The Englishman's Boy (8 page)

Throughout the course of the day the Englishman’s boy kept moving, drifting up and down the town. He had nowhere to stop, nothing
to do, nothing to eat but a box of crackers bought at a general store for an exorbitant price. Left high and dry by the Englishman’s untimely death, starvation seemed a probable fate. When he tired of tramping, he perched himself on a wagon tongue or a barrel, the flies and dust from Front Street settling on him as he gnawed his dry crackers and cogitated plans. Maybe he should try to swap his fancy pistol for a double-barrel and shells to keep himself in meat, potting grouse or rabbit or duck. The truth was, no matter how much sense such a scheme might make, no matter how hungry he might get, he knew he was not going to part with the pistol. The pistol made him, for the first time in his life, any man’s equal.

When night drew down, Fort Benton grew a good deal livelier even than it was during the day. The saloons poured light and music and drunken patrons into the street where they pissed and fought in the roadway. These fights, noisy affairs with much loud cursing and bellowing of threats, riled the horses tied to the hitching posts to a terrible pitch. They thrashed about, rolling their eyes and tossing their heads until their terror and tension became unbearable. Then they flew at one another, like the men in the street, kicking and biting and rearing until a tether broke and one went careering off helter-skelter down the dark street.

Meanwhile, the Englishman’s boy kept on the prowl, sidling out of the way when any particularly dangerous-looking drunk came lurching and muttering out of the gloom. A clear sky spelled that a chilly night was a certainty and staying on the tramp was the only way to keep the cold out of his bones until the livery-stable office closed and he could sneak into the barn and burrow in the hay.

By and by he found himself procrastinating outside the Star Saloon, debating whether or not to invest two bits in a drink. A tot in the belly and a warm place to stop would ease him through the cold hours until it was safe to scare up a place to sleep. It was a thorny, troublesome calculation, money weighed against comfort, but then, through the smeared saloon window, he spied the redheaded Hardwick seated at a poker table. A face he recognized somehow decided him. He went in.

The bar was packed. A fug of dense smoke, animal heat, stale sweat, and rancid grease greeted him as he stepped through the door. The smell of unwashed hide-hunters, mule-skinners, prospectors, and bullwhackers came as a shock after the crisp, clean night air, even to him, who couldn’t remember the last time a scrub cloth had touched him. At the far end of the room, behind a low fence with a swinging gate in it, he could see roughnecks galloping hurdy-gurdy girls in dizzy circles to a breakneck air battered out of an untuned piano. Picking his way amid the gambling tables to the bar, he bumped into a man who shot him a drunken, hostile stare. For a moment, the boy couldn’t place the stranger and then he recognized the headgear, a collapsible black silk top hat which Dawe had kept stowed in his steamer trunk. Its wearer was none other than the owner of the Overland Hotel, the same man the Englishman’s boy had blackmailed into renting them a room.

The boy carried on to the bar, ordered his drink, hooked the heel of his boot on the rail and turned to face the room, glass in hand. The man in Dawe’s top hat had his eyes fixed on him. As the boy lifted the tumbler to his lips, a tremor disturbed the surface of the whisky. He held off drinking until it steadied and went smooth as glass, rewarding his coolness with a sip, aware the hotel-keeper had moved in on him, was hovering almost at his elbow.

“You’re the son of a bitch who don’t pick up after himself, ain’t you?” said the hotel man. “Left a corpse in my best bed.”

The boy didn’t answer. He took another sip of whisky and surveyed the occupants of the saloon.

The hotelier was crowding in, thrusting his face at him. “Left a bill behind, too. Unpaid bill and an Englishman gone high in the heat.”

“I settled with your man,” the boy said. “You got all was owed – and more.”

“You filched the Limey’s gear,” said the hotel man. “By rights it’s mine. I got claim on his chattels. You got movables belong to me.” He pointed to the boy’s holster. “That fine ivory-handled pistol for one.”

“I got nothing belongs to you. The gun is for wages he owed me.”

The hotel man smiled. “Wages of sin is death, boy.” He brushed back the skirts of his coat and tucked them behind the butt of his pistol. The bravado of a drunken man.

“No wages is starvation and that’s death, too,” said the boy.

