The Last Shootist (31 page)

J. B. Books fixed his young worshipper with a solemn eye. “Yes, speed, aim, and deliberation are all critical in a gunfight, but you've also gotta have an awful lot of luck to live long as a shootist. It's not an occupation to aspire to, son.”

*   *   *

Gillom Rogers woke in a cold sweat from his dream. Tipping back his silverbelly Stetson, he saw the other passengers across from him were dozing, too. The eighteen-year-old roused to pull aside the leather curtain next to his back seat. Outside, sagebrush and sand flashed by under a new moon and he shivered.

They arrived in Benson around midnight, so Gillom recovered his saddlebags and unlimbered stiff legs down to the train depot. He decided to save money instead of looking for a flophouse. He found an empty wooden bench outside near the end of the train platform, put his warbag up for a pillow, pulled his wool coat over on top of him, and gradually fell asleep.

So here I am exactly where I was four months ago, sleeping outdoors with no job and no good prospects. And even more bastards looking to snuff out my candle. What a life!

*   *   *

A wagon pulled up after dawn to drop off luggage and freight. Gillom opened an eye on dusty sunshine. He hit the washroom to splash water on his face and armpits. He was starving, so stashed his coat and bags in the freight office and hurried into Benson for a fortifying breakfast of steak and eggs. Wasn't much to see, since Benson was a trans-shipment point for people and equipment and supplies moving south to the mines. Cattle, sheep, and horses were penned here, too, by Arizona ranchers, for shipping east in freight trains returning from the West Coast. The big dollar item was the tons of smelted copper coming up from Bisbee and soon Douglas, Arizona.

Gillom bought a two-dollar ticket to Bowie, the next depot east. The Tucson train wouldn't arrive until 10:00
A.M.
, so the young man spent time writing his mother. He wrote he was pleased her boardinghouse was back in business. He missed Bond and his school pals and guessed he would return to El Paso in a few weeks when his affairs in Arizona were concluded, before school began again in the fall. Gillom kept his words to Bond Rogers enthusiastic and brief, neglecting to mention being out of a job, killing three more men and being run out of Bisbee. His mother was turning gray and had enough to worry about him already. Instead, he included a photograph of himself and Anel, saying he had a new girlfriend. But it wasn't the photo of them kissing. He wasn't quite sure how his mother would take to his dating a Mexican girl.

Gillom mailed his letter and caught the eastbound train. He was only hitching a ride on the Southern Pacific for a couple hours, sixty-odd miles, so he kept his bags with him in the second-class car and spent the time oiling his old brown leather holster and cleaning his .44 Remingtons, admiring again their balance, custom grips, and nickel-plated beauty. He deserved these precision weapons. He'd killed six men with these revolvers! Now J. B. Books's six-guns truly belonged to him.

His gun work caught the disapproving eye of a middle-aged woman seated across from him, as well as the fascinated attention of her young son. Gillom Rogers paid neither any mind. This might be the last chance to do his gun care on a stable surface before he reached Clifton. If there was to be a showdown with Luther Goose, he'd better be prepared.

*   *   *

As Gillom stood atop the train's steps at Bowie depot, he could see old Ft. Bowie up on a hill to the south, twelve miles away. He stepped down and walked toward a waiting Wells Fargo stagecoach. The teenager paid the driver, climbed aboard, and the six-horse team was soon rolling north up the trickling washes off San Simon Creek through the valley of the same name.

Gillom figured it would take them until evening, with two stops at relay stations to reach another town, Solomonville. He realized he'd be exhausted by the time he got to Clifton, so he pulled his Stetson down again. The two other men inside the stagecoach were excited, though, about riding into Apache country, as Gillom dozed.

*   *   *

Solomonville was another small dusty town with one Valley National Bank, the gateway to trading at the San Carlos Apache reservation way to the northwest, or the booming copper mining country around Clifton and Morenci to the northeast. Gillom didn't need to see its limited sights, so he gobbled a restaurant dinner and retreated to bed in a tight room in Solomonville's only hotel. His ribs ached, his right arm still twinged, his butt was sprung, and his head was confused, full of worries. Somehow he fell asleep, but it wasn't restful.

