Gunman and the Angel Page 9

  Sally

  The words blurred, Dan felt a twist to his heart while the back of his head tingled, flashed then all went black.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dan Quint couldn’t travel until the first week of February, 1877. He made stage and rail connections between Yuma and Abilene, passed through desert frost and snow on the plains. He stared at pairs and small shivering bands of pathetic, starving Indians he passed along the way. Aboard the clackety jerk of rail-cars, he stared out train windows, remembering CK, and saw how crowded the territories were becoming.

  Dan found nobody to meet him at the Abilene rail station.

  He had left his horses and gear in Tucson at the Butterfield stable, close to the Buckley House at the Presidio. Through telegrams with Sally after he started to heal – CK died of influenza and he did not make the funeral. He still had to go because Sally wrote there was paperwork to get through. Otherwise, Dan was finished with Abilene. CK had called it years before. Dan never liked the town. It had no real identity – part of the west, part of the east – little more than a way station, stopping off place for cattle and goods. Dan felt he belonged in the southwest territories, though he still had to have a look at the northwest and Washington Territory. He had only stayed in Abilene because of her.

  The loss of CK created a hollow feeling inside his chest, and from time to time he felt a squeeze to his heart. Yes, he had loved her. He loved her the best he could, just not the way she wanted him to. Maybe that wasn’t love. Maybe he couldn’t love, didn’t know how – just wasn’t capable.

  Finally off trains, he slowly hiked Texas Street to the Silver Street Saloon and Pleasure Parlor in early morning snow, with little street company. He didn’t know who the town marshal was and didn’t care. Though his wounds had mostly healed, he still felt pain from riding the rocking, railroad passenger cars.

  Sally waited in the saloon.

  She sat alone at the same table Dan and CK often shared, a pot of coffee and two cups in front of her. The room smelled of stale beer and cold spitting tobacco and puke. The coffee pot sat next to ledgers and papers. The saloon was empty. Upstairs, girls slept after their busy night.

  Dan dropped his travelling-bag next to the empty chair. He plopped down hard across from her.

  Sally squinted at him, her lips turned down. ‘You look worse than when you left.’

  ‘Sorry I didn’t make the funeral.’

  ‘Expected. You shoulda made the dying.’

  Sally was without make-up. Her small face looked sour with not enough sleep – red hair up but coils of it sprang around her head. She wore a bright-red saloon dress, out of place in the cold morning, low and short to show off her tiny, perky body. Her expression advertised how little regard she had for him. A Franklin stove radiated heat from the end of the bar, another coffee pot perched on it.

  Dan sipped coffee. ‘Why am I here? You wrote there was business.’

  ‘You don’t know how many nights I held her while she cried over you.’

  Dan sighed. ‘I can wear myself out with regrets, over both CK and Mandy. I can push it ’til I think I got no more reason for living. I ain’t going to.’

  ‘Just gonna hit the trail again, right?’

  ‘Right. Get on with your business, so I can get on with mine.’

  ‘CK left the parlor to me.’

  ‘I figured, you was running it.’

  ‘She left the saloon to you.’

  Dan sat back with a frown. ‘Why?’

  ‘Maybe because she loved you more than life itself, even if you ignored it.’

  ‘I reckon you got good reason not to like me since you shared her bed when I wasn’t here.’

  ‘You reckon right, Dan Quint. You not only kill men, you kill hearts. They can call it influenza but CK died of a broken heart. If she hadn’t had me, she would have gone sooner.’

  Dan sat up straight, grimacing at a twist of back pain. He sipped coffee while he listened to Sally slurp hers. Burning wood crackled from the stove and the soft whisper of falling snow came from outside. ‘I got no use for a saloon.’

  ‘I figured that,’ Sally said. ‘I’m going to buy it from you.’ She slid two pairs of paper forms in front of him. ‘One is a Deed, the other a Bill of Sale. CK owned the land. Sign all four pages.’

  ‘No. I don’t want no money, Sally, you take it all.’

