The Last Shootist (24 page)

“Okay, shove!”

Gillom placed his hands on the painted wooden dashboard from the front; Cunningham let off the brake, cranked the steering tiller to the other side, and jumped down to help Gillom push the wooden frame backward.

“Salesman said this Locomobile would do forty miles an hour and climb steep grades, but I think he was exaggerating!”

Grunting, boots slipping, the men got the Locomobile backed up as M. J. leapt onto the seat again to set the foot brake. Gillom held the vehicle steady as the young lady on the front seat looked him over as she smoothed her polka-dot dress. She graced the young bank guard with a smile. Looking down the road, the driver saw an older Mexican leading a string of ten burros toward them up the dirt track.

“Damnation,” muttered Cunningham. This was a wood train, empty of stovewood now, trailing up into the mountains to cut another load of juniper and oak to warm Bisbee.

The two automobilists sat there until the woodsman's son, moving the burros along from the rear with his switch, had passed. Gillom stepped aside. The Bisbee Bank's cashier let off the brake and with nary a “thank you” steered the town's only automobile back downhill. The young beauty, though, did turn slightly in her seat to give Gillom a little wave.

He thought about yelling, “Might be faster walking!” but restrained himself.

*   *   *

Gillom and Ease picked up their mountain wagon later that morning at the O. K. Livery and paid the stableman. As promised, he'd put on the removable top, which was a simple leather cover with foot-long flaps tacked onto wooden poles that slid into metal holders at the four corners of the rear wagonbed. The tough stableman had one last surprise for the lads when he walked out their “matched” team—a pair of gray mules.

“Mules!”
groaned young Bixler.

“Now, boys.” The stableman held up a big paw. “Mules ain't as pretty as horses, I admit, but they are lots steadier haulers. These two have pulled this wagon full of freight or folks many a time. 'Sides, we're busy on Sunday an' these mules are the best we got left.”

Ease climbed up to take reluctant reins. Both lads were frowning as he gigged the mules and set them off at a smart pace down the dirt road back to town. The stableman's grin bid them farewell. More money in his pocket renting horses to wealthier adult swains.

Ease had experience driving horses hauling beer kegs and supplies for the Bonanza, one of his tasks mornings at the bar, so he stopped the mules on a side street back of his saloon and handed the reins to his pal beside him.

“Gotta get our refreshments.”

He soon returned lugging two metal pails secured by tops and wrapped in wet towels to keep the beer inside cool. Ease also toted two bottles of clear liquor, which he packed by stuffing a blanket around them in the cargo compartment.

“Beer for us, wine for the women. Boss wouldn't lend me any glassware. Said we'd just break 'em, so don't forget to ask Jean to bring glasses. Ladies don't like to drink from the bottle.”

“You know where Jean lives?”

“She's got a cottage up Brewery Gulch. Lives with her pet parrot.” Taking the ribbons from his pal, Mr. Bixler clucked to the mules.

*   *   *

The parrot greeted them from the scrub oak outside Jean's green-roofed cottage farther up Brewery Gulch from the cribs and
bagnios
that Gillom had only seen at night. It was a quiet Sunday noon in the “territory,” with the whores and their customers still sleeping off Saturday night's dissipation.

“Hit the trail, hombre!”

Gillom started at the squawk, but Ease just laughed. “That's her bodyguard. Miners have taught this bird naughty stuff when they're carousing around here at night.”

The yellow-head flapped its colorful green wings with splashes of red at its shoulders and flew to a higher perch.

“Keep your pecker in your pants, pardner!”

Gillom had to smile as they walked to Jean's front porch. The dance hall queen hailed them through her screen door. “Howdy, fellas. Don't let that bird intimidate you. Fibber's just a saucy talker, not a biter.”

“Colorful bird, ma'am. What kind?” asked Gillom.

“He's a yellow-headed parrot, all the way from the Amazon. Probably would like to fly back to South America without a girlfriend up here, but I keep lookin' for one for him.” Jean gave Ease a welcoming buss and handed him a wicker basket. She looked almost like a man in riding pants, boots, a white blouse, and a short-brimmed, brown felt hat, which covered only part of her pile of red hair.

“Noisy, though, ain't he?” opined Ease.

