Quincannon (4 page)

“These salts of yours, Mr. Lyons,” he said bluntly, “are they any good?”

“Excellent. The finest on the market.”

“What sort of ills will they cure?”

“Nervous irritability, night sweats, blurring of eyesight, slow circulation of the blood, swollen veins, and weakness of the brain and body as a result of excesses or abuses of any kind.”

“Very impressive. How much do they sell for?”

“One dollar the box.”

“Perhaps I’ll purchase one when we arrive,” Coffin said. “I have been under a nervous strain lately.”

“Pressures of your profession, Mr. Coffin?”

“Not that so much as the fact that I am being harassed.”

“Harassed?”

“By the Chinese population in Silver. Some of them have broken into my house and the newspaper office and destroyed property in both places. God knows what other indignities they’ve perpetrated in my absence; I’ve been two days in Boise gathering political news. I asked friends to watch my house and the office, but ...” He grimaced and shook his head.

“The Chinese are generally a peaceable race where white men are concerned,” Quincannon said. “Why have some of them taken after you?”

“Opium,” Coffin said.

“Sir?”

“Opium. I have editorialized against the filthy stuff and their open selling of it in no uncertain terms. Do you know what
yen
shee
is, Mr. Lyons?”

Quincannon nodded. It was the scrapings of the opium pipe, gathered and saved and sold to addicts who could not afford pure opium; a quarter teaspoon of
yenshee
mixed with a small amount of water sustained the opium eater’s illusion of well-being until his next pipe.

“The worst of them, a merchant named Yum Wing, gives small quantities of it away free — a means to corrupt men and bring him more customers.”

“And that ploy has succeeded?”

“All too well. My compositor, Jason Elder, became an addict that way and has been all but useless at his job since.”

“Was Elder a good printer before his addiction?”

“Yes. One of the best I have ever worked with.”

Quincannon filed Jason Elder’s name away for future consideration.

Oliver Truax said, “There are too many Chinamen in Silver, that’s the problem.” Now that the stage had come off the ferry and was underway again, he had apparently decided to make himself heard. “The whole lot of them should be run out of town. And Yum Wing and the rest of the elders tarred and feathered first.”

“What a quaint idea,” Sabina Carpenter said mildly.

Her sarcasm was lost on the fat mine owner. He said, “We would all be better off in that event. And it might happen, too. Mark my words, it well might.”

“Vigilante action, Mr. Truax?” she asked.

“If necessary. Wendell McClew is an incompetent buffoon, everyone knows that — the worst town marshal Silver has ever had. He can’t control the Chinamen and he can’t do anything about the outlaws running loose in the hills, preying on innocent men and women. He can’t do
anything
worth a tinker’s dam.”

“You’re being a bit hard on him, Oliver,” Coffin said. “McClew isn’t as bad as all that.”

“I say he is. I say he should be removed from office and a better man installed in his place before the Chinamen run amok.”

“Are matters with the Chinese really that serious?” Quincannon asked.

“Hardly,” Sabina Carpenter said.

Truax looked at her as if she were a child. “You haven’t been in Silver very long, Miss Carpenter. You haven’t a proper understanding of the situation.”

“But of course you do.”

“Of course,” Truax said. It was obvious to Quincannon that he was the kind of man who believed in the absolute sanctity of his own viewpoint. It was also obvious to Quincannon that he was an arrogant, pompous, and bigoted troublemaker. “Get rid of the heathens, I say. God-fearing men and women are what we want in Silver City.”

“God-fearing
white
men and women,” Sabina Carpenter amended.

Truax nodded emphatically. “Just as you say, Miss Carpenter. Just as you say.”

They lapsed into silence as the stage rattled on through fertile farmland, the coach jouncing and swaying in its thoroughbraces. The movement and the amount of whiskey he had drunk in Nampa gave Quincannon a vicious headache, created more queasiness in his stomach; he sat with his eyes closed, enduring it.

