Down the street, Ben’s horse bolted and reared up at the flat smack of gunshots. Ben leaned forward in the saddle, hauling in the reins, but the horse was totally spooked. It began to back down the hill. Brodie dashed into the muddy road, grabbed the bit on both sides of the horse’s mouth, and held tight.
“Easy, boy, easy,” he whispered in the stallion’s ear. “It’s okay, it’s all over.” Without taking his eyes off the spooked horse, he asked Ben, “What’s his name?”
“Jericho.”
Jericho started to bolt again, lifting Brodie’s feet out of the mud, but he pulled him back, still whispering, staring into the fiery, fear-filled eyes.
“Easy, Jericho, easy. It’s all over. Calm down, son. Calm down.”
The horse grumbled and started to back away but Brodie had him under control. He gently stroked the horse’s nose.
“Got him?” Brodie asked.
“Yeah, thanks. I don’t think he’s ever heard a gunshot before.”
“Must not spend a lot of time in Eureka.”
Ben held his hand out. “M’name’s Ben Gorman.”
The younger boy shook the hand. “Brodie. Brodie Culhane.”
They decided they deserved a soda. Ben rode his horse slowly up the street to the pharmacy while Brodie clomped beside him on the wooden decking that passed for a sidewalk, shaking the mud off his boots.
“Sorry about your shoes,” said Ben.
“They was brought up in mud,” Brodie answered.
They got to the pharmacy, and Ben jumped off Jericho and tied him to the hitch rail. They both looked up the next block on the other side of the street, where a crowd had gathered around the two bodies.
“I never saw a shooting before,” Ben said with awe.
“Happens once or twice a month. Sometimes I pick up a dime for helping Old Stalk stuff them in the box.”
“You touch them!” Ben’s eyes were as round as silver dollars.
Brodie laughed. “They’re dead; they don’t bite.”
“Two sarsaparilla sodas,” Ben said and reaching in his pocket took out a handful of change and smacked four pennies on the small round table as they sat down. “My treat,” he said.
As they sat down to drink their sarsaparillas, Brodie’s mitt fell from his pocket, and Ben snatched it up, admiring it for a moment before handing it back.
“You a baseballer?”
“I play a coupla times a week.”
“Where?”
“They got a diamond down toward Milltown. Kids from the school play sides-up there. One side or the other always picks me. I ain’t much at catching but I can knock the ball clean out of the field if I get a bite at it. How about you?”
“No,” Ben said, shaking his head and looking down at the floor for a moment. “I’m from up there,” he said, jerking his thumb toward the Hill as if embarrassed to admit it. “Aren’t enough kids in our little school to get one team together, let alone two. But I practice pitching. I throw at an archery target.”
“You any good?”
“I can pitch a curve. I’m not much at batting but I can sure pitch.” He paused a minute, and said, “Think they’d let me play?”
“Sure, ‘specially if you can pitch. Pitchers are hard to come by. I usually go on Thursday and Sunday. I get off those days. I gotta work Saturdays.”
“How old are you?” Ben asked.
“Fourteen comin’ up. How about you?”
“I turned fourteen in September.” They sipped their drinks for a minute or so and then Ben asked, “Where do you work?”
“I wrangle horses for the railroad. Up at end-o’-track. Get outta school at one, go to work from two ’til six. But it pays good—twenty-five cents a day.”
Ben almost swallowed his straw. His weekly allowance was more than Brodie made working five days a week.
“How do you get to the ball field? Must be three, four miles over there?”
“I walk.”
Ben thought for a moment, then said, “Tell you what, I’ll meet you up at the ridge road at two on Sunday. I’ll bring an extra horse.”
Brodie smiled a cautious smile.
“Yer on,” he answered.
Almost four years and they had been as close as brothers ever since.
“We’re gonna catch it if Mr. Eli finds out we come down here,” Brodie said, as the horses slogged through the mud.
“Then we won’t tell him,” Ben answered with a brazen smile.
“Yer old man knows everything.” He paused and rephrased the thought. “Mr. Eli’ll know we were in town before we get home. No way we can lie to him, Ben.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Ben reached over and slugged Brodie’s arm. “Gotta live dangerously once in a while.”
