Sipping Whiskey in a Shallow Grave

by Mark Mitten

  “Sure, sure. Let’s make a nice surprise out of it,” Soapy agreed.

  Chapter 4

  “Why, hello there Prescott,” Horace Tabor said with aplomb.

  Sloan blew across the surface of the small saucer, and stole a quick glance up as he did. He had just poured coffee from his cup into the saucer when Haw approached him. It was a habit that Sloan picked up living in Ward. The cowboys that came through used to stop in the Halfway House for meals. They all seemed to share the same habit of pouring their coffee from the cup into the saucer. Then they would blow on it, sipping directly from the saucer. He found it curious the first few times he witnessed the ritual.

  Being a banker and a businessman, a transplant from the East, the cowboys of the frontier caught Prescott Sloan’s attention. Maybe it was the romanticism of living in the West. The Indians were no longer roaming like they used to. Geronimo and his Apaches had been caught the year before and were down in Alabama now. Even though Sloan despised the filth associated with horsemanship, he also admired the working cowboy. They knew who they were. They were proud of it. There was a dignity in most of them, directly related to their lifestyle and the earth. He liked that. So he started pouring his own hot coffee into his saucer.

  “What can I help with, Haw?”

  “I have an invitation for you. To a private banquet at the Matchless Mine. Well, in the Matchless Mine.”

  Sloan daintily set his saucer down and looked up at Horace. He had heard about these things. The Silver King of Leadville was rumored to throw elaborate underground soirees, especially when some kind of major load had been discovered.

  “I am intrigued,” Sloan said and gestured at Tabor to seat himself.

  “What’s the occasion?” he continued. “Strike something new?”

  “Now, I’m not telling anyone outside a few close acquaintances,” Horace confided. He sat down across the table. “You know, I’m not even a prospector. When I first got to Leadville, I opened up a general store. Supplying all these dreamy miners…that was where the money was.”

  Sloan waved at the barkeep, held up his coffee cup and pointed to Tabor. The barkeep came right over with another hot cup for Horace.

  “I remember these two fellas came into the store one day. Nothing special, just a couple boys with a small claim. So I grubstaked them. Some tools, food for a week. I had seventeen dollars invested in those two when it was all said and done…in exchange for a third of their profits.”

  “I dropped more than that on faro just last night,” Sloan mentioned.

  “That was the Little Pittsburg out on Fryer Hill. That little thing was putting out ten thousand dollars worth of ore. Per day.”

  Tabor picked up his coffee and took a small sip.

  “Then I sold out for a million,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Promptly after that, it quit producing. I got out just in time. Good Fortune was on my side.”

  “Sounds like I need to grubstake some miners.”

  “Never hurts to take a gamble on someone else’s hard labor. Now truth be told, most of these folks come here starry-eyed and don’t find anything to squawk about. Seen it a thousand times over.”

  “It’s all a gamble,” Sloan pontificated quaintly. “So much of life is.”

  Horace studied him. He wondered how good Sloan was at reading people. Now, Horace considered himself to have a well-developed poker face. And he played exclusively with high rollers, both in cards and in business dealings. But Horace was particularly nervous this day, walking into the Pastime Saloon, right inside the hornet’s nest, and setting out the bait. Horace felt if he just kept talking, he could get it done and get out the door.

  What kind of fool would be so brazen as to steal a hefty stake in one of the most talked about mines — from Soapy Smith! — and stick around town? Was the man so confident? Or did he have some kind of reputation in Ward that hadn’t made it into Leadville yet? Maybe a criminal infrastructure or a gang of his own? If so, Horace Tabor hadn’t seen anything yet. He had been paying attention, too…there wasn’t even any kind of security around the man, which was unusual for someone playing such a high stakes game.

  Perhaps the man was just a lucky fool, and thought he had successfully pulled one over on Denver’s most notorious confidence man and gangster. But even a fool should be thinking of repercussions, no matter the luck up till the present hour. The man moved to Leadville! He had been there all summer! Opened a saloon! He should have gone to the Argentine. Or some far off corner in Europe and changed his damn name.

