Sipping Whiskey in a Shallow Grave

by Mark Mitten

  The whole night had been an awkward thing for Casey. He kept glancing across the parlor to catch Julianna’s eye. Unfortunately, Julianna seemed to be enjoying herself.

  “Maggie, where’s JJ?” Elizabeth Tabor demanded briskly.

  “Working another mine…where else?” Maggie replied. She took a sip from her wine glass and rolled her eyes. “The Little Jonny. It’s been bought, you know. By the Ibex complex. He’s doing the paperwork right now, he’ll be foreman of that one next. Gonna quit the Louisville! But he should be right by my side, pretending we’re fancy folks like I am. But I won’t hold it against him too much. Someone’s got to bring in the bread.”

  “All we ever talk about is mines, husbands…and mines” Elizabeth said to Julianna — with either a tone of apology or sarcasm, it was hard to tell.

  Julianna laughed a polite but nice laugh. That seemed like the best reaction. Maggie shook her head in resignation and tipped her glass to get at the last swish of wine. She stood in the bay enclave with her back to the windows. It was a big bay window with three tall panes of glass. The sky was still bright with summer sunlight, even though it was well past the supper hour.

  “Which mine does your fine husband work for, dear?” Maggie asked Julianna.

  Julianna shook her head and glanced across the room. She could see Casey nodding along as the other men bickered and chortled. They seemed oblivious to the fact Casey had little to say. She could smell the aromatic smoke wafting in and smiled at her poor husband. Casey lit up hopefully when he caught her looking his way.

  “He used to cowboy all over. But he’s done with cows, or so he says. Right now he’s building our home,” Julianna told Maggie. She shrugged subtly at Casey and turned her attention back to the women.

  Casey stared hard in her direction — no, no, no! Look back. Come on. But she was gone again. It was like he was lost on the ocean, floating along on a piece of wood and a ship just floated by…and disappeared on the horizon. He took another soft drag on the cigar Horace had given him and felt his stomach turn sour.

  “Well if he’s any good at it, he could make a living putting up shanties,” Maggie noted. “All kinds of folk are moving into Leadville. Stars in their eyes. Although if he wants to work a mineshaft, JJ will hire him.”

  “Horace could easily get him on in the Matchless,” Elizabeth added with a light slur and ran her fingertips across the extravagant pearl necklace she was wearing. With a glance down to her empty glass, she turned abruptly and headed for the wine rack. Julianna watched her stride almost aggressively across the room.

  Mrs. Tabor was being aloof. She was remote and hard to talk with. When Julianna and Casey arrived for the evening event, it was Mrs. Tabor herself who grandly opened the door…and Julianna could see it in her eyes, who she was. It was Elizabeth, not Baby Doe. Tonight she was the condescending aristocrat, dainty yet stone, with a touch of morose and a splash of snide. And she was certainly in her liquor.

  Elizabeth Tabor twisted a corkscrew around and around, her face pensive, lost in her inner world. Whatever was occupying the mining magnate’s spouse, she was keeping it to herself. Julianna turned back to Maggie and considered her offer to get Casey a job in the mines.

  Thinking back to her conversations with Josephine in Ward, Julianna recalled what a point of contention her friend had had with her husband Samuel. The mines were a strain on their marriage. She was always worried about his safety, and the pay for the average worker was low, too. Julianna was glad not to have mining as something to argue about with Casey. But she would never say that out loud, not to these women. This town lived and breathed mining. She wasn’t about to say anything against it.

  In the parlor, Casey was realizing the company was as bad as the cigar.

  “How goes the Pastime, Sloan?” Ben Loeb asked in a caustic tone. Casey was glad Ben Loeb was ignoring him. The man’s eyes just weren’t right.

  “Let me guess,” Ben continued. “You think you’re gonna make money on tail and titty. On State Street? Boy, that’s my territory. And I got the corner on the whole damn market.”

  Sloan sloshed his whiskey around his glass in a gentle circular pattern.

  Casey straightened up a bit, feeling a change in the air — like when a bronc was about to blow up.

