Head West (The Collected Western Stories of B.J. Holmes) Read online

  Eventually Smokey died and Constance gave her old savior a decent burial and destroyed the accoutrements of addiction.

  Upon hearing the news Harold Cooper came striding round claiming ownership. He was shocked when Constance talked of her owning the deeds. And he didn’t believe her until she waved the document in front of him.

  For a while she ran it quite successfully. But Cooper kept coming round, putting pressure on her to sell; owning the whole of town had become a principle for him and The Keys was the only establishment not in his ownership. Of course she turned him down. It was her living and she enjoyed it.

  That was until things started to happen. Drunken brawls increased in number leaving a battle scene. While she was tidying up and repairing the newly-damaged interior, stones would smash windows. She couldn’t’ tie any of it down but she knew Cooper was behind it all. Not only were constant repairs eating into her money, customers became a feared of being seen drinking there lest they offend the town bigwig so her income fell drastically. One didn’t have to be an economic philosopher to know that costs up, income down leads to zero profit.

  At the back of The Keys the couple basked in the sun, not talking, just happy to be in each other’s company.

  ‘Are you coming round this evening?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘Oh, I can’t sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I’m on duty tonight.’

  ‘Then give me a kiss to tide me over until tomorrow,’ she said.

  He took her in his arms and gave her the most prolonged kiss he could muster.

  ‘And meanwhile,’ she said, pulling away, ‘I’ve got a saloon to run and you’ve got a fort full of little tin soldiers to return to.’

  Before they parted they embraced once more.

  There were hardly any customers that evening in The Crossed Keys. When it came time too close, there was only an old man in the corner. He hadn’t drunk much and had not spoken to anyone.

  ‘Time to hit the trail, sir,’ she said, looking at the big wall clock in the bar section.

  ‘Can I stay here a little longer?’ he asked. ‘I don’t feel too well.’

  ‘Well, I am closing. Tell you what, you stay here until I’ve finished locking up.’

  Minutes later she presented herself to him, keys in hand. ‘Come on, sir. Time to move.’

  He tried to stand but tottered and fell back in the chair.

  She looked at him. He hadn’t had much to drink and there was no smell of excess alcohol from him.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I don’t feel very well.’

  ‘So you’ve said but you’re really gonna have to go. Where d’you live?’

  ‘Got a drovers’ pallet the end of town.’

  ‘How long you been lodged there?’

  ‘Only came to town yesterday.’

  ‘You’re never going to make it all the way there. What’s the problem?’

  No answer.

  ‘Has this happened before?’

  ‘Yes, but not as bad as this. I need rest. That usually does the trick.’

  ‘I’ve got a couch in the room behind the bar. You can rest on that while I tidy up. But you’ve got to go in a few minutes.’

  When she returned he was lying still, his face seemingly screwed up with pain. ‘You’re in no fit state to go anywhere, are you? Do you want some water.’

  He shook his head.

  The big wall clock in the saloon struck twelve. She appraised him for a few moments. There was no way he could get home like this. She thought then added, ‘Listen I’ll fetch a blanket and you can stay on the couch for the night. But you’ve got to go in the morning.’

  She fetched a blanket and laid it over him.

  ‘You’re good to me,’ he muttered with closed eyes. ‘Nobody treats old Jed like this.’

  ‘I’ll leave the lamp on low.’ She turned the spindle. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘You’re good to me. Marry me.’

  At the door she grunted, hoping this whole fandango was not some silly ruse.

  ‘Get to sleep.’

  On the landing she heard loud groans. She harrumphed and returned downstairs.

  His face looked even more subject to pain. ‘If you marry me you can look after me,’ he said without opening his eyes. His whole behavior said he was drunk, but he’d hardly had much liquor.

  ‘Saloon girls get offers of marriage ten times a week,’ she countered. ‘Now go to sleep.’

  ‘Your different. You’re kind.’

  ‘I really must go, I need to sleep if you don’t.’

  ‘I’m serious. Just because you can see my elbows through my sleeves you think I ain’t worth much. I tell you, lady, I’m one of the richest guys around. I could look after you well.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ she sighed. She’d heard it all before.

  ‘Me and my pardner, we been working this gold seam for years up in the Badrocks.’ Tiredness and possibly illness blurred his speech. ‘Don’t trust banks so we’ve hid the money in a cave near our workings. Couple of seasons back my sidekick, poor critter, died in a roof fall––so there’s only me now. My memory plays tricks these days so I drew a map of where it is, ‘case I forgot. All drawed out clear. The thing’s in my warbag.’ His voice got fainter as sleep or unconsciousness grabbed at him. ‘Believe me, gal, there’s enough to see you and me into our old age.’

  In her time she’d been promised everything by drunken would-be suitors from a ranch in Texas to the moon itself. This was a new one to add to the list, being promised a share in some prospector’s El Dorado.

  ‘What do you say?’ he said in slow, fading tones.

  ‘Let’s talk about it in the morning when you’ve sobered up,’ she said, hoping that by then he would have forgotten it.

  ‘I’ve told you I’ve had very little to drink.’

  ‘True. Now, do you want a drink of water before I go?’

