“Boys,” Hank said, his face split by a huge smile, “we hit it big! We got us almost three hundred dollars here!”
The town rose from the ground ahead of them, hot, dry, dusty, and baking in the sun like a lizard. It was small and flyblown, little more than a wide spot in the trail.
Jim slipped his canteen off the pommel and took a drink. The water was warm and stale, but his lips were swollen and dry. He’d been saving his water, but now he would be able to refill it from the town pump. Also, a drink at the saloon would go a long way toward wetting his raspy tongue.
“I don’t know about you, cousin,” Frankie said, “but that saloon is one welcome sight.”
“It looks pretty good, all right,” Jim said. He hooked the canteen back onto the saddle pommel, then urged his horse forward with the bar est suggestion of a squeeze from his knees. As the two rode down the street, the hoofbeats sounded hollow on the sun-baked surface, and little puffs of dust drifted up to hang suspended behind them as if reluctant to return to the hot, hard ground.
Jim rode into the clapboard town slowly, sizing it up as he did so. It was a one-street town with a few shacks made of whip-sawed lumber, the unpainted wood splitting and turning gray, the houses leaning as if bent by the wind. There was no railroad serving the town, so no signs of the outside world greeted them. It was a self-contained little community, inbred and festering.
They examined the buildings as they passed them by. There was a rooming house, a livery stable with a smithy’s shop to one side, and a general store with a sign that said DRUGS, MEATS, GOODS on its high false front. Next to the general store was the saloon. It was the only painted building in town.
The two men rode up to the hitch-rail in front of the saloon, dismounted, and patted their clothes, sending up plumes of dust that settled again on the cloth like a fly swarm. A small boy sucking on a red-and-white peppermint stick peered at them from the general store’s dust-glazed front window. A woman’s hand came from the shadows of the store to snatch the boy away.
The woman who pulled the boy away might have been pretty at one point in her life, but she looked old before her time now. The sun and wind and the backbreaking life had made the twenty-six-year-old look forty.
“Who are they, Mama?” the boy asked.
“No doubt they are out-of-work cowboys,” the woman replied. “Ever since that big freeze last winter the country is full of them. Now come away from the window. Whoever they are is none of our business.”
Unaware that they had been the subject of conversation, Jim and Frankie looked up and down the street. A few buildings away, a door slammed and an isinglass shade came down on the upstairs window of the boardinghouse. A sign creaked in the wind and flies buzzed loudly around a nearby pile of horse manure.
These sounds were magnified because, despite the conversation in the general store, the street itself was dead silent. Jim and Frankie heard no human voices, yet they knew there were people around, for there were horses tied here and there, including several in front of the saloon.
Boot heels banged on the boardwalk in front of the saloon and a shadow fell across Jim and Frankie. The two men looked up to see three men standing in front of them. The men were rough-looking, with sweeping mustaches and beady eyes. They stood across the walk, barring the way into the saloon.
“You boys get back on your horses and just keep on riding,” the one in the middle said. He was the ugliest and meanest-looking of the three, probably because he had a drooping eyelid. “We’ve about had our fill of out-of-work cowboys.”
“We’ll be on our way soon as we get water, a little food, and a couple of beers,” Jim said.
“You’ll be on your way now,” Droopy-eye said. He was wearing a duster, and he pulled it back to one side to expose a long-barrel pistol sheathed in a holster that was tied halfway down his leg. The other two men made the same threatening motion.
“Mister, I hope you don’t work for the town’s welcoming committee,” Jim said.
“This here ain’t no joke,” Droopy-eye replied.
“Didn’t think it was,” Jim said. “At least, I wasn’t finding it funny. Now step aside. My cousin and I are going into the saloon.”
Droopy-eye shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“Frankie, if they start something, you take that muley-looking son of a bitch on the right. I’ll kill the loudmouth with the lazy eye and that ugly bastard one on the left.”
“All right, cousin,” Frankie replied, easily. The exchange was quiet and matter-of-fact, but spoken with the finality of someone who intended to do what he said.
“You crazy, mister?” Droopy-eye asked. “There are three of us.”
“Just thirsty,” Jim replied. “Now in the next moment I’m goin’ to be killin’ or drinkin’. It’s your call.”
For a moment, Jim thought Droopy-eye was going to take the challenge. Then he saw the fight leave his eyes, and the man shrugged.
“After you two have our food and drink, get on out of town,” he said. “I meant it when I said we don’t want your kind around.” He looked at his two partners, who also seemed to have lost the spirit when they saw their leader back down. “Come on,” he said.
With their way no longer barred, Jim and Frankie went into the saloon and headed straight for the bar, where they ordered a beer.
“Barkeep, those beers are on me,” a man said from the other end of the bar, “and as many more as they can drink.”
“Yes, sir,” the bartender said, drawing two foaming beers, then setting the mugs in front of Jim and Frankie.
“Thanks,” Jim said, holding the beer up. Then, recognizing his benefactor, he smiled. “Clay Allison.”
“Do I know you?” Allison asked.
“No, not exactly. But I know who you are.”
Allison nodded. “Yes, too many people do, I’m afraid. Listen, I saw the way you two boys handled yourselves out there, and I was impressed by it. So impressed that I’d like to offer you a job, if you’re interested.”
Jim took a long, Adam’s-apple-bobbing swallow of his beer, then wiped the foam from his lips with the back of his hand before he answered.
“It just so happens we are out of work right now,” Jim said. “We’re interested.”
“It’s a pretty big job and it’s going to take more than the two of you. It’s in El Paso. You think you could round up an outfit?”
“Oh, yes,” Jim replied. “I know just where to go.”
Chapter 4
After learning of the job opportunity, Jim sent telegrams to several of their friends, asking them to meet Frankie and him in El Paso. Without waiting for any replies, they set out for El Paso themselves, aiming to reach the border town within two more days.
“You sure there’s really work for us, Jim?” Frankie asked, pulling his horse up to ride abreast of his cousin.
“I’m sure.”
“How do you know?”
“Say what you want about Clay Allison, but I believe him to be a man of his word. If he said he has work for us, he has work for us.”
“I hope so. After we sent telegrams to everyone asking them to meet us, I’d hate to have to face ’em and tell ’em it was all a mistake.”
“Listen, he gave us twenty-five dollars apiece to meet him there, didn’t he? You think he would have done that if he didn’t have anything for us? There’s no way he would just give that money away.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Now our only problem is if the telegrams reached the people we sent them to. And if they’ll actually come, once they get the wires.”