Do or Die

Chapter Two

Charley Pickett didn’t know which shocked him more. That someone would come up to them in public and threaten them, or that his best friend, Anthony Michael Fabrizio, was a pickpocket. For just as sure as he was sitting there, he knew it was true.

Tony, though, smiled that pearly white smile of his and responded, “I have no idea what you are talking about, signore.”

The newspapers were full of stories about how bad crime was in Denver. Thieves, pickpockets, footpads, robbers; whatever they were called, they were thick as fleas on an old coon dog. That’s why Charley had taken to keeping what little money he had saved in his right shoe.

“Spare me, punk!” the man with the diamond stickpin snarled. “Do you have any idea who I am?” He drew himself up to his full height. “I’m Walter Radtke. I run half a dozen concert halls and twice as many gambling dens. I make more money in a day than you’ll ever earn in your lifetime. I’m not someone you want to mess with.”

Charley saw Tony glance right and left as if he were thinking about bolting. Right away, the two bruisers with Radtke flanked him to prevent it.

Tony’s smile never wavered. “All that may be true, but it does not prove I stole your money. For all you know, it was someone else. Or you lost it.”

Radtke folded his arms across his chest. “Quit playing me for a sucker. Hell, I buy water from you every day on my way to one of my concert halls. You must have been waiting your chance for weeks. And you’re good. I’ll grant you that. I never felt you lift it.”

Charley was being ignored. He was relieved, since he would never want to rile someone like Radtke. But it also made him a little angry that he wasn’t important enough to be noticed.

“I want my money, punk. All of it. If you don’t hand it over right this minute, Loritz and Arch are taking you out into the alley and rearranging your bones. It’s that simple.”

“You would cause a scene here?” Tony gestured at the array of Denver’s richest and most influential. “Unless I am mistaken, over there is the mayor with his lovely wife. At the table next to them is the president of the bank down the street. What will they think if they see your scimmie drag me out? It would not do to spoil their digestion.”

Radtke glanced at the tables Tony had indicated, and his eyebrows pinched together. “Damn.” He leaned on the table again. “You think you’re smart, don’t you, boy? But all you’ve done is bought yourself some time. You have until seven p.m. tomorrow to bring my money to the Hull Boarding House on Fremont Street. If you don’t, by eight I’ll have a hundred men scouring Denver from end to end. There’s nowhere you can hide that I can’t find you. There’s nowhere you can run that my men can’t hunt you down.”

Tony was still smiling when the trio walked off. As soon as they were out of sight, he drained his wineglass in several gulps and sat glumly staring at the linen tablecloth. “I am in for it now. Even if I return the money, Radtke is not likely to forgive and forget. He does not strike me as the type to turn the other cheek.”

“How could you steal someone else’s money?” Charley asked in amazement.

“There you go again. I swear, the way you go on, you should consider becoming a priest.” Tony paused. “Sorry. Make that a preacher.”

“Needle me all you want. But there’s right and there’s wrong, and a man has to know which is which or he’ll never amount to a hill of beans.”

“Is that you talking or your padre? Your father?” Tony put a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. “It is easy for you to spout virtue, my friend. You did not have the childhood I did. You have not been living by your wits as long as I have. It is not easy, Charley. Sometimes you must do things you are not proud of.”

“I’d never steal.”

Tony looked at him and smiled. “I believe you. I believe you would rather starve than do whatever it takes to survive. That is the big difference between us.” He reached across and patted Charley’s big hand. “But do not take me wrong. I do not think less of you. I think more. We are more alike in that respect than you can imagine. I am honored to call you my friend.”

Charley thought of how his mother used to pat him on the head and tell him he was her pride and joy, and he grew all tingly. “Right or wrong, we can’t let Radtke hurt you. We’ve got to do something.”