  “Shaft Number Six. I thought it was done producing, played out,” Horace continued. “But my boys took one last chance. Another twenty-five feet down and wouldn’t you know? One more rich mineral deposit…the nature of which I shall not reveal. Until the banquet! Tell me you’ll come.”

  “Of course. Name the time and day, I’ll be there.”

  Horace stood and drained his coffee cup in a couple big swallows. It was barely lukewarm. He wasn’t sure why Sloan was pouring it delicately into a saucer and blowing on it. The man had his quirks.

  “Saturday. Come out to the Number Six at sundown. Ride the bucket down. It’ll be a hoot.”

  Sloan got up and they shook hands. He gave Haw the relaxed, condescending smile of a social aristocrat. Sloan was almost giddy, but he kept it bottled up and played it cool. In just a few short months, here he was, rubbing elbows with the top players of Leadville. He ran his own saloon. He was part owner of the Matchless Mine. This really was the Cloud City. He felt like he was in the clouds.

  Chapter 5

  Garo

  South Park

  When the morning sun came over the hills, the dew lit up like it was made of diamonds. The air was cool and fresh and grasshoppers popped away from Bit Ear as he plowed through the meadow.

  Til enjoyed mail runs to Garo, mainly because he needed time on his own. Every now and then he could feel it building — he needed to get out and calm his spirit back down. The business of ranching, even the bustle around the house, took a subtle toll. He needed to get out on a horse and just ride.

  Up ahead, the sun was burning through the mist and he could finally differentiate the small town of Garo from the dark mass of 39-Mile Mountain off in the distance behind it. Garo was only an hour’s ride south. There was nothing in between but the grass and the hills. It was convenient to have Garo so close. Chubb Newitt ran the general store and had a good selection of supplies. It was also the post office. The store had been built next to the train depot, right on the platform. Newitt’s store was the hub of this little town and all the local ranchers stopped in frequently.

  Leaving Bit Ear at the hitching post, Til climbed up the stairs. He was not the only one on the platform, at least a half dozen people were milling about. Til knew them all by name — they all lived in or near Garo. It was seven o’clock on the nose. Mrs. Dittmore, the station agent, was just opening up the depot. She propped the door open and began sweeping.

  “Morning, Mrs. Dittmore,” Til said and tipped his hat.

  Ignoring him, Mrs. Dittmore seemed too intent on her sweeping to be bothered with pleasantries. Til passed on by and headed inside Newitt’s store.

  “Howdy, Til,” Chubb said pleasantly. “Train’ll be by soon. Expecting visitors?”

  “Naw, just the mail.”

  The mail came on the train, which arrived daily by 8 AM and then passed back through later in the afternoon. Til was anticipating a letter from his partner on the Wyoming range, Jake Barlow. With the Great Die-Up, the cattle business was still in a mess of uncertainty. Til considered selling his half of the Wyoming plot to Jake, if Jake was interested. After all, it had mainly served Til as the winter pasture for the B-Cross cattle. Those days were over. Til could use the funds to expand his operation at Hay Ranch.

  “And how’s Mrs. Blancett?” Chubb asked him.

  “Adjusting to the country life wonderfully.”

  With a smile, Chubb waved Til over to the counter. He opened up on
e of the glass candy jars and scooped several cherry candies into a brown paper sack.

  “That’s for your boy, Til. Tell him it’s a welcome-to-Colorado gift.”

  “Many thanks, Chubb, I’ll pass that along. He’ll right thank you next time he’s in town.”

  “School house opens up this month. My boy Billy is his age, and I expect they’ll get along fairly well.”

  “I expect they will.”

  Outside a steam whistle echoed. The train was bearing down on Garo.

  “I’m gonna need some sugar, cinnamon and flour. Not more than I can fit in a saddle bag.”

  The whistle blew a second time and the sound of the locomotive pulling in was loud. The engine blasts were rhythmic, hissing. Til walked to the doorway to watch it come in. More people had gathered on the platform, all waiting on the train. It was a small train, with only a couple passenger cars and a few storage cars behind those. The passenger cars were almost full. Mrs. Dittmore, the station agent, came out and stood there watching — wearing a sizable frown.