  ‘And have you come back to claim it years down the road? No thanks. I pay you a good price and you walk away, forever.’

  Dan shrugged. ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘I’ll give you ten thousand dollars. I been running it, along with the parlor upstairs, taking my manager pay and keeping saloon profits for you, three thousand in cash. CK was involved in debt.’

  ‘She owed money?’

  Sally’s little face twisted in exasperation. ‘She made loans to the hardware store owner, the stable owner, and even two gals who started their own tent whorehouse. She bought property out along the Smoky Hill River. She had half-interest in two hotels. That’s all collateral I used to get a loan from the bank for your ten thousand. I expect to have it paid back within a year then I’ll buy the other half of both hotels. I’m buying the property next door to expand the saloon to include a restaurant, and build the parlor to a Gentleman’s Club.’

  Dan said, ‘If you’re not careful, Sally, you’ll end up a tired millionaire.’

  ‘I don’t give pokes no more, and that’s the purpose of it all. I stopped paying for Mandy’s college so you got to pick that up.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘She got two more years – with her room and board, four thousand. I can take care of it and give you six.’

  ‘No,’ Dan said as he signed the papers. ‘That’s ten, plus the three in saloon profit. I want you to send four thousand to pay off the college, then eight-thousand direct to Mandy with a note that it’s her daddy’s money from the tin box. Give me a thousand; I don’t need no more than that.’

  Sally frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘When Mandy gets outta college, she’s got to pay for half a silver claim. Her Daddy owed it. They’ll say it’s worth more now, but she only pays eight thousand for her half. And since her partner got himself killed, she gets it all – for the amount her daddy was supposed to put up, what he had in the tin box. She pays it to herself to run the mine since she inherited it all. I still got to prove Jeremiah Dickers was the legal owner.’

  ‘Who’s gonna make that happen?’

  ‘I’ll make it happen, by pen or by gun, however they want it. I need the address for that there college back in North Carolina. I got to write Mandy a letter about one of the hombres killed her family.’

  In his Longhorn Hotel room, Dan had stationery on the table with a pencil alongside. He stared at the blank paper and sipped from the whiskey glass, smoking a rolled cigarette. He picked up the pencil and began to write.

  Dear Mandy Lee,

  Taking pencil in hand on a cold Abilene winter day, I write these words across the land to you. My wish is the words find you well and smart and not hating me so much anymore. My need is to pass on news to you concerning the demise of the late Mr Big Nose Rox Levant, whom I am sure you remember from killing your family and burning your wagon, and whom I found it necessary to shoot dead along with the late gunfighter Handsome Jack Mills. Sadly the late Mr Jeremiah Dickers caught in the crossfire was also made demised.

  I should have writ sooner regarding the shoot-out incident but I was shot some myself and it became necessary to look after my own failing health. I know you wanted to be present at the shooting of the hombres who killed your family and I am sorry you were not able to attend. The money you will soon receive carry reasons that explain themselves. When I am more certain of how the terrain is spread about the silver mine, I will contact you. In the while, now you have grown more, even to being a young lady, I hope the words of hate you spoke to me at our last meeting have diminished some. I think of you often and our days and nights on the trail
and always with affection. In case my news of the demised hombres upset you, and you wish no more contact with me, I understand. Also, Sally, a former soiled dove, now rich, owns the saloon and parlor and much other property here in Abilene, as the late CK, once known as Sweet Candy Kane has left this earth and is much missed. Moving pencil from paper, I remain sincerely

  Dan Quint

  Chapter Seventeen

  The middle of June, Dan rode Mesa to Yuma with Rowdy in tow. He boarded the buckskin in the stable to have a horse to ride while he waited for the return trip on the Butterfield. He rode Mesa back to Tucson. Though Rowdy was getting on in years, he still carried Dan on explorations north and northeast of town in search of the mining town of Darion. After each stagecoach run into the Yuma stage station, he took to riding bluffs and hills – searching for evidence of silver mine activity that might lead him to the town.

