P. K. Pinkerton and the Pistol-Packing Widows

by Caroline Lawrence

  I needed something to put under him so he would not sink down farther. And I needed something like planks to help him walk back up out of the gluey sand.

  But there was nothing out there but scrubby sagebrush and those big bulrush-type reeds they call “tule.” I rolled over like a rolling pin a few times to reach some tule reeds poking out of a rivulet & I cut them with my flint knife & hugged them to my chest & then rolled back to Cheeya. Then I stuck those reeds under his chest just behind his forelegs. That would hold him for a while. All the time speaking soothing words in Lakota, I used my flint knife to cut some sagebrush to pack around him so I could lie on it and stay close. I had stopped his downward progress but he was not happy. He was trembling all over.

  I was trembling, too.

  My vision was blurry and my breath was coming in rasps.

  “Hold on, Cheeya!” I cried. “Do not despair.”

  But I was in despair. There was nothing more I could do. Cheeya, the beautiful Buckskin mustang, was going to die. And it was my fault.

  JUST WHEN I HAD BEGUN to give up hope for my pony and me I heard a creaky, squeaky voice call out, “Hold on! I am coming. Do not move!”

  I turned to see a figure coming towards me from the east.

  The late morning sun was behind him and it made his shape a silhouette. He resembled a hunchbacked magician with a top hat and flowing cape. He had a wand like a magician, only this wand was six foot long & thick & he balanced it at waist level like a tightrope walker. He was gliding towards me and his cape was furling out behind him.

  How did he walk upon the marshy wasteland? Was it a miracle, like when Our Lord walked upon the water? Or was it some Devil’s magic?

  Ten-foot-long planks of wood upon his feet were the answer.

  As he came close I saw he was not a magician but a grubby, beardless man wearing canvas trowsers & a light-gray rabbit-skin cloak & at least three blue scarves. His rusty stovepipe hat was trimmed all over with bits of ribbons & feathers & suchlike.

  “You trying to get you and your pony kilt?” he cried in his strange, squeaky voice. “You can’t just set off across the marshland like that! Why do you think there are two toll roads hereabouts? Still,” he added, “you were clever to lie flat on the ground.”

  Planting his pole in the sand for a moment, he took off his rabbit-skin cloak & laid it over some sagebrush. Then he removed a backpack he had been wearing underneath the cloak & his stovepipe hat & put them down, too. Then he took the planks off his feet and put on some snowshoes made of bent willow, tule reeds and leather straps. At last he dragged his long pole & ski-skates over to where I lay.

  With his black hair, narrow face and leathery skin, my rescuer looked a little like an Indian, though his hazel eyes showed he was not full-blooded. He was clean-shaven, but that was about the only part of him that was “clean.” I reckoned he bathed about once every other year.

  “Who are you?” I asked from my lying-down position.

  “My name is Blue Supper,” he said in his creaky voice. “Who are you? And what are you doing out here?”

  I said, “My name is P.K. Pinkerton.” I was too ashamed to add “Private Eye” as I usually did. Instead I said, “I was on my way to Carson City and thought I would avoid the toll road.”

  “That right there was your mistake, friend,” said Blue Supper. “None of us can avoid toll roads.” He looked at Cheeya. “It was smart of you to pack those reeds under your pony’s chest,” he said. “I am going to use my long staff, which is sturdier. Then we must dig out his forequarters and wedge my skis under his feet. You can see his rear quarters are on pretty solid ground, so we will need to back him up.”

  Cheeya’s eyes were still rolling & his flanks were quivering, but he stood still as Blue Supper moved close enough to start digging him out. I helped. We lay on sagebrush & used our hands to scoop away the wet sand.

  “We had bad floods last winter,” said Blue Supper as we worked. “Carson River flooded its banks and made this whole area marshy. My ski-skates are handy for marsh as well as snow.”

  For every two handfuls of wet sand we tossed behind us, another one seemed to appear. It was tedious work and time-consuming, but soon we had Cheeya’s front part dug out.

  Blue Supper wedged his ski-skates under Cheeya’s hooves.