  “Garo Station!” the conductor called from inside the train.

  The windows were all down. Til could see people’s faces looking out on the small town. He knew most of them were headed for the big cities: Fairplay, Alma, Buena Vista, Leadville. Garo was certainly not one of those towns, not by a long shot. The train eased to a stop and steam blasted out like a dragon’s sigh. That’s what Walker would say, Til thought, and broke into a fond grin. His boy had started turning everything into tales about knights and dragons. Cowboys were knights, trains were dragons. He wondered what the cherry candy would become once he got it home.

  “Tickets, please.”

  The conductor stepped out into the sunshine. A couple folks were boarding but the rest were just there, like Til, waiting on the mail. A postal rep stepped off the train with a mail bag, and they trailed after him like the pied piper. Til joined the troupe, which led straight into Chubb Newitt’s General Store and Post Office.

  Outside, Mrs. Dittmore’s pitchy voice suddenly rose an octave.

  “Ma’am, that’s what is meant by produce,” the conductor was saying, rather defensively.

  “Lettuce n’ cabbage! Lettuce n’ cabbage!” Mrs. Dittmore shouted, peculiarly.

  The conductor, whose name was Benj, was starting to look confused and stared at her ruefully. Til and the others stepped right back out to see why Mrs. Dittmore was so excitable at 8 AM. There was something in the lady’s voice that was unusual. Everyone knew she was a widower. Her husband died nearly ten years ago, and the elderly woman had been living alone ever since. Chubb Newitt himself checked in on her throughout each winter, bringing her supplies. She was typically a reserved woman, though brusque more often than not.

  “Morse code! Lettuce n’ cabbage! Morse code, lettuce n’ cabbage!” said Mrs. Dittmore.

  Benj the conductor glanced around, unsure what was happening. He was used to Mrs. Dittmore dressing him down with insults about telegram contents and freight reports. However, her response today was more bizarre than irritating.

  “Lettuce an’ cabbage!” she said one last time for emphasis and poked him in the sternum.

  Then Mrs. Dittmore retrieved a well-oiled revolver from the folds of her skirt.

  “Oh, Lordy, no!” Benj cried out, and jumped off the platform into the grass.

  Til, along with the townspeople of Garo, were so startled at this turn of events that no one reacted. Not Til, nor Chubb Newitt or Frank Stevens, or EP Arthur or his oldest son Will — they were all glued to the platform like a nativity scene. It was very unusual to see Mrs. Dittmore screaming about lettuce and cabbage, and even more unusual to see her retrieve a revolver from her skirt.

  The elderly widower pressed the gun firmly against her cheek and pulled the trigger. The gun went off, and she collapsed immediately.

  Off in the grass, Benj the conductor continued to run evasively. He thought for sure Mrs. Dittmore was shooting in his direction. The Garo Station stop was his least favorite of the day. He preferred the drunken gamblers and sweaty swindlers of Fairplay to the morose glares of Mrs. Dittmore at Garo Station. He knew she despised him. She received his daily telegrams from Denver with unrelenting criticism as to their specificity. But the constraints of telegraphy were such that he had to be categorical, rather than itemized. And that was standard practice! Lettuce and cabbage could be conveyed under the term “produce.” It was neither necessary nor helpful to delineate any further than that — but Mrs. Dittmore was not very cooperative when it came to telegrams or delineation.

  Chubb stepped over to check on the woman. He knelt over her and studied the wound.

  “Yep, she’s gone.”

  “Fancy that…she was mad as a March hare,” Mr. Arthur said, who was British. “I did not expect to see that.”

  “Cantankerous woman,” stated Frank Stevens flatly. “Don’t surprise me none, though. She was getting plain distracted there towards the end.”

  He shook his head sadly, but knowingly.

  “Sick as a horse,” Frank added, tapping his temple. “In the head.”

  Til took his hat off and held it over his chest. The rest of the men followed his lead and did the same. There were no other women on the platform, it was just the men that morning. The sun rose steadily in the sky and the summer heat was starting to set in for the day.

