Dead Warrior

by John Myers Myers

  Wheeler peered at me through his glasses, then grinned. “That was the biggest bust since Vesuvius blew its stack and fried Pompeii in hot lava. I won’t sadden you with the details; but when reports of this place reached us I skinned down to Tucson and got myself this job, so I could really find out what was what this time. How long have you been here, Baltimore?”

  “I’m one of the oldest inhabitants returning to his native haunts,” I told him. “The nonsense seems doomed to be fixed in tradition, so you might as well hear it from me. It was my uncanny mineralogical insight which enabled old Potter to make his earth-shaking discovery.”

  “So you’re in with the old boy?” Arising, Wheeler bent his chunky body at the waist. “Congratulations!”

  “I’m not in with anybody.” My pipe had gone dead, and I had to strike another match. “And as for Potter, I know he thinks he has untold buried riches, but we’ve all been there before.”

  “I don’t think we have.”

  Coming from a man in his position, the words made me sit up. “Is it really big?”

  “If it isn’t, I’m not the only one that’s being fooled,” he retorted. “Old Seth’s found some backers from Plutoville, or I don’t know capital when I see it ambling around on the hoof.”

  That Potter had business connections of any sort was something I found difficult to believe. “If it’s worth anything, the moneylenders will probably get it for two plugs of tobacco and a beaver trap.”

  “Toss me your tobacco, and I’ll tell you why not to believe it.” Sam got his pipe going, then put his feet on the table. “He may have no more business acumen than a straddlebug, but his sister from Illinois sent her son — as slick a young horse trader as was ever sired among the pumpkins by a passing Yankee peddler — to look after the family’s interests. He and Moneybags just left for the East to wrap up some kind of deal.”

  “I saw our old acquaintance Duncan,” I offered. “He grudgingly admitted that he thought there would be a permanent operation here.”

  Wheeler laughed. “Duncan tries to be stone face, but when he sees high-grade ore, he can’t help slavering like a skunk downwind from a chicken yard. He could make himself a fortune if he wasn’t born to be an organization’s sad-eyed and faithful mutt.”

  “Maybe we’ll all be sleeping on gold pillows pretty soon,” I said, after I had learned from Sam just what to do in order to acquire unchallenged title to my claim, “but how are people making a living in the meantime?”

  “Oh, there’s placer and small shaft mining, and panning down by the creek. The rest are doing everything from hauling in planks from the mountains, with which to timber the walls of Rome, to peddling water that only a cattleman would think of dipping sheep in. They tell me that the two men in camp who shave use whiskey. That’s cheaper than water, incidentally.”

  Having purchased a bucket of water that morning, I nodded. “I’ve got a stage I’d like to operate, Sam.”

  “Then you haven’t got any problem.” From the way he took his feet off the table, I saw that he was going to make me a proposition. “Look; I am old and wilier than the serpent, and I’ve been wilier than usual since coming to Arizona. It’ll be a cinch to get enough purchasing commissions to make your trips into Tucson worth while, and you can scare up all the eastbound passengers you can hold, once you let it be known that you’re serving the new wonder camp. You still need one thing, though, and that is either I or me. Give me a percentage for being your agent here, and I’ll see that you get the mail contract, as soon as the post office is ready to go with regular deliveries.”

  Somewhere in the course of my conversation with him I had lost my skepticism about both the bonanza and the dependent community. “Why didn’t Dick Jackson come along with you?” I demanded, when we had agreed upon the terms. “It isn’t like him to miss out on a good thing like this. And what about the others of the old poker crowd?”

  “Tom Cary got himself a job mule skinning for the army, and Jim Powers drifted up north somewhere,” Wheeler said, “but I think we can count on Dick. The deal was that I was supposed to let him know if this place looked like Dame Rumor had a pantalette to stand in. I finally got off a letter to him the other day, and as soon as he gets it, you can expect any cloud of dust to turn into Jackson.”

  The camp did not look like a zany collection of makeshift dwellings, when I stepped outside. It had rather the air of the temporary headquarters of a band united for high enterprise.