“I am open to suggestions. But I tell you right now, I am not returning the money. I need a stake, Charley. Why, I cannot say. But I need a lot of money, and I need it soon.” Tony gazed wistfully at a chandelier. “In many respects we are like driftwood. The currents of our lives carry us places we would rather not go, but which we are powerless to prevent.”

Charley had no idea what his friend was talking about. He bent to his steak and tried to enjoy it, but the mood had been ruined. Twice he tried to engage Tony in conversation, but Tony had withdrawn into himself.

“If you do not mind,” Tony said as he paid for their meals, “I would very much like to be alone. I will walk home by myself and see you tomorrow on the same corner.”

“Whatever you want.” Charley was feeling sad himself. Whenever someone he liked was upset, it upset him too. He trailed Tony out the gilded glass doors and watched until Tony reached the far end of the block. About to turn and go his own way, he saw a pair of shadows emerge from the recessed doorway of a butcher shop and fall into step a dozen yards behind his friend.

Charley was startled to realize they were the same pair who had been with Walter Radtke. Loritz and Arch. They had on hats and coats with the collars pulled high, but they didn’t fool him. Pulling the short brim of his own hat low, he followed to see what they were up to. Radtke had given Tony until tomorrow night to fork over the money, but maybe he had changed his mind and decided to have Tony beaten to a pulp sooner.

Charley wouldn’t let that happen. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he hunched forward so he would appear smaller than he was in case they looked back. His size had always set him apart, and they were bound to recognize him otherwise. But they never once glanced over their shoulders. They were intent on Tony and Tony alone.

Charley thought about what his friend had said about needing a stake. Tony wasn’t the only one. He could use one. So could Melissa. And they were not alone. There had to be thousands who would give their eyeteeth for a chance at a better life. For most, though, their dreams would never amount to more than flights of fancy.

All those years in Kentucky, Charley had never imagined life was so hard, so cruel. His parents, he now knew, had protected him from the worst of the world. They fed him; they clothed him; they were always there when he needed a helping hand. He had never fully appreciated all they did.

Charley would very much like to go back and tell them to their faces how much they meant to him. How much he loved them. But he couldn’t bear to show up on their doorstep penniless and jobless, like some tramp begging for a handout. He had his pride to think of. When he returned to Kentucky, he wanted them to be proud of him, not ashamed.

Tony had turned left into a street with fewer gas lamps. Loritz and Arch followed, pacing him. They brushed aside a fallen dove in a blue dress who had brazenly blocked their path and thrust her chest out for them to admire. She swore like a soldier but shut up when one raised a hand to cuff her.

Several more blocks fell behind them. Charley was half-convinced the pair were tailing Tony to learn where Tony lived and nothing more. Then Fabrizio stopped at the mouth of an alley and peered down it as if trying to decide whether to take a shortcut. The taller of the pair nudged the other, and they quickened their pace until they were practically running. Too late, Tony heard them. He took a few steps but was grabbed by the arms and hauled into the alley. He didn’t resist.

Charley wasn’t a fast runner, but he could move when he had to. When he reached the alley, the shorter man had Tony up against a wall, and the tall one was smacking his right fist against his left palm.

“—sends his regards,” Charley heard him say. “To prove he’s a man of his word, you still have until tomorrow night to come up with the money you stole. But Mr. Radtke figures you should have—” He looked at his companion. “What was it the boss said again, Arch?”

“Incentive, Loritz,” Arch quoted. “Mr. Radtke wants we should give this guy some incentive.”

Loritz grinned and smacked his fist against his palm again. “That was it. So where do you want your incentive, boy? Above the belt or below it?”

Charley barged into the alley. “Lay a hand on him, and you’ll answer to me.” He had never been in a fight in his life, but he could not stand there and do nothing. “Let him go, and there will be no hard feelin’s.”

“Who the hell?” Loritz blurted. “Oh. It’s the hick. Mind your own business, stupid, or we’ll show you why the city is no place for bumpkins.”

Tony amazed Charley by saying, “Do as they tell you, Charley. I am the one Radtke wants to get even with. Leave me. I know what I’m doing.”

