The Ballad of Black Bart

by Loren D. Estleman

  “Not many men would find humor in the situation.”

  “I should have said queer. ‘It serves me well for placing my faith in one of the brutes.’ That’s what he said.”

  Again the detectives’ gazes locked.

  “It served you too,” Hume said.

  “I said something of the kind. I was upset. Right away he was sympathetic, and apologized for steering me wrong. I really think my loss upset him more than his own. He wouldn’t be done with apologizing. I found myself having to console him rather than the other way round.”

  “He’s that pleasant?”

  “Indeed. Everyone at work finds him so, including Mrs. Yee; who likes no one.”

  “Quite the gambler, is he?”

  “I wouldn’t go so far. He rarely lays down more than two dollars. He assures me he exercises the same restraint at the fights. I take him at his word there. I’ve never gone myself, although he’s asked. Beastly barbaric, that sport. It should be outlawed everywhere.”

  “I and my wallet agree,” put in Morse; and got a fierce look from Hume for the interjection. He raised his glass to his lips, hiding his amusement. Morse had slain mad killers: He didn’t find the chief the dragon others did.

  Ware, who had taken advantage of Hume’s questions to eat, chewing and swallowing rapidly in order to answer them, put down his sandwich. “May I ask the reason for this interest? I should think there’s a club or something where you mining men all go.”

  “There is, although I doubt your Charlie is a member. A wolf in fleece rarely socializes with shepherds. They don’t fool as easily as the flock.” Hume showed his palm with his shield in it. The laundryman started and looked at the other detective, who held out his own. “Harry Morse. Hamilton is the manufacturer’s name engraved on my watch.”

  TWENTY

  Much of our tale remains to be told;

  of Black Bart, Jim Hume, and the struggle for gold.

  But in late ’83, despite Wells, Fargo’s rage,

  the robber and “Po8” took down his last stage.

  He was always reading about inner voices warning a fellow away from a plan; Shakespeare was full of it. But it wasn’t a voice, or anything remotely human. Rather it was a kind of buzzing, a droning stirring of wings, as was made by a fly stuck in a screen, with scant hope of freeing itself, but too accustomed to living to give up and wait for oblivion.

  The sound was so vivid he looked around for the doomed insect before he realized the vibration was coming from inside him, and that it had begun the moment he came to the top of Funk Hill.

  The coach bound from Sonora to Milton would climb that grade; the very spot where he’d struck the Company the first time in July 1875.

  Charles Bolton was not a superstitious man, but neither did he pass unknowingly under a ladder lest a bucket of whitewash or a hod of bricks fall on his head, or otherwise tempt fate. Passing through a place where a robbery had once been committed, the coachman would be naturally upon his guard, and if accompanied by an armed messenger, equipped with a hair trigger.

  The noise was as persistent as a bout of hiccups, a sneezing jag, a nerve jumping in his cheek; it would not go away. He quit the site to scout out a replacement.

  All the other places were unsuitable for one reason or another. One provided too narrow a field of observation, another lacked sufficient cover, a third failed to appeal for no reason he could determine. He returned to the hilltop he associated with Black Bart’s christening.

  Here, at the crest of a steep incline, the road grew narrow, entering a bootjack turn after what was a long pull for the best of teams; and the Company hung steadfast to its stove-in, hollow-flanked nags along this lonely stretch, with no goal in sight beyond a rubdown with burlap sacks and a nosebag adulterated with acorns; the nefarious stage agents would charge them to the Company as premium oats. A slow coach, and a driver with knots between his shoulders, was like a crippled goose to a hungry hawk. It was why he’d chosen Funk Hill in the first place. Nothing had changed.

  The buzz was gone now, and in its place a pang of bittersweet memory.

  Waiting behind this same rock, he’d felt his head swim and his heart pound; it seemed that if he didn’t fix his eyes on some solid thing—a fir trunk, a pebble, the elf’s-hat patch of moss on the crown of the boulder, anything anchored firmly to the earth—his soul would fly away. Many years had passed, and many a shaken driver sent on his way, since he’d felt anything to compare to it; although the hum of anticipation remained, and the elation warming his veins like strong wine in the aftermath.

