Elmore Leonard's Western Roundup #1

by Elmore Leonard

  “How much on all the copper ore I've got?”

  The shaggy-looking prospector in the buffalo coat stopped everyone cold with the magic word.

  It brought Mr. Vandozen's face up from the reports and claim documents to look at this Mr. Early again in a new light.

  “You're telling us you have copper?”

  “If your geologist knows it, you know it.”

  “It was my understanding you were only interested in gold.”

  “I'm interested in all manner of things,” Bren said. “What are you interested in, besides high grade copper?”

  Mr. Vandozen took off his pinch-nose glasses and inspected them before putting them away, somewhere beneath his Chesterfield.

  “How much do you want?”

  There, that was the question. Bren smiled in his beard.

  “Ten thousand dollars for the five claims,” Mr. Vandozen said. “A two percent royalty on all minerals.”

  Bren shook his head.

  At the fifty-thousand-dollar offer he started for the door. At one-hundred thousand, plus royalties, plus a position with the company, the shaggy-looking miner-speculator stepped up to Mr. Vandozen and shook his hand. That part was done.

  When the company superintendent, who was under Bren now in all matters except the actual operation of the mine, brought out a bottle of whiskey and said, “Mr. Early, I'll drink to your health but stay out of my way,” Mr. Early looked at him and said:

  “You run the works. There's only one area I plan to step into and I'm going to do it with both feet.”

  This shaggy-looking Bren Early entered the Gold Dollar with his buffalo coat draped over his left shoulder, covering his arm and hanging from shoulder to knee. He wore his Stetson, weathered now and shaped properly for all time, and his showy Merwin & Hulbert ivory-handled revolvers in worn-leather holsters. Business was humming for a cold and dismal afternoon, an hour before the day shift let out. The patrons, tending to their drinking and card playing, did not pay much attention to Bren at first. Not until he walked up behind the Sweetmary Deputy Sheriff who was hunched over the bar on his arms, and said to him:

  “Mr. Bruckner?”

  As the heavy-set man straightened and came around, Bren Early's right hand appeared from inside the buffalo coat with a pick handle, held short, and cracked it cleanly across the deputy sheriff's face.

  Bruckner bellowed, fell sideways against the bar, came around with his great nose pouring blood and stopped dead, staring at Bren Early.

  “Yes, you know me,” Bren said, and swiped him again, hard, across the head.

  Bruckner stumbled against the bar and this time came around with his right hand gripping his holstered Peacemaker. But caution stopped him in the nick of time from pulling it free. The left hand of this shaggy dude—standing like he was posing for a picture—was somewhere beneath that buffalo cape, and only the dude and God knew if he was holding a gun.

  Bruckner said, “You're under arrest.”

  It was strange, Bren admired the remark. While the response from the Gold Dollar patrons was impromptu laughter, a short quick nervous fit of it, then silence. Bren was thinking, They don't know anything what it's like, do they?

  He said to Bruckner then, “Wake up and listen to what I tell you. You're gonna pay me eight dollars and fifty cents for the seventeen days I spent on your work gang. You're gonna pay everyone else now working whatever they've earned. You will never again use prisoners to do company work. And as soon as I'm through talking you're gonna go across the street and get my Smith forty-fours and bring them to me in their U.S. Army holsters. If I see you come back in here holding them by the grips or carrying any other weapon, I'll understand your intention and kill you before you get through the door. Now if you doubt or misunderstand anything I've said, go ask Ross Selkirk who the new boss is around here and he'll set you straight.”

  Bruckner took several moments to say, “I'll be back.”

  Let him have that much, a small shred of self-respect. The son of a bitch.

  As the batwings swung closed, Bren stepped to the bar, lifting his buffalo coat and laying it across the polished surface. The patrons behind him stared and nudged each other. Look—both his revolvers were holstered.

  Brendan Early had come to Sweetmary.

