The Alamosa Trail

Chapter 6

El Paso

The liveryman was working on the gate of the paddock when Barry Riggbee and Tennessee Tuttle rode up. Barry dismounted.

“We need to do a little business,” Barry said.

The liveryman looked up. “Well, that’s what we’re here for. You fellas wantin’ to board your horses?”

“Yes, and feed ’em,” Barry replied. “Problem is, we don’t have any money.”

The liveryman pushed his hat back and ran his hand through a thick shock of hair that was brindled gray and black. “Maybe you boys don’t understand how business is done. The thing is, I board and feed horses, but you have to pay money to have it done.”

Barry nodded toward the gate. “I thought maybe we could fix that gate for you,” he said, “and maybe take care of one or two other chores in exchange for feeding and boarding our horses.”

“Uh-huh. And you’ll be wantin’ to stay in the stall with ’em, I suppose?”

Barry nodded. “Yeah, that, too,” he answered sheepishly.

“Hell, mister, I wish I could help you, but I just work here,” the stable man said. “If the boss comes by and finds you doin’ my work, then I’m out of a job. You understand?” By way of dismissal, the liveryman went back to working on the gate.

“Yes,” Barry said. He sighed. “Come on, Tennessee, we’ll . . .”

“Wait a minute,” the stable man said, looking up quickly. He nodded toward Tennessee. “Did you just call him Tennessee?”

“That’s what he called me,” Tennessee said. “My real name is Dan, but folks been callin’ me Tennessee ever since I come out here.”

“Would it be Tennessee Tuttle?” the liveryman asked.

“Yes,” Tennessee replied, surprised that the liveryman seemed to know who he was.

“And you’d be Barry Riggsbee, I take it?”

“That’s my name,” Barry replied. “Say, what is this, mister? How is it that you know who we are?”

“Couple of friends of yours are in town,” the liveryman said. “They said if you stopped by I was to put up your horses and feed ’em. So go ahead and leave them.” He put his tools back down and rubbed his hands together. “What I mean is, they already paid for you two.”

“Well, how about that?” Tennessee said, smiling broadly as he swung down from his horse. “That must’ve been Jim and Frank. Where are they now?”

The liveryman pointed toward one of the several saloons. “You might find ’em in any saloon in town, but it wasn’t too long ago that I seen ’em go into the Border Oasis, and I ain’t seen ’em come out.”

“Thanks,” Barry replied. He and Tennessee handed the reins of their mounts over to the liveryman, then started across the street toward the Border Oasis.

The liveryman started leading the horses into the barn. “Wisht I’da know’d who you was when you first made the offer,” he said with a chuckle. “I’da took you up on it. I’da had you doin’ my work, and I’da had the money, too.”

The Border Oasis was filled with the odors of tobacco smoke, stale beer, and various alcoholic spirits. The drinking men, wearing wide-brimmed or high-crowned hats sat at tables, either playing cards or engaged in animated conversation. Half a dozen painted women, their hair adorned with feathers, ribbons, or sparkling glass jewelry, paraded about, their silk dresses rustling. Another dozen drinkers were at the bar, their spurred, high-heeled boots resting on a brass rail. Highly polished brass spittoons were placed at strategic places around the bar, though stains and bits of chewed tobacco were so prevalent in the sawdust on the floor that the spittoons seemed to serve a more decorative than functional purpose.

Jim Robison and Frank Ford were standing at the bar when Frank saw Barry and Tennessee in the mirror.

“Here come a couple of the boys,” Frank said, nudging Jim. Smiling, he turned away from the bar and waved their two friends over to them.

“Well, I see you boys made it,” Jim said. “Step up to the bar and have a drink with us.”

“I’d love to, Jim. But if you had to pay a penny to wet your tongue, neither one of us could afford a smell,” Tennessee answered.

“Oh, we can take care of that, can’t we, Jim?” Frank said.

“We sure can,” Jim said. “Go ahead and pay them.”

“Pay us? Pay us what?” Barry asked.

Pulling out his wallet, Frank removed a stack of twenty dollar bills. He counted out five apiece to Tennessee and Barry.