  “Loeb, you know something?” Sloan said slowly. He returned Ben’s look and inched a step closer. “I seen your burlesque show. Better call it a burlap show and pass out burlap sacks to belch in. Your girls are so homely you gotta give away the tokens. The only market you’ve got cornered is the corner of ugly and shitfaced.”

  “Whoa, ho ho,” Tabor said, trying to intervene. “Ben, you look like you need a top off.”

  “I need to top off this man’s damn neck,” Loeb said darkly. But he was smiling as he said it. It was a curious smile. Casey could not tell if he was in a joking mood or a violent mood.

  “You ain’t got nothing on me,” Sloan told him, smiling himself. He clapped Horace on the shoulder and sidled up next to him. “Even if the Pastime rolls belly up, I’ve got a big stake in the Matchless. Me and Haw, we’re thick. Soapy’s out.”

  Ben’s face fell for just a moment. Just as quickly, it bounced right back into that hard cast aloofness — but he studied Horace as if for the first time. Tabor’s face flushed red and he shook his head quickly.

  “Now, now,” he fluttered and waved his hand around.

  “Soapy’s out?” Ben asked Horace. “When did this happen?”

  “I know you was interested in his stake, Ben, but it all happened fairly quick.”

  “I just cannot believe Soapy would sell to someone other than me. Or sell at all for that matter.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t know,” Sloan suggested, “because you’re not as savvy as you think. Maybe Soapy had his sights set a little higher.”

  “Man’s a common bunko artist. Set his sights higher? Than me? I own Leadville.”

  “Not so common…the man owns Denver. And got a fair grip up here, I’d say. Certainly on your piddly nuts.”

  Horace Tabor cast a worried glance through the parlor doorway. The ladies were still grouped near the bay window, chatting among themselves. Horace was hoping on a fairly neutral evening. He hoped the social scales would have been balanced with Casey and Julianna mixing into this soiree. But who was he kidding? Himself mainly, Horace supposed. Between Ben Loeb and Prescott Sloan, things were bound to heat up at some point. He was hoping to keep that chestnut about the Matchless Mine to himself for a little longer. He wasn’t sure how Loeb would react. But here it was, coming out.

  “I may need to step out for a minute,” Casey muttered balefully. He set his whiskey glass down on a bookshelf and made a line for the back door.

  Uneasily, Horace watched him go. The door clicked tight and Casey was gone. Digging deep for some resolve, the Silver King pressed in between the two businessmen and whispered harshly.

  “Gentlemen, there goes a pair of ears innocent to such banter. Can you keep it together for one night?”

  Ben Loeb stared sharply at Prescott Sloan. Ben had run his own operation for quite some time and had seen his assets expand over the years. He was at the top of his game. And now, here he was staring at some slick banker from God knows where — with balls enough to open a saloon right there on State Street. Normally Ben would not feel threatened…he would be the one making the threats. But with the sale of Soapy Smith’s Matchless stock to this primped up bastard, well, that was an oddity. Ben mulled it over. Who was this Sloan to move in so quickly?

  “Oh, we’re holding it together, Haw,” Ben Loeb said passively, even cheerfully. “Just a couple dogs pissin’ over a bone.”

  Feeling more and more secure with himself and his meteoric rise in Leadville, Prescott Sloan decided to voluntarily check his tongue. What an unexpected pleasure. Digging it in to the all-too famous Benjamin Loeb. This was where kingdoms were made! Sloan smiled. Here he was, among the upper echelons of the criminal elite. Sloan had played h
is hand well tonight. Old Ben Loeb was on the downslope now, and the man with the queer eye was just starting to realize it.

  Sloan felt on top of the world. He knew this was where he belonged now. No more doubts or regrets about Ward. There was money to be had here in Leadville. Sure, Soapy Smith was the big crime boss in Denver these days. Oh, he had quite an operation going on down there. Judges, cops, politicians on the graft. The man did it all: rigged gaming on the streets and behind closed doors, lottery and stock scams, bad auctions. It was fortuitous Sloan had met him at all, and even more to be in a position to fund the next big thing in Denver: Soapy’s new gambling hall, the Tivoli Club. Sloan had seen the blueprints himself.

