The Last Shootist (35 page)

“Still not too late to pull out of this, Gillom. No shame in that. You ain't married to Anel,” said Ease.

“I might like to be.” The young gunslinger got on his knees, reached into his Levis. He pulled out the silver locket and showed it to them. “We had our photographs taken in Bisbee and Anel had this keepsake made for me, a surprise.”

His pal looked it over. “Very nice.”

“Gave you a lock of her hair, too,” admired Mr. Graham, lifting it up.

“That hair ain't off the top of her head. Trimmed it special to prove she'd always be faithful.”

The outlaw dropped the hair clump tied with a tiny pink ribbon back into the silver oval and snapped it shut. Even the tough Texan looked a little shocked as he handed the locket back.

Ease Bixler was open-mouthed. “Jesus, Gillom. You
are
serious about this girl.”

The young gunslinger looked grim. “That's why I'm here. I know Anel's faithful, not whorin' for this bastard. She's my silhouette girl, Ease, trusts me to aim true for her.”

His buddy nodded, remembering. “That was quite a picnic, you two challenging each other, your tremendous target shooting.”

“Tonight ain't gonna be easy or fun, my friend.”

“I'm aware of that, amigo.”

*   *   *

In the Blue Goose, glasses were being polished behind the front bar, food prepared in the kitchen for Friday night's business. Upstairs the ladies began to get dressed, putting on their war paint for the night's festivities. Luther Goose was busy, too, checking rooms in his two stories for shuttered windows and locked doors, securing his castle, when his chief henchman reported.

“Cripes didn't see 'em catch a stage or a train,” announced the boss.

“I know. They bought horses this morning. Three mounts, saddles, tack for 'em, had supplies in their saddlebags. Henry at his stable said there was another man with 'em, older, knew horses, riding his own black stallion. They rode off south together, one of the youngsters saying they were going to Bisbee.”

“
Three
men?
Four
saddled horses?” Luther Goose was figuring hard as he began working his eyebrow mole again with a long finger.

 

Forty

 

Darkness swept over the Gila Mountains from the east and three men spun cylinders and holstered their revolvers. They ambled to their horses, readjusted the used saddles and bridles they'd just purchased that morning, giving each mount a last hatful of oats to chew after grazing in hobbles most of the day. A fresh boost of good feed would have to last them all night, for there would be no rest for these horses till the morrow.

Gillom deferred to the train robber about tactics, although it was
his
mission. Sam Graham pulled his weathered brown Stetson down to seat it firmly on his forehead, then looked his two compadres in the eyes.

“You rakehells ready?”

They rode. Coming in on the north side of town at dusk, they hoped they wouldn't be watched for from that direction. The men dismounted and walked their horses to make themselves less noticeable as they neared the first commercial buildings at the north end of Conglomerate Avenue. They approached the rear of these buildings and the first saloon they came to, the Office, had a hitching post and watering trough out back, so they were able to refresh their four horses before tying them up. The Blue Goose was in the middle of this long block next to an alley, and Sam gave them final instructions as they walked toward it the back way.

“Ease, you stay in the alley, back end of the Goose. While I'm up trying to get in that second story, whistle if you see anyone coming along the rear of these buildings, any danger. Gillom, you stay in the shadows up front, watch who comes in their front door. If I can get inside upstairs, don't do nothin' unless you hear a commotion, like they're trying to corral me. They haven't seen me before, so I stand a chance, unlike you two. But if there's a ruckus, any shooting, then you're both going to have to come in that front door with your guns pulled, but not firing unless you need to. Maybe you'll buy me an escape.”

Gillom blinked at Ease. “We can do that.”

“I hope I can locate the girl, sneak her out that upstairs back door, while you two cover us coming down those outside stairs. Maybe we'll get lucky and get away with no shooting at all.”

“That would be nice,” agreed Ease. “Just don't be ridin' some downy couch while we stand out here all night, eyeballin' the dark.”

Sam ignored the riposte. They reached the alley between the Blue Goose and a one-story, wood-framed office building. Peering down the alley to the west, they could see lights coming on and hear music from a saloon as the weekend's entertainment began revving up in Clifton. Except for people passing along the main street, no one else was out back of these businesses yet to bother them.

Graham asked them again. “Ready?”