  I spoke the Lakota word for “stand” & with a shuddering effort, Cheeya pushed himself up. The mud slid off his withers and he gave a little shake. He was standing at a slant & his poor legs were trembling & I could smell his fear.

  “Good boy.” I wriggled forward to stroke his forelegs and more wet sand slipped down.

  “Now is the tricky part,” said Blue. “We got to get him to back up.”

  “I think I can get him to do that,” I said. I knelt up on some muddy sagebrush we had laid down & I gently pushed his chest & gave the command back! in Lakota. Slowly but surely, Cheeya backed up. Every so often I had to cry, “Stop!” and he would stop while Blue Supper adjusted the skis under his forefeet.

  At last Cheeya was free & shaking himself & standing with trembly legs on a solid, sagebrushy part of the desert.

  My pony was half coated with muddy sand.

  I was totally coated with muddy sand.

  “You gotta wash off that sand,” squeaked Blue Supper, “or it will rub you raw under your arms and betwixt your legs. Follow me. I know a place.”

  Dragging his snowshoes and pole, he led the way to a place where the creek had firmer banks. We all had a drink, especially Cheeya.

  Then I took off my soggy, sandy clothes & laid them over some sage bushes & went into the water in only my long underwear. The water was freezing but when I clambered back up onto the bank Blue Supper had a nice fire going. I stood steaming & slapping myself & hopping up and down to get warm.

  “You got a change of clothes?” he asked.

  I nodded. I had worn my best high-toned clothing but I had also brought my normal attire.

  “You best put ’em on.”

  I went behind some sagebrush & scrouched down & took off my damp long johns & changed into my fringed buckskin trowsers & pink flannel shirt & clean dry socks & moccasins.

  When I got back, Blue Supper had a pot of coffee brewing on the coals. I rolled my damp clothes in my new India Rubber blanket. Then I fetched my saddle wallets and we had a simple lunch of cheese & crackers with our black coffee. He drank from the pot and let me use his enamel tin cup.

  “Thank you for rescuing me,” I said, when we had eaten. “How did you come to be here?”

  “I’m a hermit,” squeaked Blue. “Used to be a miner. Me and my pard, Frenchy, had a nice little claim in Flowery Canyon. Then a passel of Frisco Fat Cats came and ruined us.”

  I said, “What is a Frisco Fat Cat?”

  He said, “A ‘Fat Cat’ is a rich businessman and ‘Frisco’ is what some folk call San Francisco.”

  I said, “How did a passel of Frisco Fat Cats ruin you?”

  He said, “They bought some land upstream and cut off our source of water and forced us to sell to them. After that Frenchy drank himself to death, so now there is just me.”

  “How did Frenchy drink himself to death with no water?” I asked.

  “He used whiskey,” said Blue Supper.

  “Oh,” I said. “Where do you live now?”

  “Why, here! I live out here in the wilderness, roaming all about. Sagebrush makes a fine pillow and I dine royally on quail, pine nuts and jackass rabbits. Sometimes I even get cheese and crackers.” His mouth curved up & his eyes crinkled in a Genuine Smile. Then he said, “You headed for Carson?”

  “That’s right,” said I. “For the Second Territorial Legislature.”

  “Politicians!” Blue Supper’s smile faded & he spat on the ground. “If they would have passed that Corporation Bill last year, then me and Frenchy could have sent
those Fat Cats yowling back to Frisco.”

  I do not understand about politics & corporations & suchlike, so I made no reply.

  Blue Supper stood up & threw the coffee dregs on the fire & stamped it out. Then he wiped his nose with his gloved finger and pointed east. “See them there telegraph poles? They mark the course of the toll road. Keep to the sagebrushy parts until you reach it and you will be all right.”

  Blue Supper bent to strap on his ski-skates. “It is only a couple of miles to Empire City, which ain’t really a city but just a Way Station called Dutch Nick’s. Another couple of miles takes you to Old Abe Curry’s Warm Springs Hotel. From there you follow a wooden railroad. It is another couple of miles to Carson. You should get there by mid-afternoon. I wish you good luck.”