  7

  1

  A news reporter told how he had knocked on the door one evening and when Mrs. Pierson opened it he said, “Excuse me, is this a whorehouse?” The woman said, “No, it isn't,” not fazed a bit, and closed the door.

  Someone else said, “It may not be a house for whores, but she is little better than one.”

  “Or better than most,” another news reporter at the Gold Dollar said, “or he wouldn't have set her up as he did. She is a doggone good-looking woman.”

  None of the reporters had known about Mrs. Pierson until Maurice Dumas turned the first stone and then the rest of them began to dig. Maurice Dumas himself, once he saw where the story was leading, backed off so as not to pry.

  When the door of the house on Mill Street opened this time, the news reporter took off his hat and said, “Good afternoon, I'm William S. Wells, a journalist with the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. I'd like to ask you a few questions.”

  The good-looking dark-haired woman in the black dress stepped back to close the door. William S. Wells put his hand out, his foot already in place.

  “Is it true Bren Early killed your son?”

  Mrs. Pierson did not fight the door, though her hand remained on the knob. She looked at the journalist with little or no expression and said, “My son was killed while robbing the Benson stage by a passenger named Mr. DeLisle.”

  “If Bren Early did not kill your son,” the journalist, Wells, said, “why did he buy this house for you?”

  “He didn't buy this house for me.”

  “I understand he assumed the mortgage.”

  “Perhaps as an investment.”

  The journalist said, “Let's see now…the poor widow is running a boardinghouse, barely making ends meet following the death of her husband in a mill accident. Mr. Early comes along, pays off the note, gives you the deed to the house and you get rid of the boarders so you can live here alone…some of the time alone, huh?” The journalist produced a little smile. “And you want me to believe he bought it as an in vestment?”

  Mrs. Pierson said, “Do you think I care what you believe?”

  “Bren Early was on the stage your boy tried to hold up. The same Bren Early who owns this house.”

  “I rent from him,” Mrs. Pierson said.

  “Yet you're a widow with no means of support.”

  “I have money my husband left.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, you must keep it under your mattress since you don't have a bank account either.”

  The journalist put on his grin as he stared at Mrs. Pierson—yes, a very handsome lady with her dark hair parted in the middle and drawn back in a bun—knowing he had her in a corner; then stopped grinning as the door opened wider and he was looking at Brendan Early, the man moving toward him into the doorway. The journalist said, “Oh—” not knowing Bren was here. He backed away, went down the three front steps to the walk and said then, “I see an old friend of yours is in town.”

  Bren said nothing as he slammed the door closed.

  “Why were you telling him all that?”

  “What did I tell him? He seemed to know everything.”

  “You sounded like you were going to stand there and answer anything he asked.”

  The woman shrugged. “What difference does it make?” and watched Bren as he moved from the door to a front window in the parlor. “You said yourself, let them think what they want.”

  Holding the lace curtains apart, looking out at the street of frame houses, he said, “We can't stop them from thinking, but we don't have to answer their questions.”

  “They don't have to ask much,” she said. “It's your house—the arrangement is fairly obvious. But as long as it isn't
spoken of out loud then it isn't improper. Is that it?”

  Bren wore a white shirt, a dark tie and vest; his suitcoat hung draped over the back of a chair where his holstered revolvers rested on the seat cushion. He had been preparing to go out this afternoon after spending last night and this morning with her: preparing, grooming himself, looking at himself in the mirror solemnly as if performing a ritual.

  As he turned from the window now to look at her she waited, not knowing what he was going to say.

  Then surprised her when he said, “Do I sound stuffy?”

  She relaxed. “You sound grim, so serious.”

  “I'm not though. Not with you.”

  “No, the hard image you present to everyone else.”

  He came over to the chair where his coat was draped. “Maybe what I should do, put a notice in the paper. ‘To Whom It May Concern…I'm the one wants to get married, she's the one wants to keep things as they are.’ See what they ask you then.”

