There was nothing pretty about a mining town, and Greenville was now no exception.
The town had grown, and was now maybe four times its former size. The street he rode down was a river of mud. Thunder’s hooves sank two or three inches with each step, then made a sucking sound as the hoof was pulled out to make another step. And the mud had a serious odor to it, because it wasn’t just mud. It was the refuse from chamber pots and dishpans, simply tossed out the door. A light rain had fallen the night before, and that was enough to bring the contents of the street alive with a stench that was not much different from a poorly maintained outhouse.
Lined at either side of the street was row upon row of tents. Smoke drifted from stove pipes sticking out through holes cut in the canvas. A wagon was working its way along the street, the mules pulling in their harnesses as mud sucked at their hooves and rose almost halfway to the wheel hubs. Children, too young to realize how desperately poor they were, ran laughing through an alley.
An occasional wooden building was sprinkled in among the tents. One structure, with a crooked sign nailed overhead, had been hand-painted with the word SALLOON, spelled wrong. The building looked like it had been put up in a hurry. The roof was uneven and there were gaps in the boards in the walls.
Johnny had come to town for two reasons. One, because he wanted to see the old town again before he rode out to visit Matt. The other was because he found himself hankering for a taste of scotch. It was late afternoon, but he thought he had time for a drink before he continued on. He had been in the saddle all day, covering the distance between town and his and Lura’s old home, and he figured Thunder could use a little rest. Then they would head out, find a place to camp, and arrive at Matt’s in the morning. But after seeing the condition of this saloon, he found his hankering for a scotch fading.
The street emptied out onto the main street. Ahead of him was a bank, with brick walls and a peaked roof. This was new. The last time he had been here, the bank had been a structure of wooden upright planks. As he rode on, a series of houses he remembered from before had been replaced by a small train station. Sometime between then and now, the railroad had come through.
Ahead and on the left was another saloon. This one was called the Cattleman’s Lounge. He remembered this from the early days. The roof was peaked, and the walls made of upright planks, but they fit firmly. Two windows faced the street, and a doorway that held two half-size swinging doors. Nice to see not everything had changed.
Johnny gave Thunder a light tug of the rein, and the horse stopped. He swung out of the saddle, his right foot burying itself ankle-deep in the mud. Johnny was in black riding boots that were dusty from the ride in from the mountains. He cringed at the thought of what he was stepping in.
He gave Thunder’s rein a turn around the hitching rail. He said, “I won’t be long, boy. We’ll get out of here and find a camp with some firewood and some good grass.”
You ride alone on the trail for three months, you wind up talking to your horse a lot. When your horse starts talking back to you is when you have to worry, Johnny thought with a grin.
A couple men milled about on the boardwalk. Dirty white shirts, woolen pants and suspenders. They wore laced-up boots and short-brimmed felt hats. Miners, Johnny figured.
They gave Johnny a stare. The tail of his hair was tied in fell a couple of inches longer than it had been when he left Montana, and his jaw was now covered with three inches of a beard that had been dark when he last saw this town, but now was a snowy white. His hat was flat brimmed and had a four-corner crease at the crown, and was dust covered. He wore a canvas jacket and jeans, and his Colt was tied down low on his right side. He figured he probably looked like a cross between a mountain man and a gunhawk. Which was probably an accurate description of him.
He nodded to them and they each gave a wary nod in return, and he pushed through the batwing doors and stepped into the saloon.
The barroom was a little bigger than he remembered. More tables. A couple of faro tables, and even a roulette wheel against one wall. A cloud of cigarette and cigar smoke clung to the ceiling and swirled about the rafters. When Johnny had last been here, the bar had been nothing more than two planks held up by upended beer kegs. But now there was an actual bar, like something you would see in St. Louis or San Francisco. Mahogany wood, and scrollwork.
Some miners stood about, and a few more were leaning an elbow against the bar. Some wore short-brimmed hats like the two outside, and others wore caps. Their faces all had the pallor of men who worked underground and saw little sunlight. Johnny heard accents he identified as Irish, French, the twang of New England, and an occasional Rebel drawl.
He counted three women moving through the room, trawling for business. Their dresses had necklines low enough that they would have drawn a scowl from Ginny. One looked thin and had a tired way of standing, like life had just worn her out. Which it probably had. There was no living Johnny knew of that was harder on a person than being a saloon woman. It was hard to guess this one’s age, because saloon women often looked older than they were. The other two clearly looked to be in their late teens. Probably hadn’t been at it all that long.
Johnny ambled up to the bar, shouldering past a couple of miners who didn’t show the courtesy to move. They gave him a glare, but that’s all they gave. He figured his rough look at the way he wore his guns made them want to be careful. Fine with him. He was looking for no trouble. He just wanted his glass of scotch and then to be on his way.
“What’ll you have?” the barkeep said.
He was about Johnny’s age, and had a tired look to his eyes. His jowls were fleshy and his stomach round. His hair was thinning at the top. And yet, something about the man struck Johnny as familiar.
