by Lou Bradshaw
According to my calculations of the moon’s position, I figured it would be coming on to two o’clock and soon be time to switch. Moving to the front of the building, I heard them coming. They weren’t talking, but they were walking on the board walk, and unless you’re an Indian, you’re going to make noise, especially if there are five or six of you walking together.
I waited a few seconds to make sure that it wasn’t a couple of drunks walking home or looking for a place to bed down. No, it was a group of men and they were walking steady… no one was tripping or stumbling along. I went down through that trap door like a weasel going into a chicken coop.
“They’re coming!” I told them in an urgent whisper. “They’re up on the next block.” I used my thumb to indicate left.
Leaving the lamp burning in the office, we doused the lantern in the cell block. Then we each grabbed our rifles and went to the back door. Tate lifted the bar and Ben eased the the door open. The plan was for Tate and me to go one way and Ben go the other way. Then we’d circle around the front and do what we could there.
We could hear them at the front of the building. They were talking and not worrying about the jailer hearing them. Bam! Came the sound of something heavy hitting the front door. The next bam also brought the sound of splintering wood, and with the third strike the door gave, and we went out the back door.
From outside we could hear a lot of crashing and banging around, and we could hear Fletch yelling to be let out. Someone, probably Bagley yelled, “Earl, you dumb son of a bitch… you can’t do a damn thing right.” Then we heard Fletch pleading with the man not to do what he was about to do. There were two pistol shots and Earl Fletch quit pleading.
By this time, we were around in front and in position. They were all trying to squeeze through the door at the same time. Ben yelled for them to throw down their guns and … that’s about as far as he got before one of them took a shot at him.
That shot was answered by the sound of Ben’s shotgun. Then, what seemed like all the guns in all hell came alive. With all the shooting, yelling, and cussing, it was hard to know just what was going on. For a few seconds there it was keep pulling the trigger or die on both sides. I felt my left leg give way and found myself shooting from a kneeling position, but I kept on shooting. There were two bodies piled up in the door half in and half out. I could see a foot, with the toe pointed toward the ceiling. It was moving but not going anywhere.
Someone yelled from the depths of the jail to stop shooting because he wanted to give up. “Come to the front door with your hands up and empty.” Ben yelled into the jail.
“Alright, I’m comin out, so don’t nobody shoot me.” came the call from the inside as a thin ragged form appeared in the doorway. It was hard to make out the man’s face with the light behind him, but once he was out on the boardwalk, I could see our old friend Curley.
Ben grabbed him and yanked him out of the doorway to the side so quick that Curley didn’t have a chance to get used to the dark. “How many are left inside,” he asked as he shoved the barrel of the shotgun under Curley’s chin, “alive I mean”
Curley’s eyes got round as dollars when he realized what it was that was forcing his chin up that way.”Wo…wo…one besides me. That’s him kickin’ and moanin’ by the door.”
“What about Bagley and Slack… They both down in there?”
“Well, Bagley sure is, but I didn’t notice Slack in there…. Funny thing too, he was with us when we come up the street… guess he got sidetracked somewhere.”
About that time, I noticed that there were quite a few citizens milling around with lanterns and weapons. There was a rattle of hooves and Marshal McCollum came riding up with his deputies. They skidded to a halt in front of the jail and were on the ground before their dust cloud caught up with them.
“One still alive in there, Mack.” Ben called out as McCollum reached the boardwalk. “Bagley’s down in there somewhere. He killed Fletch, and it looks like John Slack ducked out…. Some of the others may be wounded, but I’d doubt it; they look pretty dead to me. Better send someone for a doctor… That fella in there’s gonna need him, and Bell’s bleedin like a stuck pig… Hey you, Tater, get him off his feet and tie that leg up just below the knee.”
That Ben Blue could sure give orders like a military man. But until he told Tate to set me down, I wasn’t even sure I’d been hit. There was so much lead flying and so much noise bouncing off of those clapboard buildings that I was in something of a daze. The next thing I knew, Tate and some citizen were setting me unceremoniously on my butt on the hard surface of the boardwalk. Actually that was the last thing I knew until sometime a day and a half later.
