The Case of the Deadly Desperados

by Caroline Lawrence

  A sudden moist gust from the shaft almost blew out my candle again, so I lit a second one from the first & I held them both close to my body, sheltering them from any disaster. Then, carefully avoiding the bottomless pit, I went to investigate the crate in the corner.

  It had words stamped on the side: N.B.JACOBS FINE OLD CORN WHISKEY, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL.

  Bringing my candles closer, I could see the crate was half full of unopened whiskey bottles. On top of the crate lay three half-burnt candles, a pack of cards, a piece of moldy cheese & some blank pages of a ledger book, all swollen with steam from the pit. There were also some matches.

  Matches! Hallelujah! I put some in my medicine bag so I would not be plunged into darkness again.

  Beside the crate were the three upturned buckets, one of which I am using to sit on as I write. I figured some of the miners came in here to have whiskey & a snack & play poker for matches. It was their own miniature subterranean saloon. I could not explain the pages from the ledger book. Maybe they used them to keep a tally while they were playing cards.

  It is not drafty here in the corner, only at the mouth of the cave, so I dripped a bit of wax on the wooden lid of the crate & stuck one of my burning candles there. Then I took the other candle & continued investigating this cave. There was a fourth bucket over by the pit. My nose told me it had been used as a latrine bucket. Presumably the men who came here used it & then emptied it out into the Pit.

  One good thing about this dank, hot cave is that the rats do not seem to like it. I put the coffeepot under a drip from the stony ceiling. I get about an inch of water an hour. It is that poisonous mixture of arsenic, plumbago & copperas Belle warned me about. But I am going to be dead soon, so I reckon it don’t matter.

  I got hungry a while ago, so I took out my medicine bag to get my Indian ma’s flint knife. I cut the mold off the cheese & ate it.

  I soon got hungry again & ate the moldy bit. I could now eat whang leather with gusto.

  Short Sally’s funeral must be long over because I have felt the throbbing of the Quartz Stamp Mills up on the surface & the occasional jarring thud of someone blasting with black powder somewhere in the mountain. But the miners have not come back down here.

  Where could they be? In a town where men work around the clock, this place has been empty for what seems like days.

  There can only be one explanation.

  Walt and his pards have somehow stopped the miners from coming down until they can find me & kill me.

  I am hot & damp. I am hungry & I am tired. I am almost out of candles. But at least I have finished this account.

  I am so tired I can hardly see straight. So I am going to lie down & have a little rest.

  But let the final words of this account be a prayer: “Lord forgive me for all the things I did wrong in this life. Please bless all those who were kind to me in Satan’s Playground & please may Jace not be dead. Lord, grant that I may see You walking on the Streets of Glory. And please may my foster ma & pa & my Indian ma be there, too. Amen.”

  Ledger Sheet 43

  WELL YOU HAVE PROBABLY GUESSED that I did not die down there in the deepest shaft of the Mexican Mine, because there are some more sheets with writing on them.

  You can also see that the writing is neater & less smudgy than what I wrote when I was down the mine.

  That is because I am now writing this at a small table overlooking the 100-mile view in my new lodgings on B Street. It used to be the back room for Bloomfield’s Tobacco Emporium. It smells strongly of tobacco and is pretty bare, but it does have that window. I have put in a camp bed & table & chair and it will do for now.

  Anyway, here is what happened.

  Earlier, when I first found the cavern at the end of that long sloping tunnel, I had an idea. I pulled a strand of wool from the edge of the blanket and I went back along the tunnel a little way. Then I carefully tied that strand of wool at about ankle level between two beams of the frames that shore up the passageway. I figured if Walt or anyone else came close, they would trip & fall & that would alert me to their presence.

  I must have dozed off because a man’s curse startled me awake. I opened my eyes to Blackness & Heat.

  It was darker than a wall of coal painted black. The darkest night you have ever seen was like noonday compared to it. And the heat. I could barely breathe for it. I was slick with sweat.

  For a terrible moment I thought I had died & gone to the Fiery Place. Then I smelled the whiskey, urine & alkali water and I remembered where I was. I must have slept longer than I meant to and my candle had burnt out. I reached into my medicine bag for a match & candle. But there was no need. I could now discern a faint yellow glow seeping into my little cavern. The light was increasing, second by second. I deduced from this that someone was coming down the tunnel with a lantern.

  I edged round the wall of the cavern and tried to lift the pick as a weapon. But it was too heavy. So I took the hammer. It was pretty heavy, too, but I reckoned I could manage. I scooted as close as I dared to the opening of my cavern. I backed up against the damp rock & prayed that the person with the light was someone who had come to rescue me. The Marshal or a miner. Or maybe even Ping.

  The golden lamplight grew brighter & I could hear footsteps & someone chewing. Even above the smell of alkali water & urine I could smell Bay Rum Hair Tonic. And then the barrel of a big Colt’s Army Revolver nosed through the opening like an evil creature poking out of its den. I could not see the owner, just the big gun. It was gripped in a man’s left hand. That—and the fact that it had a bone-handled grip—made me certain it was Whittlin Walt.

