“Well, he’d done lit out of Deadwood, probably laughin’ up his sleeve as he went, and I was stuck with that hole in the ground.”
“So what happened?”
“So I didn’t go see it for a few days. When I did, I finally decided what the hell, I’ll dig for awhile, maybe buffalo someone else into buyin’ it. Only I hit gold, Red Spot. Lots of it. As in, lots of it and then some.”
“That’s good, Roy. Real good.”
“So anyhows, I figure now I got to look successful.”
“When do you work the mine?”
Roy looked sort of sheepish. “That’s the biggest part of the problem. I hate workin’ it, and soon as I cash in on some gold I spend it. What I need is a partner with some savvy. One that can manage the money and keep me away from that there card table, or any that look like it. What say?”
“You’re talking about me?”
“Yep.”
“I’ve had my fill of mining, Roy. Plan to attend to other things.”
“Like them men that killed your friend, double-crossed you?”
I admitted that, and even told him how I intended to go about it. For some reason I trusted Honest Roy, and that’s an odd thing to say about a man you met when he was stealing your horse.
Honest Roy ponied up some more loot and we drank some more.
“Listen here,” Roy said. “You going to stay here in the Gulch, you’re gonna need a profession. Gambling ain’t a good one. High percentage of gettin’ yourself shot.”
“I’m not much of a gambler, anyway.”
“Well, that’s about it here, less it’s some kind of odd job thing. But my offer still holds. Hell, Red Spot, I’ll make you fifty-fifty partner. It’ll be work, but I need someone to keep me at the mines some of the time, and out of these here rotgut houses most of the time.”
Mining wasn’t something I cared for, and what Roy had in mind sounded like more work than panning. But, as he said, I did need a profession. Carson might show up tomorrow. He might not show up for months.
“Tell you what, Roy. How does this sound: fifty-fifty unless Carson or some of his boys should show up. Then if I go traipsing after them, mine’s all yours again. I just get out with what I’ve earned. And if Carson doesn’t come in a reasonable period of time, I leave it with you and ride on out with my earnings.”
“That sounds like a deal, Red Spot. Shake on it?”
We shook, and that’s how I became a miner again.
2
Hard rock mining is no joke. It’s hard work with pick and crowbar. We also had to build a mill to extract the gold, and that in itself was no easy chore. End of each day left us exhausted, and before we cashed in each night I had to spend a few minutes explaining to Honest Roy why we couldn’t go into town and wet our whistles. Honest Roy sure did like to wet his whistle.
For all his complaining and wanting to stop, Honest Roy was one working sonofagun. I had trouble keeping up with him. Certainly we were going at this in a far more realistic way than Bucklaw and I had. Also, we were making something.
I had to work hard to keep Roy from flashing our findings around. That sort of thing will fix it so you don’t wake up some morning. Usually I went into town with Roy so I could keep him out of the bars, prevent him from showing off the nuggets or shooting off his mouth about how much gold we were finding. That man surely loved to brag.
After things had gone well for awhile, I finally decided we needed a few days off, and told Roy as much. He had hired me to keep him in line—although I think Roy thought of me more as a partner than he did a hired hand—but he was glad for a release from the drudgery of mining. And so was I.
Most of our trips into town had been to buy supplies and maybe have a drink or two, but what I was suggesting was a couple to three days away from the mine.
We weren’t too worried about claim jumpers. Roy’s mine was pretty well hid, and as Roy said, “If someone’s working it when we get back, we’ve got plenty of picks and shovels around here to bury them with.”
True enough.
I wanted to look Deadwood Gulch over good, wanted to look high and low for Carson. Maybe I had let myself get complacent about the whole thing, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. Maybe I’d seen too much killing.
Well anyway, it was this next trip into Deadwood Gulch that caused me to meet the King of the Pistoleers, Wild Bill Hickok.
I’d heard of him, of course, and gotten both angles of the man in the hearing. Some said he was a loudmouthed braggart who shot holes in targets up close and later faked long-distance shots. It was said that he had been backed down by that Texas cow puncher and gunman, John Wesley Hardin, in Abilene. But I had heard that story from Bucklaw, a fanatic Texan who would say just about anything about a fellow kinsman. Also, Hickok had fought for the North during the war, and that would not have placed him very high on Bob’s list.
I knew that Wild Bill had spent some time in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show and had not found it to his liking. He had shot many men, and the numbers ran in telling from five to five hundred.
There were all manner of stories in between. I always took what I heard and divided it by two, then cut the remainder by a third. After that I allowed a bit of doubt.
But all that said, the first time I laid eyes on Wild Bill Hickok, I was impressed. He was a big man with long blonde hair and a droopy mustache. His eyes seemed to squint painfully. But what I could see of those eyes showed them to be an odd bright blue. They did not strike me as the sort of eyes you would enjoy having look at you.
Wild Bill wore a buckskin coat with embroidery on it, and it was cut in such a way that it fell back from his waist, even as he sat, and in that manner revealed two silver-mounted revolvers.
He was sitting at a table with his back to the wall playing cards. It appeared that he was losing heavily. Every now and then he would look up from his cards and his eyes would flash about the saloon; which, by the way, was Carl Mann’s Number Ten.