“No noisier than the daily dogfight in our streets,” countered Jean.

“Manny at the Bonanza wouldn't lend me any glasses, Jean, so can we use some of yours?” asked Ease.

“Sure. Let me pack 'em in something.”

“Hullo, amigos.” It was Anel, walking quietly up behind them.

“Anel! Just in time.” Gillom got a fast kiss on the cheek before he led her back to their wagon.

“I bring fruits. Oranges, grapes. And cookies I bake.” She handed up her little wooden crate.

“I'm already hungry. No breakfast today.”

Ease packed away Jean's lunch basket as Gillom helped his
chica
up the side step and over the padded backrest to sit in the cargo bed, her back against a side panel. He stood in back of the freight wagon admiring her yellow dress, the petticoats ruffled over her high-buttoned light brown shoes. Anel looked up to anoint her smitten squire with the sunniest of smiles.

Red Jean wasn't so happy. “
Shoot!
Mules! I wanted to bring along my saddle for horseback riding. I can't ride one of these ornery critters.”

Neither young man had an answer. Gillom took her box of glassware wrapped in hand towels, while Ease helped his beauty onto the front seat beside him.

“
Hasta la vista,
Red!” squawked the parrot. This brought laughs, too.

“Says that every time I leave,” grumped Jean.

“How come he's named Fibber?” inquired Ease.

“Because he
lies
all the time, you saucy bird,” admonished his owner.

Ease snapped the mules' reins, causing them to lurch into their heavier load. The Jersey wagon pulled out from under the scrub oaks and onto the road back down Brewery Gulch, which wasn't crowded on a Sunday after church.

From his moving perch, Gillom noted the flaked paint on some of the houses and dance halls in the red light district, the rusted brass on their outdoor fixtures, a shabbiness he hadn't noticed at night. Bisbee's tenderloin was run-down, like the clothes on the customers idling on its boardwalks, or the drab chemises hanging off the whores languishing in the doorways of their workplaces, watching their little world stroll by. A few waved or yelled when they spotted Jean in the front seat.
Imagine, one of our own tribe lucky enough to have a day off just for fun,
they probably thought. A couple sports still on a weekend bender whistled at the pretty girls rattling by on the big painted wagon.

 

Twenty-eight

 

The grazing range south of Bisbee was where Ease Bixler drove them that May afternoon, to a miners' shack halfway the eight miles to Mexico atop a little hill. Ease let his passengers and supplies off at the old shack and then drove the empty wagon up the little hill to a water tank with a wooden windmill next to it, where he unhooked the mules but left them in harness so the animals could refresh themselves but not run off easily.

Gillom was pouring his pal his first beer from a lunchpail as Ease hiked down from the windmill.

“How was business last night at the Red Light, girls?” Ease asked.

“Exhausting,” groaned Jean. She passed her friend a plate of fried chicken as Ease helped himself to some of her potato salad and honey biscuits.

“The miners have come down with spring fever, the way they were trying to stomp my toes last night.”

“I agree so, yes,” said Miss Romero.

Gillom didn't look at her directly. “Did Luther Goose and his buddy come in?”

“I not see him.”

Ease uncorked the bottle with his pocket knife and poured the ladies wine. “This white sparkler may be a trifle sweet, but it's refreshing on a warm day.”

The older courtesan toasted the group with her wineglass. “To fun and friends in the merry month of May.”

“I'll drink to that,” smirked Ease. They all drank deeply and tucked into their lunch.

Miss Jean changed the subject. “Anybody here ever ridden a bicycle?”

Gillom burped his beer and didn't excuse himself. Anel giggled. “I have not ride, how you say, these bi-cycles. But I like to.”

“Don't you gals have to wear bloomers to get on a bicycle?” asked Ease through a mouthful of chicken.

“We had some gals riding bicycles Sundays in El Paso in their bloomers,” offered Gillom. “A couple of our pastors said they'd disgraced themselves.”

Red Jean's cheeks flared, to match her hair. “The Women's Club would say the same if we tried it in Bisbee.” Freckled hands fluttered in front of her face for emphasis. “Loose women, riding around town in their underwear.
Shame and disgrace!
”

“I dunno, those society ladies try to do some good, improve our foul air, put in more water fountains and horse troughs downtown, built a playground for kids,” mused Mr. Bixler.

