The Last Shootist

by Miles Swarthout

  “Heeere’s these young gunslingers like to shoot up my town nights.”

  Ease spoke up. “It was an ambush, Sheriff. We got attacked just hikin’ up Youngblood Hill to our homes.”

  “For what reason? Another stick-up?”

  “No sir,” answered Gillom. “I told their boss, Luther Goose, last night in the Senate, to leave my girlfriend alone. Those three thugs who surprised us work for Luther, as muscle.”

  “They also work as miners. William and Frankie, whatever their last names are. We don’t know the third jasper yet. But you crack shots didn’t have to shoot ’em dead.”

  “They knocked us down, Sheriff. Were beatin’ on us in the dark. Hard to see what’s suddenly going on up there,” explained Ease.

  “We were just defending ourselves, best we could,” added Gillom.

  The sheriff grew angrier. “Maybe at first, but then you stalked William all the way up to the mine. Copper Queen Consolidated doesn’t appreciate having its miners gunned down on its own property. Upsets the workers and makes ’em concerned for their own safety.”

  “Hey, their worker was throwing blasting caps at me, could have blown away anybody up there!” Gillom slid off the bed and stood like a mummy in his underwear and wrapper. Sheriff White poked a stubby finger into his bandaged midsection.

  “You’re not understanding me, boy. Phelps Dodge is the most powerful company in this territory. And you’re fucking with their mother lode! Arizona’s trying to become a state. There’s a United States Senator from Indiana, Senator Beveridge, who’s filibustering Congress we’re unfit for statehood, too primitive to join civilized society. So we cannot have shootouts in our best mines, in the middle of our nice town. Scares the workers. Scares me. And it’s bad for business, which pays all our salaries.” He gestured at the two medicos, listening intently to the sheriff’s oration. “So I advise you to buy a trunk, kid, soon as my investigation’s concluded.”

  His dander up, Gillom Rogers stood his shaky ground. “What about my girlfriend, Anel Romero? Luther Goose has been bothering her at the Red Light. She didn’t want to go away with him. He’s a damned pimp!”

  “I’ll check that. Dance halls pay a liquor license fee and the city council doesn’t want their good business disrupted, either. But if this whole dispute is over just one painted cat, it has gotten way out of hand.” The lawman put his hand down, stepped back from his threatening closeness. “Your family’s known in these parts, Bixler, so you can still work at the Bonanza, if you stay out of more shootings. But you, El Paso, tie up your affairs and get the hell gone.”

  Sheriff White turned on a bootheel and stalked from the new hospital. The nurse assisted a glum Gillom into his pants and boots and guns so he could help Ease home. The bill for patching them both up came to twelve dollars, which Gillom paid since he’d gotten his pal into this trouble. Ease groused they were being overcharged for misbehaving.

  As they wobbled out, the doctor stopped the young mankiller.

  “You may have trouble breathing with those two bruised, maybe fractured ribs. Take a deep breath occasionally to get air way down in your lungs, even if it hurts. Use pain liniment on the site, or ice if you can get it, and keep your ribs bandaged. May take a couple of months to heal, but broken ribs come around. Lay off the whiskey and stay out of fights.” The surgeon stared hard at both young men. “You’ll live longer.”

  * * *

  The lads lay low in their cottages over that weekend while the sheriff’s investigation of their shootings continued. They snuck out after dark for their one meal a day, and went together for protection. They ate in out-of-the-way restaurants so as not to attract undue attention. Gillom and Ease were healing and went armed, but because of their stiff gaits and pained movements, neither would have been much of a match for anybody else in another fight.

  Monday morning, Ease was moving well enough to attempt his day shift behind the bar in the Bonanza, since it would be a slower weekday. Gillom lathered on more Tiger Balm, a Chinese painkiller he’d picked up in the Bisbee Drug Store, mummified himself in fresh bandages, and headed off for work. He was there at 9:00 A.M., before the bank’s doors opened at 10:00, but was immediately confronted by Mr. Cunningham.

  “Pinkham wants to see you.” Gillom didn’t care for the gleam in the treasurer’s eye.

