Chapter 4
Tartarus was more or less as Rockwell had imagined it. Saloons lined both sides of the town's main street, no doubt with cribs upstairs for working girls. Other amenities included two competing hardware stores with gear for prospectors, a hotel and a restaurant, a barbershop with bathtubs in the back, a blacksmith and a livery, an assay office, and a laundry operated by Celestials. Small houses ranged back from the main drag without any seeming plan, and Rockwell guessed that many of the local miners would be sleeping at their claims, in tents or shanties. When it rained, the street would be a sea of mud, but winter had it chilled rock-solid with a light dusting of snow.
He found the local law wedged in between two of the town's saloons, the Gold Dust and the Lucky Strike. A small sign on the door announced POLICE. Rockwell tethered his Appaloosa to the hitching rail in front of it and took his rifle with him when he went inside. Just playing safe.
The law in Tartarus was forty-some years old and heavy-set, running to fat, with salt-and-pepper hair under a rolled-brim hat. When Rockwell walked into his little office, he was dozing, kicked back in a chair, boots resting on a corner of his desk. He didn't hear the front door opening, so Rockwell pushed it shut with more force than the job required, causing the marshal—constable, whatever he might call himself—to jerk awake and drop his feet.
"Help you?" he asked, resentfully.
"I hope so."
Bleary eyes had focused now, and spotted Rockwell's badge. The marshal stood and came halfway around the desk, then stopped, not offering his hand. "Rance Fowler. I'm chief of police in Tartarus. And you are ...?"
"Porter Rockwell." Fowler had already seen his badge; no need to mention it.
"That rings a bell," said Fowler.
"Does it?"
"You're the one who tried to kill that gov'nor. Back in Illinois, was it?"
"Missouri. And it wasn't me."
Frowning. "They tried you for it, didn't they?"
"Tried and acquitted."
Lack of evidence, the way the verdict read, although he had been handed a five-minute sentence for attempted jailbreak, prior to trial.
"I heard somewhere you bragged about it."
"You heard wrong."
"What makes somebody do a thing like that, you think? Shoot at a gov'nor."
"First thing, he was out of office when it happened, better than a year. In May of 'Forty-two, it was. And second thing, I never shot at anybody in my life. When I shoot somebody, he's shot and stays that way. Boggs is alive, ain't he?"
"He is that. Come west back in 'Forty-six, from what I hear. A big cheese out in Californy."
"Maybe I'll run into him sometime."
"You always wear your hair like that?"
"Like what?" Rockwell pretending that he didn't understand.
"I never seen a white man with his hair that long, is all."
December 1843, after the verdict handed down in Carthage, Rockwell had arrived in Nauvoo in the middle of a snowstorm, filthy and ragged, interrupting a Christmas party at the Prophet's home. Once the trail-worn scarecrow was identified, he had been favored with a special blessing, Joseph Smith himself pronouncing it. "I prophesy, in the name of the Lord," Smith had declared, "that so long as ye shall remain loyal and true to thy faith, you need fear no enemy. Cut not thy hair and no bullet or blade can harm thee."
And so it had been, from that day to this. As Rockwell's hair grew longer, so did the list of men he'd faced and vanquished in killing situations. Too bad the Prophet hadn't blessed himself, to keep from being murdered with his brother, six months later.
"I don't care for barbers much," said Rockwell. Keep it simple. "Can we talk about our business?"
"What would that be?"
"I need to find some of your local residents."
"Got names?"
He had a list but didn't feel like reading it aloud for Fowler. "You'd be well aware of them," he said. "They're Saints."
"Saints, is it?" Fowler smiled, a hint of mockery behind it. "Ain't they all in Heaven?"
Rockwell kept his face deadpan. "Mormons," he said. "How's that?"
Fowler's good humor did a fade. "We had some Mormons hereabouts," he granted. "Eight or nine of 'em, I'd estimate. They pulled up stakes about a month ago. I guess their claim played out. Maybe the weather didn't suit 'em."
"Pulled up stakes."
"The way I heard it."
"Going where?"