“Their good works are fine,” snapped his girlfriend, “but those bluenoses are tryin' to run us giddy girls out of the saloons, even if all we're doin' is dancin' with a bunch of lonely miners. If they get the town incorporated, Ease, and pass a bunch of blue laws, it's going to cut into your business, too, deep.”

“I know, darlin'.” Ease winked at Anel. “Gotta keep an owl eye on those snotty old ladies stalkin' around in the dark,
watchin'
us.”

Anel frowned. “You think is possible, they shut the Red Light?”

“Sure they could.” Jean nodded with a toss of her signature hair. She swallowed more wine. “They'll get their husbands to vote to outlaw us
darlings of the demimonde,
as the newspapermen mockingly call us, and run us outta the dance halls. The cribs and parlor houses would be shut next. Then Bisbee's big party is
over,
boys.”

“What would we do?” The Latina was suddenly concerned.

“What us painted cats have always done, girl. Get on the train or stage to the next Western boomtown, one that has fewer matrons to get prissy with the entertainment.”

“Where is that?”

“Oh, in these parts, Clifton maybe. It's another copper bonanza a ways north, more isolated than Bisbee. But I wouldn't work up there for Luther Goose and his gang. Heard bad tales.”

Their distress floated right over Gillom's head. The afternoon was warm, the slight breeze soothing, and after a tasty lunch and a bellyful of beer, Gillom Rogers was drifting. His eyelids fluttered beneath the crease of his silverbelly Stetson. When the rattle on his snakeskin hatband began to vibrate with his breathing, the others noticed he was taking a little siesta.

Even Jean smiled when Anel giggled again at Gillom's light snoring. A finger to his lips, Ease got to his knees, leaned down to his pal's ear.
“Holy smokes! Look out!”

Gillom jerked up, eyes popping open as both hands instinctively sought his guns, which weren't there. He'd taken his gunbelt off to better enjoy his repast. His friends shared a laugh at his expense.

“This is just so pleasant.” He smiled, embarrassed.

“Give us a show with those
pistolas,
Gillom, boy. Wake
us
up!”

Gillom reluctantly agreed to redeem himself. He found his feet as he strapped his gun belt back on. Stepping away from them, off the blankets, he planted his boots. He shifted the double rig on his hips. He began slowly, pulling one six-gun, then both, spinning them on each index finger, forward and backward, returning them to their holsters.

“Show us how fast you surprised that
bandido
tried to rob us next to the Red Light.”

The matched revolvers almost jumped into Gillom Rogers's hands, so fast was his draw. Then came the tricks, spinning the guns in the air and catching them by their handles, one of black gutta-percha, one of pearl. Pinwheeling them crossing in the air, so that the butts dropped naturally into the palms of his hands. Over-the-shoulder spins, from behind, dazzled his small audience. Maybe it was the beer, or his brief nap, but he was relaxed and didn't miss any moves or drop one of his pistols.

Ease's mouth was open, and all three applauded as he slid his Remingtons back home.

“Jesus, Gillom. Never saw those tricks before.”

“Well.” Young Rogers wiped sweat off his palms on his jeans. “I been practicin'.”

“May I shoot one?” It was Jean again, reasserting her venturesome self. Gillom turned, looking about the empty terrain, then down at his friend.

“I guess. Nobody else around here to hit.”

“Besides us chickens,” said Ease, sitting up. He lit one of his cheap cigars, offered more around to the other three, who all turned them down.

“I can not esmoke,” apologized Anel. “Dance too hard.”

Gillom handed a .44 to the oldest among them, whose brown eyes flashed. “Hit the shack. Should slow a bullet.”

Jean lifted the three-pound revolver in her strong hand. The muscles of her forearm strained as she hefted it, squinted, cocked, and blasted a jagged hole in one of the thin wallboards of the old shack.

“Easy pull on the trigger.”

With another toss of her red hair, Jean followed his instructions—taking her stance, cocking the big pistol, and easing the trigger. More splinters flew.

“Now see if you can put one through that knothole.” The teacher pointed. The calico queen blasted away and whooped with delight when one of her shots clipped the knothole's inside edge. She handed the empty weapon back to Gillom with a smile as big as her daring.