Noon came as they crossed less settled flatland toward the rugged, looming shapes of the Owyhee Mountains. Just before they reached the low foothills that marked the beginning of the Owyhees, they encountered a section of road covered with ruts that ran parallel to each other the width of the coach. The other three passengers had been over this road before; they lowered the side-curtains over the windows as the stage began to crawl through the ruts. Each was full of potholes, some hidden by buildups of powdery dirt; one wheel or another sometimes dropped clear to the hub and caused the coach to jerk and bounce violently, the four of them to hang onto the straps with both hands. Even with the curtains down, the air was clogged with dust. Quincannon had to struggle to keep his sickness down inside him. His head felt as if hobnails were being driven into the inside of his skull.

When they cleared the rutted section the driver stopped and allowed his passengers to rest briefly and compose themselves. Quincannon took the opportunity to drain his flask. The whiskey steadied him again, but added to the pounding in his temples.

Early in the afternoon, well into the lower elevations of the Owyhees, they reached a way station that had been built at a point where two other roads joined the one they had been traveling. The main building was wood-frame, with a covered porch and a sign above it that read:
Poison Creek Station
•
Meals at All Hours.
At the rear were a large barn and corral. In front was what Coffin referred to as “the big hill”: the road seemed to climb straight up until it disappeared around a curve on the towering mountainside.

“Eight miles from here to Sands Basin and Silver City,” Coffin said. “And uphill all the way.”

The others ate beans and biscuits inside the station; the sight of the food made Quincannon’s stomach jump, and he went back outside to the water pump and washed his face and neck. The rest of his supply of whiskey was in his warbag. He asked the driver, who had just finished putting oats into gunny-sack nose bags for the horses, to get the bag out of the boot for him. When his flask was refilled he had another drink, a small one this time, and judged himself ready to resume the trip.

The uphill trek was slow but not nearly so rough; the road had a natural gravel surface and was less rutted up here. They climbed past basalt bluffs, through stands of juniper and cottonwood and mountain pine, toward granite heights that were partially obscured by low-hanging clouds. Deep canyons fell away below them, some with willow-choked creeks bubbling along their bottoms. The smell of sage that had stayed with them all the way from Nampa was replaced by the spicy scent of juniper. And the air grew cooler as the sun westered and was lost behind the high rocks.

When they neared New York Summit, less than three miles from Silver City, Quincannon could hear dull pounding echoes that he identified even before Truax said, “Powder blasts in the mines. We’ll soon be able to hear the stamps as well. It won’t be long before our arrival.”

Quincannon nodded.

“You’ll like our city,” Truax assured him, as if he were a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He seemed to have forgotten that Quincannon, at least as far as he knew, was a mere patent medicine drummer. “It’s the fastest growing and most progressive in Idaho.”

For anyone who doesn’t happen to be Chinese, Quincannon thought. He said, “I hope to make many new acquaintances there, Mr. Truax. And to renew an old one.”

“Ah? You know someone in Silver, then?”

“A man named Whistling Dixon.”

“I don’t believe I’m acquainted with anyone by that name.”

“I am,” Coffin said, “though not personally. He works for one of the cattle ranches at Cow Creek — the Ox-Yoke, I believe.” He glanced at Quincannon. “Odd that you should know an old Owyhee cowboy, Mr. Lyons. To the best of my knowledge, Dixon was born in these mountains and has seldom been away from them.”

Quincannon said, “My father ranched cattle in Oregon for a time, along the Rogue River, and worked with Dixon there. I was a boy then; Dixon took me under his wing and we became friends. He told me, of course, that he was from this area.”

It sounded flimsy in his own ears, but Coffin and Truax seemed to accept the explanation at face value. Sabina Carpenter, however, was watching him curiously again — perhaps even speculatively. A bright woman, Miss Carpenter. And in a way he could not quite define, an odd one too. He wondered just what she was thinking at this moment.