  He didn’t answer and she once again made her way upstairs.

  She was asleep the next time he made a loud noise. She didn’t know how much sleep she been able to grab. ‘This is beyond a joke,’ she muttered.

  She rolled out of bed and fumbled for the matches, eventually lighting the kerosene.

  Not yet dawn; downstairs the old fellow was just a vague shape in the darkness. When close she see him grimacing, eyes creased shut.

  ‘What can I do?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing, I think this is it.’ He was having trouble getting the words out.

  ‘I’ll get you a glass of water.’

  ‘No, no.’ The words staccato’d out.

  ‘You’ve had this before?’

  ‘Yes, but never as bad as this. This is the big one.’

  She rubbed at his chest around where his scrawny fingers were groping.

  ‘Listen,’ he whispered. ‘Got no family, nobody. You been good to me, Miss Constance’. Everything’s yours. And don’t forget the chart. It’s yours.’

  He went rigid, his back arching, his heels thrusting into the couch. His arms fell away and his body went limp, the only sound a long-drawn-out exhalation of breath that seemed to go on interminably until it faded.

  She checked for pulse at wrist and throat, found none. She slapped at his face, rubbed his chest, his fingers. Nothing. She sat holding his hand as the first glimmer of day appeared at the gap between the curtains.

  He was buried later that day in the cemetery up on the hill that overlooked Hondo. It was a simple affair with Constance the only mourner. As a lone through-traveler no one in town knew him. She was not particularly religious and she didn’t really know the old-timer but she felt there should be someone saying goodbye and giving him a decent if sparse ceremony.

  Although the arrangements had been as simple as possible, there was not enough cash in the old man’s wallet to cover the funeral so she gave his mule and tack to the undertaker.

  ‘The tack ain’t worth a cent,’ the latter complained, ‘and what am I gonna get for a flea-bitten pack-ass?’ So
she threw in a few dollars of her own to make up the difference in an attempt to shut up the moaning mortician. All she had left was the threadbare warbag and its redundant gewgaws. Why she didn’t throw away the chart with the rest she didn’t know. She didn’t even open it, just abstractedly stashed it at the back of a drawer.

  The next morning Harold Cooper came a-calling. ‘Hear you had a death here last night.’

  ‘You know very well.’

  ‘Trouble is a death ain’t good for business especially in a place selling food and drink. You’ll be lucky to get any customers for a while.’

  ‘I’ll be lucky to get any customers at all, the way you’ve been attacking this place. Arranging for your lunkheads to hold fracases here. Look.’ She pointed at chipped wood, cracked and shattered mirrors. ‘I can’t keep up with the damage. Not to mention you fixing for your yahoos to hurl stones through the windows.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Suddenly she’d had enough and everything was clear. ‘OK. How much?’

  ‘‘You’re willing to sell? So that I can legally own the Keys?’

  ‘Yes it’s what you want isn’t it. How much?’

  ‘To make it legal requires money to change hands. So what about a dollar?’

  She laughed and said nothing.

  ‘OK, if that not good enough let’s start at two dollars.’

  ‘Let’s start at $5000.’

  ‘My lady jests, as the Bard said.’

  ‘$5000.’

  ‘$1000’ was the grunted reply.

  ‘$4000.’

  ‘$2000’

  To her surprise as well as his she suddenly said , ‘Done.’

  ‘You’ll take a bank draft?’

  ‘Don’t start your silly capers again. I don’t trust banks. They all wear flashy vests and suits like you. Cash. Folding stuff or gold, I’m not choosey.’

  ‘I’ll get it right away.’ And he dashed outside as fast as he could before she changed her mind,

  She dropped into a chair. Not believing what she’d just done. What the hell had happened to her? Spur of the moment, that was it. Never mind it was better than a kick in the bustle and, to boot, the Keys’ problems were no longer hers.’

  As she walked up to the fort it struck her why she had jumped at $2000 when maybe she could have a little more. It clicked––it was the magic figure of $2000––that would get John out of trouble.

  ‘Constance Shaw to see Lieutenant Haycox.’

  ‘Of course, ma’am,’ the sentry said pointing back. ‘Go right on through.’

  She was shown to a room in the administration block. When her soldier eventually came in she placed the $2000 on the table.

  ‘There you are. It’s yours.’

  ‘Mine?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘As much as you need.’

  She explained her selling of The Crossed Keys. ‘Once you’ve paid off the debt to Cooper, there’s no stumbling block to our getting married.’

  He grabbed her, squeezed her tight. ‘I’ll pay back every penny.’

  ‘No need; husband and wife share everything. Besides there’s no point in paying off a debt to one person just to take out a debt to the same amount with another. The only thing you owe me is––a lifetime of happiness. And I owe that to you so it’s not so much a “debt”. More like an exchange!”

  ‘I’ve got some good news too.’

  ‘What?’

  I’ve got a furlough. Three clear weeks.’

  ‘When can you take it?’

  ‘Whenever I like.’

  ‘What about tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow? Why sure, easy done.’

  ‘Then we can get the hell out here and find a quiet little place to have a honeymoon.’

  ‘Yeah, anything you say. By the way, I’ve been given the furlough for a special reason.’