“I won’t desert a friend.”

“You must, for both our sakes.” Tony tried to wave him away, but Arch pinned his arms to the wall. “Please, Charley. You will only get us in deeper. I have everything under control.”

Arch laughed. “Sure you do, jackass.” He punched Tony in the gut. Not with all his might, but enough that Tony sputtered and gasped.

“I warned you.” Charley moved closer. Loritz swore and flicked a looping right cross, which Charley blocked. He swung at Loritz’s jaw, but Loritz ducked, sidestepped, and hit Charley twice in the gut. Charley stepped back, surprised there wasn’t much pain. Setting himself, he raised his fists as he had seen boxers do at the county fair. “I don’t go down easy.”

“We’ll see.” Loritz was taller than Charley but nowhere near as big in the chest. Skipping from side to side, he jabbed a few times without trying to connect, testing Charley’s reflexes. “I’m about to stomp you into the dirt.”

“You do, and you’re a daisy,” Charley blustered, then had to defend himself from a barrage of blows. He blocked some but not all and was rocked onto his heels by an uppercut.

“Quit it!” Tony hollered at Loritz. “Let him go, and I will give you the money I have left. It is in my pocket.”

Loritz stepped back. He was not even breathing heavily. “You should have thought of that at the Crown Royal Hotel. Your pal here asked for trouble, and now he’s going to get it.” Again Loritz waded in, in earnest this time.

Charley tried. He truly did. But the man was older and had a lot more experience. For every two punches Charley countered, one slipped through. He was taking a terrible beating, but it still didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as he had thought it would. His years behind a plow had lent him muscles to spare, and they absorbed the worst of the punishment.

“End it, Loritz!” Arch urged. “The boss will be upset if we get hauled in by the law, and the last thing we need is him mad at us.”

Loritz feinted high to the face, and when Charley hiked his forearms to ward the blow off, Loritz drove his left knee into Charley’s groin.

To Charley it felt as if he had been smashed with a sledgehammer. There was no denying the pain; it washed over him in excruciating waves that brought him to his knees.

“Say so long to your teeth.” Loritz drew back his fist.

“No!” The cry came from Tony. Simultaneously, he tore his right arm free and whipped it out and down. Cold steel glinted dully in the dark. A stiletto had appeared in his hand. He slashed the blade across Arch’s throat, and Arch jerked back, a scarlet mist spraying from his severed jugular. Again Tony cut him. Arch backpedaled, but he had nowhere to go except against the opposite wall.

Loritz sprang to help. From under his jacket he flashed a short-barreled revolver that he cocked as he drew. Fast as he was, though, Tony was faster. The stiletto sliced deep into Lortiz’s knuckles, and he howled and dropped the six-gun. “I’m getting the hell out of here!” He never went anywhere.

Tony thrust the blade to the hilt into Loritz’s ribs, and Loritz oozed to the ground without another sound.

“Good God!” Charley bleated. “You’ve killed them!”

“Would you rather I let them put you in the hospital?” Tony stared at the blood dripping from his stiletto. “I am a dead man, Charley. A judge will sentence me to have my neck stretched. Or else Walter Radtke will have me cut into little pieces and fed to coyotes in the foothills.” Tony squatted and wiped the blade clean on Loritz’s jacket. “It is the old ways all over again. I came here to start over. Instead, all I have done is dig my own grave.”

Charley struggled to his feet. His oysters, as his pa always called them, were throbbing. But Tony needed him, and he would not let his friend down. “Quit talkin’ like that, and put your pigsticker away. We’ll waltz out of this alley like we don’t have a care in the world. Smile some. Laugh some. Act like this never happened, so anyone who sees us won’t suspect.”

Wrapping his right arm around Tony’s shoulders, Charley strolled to the street. No one paid the slightest attention as they blended into the ebb and flow.