  In the shadow of the rock he spread his blanket, laid aside the hatchet, shotgun, hammer, wrecking bar, and a battered coffeepot and tin cup—innovations, these last, made necessary by rheumatism in the joints—and sat with his back against the cool granite. It was getting on dark; there would be no travelers along this path before morning to spot a suspicious fire. He built one of pine twigs tented with cottonwood branches and prepared a cowboy’s blend of grounds thickened slightly with water from his canteen. While it was brewing, he cut wedges with his pocketknife from one of the apples he’d gathered along the way. No frost had yet come in that balmy, old-gold, post-October season, to sweeten the fruit; they were small and shriveled, woody, and the stiff skins stuck in his teeth. Those peaches that remained on this route were nearly past their time, and Mexican picking-crews were harvesting them in numbers that demanded caution from a passing stranger. He washed down the disappointing pulp with coffee—bitter sludge, but piping hot—and hummed “The Wells, Fargo Line,” without relish this time. The memory of that macabre buzzing suggested there would not be many more of these idylls. The thrill evaporated before his eyes.

  Even the scrap from The Sacramento Bee he’d wrapped around a sleeve of crackers consumed during a resting stop, and had saved for reading, contained little of interest in the flickering light, prurient or otherwise. Newspapers were the painted woman of the printed word: intriguing on contact, a disappointment in the consumption. The press had passed him by, aside from brief accounts of the four robberies he’d brought off since the ignominious Strawberry affair; and for the first time in his adopted profession, he felt no slight. Repetition, the absence of colorful and insolent poetry (he’d gone dry, truth to tell; writers’ block wasn’t the exclusive province of those who made their living from it) had taken away its novelty, for the recorders as well as for the perpetrator. Black Bart was news as old as the Garfield assassination.

  When the practice of staking life and limb on an enterprise surrendered its excitement, what was left? His memoirs, perhaps; the last refuge of retired generals and presidents out of office. Which in his case would amount to a confession and loss of liberty.

  And the critics would insist upon rhyme.

  He could return to teaching school; but he doubted the generation of students that had arisen since his last post offered any more inspiration than the dullards who’d preceded it. Their only ambition was to hear the clanging of a cowbell signifying the end of their torment. Grown men and women, now, propagating their ignorance in their heirs. An idiot, once taught to read, was an idiot still.

  Prospecting wasn’t in it, even if he possessed the endurance and ambition of youth. At a time when the great mining interests that had driven him from the field—with the assistance of Wells and Fargo—were closing dry shafts and sacking laborers, dreams of wealth and independence went down the road in their wake, to day wages and death in the service of others. Reunite with his family? They had abandoned him as he had them, and well served. He was a bounder and no mistake.

  The nattering of birds awoke him in full daylight. His bladder was full. He made water, and was buttoning his fly when came a noise not indigenous to nature: the familiar refrain of rattling tack, churning hooves, and creaking leather straps. Yet another lamb to the slaughter. With the weary resignation of a digger of ditches retrieving his pick and shovel, he bent and lifted his shotgun; not forgetting to draw the flour sack
over his head.

  * * *

  Across Post Street from the unprepossessing façade of the Webb House, Harry Morse paused to roll a cigarette. The officer leaning in the deep doorway belonging to a printing plant remained motionless. The prominent bones of his face caught the light of the flame from Morse’s match and he wore his soft hat and mail-order suit as if he put it on every day. It bespoke nothing of the bullet-shaped helmet and stiff serge uniform to which he was accustomed.

  “Nothing in hours,” said the man, in response to a questioning flicker in the corner of the detective’s eye. “A woman with a parasol this morning, a fat old gent and his spaniel, and a couple of tradesmen. It’s not the Palace.”

  “It wouldn’t be. Our game is no peacock. How soon until you’re relieved?”

  Clothing rustled. The lid of a watch popped open and snapped shut. “Two hours.”