  It was a major move, to buy out Soapy’s stock in such a high-producing mine. Not only did it cut Soapy’s hold up here, but it gave Sloan the leverage and finances to step up to the top of Leadville’s underworld. He would run things in Cloud City. And it wouldn’t take long. This would be Sloan’s empire. And men like Ben Loeb would either submit, get run out…or get plowed under the dirt.

  Chapter 26

  The sky was finally losing its light. Mount Massive and the entire ridgeline grew dark in silhouette — the sun was somewhere back behind it all. Casey was glad to be out in the open air. He turned and realized he was only a couple steps from the big bay living room window. There was Maggie Brown just through the glass, chatting and acting rather animated about something.

  Casey stepped closer and glanced in, over Mrs. Brown’s shoulder. Julianna was right there, but she hadn’t noticed Casey outside the window. She stood with a wine glass in her hand. She sure looked pretty in that new dress.

  At first, he hoped to catch her eye. But quite suddenly, Casey felt guilty. Julianna was having a ball. Why spoil that? He stepped away from the window and leaned against the corner of the two-story house. The cigar was still in his hand, smoldering. He checked to make sure no one could see him and then hurled it as far as he could.

  Since the day he bought his patch of land, Casey allowed himself to merely focus on the simple things. Stripping the bark off a tree trunk. Notching a corner. Mixing mortar. He set up a big canvas tent, and they left their comfortable room at the Delaware behind. It was no luxury, but it was their own. Plus, Casey could only handle living in the city like a dandy for so long.

  Getting out to the country was good. And Julianna liked watching their home come together — there was progress every time she came home. Casey liked to see her carefree smile, so he worked hard to get something done before he went into town to pick her up from the Opera House.

  Seeing the Tabors up close was a little too much. Casey wondered how someone came to be a big shot in a town like this. And do it above board? He knew where those fellows stood. Sloan and Loeb were clearly men of darker machinations. Casey had thought the Tabors were sound, the way Julianna talked about them. But who would invite men like that into your home? Unless you were caught up in it. From the minute the parlor talk started, Casey wanted to light out of there.

  Gee, it was good to be out in the fresh air! He surveyed the street. There were other houses, most of them had a Victorian flair — purple, baby blue, white, pink even. It was quiet outside. Most folk were probably getting ready for their bunks.

  Casey reached in his pocket and pulled out a crinkled envelope. The day before, he stopped at the post office on his way into town.

  It was a letter from Til. He had a new spread on the south end of the Park, which he was calling Hay Ranch. Haying and cattle. Not a big range operation, but a small ranching operation. Working to get quality beeves made sense. Genetics and breeding were the name of the game now. Casey opened it back up and skimmed down to the post-script:

  “I almost forgot. LG rode through here day before. He is riding out to Sam Hartsel’s place to look for work. Told him about you up in Leadville. Says he wants to pay you a visit.”

  He flicked the letter with his finger. Casey wasn’t sure what to think about that. This was the first time he’d heard anything, hide or hair, about LG. He wasn’t even sure that LG was in Colorado anymore. Or alive.

  Casey crumpled it into a wad. LG had ridden on — he hadn’t even looked back. Ira and Edwin were cut down. Casey was shot and left for dead. And LG just lit out. It really ate at Casey the more he pondered it.

  Pay me a visit? Why? To see the scars on my chest? Well, I ain’t dead. No thanks to you, compadre.

  Looking up, Casey noticed the first stars. Just faint, but they were there. He sighed and smoothed out the letter. It wasn’t the first time he had crumpled it up. He pressed the letter back into the envelope and tucked it back in his pocket.

  One of the ladies inside laughed. It wasn’t Julianna; he would have known her laugh through a dozen walls. Casey straightened his necktie and checked the buttons on his vest. He knew he could only stay outside for so long.

  Turning the knob, Casey stepped back into the parlor. It was dim inside. Horace Tabor was busy getting lanterns lit. Sloan and Loeb were nestled in padded armchairs near the fireplace, bristling at each other with watery eyes and whiskey refills. Casey didn’t care. He wanted nothing to do with those devils. He had a home to build — good clean honest work — and couldn’t wait to get back to it.