  Sumner Pinkham’s office wasn’t regal, but it was distinguished by several large wooden lamps with fancy laminated shades atop his big oak desk for night work. The young man noticed cut glassware and several bottles of vintage whiskey on a side table in a corner, evidently for night work, too. The boss wasted no time on formalities.

  “Heard about your contretemps last Friday evening. How you feeling?”

  “Better, sir. Lathered on Tiger Balm for a couple bruised ribs, but the doc says I’m serviceable.”

  “I can smell it. Self-defense again, was it?”

  “Yes, sir.” The president hadn’t indicated a seat in one of the heavy oak chairs for customers, so Gillom stood. “Thugs ambushed me and my buddy in the dark near home, so we had to shoot it out. I’d warned their boss to stay away from my girlfriend, who’s a customer of ours, by the way. This Luther Goose is a gambler, and I guess he didn’t like me objectin’ to him pressin’ his affections where they weren’t wanted. Those bodyguards worked for him.”

  “Those thugs were miners, Gillom. Heard about this mess over the weekend, when I was paid a visit by Ben Williams, Copper Queen’s superintendent. They don’t take kindly to their miners being shot on their property. Killings get the company unfortunate publicity. Your shoot-out is in the papers, and the Copper Queen at this moment has the reputation as an unsafe place to work.”

  “But I had to get that wrestler, or he’d have kept coming after me on Goose’s orders. Bastard already banged me around once before, besides this ambush. Hell, he was throwing dynamite caps at me up there, trying to blow me up, hurt other miners on their night shift, too. I couldn’t have turned him into the sheriff in that predicament. That jasper wasn’t going to be taken.”

  The bank’s president nodded. “”Well, I’m glad you came out of your scrap relatively unscathed. And that your girlfriend won’t be bothered anymore. But you’ve become more trouble to me now than you’re worth, Gillom. So I’m letting you go, with two weeks’ severance, to help you move on. I’m sure your gun skills will be useful elsewhere. I’ll even write a letter of recommendation. Shootist extraordinare!”

  “Did the sheriff put you up to this?”

  “I haven’t spoken to Sheriff White.”

  “Well … it’s not fair.”

  The bank officer was perturbed. “Fair? Fair? Phelps Dodge is our biggest customer! Their interests are my major concern.”

  “And my interests aren’t.”

  “Wish you a safe journey, son. And better luck.” This time Sumner Pinkham offered his hand to shake, but Gillom Rogers didn’t take it. The insult raised a scowl on the banker’s face. “Cunningham has your pay.”

  * * *

  Gillom didn’t bother Ease at his workplace with this latest bad news as he climbed slowly up Brewery Gulch in the bright morning’s light. His ribs ached as his sore chest rose and fell from the climb. His pockets and the hidden moneybelt on his holster were full of greenbacks and gold coins from closing out his bank account. But he wasn’t worried about being accosted even in the dangerous red light district. Nobody was going to fool with young Gillom Rogers in Bisbee, not with his sudden reputation as a three-time killer in just two months! Not unless they worked for Mr. Goose.

  The parrot didn’t bother him approaching Jean’s green-roofed cottage. The bird must have been sleeping off a raucous weekend itself. Red Jean greeted him in a housecoat, with curlers holding up her mass of auburn hair.

  “Gillom! Your shoot-out’s the talk of the tenderloin! You all right?”

  “Coupla sore ribs, but I’m still walkin’ and talkin’. Ease got shot in the leg, but it went clean through. He’s already
back behind the bar. But I lost my guard job at the bank.”

  “No! Why?”

  “Two of Goose’s thugs we shot were miners. Copper Queen’s manager complained to my boss, and that mine does the biggest business at the bank, sooo…”

  “So what will you do now?”

  “Probably be movin’ on. But I gotta talk to Anel first. Do you know where she lives? I don’t know if I can make it up Chihuahua Hill with this chest pain. Hampers my breathin’.”

  “No, but I’ll find out. We were busy at the Red Light this weekend, but I don’t remember seeing her, now I think of it. Why don’t you stop by there tonight?”

  “Can’t risk running into Goose again, Jean. Bastard’s probably already hired more bodyguards.”

  “Don’t recall seeing him after Friday night, either.”

  “Was he in then?”

  “Yes. By himself. Drinking, dancing with Anel.”

  “They leave together?”