  “Stretch your legs five minutes.”

  A gust of relief came from the doorway. “Thank you, sir. My back teeth are floating.”

  Morse nodded in parting and crossed the street, tossing the spent match onto the macadam.

  The lobby was plain but for the desk, with laurels carved round the panels, an eastern rug of good workmanship, and a potted plant. Everything was spotless. The half-caste Chinese who greeted Morse from behind the desk wore a fresh collar and cuffs and his nails were scrubbed white. He combed his hair flat to his skull from a center part, with no trace of oil.

  “Is Mr. Bolton in his room?”

  Out of habit the clerk turned his head far enough to take in the keys hanging from pegs at his back. “No, sir. He left a few days ago to supervise his mining operations.”

  “When do you expect him back?”

  “I cannot say for certain. He travels mainly on foot, so it would not be before the end of the week. Would you care to leave a message, Mr.—?”

  “No, thank you. I’ll be back later.”

  Outside, Morse cast aside his cigarette and walked away, shaking his head minutely for the benefit of the man who’d returned to his station opposite the hotel. Captain Stone was indeed a good man, but he expected all his officers to report to work with brass kidneys. Each was supplied with a sheet type-written by Jim Hume’s secretary, with a detailed description of the man known to Thomas Ware as Charles E. Bolton:

  Physical: square-shouldered, erect bearing, approx. 5’8”, mid-fifties, white hair, imperial beard, moustache, blue eyes. Dress: suit, waistcoat, Chesterfield topcoat, bowler hat, stick.

  “Not exactly guerrilla material,” Hume had said after the pair had left Ware, with a stern warning not to attempt to make contact with his friend. “I wonder if we’re not barking up the wrong tree.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Morse had replied.

  If the chief were indeed entertaining second thoughts, his right-hand man was not.

  He travels mainly on foot; not that he needed the confirmation, but it pleased him to know his instincts remained intact. He’d learned years ago to respect them, and they were telling him loud and clear that Bolton was their man.

  He couldn’t describe it in such a way that would sway a judge or a jury. It was a kind of buzz.

  TWENTY-ONE

  No man has lived till the Reaper he’s met;

  and come away with the best of the bet.

  So ’twas with Black Bart, from the Angel of Night;

  and with a fat bounty to show for his fright.

  It had not gone well. He should have trusted his intuition.

  The hammer dropped not during the chanciest moments, when intimidating the driver and maintaining that level of obedience were paramount, but in the first rush of success.

  There had been no passengers this time, glory be to God. One could anticipate the reaction by Company employees, trained as they were in the situation; a civilian, on the other hand, might panic, swoon, or take it upon himself to perform an act he thought heroic. There had been that idiot woman who’d distracted him by flinging out her purse, and in one instance an armed passenger who thought his pocket pistol was there for a purpose, only to be dissuaded by a fellow traveler, who’d seized his arm and called him a damn fool, did he want to get us all killed? Better vacant seats, and that much of the human element subtracted.

  However, an empty coach provided the Company with the opportunity to bolt the damn iron box inside rather than in the rear boot. Putting aside his native courtesy, Bolton had manhandled the driver by his upper arm into the rear-facing seat, out of reach of the shotgun laid on the one opposite while Bolton set to work with his hammer and bar. He’d gotten it open, distributed a poke of unrefined dust and a clanking pouch of coins among his overall pockets, retrieved the shotgun, and taken a step out into the open, when a blurred movement in the tail of his eye took the shape of a man with a long gun raised to his shoulder.

  He never knew who the man was, and came to the conclusion later that it was a Company messenger who’d alighted from the coach as it approached the top of the hill—Bolton’s own eight-year-old assault still fresh in memory—and taken cover with ambush in mind.

  In the moment, no such reasoning was possible, or necessary. Black Bart bounded to the earth and ran.