“What is this?” Tennessee asked, looking at the notes.

Frank laughed. “That’s money, my friend,” he said. “One hundred dollars. Has it been so long since you saw any that you have forgotten what it is?”

“I mean, what is it for?”

“It’s an advance against the work you’re going to be doing,” Jim explained. “That is, if you take the job.”

“Hell yes, we’ll take the job,” Barry said. “What is it?” Then, with a chuckle, he added, “Wait a minute. I don’t care what it is.”

“No, you’ve got a right to ask,” Jim said. “You ever heard of a fella named Clay Allison?”

“Sure, who hasn’t?” Tennessee replied. “He’s got himself quite a reputation with a gun.”

“Wait a minute,” Barry asked. “Jim, what does this have to do with Clay Allison? Is he hiring guns for a range war or something?”

Jim chuckled. “No, nothing like that. We’re going to be wrangling horses for him. He’s bought a herd, five hundred head, or so I’m told—from a fella down in Mexico. He’s paying us two hundred dollars apiece to go get them. One hundred dollars now, and another hundred when we deliver the herd to his ranch just outside Alamosa, Colorado.”

“Where do we find these horses?”

“Allison is sending a Mexican fella to guide us to where we’re goin’.”

“Who is this Mexican fella? You ever met him?”

“His name is Hector Ortega, and no, I haven’t met him yet.”

“Any of the other boys showed up to go yet?”

“Not yet,” Jim answered. “But we’ve got three hundred dollars more to pay out in advances.”

“What if nobody else shows? Couldn’t we just split the advance money amongst ourselves?” Tennessee asked.

Jim shook his head. “Afraid not. When Allison brings Ortega to us, he will expect to see a body for every hundred dollars he’s advanced. Anyway, I figure it’ll take at least three more if we’re going to do this, easy. If nobody else shows, I guess I’ll just round up some of the locals, but I’d much rather have some of our own making the money. Truth to tell, I’m not all that pleased about havin’ this Ortega fella go along with us. But I reckon if we’re goin’ to be poking around down in Mexico, it would be good to have someone with us who knows the country and speaks the lingo.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Barry said. “Lis ten, if you don’t need us anymore, I’m going to go see about a bath.”

“Yeah, and a meal,” Tennessee added.

“You boys go ahead,” Jim said. “Have yourselves a good time tonight, but check back with us tomorrow.”

“That when we’re headin’ out?” Barry asked. “Tomorrow?”

Jim nodded. “Looks that way. Allison said he would meet us, with Ortega, at the Border Oasis at noon on Saturday, the tenth of April. That’s tomorrow.”

Barry smiled broadly, then punched Tennessee on the shoulder. “See there? I told you I thought it was April,” he said.

“That you did,” Tennessee agreed. “Yep, it’s just like I said. A man has no need of calendars when he’s got ol’ Barry Riggsbee around.”

Jim and Frank laughed as their two friends left the saloon in search of a bath and food. They had just turned back to the bar when they heard a shout from one of the tables where a card game was in progress.

“What the hell? How the hell did you do that? I had two aces showing. How’d you know I didn’t have ’em backed up?”

“You’re not suggesting I’m a cheat, are you, Perkins?” one of the other players asked.

“No, no, of course not. It’s just that I don’t know how you can do that.”

“Sounds like a pretty good game going on over there,” Frank suggested.

“Pretty good for someone, I’d say,” Jim agreed. When the two of them looked toward the gaming table, they saw a large, bald-headed, well-dressed man raking in a pile of chips.

“You want to know how I did this?” the bald man asked the player who had questioned him. “I did it by skill. You see, poker is eighty percent skill and twenty percent luck. It takes skill to run a bluff, and it takes skill to know when a bluff is being run. I always say that’s what separates the men from the boys in this game. You, Perkins, are just a boy in a man’s game.”

Frank drank his whiskey and studied this skilled gambler for a moment. The bald man’s eyes were brown and flashing brightly in the reflected light of the overhead lanterns.