Gillom gripped each man by the hand. “I sure appreciate it, fellas, you takin' this risk for me and Anel. Nobody else would have, 'cept maybe Gene Rhodes.”

Ease Bixler grinned loopily. “This
is
the gunfighters' way, pard.”

The remark caused even Mr. Graham to smile. “We'll see if either of you
is
a gunfighter, has that kind of sand. Just name your first two kids after us, Gillom. That's enough for me.”

Then Sam was striding to the back stairs of the Blue Goose. Gillom drifted off into the shadows to watch the saloon's front door. Ease watched them both go, swallowed hard, and sprung his Colt from its shoulder holster beneath his work coat.

Sam crept up the back stair landing on his boot tips like a cat. Windows were lit in the rooms upstairs as the girls got ready for their night's labors. Graham reached the second-floor back door, but found it bolted from inside. He pulled a hunting knife from a sheath attached to his holster, but its long, pointed blade couldn't jimmy the metal bolt open. Sam held his knife in front of him as he looked round the narrow, two-foot-wide balcony rimming the saloon's whole second floor. He looked over the railing at Ease guarding the back alley, opened his hands wide to indicate he was flummoxed. Peering round the back corner, Sam spotted it. One of the prostitutes had vented her room to catch some cooler evening air. Lace curtains fluttered out an upraised window.

Graham scuttled along the balcony to that opened window, put his knife through the window first, then his head, holding his black hat aside in his free hand. His eyes adjusted to the dim light inside the whore's bedroom, but nobody was home. Sam withdrew his head, bent back over the railing to catch Ease's attention across the alley below to indicate by hand gestures that he was going inside.

Ease saluted he understood before Sam disappeared again. Whistling up the alley to Gillom, who was hugging a dark wall just off Conglomerate Avenue, Ease got his pal to turn as he pointed and indicated their outlaw friend was going inside. Gillom waved he understood, turned his gaze back to the saloon's front door. Nobody was going in or leaving the Blue Goose. It was still early to be visiting a whorehouse, especially on a Friday night when some men didn't have to work the next day and were probably having a cold one with their pals somewhere else. The wait gave Gillom the fidgets. He restlessly drew each of his Remingtons in their oiled holster pockets and reversed the gunbutts to face forward for a cross-handed draw. He remembered Sam's lesson—real gunfighters carried their pistols butt forward.

Sam Graham got his long legs in through the window frame one at a time without tripping on anything with his roweled spurs. He paused a moment to let his eyes accustom to the gloom thrown by a tall candle melting in a glass-chimnied holder. The small bedroom was standard for a high-end brothel, one level below the more luxurious accommodations in parlor houses in bigger towns he'd visited, like Denver's. Sam sat down on the white linen summer bedspread and tested the brass bed's bounce. He lifted the glass candleholder so he could look around the vacant bedroom. An oak lamp table beside the bed contained female accents—stoppered perfume he could smell, a bottle of Godfrey's Cordial, an opium-laced elixir he was familiar with, Pine Knot Bitters to treat venereal disease, a bottle of rosewater douche, another bottle of Yellow Dock Sarsaparilla claiming to cause miscarriage. Atop an oak bureau with three big drawers certain to be filled with extra towels and sheets and the resident's fancy undergarments rested a “peter pan,” a china bowl containing a bar of soap, plus a pitcher of water next to it for washing the customer before consummating business and herself afterward.

Sam was more interested in two smaller china bowls, one containing several long, thin condoms made from sheep's intestines, and the other cradling a yellowish curved plug of beeswax hopefully to prevent pregnancy.

The outlaw got off the bed, moving his candle lamp toward the cane-bottomed chair against the wall at the end of the bed for a customer to drop his clothes on, and a full-length wall mirror in which to admire his manly glory. There was also a small woodstove in the corner, vented through the ceiling, to keep undressed customers cozy in the winter. Sam was interested in the prostitute's large trunk, which he knew contained most of her valuables. Kneeling next to it, he lifted the buckled lid and quickly rifled the contents with one hand, finding a wad of greenbacks in a small wallet inside a leather purse, and then a small jewelry chest. His instinct for thievery overcame him. He slid open the little drawers and helped himself to the best items he examined in the glowing light. A small diamond stickpin in the shape of an owl and an opal ring circled by diamond chips went into his jeans pocket, plus some gold earrings and a thin golden neck chain supporting a gold, heart-shaped photo locket. Sam left her cheaper silver jewelry behind.