  Creeping upon me was the feeling that I myself was a man of mark for having the farsightedness and pioneer daring to be at the spot where fortunes were in the making. I tried to tell myself that optimism had better mark time, pending developments. Yet even the scenery quashed such appeals to caution. The immense stretches of empty landscape around Dead Warrior no longer looked like the end of creation but the beginning of it.

  Everybody I met on the dusty thoroughfare known as Apache Street seemed to share my sense of exhilaration and general good humor. Not wanting to argue with a rattlesnake which was slithering across the street, I sidestepped into the path of a burly prospector. I was the one who should have apologized, and the knife scar on his face showed that he wasn’t always in a peaceful frame of mind; but instead of growling at me, he gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder.

  “Didn’t look where I was goin’,” he said.

  “Where would anybody be going at this time of day?” I wondered. He had started to move on, but he hesitated pursuant to that remark. “It must be ten o’clock,” I stated.

  “ ’Tis at that.” He was grinning now.

  “I just got here last night, so I’m not up on all the local customs,” I went on, “but at every other camp I’ve ever been in ten o’clock was first drink time.”

  “Not countin’ the one before breakfast,” he was careful to remind me.

  “That’s just the one to clean the teeth with,” I corrected him on a point of order. “That’s the zero drink, not the first.”

  “Ten o’clock’s about right here, though if you was a half hour early nobody wouldn’t say nothin’.” Hairy fingers closed around mine as he gave me that assurance. “I’m Short-fuse Rochelle.”

  The Glory Hole was already crowded with other devotees of first drink time. On another corner of Apache and Beaver Lodge Streets, however, a place which hadn’t been there the night before was preparing to open for business.

  “You’re my first customers,” the landlord said, weighting down one end of the plank bar with a large chunk of rock. “These are on me, gents, and I’ll have one with you for luck.”

  “What’re you callin’ the shebang?” Short-fuse asked, when we had all nodded and snapped the whiskey down.

  “Well, I’ve been giving that a lot of thought.” The proprietor’s round, good-humored face wrinkled with more brain tremors while he was speaking. “My name’s Hamilton Gay — though I’m always called Ham — so I figured I’d maybe call it the Gay Palace. Of course, it don’t look like no palace now, but I’ve got to think of the future, you see. What do you fellows think about that for a handle?”

  Western saloonkeepers habitually adopted names which were about as suitable as pink ribbons around a keg of black powder. Rustlers Roost and the bars at Shakespeare had been exceptions to the rule, to which I had by then become so accustomed that I no longer noticed the incongruities.

  “It sounds all right,” I assented. “Make it three again.”

  “ ’Tain’t got no feel of the camp,” Short-fuse objected. The long scar framing his eye was turned toward me, as he pointed kitty-corner across the street. “Glory Hole does, now. It fits Dead Warrior, because the whole damn place is a glory hole from butte to crick and back again. This town sits on enough gold to buy Africa and China with, if anybody wanted ’em, and you can’t spit on a rock without splatterin’ tobacco juice on maybe a hundred dollars. ‘Palace’ is all right for most camps, but you’d ought to have somethin’ special for a real jumpin’ Jesus of a bonanza like
we got here.”

  “You’re right,” Gay said, but agreement only filled him with gloom. “What name could I use, though? That fellow over there’s got the best name to give the idea of both a bonanza and a place to hang out; and anyhow I don’t want to sound like I’m just copying him. A man that’s going to build up as big a business as I aim to starts off wrong if he tries walking in the other guy’s tracks.”

  All pondering, we slugged down the second round. “Perhaps something to go with the name of the camp would be the thing,” I suggested.

  “I don’t like to give the idea this is a dead joint,” Gay asserted. “How’d a lively camp like this get a corpse’s name anyhow?”

  “Well, I — ” It was on the tip of my tongue to mention that I had shot an Apache there. Just in time, however, I remembered that Potter had pre-empted that feat, and that I would only convict myself of claim jumping if I said otherwise.