The chief's shrug made his belly wobble underneath his wrinkled shirt. "The hell if I know. People come and go, a town like this. They don't check in or out with me."
"That claim you mentioned. Where would that be found?"
"You plan on goin' out there, Marshal?"
"Might do."
"Well, now, someone else is workin' it, these days."
"Working a played-out claim?"
Another shrug. "Nobody said prospectors are the smartest folks around. They see someone's been scratchin' at the dirt and left, some figure all the hard work's done."
"Would they be right?"
The chief was frowning now. "Not sure I follow you."
"You've heard of claim-jumping, I guess."
"Oh, sure. It happens, true enough. Outside my jurisdiction, but we got a miner's court to deal with things like that. They take a hard line, too."
"You'd definitely know about it if a family was run off, then." Pinning him down.
The chief seemed hesitant to answer, but he squeezed it out. "I reckon so."
"All right, then. You just show me to the claim in question, and—"
"Can't help you, there. Matter of jurisdiction, like I said."
"You can't set foot outside of town? Is that the story?"
"Well ...."
"Because, I never heard of any law like that."
"No, no. I just got lotsa work to do, right now." Fowler waved one hand vaguely toward the papers littering his desk.
"Like you were working when I came in here?"
"Long nights'll wear you down. A man of your experience knows that."
"Directions, then."
"Well, sure. You head north out of town, then—"
"Write it out for me."
The chief turned toward his desk, handbills, letters and WANTED posters spread across its surface without any semblance of organization. "It looks like I got lotsa paper," he said, "but this stuff's all official. I can't just—"
As he spoke, Rockwell crossed the small office and took Heber Skousen's poster down from the bulletin board. "You can use this."
"That's—"
"Cancelled."
"Who cancelled it?"
"I cancelled him," Rockwell said.
"Ah. All right then."
Fowler rummaged in a desk drawer till he found a pencil, then drew a crude map on the back of the poster, including an arrow marked "N" for direction. An "X" marked the end of a straggling trail, north by northwest from town.
"That's the spot where your saints used to dig. Call it two miles and change. But they're gone, like I said."
"Yeah, I heard you."
"Don't know if you've been around miners too much. Some are touchy, you go snooping into their business."
"Their business means nothing to me," Rockwell said. Not adding the thought, If it is their business.
"Okay, then. You'll have no trouble."
"People always say that."
"And?"
"They're right, 'bout half the time."
He left the chief to mull that over, fetched his horse, and walked it to the misnamed Grand Hotel. Tied up again, another hitching rail, and entered through a sparsely furnished lobby with bare floorboards and a smelly coat of fresh paint on the wall. Some pink color Rockwell had never seen in nature. It set off the mottled cheeks of the reception clerk, a youngster in his twenties with a head of curly hair already creeping back around the temples. Ten years on, he'd likely have the coiffure of a billiard ball.
"Yes, sir!" he greeted Rockwell. "Welcome to the
Grand Hotel!"
"You got a room to spare?"
"Of course, Mister ... um, Marshal. Are you traveling alone?"
Rockwell took time to peer around the lobby. "Seems so."
"Right, then! Rooms are three dollars a night."
"Expensive."
"Well...."
"No matter." He'd get reimbursement from the Marshals Service, or the governor.
"Then, if you'd kindly sign the register ...."
The book sat on a kind of swivel, which the clerk half-turned to face it Rockwell's way. He took a dip pen from its inkwell on the counter, handing it to Rockwell, who inscribed his name on the first empty line.
"And may I ask how long you might be staying with us, Marshal Rockwell?"
"You can ask, but I don't know. Depends how my investigation goes."
"Investigation? My, that sounds intriguing."
"Does it?"
"Well ... I mean ... a mystery?"
"Of sorts."
"Well, sir, I hope you solve it."
"I intend to."
"Here's your key, then, Marshal. Room nine on the second floor, facing the street. If you need help with any luggage—"
"No." Then Rockwell had a thought. "About that mystery."
"Yes, sir?" The clerk leaned forward, eyes asparkle.