*   *   *

Young Rogers rode another Wells Fargo stagecoach early next morning, heading up a valley along the Gila River, which ran down from Clifton's higher elevation forty-five miles northeast of Solomonville in the Gila Mountains. This toll road had no bridges or culverts, so was prone to washing out during storms as it ran alongside the Gila River. Gillom looked out his window at the Peloncillo Mountains to the south, but no rain clouds were to be seen.

Two relay station stops lay along this route, so the eighteen-year-old had more time to reflect on his two magic nights with Anel in his moonlit cottage, having sex during that deluge, the smell of her wet, naked body when she came back to bed from outside in the rain. Such thoughts aroused him. He prayed she wasn't a prostitute now, ensnared in Luther Goose's promiscuous web. He couldn't conceive she'd done that willingly, sold herself in a strange town, leaving all her clothes behind in Bisbee on a risky lark. But who could tell with young women, although Anel Romero hadn't struck him as flighty.
Not after she'd had the guts to pose as my silhouette girl!

Hours later they hit another stage road as they made the left turn up to isolated Clifton, nestled between mountains twelve miles north. Gillom emerged from his dark thoughts to engage a rough-looking passenger seated across the coach wearing a tired flannel shirt and old denim jeans, who he thought might be a miner.

“Sir, what's the railroad out there?”

“That is the Arizona and New Mexico line. They're expanding it this summer to standard-gauge, three-foot rail. Arizona Copper, which owns the railroad line up in Clifton, will make two daily freight runs down to Lordsburg faster and cheaper with bigger trains soon. They make connections in Lordsburg with the Southern Pacific, to ship our smelted ore through El Paso to the east coast for more refining. Copper business is booming, boy. We'll set another production record this year, easy.”

Gillom pointed out the coach door's little window. “What's that river there?”

“That's the San Francisco River, whose water we gotta have to keep our smelter furnace jackets cool, from all that heat refining our copper. Water's more drinkable north of town, for we've got salty hot springs around town and we dump our mine tailings in that river, too, so it doesn't taste so good down lower.”

Out their stage window Gillom could see the approaching town nestled in a deep canyon walled in by rock and chalk bluffs, two to three hundred feet high. The hillsides were gray and brown, treeless, austere, but the air was cooler, due to their increasing altitude.

“What are those two mountains?” he asked the gabby local.

The man craned around in his front seat, stuck his head out the side window for a good gander. “That's Clifton Peak to the north, and Mulligan Peak, another thousand feet higher, to its right. You obviously haven't been here before, kid, so I'll tell you Clifton's only got three streets, one each side of the river and another along Chase Creek, which has cable bridges across it.” The miner pointed and Gillom stuck his head outside, too. “You can see one bridge up there. They wash out every spring melt. The Mexicans have burrowed into the hillsides along that lower creek, cheaper land, but they're the first to be washed out when our summer rains come.”

Both men pulled their heads back inside for easier discussion. “Are there a lot of Mexicans in Clifton? There weren't that many in Bisbee.”

“Yes, many of our miners are Mexican, but not the shift bosses, like me.” The muscular roughneck snapped his suspenders with pride. “You from Bisbee?”

Gillom nodded. “Worked as a bank guard down there.”

“Well, Bisbee's a white man's camp, more organized. Clifton's so remote, we have to go down to the Mexican mines in Sonora to recruit many of our copper diggers. The Mexes are hard workers, I'll give 'em that, and they get paid fairly equal. But they stick to themselves, got their own cantinas and cribs.”

“What about Chinamen? Do they work the mines, too?”

“No sir. We won't let 'em undercut our wages. But celestials do own the laundries in Clifton and some restaurants, have their own tong societies and secret hop joints. They stick to themselves, too.” The mine boss pointed out the window again at the acreage planted in vegetables the stagecoach was passing along either side of the dirt road.

“That is Metz's Flat. Chinamen rent this old stableland to grow their vegetables they sell in town. Shannon Copper's just raising its new smelter down here, too, so we'll have three copper companies competing round these parts. Should keep wages decent. You lookin' for work, son?”

“No sir. Just up here visiting, looking for a friend.”

