Ironhorse

52

I walked south on Full Moon Street and came to a single-story building on my left with an opening between it and the two-story building next to it. I moved through the opening and walked toward the rear of the buildings. When I got to the back of the buildings I started walking the narrow turns of the alley passage. A few lamps were burning, but for the most part it was dark. Right away, I came upon three horses stalled in a small pen that backed up to a surveying company. Straightaway I could tell they were not our horses. All three were big plow horses. I walked around the pen and came to an empty side alley that connected to Half Moon Street. I walked the narrow alley path to the street and looked around. The street was empty except for the mangy cur Virgil and I had seen before. He was startled to see me. He stopped, looked at me, and walked off slow-like. In a moment, he was gone into the shadows. I turned and came back through the side alley.

Sitting at the top of a dark stairwell, a woman with her back to me was smoking a cigarette. She did not see me as I turned and started back to the east. Up ahead of me, a horse blew and a hoof pawed at the ground. I moved up slowly, and somewhere ahead of me in the shadows, a man coughed.

I stopped, stayed back, listened for a moment, and moved on slowly around the corner. He coughed again. The sound of the cough was coming from inside the outhouse. Whoever was inside had a lamp. There was light streaking out through the cracks between the boards. The dust the horse was pawing up drifted through the shafts of light as I waited. After a moment, the door opened and an old man came out carrying the lamp. He had a thick book under his arm that looked like a Bible.

I thought to myself, There might be an inkling of sanctimony in Half Moon Junction after all. He walked slowly up a set of stairs and ducked inside a rickety tenement quarters, closing the door behind him. I moved on and came to the horse I had heard pawing and blowing. It was a lonesome old gray horse that was trying to loosen up the ground he was standing on. I scratched his nose for a second and kept walking until I came to an opening between two buildings that led me out to Quarter Moon Street.

It was late enough of the evening now; there was no one moving about. I crossed the empty street and walked through a dark divide between two small houses. After about thirty feet I cleared the narrow passage between the houses and found myself on the rear section of buildings that faced both Half and Three Quarter Moon Street.

As I walked on, the buildings started to thin out, and after a short ways I was on the backside of the livery stable just shy of the miners’ yard. I turned and walked between the livery stable and a Chinese laundry, where steam rose from the back half of the building. The Chinese were inside working, talking loudly, as I made my way past their shop and back to Half Moon Street. I heard a pop, followed by another pop. I heard a third pop and realized the sound was a muffled gunshot. The sound came from the west. I started running west on Half Moon Street, past the whorehouse church and past Pete’s Place. When I got to the corner of Quarter Moon Street, a young man wearing underwear came running out from between two buildings and headed in my direction. He was bleeding. He had a gun in his hand and was looking back over his shoulder as he was on the run. He did not realize he was running directly at me in the dark street. I stood stock-still and pointed my long-barrel Colt at him.

“Stop,” I said.

When he saw me he raised his pistol at me, and I shot him.

He staggered and tried to shoot again, and I shot him again. He dropped his gun, walked a half-circle, and fell to his knees. He stayed on his knees for a moment, looking around. He moaned and toppled over onto his side. I moved quickly up to the boardwalk and into the shadows. I reloaded and with my back to the boards of a dry-goods store moved toward the opening where the young man had come running out to the street. I looked around the corner of the dry-goods store and could not see anything but dark.

“That you, Everett?” Virgil called from the alley.

“It is.”

“You shoot the fellow in his undergarments?”

“I did.”

“Coming to ya!” Virgil said.

I stepped off the boardwalk, looking down the dark alley. A sharp, short, high-pitched whistle rang out, followed by a “Get up,” and looming out of the dark came Virgil, riding Cortez at a quick pace toward me. He had my bony dark-headed roan and two other horses in tow.