking around as if he expected to see old Featherbone's ghost lingering in a corner. "What I wouldn't give to have known him better, to have traveled with him, to have been his partner."

Calvin's fists tightened and a little muscle in his cheek twitched. "Thanks to Sheriff Yates, I have been denied that opportunity."

I leaned across the table and asked a question I'd been puzzling over for a long time. "How do you know Sheriff Yates killed your father, Calvin? Who told you?"

Reaching into the inside pocket of his coat, Calvin pulled out a tattered envelope. Opening it carefully, he removed a letter which had been unfolded and refolded so many times it was torn along the creases. "Read this, Eli."

I spread the fragile paper on the table. "
My dere Miz Fetherbone,
" I read,

With grate sorroe I take pen in hand to tell you of yore husbands crool and untimly deth. On February 10th 1887 he was shot in the back in cold blud by the sherif of Tinville on account of him calling the sherif a cheet wich is the truth. Alfred Yates is the sherif's name. He took all the munny yore pore unforchinat husband had. This is all I have to say, x-cept the sherif is a wicked man that shood be kilt for his trechery.

Yore husbands frend

Before I raised my eyes, I took a deep breath. Until now, I hadn't known Sheriff Yates's Christian name was Alfred. By a strange coincidence, my father's Christian name was also Alfred. Much as I feared to admit it, it was beginning to look like Calvin and I were searching for the same man after all.

When I could trust myself to speak, I asked Calvin who sent the letter. "There's no signature."

"What does it matter who sent it? The truth is my father is dead and I, his only living kin, swore a vow on my mother's grave to avenge his murder."

Calvin's face was pale, and his voice shook. For the first time I felt I was seeing his true self, a boy not much older than me who had made a solemn promise. One he could not break, even if he wanted to, without dishonoring himself.

You're scared, aren't you?" I whispered, just blurting the words out without thinking. "That's why you're hanging round here instead of going on to Tinville."

Calvin snatched the letter back and refolded it carefully, scowling at me all the while. "Of course I'm not scared," he said fiercely. "I know how to handle a gun."

'You don't even have a gun," I said. "Why, I bet you never shot one in your whole entire life."

Calvin got up so quick his chair fell over. The noise won us the attention of everyone in the dining room, including a waiter who almost dropped a tray full of steaming dinners.

"If you were a man instead of a puny little Nancy-boy," Calvin snarled, "I'd beat you senseless for insulting me."

Ignoring the stares and whispers, Calvin whirled around and headed for the exit.

I sat at the table for a moment, knowing I'd pushed Calvin too far this time. I was usually better at guessing his moods and accommodating myself to them.

"Shall I put the dinner on your hotel bill, son?" the waiter asked, hovering over me.

'Yes," I said, getting to my feet. "Room 112."

Without looking at anyone, I slunk out of the dining room and went in search of Calvin.

I caught up with him and Caesar a block or two down the street. "I'm sorry, Calvin," I hollered at his back. "I didn't mean to insult you, I just said what I was thinking."

But Calvin wouldn't look at me. Nor would he speak. He went on walking, faster and faster, his coattails flying out with every step.

"Where are you going?" I shouted.

Without answering, Calvin crossed the road, strode into a gun store, and marched up to the counter. "I want the best pistol you have, and hang the cost," he said to the startled clerk, who'd been dozing over a Deadwood Dick story.

The clerk spit a stream of tobacco juice onto the floor, totally missing the spittoon, and leaned over the gun case. "That would be this here Colt forty-five," he said. "The Peacemaker, they call it."

"May I see it?"

When the clerk opened the case, I sidled up to Calvin and stood beside him so I could see the guns too. They reminded me of snakes—beautiful but deadly.

The clerk handed Calvin the Colt as if it were a sacred object. "Pure ivory handles," he murmured, "and a special embossed holster made from the finest leather."

Calvin weighed the pistol, sighted, squeezed the trigger, spun the chamber. Either I was wrong about him never having had a gun, or he knew how to look good with one in his hand.

"I can let her go for a hundred dollars," said the clerk.

Calvin frowned. "I told you I don't care about the price. If this is the best you have, then it's the one I want."

Without hesitating, Calvin pulled out his money pouch and laid ten gold eagles on the counter.

"I'll have to charge another two or three dollars for ammunition," the clerk apologized.

Calvin buckled the holster and handed the clerk four silver dollars. In exchange, he received enough bullets to shoot every soul in Silverton at least once.

Outside the store, the street lay in shadow but the upper stories of buildings caught the sunlight. Windowpanes reflected the red sky as if the whole town were burning. Horses stood at hitching rails, flipping their tails and exchanging whinnies. From Blair Street came the sounds of piano music, laughter, shouts, and a gunshot or two. The saloons were filling. It was time to pick one for our act.

"How do I look, Eli?" Calvin asked coldly. "Am I professional enough for you now?"

He looked like a boy playing a part in a play, I thought, but there wasn't any sense getting him riled up with the truth again.

"I just hope you know how to use that gun," I said. "Now that you're armed, you're a fair target for anybody who cares to shoot you."