They reached the edge of town.
Eureka was the unfortunate legacy of a robber baron named Jesse Milstrum Crane. In 1875, Crane, a con man and gambler, escaped west to San Francisco with a trunk containing close to a million dollars, leaving in his wake a dozen irate investors in a defunct railroad line pillaged by him, one of many cons that had earned him his fortune. The heavyset, hard-drinking, womanizing swindler saw new opportunities in the wide-open western city. He bought an impressive house on Nob Hill, joined the best club, opened accounts in several of the city’s biggest banks, and planned his grandest scheme yet—a railroad down the coast to Los Angeles, which he called the JMC and Pacific Line—and he offered his rich new friends an opportunity to buy into the company. His two biggest investors were Shamus O’Dell and Eli Gorman. As the tracks were laid south down the rugged coast, Crane was busy behind the scenes, scheming to steal every dollar he could from the company.
He might have succeeded, except one night his past caught up with him. As he was walking up the steps of his opulent home, a figure stepped out of the fog, and Crane found himself face-to-face with an eastern businessman he had cleaned out five years earlier.
“You miserable bastard,” the man’s trembling voice said. “You ruined my life. You stole everything I had . . .”
Crane cut him off by laughing in his face. “You whining little . . .” he started—and never finished the sentence.
The man held his arm at full length a foot from Crane’s face and shot him in the forehead. The derringer made a flat sound, like hands clapping together. Crane’s head jerked backward. His derby flew off and bounced away in the fog. A dribble of blood ran down his face as he staggered backward against an iron fence and fell to his knees. He looked up at the face in the fog, tried to remember his assailant’s name, but there had been so many . . .
The second shot shattered his left eye. Crane’s shoulders slumped and he toppled sideways to the sidewalk. He was dead by the time his killer fired a third shot into his own brain.
Accountants quickly discovered Crane’s embezzlement, and Gorman and O’Dell took over the company, which included the sprawling San Pietro valley, ten miles west of the track and a hundred miles north of the growing town of Los Angeles. It was their decision to build a spur to the ocean and build estates on the surrounding heights. But the spur also brought with it “end-o’-track” and a raunchy honky-tonk, ten miles west on a Pacific bay, that serviced the roughnecks who did the harsh job of laying track and who settled arguments with fists, guns, or knives.
With them came the gamblers and pimps.
And with the gamblers and pimps came a hard-boiled young gangster who had learned his trade on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco. His name was Arnie Riker and he soon ruled the small town with a bunch of young toughs he had brought in from the big city.
As Ben and Brodie came down the road, their horses reined in, Arnie Riker was sitting on the porch of his Double Eagle Hotel, which commanded the southeast corner of the town. It was the largest building in town. Three stories, nearly a city block square, and badly in need of a paint job. It also housed a whorehouse, boasted the town’s largest bar and gambling emporium, and had a pool table in the lobby. Riker’s chair was leaning bac
k against the wall of the hotel, his feet dangling a foot off the porch floor. Riker was a dandy. He was dressed in a light tan vest and pants, with a flowered shirt open at the collar, his feet encased in shiny black shoes and spats.
Four of Riker’s hooligans were in the lobby of the hotel shooting pool. Rodney Guilfoyle was leaning across the table, lining up a bank shot. The sleeves of the eighteen-year-old’s striped shirt were pulled back from the wrist by garters at his biceps. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. He slid the pool cue across the table and stood up. He was close to six feet tall, lean except for his thick neck and the beginning of a beer belly, which sagged over his pants. His red hair was an unruly mop. He looked through the big window in the front, and saw Ben and Brodie turn into the main street.
“Looka there,” he said, “the sheeny rich kid and his pal.”
He walked out on the porch, down the steps to the wood-slat sidewalk and, as the two boys rode past, he flicked his cigarette at them. It arced past Brodie’s face and bounced off Ben’s shoulder.
“Hey, kid,” Guilfoyle said to Brodie, “who’s your kike friend?”
Brodie did not hesitate. He handed his reins to Ben.
“Hold my horse,” he snapped as he swung out of the saddle and landed flat-footed on the wooden walk in front of the red-haired lout.