  He stood upright & put on his backpack & rabbit-skin cloak & touched his forefinger to his beribboned stovepipe hat. Then, using his long pole to get himself started, he glid off through the sagebrush.

  All this time I had been thinking there was something not quite right about the hermit in his rabbit-skin cloak, but people confound me, and I could not think what it was.

  “Wait!” I cried.

  BLUE SUPPER STOPPED and turned.

  There was something strange about him that niggled the back of my brain.

  But I could not think what to say so I called out, “Why are you called ‘Blue Supper’?”

  Blue Supper laughed. “We ever meet again, I might just tell you.” He waved his hand. “Adios, little pard.”

  I watched him until he was out of sight.

  Then I took Cheeya’s bridle and led him in the other direction, towards the telegraph poles. We were careful to keep to the dry sagebrushy parts of the wasteland. Soon we reached the crowded & noisy toll road and not long after that, the grandly named Empire City.

  Cottonwood trees showed the course of the river beyond a single main street with a blacksmith’s & livery stable & couple of hotels, the biggest of which was called Dutch Nick’s.

  I let Cheeya drink from a trough. Then I tied him to a hitching post & went into Dutch Nick’s Saloon. It was about 2 p.m. and not too crowded. I went to the bar and asked for a cup of black coffee.

  The barkeeper confirmed that Curry’s Warm Springs was indeed only two miles away and Carson another two from there. (I had been worried because all Blue Supper’s distances had been “a couple of miles.”)

  Some loud teamsters at a table over by the window were talking about how “a thousand Paiute Indians” were gathering near Dayton to stop white folk from cutting down their piñon pine trees. The Indians said they would starve without pine nuts and that they would fight if they had to. The teamsters said they ought to make a law against letting Indians carry firearms.

  I shrank back in the shadows as I was wearing my fringed buckskins & moccasins with a Smith & Wesson’s seven-shooter in my pocket. I took my coffee to a little table back in the dimmest part of the saloon.

  I waited until the Indian-hating teamsters left before I went back out. Then I brushed the last of the sandy mud from Cheeya’s legs and also from my almost-dry blue woolen coat. I gave Cheeya an apple from my saddlebag and then I swung back up into the saddle.

  There was another toll house as you left Dutch Nick’s, but I was happy to pay 12¢ for the Empire-to-Carson toll road. Progress was slow & noisy with creaking wheels, bellowing oxen & cussing teamsters, but it was a fine road, made up of sandstone slabs as smooth as the mahogany bar in a two-bit saloon.

  The road skirted the Carson River and passed by several thumping quartz mills before striking out across flat wasteland and finally coming to Curry’s Warm Springs Hotel with its sandstone eagle up on top & the new penitentiary near a sandstone quarry. The stagecoach from Virginia had just set off west on a sandy road beside a half-buried wooden railway. I followed in its wake. Cheeya and I arrived in Carson around 4 o’clock.

  I had been to Carson City a few times with Ma and Pa Jones. What always strikes you is how it is big and how small it is, all at the same time.

  It seems as small as a pocket handkerchief when you take in all those mountains surrounding it and the vast sky above.

  But once you are in it, the town blocks are mostly half empty and waiting for fine stone buildings. And the streets are vast, some of them 80 feet wide.

  The streets are laid out north-south and east-west so that it is like being on a giant compass. But if you blindfolded me and threw me in a turnip sack and drove me somewhere else and made some turns first this way and then that, I would soon be flummoxed.

  Luckily I was not blindfolded nor in a turnip sack. I was riding a Buckskin mustang & had money in my pocket & a sense of purpose.

  My purpose in being there was to find Jason Francis Montgomery, aka Poker Face Jace, to see if he was stepping out with a Lady and maybe find out if he was in danger.

  It being afternoon, I suspected Jace would be playing poker in a one-bit saloon. But I could not just tie Cheeya to a hitching post and then go swinging through the doors of the first saloon I spotted. The lovely Celestial named Opal Blossom was paying me to shadow him. I could not risk letting Jace see me in my normal attire. I would have to wear a Disguise.

