Spur: Nevada Hussy

by Dirk Fletcher

  "Don't be impertinent, young man. I'm older than you are."

  "Not one hell of a lot. You're thirty-five."

  She laughed. Two young men came in just then with covered trays and Spur soon found himself delighted to be working his way through a seven course dinner. Pheasant and fileted trout were featured with six kinds of vegetables, soups, salads, and three delicious desserts. Rich, dark coffee finished the meal.

  They talked about Boston and New York. Tracy had never been east of Denver and she was yearning to go. Spur goon got the conversation back to his problem.

  "I'm looking for a place to practice, maybe pick up a big client. What about this Mike O'Grady I hear about? Would he be a good one to approach about being his lawyer?"

  She laughed. "O'Grady is lawyer-poor. He's got two big firms in San Francisco and one in Reno. No luck there."

  "Maybe I could work for you?"

  Tracy nodded. "Maybe. You any good on labor relations? We have over four hundred men working at the mine. They still get four dollars a day, a contract we signed when things were rich and plush in this town. Things haven't been so good lately."

  "Sorry, that's not exactly my field."

  "What is your field?"

  "More into investigatiion law. Helping solve problems in legal tangles, rights of way. I've done a lot of reading about vein rights. In most mining communities the claim rights extend at ninety degrees straight down into the ground. But here in Nevada the new principle has been established that once a hard rock vein has been claimed within the surface claim area, the owner of that vein has the right to pursue it even if it extends beyond the vertical limits of his claim.

  "As the owner of that vein I can follow it under four other surface claims and still have rights to it. The big problem comes when a vein pinches out and then continues perhaps a half mile away. Some argue that it is undoubtedly the same vein, since it is in the same horizontal strata of rock where the rest of the vein had been. Others say in this instance finders-keepers. Whoever runs into that pinched off vein is the new owner."

  "That's the latest, is it?" Tracy asked. She showed more respect now as she glanced at him. "You just might be some good to us at that. Why don't you come around to the office tomorrow and we'll see what we can set up?"

  She smiled and stood. Spur knew that she was a little heavy, but he was surprised. She was more solid and stocky than fat. The way she moved caught Spur's attention, as if she were dancing, or on the stage.

  "You are going to escort me home, aren't you?"

  The tall man smiled at her and she smiled back, then he shook his head. "I would love to, but I have an appointment in ten minutes I need to get ready for. Any other time. I'm sure you have a carriage waiting. I'd be honored to see you into your rig."

  "If that's the best I can do. Where are you staying? I'd like to have you over for tea, or supper or something?"

  He told her.

  "It's been a delightful evening. I almost never get to talk to a Harvard man." She smiled, stuck her tongue out at him and laughed, then led the way to the lobby and the front door. He took her hand and kissed it solemnly the way he had seen so many foreign diplomats do at parties and gatherings in Washington D.C.He watched her go with curious amusement. She had asked him to see her home for more than a goodnight kiss on the hand.

  Spur shrugged and went up to his new room. She was not one of his primary figures in his current case, so for now he would shunt her aside. But perhaps sometime later.

  McCoy had spent little time worrying about who had tried to gun him down in the hallway. As a Secret Service agent with several years of duty, he knew he had made scores of enemies. He might run into one in almost any town in the west.

  He thought about the two leads he had on the gold train takeover, Rush Sommers, and Guy Pritchard. He would see the mine owner tomorrow about some kind of legal work. He would have to find out when Pritchard, the engineer, made his runs. The saloon owner was a possible lead. He would be more approachable tonight. Spur checked his face in the wavy mirror, dug out his straight razor and gave himself a quick, close shave, splashed on some witch hazel and bay rum after shave lotion he had made up at the druggist, and headed for the Golden Nugget. He would not even smile at Stella.

  The Golden Nugget was booming. Every card table was filled. Eight girls in low-cut dance hall dresses flounced around the big room. He let his glance slide past Stella who looked at him briefly then kissed the miner she was with at a table. True love.

