McMasters nodded at the corpse on the table. “That’s what Dan wanted.” Again, he did not lie. “He was a fine marshal. A good man.” Also, not lies.
“Very well.” Ambrose flipped a page. “Is there any next of kin to be notified?”
McMasters shook his head.
“No wife?”
“He was engaged.” The words came out slowly, and McMasters felt pain in his chest, deep and more agonizing than the wounds on his neck.
“That’ll be tough on his intended, I suspect.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll tell her.”
His head nodded once.
“So, you desire a preacher and a few mourners. Will you be in attendance?”
McMasters shook his head and gestured at Bloody Zeke. “We have business elsewhere.”
“Yes, it is a long, hard journey to Yuma.” Ambrose wet the lead tip of the pencil with his tongue and wrote. “Mourners are not a problem in Goldfield, if we have a preacher. I am ordained, by the way, and miners do like to hear me give a hoot and howl and fine Episcopal burial.”
“That’s not on your sign.”
“I can’t spell Episcopal.”
McMasters felt hot, and he wanted to get away, out of Goldfield, or at least away from Ambrose.
“Coffin?”
“Your choice. A woolen blanket or a pine box. The pine’s harder to come by, but we happen to have a coffin already made. I can let you have it for ten dollars.”
“That’s a lot for a pine box,” McMasters said.
“Digging the grave is ten also.” He smiled and shrugged. “It is hard country with hard ground.”
“I see.” Oh, McMasters saw everything. “I see two colored men digging a grave in the cemetery and expect that’s for the man who is in that pine box you happen to have right now.”
Again, the pale undertaker shrugged. “His widow left. She won’t be back. She won’t know that her late husband is buried in a woolen blanket.”
“A blanket will do for Dan,” McMasters said.
“Indeed, sir. It is not how you are buried or where you are buried, but it is how you are remembered. The blanket is five dollars.”
McMasters shifted the shotgun.
“It is a clean blanket, sir.”
McMasters said nothing, and the undertaker flipped to another page. “How is it you would like the deceased marshal remembered?”
“What do you mean?”
“A wooden cross is two dollars. No name. There’s no room to pencil in a name on what wood we have for crosses. Or to carve one. We do offer a flat rock. We can paint the name on it for ten dollars.”
“I’ve seen your painting job,” McMasters said.
“Carving a name on the rock is fifteen dollars.”
McMasters pulled the tin star out of his pocket. “A wooden cross. Just pin this to it. It’s how Dan would like to be remembered.”
“That badge will rust,” Ambrose said.
McMasters handed him the badge along with a twenty-dollar gold piece. “Like you said, Ambrose, it’s not how you’re buried or where you’re buried.” He brought the shotgun down and turned to Bloody Zeke. “It’s how you’re remembered. Let’s go.”
* * *
Across from the livery, McMasters looked at the schoolhouse. Apparently, Goldfield had more women in town that he thought. From inside the school, he heard the voices of children as they sang.
He remembered the one-room schoolhouse in Nebraska. And the subscription school in Colorado. And he remembered the school in Payson, where all of his children had gone, and he heard their voices at the recital two years back.
The livery man interrupted.
“These ain’t bad horses. They ain’t bad at all.”
Turning around, McMasters put his right foot on the lowest rail of the corral. “Trained by a man I used to know—John McMasters. Helped him with a couple myself.”
“Been ridden hard, though.” The burly man with the thick black beard stopped looking at the sorrel’s mouth. “But”—he pointed at Bloody Zeke—“I guess tracking down an owlhoot like that one wears on a horse.”
“And a man,” McMasters said.
The man walked to the pinto, ran his hand across the back, and then to the black, and checked its rear hooves. “Well, I can let you have some for your pick of these.” He made a vague gesture to some mustangs, mules, and a few quarter horses in the corral. “You throw in all the gear, that shotgun you’re holding, and say, fifty dollars cash money. Or gold.”
“I’ve already been robbed by an undertaker. I don’t think I’ll be robbed again.”
“You don’t like being robbed, file a complaint with the marshal,” the livery man said.