  “In other words,” Janet Pierson said, “let them think what they want, as long as there's no doubt about your honor.”

  “I didn't mean it that way at all.”

  “But it's the way it is,” the good-looking dark-haired woman said. “If you're going to spend your life standing on principle, you want to be sure everyone understands what the principle is.”

  He picked up his coat and pushed an arm into the sleeve. “You keep saying I worry about what people think of me, when I don't. All I said was, why tell that fella our personal business?”

  “I'm sorry,” she said. “You're right.”

  He pulled the coat down to fit smoothly as he turned to her. “I don't want you to say I'm right, I want to know what you're talking about.”

  “You get mad if I tell you what I feel.”

  He said, “Oh,” and turned to the chair again to pick up his gunbelt and holsters.

  “Are you coming back for supper?”

  “I was planning on it. If we can have an evening without arguing.”

  “Are you pouting now?”

  She shouldn't have said it—seeing his jaw tighten and hearing him say maybe he'd see her later, or maybe not—but sometimes she got tired of handling him so carefully, keeping him unruffled. Out in the street where he was going now, closing the door behind him, he was the legendary Bren Early who had shot and killed at least ten men who'd tested his nerve; a man whose posed photographs were displayed in the window of C.S. Fly's gallery on LaSalle Street and who was being written about by journalists from at least a dozen different newspapers. Bren Early: silent, deadly, absolutely true to his word.

  But she could not help but think of a little boy playing guns.

  He was a little boy sometimes when they were alone, unsure of himself.

  He had come to her two and a half years ago, told her who he was and how he had met her son. He returned several times to visit, to sit in this parlor with her over coffee, and finally one day handed her the deed to the house—mortgage paid in full—asking nothing in return. Why?

  He had not killed her son. A false rumor. He had, in fact, tried to prevent her son's death. But had failed and perhaps it was that simple: he felt responsible, owed her something because of his failure. He had said, “Don't ask questions. I like you, I want to do something for you.” All right, and she liked him and it was easy enough to take the sign down and change the boardinghouse back to a residence. It seemed to happen naturally as they saw more of each other. He wanted a woman in town and she responded. Why not? She liked him enough.

  Janet Pierson, at forty, was at least five years older than Bren. She was attractive, had maintained her slim figure, they enjoyed one another; so age was not a consideration. Until he said he wanted to marry her.

  She asked why and felt early suspicions aroused. He said he wanted to marry her, that was why in itself; he loved her. Yes, he had said he loved her. And he had also said, many times, “You think too much,” when she told him he really didn't want to marry her but felt an obligation or was afraid of what people thought. He had said over and over that people had nothing to do with it, goddamn it, people could think whatever they wanted; what he wanted was to be married to her. Then she had said the words that made him stare at her and then frown, perplexed, and finally get angry, the words he would never understand and she couldn't seem to explain.

  She had said, “I think what you want to do is take the place of my son. You want to make up his loss.”

  And he had said, “You believe I think of you as my mother?”

  Yes, but she would not admit that to him: the little boy who came in the house when he was finished playing his role on the street. She didn't understand it herself, she only felt it. So she referred to him being like a little boy without referring to herself as a mother or using the word.

  There was risk involved, to tell the man who had been a cavalry officer and had stood his ground and shot ten men, that he was still, deep down, a little boy and wanted his own way. He would pound his fist down or storm out (See? she would say to herself), then calm down or come back in a little while and say, “How do you get ideas like that?”

  And she would say, “I just know.”

  “Because you had a son? Listen, maybe what you're doing, you're still playing mama, Jesus Christ, and you're using me. I'm not doing it, you are.”

  Blaming her. Then saying he loved her and wanted to marry her and be with her always. Yet they very seldom went out of the house as a couple. Sitting together in a restaurant he was obviously self-conscious; as though being seen with her revealed a vulnerable, softer side of him. The only thing she was certain of: Bren Early didn't know what he wanted.