  Spur ordered a beer at the bar and when it was nearly gone he asked how he could talk to the owner.

  The apron behind the bar laughed with a voice damaged by an accident. He talked with a hoarse whisper that was distinct but took concentration to understand.

  "Boss is upstairs. You got business?"

  "Yes, I'm a lawyer, new in town. Frankly I'm looking for clients who might need a lawyer on a retainer basis."

  "Damn lawyer talk. I'll see if he wants to meet you."

  The barkeep looked at Spur again, noting the clean tan shirt, and leather vest. He shrugged and whispered something to another man behind the bar who left at once.

  As he waited, McCoy watched the women. The dance hall "girls" were always the first females to brave the primitive conditions and come to a mining camp, or a railhead town or a prairie settlement. They hurried in knowing they would be used and abused, and put their bodies up for sale. But they also soon found out that the first few women in any settlement were treated like the grandest ladies ever. They were the belles of the ball, queen for a year, the secret sweetheart and the girl back home for every male in the camp.

  Men were so starved for women that most simply sat and watched them when they walked down the street. He had seen unshaven, uncouth, violent and outrageous miners and cowboys revert to stumbling and mumbling goons totally embarrassed when a dance hall girl sat down beside one of them in a bar.

  Since there were so few women, most of the men did not have the slightest hope of even talking to one of the three or four in town, let alone touching her or wonder of wonders, taking her to bed. That shyness soon wore off, but still the women, any women in a mining camp, which grew to be a small town, remained ladies of stature to the first men in the place.

  As families came, and wives joined husbands, the "good" women of the town launched a subtle and always successful campaign to establish the "upstanding" side of town and womenfolk, from the "easy women" and the "prostitutes" they collectively identified as "those terrible dance hall girls."

  Virginia City with its churches and civic organizations and almost twenty thousand people had long since passed into the time when the dance hall girls had been put in their proper place.

  The girls in the Golden Nugget came in several shapes and sizes, but all female, all willing and ready to sell you drinks, give you a kiss and jump into bed upstairs in the tiny rooms, if you had the going rate of one dollar, two dollars or three dollars depending on the number of girls in town and the number of men.

  Someone stepped to the bar beside Spur and cleared his throat.

  "You've been watching our ladies," a voice said with a touch of an eastern accent.

  Spur turned saw a black haired man a head shorter than himself, with a slightly dusky complexion and the smell of garlic on his breath. The agent dropped into his Boston accent with ease.

  "Yes, I am, a hobby of mine. Are you Mr. Giardello?"

  "Yes. And you've got to be from Boston. You the lawyer fella?"

  "That's right. Just got into town. Do you have a few minutes to talk?"

  "All the time in the world, but I don't need to be paying you twenty dollars a month on retainer. That's the going rate. I don't have much trouble. If I need a lawyer I go see one."

  "That makes it tough on young lawyers."

  "True, but easier on saloon owners." He motioned to one of the girls walking by. "I'll keep you in mind. Now, enjoy yourself. How about a free beer on the house and talk to June, here. She's o
ne hell of a good time under the covers."

  Giardello winked and walked away.

  June moved up to the bar beside him, came closer than was needed and her breasts brushed his shirt.

  "Have the free beer, Tony never gives nothing away," June said.

  Spur grinned at the short girl. She had lots of breast, a thick waist and generous hips. But to the miners she was female and that was all that mattered. She nodded at him.

  "Yeah, I know, what's a girl like me doing in a dump like this? You don't want to find out." She called the barkeep for the free beer, set it up for him and reached up and kissed his cheek. "Remember what Tony said. You interested later on, I'm a damn good fuck."

  Spur reacted to the word and she laughed, then moved on. Spur sipped at the beer, watched Stella at a back table, then wandered out of the bar.

  He evaluated Tony Giardello. The man might be capable of working as part of a huge conspiracy plot and robbery on the scale this was supposed to be. But Spur doubted that the man could plan it. The suspect he had to see was Rush Sommers, the owner of the Consolidated California Mine Company.