  As the hand with the Colt’s Army Revolver nosed its way into my cave, I lifted the heavy hammer back over my head & then I brought it down as hard as I could on the man’s wrist.

  The gun went off with a noise that nearly deafened me & at the same time the lamp fell & the light went out.

  When my ears stopped ringing I could hear a man cursing in language unfit for publication. It was Walt all right. I pulled a match from my medicine pouch & struck it on the rock face. Its bright flare of yellow light showed Walt half crouched & holding his left wrist, the extinguished oil lamp rolling on its side, & the Colt’s Army Revolver lying almost at my feet.

  I blew out the match and—although it was pitch black again—I lunged for the pistol.

  I heard Walt’s voice only inches away, cursing richly. But I had his piece & I knew the layout of the cave. Holding the revolver in my right hand & using my fingertips on the rock face to guide me, I edged as far away from Walt as I could. Then I transferred the revolver to my left hand, found a match with my right & struck it. The light showed me my last candle on the whiskey crate. I lit it with a trembling hand & then quickly transferred the big pistol to my right hand.

  “Dang you, that hurt!” said Walt. He was holding his injured wrist. “I have been through miles of this danged inferno and I find you in the last place I look. You are slippery-er than a greased weasel. Plus I think you have broke my wrist.”

  “Do not move or I will shoot off your kneecaps,” I said, using both hands to train the revolver on him. “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want,” he said. “I want that Letter.”

  “Well, you are not getting it,” I said. “You can go to Hell. Pardon my French.”

  Walt took a step towards me.

  I used both thumbs to pull back the stiff hammer of the big Colt. “Don’t think I won’t do it.”

  “Whoa!” said Walt. He held up his good hand, palm forward. The damaged hand dangled uselessly. “Don’t do anything hasty.” I saw his eyes dart around the cave, like he was looking for a weapon or something to help him.

  Then he did something that surprised me.

  He smiled.

  In the dim light of a single candle I could not
tell if it was a Genuine Smile or a Fake Smile.

  “I like you, Pinky,” he said through his grinning gritted teeth. “And I don’t want to hurt you.”

  I said, “If you don’t want to hurt me, then why were you shooting at me?”

  He shrugged & lowered his good hand a little. “I was just firing off some warning shots,” he said. “If I really wanted to hit you I could of. In fact, I have come down here to invite you to join my gang.” He grinned & rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand.

  “You want me to join your gang?”

  “All you have to do is give me that there Letter,” he said between chomps. “We will go up to the Recorder’s Office together and present that Letter and we will share the proceeds and you can live with me in a big mansion up on A Street. By the end of the year I will have this town in my pocket.”

  “Why would you want me in your gang?” I said.

  Walt chomped on his tobacco. “Your ma was a Lakota Squaw named Squats on a Stump. She dropped you behind a bush in a place called Hard Luck, not far from Mount Disappointment. Ain’t that so?”

  I stared at him. How did he know all those things?

  Walt said, “You think your pa was Robert Pinkerton. But he wasn’t.”

  The heavy revolver was making my arms ache, but I kept it trained on him. I said, “Yes, he is. Robert Pinkerton is my pa. He gave me a button off his Pinkerton RailRoad Detective jacket. And he sent my ma that Letter so we’d be rich.”

  “No he didn’t,” said Walt. “That Letter is a clever forgery. I know because I wrote it myself.”

  I lowered the revolver but kept it cocked. “What?” I said.

  “Me and your ma concocted that scheme together,” said Walt. “But then a band of Shoshone got her and I have been looking for that Letter for a long time. It is a good forgery. It will fool any judge in the Territory.”

  “But it was witnessed by my pa, Robert Pinkerton.”

  Walt laughed. “Robert Pinkerton wasn’t your pa. And that button isn’t his. I won that button off a Pinkerton RailRoad Detective back in ’52.”

  I felt like someone had punched me in the gut.

  I said, “What are you saying?”

  Whittlin Walt smiled at me. “I am saying that I am your pa.”

  Ledger Sheet 44

  I COULD NOT BELIEVE IT.

  Whittlin Walt—the most sadistic & hated desperado in the Comstock—was claiming to be my father.

  It was so hot & stifling I could not breathe.

  I said, “You are not my pa.” My voice sounded feeble.

  Walt said, “I lied to your ma. I told her I was Robert Pinkerton to impress her. And it worked.”

  My heart was thumping. I thought I had Detective Blood flowing in my veins but now it appeared it was Desperado Blood.

  “You know that button you got? It came from a jacket I won in a poker game.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his good hand & grinned.

  I remembered something Poker Face Jace had told me: One of the signs of an untruthful person is if they rub the back of their neck.

  Walt shook his head. “If you give me that Letter,” he said, “then that will prove I can trust you and we can be pardners.”

  I remembered something else. Jace told me sometimes people shake their heads when they are saying yes & sometimes they nod when they are saying no.

  Jace told me to believe a person’s body, not his words.

  A gleam of hope burned in my heart.

  I lifted the Colt’s Army Revolver again so that it was pointed at his knee. “Prove you are my pa,” I said. “Tell me what is my real name. What did my Indian ma call me?”

  Walt grinned. In the flickering candlelight it made him look evil. “Your ma named you Glares from a Bush.”