  The cowman just kept on walking and didn’t say a thing. He made his way through the parlor into the kitchen entry. The women had moved on from the bay window by then, and were seated at the table. There was a deck of cards — it was rummy and coffee was in the air. Julianna noticed him leaning in the doorway and waved sweetly. Casey smiled softly at her.

  Chapter 27

  XIT Ranch

  Spring Lake Pasture

  Texas

  Frank Yearwood squinted at the sunset. The sky was full of flat-bottomed thunderboomers but the rain was still bottled up.

  He liked the feel of the wind when rain was coming. It was fresh and smelled good after a long day in the white Texas heat. After such a blistering week working the branding chute, it felt particularly good. With the sun going down the clouds suddenly blossomed across the sky, coloring in like a well-painted portrait.

  The last of the August sunlight took on a golden glow. It made the thin grass look richer and thicker than it did during the hot afternoons. Frank could see across the plains pretty far. The landscape felt bone dry. Large patches of prickly pear stuck up in places. Whatever wildflowers had come up in the spring were long gone now. Frank’s favorite time of year was when the bluebonnets and paintbrush covered the hillsides.

  “They’re circling in,” Lee told him.

  Small pockets of cowboys were slowly riding in, pushing cattle towards a center point up ahead. The three of them had cut out a dozen head themselves and were easing their way forward. Davis was riding a stone’s throw off, keeping them pointed in the right direction and picking up whatever strays they happened upon.

  A pulse of lightning flickered and hit the plains off to their right somewhere. It took a couple seconds between the sight and the sound. Above them the sky rumbled, rolling right over their heads.

  “Whoa, hope no one gets cooked,” Frank drawled without much worry. “I expect to have about 1200 steers collected by the time all of us pull together. We’ll run a tally when we pass into the Black Water pastures. Then we can take ‘em all up to them breaks in the Alamositas. Maybe on up to Rito Blanco if need be…course that means crossing the Canadian.”

  “Twelve hunnert four-year olds,” Lee contemplated. “In this pasture alone? The B-Cross ran about 2500 total. And that was the whole mixed herd…mommas, babies and all.”

  “Well actually,” Frank said, squinting again at the sun. It was hovering about an inch above the western horizon. It would not be long and it would be gone. “There’s around thirty thousand in Silver Lake alone. Which is plumb too many on this end, what with water so scarce this year. They all can’t stay here.”

  “Thirty thousand? Gee whiz, that’s a bunch of beeves. How far off is the Alamositas?”

/>   “We got a ways. It’ll take a few days of easy walking. Just ain’t much water between here and there.”

  Lee was trying to wrap his mind around three million acres. He had seen some barbed wire running across the open spaces, but he was surprised how far spread out it all was. The pastures were subdivided and even those subdivisions were sprawled out enormously. All this open space was just the opposite of the mountain life. But, the high country was a place of rugged beauty like none of these Texas cowpokes had ever seen — and probably never would. If they were lucky, some of these men might catch a glimpse of snow-topped peaks from a distance, on a cattle drive to the north.

  As for his pard, Lee was not sure how bad Davis would miss those same peaks. That ol’ boy sure did relish all that a lot more than me, Lee thought. The heavy snows and the bitter cold really take its toll on a body. And yet, he knew winters in the Panhandle would not be any easier, really. I may need to drift on further south before then, Lee reflected.

  A few fat rain drops plopped down from the sky.

  “Wish it would rain,” Frank said. But even with clouds like this, the rain might pass on by.

  Frank Yearwood was relieved the syndicate had brought in Matlock and Boyce to fix the XIT. The morale had really been dragging. There was a lot of theft. Gambling was everywhere. And with it came violence. Frank knew there were men working for the ranch who had been run out of other parts of the country, men that Barbeque Campbell had deliberately brought on.

  The sun dropped off the horizon and the wind picked up. All the cowboys were moving in good time and had all the steers bunched up by nightfall.

  Frank decided to put both Billy Ney and Arizona Johnny on first watch. They might be too tired to cause any trouble come morning. The rest of the crew staked their horses and got out their bedrolls. With the gusty wind, Frank was uneasy with a large fire, even if it sprinkled. The grass could catch with just a spark. And these parched conditions were too bad to risk a prairie fire. He had seen plenty of prairie fires and knew it took a lot of hard work to get them under control.