"What I'm looking into is a group of Mormons." Careful not to call them Saints, this time. "Police chief tells me that they worked a claim out north of town, then up and left."
The clerk, his eyes no longer bright, eased back and swallowed something that prevented him from answering right off. "Mormons? We don't have any staying with us at the moment."
"Well, there's one."
"There is? Oh." Catching it. "I see. Yes, sir."
"I didn't ask you whether they were here."
"I don't know much of anything about the mining claims, Marshal. Now, if you talked to the police chief—"
"Done and done. He's given me directions to their claim. Their former claim, that is. X marks the spot."
"Well, then."
"My job is finding out what happened to them."
"Happened?" Wheezing just a little.
"Where they went," Rockwell amended. "See if I can track them down."
"Afraid I couldn't help you there, sir."
"No? Well if you stumble over somebody who could, feel free to tell them where I'm staying, will you? I'd be pleased to meet them."
"Yes, sir. Absolutely. But it's not the kind of thing I'm likely to uncover."
"Who knows, eh? We live and learn."
He took his saddlebags up to the room and found it clean enough, if Spartan. Furnishings, besides the bed, included a sideboard and mirror, one plain wooden chair, a basin, pitcher, and a chamber pot. Filling the pitcher or dumping the pot meant a hike to the fenced yard in back, where a pump stood close beside the backdoor, and a privy occupied the farthest southeast corner.
It was still mid-afternoon, but Rockwell didn't feel like riding out, just then, to see the claim his people had supposedly abandoned without sending word to Salt Lake City. He preferred to make that ride tomorrow, once he'd had an early breakfast. Maybe catch the new claim holders shaking off their night chills, still a little groggy, and amenable to putting off their work a bit while Rockwell asked some questions.
But amenable or not, he'd hear their answers.
In the meantime, he'd have supper, drift around the town some, asking questions where he thought they'd have the most impact. Like dropping pebbles in a pond and watching ripples spread. Talk to the merchants he deemed likely to remember gossip. Later, he supposed some of the miners would be coming in to drink, gamble, and patronize the nanny shops. Rockwell could talk to them, as well, and find out what they knew.
If none admitted knowing anything, that ranked as information, in itself.
Before feeding himself, he had the Appaloosa to take care of. Rockwell left his rifle and his tomahawk inside in his hotel room, made certain that the door was locked, then walked his horse down to the livery. The hostler was a grizzled character who wore the disappointments of a long life on his face, but he was obviously fond of animals. Rockwell made the arrangements, paid for one night in advance, then wandered out to take a closer look at Tartarus.
It had been well and truly named, he thought. The town—not a community, he couldn't call it that by any stretch of the imagination—was a monument to Mammon. If it had a guiding principle, it would be lust: for silver, for the warm oblivion of alcohol, for pleasures of the flesh. Rockwell had trouble picturing his nephew and the other Saints in Tartarus, buying supplies or visiting the assay office. Everything they saw must have repelled them.
Or, were they seduced by the enticements of this little Hell on Earth?
Rockwell dismissed that thought immediately. If the colony had simply sold their faith for silver, why would the police chief say they'd pulled up stakes and left? To seek their fortune elsewhere in the world, without the simple courtesy of a farewell to loved ones left behind?
Unthinkable.
From apprehension, Rockwell's mind had shifted toward conviction that there must have been foul play involved. His job: to find the individuals responsible and mete out fitting punishment.
The only restaurant in town was called Delmonico's. The waitress tried to seat him at a table by the broad front window, but he chose a corner place instead, where he could watch the room and have his back against a solid wall. Precautions mattered in a strange place—and familiar ones, sometimes.
The other diners were not too dissimilar from Rockwell. Most were rugged-looking men, although he counted three with women at their tables. Wives, perhaps, and modestly attired, but sporting painted lips and cheeks colored with rouge. Rockwell attracted some attention—for his hair, his height, his brace of pistols—though he would have said the other men were more or less unkempt, and nearly all of them were armed.