The gambler chuckled happily, then continued. “Boys, when you play with Mitch Jensen, you gotta expect to lose. But look at it like you was goin’ to school, learnin’ the game.”

“Jensen, you’re as full of shit as a Christmas goose,” Perkins said.

“I may be a Christmas goose, Perkins,” Jensen said as he shuffled the cards for another deal. “But you are a plucked hen.”

Perkins looked chagrined as the others laughed. “Deal me out,” he said.

Frank continued to study Jensen. Feeling Frank’s steady gaze upon him, Jensen put his finger to his collar and pulled it away from his thick neck. Frank’s eyes bore into him so that he had to look around.

“Can I help you, mister?”

Frank nodded toward the table. “Private game?”

Jensen smiled. “Private game? Hell, if you got the money to lose, I’ll be glad to take it.”

Frank turned toward Jim. “What do you think about playing with Allison’s money?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” Jim said. “But if you’re going to do that, I’d rather you not lose.”

Frank smiled. “I’ll do my damnedest not to. You sort of keep an eye on things.”

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Jim said as he lifted his drink.

Frank walked over to the table. When he arrived, Jensen looked over at Perkins. “You’ve taken yourself out of the game, Perkins. Get up and give the man your seat”—Jensen looked at Frank—“unless you feel the chair is unlucky.”

“There are no unlucky chairs,” Frank replied as he started toward the table. “Just unfortunate players.”

Jensen laughed again. “Unfortunate players,” he repeated. “Yes, to be sure. Well, let’s see whether you will be fortunate or”—he paused for a moment before he let the last word slide out—“unfortunate.”

Frank pulled the chair out, then sat down.

“You do have money?” Jensen asked.

When Frank put two hundred dollars on the table, some of the other players whistled softly.

“Well, now,” Jensen said as he watched Frank make neat stacks of the bills in front of him. “Yes, I think you will make a fine addition to the game. And your money will be a fine addition to my wallet,” he added with a laugh.

As he had discussed with Jim, the two hundred dollars Frank was playing with came from the money they were carrying to be advanced to anyone who agreed to go to Mexico with them. It was a risky operation but Frank had a feeling about Jensen. Jensen was a little too overconfident, and it had been Frank’s experience that overconfident gamblers could be taken.

Jensen picked up the cards, but Frank waved his finger back and forth. “There’s a new player at the table,” he said. “I have the right to call for a new deck.”

“A new deck? All right,” Jensen said, picking up a fresh box. Using his thumbnail, he broke the seal, then took the cards out. Removing the joker, he spread the deck out on the table, then turned the cards over expertly in one motion. He was quite dextrous and made a little show of it for Frank. “Are you satisfied with the cards?” he asked.

“Deal them,” Frank said.

Jensen shuffled the cards and the stiff new pasteboards clicked sharply. His hands moved swiftly, folding the cards in and out, until the law of random numbers became the law of the table. He shoved the cards toward Frank, who cut them, then pushed them back.

“Is five-card draw all right with you?” Jensen asked.

“Five-card draw is fine.”

Frank lost fifteen dollars on the first hand, folding cautiously with a hand that would have been good enough to win had he stayed in the game.

Jensen laughed as he dragged in the pot.

“This isn’t a game for the weak of heart, stranger,” he said. “You should’ve bet the hand.”

Frank lost the second hand the same way, and again Jensen laughed.

By the third hand, Frank was down thirty-five dollars, but there was over sixty dollars in the pot, and he had drawn two cards to complete a heart flush. He bet five dollars.

“Careful now, mister,” Jensen warned. “You don’t want to get carried away here. I’ll see your five, and raise you five.”

Frank made a big show of studying his hand carefully. Finally, as if only after careful consideration, he called, but didn’t raise Jensen’s bet.

“All right, cowboy, let’s see what we have,” Jensen said. Jensen was holding three kings, and he laughed when he saw Frank’s hand.

“A flush? You were holding a flush and all you did was call?”

“You might’ve had a flush with a bigger card. I like to be certain about things. As you can see, it paid off,” Frank said as he raked in the pot. “I am now forty dollars ahead.”