Footsteps along the hallway outside caused the bandit to rise to a crouch, but he heard a woman's thin heels clatter down the wooden stairway heading below. He'd been wasting time so he shut the trunk again, put the candle lamp back on the side table, and picked up his pigsticker. As he moved to this whore's closed door, his boot banged a chamber pot partially underneath the bed. Sam froze while his gaze wandered to framed photographs on the wall of nude women in risqué poses, prostitutes demonstrating various sexual positions at which this inmate was evidently talented, for the right price. Sam Graham frowned, for such pornographic advertising was more common in cheap, back-alley cribs than in nicer brothels. An ear to the doorjamb to listen, but he could hear only faint music and singing coming from downstairs. Taking a deep breath, the train robber opened the bedroom door and stuck his head into the upstairs hall.

*   *   *

Gillom was really restless, too impatient for his own good. No one was entering the Blue Goose across the way, which surprised him. He wondered what Sam was doing? Gillom began pacing, in and out of the wall's shadow. Down the alley he could see Ease slouched against the same building, only his head moving as he peered into the darkness behind these row establishments, scouting for intruders to their reconnaissance. As he chewed his lip, his worry got the best of him.
They've had a whole day to torture Anel up there. I can't let that happen to my girl tonight!
Gillom stomped into the alley, hissed at his best friend.

“Ease!”
He motioned him to come and Bixler hurriedly did. “Nothing's happening.”

“It's not supposed to,” muttered his friend. “Sam told us not to move, till we heard some commotion.”

“I can't take it anymore! They could be rapin' Anel up there, breakin' her in.” The teenager was so agitated he couldn't stand still. “Let's go in and distract 'em. What'd Sam call it? A diversion.”

“Then we'll have to shoot our way out, Gillom, while Sam gets away with your girl.”

“We always knew it was going to come to a fight, didn't we? You figured on burnin' some powder, right?”

Ease pulled a poor face. “Yeah, guess I did.”

Gillom grabbed his pal's arm. “Then let's show these hired hands what
real
fast guns look like.” With that pronouncement he was off, marching toward the brothel's front door.

“You're just achin' to shoot somebody again,” muttered his glum partner.

 

Forty-one

 

No one was in the hallway upstairs, so Sam slipped out of room number two, shutting its door carefully. Coal oil lamps were affixed to the corridor's walls, illuminating the carpet runner down the wooden hallway. Behind door number one across the hall Sam could hear mattress springs squeaking and a brass bed clinking.
Some cowboy riding a downy couch,
grinned the outlaw.

He took a chance at the next door, another of what looked like three bedrooms along each side of the hallway in this upstairs brothel, six rooms total. Sam didn't knock, his only chance being surprise in any affray. To sharpen that edge, Graham kept his long knife hidden up the shirtsleeve of his left arm, point forward. As he opened the door, a young woman lying fully clothed atop her brass bed rose slightly off her pillows and lifted several green leaves with purplish edges from her eyes to see who was at her door? Experienced prostitutes used belladonna leaves to make their irises big and glassy, dilating their pupils and giving their eyes a “bedroom look” Western men liked. Sam realized this big blonde wasn't the Mexican gal he'd seen in Gillom's photographs.

“Oh, sorry, ma'am. Wrong room.” He pulled his head back.

“Okay, cowboy. Change your mind later, come back and see me, won't you?” She winked a glassy blue eye.

“You bet.” Sam smiled as he shut her door.

*   *   *

Ease Bixler followed his disgruntled companion through the heavy front door. No glass front windows or swinging doors into this brothel, only a solid oak door which could be barred from the inside to stall unwanted armed entrance by irate customers or the authorities. The Blue Goose was more like a fortress than an open saloon. Gillom was surprised to find no gambling going on, although there were chairs around tables where poker could be played. Instead, the Blue Goose operated as a brothel where the profit was made trading in flesh rather than pasteboards. Two tough-looking men wearing pistols sat drinking at one of the tables, not talking. Across from them was a long, black oak bar with the requisite brass cuspidors and foot railing. Behind it presided a burly colored bartender.