It was coming on twilight when they arrived in Silver City. The town had been built on the western flank of War Eagle Mountain, a thousand feet below the summit — the highest peak in the Owyhee range, Truax said. It nestled along the upper grade of a deep canyon, cut through by Jordan Creek and full of shadows now, that ran down past smaller and now mostly abandoned mining settlements: Ruby City, Booneville, Wagontown. Mountain peaks rose majestically around Silver, their flanks steep and rocky and supporting few trees; patches of snow still remained in protected spots under the peaks. A saddle coated with gray-green sage and chaparral connected War Eagle with Florida Mountain to the northwest.

Most of the mines were on the sharp-angled slopes of those two peaks. Through the door window, Quincannon could see some of the larger ones built down the side of War Eagle — the long, sweeping angles of their roofs, the fans of faintly luminous white tailings alongside. But while his eyes were on the slopes and on the town ahead, his thoughts were on the drink he would have when they arrived.

They rolled down past a large stage barn, across a railed bridge, and onto a crowded business street that curved up the steep grade of the canyon — “Jordan Street, our main stem,” Truax said. The business section appeared to encompass several blocks of Jordan Street and the two immediately parallel to it on either side. Out away from Jordan, the cross streets turned residential. Most of the buildings that stairstepped up the bald, brown hillsides were the high, narrow type common to mining camps; weatherbeaten, constructed in close packs. Lamplight already glowed palely in many of the windows.

As the stage climbed uphill, noise hammered at Quincannon’s aching head: the whistle of the hoisting and mill engines, the sullen roar of powder blasts, the tinny throb of saloon music, the rumble of wagons, the cries of animals and the raucous shouts of men. Horses, ore and dray wagons, and private rigs jammed the roadway; people filled the boardwalks. Several of the men wore the garb of cowboys, in for the evening from the nearby ranches. The cattle industry was almost as important in the Owyhee region as mining, Quincannon knew from the government survey pamphlet he’d read in San Francisco. The bare plateau that supported the silver-bearing mountains was carpeted in rich bunchgrass that had drawn stockmen from as far away as Texas.

The driver finally brought the stage to a stop at the Wells Fargo depot. Will Coffin was the first to alight; he helped Sabina Carpenter down. Truax went out next, and as Quincannon followed he saw a woman come forward and embrace the fat mine owner. She was blonde and somewhat Nordic-looking — half Truax’s age, half his weight, and twice as pleasing to the eye. But overdressed for a rugged mining town, Quincannon thought, in a silk-and-lace dress and a fancy plumed hat, and carrying a parasol.

“I’ve missed you, darling,” she said. “How was your trip?”

“Fine, fine.”

She stepped back a pace, smiled at Truax, and then allowed her gaze to shift to Quincannon as he swung down. Her eyes were light-colored, he noticed; they reminded him of a cat’s. “Who is this, Oliver?”

“Eh? Oh, Mr. Lyons. A medicine drummer.”

She favored Quincannon with a smile, but it was impersonal and disinterested. Medicine drummers were of no importance to her and therefore not worth her attention.

“This is my wife, Helen,” Truax said to Quincannon. Then he laughed and said, “She has no need of your nerve and brain salts, as you can plainly see.”

“Indeed I can.”

Truax took his wife’s arm. “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Lyons. Come along, my dear.”

As they moved off, Quincannon turned toward the rear of the stage where the driver was unloading the boot. Sabina Carpenter stood there watching him; had been watching him, he sensed, throughout the brief conversation with the Truaxes. In the twilight the resemblance between her and Katherine Bennett again seemed strong and unsettling. He felt an even sharper need for a drink. The long stage ride had set his nerves on edge.

He waited until Will Coffin had claimed a bulky grip, then took up his own warbag. The newspaperman seemed preoccupied now and had evidently forgotten his earlier interest in Dr. Wallmann’s Nerve and Brain Salts. Quincannon saw no reason to press him. Coffin tipped his hat to Sabina Carpenter and disappeared into the crowds.

The woman came to Quincannon’s side. “My shop is on Avalanche Avenue, between Jordan and Washington,” she said. “If you should happen to be interested in a hat during your stay in Silver.”

“I doubt that I will be,” he said. “I already have a good hat.”

“Mine are quite reasonably priced.”

“I’m sure they are.”

“Well, in any event,” she said, “perhaps we’ll see each other again before you leave.”