Honest Roy, who got the gossip soon as we hit town, told me that Mann had asked Wild Bill to stay there, so as to attract customers and stay trouble. In return, he kept Bill in whisky. That’s a story I believed, for all the time I was there Bill was drinking regularly and his glass was never empty.
I’d have been drunk on the floor with that much rotgut in me, but Bill didn’t seem any different an hour later than when I first sighted him.
I finally got into a card game, myself, but lost too much too quick. I got out, went over to the bar and bought a beer. I leaned my back on the bar and looked out over the crowd, sort of kept an eye on Honest Roy, who was as drunk as a hoot owl and as loud as a train. Pretty soon I’d have to drag him away from the card table and out of there.
Next time I looked at Roy he was face down on the table and out cold. A couple of fellows lifted him off the barrel stool and put him in the corner. He curled up there like a mongrel and started to snore. I was about to haul him out of the place when I got distracted.
“Aces and eights,” I heard Hickok say, “that wins the pile. I hope to see a hand like that again real soon.”
He raked in his winnings and a couple of men at the far end of the saloon got up and walked toward the front. About halfway there they split up and one of them stopped at the far end of the bar, to my left. He stood with his back to the bar, looking out at the crowd.
The other man walked over to Wild Bill’s left side, about ten feet away, and feigned interest in the game. I knew it was a sham. I’d gotten to where I could smell trouble in an instant.
The one at the bar suddenly yelled, “Bill!” and drew his revolver.
Bob Bucklaw was the fastest man I had ever seen with a gun, until that day.
The man at the bar had his revolver halfway out before Bill looked up, but Bill’s revolvers, both of them, one in either hand, left the sash that carried them with a smoothness that almost looked slow. But it wasn’t.
An instant later the man at the bar was wearing a hole
in his chest. I didn’t see it happen; just saw the body later. What I was watching then was the man on Bill’s left. That man had pulled a short-barreled revolver from his back pocket and was throwing down on Bill.
I had started to move the moment I realized the setup. I had just bought a brand new Colt revolver and that thought entered my mind as I pulled it. I had never even had the chance to fire it, outside of a round to make sure it worked. I had owned it for only a few hours, and as it was one of the new double-action kinds, it went through my head that I might be off a bit.
I was. But not enough to matter.
The double-action pulled up some, but the shot still hit the would-be assassin in the head, just above the ear, and there wasn’t any need for the second shot that caught him in the neck.
It turned red and messy in there, and as I lowered my gun, I saw that Wild Bill was standing up and had both his revolvers leveled on me. Bill grinned. It was obvious that he had momentarily believed me to be one of the assassins.
He eased the revolvers back into his sash, turned to a man with one oddly-white eyebrow, and said, “White Eye, would you do me the service of dragging these varmints out into the street?”
“Sure thing,” the man said, and he got up from the table and set about doing just that.
“Come on over here and have a drink with me,” Bill said.
I nodded, but first went over to the dead man by the bar. That hole in his chest was right over the heart.
I went over to Wild Bill Hickok’s table and sat down.
“That was some shooting,” I told him.
“Right on the money, yourself,” he said. “Me, I always aim for the body. It’s easier to hit. I like an easy target,” he added modestly. “I see right now you take the hard way.”
“I was aiming for his chest.”
Wild Bill laughed.
“That was a mighty quick pull for a holster draw,” he said. “Me, I favor the sash. What’s your name, friend?”
“Jim Melgrhue. Some call me Red Spot, on account of my eye.”
“All right then, Red Spot. What are you drinking?”
“Beer,” I said.
Bill called over to the bartender for a beer and whisky, then stuck out his hand. “Touch skin, friend. I owe you.”
“The beer will do.”
“I see you carry one of those new sort,” Bill said, nodding at my Colt. It was obvious that he loved to talk guns and killing. And why not? A man with his reputation had to stay alive, and what better way to do it than to know your trade inside and out?
“Yeah, my cap and ball. I can trust it, and I make my own loads. I’ve got some more modern weapons, but I don’t haul them around much, as these have seen me great and successful service.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “I guess I’ve just gotten lazy about making my own loads and wanted to try out one of these.” I patted the Colt at my hip.
We talked awhile more about shooting and revolvers, and Wild Bill advised me to drop the holster and get myself a backup gun. Finally I excused myself and shook hands. Then I went over to collect Honest Roy, who was snoring as loud as a donkey honks.
3
That night Honest Roy and I stayed in a hotel, a fine one just fresh built. It was called the Grand Central Hotel and it was undoubtedly the classiest thing Deadwood Gulch had to offer, with the possible exception of the equally new General Custer House.
Deadwood Gulch was now Deadwood the town. Had been officially a town for about a month. In fact the name had been changed. The Gulch had been dropped, and it was now simply known as Deadwood, but the old reference died hard with men who had worked there in “the old days”—which is often a matter of weeks, not years.
Anyway, it sure beat Roy’s brother’s filthy, flea-ridden flophouse. Now we had clean sheets and a room to ourselves.