  ‘What’s that’

  He straightened and saluted ‘Say Good Morning to Captain John Haycox.’

  ‘Oh darling.’ She grabbed and hugged him, her head tight against his chest.

  She spent the rest of the day auctioning off the furniture––much to the chagrin of Cooper; but he didn’t have a legal leg to stand on as their dealing had been so hasty that there had been no mention of either way about accoutrements.

  The next morning she made preparations for leaving––and boy, what preparations she made. She turned the focus on herself and prepared to catch the 3.10 out of Hondo.

  Before the mirror she pursed her lips at the mirror once more, and then donned a saffron dress with matching coat and lappeted bonnet.

  Several times she drilled it into Little Jim not to come back to the Keys once she had left. Remember her departure? Yes, they would remember her departure all right

  Her lieutenant had ordered a carriage to take them the short distance to the station.

  Little Jim was waiting for her at the platform, having earlier brought her traps. In front of a growing audience she gave him a hug and slipped some bills in his hand.

  ‘Be a good boy for your ma,’ she whispered, ‘and remember what I said. Don’t go back to the Keys. It doesn’t belong to us anymore and it’s all locked up. Remember, don’t go back. Promise.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  It wasn’t because it was locked up that she had been so insistent that he keep away, but that was all the explanation she was giving him. Shortly the bell-stacker clanked to a standstill and Little Jim helped the conductor load her luggage. As the train pulled out she leaned her head against the backrest and closed her eyes. She hadn’t slept much for two nights and her head was still in a whirl at the notion of how quickly the circumstances of one’s life could change.

  As the train picked up speed she tried to imagine her life ahead, clenching John’s hand to remind her she wasn’t dreaming. And never once did she look back at the receding town of Hondo. In her book it was already history.

  ‘Isn’t this wonderful, darling,’ John said as they snuggled into the upholstery and each other. ‘It’s a rare thing that everybody comes out a situation with something good. ‘You and I are getting married. You’ve got cash for the furniture. You’ve seen to it that even I have no debt to worry about. Even the evil-hearted Cooper has gotten himself a hotel at a bargain price, Yes, Everybody’s come out of this well.’

  ‘Not quite,’ she said enigmatically with a knowing smile.

  The train had disappeared from sight from the town when someone on the main drag shouted ‘Fire’. Flames were licking through the windows of the building that bore the name of The Crossed Keys. There was little chance of saving the place. The candle she’d left burning amongst the oil-soaked rags and lumber in the cellar had finally done its trick.

  The pretty woman snuggling against her soldier’s shoulder had a soft side. But she had a hard side too.

  They were a good hour on when Constance said, ‘Oh was forgetting. Pass me my luggage, darling. The soldier eased the trunk from the rack and placed it on the seat. She opened it and ferreted through until she found old man Jed’s piece of scruffy paper.

  ‘Are you happy with everything as they are, John?’

  ‘Of course. Need you ask?’

  ‘Will you be happy if something that you don’t know about doesn’t come off?’

  ‘Of course, but what’s this all about?’

  ‘Well this may yield a bonus. This humble piece of paper might be quite valuable. But the emphasis is on might be.’

  ‘I’m intrigued.’

  She flattened it on the seat. ‘Now this is just a shot in the dark. We’ve got time to spare so before we decide on our final honeymoon destination we shall make a detour to this place. She tapped the X on the map

  ‘Not a treasure map?’ he said incredulously.

  ‘Indulge me, darling. It might very well be pie in the sky. We may not find it and even if we do it may not be a cache of untold riches.’

  But the
y did and it was.

  A couple of cents over fifteen grand.

  (Some of the bones of this story were incorporated into the novel ‘Jake’s Women’.)

  Dry Run

  A piece of flotsam moves aimlessly over one ocean and then another, discarded by them all until, at last, it fetches up on a foreign shore. It was in such a manner that the man in the black flat-hat approached the footbridge that led over Chandler Canyon to Raban’s End. He sure looked like flotsam with his battered hat and dusty, worn denims. He wore a homemade patchwork jacket that many a hobo would have abandoned long ago, given that they would have deigned to wear it in the first place. In this context even the patterning on the appaloosa beneath him seemed untidy.

  The man reined in and dismounted. Leading his horse by the reins he walked to the bridge and stopped at the edge of the canyon. At the bottom, two hundred feet below, there had been a river. But that was long before the first page of recorded history had been turned. Although it was early morning he had been riding for several hours. Both he and the appaloosa wanted water––and maybe water could be found somewhere down there but the way down was too precipitous to risk a descent and an arduous return climb on such a small hope.

  The horse remained obediently still as the man let go the reins and stepped cautiously onto the bridge. The thirty odd feet of the divide were spanned by wooden slats resting on crossbars fixed to wooden supports embedded in the canyon sides. Only one of the hand rails was left running along the side of the walkway, The frame creaked ominously under his weight. A generation of the extremes of damp and drying out had weakened the construction to the point of near collapse. The blond-haired man took a deep breath, held the rail and bounced up and down, gently at first and then with more force. His lifelong fear of heights ensured he didn’t take another look down into the nothingness below.