Johnny had never been good about remembering names, but he was good with faces. Always had been. And this face connected itself in his mind to a name.
He said, “Crocker?”
The man gave a wary squint. “Yeah?”
“Artie Crocker.”
The man nodded again.
Johnny said, “I guess it has been a lot of years, and I’ve been on the trail a few weeks and probably look like something the cat dragged in. Johnny McCabe. I used to work the McCarty ranch outside of town.”
Crocker broke into a grin. “Sure enough. Johnny McCabe. Son-of-a-gun. How many years has it been?”
“Seventeen, if I’m counting right.”
Crocker extended his hand. “How the hell are you?”
Johnny shook the hand. “Mighty fine. And you?”
He held his hands out, indicating the room around him. “I own the place, now.”
Back in the old days, Artie Crocker had been thin and with a wild mop of hair. He had made his living pushing a broom here and occasionally tending bar. A lot of the cowhands had liked to belittle young Artie. A man who chose to make his living pushing a broom rather than on the back of a horse couldn’t be much of a man. But Johnny saw nothing wrong with earning an honest day’s work, no matter how you earned it. He had shot the bull with Artie more than once, shared a cigarette with him, and an occasional drink. And now Artie owned the Cattleman’s Lounge. Johnny wondered what those young cowhands from seventeen years ago would think, now.
“Drink’s on the house,” Artie said. “What’ll you have?”
“You still carry scotch?’
“Do I still carry scotch?” Artie set a glass on the table. “For you, sir, a double.”
Artie filled it half full.
“Mighty kind of you,” Johnny said.
“Well, we don’t see many from the old days, anymore. Most everyone’s ridden on. The town’s not the same anymore.”
Johnny nodded. “I kind of noticed that when I was riding in.”
As Artie talked, Johnny took a drink of the whiskey. The proper way to drink whiskey is not to just knock it back like a wild man, like so many did. The proper way was to draw a small breath, then take maybe half an ounce back on yo
ur tongue and swallow it, then exhale and let the flavor sort of drift its way up through you.
Artie was saying, “Old Doc Graham is still around. Sees a patient every now and then, but he’s mostly retired now. You married his daughter, didn’t you?”
Johnny nodded. “She and I settled down on a small ranch maybe a day’s ride north of here.”
As Johnny was speaking, the memories of those days were coming back to Artie. He looked like he regretted bringing it up. “I was really sorry to hear about her loss.”
Johnny waved it off. “We’re all doing fine, now. The kids are grown.”
“I heard..,” Artie was trying to recall just what he had heard. A bartender heard so many things. “You have a ranch up Montana way, now.”
Johnny nodded. “Built ourselves a nice comfortable place.”
“Good to hear.”
“Anyone else still around?”
Artie shrugged and gave his head a slow shake. “Not that I can think of.”
“You must see my brother Matt in town. He has the old McCarty spread, now.”
Johnny saw an oh, yeah sort of form itself on Artie’s face, but it wasn’t a good one. “I don’t see him in town very much, really. I don’t think he comes to town much. One of his sons is the pastor at the Methodist church, off on Valley Street.”
Matt had mentioned his oldest had become a minister. “His son Tom.”
Artie nodded enthusiastically. “Tom McCabe’s a good man.”
“And Matt’s son Hiram works alongside him running the family business, now. From what Matt has said in letters. Sort of like my son Josh is the ramrod at my ranch.”
Artie nodded not so enthusiastically. “Hiram McCabe. Yep, that’s what he does, I guess. He’s the one we see in town. Him and his younger brother Dan. Checks up on the mine regularly.”
Johnny got the impression there was something about Hiram that Artie didn’t like. Not his words, but the way he said them. A wrinkle of the brows. A look of hesitancy when he spoke.
Artie said, “You riding out there to see your brother?”
“Eventually. First, though, I want to see Lura’s grave. I was riding right past Greenville, so I thought I’d swing ride in just to see the town and get a drink of scotch.”
“What do you think of the old town?”
“Not what I remember, I’ll say that.”
Artie gave a bitter snicker. “That’s a good way of putting it.”
Johnny became aware of four men sitting at a corner table, who were staring toward him and Artie. These men weren’t miners or cowhands. They had the dirty, longhaired look of gunhawks. Or at least wannabe gunhawks. There was a certain belligerence in their stare that you didn’t usually find in men who worked for a living. And their faces bore the look of young men who indulged in whiskey a little too much. A little gaunt, a little pale. Reddened at the nose and around the eyes.
Johnny said to Artie, “Where could I find a halfway decent meal in this town, these days?”
Artie looked to a thin man with shaggy hair and an apron tied over the front his shirt. He was delivering a tray of whiskeys to a table where four men sat. A card game was underway at the table. At the center of the table was a pile of coins.
Artie called to him. “Little, go see what Mrs. Hanlon’s cooking for our guests tonight.”
With a nod, Little served the drinks then headed for the doorway.
Artie said, “Mrs. Hanlon runs a restaurant a couple doors down, and she fixes meals for my customers, too.”