Without speaking, Calvin smoothed his curls and swung off toward Blair Street. I trotted along beside him, and Caesar followed close behind. Another long night of gambling lay ahead. Drunken louts bumping me, perfumed ladies hanging on Calvin, loud music, cigar smoke, a sarsaparilla or two.

I wondered what Mama would say if she looked down from heaven and saw me, her only child and daughter, wearing boys' clothes and knowing more about the inside of a saloon than a church or a schoolhouse. She wouldn't be pleased, that was for certain.

As for myself, I wasn't too pleased either. Once
I'd enjoyed accompanying Calvin in his playacting, but now I was just plain weary of it. All I wanted to do was get to Tinville and keep Calvin from killing Papa. Or Papa from killing him.

A
S THINGS TURNED OUT, I WASN'T DESTINED
to play my part in the orphan act much longer. A couple of nights later, Caesar and I were sitting on the sidewalk outside the Olympic Saloon. Calvin was inside playing the fool at the faro table. All those unwashed clothes and bodies had given me a headache. I was glad to have a few moments to be still and admire the stars shining high in the night sky, untouched by the ugliness down below them.

Just as I was waxing poetical, a ruckus erupted behind me. Calvin came running out the saloon door, followed by a stream of curses and gunfire. I knew better than to waste time asking questions. Caesar and I did what we'd learned. We raced after Calvin, ducking down alleys, hiding in shadows, doing our best to lose the angry crowd chasing us. Bullets whizzed past my head, buzzing like angry hornets, but thank the Lord nobody was sober enough to shoot straight.

When we decided it was safe to stop running, we hunkered down behind a fence and practiced breathing normally.

"How come you didn't shoot back?" I asked Calvin, as soon as I had enough wind to speak. 'You haven't even drawn your pistol."

He glanced at his holster as if he'd forgotten it was there. "I told you I avoid gunplay," he said kind of stiffly.

I had a good idea Calvin wasn't telling the truth about his reasons for not shooting, but I didn't want to set him off again, not when he was feeling so touchy. "What happened in the saloon?" I asked. "Did someone catch on to your tricks?"

Calvin sighed. "A miner I cheated a few days ago turned up in the crowd. Unfortunately I didn't notice him watching me, and I grew careless with my glass ring."

"Does this mean we're leaving Silverton?"

"I'm afraid so," Calvin said. "We'll depart on the first stage in the morning." He sighed again, louder and harder than before. "I fear we won't be traveling first class for some time, Eli. I had to choose between my winnings and my life. I chose the latter and left the gold on the table."

He reached into his pocket and held out his hand. Five silver dollars and a few coins gleamed in the moonlight.

"That's it?" I stared at the paltry sum in disbelief. "That's all we've got?"

"I told you it was either take the money and die or leave it and live."

"In other words, you decided you weren't quite ready to blaze that path across the firmament."

Calvin ignored my sarcasm and began walking toward the stage depot, taking care to keep in the shadows. Caesar and I followed him, but I swear if I'd had a grain of sense, I would have demanded my share of those coins and taken a later stage. Just Caesar and me. No more Gentleman Outlaw and his cheating ways.

But as I've already told you, I'm totally lacking in sense. Besides I could no more have left Calvin than I could have left Caesar. They both needed me. The only difference was Caesar knew it and Calvin didn't.

As we passed the Grand Hotel, I stopped and grabbed Calvin's sleeve. "Where are you going? We have to pay our bill and get our belongings."

Calvin gave me a look so long he might have been measuring me for something. A coffin maybe. "Eli, we don't have enough money to pay the bill," he said. "As for our belongings, what do we have but the clothes on our backs?"

When we got to the depot, we huddled on a bench in the shadows at the back until it was time to board the stagecoach. Calvin bought our tickets and hustled me inside. I expected someone to complain about Caesar, but the three miners sharing one seat were already half-asleep. The lady sitting
beside Calvin was too busy chatting to a handsome gambler to notice my dog. The gambler paid no heed to anything but the lady. So it seemed Caesar was safe. At least for now.

Before we departed, at least six more miners climbed up on top of the coach. They clung to the sides like shipwrecked sailors, passing the time in the usual fashion—singing, laughing, hollering, and cursing.

The miners inside the coach were soon snoring away, filling the air with unpleasant odors. Making a face, the lady pressed a hanky to her nose and went on talking to the gambler. Calvin and Caesar fell asleep. Ignoring the whole bunch, I stuck my head out the window and watched Silverton shrink to nothing behind us.

As soon as we left the flat ground outside town, the excitement began. The Red Mountain toll road was built on the edge of a sheer cliff. What's more, it was narrow and full of twists and turns. The mountains were so high I couldn't tell how far up we were. Which was probably a good thing.

To make matters even worse, the driver acted as if the hounds of hell were chasing us. Cracking the whip and cursing the horses, he swerved around curves, bouncing and swaying. At any moment, I expected the coach to careen off the road and plunge down the mountainside, carrying us all to certain death.

By the time we got to Bear Creek Falls, our first stop, I was so weak-kneed I fell out of the coach and landed on my face, a mishap the miners found uncommonly funny. Calvin helped me up and Caesar licked my face, but I'd ripped a hole in the knee of my good pants and hurt my pride as well.