“It paid off, did it?” Jensen asked. “Because you’re a lousy forty dollars ahead in the game?”

Jensen’s vanity was piqued at the thought of a rank amateur taking the pot. Frank had counted on that. He planned to make this an interesting game.

“I’m going to ante the limit this time,” Frank said hesitantly. He put his hand on the money and held it for a moment, as if thinking about it. Then, with a sigh, he pushed the money forward. “Ten dollars.”

“Oh, ten dollars?” Jensen teased. “We’re getting into some heavy money now. What do you say we up the ante a little?”

“Up the ante?” Frank asked.

“You say your system is paying off. Let’s up the ante and see,” Jensen challenged.

“All right, if you want to,” Frank replied, still talking as if he were being manipulated by Jensen.

“That’s more like it,” Jensen said. He shoved the cards across the table to Frank. “Here, it’s your deal.”

When Frank picked up the cards, he felt them as he began shuffling, checking for pinpricks and uneven corners. They were playing with an honest deck. He smiled. Evidently Jensen was so sure of himself that he felt no need to cheat in this game. And of course, Frank had played his hands in a way that would tend to support Jensen’s belief.

Frank dealt the cards. The betting was quite brisk and within a few moments the pot was over two hundred dollars.

“Now, cowboy, I’m afraid it’s going to cost you to see what I have,” Jensen said. He slid a stack of chips to the center of the table. “One hundred dollars.”

Jensen’s bet was high enough to run everyone else out of the game, and he chuckled as he gazed across the table at Frank.

“What about it, mister? It’s just you and me now. You want to pay to see what I’ve got?”

Frank studied his cards for a long moment.

“Come on, mister, you can’t take all night,” Jensen said. “What’re you going to do?”

“I’ll see your one hundred, and raise it one hundred,” Frank said.

Jensen gasped, and he looked at Frank in openmouthed surprise.

“What kind of hand do you have, mister?” he asked.

“A pretty good one, I think,” Frank answered. He put the cards down in front of him, four to one side, and one off by itself.

“Son of a bitch, he’s got four of a kind,” someone said. “Look at the way he put his cards down.”

“I’ll tell you this, whatever the man had, there’s over three hundred dollars in that pot,” another said.

By now the stakes of the game were high enough to attract the attention of everyone else in the saloon, and there were several men standing around the table, watching the players with intense interest. Only Jim hadn’t come over to join them. He remained back at the bar, ostensibly uninterested in the game. In reality, he was keeping a close eye on everyone and everything, covering Frank’s back. It was a procedure they had developed long ago.

“He’s bluffin’, Jensen,” Perkins said. “Hell, I can tell by lookin’ at him that he’s bluffin’. Call his hand.”

Jensen snorted. “I’m supposed to listen to you? You’ve already proved how good a poker player you are,” he said sarcastically.

“Call him,” Perkins urged again.

“It’s my money you’re talkin’ about,” Jensen said. “You give me one hundred dollars, and I’ll call him.”

“I already gave you a hundred dollars,” Perkins said. “You won that much from me today.”

“Yeah, well, it’s mine now, and I don’t plan to throw it away.” He rubbed his chin as he studied Frank. “And don’t forget, this is the fella who wouldn’t even raise a flush.”

Frank’s face remained impassive.

“What are you going to do, Jensen?” one of the bystanders asked. “Like you told this gentleman a few moments ago, you can’t take all night.”

“All right, all right, the pot’s yours,” Jensen said, turning his cards up on the table. He had a full house, aces over jacks. “What have you got?”

Frank’s cards stayed facedown on the table just the way he left them, four in one pile, one in another. He reached out to rake in his pot.

“I asked you a question, mister. What have you got?” Jensen asked again. He reached for Frank’s cards, but Frank caught him around the wrist with a vise grip.

“Huh-uh. You didn’t pay to see them,” Frank said easily.

With his other hand, Jensen slid some money across the table. Frank saw two twenties and a ten.

“Is that enough to let me see?”

“All right, if you want to,” Frank said. He let go of Jensen’s wrists, and Jensen turned up the cards. Instead of four of a kind, there were two small pairs.