  At such times, the clock stood still. An eternity elapsed before something whined past his ear, followed close on by the bark of a report. He dove for the nearest thicket, unmindful of thorns. A flat, slapping noise might have been a slug nicking bark. Then he felt a sting and a hot gush flooding the back of his right hand. Running yet, branches thwacking his face and gouging at his eyes, he glanced down and saw blood dripping off the ends of his fingers.

  He picked up his pace, flinging blood like lather from a racing horse, his breath sawing in his throat and his heart thudding between his ears, for what seemed miles before a wall of exhaustion smacked him head to toe. The flour sack collapsed and bellied, soaked through with his stale breath, suffocating him. For the second time in his career he snatched it off and cast it away. With it went his bowler. He hunched with his hands on his thighs, gasping and staining the right knee of his overalls with his own life-force. Shaking, he raised that hand and examined the purple furrow across the back, still pumping. He shook loose his handkerchief and bound it tight, setting the knot with his teeth. Immediately it stained through.

  He ran again, head cocked for the sound of pursuit, until lungs and legs would have no more of it. The shotgun had grown as heavy as an anvil. He stumbled and almost fell over a fallen log, split open with rot and alive with grubs. Falling to his knees, he clawed at the pulpy wood with both hands—one throbbing—and jammed the shotgun muzzles-first into the crawling mass, covering it the rest of the way with sodden sawdust.

  The wound, he discovered, when while walking he braved himself to unwind the makeshift bandage, was superficial; nothing like as alarming as the scar he still carried on his temple. He stuffed the sopping handkerchief into a pocket (“Would that I’d done the same the first time,” he would tell reporters, when it was clear his race was run), and continued on his way at something like the pace of his leisurely strolls from San Francisco to gold country—a thousand years ago, it seemed to him then.

  Through the day he walked, and when night came like a girder dropped from a building under construction, he spotted a log hut, dark and overgrown with lichens, the primordial sign of long desertion. There he spent the night, on a mattress gathered of moldy burlap sacks, with only his clasp knife to defend himself clutched in his good hand. When dawn woke him, he searched the cabin for a better weapon—and more urgently, for a tin of food or a pail of water—but found nothing more useful than a soft felt hat, but useful nonetheless, to replace his lost bowler. The leather sweatband was stained, but he could wear it without fear of being seen and remembered as a stranger wandering open country with nothing to protect his head from the elements.

  One learned to be grateful for the little things; especially when he was still in possession of his hide and what turned out to be five
hundred fifty dollars in gold coin and a poke of untraceable glittering dust. It was more than he’d ever taken away from a single robbery; and, by God, he’d earned it. When he came upon a stream he drank from it until he almost foundered.

  The lights of Sacramento sparkled like shattered glass at the base of the last hill he would climb. He washed up in a bath house, changing a double eagle. The female clerk who took it frowned at the garish slash on his hand. She was a tall matron in a chignon, whalebone, and pleated linen; the very picture of a character in a drawing-room farce. “That looks nasty, sir. You’ll want to have it looked at.”

  “I will indeed. Thank you.” But it had scabbed over, and the flesh round it was a healthy pink. He’d soaped it gingerly and patted it dry with a fluffy white towel. Against all odds, the patron saint of pirates had defended it from infection.

  His first stop was in a restaurant, not too genteel for a man in rough work clothes, where he helped himself to two servings of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green vegetables in season, strawberry shortcake, and a pitcher of water. In a barbershop agleam with white porcelain and equipped with the latest eastern periodicals, the proprietor, a jolly Italian with ruddy cheeks and an impressive brace of handlebars, reacted not at all to his customer’s dishevelment—in gold country, millionaires came in all packages—but beamed brighter at the flash of yellow. He swathed the man’s face in a steaming towel (it put Bolton in mind, with a little sting of fresh fear, of his flour-sack hood), scraped away stubble, trimmed his hair and whiskers, and anointed him with bay rum. Feeling reborn, the patron told him to keep the change. He rarely tipped handsomely; but life was sweeter than ever, and why not share his good fortune? A man who had brushed so near the Great Imponderable must lose his dread of appearing conspicuous. He was flushed with a sense of immortality.