CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
When Shawn O’Brien rode into Silver Reef with Sedley and Platt, the town’s boom years were almost over.
A hundred businesses still stretched out along its mile-long main street, and the town still boasted six saloons, nine grocery stores, eight dry goods stores, a bank, a Wells Fargo stage depot, a hospital, hotels and boardinghouses and five restaurants.
But the silver mines were all but played out and the population had dropped to a thousand people, and dozens of miners were leaving every day.
The signs of decay were everywhere and in a few years, when the last mine closed, Silver Reef would become a ghost town.
The town marshal was a Texan by the name of John Payton. He was fast on the draw and shoot and he didn’t take any sass.
Or so the bartender at the Silver Dollar saloon told Shawn and the others as they stood at the bar eating soda crackers and cheese and drinking beer from the local brewery that was still cool from the remaining winter ice.
The bartender was an exquisite creature with glossy, pomaded hair and a waxed mustache. He wore a brocade vest and a large diamond stickpin glittered in his cravat. Like most mixologists of the time, he was a talking man.
You boys looking for work?” he said, wiping the bar in front of Shawn with a yellow cloth. “If you are, you’d better ride on. The mines are closing and nobody’s hiring. Hell, just the other day I’d seven men apply for the job of swamper. A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have had a single applicant.”
The bartender smiled, revealing a shiny gold tooth.
“I guess you boys are catching my drift, huh?”
“We’re not looking for a job, we’re looking for a man,” Shawn said.
The bartender was taken aback and his shoulders stiffened.
“Here, you’re not the law are you?” he said. “Marshal Payton was once engaged in the bank-robbing profession, and he don’t take kindly to lawmen of any kind.”
“We’re not the law,” Shawn said. He brushed a cracker crumb from his mustache. “We’re looking for a . . . friend of ours. Seems his ma is keeping poorly and wants him to home.”
“We got folks passing through all the time—drovers, drummers and fancy women and the like. What does your friend look like?”
“He’s easy to spot,” Shawn said. “He got shot in the shoulder a few days back.”
The bartender’s eyebrows rose.
“You sure you aren’t the law, mister?” he said.
“I didn’t shoot him,” Shawn said. “And no, I’m not the law.”
“It was an accident, like,” Sedley said.
“Cleaning his gun,” Platt said. His face was solemn, as though he was the soul of integrity.
“Well, I haven’t seen a gunshot man in town,” the bartender said. “Well, not recently. Used to see plenty back in the old days.”
Then, his face brightened, as though he’d just remembered something.
“Here, you know who’s in town? You’ll never guess in a million years.”
The bartender stood back, grinning, waiting for an answer.
“Well, we don’t have a million years, so tell,” Platt said.
“Mink Morrow, as large as life and as ever was.”
Shawn pretended surprise and mimed a rube’s jaw drop.
“You mean the famous gunfighter?” he said.
The bartender nodded. “Yup, as bold as brass. They say he’s killed more men than John Wesley or that Bill Bonney kid, and I believe it. Yes, sir, he’s a mean one all right and looks it, wears them dark glasses that take away a man’s eyes.”
“But how is the Marshal Payton handling this?” Shawn said. “I don’t imagine he’s keen to see a man like Mink Morrow in his town.”
“So long as Morrow keeps his nose clean in this town, Payton don’t much mind,” the bartender said. “When it comes to outlaws an’ sich, on account that a lot of them were his friends, he’s inclined to live and let live. If they’re just passing through, that is.”
“And Morrow, is he just passing through?” Shawn said.
“As far as I was told, he saw how things are in Silver Reef, with the mines closing an’ all, and said he plans to light a shuck for Texas. Said something about opening an eating house, but I don’t know if that’s true or not.”
“Geez, I’d love to shake his hand,” Sedley said. “Wouldn’t you, O’Brien?”
“I sure would,” Shawn said. “I’ve never met a real gunfighter in the flesh before.”
The bartender grinned. “Well, you boys are in luck. Morrow’s been hanging out at Elmer Brown’s Last Chance saloon at t’other side of town.” He glanced at the railroad clock on the wall. “It’s just past ten and Mink always eats breakfast about this time. Elmer sells the best sowbelly and eggs in Silver Reef.”
“What a lark,” Shawn said, still playing the wide-eyed hayseed. Then to the others, “Let’s go meet him.”
“You didn’t fool that bartender for one minute, Shawn,” Platt said.
“What do you mean?” Shawn said, genuinely puzzled.
“It’s mud-stained and getting a tad ragged, but you’re still wearing a forty-dollar English coat and no rube ever owned the gun rig you’ve got strapped around your waist,” Platt said.
“So how did he peg me?” Shawn said.
“A gun. Just like Morrow.”
Shawn and the others led their mounts down the main street, rubbing shoulders with miners, cowboys in from the neighboring ranches, a few Chinese and the occasional woman.
It was still early in the morning and the town’s sporting crowd, gamblers, whores, dance hall loungers and the like, wouldn’t surface until sundown.
“He was real obliging,” Shawn said, as he led his horse around a loaded brewery dray and then a pile of dung in the street. “A talking man and disposed to be friendly.”
“Sure, he was friendly,” Platt said. “Look around you, Shawn. This town has lost its snap. A gunfight between you and Morrow would liven things up and give a talking man something to talk about.”
“I’ve got no problem with Morrow,” Shawn said. “But I reckon he knows where we can find Hank Cobb.”
“Yeah, but will he tell you?”
“Why not? He’s got no love for Cobb.”
“Sedley and me will come with you,” Platt said.
“Just let me handle Morrow alone,” Shawn said.
“Then we’ll watch your back,” Platt said.
“Damn right,” Sedley said.
Shawn looped his mount to the hitching rail and smiled at Sedley.
“Hamp, if it comes to shooting, let Ford handle it,” he said. “All of a sudden the Last Chance saloon could become a mighty dangerous place if you cut loose.”
“Kiss my ass,” Sedley said.