  2

  Maurice Dumas stood in the doorway of the Chinaman's place on Second Street. He had been waiting an hour and a half, watching toward Mill Street and, every once in a while, looking in at the empty restaurant wondering how the Chinaman stayed in business…then wondering if Mr. Early had forgot or had changed his mind. Twice he'd run back to the corner of Second and LaSalle and looked across the street toward the Congress Hotel. The news reporters were still waiting on the porch.

  When finally he saw Early coming this way from Mill Street, Maurice Dumas felt almost overwhelming relief. In the time it took Early to reach him—Early looking neat and fresh though it was quite warm this afternoon in May—Maurice Dumas had time to compose himself.

  He nodded and said, “Mr. Early.”

  “He arrive?”

  “Yes sir, on the noon shuttle from Benson.”

  “Alone?”

  “I believe there was a Mexican gentleman with him.”

  It was something to stand close to this man and watch him in unguarded moments, watch him think and make decisions that would become news stories—like watching history being made.

  “They went up to the mine office first and then to the hotel,” Maurice said. “I guess where he's staying. Everybody thinks you're there, too, I guess. Or will come there. So they expect the hotel is where it'll happen—if it's gonna.”

  Bren Early thought a little more before saying, “Go see him. Tell him you spoke to me.” He paused. “Tell him I'll be in this quiet place out of the sun if he wants to have a word with me.”

  It was the Mexican, Ruben Vega, who came to the Chinaman's place. He greeted Early, nodding and smiling as he joined him at a back table, away from the sun glare on the windows. They could have been two old friends meeting here in the empty restaurant, though Bren Early said nothing at first because he was surprised. He felt it strange that he was glad to see this man who was smiling warmly and telling him he had not changed one bit since that time at the wall in Sonora. It was strange, too, Bren felt, that he recognized the man immediately and could tell that the man had changed; he was older and looked older, with a beard now that was streaked with gray.

  “Man,” Ruben Vega said, “the most intelligent thing I ever did in my life, I didn't walk up to the wall with them…You not drinking nothing?”
/>   “Is he coming?” asked Bren.

  “No, he's not coming. He sent me to tell you he isn't angry, it was too long ago.” The Mexican looked around, saying then, “Don't they have nothing to drink in this place?”

  They sent Maurice Dumas out to get a bottle of mescal, which the Mexican said he was thirsty for. Bren had beer, served by the Chinaman, and drank several glasses of it while they talked, allowing Maurice to sit with them but not paying any attention to him until he tried the mescal and made a terrible face and the Mexican said to Bren, “Your friend don't know what's good.”

  “If you like a drink that tastes like poison candy,” Bren said, though he tried a short glass of it to see if it was still as bad as he remembered it was the first time he drank it in the sutler's store at Huachuca. “That could kill you,” he said.

  “No, but walking up to the wall where you and the other one stood, that would have,” Ruben Vega said.

  “You might have made the difference,” Bren said.

  “Maybe I would have shot one of you, I don't know. But something told me it would be my last day on earth.”

  “How did you keep him alive?”

  The Mexican shrugged. “Tied him to a horse. He kept himself alive to Morelos. Then in the infirmary they cleaned him, sewed him together. He has a hole here,” Ruben Vega said, touching his cheek, “some teeth missing”—he grinned—“part of his ear. But he's no more ugly than he was before. See, the ugliness is inside him. I say to him, ‘Man, what is it like to be you? To live inside your body?’ He don't know what I'm talking about. I say to him, ‘Why don't you be tranquil and enjoy life more instead of rubbing against it?’ He still don't know what I'm talking about, so I leave him alone…Well, let me think. Why didn't he die? I don't know. From Morelos I took him to my old home at Bavispe, then down to Hermosillo…Guaymas, we looked at the sea and ate fish…a long way around to come back here, but only in the beginning he was anxious to go back and saying what he's going to do to you when he finds you.”