I woke up like I was coming out of a fog… I imagined myself trying to push my way out into the clear air. I was digging and clawing at the opaque mist trying to get free. When I finally did break free, I found myself looking at one of the greatest contrasts in anyone could ever imagine. There were two people staring at me and one was holding my leg. He was a gnome like fella with a bald head and a bristle brush for a mustache.
“How do, young fella… we was wondering when you’d be joining us.” You lost a couple gallons of blood before that cowboy figured out how to work a tourniquet.”
“Howdy, yourself.” I said. “I presume you, sir, are the doctor…. But would you mind telling me who that lovely creature standing behind you is? She looks like someone I’ve spent the last six or so weeks dreaming about, but that can’t be the case because that person is waiting for me in Denver City.”
The very next thing I knew, Izzy was trying to kiss the hide off my face. When I could catch my breath, which was when the doctor pulled her off of me saying, “Hold on there young lady, you’ll get him so worked up, he’ll be poppin all my stitchwork and shootin what little blood he has left all over the room.”
She backed off but held onto my hand like it was made of pure gold. “Izzy, how’d you get here… how long have I been out?”
“Ben sent me a telegraph message at the Silver Slipper that you’d been shot and would be a few extra days getting there, so I just got on the morning stage, and here I am.”
The doc told me that I’d been shot in the left calf. The bullet had nicked a bone and an artery… that’s why I had lost so much blood. If Ben hadn’t told them to get that tourniquet on when he did, I’d have bled out in short order. The bone wasn’t much of a problem, but it’ll be painful, but it would mend. But the artery had been a pretty delicate bit of mending work. He also told me to give it a week before I do much walking around. And stay off of horses for at least two weeks. Izzy told him that I would. It sounded like I didn’t have a say so in the matter.
Ben came in to see me a little later on. “The hanging went off well… if an execution is ever a well staged event. It was set up as two and two, with Ralls in the second group. They had to drag him up the scaffold steps and hold him up until the trap door sprung. It wasn’t a pretty sight, Max… not a pretty thing to watch… If it hadn’t been for the respect of my men who were killed because of him, I wouldn’t have even been there…. It had quite an effect of young Tate… If he ever had any thoughts of the owl hoot trail, he ain’t got em now… he’s a good lad.”
“Wonder if you could do me a favor, Ben. Since my keeper has come to see me through this, she and the doc won’t let me sit a horse for a couple of weeks. I’d like to sell my horse and rig. Do you think you could see your way clear to try and get me a buyer before you head south.”
He scratched his chin for a few second or two, as he is often wont to do, then he pulled out a tally book and a chewed up little pencil and did some scribbling. Then he showed me the page. “Would this be a fair price?”
I said, “If you can get me that price, you’ll make me a mighty happy invalid…. I probably won’t need a horse in Denver, and it wouldn’t be right to have a good horse like that standing in a coral for a couple of months.”
“That’s not the price I’ll get you;
that’s the price I’ll pay you. I been thinkin’ of tryin’ to come up with a little extra bonus for that Tater boy. He’s proved to be one to ride the trail with and a good steady hand… he’s got a lot of sand. He joined us ridin’ a pretty dilapidated old plug and a pretty rough rig. If I give him cash money, he’ll just throw away in the first saloon or whorehouse he comes to…. But if I give him a horse and rig that he can be proud of, it’ll mean a lot more to him…. The fact that it was yours, will mean even more.”
I tried to talk him down a bit, but he wouldn’t have any of it. So we settled, and we were both satisfied with him saying that he wouldn’t feel right taking advantage of me, “…a poor crippled up old gambler… all lonely and miserable.” That brought a smile to Izzy’s lovely face.
That horse that Tate had appropriated from his brother, back on the farm, may have been his pa’s best, but it didn’t stack up very well to a good mustang cow pony. Well, he was getting a good one, and I felt better knowing that my horse and outfit were in good hands.