Tony was unusually quiet. He never spoke once the whole time they followed a roundabout route back to Tony’s apartment. At the iron gate that opened onto the gravel path to the house, he paused.

“This is as far as you go. I will pack up and be gone by noon. San Francisco is nice, I hear. They do not have much snow. And there are Italians. My own kind. A lot more than here.”

Charley couldn’t stand the notion of Tony leaving. To lose one of the two people who made Denver bearable was enough to make him want to rip the gate from its hinges. “Maybe we can think of a way you can stay.”

“Be serious. Signore Radtke will know I am to blame. He will report me to the police, and a warrant will be issued for my arrest. I must get out of Denver while I can.”

“What about your cart and your bottles?”

“Keep them. You can earn more selling water than you ever will cleaning horse stalls. Or maybe give them to that girlfriend of yours. Potatoes are only in season a short while. She will need a new means to support herself.”

“Promise me one thing. Promise me you won’t leave without saying good-bye. It would hurt something awful.” Wheeling, Charley hurried away before he made a fool of himself.

Normally, the city’s nightlife held an allure Charley found fascinating. But tonight he plodded along, overcome by sorrow. There had to be something he could do to help Tony. But his mind, like his legs, had never been very fast, and he could not come up with anything.

Charley let himself into the livery through the rear door. He climbed the ladder to the hayloft and walked over to his blanket. Spreading it out, he lay on his back with his hands under his head and gave the problem more thought.

Sleep came grudgingly. Charley tossed and turned, his mind plodding like a tortoise. It had to be four in the morning when he finally dozed off, and he was supposed to be up by six to open the stable. He was relying on the crowing of a rooster down the street to wake him, but fatigue took its toll.

Faint pounding roused Charley from a vague dream. When he opened his eyes and saw shafts of sunlight streaming through cracks in the plank wall, he scrambled down the ladder and raced to the wide double doors. Lifting the heavy bar, he lugged it to one side.

“About time, young man.”

Charley was so relieved it wasn’t his employer, he smiled and declared, “Mr. Parmenton! Off on your buggy ride early today, are we?”

“Early?” Parmenton consulted a pocket watch. “It’s three minutes past seven, I’ll have you know. I could have been to Cherry Creek and back if I had left at six. Prepare my buggy and be quick about it.”

Most mornings Leeds was there by eight, but today he was late. Charley had time to feed the horses, sweep the center aisle, and shovel droppings into the manure wagon. He was spreading straw when in stormed the stableman.

“It’s an outrage, I tell you! This sort of thing can’t go on!” Mr. Leeds shook a newspaper as if he were throttling it. “How can we expect decent people to move to Denver with atrocities like this happening all the time?”

“Sir?” Charley had seldom seen Leeds so fired up.

“Haven’t you heard? There was a double murder last night! Right in the street! Two unsavory characters no one will ever miss were stabbed to death. But if the Kansas City and St. Louis newspapers pick up the story, it will tarnish Denver’s image no end.” Leeds shook the newspaper at Charley. “And why in thunder are you standing there loafing? Didn’t you notice the manure wagon is full?”

“You told me to never leave the stable unattended.”

Leeds puffed out his cheeks like an agitated chipmunk. “Don’t throw my own words back at me. Hitch up the team and run the wagon out to Klimek’s. Don’t dawdle either, if you know what is good for you.”

For once, Charley didn’t mind. It would give him more time to ponder. The smell was atrocious, as always, but the view, as always, was spectacular. To the west rose emerald foothills, footstools for the towering Rockies. Snow mantled a few of the highest peaks, but in a few weeks the last of it would melt off, and the peaks would be bare until winter. To the south was Pike’s Peak, and to the northwest loomed Long’s Peak, which was higher but nowhere near as famous.

Once across the bridge, Charley had the road virtually to himself. Farmland stretched for as far as the eye could see. Thanks to an extensive irrigation system, the arid land was being transformed into an Eden.