  “The story I got,” Short-fuse said, “is that old Seth Potter named it that, because while he was prospectin’ here he give some Injun a free ride to — say, what’s the matter with the Happy Huntin’ Ground?”

  “It don’t tell what you’re hunting; it could just as well be gold or a drink,” Ham Gay discovered, when he had tried the name out. “That would go fine with the place, wouldn’t it?”

  Some other customers arrived then, and he moved down the bar to make their acquaintance. “I ain’t yet got my sign up,” I heard him explaining a minute later, “but this joint is the Happy Hunting Ground.”

  “That’s Dead Warrior all over,” one of the newcomers decided. “Drinks on deck here and gold out there, so’s to make it certain that the drinks can be bought when wanted. Hell, boys, we got high, low, jack and the best God-damn game in the United States of Paradise.”

  The loyalty given to the midmorning institution did not mean that the camp was in the hands of shiftlessness. By ten o’clock most of the citizens of Dead Warrior had already put in four or five hours of backbreaking work. After first drink time they drifted back to their tasks, my companion along with the rest.

  “Whereat do you bed down?” he asked, as he was about to leave.

  “Well, last night I slept in my stage, Short-fuse. I’m starting a line between here and Tucson.”

  “That’s all right,” he conceded, “but you ought to get you a claim. There ain’t no use in foolin’ around with hundreds of dollars when there’s thousands just waitin’ for a man to come along and say, ‘Jump in my pocket.’”

  “Oh, I’ve got a claim.” I was glad to be able to say that I, too, belonged to the gold peerage. “But there’s no placer stuff on it; it’s all hard rock, and I’m no miner myself. I’ve got to make some money so I can afford to develop it, not to mention keep eating.”

  “You don’t need any cash around here if you got a claim,” he snorted. “The stores know you’re good for anythin’ you charge.”

  He was right in that. Dead Warrior’s two supply centers would hand over whatever they had, or would take orders for anything they didn’t have, at the request of any known prospector. It would be untrue to say that all of the latter were prepossessing in appearance; but every dirty shirttail sticking out through a hole in the seat of the owner’s pants belonged to a fellow who bore himself like what Macaulay would call a man of lordly race. There never was such a confident democracy since the Argonauts, also prospecting for gold, churned the Black Sea with their oars. Everybody was a distinctive personality whose attributes were common knowledge. Everybody stood on his own feet, and those feet were known to be planted on ledges seamed to fathomless depths with precious metal.

  The small amount of claim jumping which now and again took place was due to inadvertence rather than to fraudulent intent. What was the sense of trying to steal filed claims when others just as good or better could be had for the asking? Mistakes were good-naturedly rectified, and nobody was too busy to help new fortune hunters out with advice or physical assistance.

  To find a welcome a man had but to stroll to any of the campfires with which the area was starred, as soon as night brought chilliness to those arid uplands. Seth Potter’s camp remained the favorite gathering place, though. A special aura clung to him, as the explorer from whose discovery all were benefiting. A small portion of his glory was shared by me, as a matter of fact, owing to the old fellow’s chat about my mystic powers of divination. And at one assembly, at least, these were celebrated in song.

  Among those who used to foregather at Seth’s camp to swap anecdotes that walked unabashed on both sides of truth there was one called Dink Flinders. Before coming West, for whatever reasons had made such a move desirable, Dink had cut some sort of figure in New York’s entertainment world. He had a facility for making jingles and would do so, when sufficiently primed, tailoring them to fit a popular tune of the day.

  The song in question was one whose tune and refrain were borrowed from “What Do You Know about Kate Sullivan?” Flinders first introduced it after a hearty session at the Glory Hole, accompanying the words with pantomime.

  Baltimore, he smelled the rocks

  Like an old maid sniffing dirty socks,

  And he says, “We’re loveseat-close to ore

  With a thin stone rind and a big gold core.”

  What do you know about Dead Warrior?