Ben went on to tell me that Slack was in the wind and nobody had seen hide nor hair of him since the attempted jailbreak. “So you keep an eye on your backtrail, cowboy. That varmint has a habit of just showing up and disappearing when things get tight. He could just walk into any saloon and sit down across from you at any card table.”
“Well,” I said, “he’s packing a grudge against both of us, Ben, so you keep your eyes open and that canon loaded.”
Ben said they’d be leaving at first light in the morning. He also said, “I’m goin’ back to Taos County, and I’m gonna give that girl a firm and hardy kiss. Then I’m gonna demand that Patty Anne gal put a date on the calendar and mark it in red because I’m sure ‘nuff tired of this old bachelor business. I got my hacienda, my horses, my cows, my range, and by God I’m gonna get my woman.”
Izzy kissed his cheek, just to get a blush out of him… which he performed admirably, and told him, “Ben Blue, I’ve got a feeling that Miss Patty has been waiting for you to do just that. So, you get yourself back down to New Mexico and get it going.”
Young James L. Tate came by to see me later that afternoon. He was all excited, as I figured he would be. He swore to be damned if he didn’t take real good care of that horse. He said he’d never even dreamed of having a horse and outfit that good. He also said that he’d been having a streak of luck at the tables. “Once I got it in my thick skull that I wasn’t ready to play with the big boys and stuck to the small games, my luck seemed to just turn all around.”
The following morning, Izzy and I, with the help of a sturdy crutch, were on hand as the sun was coming up over the horizon, to see Ben and Tate off. They were two men on horseback plus a pack animal pointed south with several hundred miles of lonesome trails and trials ahead of them. As we waved, we both had the same thought. We were both chuckling at the memory of Tate saying, yesterday, that he was sure glad he hadn’t shot me for that reward.
I told him, “You may have gotten that hundred dollars in your pocket, but you probably wouldn’t have had a chance to spend it.” I pointed my thumb in Izzy’s direction. When he looked at her, she very calmly put her hand in her purse and pulled out a short barreled .38 Remington, cocked it, pointed it, let the hammer down and twirled it and stuck it back in her purse. The look on Tater’s face was an image that I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life. We walked back into the hotel laughing.
Two days later, we were, with the blessings of the doctor, on the Denver stage. The doc had insisted that I use a crutch or a cane for a while to make sure there wasn’t even the slightest disturbance to his precious stitchery, so Izzy went shopping for a suitable cane. She said that she would be the only crutch I’d ever need. She came back with an ebony walking stick with a silver horse head grip. She also brought with her a new black broadcloth suit with a black vest and long tailed frock coat. Her final touch was the black flat brimmed hat to replace my still unstitched disreputable head gear.
At least she didn’t show up with anything made of silk, for which I was eternally grateful. If one of us is bound to wear silks… let it be the one who actually enhances the charms of the fabric… and that ain’t me.
Chapter 22
Denver City, or just plain Denver as they were calling it, was a bustling town. It wasn’t anything like the railroad bustle that was going on in Pueblo or the commerce of Santa Fe. It was more akin to the bustle of San Francisco, with money being made, spent, and lost. There were miners, cattlemen, speculators, and merchants… all with a fist full of money and an ache to fill their other fist.
I could see why Izzy had duded me up a bit with the new look. She had the good sense to not make me look like a professional gambler because she knew that folks look on a gambler with a bit of skepticism. I still think I’d have done all right looking like a cattleman, but many of the places I’d be playing in wouldn’t even let a ranch hand through the door. The one concession she allowed me were my California spurs… she kinda liked their jingle. Fortunately, Ben had gone back to the café and collected them for me.
We had a nice pair of adjoining rooms at the Silver Slipper. One room was bedroom and the other was used as a sitting room after a little furniture compromises with the management, so that it became a suite. All in all it was a nice arrangement.