  In my short career as a Detective, I have used five different disguises for following people, viz:

  No. 1—Blanket Indian Disguise: old Paiute blanket, dusty slouch hat & tin begging cup

  No. 2—Chinese Boy Disguise: blue pajamas, clogs & flat straw hat with false pigtail

  No. 3—Prim Girl Disguise: pink calico dress, wig, bonnet & white button-up boots

  No. 4—High-Tone Boy Disguise: coat, vest, black brogues & plug hat

  No. 5—Negro Disguise: this involves blacking up with burnt cork & face cream

  Poker Face Jace had seen most of those disguises.

  I had to come up with a new one.

  A warm one.

  A good one.

  I had to choose a disguise that would allow me—a 12-year-old half-Indian kid—to enter saloons & restaurants & maybe even the place where they were meeting for the Territorial Legislature.

  So when I rode into Carson City that day to find Poker Face Jace, the first place I stopped was not the saloon. It was a store that sold Ladies’ attire.

  CARSON CITY WAS BUSY, with lots of people on the sidewalks and about two dozen tents in the Plaza, that big four-acre vacant lot in the center of town.

  I pushed open the door of Rosenstock & Price’s Clothing Store on Carson Street.

  A little bell tinkled.

  “We don’t serve your kind in here!” yelled the bald storekeeper before the door had even shut behind me. He grabbed my shoulders & turned me round & planted his foot on my backside & gave me an almighty shove. I was propelled at a high velocity out of the tinkling door & onto the boardwalk & smack dab into a youth of about 14.

  The youth & I tumbled off the boardwalk onto the street at Cheeya’s feet.

  “What are you doing?” yelled the boy. I had knocked two hats from his head and a notebook from his arms.

  As I got to my feet, I picked up his notebook. I could not help but notice it was covered with strange squiggly writing, as if someone had scattered a fistful of black threadworms onto the page.

  “I am sorry,” I said. “The proprietor put me out of his store.”

  He put on a little black skullcap and also a stovepipe hat. Then he pointed at a sign in the window of the store door. It read NO INDIANS.

  “Can’t you read?” he asked with a scowl.

  “I can read,” I said. “I just did not notice that sign. Anyway, I am only half Indian, but a hundred percent Methodist. Plus, I can pay.”

  “You got money?” he said. He had dark eyes & hair like me, though his skin was lighter.

  “Yes, sir.” I fished in my pocket and brought out a couple of gold Eagles.

 
His eyes opened wide into Expression No. 4—Surprise. “Well, come with me,” he said. “My father owns a clothing store a block down and we will be happy to serve you. Don’t mind Old Man Rosenstock,” he added as he set off north along the boardwalk. “A lot of people around here lost relatives in the Pyramid Lake Wars two years ago.” He tilted his head. “You only look Indian in a certain light and wearing those buckskins. You should wear something else if you want to stay out of trouble.”

  I said, “My woolen trowsers got muddy on the journey over. My shirt & long underwear, too. That is why I put on my buckskins.”

  He said, “Give me your dirty clothes and I will get them cleaned for you. Luckily my pa does not object to your type,” he added. “He reckons Indians are one of the lost tribes of Israel.”

  He led the way through a nondescript door and up narrow stairs and we emerged into a store. A sky window made it bright and showed colorful bales of cloth & shoes & hats.

  “Hey, Pa!” called the youth. “I got me a customer. If he buys something, do I get to keep the commission?”

  “Of course,” came an accented voice from the other side of a pile of calico. A man with oval spectacles and a gray billy goat beard rose up and peeped over at me.

  “Shalom!” he said.

  “Shalom,” I replied. I knew that was Bible talk for “howdy.”

  “What do you need?” the youth asked me.

  I said, “I need some clothes for my poor, widowed ma.”

  He said, “We don’t sell a lot of women’s attire as most women make their own clothes. But I think we have a black bombazine widow’s dress if your ma does not mind wearing a dead lady’s clothes.”

  I said, “She will not mind.”

  He said, “I will need your ma’s measurements so my ma can take it in or let it out.”