  Benj the conductor, who had run up and over the nearest grassy slope, slowly made his way back.

  “Is she dead?” he asked, still concerned that he was the intended target.

  “Chubb, I hate to be untimely,” Frank Stevens asked. “But can I collect my mail?”

  Chubb shrugged. He walked back inside his store with Frank Stevens right behind him. Til glanced at Mr. Arthur, his closest neighbor in the valley. The older Englishman seemed unfazed. Mr. Arthur nodded thoughtfully.

  “Bloody crazy.”

  “Both,” Til replied.

  Chapter 6

  Hay Ranch

  Rufe and Steve were quite interested to hear that Mrs. Dittmore shot herself dead on the Garo Station platform. After a quiet summer of bunkhouse construction, windmill building, digging fence post holes and cutting hay — any news caught their attention.

  “She did what?” Rufe asked.

  “Done herself in.”

  “What kind of gun did she use?” Steve asked Til.

  “Just a Colt, I think.”

  Caring housewife and mother that she was, Laura immediately shooed young Walker out the front door. He was not interested in hearing about Mrs. Dittmore’s demise once Til produced the cherry candies. On a normal day, Laura would have confiscated the cherry candies and placed them in a jar for measured dispersal. But today was not a normal day. She just handed the small brown paper sack to Walker and pointed him out the door.

  “Jewels for the court of King Arthur!” Walker shouted with ostentation. He marched outside, leaving the door wide open. But no one moved to close it.

  “Til, why in the world would Mrs. Dittmore do such a thing?” Laura asked.

  She was horrified to hear what happened.

  “We done fed already, Til,” Steve said in a hopeful tone. “Mind if we cut out? Just down to Steven’s saloon, catch up on the latest news about all this.”

  “We done fed,” Rufe reminded him.

  Til waved his hand at them. The McGonkin brothers flew outside and made straight for the corrals.

  “I can’t believe she just shot herself,” Laura said quietly and placed her hand over her mouth.

  “It was just one of them things,” Til explained. “Happens. Now and then.”

  “Not in Muscatine, Iowa!”

  Laura looked at Til with fresh eyes.

  “Is this what the frontier is like? Women shooting themselves in public with Colt six-guns? In broad daylight? On a train platform full of people waiting for their mail?”

  Til shrugged.

  “Now that I think about it — it wasn’t a Colt. It was a Smith &
Wesson.”

  Laura began pacing the room, clearly upset and getting more so. Til watched her with growing apprehension.

  “Surprised that old thing went off at all.”

  His quiet morning ride was over. Part of him considered following the boys down to Steven’s. But he knew as soon it crossed his mind that riding off would not sit well with Laura. He decided not to mention it.

  “Why aren’t you more upset about this?” she asked incredulously. “I hope I never get to the point where I want to point a gun at myself!”

  “You won’t, honey.”

  “Things can get pretty lonely out here Til. It’s just me and Walker most of the day. You go out to work with the hands, and I don’t see you until dinner. Emmanuel spends half his day chopping firewood and the other half drying antelope meat. And beyond that, I haven’t seen another lady since I unpacked. It’s too quiet sometimes.”

  “I know. I know it is.”

  To the contrary, Til did not actually think it was too quiet. In fact, in his opinion, it was a fairly boisterous ranch. Between the jabbery McGonkins and Emmanuel’s trail songs and Walker’s kid habits — it was a plumb full house.

  Laura put her hand on her hips and gave her husband a firm look. Til waited, not sure what was coming.

  “I need something, Til. To keep my mind busy.”

  He sat down at the kitchen table. The sky was still blue outside. It wasn’t even dinner time yet.

  “Alright, then,” Til said.

  Laura stared at him darkly, her thoughts racing about. Til knew she had made a nice jar of fresh lemonade. The sugar he bought in Garo was sitting on the table right in front of him. He had gotten that far with his purchases — before the conversation derailed. He glanced past her towards the kitchen. What if he just ducked in there for a moment and brought the lemonade jar out here? He could stir in the sugar while she talked.