“Is the food any good?”
Artie nodded with a smile. “Home cookin’.”
Johnny took another belt of whiskey, and turned to lean one arm on the bar and watch the card game. He glanced toward the men in the corner who had been watching him and Artie, and their gazes darted away from him. He hoped they weren’t looking for trouble. He wanted none. He simply wanted to eat the home-cooking and finish his whiskey and be on his way.
Johnny noticed one of the men at the table was not a miner or a cowhand. He wore a black wide brimmed hat, neatly blocked and with a flat crown. His jacket and trousers were a charcoal gray with thin pin stripes, and he wore a checkered vest and a string tie. Johnny had a sideways view of him and could see a short barreled revolver was holstered at his belt.
Artie said, “That’s Sam Middleton. Comes here almost every night. Professional card shark. I offered him a job running a faro game, but he said no. He said he just plays for pleasure, now. Though I’ve noticed he always seems to come away from the table with most of the money. I think he just doesn’t wanna split any of his take with the house.”
The other men at the table all looked to be miners, and the tired looking saloon woman stood behind one of them. The man wore a wool cap with a short visor, a blue shirt stained with dust and sweat, and suspenders over his shoulders. The woman was gripping those shoulders, kneading muscles that were swollen the way shoulders get from hard work.
“I’ll meet your two bits and raise you two more,” he said to the card shark, and tossed his coins to the growing pot at the center of the table.
The man to his right set his cards face down on the table. “I fold.”
The card shark glanced to the saloon woman—was there some motion from her head? Did Johnny see her nod, almost imperceptibly? Or were his eyes just tired, becoming a little bleary from all of the smoke in the air?
The card shark had a very light blonde mustache and a matching crop of whiskers on his chin. He said to the miner, “I’ll meet those two bits and raise you a full dollar.”
The fourth man at the table tossed his cards down. “I’m out, too. This is gettin’ too rich for me.”
“Well, what’s it going to be, Charlie?” the man in the black hat said. He spoke with a hint of the theater in his voice. Almost like he was reciting the words, and with a firm baritone that projected.
Johnny strolled over to the table, his glass in his left hand. Though he was right-handed, he usually held a glass or a cup in his left so his gun hand would be free.
The miner called Charlie looked at his cards hesitantly, then said, “I guess I’m out, too.”
Johnny took another belt of whiskey. The gambler reached out to the table and scooped the coins toward him. Easily five dollars.
The gambler glanced toward him. “Greetings. Care to join us for a hand?”
Johnny shook his head. “Thanks anyway.”
“Don’t say we didn’t offer.” He was shuffling the cards as he spoke. He began dealing them, five to a man. Johnny noticed the man was older than he had first thought. The mustache and beard weren’t blonde, they were white. And the man had fine lines trailing away from his eyes. But he sat straight like a younger man, and his shoulders were strong. “The game’s five card draw, boys. Nothing wild.”
This time, Charlie won, taking in a dollar. Then, on the next hand, Johnny noticed it again. The man Artie had called Sam Middleton glanced toward the saloon woman, and she moved her head ever so slightly up and down.
“I’ll call,” Middleton said, “and raise a dollar.”
Charlie shook his head and laid his cards down. The other two did also.
“If I were you boys,” Johnny said, “I’d take back the money I lost. Nothing fair about this game. The only thing sporting about it is how long it would have gone on before someone figured it out.”
Middleton let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Now, was that really necessary?”
The three miners were looking at Johnny. Charlie said, “What’s he doing? Dealing from the bottom of the deck?”
One of the others said, “I didn’t see anything.”
Johnny said, glancing with his eyes toward the woman, “She’s working with him. She has full view of your cards. Nodding her head if you had a certain hand, doing nothing if you had nothing. From where she’s standing she can also sneak a peek at your friends’ cards.”
Middleton rose to his feet, hooking his right thumb in his belt. He wa
s smiling but his eyes showed no humor. “Friend, do you always go about accusing a man of cheating at cards?”
“Only when he is. Friend.”
“Such a thing could get you very dead, very quickly.”
“I’d leave that gun where it is,” Johnny said calmly. “You’re not dealing with a miner who’s more used to a pick and shovel than the feel of a gun bucking in his hand.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Middleton said. To Johnny’s surprise, the smile became more genuine. “I suppose this town isn’t big enough to survive the clash of two titans such as you and I.”
Johnny couldn’t help but grin. He had been called a lot of things before, but never at titan.
“Tell you what,” Middleton said. “I shall let this go for now, simply because you have the advantage, due to your prowess with that pistol riding on your leg. But sometime when we’re on more equal ground, we shall see which of us is the more worthy gladiator.”
A man spoke from off to one side. “What seems to be the problem here?”
Johnny wasn’t going to take his eyes from Middleton, but from the corner of his eye he saw two of the men from the corner table who had been staring at him were now on their feet and walking over.
Johnny said, “Nothing that hasn’t been taken care of.”
Return of the Gunhawk (The McCabes Book 3) Page 4