“Perhaps. Though I expect most of my time will be occupied.”

“In selling salts?”

“That is my job, Miss Carpenter.”

“Yes, of course. And I have no doubt that you’re adept at it. Good evening, Mr. Lyons.”

“Good evening.”

He walked downhill toward a sign that said
War Eagle Hotel.
Sabina Carpenter remained in his thoughts. What was the nature of her apparent interest in him? He was a man not unattractive to women; perhaps her boldness stemmed from that. And yet, he felt it was something else, something less personal. It could have nothing to do with his purpose in Silver City — or could it? Depending on where the man named Whistling Dixon led him, he might have to change his mind and visit her millinery shop after all.

At the hotel he registered and dropped off his bag in his room, then went out to the nearest saloon. He drank two whiskeys quickly, nursed a third. The place was jammed with cowpunchers, millhands, mine workers, and their mood was boisterous and friendly; he managed to engage three different men in conversation, confirming from them that Whistling Dixon was, as Coffin had told him, an old Owyhee cowhand some sixty years old. Dixon, whose nickname stemmed from a penchant for constant, tuneless whistling, was neither liked nor disliked; the attitude toward him seemed to be neutral, for the most part because the man kept to himself. He had no family and no friends to speak of, spending his free time either at the Ox-Yoke ranch on Cow Creek, where he worked, or hunting and prospecting in the back country. He came to town no more than once a month, on the average.

There was nothing in any of that to suggest how Dixon might be tied in with a gang of counterfeiters. A false lead after all? Quincannon needed much more information before making a judgment either way.

As for coney coins and greenbacks, a subject he broached carefully, none seemed to have been passed in Silver City. Which added a further point in favor of the boodle game being centered in this area. No smart gang of koniakers would try to shove queer in their own bailiwick; and there was no question that this gang was smart.

Quincannon stopped at two other saloons, this time engaging a variety of townsmen in conversation. Little was known about Sabina Carpenter. She had arrived in Silver City from Denver three weeks ago, opened her millinery shop, and taken up residence at the only boarding house in town that catered to women. Although she mingled well and often in local society, she spoke little of personal matters. The consensus seemed to be that she was either a recent widow or a woman retrenching after a bad marriage or an unhappy love affair.

Oliver Truax was one of Silver’s wealthy paragons. He had been a Boise merchant when his brother Amos, who had founded the Paymaster mine, died of congestive heart failure and willed the mine to him. That had been five years ago. Truax ran the Paymaster himself, and within the past year had become dissatisfied with its ore yield and its profits; thus he had formed the Paymaster Mining Company, retained its controlling stock, and opened up the balance of shares to public investors. Apparently most of the money realized from that venture had been put back into the mine, in the form of better equipment and more men to step up production.

Truax often made business trips to Boise, Portland, and Seattle — all cities where large amounts of queer had been shoved, Quincannon noted — and from one such trip to Oregon some ten months ago he had returned with his new young wife. Her background, like Sabina Carpenter’s, was murky. And she was not well thought of in town; there were broad hints that she had been unfaithful to her husband with a man named Jack Bogardus, the owner of another, smaller silver mine on the south side of War Eagle Mountain, the Rattling Jack. Truax, though he was not actively disliked, was not a popular figure in town — nor among his employees, from whom he demanded hard work and long hours for mediocre wages. Most considered him avaricious, pompous, and a poor blind fool for having married “Helen Roundheels,” as one man called her.

Will Coffin had been in Silver three years, having bought the
Volunteer
from its retiring founder in the summer of 1890. Coffin came from Kansas and had a background as a tramp printer and newspaperman. The fact that Coffin himself was a skilled printer interested Quincannon; but he could find out nothing more on that aspect of the man’s life.

As for Jason Elder, the
Volunteer
’s part-time compositor, Quincannon also learned little. Elder had worked for Coffin for more than a year, but only sporadically in the past few months as a result of his opium addiction. No one knew where he obtained the money to support his habit. He was a reticent man, one who was regarded with suspicion for that reason, because of his addiction, and because he regularly kept company with Silver City’s Chinese population. He lived in a shack at the end of Owyhee Street, on the edge of the Chinese quarter.