Ziven Klimek had been a potato farmer in the Old Country, so it was only natural he took it up again in the New World. His sprawling farm was the largest in the territory, and Klimek ran it with European precision. Field after precisely arranged field radiated outward from the sprawling house Klimek had built for his new, and considerably younger, wife.

Charley never knew exactly where the old farmer wanted the manure delivered. One trip it might be a plot to the north, the next trip a field to the east. Finding Klimek was a chore in itself, as the man, for all his years, had the energy of a yearling and never stayed in one spot too long.

Today Charley was lucky. He had passed through the gate and was only a quarter mile in when a booming hail caused him to bring the team to the halt. “Howdy, Mr. Klimek!”

The potato farmer had his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his thumbs hooked around his suspenders. “Master Pickett! What have you brought Ziven today?”

“The usual.” Since manure was all Charley ever delivered, he couldn’t fathom why Klimek always asked the same question. “Where do you want it dumped?”

“Ziven show you.” Klimek swung up onto the seat with an agility belying his years. He pointed. “That way. And do not let your wheels get too near the water ditch.”

“How have things been?” Charley asked to make small talk.

“Life is good. Ziven grow corn now. Sugar beets too. You ever taste sugar beets, Master Pickett?”

“My ma used to grow them in a garden out back of the house. She also had cauliflower and cabbage, and the tiniest peas you ever did see.” Charley smacked his lips, his mouth watering. “There’s nothing more delicious than a sugar beet though, when it’s cooked just right.”

Klimek nodded vigorously. “True, true. You watch. Sugar beets will be big. Bigger than potatoes. Bigger than corn. Bring Ziven lots and lots of money.”

“You like making money, don’t you, Mr. Klimek?”

“What kind of question is that? With money a man can do anything. Without money a man can do nothing. It not matter of ‘like.’ It matter of ‘need.’ You understand need, Master Pickett?”

“I’m beginning to,” Charley acknowledged.

Klimek encompassed his farm with a sweep of his brawny arms. “This is rich land. Good land. One day many farmers will be here. Many families with children. No more Indians on warpath. No more murders like last night. No more badmen like those Hoodoos.”

“Hoodoos?” Charley had heard the word before but couldn’t recall where.

“The horse stealers!” Klimek rasped. “Master Pickett not hear? They kill three cavalry troopers a while ago. Kid Falon, he kill two himself. But you wait. They get caught, they get hung.” He rubbed his palms together in glee. “Soon all badmen gone. Soon everyone live safe.”

Charley was thinking of Kid Falon. It was said the Kid was a genuine two-gun terror. Falon had fourteen gunfights to his credit, and that didn’t count Indians and Mexicans. A fellow Charley met in a saloon claimed to have seen Kid Falon draw and was willing to swear on a stack of Bibles that the Kid was as fast as Wild Bill Hickock, the prince of the pistol eers. Charley had his doubts, since Wild Bill was generally considered the premier shootist alive and according to Harper’s had slain well over a hundred men.

Klimek was still talking. “Government must stop Hoodoos. Must stop all outlaws. Pay more bounty. Use army. Anything.”

“The government is offering a bounty for the Hoodoos?”

“Where have you been, Master Pickett? Bounty was one thousand dollars. After soldiers killed, bounty now seven thousand. Highest in territory.”

Seven thousand dollars. Charley had never had more than thirty dollars to his name his whole life long, and that only on one occasion, after he scrimped and saved for years to go West. Seven thousand was enough to last years. It would be a great stake. Not just for him but for Tony . . . and for someone else besides. An idea took root, and Charley grinned at his brainstorm.

“Why so happy, Master Pickett?”

“You’ve just given me the greatest idea I’ve ever had. The answer to all my prayers and then some.”

Ziven Klimek was no fool. “If that idea be what Ziven think, forget idea. You no sheriff. You no gun shark. You horse-shit boy. Go after Hoodoos, and they will kill Master Pickett dead, dead, dead.”