“What the hell is this?” Jensen gasped, glancing up from the cards with an expression of exasperation on his face. “You beat me with two pairs?”

“Won’t two pairs beat a full house?”

“No, you idiot!”

“Oh. Well, then, I guess I just don’t understand the game that well,” Frank said innocently.

The others around the table laughed uproariously, not sure whether Frank was telling the truth or if he was perpetrating a gigantic hoax on Jensen.

Frank started to pick up the money. “Gentle men, it’s been fun, but now I must go—”

“Just a minute! Hold it! Where do you think you are going? You aren’t leaving the table with those winnings.”

“Then I guess I really don’t understand the game,” Frank said. “I thought we were playing for keeps.”

“We are playing for keeps,” Jensen sputtered. “But if you play with me, you don’t walk away without giving me a chance to get even.”

“Is that a fact? Then remind me never to play with you again.” Frank began stuffing the money into his pockets.

“Better do somethin’, Jensen. That feller’s gettin’ away with your money,” Perkins teased.

“It’s your money, too,” Jensen said.

“Not anymore it ain’t. Now it’s all his. And truth to tell, if I can’t get it back I’d rather the stranger have it than you.”

Perkins’s declaration was followed by even more laughter.

With his pockets now bulging with money, Frank started toward the bar. In the meantime, in a move unnoticed by nearly everyone, Jensen made a slight signal to a man who was standing near the rail at the overhead landing.

Jensen might have thought that he gave the signal unnoticed, but Jim saw it. When Jim looked up, he saw someone on the upstairs landing pointing his pistol at Frank.

“Frank, look out!” Jim shouted.

Jim’s warning was barely in time. Frank dived to the floor just as the upstairs gunman fired. The bullet punched a hole in the floor beside Frank’s sprawled form.

Realizing that his target had been warned by the man standing at the bar, the gunman swung his pistol toward Jim, squeezing the trigger as he did so. His bullet crashed into the mirror behind the bar, leaving jagged shards to reflect grotesquely twisted images of the events taking place before it.

Frank was not the only person who had dived to the floor. By the time the gunman had fired a second shot nearly everyone else in the saloon was on the floor, behind chairs, or under tables. The only one who was still standing upright was Jim Robison and by now he had his own pistol out. His first shot rang out just over the top of the gunman’s third shot. The gunman’s third shot smashed into the bar, splintering the mahogany. Jim’s shot caught the gunman in the middle of the chest. Startled, the would-be assassin dropped his pistol, then put both hands over his wound, trying to stem the flow of blood spilling through his fingers. He reeled for a moment, fighting hard to stay on his feet. Losing that battle, he pitched forward, smashing through the rail. Falling to the floor below, his body did a half flip on the way down before crashing belly-up through a table.

“You all right?” Jim called to his cousin.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Frank answered.

The shooting drew a crowd, not only from those who were already in the Border Oasis, but from the rest of the town as well. For the next few minutes a steady stream of curious poured in through the front door. One of the first to arrive was the sheriff, and he saw Jim standing at the bar with his pistol in his hand.

“You want to put that way, mister?” the sheriff asked.

When Jim looked toward the sheriff, he saw that the lawman was holding a pistol on him.

“Anything you say, Sheriff,” Jim said, slipping his pistol back in its holster.

“Now are you the one who did this?” the sheriff asked, taking in the body with a nod.

“I reckon I am.”

“He didn’t have no choice, Sheriff,” the bartender said. “It was self-defense.”

“That’s right, Sheriff,” several others said, quickly. “Creech fired first.”

The sheriff thought for a moment, then put his gun away. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Robison. Jim Robison.”

The sheriff looked at the shattered mirror, the splintered bar, the smashed table, and the broken railing hanging in pieces from the overhead landing.

“Must’ve been one hell of a fight. Looks like more bullets were fired in here than were used at the Alamo.”

“Only four shots were fired,” one of the saloon patrons said.

“Only four? Someone want to tell me what happened?”

About five people started speaking at once, each eager to give his own account of the battle.

“Hold it, hold it!” the sheriff said, interrupting the babble. He looked at the bartender. “Did you see it, Ned?”