  “I have no idea, young sir. Had my own business to attend to.” The bar belle lowered her eyes.

  Gillom chewed a lip. “Suppose he fled up to Clifton with her?”

  Now Jean looked concerned. “Let me get dressed, pay a visit when I locate her lodgings, see if she’s okay? I don’t work tonight.”

  “If you can track her down, bring her along tonight to the Turf Saloon at eight. I’ll get Ease, too. I’m hosting a farewell dinner.”

  “So quick?”

  “Well, Anel’s missing, and as of this morning I have no job here. When the sheriff starts making threats, I pay attention. Time to vamoose.”

  The dance hall queen managed a half smile. “Then I’ll see you young foxes at dinner.”

  It was the bird who wished him a fond farewell from his perch up the scrub oak.

  “Adios, pendejo.”

  If he’d felt better about everything, Gillom might have grinned.

  Thirty-four

  He dropped by the Bonanza and tipped Ease off to the evening’s dinner, asked him to pass the question about his missing girlfriend. He left out his imminent departure.

  Gillom stopped by the post office to close his account, get any mail forwarded. There was a letter from his mother. He went back outside to sit on a bench with some aging loafers who liked to roost there daily, crankily commenting on the world passing by.

  Gillom—How are you, dear? I am feeling better and busier. El Paso is booming and since the bad news about Mr. Books’s tragic shoot-out has died down finally, new residents and job seekers are needing a nice place to stay. So our boarding house has filled up again and I’m able to pay off bills and even hire a Mexican girl to assist with housekeeping and in my kitchen.

  You can have Mr. Books’s room again downstairs, if you’d like to come home. I think it’s safe now. Marshal Thibido dropped by once, but I said you’d headed west for parts unknown. He seemed to accept that, good riddance. He didn’t inquire about those pistols.

  I miss you! If you returned you could sell those guns and have money to live on while you finished your last year of high school, look for a decent job. Something quiet behind a desk, please, instead of one involving dangerous weapons.

  Your future awaits in El Paso, Gillom. Come home!

  Your loving mother,

  Bond

  There was a little breeze blowing up the gulch that June day, moving the miasma of red-brown smelter smoke out of town, but Gillom’s eyes watered anyway.

  He puffed up the stairway on Youngblood Hill, noting the bloodstains on the wood landing where they’d killed men a few nights before. The two bodies had been undertaken.

  Gillom huffed slowly across a weedy patch to his cottage to rest a few hours, but as he unlocked his door, an armed man suddenly stepped out from behind their outhouse uphill, a Winchester repeater held to his chest, port arms.

  “Gillom Rogers?”

  Gillom’s hands immediately went to his pistols. “Who wants to know?”

  “Got a message for you, kid.”

  “You from the sheriff? Come to arrest me?”

  “No. Just a note.” Guy was maybe 5'6", small-boned, but had an intense demeanor. He held out a square envelope. Gillom didn’t pull his revolvers, but his left hand remained on his pistol butt as he took the note and removed the folded stationary with one hand. He read the warning, glancing up at the gunman’s rifle.

  Gillom Rogers! Be on the stage or train

  out of Bisbee by noon tomorrow, Tuesday.

  —The .45-.60

  “Who wrote this?”

  “The Committee of Safety. Named for our rifle cartridge loads.”

  “Vigilantes.”

  “Call us what you like. But me or somebody else will be watching you, round the clock, till you’re gone from Bisbee. By our deadline.”

  Gillom scratched a pimple he’d just found behind his ear. “This is legal? You’re a deputy?”

  “No, I’m not a deputy sheriff. But I am applying for the Arizona Rangers. Governor’s organizing a detail of Rangers here right now.”

  “Hell, I’d like to join that bunch. I need a job.”

  The committeeman almost smiled. “Not on the best day of your life. You’re already cutting your notches pretty deep, kid. At too young an age. Just leave Bisbee pronto and we’ll let these bad killings pass.”

  Pursing his lips, the young gunman nodded. “All right. Tell Sheriff White to come see the Tombstone stage off tomorrow, wave me goodbye.”