  In the heat of July, the stagecoach rumbled and rolled along through the landscape as afternoon wind blew, kicking up dust.. Coot drove the four-up. The stage passengers were two young school teachers from New Orleans. The ladies were making a train connection in Yuma to ride across the bridge into California and on to San Francisco where they had teaching positions waiting.

  The trip was the greatest adventure of their lives.

  Everything excited them – cactus, junipers, blowing tumbleweed, pistols, rifles, the creaking roll of the stage and Apaches on the horizon, sitting their ponies watching. Even an antelope appeared which sent the ladies into a frenzy of admiration. They did appear afraid of Dan though, who reckoned he looked too rough for them.

  Five miles out of Gila City, the stage came across a cavalry detachment of nine riders with a young lieutenant in the lead. They rode up to the stage at a gallop, with their rigging and weaponry clanging, kicking up dirt over the sagebrush.

  Coot reined in the four-team as the detachment surrounded the stage. He leaned over toward the stage window. ‘You ladies can stretch for a bit.’

  Dan set his Winchester on the luggage stacked behind him and swung down from the seat to open the door for the teachers. Once outside, standing on the whipped sand and dirt they looked like fragile white orchids about to wilt. They stepped away enough to show themselves to the cavalry soldiers and the young officer.

  The lieutenant reined his sorrel close and watched Dan climb back up to the seat. He touched his hat brim with a smile to the ladies. ‘Lieutenant Thompson Crust, at your service, ladies.’ He turned the same serious blue eyes to Dan and lowered his voice. ‘Your name, sir?

  ‘Dan Quint.’

  The lieutenant nodded, then looked at Coot and got his name. He glanced back at Dan. ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  The officer’s forehead furled. ‘Dan Quint. Aren’t you the gunfighter?’

  ‘I’ve been called that.’

  The lieutenant sighed and squinted at the horizon, braced against a gust of gritty wind. ‘Have either you gents seen Apaches today?’

  Coot said, ‘Saw three about a half-hour back – before that, two just before Gila City.’

  ‘What were they doing?’

  ‘Nothing – they sittin’ their ponies, watching.’

  The lieutenant smiled again at the ladies but talked low to Coot, ignoring Dan. ‘A party of ten hit two miners five miles out of Darion – off work, riding to Yuma for hell-raising. Shot them, tortured them and partially scalped them. We thought they were dead. When we found signs of life we commandeered a wagon and pulled them into Yuma.’

  ‘Are they still alive?’ Coot asked.

  ‘That was four days ago. Have no way of knowing. We think the Apache are gathering more braves and weapons to attack the town.’

  Dan leaned closer to Coot. ‘Where is Darion?’

  The lieutenant could not keep from glancing at the ladies, who pranced back and forth along the side of the stage with the open door, shoulders back, their pretty young faces pretending not to care. ‘Darion is on the halfway between Yuma and the northern county line, about three miles inland from the Colorado.’

  ‘How many mines around it?’ The stage four-team, aware of other horses about, bobbed and pranced in place with snorts. Coot pulled the reins tight. ‘Settle down there.’

  ‘It isn’t much of a town,’ Lieutenant Crust said. ‘There are three silver mines close by, the biggest is the Sarah D, named after the owner’s wife, I hear.’

  ‘You know who the owner is?’

  Coot glared at Dan, as if impatient to be moving along, with no time for damn-fool questions.

  ‘No, I don’t. The information I do have I got from the two men. I doubt they are still with us.’

  Dan leaned back. ‘Where did you find the wagon to commandeer?’

  Coot said to nobody in particular, ‘We got to be moving along. We’re on a schedule.’

  ‘From a large cattle ranch east of the town,’ the lieutenant said.