  His dumb-show projection of myself in the acting of winding a bonanza convulsed us all. Flinders acknowledged our applause by cutting a pigeon wing before cakewalking over to where Potter sat.

  Sharp as a tack is old man Seth,

  He can hear a worm when it draws a breath;

  He heard an Apache sneak behind

  And he blew that buck to — never mind.

  What do you know about Dead Warrior?

  This bardic recognition of his prowess delighted the old mountain man, who nearly rolled off his box when he saw himself shooting the Indian without even bothering to look around. After circling the fire in the manner of a man on skates, Dink next proceeded to deal with the actual discovery.

  Well, after that Seth dug a pit

  And meant to put that buck in it,

  But his pick came down and took good hold

  In a pound of butter-yellow gold.

  What do you know about Dead Warrior?

  So Seth he gives a happy shout

  And then he throws that redskin out;

  “I’ve struck it rich,” he tells that brave,

  “So you’ll have to dig your own damn grave.”

  What do you know about Dead Warrior?

  While Flinders was walking about on his hands, I had occasion to reflect that I alone knew where the Indian was actually buried. I was called back from the vision of how the Apache had looked when dirt had half covered his malevolent features by the final stanza of Dink’s composition.

  But Seth ain’t the only one struck it rich;

  There’s you and me and the son of a bitch

  Who won’t get here till late next week,

  For here you find just what you seek.

  What do you know about Dead Warrior?

  Chapter 11

  DRIVING STAGE WAS OFTEN a miserably hot business by day and too cold for comfort when night fell on that regoin of gamut-running temperatures. Yet it had its compensations, among them being a financial one. While the profits were nothing compared to what I expected when my claim was transformed into a mine, I was prospering to a degree that astonished me.

  Another rewarding aspect was one which Tom Cary had enjoyed at Three Deuces. I was courier between the outside world and the new settlement. Arrived there, I was the town crier, sought after as the authority on anything from the latest activities of Billy the Kid to what was going on in the field of international diplomacy.

  I also had the inside track when it came to knowing about new arrivals, actual and prospective. Included were some with whom I had had previous dealings, for the growing fame of the Dead Warrior bonanza was making the place a natural port of call for h
alf the restless wanderers and rapacious opportunity seekers of the West.

  Among those encountered in transit was a man who approached me as I was checking some details at the Tucson end of my line, which now boasted a small adobe office. “When I heard that your name was Carruthers,” this fellow said in the tones of trained oratory, “I was wondering if you could be the Good Samaritan of the road to Chuckwalla, Colorado, and I see that to be the case. Do you recall my identity, by any chance?”

  I might not have recognized the Reverend Lansing Foster, if he had not declared the circumstances of our original meeting, but I had no trouble in identifying the girl who joined us a moment later. Possibly because I had been in the bachelor West that many months longer, Faith looked even prettier than she had before.

  “I’m a little afraid to hear what you have to say,” she remarked. “Are you going to tell us that Dead Warrior has vanished from the map, too?”

  “Dead Warrior isn’t on the map yet, but you can look it up next year, or ten years from now, and count on finding it.” Having sworn to that, I returned my gaze to her father. “Are you thinking of settling there?”

  “That is precisely the subject on which I wished to secure advice. Being somewhat more accustomed to the West, I am warier than I was when I determined on Three Deuces as my goal. The glories of Dead Warrior are being bruited everywhere, but I would like firsthand information, and of a more reliable nature than that which I received from a certain newspaper editor.”

  Dick Jackson had already arrived and was publishing a weekly called the Dead Warrior War Whoop, but I didn’t mention that. As our family had a tradition of deism, it was immaterial to me whether Foster established a Unitarian church or that of any other denomination in the shadow of Beaver Lodge Butte. But if he was planning to brighten the camp by bringing his sightly daughter there, I certainly wasn’t going to present obstacles.

  “I gave you authentic information about Three Deuces,” I reminded the minister, “and I think you can place reliance on whatever I tell you now. Can’t we go some place where Miss Foster would be more comfortable?”