“Where is the marshal?”
“Ain’t got one.”
“Big town for no law,” McMasters said.
“Fifteen hundred folks, minus the one that got cut up at the Dismal Saloon yesterday. We use the miner’s court.”
McMasters shook his head. “Little late in the century for a miner’s court to be the only law in a town.”
“Late in the century for a man like Bloody Zeke to be riding loose, too,” the livery man said.
“He’s not loose.”
“He’s alive.”
McMasters nodded at the horses. “We take our pick of the six horses. We keep the saddles. We keep the tack. You get an extra horse out of the deal. And you can keep that saddle and bridle.”
“And that shotgun?” The livery man’s eyes gleamed with envy.
“No.” McMasters lowered the shotgun and stared hard. “I keep the shotgun.”
The livery man, whose name was Wilkinson, looked again at the horses and turned around. “I don’t think I can do no trade like that. Horses for horses is what it amounts to. I got my overhead to think about.”
McMasters pointed at Berdan. “That buckskin is worth more than your whole damned livery, mister.”
“In most places. But this is Goldfield.”
“Then we’ve wasted your time . . . and ours.” McMasters gathered the reins to Berdan and headed back toward the main street.
“Now, don’t rush off, mister. You said that buckskin was trained by John McMasters?”
“That’s what I said.” McMasters looked back.
Johnson was wiping his mouth and tugging on his beard. “I’ve heard of McMasters. Most folks have in this territory. Up from . . . ?”
“Payson.”
“You got any proof?”
“His brand on the hip.”
“What about a bill of sale? I mean, I can’t be buying no horses on just your word. I need proof that you come by these horses clear and honest.”
“This is Goldfield,” McMasters said. “There’s nothing clear and honest between here and Tucson.”
“Well . . .” Johnson straightened. He looked at his horses, at those up for trade, and again at the Remington double-barrel. At length, his head shook. “No, sir. No, I just can’t do it. Not without no cash. Or that scattergun. I guess we’re done haggling.”
“I guess so.” McMasters shoved the shotgun into the scabbard. “Let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”
“Wait!” the man called out.
CHAPTER 28
“You drive a damned hard bargain, mister,” Johnson said as he opened the money box and counted out ten bills. “Twenty-five dollars. I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
McMasters stepped to the desk, took the greenbacks, and pocketed the money.
The men, except the handcuffed Bloody Zeke busied themselves with the horses while McMasters and Johnson sealed the deal, signing bills of sale to make everything as legal as things got in a town that had no marshal but still settled cases through a miner’s court.
“It was cheaper before you walked away, you know,” Johnson said.
“Prices go up.”
“And my profits go down.” He reached for a bottle behind the cash box, pulled out the cork, drank two or three healt
hy swallows, and returned the cork. He did not offer McMasters any refreshment.
“We’ll saddle our horses and be out of your hair.”
“All right.” Johnson did not follow McMasters out of the barn and into the corral.
McMasters heard the cork being pulled again from the bottle of whiskey.
He saw Berdan, his saddle forked over the top rail of the fence, and bridle lying across the saddle. Slowly, he moved to the buckskin and rubbed his hand over the horse’s neck.
“If that old coot or whoever winds up with you doesn’t treat you right, boy,” he whispered, “you know what to do.”
The horse snorted, and McMasters grinned. “Yeah.” He turned away abruptly, gathered his saddle and bridle, and carried it across the corral toward the other horses.
The men had all picked bay horses for themselves and a small mustang for Mary Lovelace. McMasters found a chestnut for himself. He did not look back at Berdan as he moved toward the new horse, which stood better than fifteen hands high. He tried not to think about the buckskin. It was his last tie to the old life, the life Moses Butcher had destroyed. Well, he still had the Remington twelve-gauge. But that was it.
Muscles bulged from the chestnut’s neck, and it had strong hindquarters. It was broad, solid, with excellent legs. It would carry a man a long way, even if it were just a quarter horse.
That’s what the livery man had tried to tell McMasters anyway. “Just a good for nothing quarter horse. Good for cowboying. Not much else.”