  * * *

  “I found her Mexican shack, Gillom, several rooms in a hovel up in Chihuahua Town. No running water or electric, just a bathtub and a woodstove, pretty primitive. Talked to Rosa, her roommate, waits tables at the Brewery. Anel hasn’t been home for three days. All her stuff’s still there, clothes, family photos, and Rosa doesn’t know what happened to her. So she’s going to report Anel missing to the sheriff tonight, like I advised.” Red Jean finished her report.

  “Could she have gone down to Mexico, family emergency?” asked Ease.

  “Not without some clothes, traveling money, do you think?” They were sipping Veuve Clicquot, real French bubbly, at a table in Tony Downs’s Turf Saloon, their favorite Bisbee haunt.

  Ease Bixler shook his head. “You’ve got the sweet-ass on that girl bad, pard.”

  “Cupid has given me a couple jabs under the ribs with his dart.” Gillom nodded. “But I’m afraid Luther Goose has kidnapped her, taken Anel up to his brothel in Clifton, against her will.”

  Red Jean played devil’s advocate. “You don’t think she might have gone up there on a whim, to check his saloon out?”

  “Not without telling me or her roommate first. We’re in love, Jean! Or we said we were. If she got offered better money, that’s not a good enough excuse to fly the coop that quick.” Gillom looked worried.

  “So what do you aim to do?” asked his buddy.

  “Take the stage up to Clifton, see if she’s there.”

  “But, that’s Goose’s roost. He’ll kill you if you try to take her back, if he so much as sights you again. You’ve burned his play in Bisbee now, and he’ll want to get even. He can hire more shooters or wrestlers from the copper mines up there to put your lights out, pardner.”

  “I’m just gonna sneak into town, move around at night, see if I can spot her. Then spirit her out of Clifton, if she’ll have me.”

  The darling of the demimonde frowned. “How romantic. And dangerous. Just like in a dime novel. Where would you flee to in the moonlight?”

  Gillom sipped his champagne thoughtfully. “Oh, I guess back to El Paso. My mother wants me to come home, finish high school, get a good job, guarding if I have to, maybe join the Texas Rangers. Anel can find a better job, store clerking, but not dancing, I won’t have that. My mother runs a boarding house. There’s room for us there, till we both get working again.”

  “Boy, this is all very fast,” worried Ease.

  “If you find her in Clifton, bring her back down here. Give your love time to blossom,”
advised Jean.

  Grimly, Gillom explained his new predicament. “I can’t come back to Bisbee. Got a visit this afternoon from a member of the .45-.60. Said I had to be out of town by noon tomorrow. They’ve got an armed vigilante watching me outside here right now.”

  His two friends were stunned.

  “The Safety Committee warned you out of town?” Ease sounded plaintive.

  “I’m a marked man in Bisbee.”

  Ease shook his head again, dazed. “Can’t let a couple killings disrupt their mining.”

  His friend reassured him. “I think you’re okay, Ease. Your family’s respected in southern Arizona, like the sheriff said. I’m the two-gun stranger they’re worried about, who has to ride on.”

  “This ain’t right,” disagreed Jean.

  “Or legal, either. It’s just the mob’s rules.”

  “They enforce them, too,” agreed Ease. “Back in ’83 during the Bisbee Massacre, the robbery of the Goldwater and Castaneda general store here, five innocent citizens were killed in that shoot-out. Our posse captured five robbers, several in Mexico, and the law tried and executed them all. The .45-.60 was formed after the head desperado, John Heath, was given a life sentence to Yuma Prison for planning the robbery. The Safety Committee didn’t want to let him get away alive, so they pulled him out of jail one night over in Tombstone after sentencing, and strung him up there from a telephone pole. The .45-.60 are very serious citizens of ours.”

  They were silent after Ease’s troubling local history. The waiter arrived with their meals to break the glum spell—pork chops, ribs, and a steak to help Ease replenish his blood.

  “A toast,” said Gillom. Three good friends raised their glasses. “To better times in different places.” They drank champagne to that. “And, it’s my birthday.”

  “Ohhh, happy birthday!” chortled the redheaded dancer.

  “Congratulations! Which one?”

  “I’m eighteen.” The birthday boy smiled.

  “Nearly legal, kid,” beamed Jean. “You deserve cake.”

  “I’m amazed you made it this far,” agreed Ease.