“You goddamn little scut,” the top hat said angrily. “Threatening to fire my hotel. You and your Mr. Biggity Big Englishman.”

“He couldn’t been too big,” said the boy. “His hat fits you just fine.”

The men nearby were beginning to follow these interesting proceedings. One of them laughed loudly.

Spurred by the laughter, the hotel-keeper cried, “You little son of a bitch! I’ll have that gun or I’ll have your hide! Depend on it!”

To those looking on, the Englishman’s boy raised his voice and said, “This man here is aiming to rob me. You heard him say it. You’re witnesses.”

The loud announcement attracted attention. Several nearby tables of faro and poker suspended gaming to see how this was going to play out. A portly man in a good coat and good hat shouted, “What you doing, Stevenson? Stealing this sprat’s sugar tit?” Everyone around the table guffawed appreciatively at his sally.

“I’m a stranger here,” said the boy in a voice which rose above the slackening din. “Whatever falls out here ain’t my doing.”

Suddenly Stevenson seized him by the wrist of his gun hand. There was no use in struggling. He could sense the power of the man’s grip, knew he was not strong enough to break it. He remained very still. Stevenson grinned in his face. “Hello,” he said, and suddenly struck him a savage blow to the ear with his fist. The Englishman’s boy staggered with the force of it, was jerked up short by the wrist.

Dizzied, the boy said to the room, “I ain’t got nothing of this man’s. I ain’t asking for no trouble.” The ringing in his ear made his own voice sound as if it were coming from somewhere distant and deep, the words from his very throat rising out of some unplumbable well.

Stevenson dealt him another blow to the ear. The ear caught fire,
the fire sank into his jaw, coursed burning down the side of his neck, running hot in its cords. Stevenson smiled and said “Hello” again. The Englishman’s boy could not hear him this time, could only read his lips mouthing the word. The fist cocked again, and the boy dropped his free hand to his boot-top. The hand jumped up with a metallic glitter.

Stevenson’s face was all bewildered surprise. He stared down at the knife embedded in his armpit. Then the first shock passed; the steel bit bone like a desperate dog, warping and knotting his face beyond all recognition.

“Leave go my hand,” said the boy as he jammed Stevenson up on his toes with the point of the knife. Blood was pouring down the blade like rainwater down a drain spout, soaking the cuff of his jacket sodden and heavy, turning his fingers hot and sticky and reeking.

Stevenson seemed beyond comprehending. Agony was clamping the fingers of his good hand even tighter to the thin wrist.

“Leave go my hand,” the boy repeated, twisting the knife hard where it lodged. The knife grating in the joint tore a hoarse screech out of Stevenson and he loosed the wrist.

The pounding piano at the far end of the saloon went silent; the dancers stood still, arms draped around one another; the gamblers sat frozen with cards in their hands.

As Stevenson stood spitted on the knife, the boy pulled the Colt, jammed the muzzle to his head. “Hello,” he said between his teeth. The hotel man’s eyes bulged. Someone entered the saloon and scurried back out again when he saw what was happening. The hinges of the flapping bat-wing doors wheezed in the silence.

“For Christ’s sake, don’t kill me,” Stevenson whispered hoarsely. “I got a sick wife in Missouri.”

Hardwick rose from the table next to the window. The boy swung the pistol on him, Stevenson flinching with the sudden movement. Hardwick spread his hands before him, demonstrating he had no weapon. “Word of friendly advice, son,” he said. “You kill him where he stands – they’ll hang you.”

The truth of this statement contorted the boy’s face. He jerked the
knife out of Stevenson and drove it, twice, with blinding rapidity into the man’s buttocks. The hotel-keeper gave a great hollow groan as his knees gave way under him, capsizing him to the floor in a dead faint.

The boy stepped over the body to where the black silk hat had rolled and trampled it savagely under his dirty boots. No one moved as this was accomplished. “None of this was my doing,” he told the room, brandishing the pistol above his head for all to see. “I’m walking now. If this bastard has any kin or friends setting here making plans – you’ve seen my gun. It’s cocked.” He took a step toward the door, then pivoted on his heel and kicked the senseless body in the head. “Hello,” he said to it one last time.