But McMasters could see some thoroughbred in the animal.
The sloping shoulders and deep chest. And fifteen hands was tall for a quarter horse. The chestnut would be able to run farther and faster than any cow pony. And that’s what he needed.
“Hey, mister,” the livery man called out. “Whatever happened to that John McMasters horse trader up in Payson? Is he still breaking mustangs and training them?”
“He’s dead.” McMasters slid a saddle blanket on the chestnut.
* * *
Mary Lovelace stood up from the bench outside Hayley’s General Store, walked to the edge of the boardwalk, and leaned against the wooden column when McMasters and the others rode up. He did not recognize her until she removed the new, clean, flat-brimmed tan hat, and her long, red hair fell onto her shoulders.
“Hell.” Deep down, he wished she would have run off, stolen a horse or taken the stagecoach that had been parked in front of the hotel when they had arrived.
He could not, however, stop staring at her.
She wore new boots made for riding and outfitted with spurs, and a split skirt of dark purple. A riding skirt. It might have been frowned upon for a woman to wear in a place like Phoenix, but not in Goldfield. Her six-buttoned vest was green and hugged her body—her curves—tightly, leaving no doubt that she was a woman, especially with her face scrubbed clean and her ginger hair freshly washed. It had already dried, since in the desert, drying came fast and easy. A long red silk bandanna was tied around her neck, but for the moment, most of it hung down her back. The long-sleeved cotton shirt was light, white and tan checked, and she had bought a pair of fringed deerskin gloves, too. The Remington revolver was in a russet holster, positioned butt forward on her left hip. He could see that the cartridge loops in the belt, the same color as the holster, remained empty. That didn’t, he believed, mean that the cylinders in the .44-40 were empty, too.
The Reb blew out a catcall of a whistle.
She ignored him and pointed at the bay mustang that had no rider.
“I take it that’s the one for me.”
“What makes ya think the bigger one ain’t yourn?” Emory Logan said.
“The big one’s for Patton. It’s not as much horse as that mustang.”
Alamo Carter laughed and turned in his saddle to face McMasters. “We’re at the only store I’ve seen in town. You got some cash money on you. We could buy some grub now.”
“Give Patton more time to make his pile,” Logan agreed.
“We might need more money,” Bloody Zeke said. “Butcher won’t stay in the Superstitions for long.”
“What makes you think that?” McMasters asked.
“He never does,” Mary Lovelace answered.
McMasters swung off the chestnut, wrapped the reins around the post, and stepped onto the wooden planks. “Wait here.” He entered the general store, still carrying his shotgun.
Two minutes later, five men rode up the hill from the desert and came down Goldfield’s main road. They rode carefully—like McMasters and the killers had ridden in—studying the town and the people. They rode with their right hands near their guns.
They did not pay much attention to Bloody Zeke, whose back was turned to the bunch, or Alamo Carter or Emory Logan or even the redhead on the boardwalk in front of the general store.
By then, the chippies had come out of the saloons or stood on the balcony at Delilah’s House of Wonders and whistled at them as they rode past.
“Later,” one of them said.
They dismounted, tethered their horses to the rail in front of the bathhouse—a hitching rail that, unlike the others on that side of the street had been empty before their arrival.
* * *
Marcus Patton looked at the whiskey drummer’s full house, tens over jacks. “Well now I know why you raised. That’s about as good a hand as I’ve seen today.”
The fat drummer’s mustache jiggled as he laughed, and the man reached for the money in the center of the table.
“But”—Patton laid his five paste cards on the table—“this is why I happened to call.” In front of him was a fairly substantial stack of money. Cash money and coin. The Dismal Saloon was truly dismal. The house did not hand out chips. He would have raised, but that would have aroused suspicion. After all, he had drawn three cards and the drummer had stayed pat all along.
The mustache stopped dancing, and the fat drummer quit laughing. His face paled as he looked at four twos with an ace kicker.
“You drew three?” he finally asked.
“Yeah.” Patton could not help himself. “Foolish I know, me holding an ace and two of clubs. You know what I was thinking? Straight flush. And then I pick up three more deuces. But that’s poker.”