  Spur went out the bat doors and at once stepped to one side away from the backlighting. He stood for a moment in the gloom of the unlighted board walk, remembering that there was at least one man in town interested in putting bullet holes in Spur McCoy's hide.

  Then from the shadows came a voice, low but insistent.

  "Spur McCoy, don't turn around. Just stand there. I need to talk to you. It's urgent. I'm not trying to hurt you. I have something of vital importance to tell you."

  SPUR McCOY SNAPPED around in a tenth of a second, his .45 Colt six-gun out of its holster and aimed at the shadows.

  "Easy, pardner, take it easy. I got no gun on you. I don't even own a gun."

  "Come out of there slow, with both hands on your shoulders. You have a gun in your hand and you're one dead coyote."

  "I'm coming out. See, no gun. Told you, I don't own a shooting iron."

  Spur watched the small man emerge from the shadows. He was in his twenties, shorter than most men, maybe five-five.

  "See, no gun. Now please come back here out of sight so I can deliver my message."

  Spur eased his weapon back in leather. "You can talk easy enough right there."

  "Okay. I work in the Storey County Sheriffs office as a clerk, and today we got a telegram from back east. Sheriff read it and read it again, showed it to one of his deputies and they talked about it for ten minutes nonstop. Then he called me in and told me to find you, but not to let anybody see me talking to you. Sheriff wants to see you right away over at the courthouse."

  "How did you find me?"

  "Not so hard. Talked to the desk clerk at your hotel, he give me a description, then I just walked around until I found you. Course I thought two other guys was you, but they said they wasn't."

  "Meaning if you can find me, almost anyone can. Let's go, where is the courthouse? I'll talk to the sheriff, but only outside and in the dark. How many deputies does the county have?"

  "Twenty-seven."

  "Dandy," Spur said wondering how he would flush out one bad deputy from twenty-seven.

  They walked three blocks, then half another one and turned in at the lower floor of a large building. They went down steps to the half basement where the sheriff's office was.

  Spur stepped into the shadows outside the main entrance.

  "Ask the sheriff to come out here. He should know why I'm asking him to do this."

  "I've never done that before," the small man said.

  "Live a little. Try it. Tell him I said it's the only way I'll talk with him."

  The clerk frowned but went into the sheriff's office. Less than a minute later a tall, slender man wearing two pearl handled six-guns slung so low he could never draw them, and a white high crowned Stetson came through the door and stopped.

  "McCoy, you out here?"

  "Thanks for the public announcement, Sheriff. If you want to talk come over here and lower your voice."

  "Uh, yeah. Will was chattering something about you not wanting to come inside." He walked into the shadows, saw Spur and held out his hand.

  "Evening. I'm Sheriff Clete Gilpin."

  "You must know who I am. What I want to know is what that telegram said and who else knows about it?"

  "Well, Mr. McCoy, it said you were a federal lawman and you had certain business in Virginia City, and my office was to render to you any and all assistance possible."

  "That's all it says?"

  "Yep, got it right here." He passed the yellow paper to Spur who walked to the edge of a window and read the message. It came from the "Justice Department" and was signed by Gen. William Halleck.

  "Is it an authentic message?"

  "Yep, Sheriff, it sure is. Now I want you to forget all about it. If I need any assistance, I'll get in touch with you. No mention of this is to be made to any more of your deputies than already know."

  "Yes sir. One thing I'm good at is following orders."

  "Not orders exactly, Sheriff. This is your county. I'm only making a suggestion. Of course if you don't follow my suggestion I stand a fifty-fifty chance of getting my head blown off. I simply wouldn't appreciate that."

  "No sir, Mr. Me...No sir. I can understand that. Yes, sir, I sure as shootin' can. So as to speak."

  "Sheriff, who else knows about this message?"

  "Only two of my deputies. Captain Wilson, and Sergeant Anders. Both top men."