“Yeah, I seen it.”

“All right, suppose you tell me what happened?”

“Creech took one shot at this man,” Ned said, pointing to Frank. “When Robison called him on it, Creech swung his gun around and took another couple of shots at him. Robison shot back.”

The sheriff looked down at Creech’s body, then up at the smashed railing, then over toward the bar.

“You got him with your first shot?” the sheriff asked.

“I was lucky,” Jim said easily.

“Wasn’t luck at all,” the bartender said. “I seen it. You was cool as a cucumber.”

“What started the fight in the first place?” the sheriff asked. “I mean, all of you say Creech fired first. What I want to know is, why?”

“Now that I don’t know,” the bartender replied. “There wasn’t no words spoke or nothin’. Leastwise, not in here. Could be they had words somewhere else before.”

“You know this man?” the sheriff asked Jim.

“Never saw him before in my life.”

The sheriff looked over at Frank. “What’s your name?”

“Frank Ford.”

“What about you, Ford? Why did he shoot at you? Did you know him?”

Frank shook his head no. “Like my cousin said, we don’t know him.”

“The two of you are cousins?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then that tells me why you was willin’ to take a hand in this fella’s fight,” the sheriff said. “But it still don’t tell me why there had to be a fight in the first place.”

“Ask the gambler there,” Jim said. “Jensen gave Creech the signal to dry-gulch Frank. I saw it and yelled a warning. That’s when Creech started firing.”

“What? Why, that’s preposterous!” Jensen shouted angrily.

“Anyone else see this signal?” the sheriff asked. “What about you, Ned? Did you see any kind of a signal?”

“I didn’t see no signal,” Ned said. “I don’t know why Creech started shootin’. All I know is, he was the one who fired the first shot.”

“You know how Creech was, Sheriff. He always was a bit strange Maybe he just went loco or somethin’. If this here fella hadn’t killed him, no tellin’ how many of us Creech would’ve shot,” one of the other patrons suggested.

“Yes, including me, a totally innocent by stander,” Jensen insisted.

“Creech worked for you, didn’t he, Jensen?” the sheriff asked.

“What? No, he didn’t work for me. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“Funny. I seem to recall you usin’ him as a bodyguard.”

“Well, I would use him from time to time, but only if I was in a big game where there was a lot of money involved,” Jensen insisted. “He didn’t work for me regular. And certainly not for this game. Why, this game was for a pittance. I hardly thought it necessary to hire a bodyguard.”

“The last pot was for nearly four hundred dollars,” Perkins said. “That’s hardly a pittance.”

“That may be a large pot to you, Perkins, but I have played for thousands of dollars,” Jensen said haughtily.

The sheriff stroked his chin for a moment, then looked over at Jim. “Mr. Robison, everyone seems to back up your claim that it was self-defense, so I don’t aim to arrest you. But as far as Jensen sendin’ a signal, well, don’t nobody else seem to have seen that, so I reckon we’ll just have to let that drop.”

By now the undertaker had arrived and he was bending over to examine to corpse.

“Welch, get the body out of here,” the sheriff said to the undertaker. “It ain’t good for business.”

“The city will pay for it?” Welch asked.

The sheriff nodded in the affirmative, then he looked toward Jim and Frank. “Didn’t have no trouble till you two boys showed up. You planning on staying in town long?”

“Just overnight,” Jim answered. “We’re meeting someone here tomorrow.”

“Someone local? Who is it you are meeting?”

“Clay Allison.”

There were several gasps and exclamations of surprise at the mention of the famous gunman’s name.

“Look here,” the sheriff asked, his eyes narrowing. “You two aren’t planning on shootin’ it out in my town, are you?”

Jim laughed. “Sheriff, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but dumb isn’t one of them. I don’t plan to go up against Clay Allison in this town, or any other. We’re just going to discuss some business, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh,” the sheriff responded. It was obvious that he was still suspicious of Jim.

“Well, you and Clay Allison go on about your business. But just so’s you know, I plan to put on a few extra deputies to keep a watch on you.”