  When he said that, my knees kind of gave out & I found I was sitting on the upturned bucket I had been using as a chair. I felt sick. I saw some bright little spots, like gnats, swarming across my vision. Maybe I had read him wrong. Maybe he was telling the Truth.

  But he had rubbed his neck.

  He had shook his head no while meaning yes.

  And he had stopped chewing tobacco just like when he was bluffing at poker.

  I had an idea.

  I looked up at him. “You were there when I was born?” I said.

  “Course I was,” he said. “I stayed with your ma a year or two. Then she went her way and I went mine. I always missed not being there to teach you to hunt and fish and shoot.”

  “No,” I said. “No, you are lying. You are not my pa. Here is what happened. You heard from someone that my ma had a valuable Letter from my original pa. I’ll bet that someone was Tommy Three. That is probably why he took up with Ma. For riches not love. I never did like him. And I will wager that Letter is real. Otherwise you could just forge another.”

  Walt’s smile faded & he swallowed hard.

  I said, “They were on their way here. Maybe they were going to meet you. Or maybe only Tommy planned to meet you. But then there was an Indian raid and they died. You tracked me to Temperance and you killed my foster ma & pa and you ransacked the house but you did not find that Letter. You followed me up here to Virginia, and someone told you that I never knew my original pa, so you thought you would pretend to be him. It had to be someone I told my Indian name. It wasn’t Tommy Three because Ma never told him my Indian name nor hers either. So the traitor must have been someone in Virginia City. I’ll bet it was that forked-tongue liar Sam Clemens, wasn’t it?”

  Walt tried to smile but even in the flickering candlelight I could tell it was fake. He said, “I am your real pa. Now give me that Letter, son.”

  “I am not your son,” I said. “If you were really my pa who had held me when I was born, then you would not have called me ‘son.’”

  “Why not?”

  I said, “Because I am not a boy. I am a girl.”

  Ledger Sheet 45

  WALT’S JAW DROPPED OPEN & he stared bug-eyed. It was the most extreme example of Expression No. 4 I had ever seen. He had the same expression as a man I once saw who was kicked by a mule.

  “You’re a . . . girl?” He said the last word as if it was something terrible.

  “Yes,” I said, lowering the heavy pistol. “I am a girl.”

  Walt said, “That is impossible. Everybody knows you are a boy. Tommy Three told me you was. They told me down in Temperance, too. And even when you dressed up like a girl you didn’t look like one.”

  “My Indian ma knew I’d be safer if I pretended to be a boy. She was the one made me dress like this. But that suited me fine. And Ma Evangeline agreed it was a good idea.” I took a step towards him. “And you just admitted you know Tommy Three, so now I know you are a lying no-good snake.”

  He said, “You ain’t no girl. But you ain’t like no boy I ever seen neither. You ain’t white and you ain’t Indian. You know what you are?” He had Expression No. 3 on his face & he spat on the ground. “You are a Misfit.”

  I looked at him & swallowed hard. “I may be a Misfit,” I said, “but I am also P.K. Pinkerton. And now I know what to do.”

  I put down his heavy revolver & pulled the Letter out of my medicine bag.

  Carefully & deliberately, I tore up the document giving The Bearer the right to half of Virginia City & the Layer of Silver Frosting beneath it. Then I let all the tiny pieces flutter down to my feet.

  “No!” yelled Walt. And then he did something I had not been expecting. He reached into his pocket with his good right hand & pulled out a gun. It was my own Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter & he was pointing it straight at me.

  This is what I was thinking: “That Smith and Wesson’s seven-shooter can’t hit me, but if I could wing him with his revolver I would not be killing him.”

&n
bsp; So I reached for the big, bone-handled Colt.

  A gunshot rang out. At the same moment I felt like someone had punched me hard, and I fell to the ground.

  Sam Clemens had been wrong.

  Apparently you could hit something with that Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter.

  Ledger Sheet 46

  I FELT A BURNING SENSATION in my left shoulder & I could smell gun smoke. I sat up and when I looked down I could see a patch of blood staining the butter-soft buckskin sleeve of my left arm. Then I raised my head up just in time to see Walt pull back the hammer to fire a second shot.

  As Walt cocked the gun I scooted back. And he stepped forward.

  That was a big mistake.

  Do you remember I said that there was a pit above boiling water in the part of the mine where I was hiding? Well, I thought something like this might happen, so I had taken away the DANGUR sign and spread out that pale yellow blanket across the open mouth of the pit and then I had sprinkled it all over with dirt to disguise it.

  When Walt stepped forward to shoot me a second time, he was not stepping onto solid ground. He was stepping onto a dusty blanket over a mile-deep pit with boiling water at the bottom.

  The report of the first shot was still echoing in the small cave and the seven-shooter went off again as his openmouthed face and upraised hands followed his body rapidly down out of sight. When the second echo died away I could still hear his yell. It was getting fainter and fainter as he dropped down to Hell. Pardon my French.

  Clutching my injured left arm, I stood up & went cautiously to the edge of the pit & looked down. I could not see anything, just a deep, black hole such as I never want to see again in my entire life.