  "Fine, tell them what I told you. They are to tell no one I'm in town, and certainly not that I have any federal connection. Less than two hours ago somebody tried to blow my head off in the hotel. He got away before I saw him. I hope you'll take my cautions seriously."

  "Yes sir. We will. We don't even know your name."

  Spur took out a packet of stinker matches, tore off one and scratched it on the base of the stuck together bundle and when it flamed into life, burned the telegram.

  "Thank you, Sheriff," Spur said and faded along the front of the building and out of sight.

  As Spur walked back toward his hotel he decided the bushwhacking had been entirely separate from the robbery plot. It had come too fast. Therefore, the two quick shots had been from an old enemy, or someone who hated Spur from another day, another place. It was a bad luck for McCoy. But it could have nothing to do with the Virginia City train robbery.

  There was little he could do to protect himself from the unknown foe. But he would do what he could. He registered at the International Hotel, the most elaborate in town, an imposing five story brick building that was said to have the best food between Denver and San Francisco. Spur used the name Greg Scott. He paid for a room for three nights and the clerk never looked at him twice.

  In the barren room he stared down at the two main streets he could see from the third floor front window. He did not worry about the assassin on the prowl. Spur had lived with this kind of danger every day since his first year of duty when a crazed woman came at him with a butcher knife because he had helped send her husband to prison for counterfeiting. The danger was always there, this time it was evident and deadly so he would take special care, but he would also get on with the assignment.

  As Spur lay on the lumpy mattress he thought back over his life and was surprised that he was now in Virginia City trying to prevent the looting of a gold train of an estimated thirty million dollars.

  In his undergraduate days in Harvard he had no fantasies that would match the adventures he had experienced in the last few years.

  He had graduated from Harvard in fifty-eight, with warnings from one of his professors that the nation was tearing itself apart over the slavery issue, and eventually brother would battle brother over it as the North and South fought a great war. Spur had scoffed at the strange and unconventional ideas, and hurried back to New York City where he worked for two years in his father's import and retail firms.

  When the war broke out in 1861, Spur applied for a com
mission in the Infantry and was accepted at once as a second lieutenant. He fought for two years in some of the bloodiest battles of the war, was slightly wounded only once, and then was sent to Washington on special duty.

  He had been requested by Senator Arthur B. Walton of New York, a long time family friend. Spur McCoy became an assistant to the senator.

  In 1865 soon after the enabling legislation was passed by Congress, Charles Spur McCoy was appointed as one of the first U.S.Secret Service Agents. Since the Secret Service was the only federal law enforcement agency at that time, it handled a wide range of law-breaking problems, most of them far removed from its first task of preventing currency counterfeiting.

  Spur remained in Washington for six months, then transferred to head the new office in St. Louis, which would handle all complaints west of the Mississippi. He was chosen from ten applicants for the job because he could ride a horse better than the others and he had won the service marksmanship contest. His superiors figured both talents would be needed in the Wild West.

  In the Golden Nugget saloon, business had tapered off. Four of the girls were upstairs flat on their backs humping up a storm with paying customers. A drunk slept on the end of the bar. Tony Giardello, the displaced easterner who owned the establishment, motioned for his barkeep to throw the soused man into the street. He waved at three of the girls not with customers and motioned them to the side of the bar and glared at them. One of the three was Stella.

  "Ladies, I got me a bad feeling. Tonight some jasper came in here and tried to get me to take him on as my lawyer. Ain't never been anybody try to do that in my five years in Virginia City. Gives me a bad feeling like I said. Then I got thinking about this laywer-guy and I remember seeing him in here before. He's big, couple inches over six feet with sandy reddish brown hair, mutton chops and a full moustache. Any you girls remember him?"

  One of the women nodded. She was Katie. "Yeah, I saw him. He asked me if I was Stella."

  Tony turned to Stella. She shrugged.

  "Can I help it if one man tells another about how good I swish my little ass around upstairs? He was looking for a good time. That still is part of our job around this place, ain't it, Tony?"