“Don't like to get your hands dirty, uh?” The workman grinned as he spit out the window.

 

Thirty-six

 

The Wells Fargo stage rolled into Clifton early afternoon. Gillom put his lightning-striped boot down from the coach and walked into yet another dusty Western town. He pulled his cowboy hat down low, hoping he wouldn't be recognized. He checked into the Clifton Hotel under another name, for all the good that would probably do him. Built in the 1880s and still the only hotel in town, the two-story frame building was notorious for its resident scorpions who had moved in during construction and still held regular dances there, nights. After washing off road dust, Gillom took a nap in his two-dollar-a-night room to catch up from his restless sleep in the stagecoach.

Gillom tried the chow mein at Jim Mammon's Chinese Café in South Clifton. The noodles and chopped vegetables had some stringy chicken in it, which he found quite tasty in its sour brown sauce. This establishment, run by a wealthy young Chinese who owned several restaurants in town, was recommended by the hotel clerk. Inside, booths ran along a long hallway. Each booth had heavy curtains that were never open while eating, after an old Chinese custom offering complete privacy to a man who might be entertaining a paramour. The restaurant was perfect for Gillom, who didn't wish his presence known in this rough town. His waiter, an Oriental of indeterminate age in wide-legged blue pants and tunic, didn't have many customers to serve early, but he didn't seem overly friendly to this young white man, either.
Just like they say, inscrutable,
Gillom thought. But as he paid his cheap bill, he tried conversation.

“Mister, I'm sore from my last few days riding stagecoaches. Can you recommend a bathhouse where I can soak my weary bones?” The teenager wasn't certain he'd been understood, as the Chinaman stood next to the table stroking his long braided hair.

“No bath, no. Laundry?”

“No. I need a hot bath.” Gillom held his back. “Sore bones.”

“Ah. River. Hot.” The waiter pointed vaguely north, uptown.

“Hot springs? In the river?”

The Chinaman nodded, took his money and dirty dishes away. Gillom left him a good tip, hoping to strike up a friendship later.

The scrawny desk clerk in the hotel confirmed. “Yeah, there's hot springs along the river on Potter's Ranch, little over a mile north of town. Take a towel and bathing attire, or go bare as you dare. Mineral water's free, but don't drink it, not pure. Never know who you'll run into at those springs after dark. Parties been known to get a little wild, late nights.” The clerk grinned. “Just what I've heard.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

Gotta get these bent ribs healing faster,
Gillom decided,
after banging around in stagecoaches these past three days.
So he took a towel and soap from his room, exited the hotel, and stopped in a saloon to order a bottle. The bar's business was just starting to pick up as the day shift from the mines got off work, so the youth got his whiskey without being bothered about his age. With his hat pulled down and towel tucked under his arm, he set off north up the main street of Clifton along the west side of the river, trying to disappear into the crowd. He noticed the street was dirty, empty cans and rubbish around, for this town evidently had no sewers or trash collection. He wanted to get to the springs about dusk so he wouldn't have to bumble around in the dark without a light, trying to find a bathing spot.

As he hiked the dirt road north toward the mines higher up in Morenci, Gillom wondered how this river got its name, San Francisco? It couldn't run across this wild territory all the way from that major city in northern California?

Two boys were using slingshots made of y-shaped pieces of wood with rubber innertube attached to rocket small stones across the river from its east side, trying to hit the tin roofs of houses in North Clifton, the best residential area. The boys didn't shoot at him when Gillom approached what looked like an old wooden ranch house back among the trees, away from the riverbank. Several rock pools were spaced alongside the river thirty yards or so apart and he could see wisps of steam rising from the biggest of them. Gillom sat and began pulling off his boots and dirty socks. He was careful to keep his holstered guns within reach as he removed shirt and pants, but kept his long johns on for decency's sake.

“You youngsters git on home, or your mothers will paddle you for being late for supper!” Two heads jerked up like otters' in his direction, and then realizing he was right, the youths scampered off toward town. As darkness fell, Gillom had the springs to himself, some peace and quiet at last, after several long, confusing weeks. He stuck his foot in the water, agitating more steam and bubbles from the bottom.