Only way it could have been better was if we had a room apiece, but then I would have just felt guilty for spending the money. I still never lost the cheap streak from having had to live pillar to post for so many years.
I tossed Roy in the bed, went back downstairs and out into the streets. My head was too full of thought to sleep.
I found a hitching post, climbed up on it, and sat. I could hear the miners taking on all over the town, and somewhere was the sound of gunfire. I wondered if some drunk was shooting for the hell of it, or if Wild Bill was putting more men out of business.
While I was thinking of the devil, he walked up behind me.
“If I had meant to do you harm, friend, you would be a dead man by now,” Hickok said.
“Yeah, I guess I don’t think about being bushwhacked much.”
Hickok came around and leaned on the hitching post.
“I wish I didn’t, I tell you true. It is my every waking thought, friend. One of these days I will just not be fast enough, and that will be all she wrote for Wild Bill.”
“Why not hang up the guns?”
“I have thought of that. Can’t. Wouldn’t matter if I did. You know, I am feared and much respected for my ability with a gun, but I am a failure as far as life goes.”
I had a feeling Hickok was opening up to me in an uncustomary manner. It was as if the incident in the Number Ten had tied our lives together somewhat.
“Thirty-nine years old,” Hickok went on, “and I have nothing to show for it but a list of dead men. I even despise some of those who call me friend. They are hangers-on, sucking off my rep like ticks off a dog.”
“That why you’re out walking?”
“It is. That and what happened tonight.”
“That’s why I couldn’t sleep,” I said. “It’s exciting, but in another way it scares me. I’m a little too proud of myself.”
“Man should take pride in his trade, friend, even if it is an ugly one. I would have been dead had I not shot the man at the bar and had you not killed the other. It was not your play but you saw a man being throwed down on unjustly and you evened up the odds. I tell you straight, I have killed many men in my day, but I never killed a man yet but what it was kill or get killed.”
“I believe that, Bill, and I have no regrets about it, but I’m not sure it’s anything to be proud of.”
“Reckon we all have to be proud of surviving. Me, I figure my days are about played out. I feel my sun is sinking fast, that I shall be killed here, that I will never leave these hills alive.”
“That’s no way to talk.”
“Telling it like I feel it. My feelings have always played me true. I’ve no reason to start doubting them now. I sometimes think spirits watch over me and guide my hand. I feel now that they are about to desert me.”
“Nonsense.”
“Tonight, I tell you, friend, that man at the bar was damn near a blur to me. My eyes are quitting, and if there is one thing a gunfighter must have, it is his eyes. Sometimes I have to wear dark glasses just to be comfortable, the light hurts me something terrible.
“You know, friend, I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. Guess I shouldn’t be. But listen, don’t say anything about my eyes. It is a trouble I’d rather not have known.”
“Understood.”
“How about one last drink before bed?”
“Sure thing,” I said, climbing off the hitching post.
Bill put an arm around my shoulders, said, “Let’s make it a long drink, a damn long one.”
4
Honest Roy gave me a bad time for days on account of not waking him so he could see the shoot-out in the saloon. I was hard pressed to explain to him that I didn’t have time to saunter over, wake him up, and still draw on the gunman.
Oddly enough, in the next two days, I saw little of Wild Bill. He pretty well stayed out of sight by day, and by night he was well wrapped up in card games. He didn’t seem to be winning too often.
It was the last day we were in town and I was drinking a beer at the Number Ten, waiting for Honest Roy. When he finally came in he was very excited.
Roy o
rdered a beer and eased up close.
“Red Spot, that fellow you’re a-lookin’ for, from your description, I might have just seen him. You sure don’t see too many people in them old Confederate uniforms.”
“Where?”
“Riding out of Deadwood. Now listen here, don’t be mad. I didn’t really put that face and uniform together with your description right away, but later, after him and his crew was gone.”
“How many?”
“Right smart number. A few of ‘em were Crows. Rest were white men and they looked like pretty bad customers.”
I set down my half-finished beer.
“Thanks, Roy.”
I started for the door.
“I’m not sayin’ it’s him for sure, now.”
“I know.”
“Now wait the hell up.” Roy tossed off his beer and the rest of mine. We went over to the hotel and got our gear and rifles.
In a few minutes we were riding out of town.
As we rode, Honest Roy explained that the man had a wagon and it was full of supplies. It appeared he was doing some mining. That fit. It was mining country, and I had felt all along that the gold would bring them.
About a half-mile out of Deadwood we struck up the gang’s trail good, and not long after I realized where they were going.
Our mine.
Now fate works some strange ones, but this was the strangest of all. There we were, away from our mine for a few days, and Carson had come in and found it, taken over. That would be like him. Why lay out an honest claim when you can steal one already in progress?
After it was evident where the gang was going, and after I had spent a few minutes toning down Roy’s cussing long enough for us to lay a plan, we went in after them.
We found a place to leave the horses and eased our way up into the rocks for a look-see down on our own mining operation.
It looked like ants on sweetbread down there.
There must have been twenty of them, working their butts off stealing our claim. Carson, as usual, had set up “headquarters” and was sitting out front of his tent with a glass and a bottle.