There were two schools of opinion as to the competency of Marshal Wendell McClew. The one to which Oliver Truax belonged considered him lazy, slow-witted, and unable or unwilling to cope with Silver’s various criminal and communal problems. The other school painted him as a quiet, shrewd lawman who was tough when he had to be and who accomplished as much in his low-key way as any flamboyant peace officer ever could. Both sides seemed to consider him reasonably honest, though the more vehement among his detractors allowed as how they “had reservations” along those lines. The inconclusiveness as to McClew’s true nature convinced Quincannon that it would be unwise to reveal his identity and purpose to the marshal, at least at this early stage of his investigation. For all he knew, McClew could be a member of the counterfeiting gang, bought and paid for to provide safety and security in this jurisdiction. No, he would have to play a lone hand for a while, until he gathered more information on a variety of fronts.

It was nearly nine o’clock when he returned to his hotel. He still had no appetite, but the whiskey he had consumed on his rounds had made him woozy and he had no desire for another hangover tomorrow. He forced himself to eat supper in the hotel dining room before retiring. And forbore his usual nightcap when he got into bed.

But for the second night in a row, sleep eluded him — this time because of the dull hammering pulse of the round-the-clock stamp mills, a noise that would take some getting used to. And when he finally did sleep, a long time later, he was plagued by confused dream images of Katherine Bennett that kept mingling with those of Sabina Carpenter, only to be joined by others of his mother. He awoke once, trembling and cold, to the shrill barking of a dog somewhere nearby. In his dream it had sounded like a woman screaming.

An hour past sunup, warmed by his first two drinks of the day, Quincannon left the hotel carrying his sample case. This promised to be a busy day. A talk with Whistling Dixon was indicated, of course, but not just yet. Will Coffin was another he intended to see, as was the
Volunteer
’s opium-eating printer, Jason Elder. He also needed to establish his cover identity as a traveling agent for nerve and brain salts, which meant visits to the drugstores in town — a task he would dispose of before giving his attention to the job at hand.

The mountain air was cold, crisp, but the sun had taken the edge off the night’s chill. Up the slopes of War Eagle, the mica particles in the long drifts of greenish-white tailings caught the sunlight and made the drifts glisten like new snow. Jordan Street was as crowded as it had been last night, though with a different sort of activity. Ore wagons, empty and laden both, rattled up and down the steep incline, on their way to and from the mines; mingled with them were broughams, buckboards, and freight wagons carrying machinery, produce, hides, scores of other products. Swampers and merchants worked busily at the storefronts, preparing to open their various establishments for the day.

Powder blasts in the mines added rolling thunder echoes to the morning din as Quincannon made his way to the Wells Fargo office, where the Western Union telegrapher was housed. He wrote out a message to Boggs, paid for it, and asked that it be sent immediately. It read:

TO ARTHUR CALDWELL, CALDWELL ASSOCIATES, PHELAN BLDG, SAN FRANCISCO

ARRIVED LAST NIGHT STOP PROSPECTS APPEAR GOOD EXCEPT PRINCIPAL YOUR AGE COMMA NATIVE THIS AREA COMMA AND IN SAME BUSINESS YOUR NEPHEW CHARLES STOP WIRE DETAILS SOONEST STOP DO YOU KNOW TOWN MARSHAL WENDELL MCCLEW QMK HE MAY BE OLD FRIEND OF YOURS BUT AM NOT SURE STOP WILL COMMUNICATE AGAIN WHEN HAVE NEWS OR HAVE MADE IMPORTANT SALE

ANDREW LYONS

Boggs’ nephew Charles had worked as a cowhand for a variety of cattle ranches in Texas, before a horse threw him one day in 1886 and broke his neck. Boggs would understand the necessity for more information on Whistling Dixon, and step up his own inquiries into the man’s background. He would also understand Quincannon’s uncertainty about McClew and pursue a line of inquiry into the marshal’s background as well.