“That’s cheating,” a voice called from behind him.
Patton slowly gathered the money as the whiskey drummer sank back in his chair. Only then did Patton turn around to see the straw boss from the second-largest mine in Goldfield. The man held a nightstick in his thick right arm and smacked it against his thick left palm.
“Last year,” Patton said cheerfully. “Man.” He shook his head. “A man with a temper like yours, I figured you’d be dead by now.” He drew the Starr revolver, thumbing back the trigger even though it was a double-action pistol, and shoved the barrel into the straw boss’s solid gut.
“Drop the billy club, buster,” he said, his voice icy, “or I blow a hole in you that’s bigger than even the entrance to your sorry mine.”
The stick rattled on the floor.
Behind him, Patton heard chair legs scraping against the wooden floor, and pistols being drawn and cocked.
“Easy boys. This miner’s a horse’s ass. And if you don’t want his blood staining your floor, just keep your seats and your guns unfired. Walt?”
Walt was the drummer.
“Sir?”
He was polite, but then he’d said he hailed from Birmingham, Alabama. They were fellow Southerners. Sort of.
Patton gave orders. “Put my money in that grain sack, sir. And that derringer Mr. Dawson left.”
Patton had kindly asked Mr. Dawson to leave his derringer behind—as collateral—when he’d left the rest of his month’s pay on the table. He’d said he would be back . . . after he got some more cash from his brother-in-law. He’d said he would have enough money to cover what he had bet and owed the gambler.
Suddenly, Patton wished he held that four-shot pistol instead of the .44-caliber Starr. At leas
t the derringer was loaded. If someone called his bluff or noticed there were no caps on the nipples of the revolver’s cylinder, his luck would play out. And it would be his blood on the floor of the Dismal Saloon.
“Yes, sir,” Walt said.
Patton grinned into the face of the straw boss, who did not grin, and who barely breathed. The man’s face turned redder than a beet.
That gave Patton a little more confidence.
“An apoplexy is a terrible way to die, mister, but not as fast or as painful as being gut-shot.” He raised his voice to the miners and drunks behind him. “Remember that, boys.”
He heard the drummer’s gaiters on the floor then saw the man beside him.
“Here you go,” the drummer said.
Patton held out his left hand.
“I’ll take the derringer then tie the sack to my belt,” he ordered.
The drummer obeyed.
“Go back to your seat, Walt. And pray no one foolishly discharges a weapon till I’m out of town. You might get hit by a stray bullet. You’ve already lost enough for one day.” He shoved the derringer against the straw boss’s temple.
“Turn around.”
The man did.
“We’re walking out. My back’s broad, boys. If you shoot me, I can’t stop you. But I’ll kill this big slob . . . and as many of you sons of bitches as I can take to hell with me.” He shoved the empty Starr against the angry man’s spine.
“Start walking.”
He thought he just might make it out of there alive. And then the batwing doorway to the Dismal Saloon filled with five menacing figures wearing guns on their hips.
* * *
“That all the buckshot you have?” McMasters asked.
The clerk harrumphed. “In a town like this, folks trade many things.” He pulled out a cigar box from beneath the counter and laid it on the top. “See anything that you like?”
McMasters’s eyes narrowed. “Actually,” he said in surprise, “I do.”
A few minutes later, the clerk handed McMasters a yellow slip of paper.
McMasters stared at the final tally and rolled his eyes. “You mind carrying them to my saddlebags. Or do you charge for that, too?”
* * *
Ben Butcher grinned at the scene in front of him. A big cur in a denim jacket and miner’s wool hat had a derringer placed against his temple and, undoubtedly, another pistol aimed at the dog’s back. The man using the big dude as a shield looked over the dude’s shoulder. A professional gambler, Ben figured, from the cut of his clothes. Maybe in his thirties or so, and used to that sort of thing. The sight of Ben and Cherry and Miami and Milt Hanks and Bitter Page did not seem to unsettle him. A guy like that could fit in with his brother’s gang.
Remington 1894 Page 22