He ordered beefsteak, beans and fried potatoes on the side, with black coffee to wash it down. Saints were discouraged from imbibing stimulants—"hot drinks," according to the Word of Wisdom handed down by Prophet Smith—but Rockwell made exceptions for a situation such at this, where he was trail-weary and had to stay alert. Meat eating was also restricted to winter or times of famine, and the rare steak he received made Rockwell thankful for the cold outside.
He took his time at supper, studying the other patrons of Delmonico's, eavesdropping on the chat from nearby tables when he could. As he expected, nothing that he overheard was helpful to his mission, but he got a better feeling for the people. Mostly, they discussed the price of silver and the probability of striking paydirt. Some had tried their luck before, in California, but had either failed to strike it rich, or—so they claimed, laughing at their own foolishness—spent everything they earned on liquor, women, or at gaming tables.
Rockwell couldn't overhear the female diners, seated at a greater distance from his corner table, but they seemed intent on smiling, sometimes laughing, at whatever their companions had to say. He calculated that they knew which side their bread was buttered on, and aimed to please.
The waitress came around when he was finished, and he let her talk him into apple pie. The slice she brought was large and fresh, served with a smile that Rockwell might have found inviting under other circumstances. As it was, while not suspecting her specifically of any ill intent, Rockwell had made his mind up not to trust a living soul in Tartarus unless they gave him ample cause.
So far, none had.
While he was busy with his meal, and then dessert, various diners left Delmonico's and were replaced by others of the same sort: rough men, for the most part, who had tried to make themselves presentable, but who would still have raised eyebrows if they'd intruded on polite society. Aside from grimy fingernails, unruly hair, and weapons, they were drawn and haggard, many of them anxious looking, as if they expected someone to come by and snatch the food off of their plates.
A consequence of guarding
claims, Rockwell surmised—or, maybe, guilty consciences. Prospectors were a rowdy lot, in his experience, with checkered pasts. Some of them might be wanted men, but Rockwell didn't recognize their faces from his stock of posters back in Salt Lake City. Any fugitives among them were secure, for now, while he attended to the business of the missing Saints.
When he could stall no longer, Rockwell left a dollar on his table, rose, and made a point of not acknowledging the eyes that followed him as he proceeded toward the exit. If he struck them as a bit mysterious, prompted some gossip on his own account and got the townsfolk asking questions, it might work to his advantage. He supposed Chief Fowler must have talked to someone since their interview, and possibly the hotel clerk had passed his name around, as well.
All to the good.
The value of a reputation was the impact that it had on strangers. And if it had been exaggerated somewhat in the telling, why, so much the better. Even the hardest man might hesitate to call out a notorious bloodletter.
Take the thing with Lilburn Boggs, for instance, in Missouri. Was it Rockwell's fault the former governor survived, despite two buckshot pellets in his head and two more in his neck? A team of doctors had pronounced him close to death, and one newspaper even published his obituary. Miracles did happen, seemingly, and Boggs was spared to meet his fate another time. In custody, Rockwell professed that he'd "done nothing criminal," and evidence was lacking at his trial, despite claims from a turncoat Saint—the loathsome traitor John Cook Bennett—claiming Prophet Smith had personally touted Rockwell as the triggerman.
All ancient history.
Tonight, he had new work cut out for him.
He was embarking on a walking tour of Hell.
Chapter 5
"I'm tellin' you," Rance Fowler said, "he knows that somethin's up."
"He can't know anything, unless you let it slip," Paul Beardsley answered back.
"I never did!" Fowler protested.
"Then you're sweating over nothing," Isaac Walton said.
"Nothin'." The echo came from Emil Jacobs.
They were seated at a table in a back room of the Lucky Strike, one of the three saloons that Beardsley owned in Tartarus, together with the restaurant and one of the two hardware stores. In fact, he was the mayor as well, a post secured by doling out free whiskey on Election Day. From that position, he'd installed Walton as Justice of the Peace, and Fowler as the town's chief of police. The only semi-independent operator in the room was Jacobs, chairman of the local Miner's League. A bottle sat in front of them, filled glasses all around.
West of the Big River: Boxed Set of Eight Western Novels Page 12