Now he was moving for the door, the hushed crowd falling back out of his path, falling back from the pistol he carried flush against his right leg, falling back from the strange little figure in the scavenged clothes. He thrust open the swinging doors and strode quickly down the darkened street ten paces, whirled around in his tracks to catch anyone pursuing. He did. Throwing up the pistol he called out, “Stand or I’ll fire!”

The figure stopped in the street. “It’s Tom Hardwick. Lower your gun.” He did. Hardwick advanced. “If you’d been anyplace but where you was,” he said, “I’d advised you to kill that man. But there was too much public and it would have looked cold-blooded. There ain’t much law in these parts, but there’s that much.” Hardwick stopped, took a cigar from his shirt pocket, struck a match. He kept on talking around the cigar as he lit it. “You looking to kill that son of a bitch and walk, you ought to put your knife in his belly the second he hit you.”

“I give him a chance to back off,” said the Englishman’s boy.

“Bad policy,” said Hardwick. “Don’t give nobody a chance.” They resumed walking. Hardwick said, “I’d scoot if I was you. That man’s a innkeeper and a publican. I never seen a fellow who deals in whisky that was short of friends.”

“I can’t scoot. I ain’t got a horse,” said the boy.

“You want to ride with us in the morning I can scare you up a horse,” said Hardwick.

For a time the boy walked on without responding. “What would I have to do?” he said finally.

“Whatever circumstances call for,” said Hardwick.

Vogle argued against taking the boy. He made the thirteenth recruit and thirteen being the number around the table at the Last Supper, there could be no worse luck. Hardwick said since the only one who’d died on that expedition was the leader, and Vogle wasn’t leading nothing, what was he worrying about?

Vogle shook his head. “Thirteen’s bad medicine,” he said.

“That’s the Indian in you talking now,” said Hardwick.

6
 

H
arry Vincent, detective, is sitting in a car parked just off Hollywood Boulevard and Cahuenga Avenue, keeping a grey frame building known as the Waterhole under surveillance. The Waterhole is a cowboy hangout famous in Hollywood, one part speakeasy, one part hiring hall. Inside the Waterhole, cowboys play poker and drink illegal whisky served in china teacups while they wait for picture directors short of extras to drop by and offer them work. Nobody but cowboys and directors ever frequent this establishment; tinhorns and curiosity-seekers are not made to feel welcome in the Waterhole. Even the cops give it a wide berth and pretend they don’t know porch-climber is sold there. Prohibition may be the law, but the police have decided meddling with cowboys and their simple pleasures is more trouble than it’s worth.

I’ve been sitting here for over two hours watching the entrance, hoping to spot Shorty McAdoo among the patrons who stagger in and out of the Waterhole on high-heeled riding boots, but no such luck. There’s no use putting it off any longer; the time has arrived to meddle with the cowboys.

After the hot California sunshine, the shuttered gloom of the Waterhole leaves me blind. I stand just inside the doorway, blinking, smelling the place – horse and sweat, tobacco and leather, the rank fumes of raw alcohol – before I see it. Then I begin to make out smoke, swirling like fog in the light of a few tin-shaded ceiling lamps,
coiling and curdling greasy yellow under the naked bulbs like milk poured into vinegar. I decipher a crowd of stetsons, the tall hat-crowns wrapped in smoke, toadstools in a shifting ground mist. The toadstools tip back from cards and rose-patterned teacups containing illegal whisky. The glaring light skates down the faces like water down a cliff. They know I’m not a director, so I’m met with nothing but stony, inhospitable stares.

Directors of Westerns like flamboyance, it photographs well, which accounts for the way these boys are duded up. The bigger the hat, the gaudier the costume, the better the chance of being picked for a job. As I wend my way through the tables to the bar, I can sense their hostility; it’s a little bit like being dropped into a carnival where all the sideshow attractions resent you for looking at them. And it’s hard to ignore the extravagant costuming, screaming for attention the way it does. Beaded Indian vests and brass-studded leather gauntlets, big Mexican spurs with sunburst rowels, chaps of every style – bat-wing, stovepipe, angora – flashy shirts and towering hats, polka-dot bandannas the size of small tablecloths knotted around necks. Streetwalkers dolled up to catch the eye of men they despise.