“What d’you want?” Guilfoyle sneered, his thumbs hooked though his suspenders.
Brodie didn’t say anything. He was sizing up Guilfoyle, remembering what his father had told him early on about street fighting: Size up your foe. Look for his soft spots. Distract him. Hit first. Go for his nose. It hurts like hell, knocks him off balance, draws blood. Draw first blood, you win.
Guilfoyle had three inches on him and probably twenty pounds. But he was a dimwit, which meant he was slow. And he had bad teeth, rotten teeth.
“Your breath is uglier than you are,” Brodie said. “I can smell you from here.”
On the porch, Arnie Riker frowned and leaned forward. His front chair legs smacked hard on the porch floor.
Guilfoyle’s smile evaporated. He looked puzzled.
Brodie took the instant. He kicked Guilfoyle in the shin. The big kid yowled like an injured dog, lost his balance, reached down and as he did, Brodie threw the hardest punch he could muster, a hard right straight into Guilfoyle’s nose. Brodie felt Guilfoyle’s bones crush, felt the cartilage flatten, felt the warm flood of blood on his fist.
Guilfoyle staggered back several steps, blood streaming from his nose, pain gurgling in his throat. Brodie quickly followed him, hit him with a left and a right in the stomach. Guilfoyle roared with rage, threw a wild left that clipped Brodie on the corner of his left eye. It was a glancing blow, but it snapped Brodie’s head and he saw sparks for a moment. But it didn’t slow him down. He stepped in and kneed Guilfoyle in the groin, and as the young thug dropped to his knees, Brodie put all he had into a roundhouse right. It smashed into Guilfoyle’s mouth and Brodie felt the big redhead’s teeth crumble, felt pain in his own knuckles.
Guilfoyle fell sideways off the walk into the mud. He lay on his back, one hand clutching his broken nose and busted teeth, the other grabbing his groin. Tears were flowing down his cheeks.
Riker stood up, his fists clenched in anger.
“Stand up,” he yelled. “Stand up, you damn crybaby.”
Guilfoyle groaned, rolled on his side, and tried to get up, but he was whipped. His hand slid in the mud and he fell again. He spit out a broken tooth and smeared blood over his face with the back of his hand.
Disgusted, Riker spat at Guilfoyle, and turned to the other three toughs who had joined him to watch the fight.
“Knock that little shit into the middle of next week,” he snarled.
One of them reached inside the door and grabbed a baseball bat. The three of them started down the steps.
Ben had eased the horses up to the hitch rail. He got off his horse, tied them both up, and hurried to join Brodie.
The three toughs walked toward Brodie, who didn’t move an inch. He was sizing them up as they sauntered toward him. He’d feint a left toward the one in the middle, smack the one holding the bat with a right to the mouth, and hopefully grab the bat and even things up.
It never happened.
A shadow as big as a cloud fell across them. Riker’s hooligans looked up and Brodie looked over his shoulder.
Buck Tallman was sitting on a strawberry roan, his back as straight as a wall, his blond hair curling down around his shoulders from under a flat western hat. His face was leathery tan with a bushy handlebar mustache, its ends pointing toward flinty gray eyes. He was wearing a light-colored leather jacket with fringe down the sleeves. His sheriff’s badge was pinned to the holster where his .44 Peacemaker nestled on his hip. It looked as big as a cannon.
He smiled down at Riker’s young roughnecks and at the stricken Guilfoyle.
“One on one’s a fair fight,” he said, looking straight into Riker’s eyes. “Three on one don’t work with me. Understood?”
Riker didn’t say anything. The three ruffians nodded and went meekly back into the hotel. Riker stared down at the beaten Guilfoyle, who was still sprawled in the mud, and shook his head.
“You’re pitiful,” he growled. Then he turned and went into the brothel.
Buck Tallman was a product of the previous century, of lawless western towns where violence was a way of life. Tallman had brought to Eureka the harsh morality of that frontier, had ridden with Pat Garrett and Bat Masterson, and had dime novels written about him.
Nobody messed with Buck Tallman. Everybody knew he was hired by the men on the Hill, the Olympus of the gods who owned the railroad and the land, and had friends in high places in Sacramento. They called the shots. In Eureka, Buck Tallman’s job was to keep the peace within the limits they set.