  ‘Did you get the name of the owner?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Of course, the army has to return the wagon.’ He gave the ladies another boyish smile. ‘The ranch was the Sarah D. The owner’s name is, Zack Deller.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Darion, Arizona Territory appeared to be, as the lieutenant said, not much. Dan had already searched north of Yuma but not far enough. Eight miles out, he rode easy letting Rowdy pick his way, met mostly with hot, biting, harsh winds sweeping shallow waves of sand and grit across him. Late afternoon, a pair of Apaches a ways off to the right sat their ponies, jerking with each gust, rifles across saddles, watching him – Dan with his hat pulled low, the bandana tied across his mouth and nose, still feeling the sting of grit blowing across his face, coupled with concern at seeing the stares. Maybe they knew him from rolling stagecoaches.

  He rode along the outskirts of Darion, not ready to go in. One main dirt road stretched between five solid, unpainted structures, two buildings a couple stories high. One was a saloon with likely a whorehouse upstairs. The building opposite looked like offices. The third was a general everything store. The fourth had a sign, Darion Hotel. The fifth was a competing saloon, bigger, with more windows upstairs looking out from the whorehouse, The Deller Waterhole. That was all he could see from riding slowly around the town. No marshal office within sight. Stretched out beyond were twelve different sized tents. Nobody was outside because of the gritty, blowing wind. The name of the town was block printed on a short cross driven in the ground as if over a grave.

  Dan rode on around the outside of the tents and outhouses. Five tents had solid roofs. That was how some towns went. A sturdy wood frame was erected, a square of twenty feet, or ten by twenty, a peaked roof frame on top. Cotton canvas covered everything from roof to ground to give some kind of protection right off. A floor was planked for something solid to stand on and to keep most varmints out. Some places stayed that way until the canvas began to rot and rip. If it looked like the town would be around awhile, more planks were brought in for a roof. The sides could be put up solid with no real rush if the canvas was still good. Wide strips of board were nailed in place to the frame under the cloth.

  That made up a town until the source of income – gold, silver, copper, timber – ran out. Then everybody moved on – another ghost town in the making.

  Circling Darion, Dan looked for a road leading someplace else. He had come in on a trail from the general direction of Yuma. He saw no railroad tracks anywhere. There had to be a road from the town to the mine, and maybe to the ranch.

  Wind continued to blow. Dan had just about decided to enter Darion when off to the northwest he saw a single two-up freight wagon head for the craggy hills. The road led away from Yuma, different to the one he used. Four riders flanked the wagon, each carrying rifles. The wagon was empty.

  Dan waited until the wagon was almost out of sight then he eased on to the road behind it. The view was hazy because of wind kicking up dirt and sand. Dan squinted, breathing through his bandana. Four armed men protecting a
n empty wagon. They came from the direction of Yuma – going where? Going for another load.

  After thirty minutes, the wagon and its four riders entered the entrance to silver mine property.

  In his Tucson room at the Pennington Hotel, Dan practised his draw. The Colt cleared the holster quick, again and again, ready to shoot. His arm and hand felt fine, but he never knew when it might freeze up on him. It had never occurred to him that when he met up with Steep, he might be the one killed. It occurred to him now, though he did not really know where Steep was, and had no Mandy for backup like Bismarck. And, something else he had to realize. His life had taken on a pattern. Killing men had become more important to him than living a life.

  At the Pennington Hotel a week later, Dan had given notice to Butterfield that he was done riding shotgun. He entered the lobby ready for a bath. Two guests sat in green velvet, stuffed chairs, each reading a paper. The desk clerk, a bald man past sixty with pasty-white skin and spectacles, nodded a greeting.

  ‘Key?’ Dan said.

  ‘Letter come for you, sir.’

  Dan took his key and turned the letter to see the return address – Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

  After the bath and a roasted chicken dinner in the hotel restaurant, Dan rode Mesa west out of Tucson and up the trail leading to hills where pine, firs and spruce grew. He found the creek he liked then dismounted and tied off the chestnut. He gently patted the side of her neck.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said. He checked to make sure she had enough rein length to drink.

  A breeze whispered through tree needles and brush. The creek, no more than three feet across, gurgled as its flow twisted down to a short waterfall. He sat on pine needles with his back against a skinny tree and rolled a cigarette. When he had the smoke going, he pulled the envelope from his pocket, slid out the letter and unfolded it.