Ironhorse

43

Pete’s place was a small open-air saloon with a thick board spread across two barrels. A nicely painted sign in front let us know this was Pete’s Place. Virgil and I stepped up. Pete’s Place was empty except for an elderly bartender who was cleaning an old single-shot twenty-gauge and two Indians dressed in white men’s clothes. The Indians were drunk. One Indian was sitting on the floor, asleep, with his head to the wall. The other Indian was sitting in a chair, glassy-eyed and staring straight ahead like he’d been hypnotized.

The old fellow smiled and slid two small glasses in front of us and was pouring before I could say “Whiskey.”

The old fellow poured us two generous portions.

We drank, and he poured two more.

“You two with the group that got stranded?”

“No,” Virgil said.

“We are not, but we are looking for them,” I said. “Some of them, anyway.”

I slid back my coat and showed him the badge on my vest. Pete’s eyes shifted back and forth between Virgil and me.

“You Pete?” I said.

“I am.”

Virgil and I drank our second shot and Pete poured two more drinks.

“Hell of a thing that happened with the train,” Pete said. “I looked up and them folks came traipsing through town like a bunch of tuckered cattle.”

“You see any of them on horseback?” Virgil said.

“No, they was all on foot.”

“Where are they now?” I said.

“I think some of them caught the last D and WV back to Denison, but I’m not for certain. There’s three hotels here; some of ’em might be there. This joint was full of black coal faces for a few hours, and I was busy for a while with the shift change, so I don’t rightly know.”

“Who’s in charge of this place, Pete?”

“I am.”

“The town, Pete,” I said. “Who’s in charge of this town?”

“Oh. Officially, that’d be the Choctaw Nation,” Pete said. “But Burton Berkeley is the constable-elect. I think he’s a quarter Choctaw, but he don’t look it.”

“Where’s the jail?” I asked.

“Just up the street, but he ain’t never there, really. He’s got a few deputies that might be there if they got somebody locked up. Only on rare occasions do they lock somebody up. Most everybody here in Half Moon is pretty scared of big Burton, and therefore they don’t do much to get themselves arrested. Burton is tough, and miners for the most part are a hardworking, harmless sort.”

“Where can we find him,” Virgil said. “The constable, Burton Berkeley?”

“The Hotel Ark.”

“And where might that be?” I asked.

“On Half Moon here.” Pete pointed east. “Go past Quarter Moon Street, the next street you get to is Full Moon, turn right, and you’ll come to Three Quarter Moon Street. That’s this town: Quarter, Half, Three Quarter and Full, those are the streets. On the corner there of Full and Three Quarter is Hotel Ark and Saloon. That’s his place. Most evenings that’s where he is.”

“He owns the place?” I asked.

“He does. He owns damn near the whole of Half Moon Junction.”