Tallman leaned forward in the saddle and held his hand out to Brodie, who grabbed it and was swung up behind the saddle of the colorful rider.
“Thanks,” Brodie said.
“What are you two doin’ down here? Y’know how Mr. Eli feels about that.”
“Going to get a soda,” Ben answered. “We’ve been playing baseball up on the field.”
Tallman looked back at Brodie. “You got a little shiner there. Needs some ice.”
As they rode the block toward the pharmacy, Brodie put both hands under himself and swung over onto his own horse. They pulled up in front of a small shop with a large window announcing “Gullman’s Pharmaceutical Parlor,” with a rendering of a mortar and pestle under the lettering.
“Hey, Doc,” Tallman called out.
“Yes, sir,” came the answer from inside the store, and Gullman stepped out.
“How about bringin’ us three strawberry soda pops? Put ’em on my tab.”
“Good enough,” the owner answered. “They’re good and cold; Jesse just come back from the icehouse.”
“Good, throw some ice in a small bag while you’re about it,” Tallman said.
Gullman returned quickly with the three sodas and a paper bag of ice.
Tallman wheeled the roan around and headed toward the ocean, with Ben and Brodie following. They tethered their horses to a tree at the edge of the beach and hunched down Indian-style on the sand. For a change, the sun was out. The sky was cloudless. It was so clear you could see the waves breaking at the entrance to the bay, almost two miles away.
Brodie dug some ice out of the soggy bag and winced as he pressed it against the welt on the corner of his eye. Water dribbled down the side of his face.
“You’ll be goin’ back East soon, won’t you, Ben?” Tallman said.
Ben nodded. “Papa and I are going to Boston in a month to get me set up. Soon as school’s out.”
“You gonna marry Isabel?”
“Well, she’s going East to school, too,” Ben said, his face reddening. “But it’s too early to be thinking about getting married.”
“How about you, Brodie? What are you
gonna do?”
Brodie picked up a handful of sand and watched it stream from his fist. “Haven’t thought much about it,” was all he said.
Tallman was mentor to the two boys, had taught them how to stand in the stirrups at a full gallop to take the load off the horse’s back; how to draw a gun in a single, fluid move, skimming the hammer back with the flat of the hand, pointing the piece—like you would point a finger—before making a fist and squeezing the trigger, all the while without changing expression. No hint of a move in the eyes or jaw muscles. No giveaways. And stay loose, don’t tighten up, concentrate on the eyes and face of your foe.
“Their eyes’ll tell you when to squeeze off,” he had told them. “It’s a look you never forget.”
“Like what?” Brodie asked.
“Plenty a things. Fear, hesitation, a little twitch of the eye, anxiousness. It’s a giveaway look for damn sure. You’ll know it, if ever you see it.”
The talk didn’t mean much to Ben, who loved a shotgun and the hunt, while Brodie loved pistol shooting.
“So who’s the best shot you ever knew?” asked Brodie.
“Phoebe Moses is the best shot alive,” he said without hesitation.
“A girl!” Ben said incredulously.
“C’mon,” Brodie said.
“Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses. You boys know her better as Annie Oakley. I met her a few years ago when Bill Cody’s Wild West Show was in Chicago. She shoots over her shoulder with a rifle better than me, Wyatt, Pat Garrett, or her husband, Frank Butler—who was damn good himself—can shoot with a pistol. You could toss a playin’ card in the air and she’d put a dozen shots in it ’fore it hit the ground. Her and Frank are still with the show, far as I know.”
“How about that abalone shell down there,” Brodie said suddenly.
“What shell?” Tallman asked, casually looking down the beach.
Brodie looked down the beach. A red abalone shell was lying at the edge of the surf about fifty feet away. He had to squint to see it clearly. “The red one. Down the beach there.”
Tallman didn’t need to ask what Brodie wanted him to do. He simply stood up, stood straight with his hands hanging loosely at his sides. His eyes were narrowed slightly. Nothing in his face changed before his right arm moved fluidly up, his hand drawing the .44 as it passed his hip, his left hand fanning back the hammer as his hand stretched out, and