Denver had its share of gambling halls. Some were elegant some were plain, but there weren’t any that I found where you needed to keep the rats from gnawing at your boots. Those who preferred places of that sort, found them in the mining camps and on the fringes of town.
For the first week or so, I made the Silver Slipper my home port so to speak. Although there wasn’t much chance of messing up the doc’s handiwork, the nick in the bone made for a deep burning sort of pain. The doc said as the bone patched itself and healed itself, it would get stronger and less painful. And it did feel better every day. The doc also said that the loss of blood would take a while to replenish, so I shouldn’t expect to get my full strength back for several weeks.
It was a comfortable place to play and the stakes were reasonable. In other words, it wasn’t a millionaire hangout, although there were one or two who frequented the place, but it wasn’t a working class hall either.
Izzy and I rarely played in the same game. For one thing we were too competitive with each other and seemed to play only to beat the other one. For another thing, we were too protective of each other, and we spent a good deal of our attention making sure the other wasn’t being cheated or ganged up on. In short we were our own worse distractions. So we rarely had contact between nine in the evening until after midnight.
After the first few weeks I began to venture out and visit other gambling halls, and I found that some were more congenial than others, by that I mean Lady Luck was sweeter in some places than others. I was making friends and contacts. I met old friends from back down the line and made new ones. Although I didn’t really believe in superstitions, if I was doing something and having a run of luck, I kept on doing that thing and rode the coattails of whatever luck may come my way.
My luck had never been this good, and I didn’t know if it was because of Izzy, my sore leg, or my walking stick. I decided to hang on to Izzy and the walking stick, but I wasn’t going to shoot myself in the leg, just because it might be lucky. You got to draw the line somewhere. So wherever I went, that ebony and silver cudgel went with me. Miss Izzy thought it gave me swagger and sex appeal, so I certainly kept it.
After about a month in Denver we had amassed a nice little nest egg between the two of us. We each had our own accounts in a Denver bank, but our goal was to do something with the money together, if and when we accumulated enough. We didn’t know if it would be a gambling hall, a ranch, investment in rail stocks or some other business. We had talked at length of going out to California and start ranching up along the coast near Monterey. That was some sure ‘nuff beautiful country. Neither of us saw ourselves as aging gamblers always one step ahead of a bad run o
f luck or broke and stranded in some prairie town.
But that was another time and another place. The possibility of that time and place ever becoming realities were what we wanted to avoid. So when the invitation to a private game was presented to Izzy, I encouraged her to take it. Since my connection to Izzy was no secret, I was obviously not invited to play, and I took no offense. I was, however asked to attend as an invited guest. And that was fine with me.
The game was seven card stud, with a fifteen hundred dollar buy in, a twenty dollar high bet, a five dollar low bet, and table stakes…. No markers and no new money. When you were out, you were out.
Everyone was ready at nine o’clock on a Friday evening in one of the private gaming rooms at the Eldorado Palace. There were six players, six invited guests, and the banker who worked for the Palace. The players bought in and took their places with their chips already in place. I gave Izzy a squeeze on a beautiful bare shoulder and a kiss on the forehead for luck. She in turn kissed the silver horse head of my walking stick. Maybe we were just a little superstitious.
She was nervous and started out poorly, but after she lost her first fifty dollars, she hitched up her garters and went to work. She was in the fray with the leaders. When I said earlier that we were doing well, I meant it, but fifteen hundred dollars was a chunk to risk. That’s the life we live, but we don’t play with money that we don’t have. That’s the quickest way to wind up in some railroad town without train fare out.
The ebb and flow of the game was about what you would expect from a gathering of skilled professionals talented and amateurs. And they were skilled players, although some had some unique and quirky methods. One fella never looked at his hole cards. He didn’t know anymore than anyone else at the table what he was holding. I don’t know if he was trying to give the others the idea that he had psychic powers or if he thought he had those powers… He was the first one out of the game. By eleven thirty there were only four players left. Izzy was holding her own but not as one of the leaders.