Lieutenant John Haycox walked his horse through the main gate of Fort Hondo, New Mexico. He mounted, saluted the sentry, and nudged his horse into a gentle canter towards the town of Hondo. Like many such pairings across the West the town had come into existence to serve the fort and was now a self-standing town in its own right.
He threw a glance in the direction of the whistle blast coming from the station. The rasping sound of steel skidding on steel accompanied the heavy chuffing as the loco built up steam. Gathering power the train began to move and the soldier checked it against his pocket watch. Three-ten. Dead on time as always.
Reaching the main drag he hitched his horse at the rail outside of The Crossed Keys Saloon then made his way over the road. He worked his way along the boardwalk, stopped outside The Red Lion Saloon. Stepping under the sign proclaiming “Harold Cooper, proprietor” he pushed through the batwings and entered. It being early in the day, faro and roulette wheels stood unused and the place was devoid of customers save for a shape at the far end. In the gloom sat Cooper himself, luxury-suited with elaborate vest and an expensive looking Chicago topper.
The soldier crossed the room and halted in front of the seated man. He unbuttoned the top of his jacket glanced around the room to check if anyone was watching. Satisfied there was only the barman with his back to them and he preoccupied with stacking glasses, the soldier took out a wallet. He extracted two bills from it and dropped them on the table. Without speaking the seated man scribbled something on a piece of paper and flicked it across surface. Even though the men were physically close, words were not exchanged and their eyes told of their bearing mutual distaste for each other.
The soldier made a circular gesture with a forefinger; and the seated man smirked and placed a large piece of paper on the table. He scribbled something on it, it was scrutinized by the man in blue who, in an unfelt token of courtesy, touched his hat and left.
It irritated him that with every repayment he had to remind Cooper to amend his marker. His receipts might not add to anything if there wasn’t a corresponding and signed subtraction on the original marker.
He re-crossed the drag towards The Crossed Keys, noticing how boards had been hastily patched over a couple of broken windows. Little Jim, the colored houseboy was sitting on the boardwalk and his face broke into a flashing-toothed smile. ‘Morning’, Master John.’
‘Mornin’, Jim. Your mistress is in.’
‘Isn’t she always, sir?’ the little fellow said, leaping up and following the soldier in.
The soldier’s face beamed when he sighted his girlfriend Constance behind the bar. He leant over the counter and they exchanged a kiss.
‘And what would please sir, this morning.’
He grinned. ‘As it is morning I’ll make do with a beer.’
She laughed and poured the drink.
As he sipped the beer he angled his head to the back door.
‘Look after the bar for a few minutes, Little Jim,’ she said as she dropped the rag with which she had started to wipe the bar and came round.
‘Paid off another $20,’ he said when they were outside in the sun.
‘How much does that leave to pay?’ she asked.
‘Something over a grand.’
‘It’s gonna take five years to clear at that rate.’
‘Less if I get promoted and can up my repayments.’
‘Is that on the cards?’
He chuckled. ‘Don’t mention cards.’
‘Sorry. What I meant is, is promotion likely?’
‘There’s talk in the mess of a gap in the establishment coming up.’
He had been introduced to playing cards as a rookie. That was for nickels and dimes over a bunk bed and, although gambling was strictly against regulations, for those in the know real serious games existed within the barrack walls. Winning and losing in equal measure he became addicted without being much out of pocket. When he realized there were even bigger games without restriction in civilian life he never missed a chance to find out the nearest game when on furlough.
That’s how come he took a nosedive into big money debt at the tables of Mr. Harold Cooper. He was allowed credit until up to over a grand. Each night his liability increased until, when he was several hundred over the grand, Cooper himself intervened and put an end to it. ‘It’s about time I saw some folding money,’ Cooper had said.
It was then Haycox met Constance. By giving him something lacking in his life, namely a loving woman, she managed to wean him off his gambling habit and for him to strike up an arrangement with Cooper for paying off the debt piecemeal. It would take a long time and as long as Haycox was in this position the lieutenant knew he had to toe the line. Carrying a debt like this would put him under a court-martial and certainly earn him a dishonorable discharge. He had to act as lamb to Cooper’s wolf as one word to the army hierarchy from Cooper and the soldier’s career would be over ––as the magnate constantly reminded him.
‘So if I get promotion,’ he said, ‘I’ll be able to clear the debt quicker.’
‘Even so, it’ll still be a drag. I wished I could help but financially I’m on my uppers too.’
‘Yes, I know. Noticed some more broken windows back there. Had more trouble?’
‘Yes. Happens several times a week now.’
‘Sounds like a concerted plan. Know who it is?’
‘No witnesses––but it has to be Cooper.’
Constance Shaw’ parents had been settlers with a little homestead. A young child was not to know the hard work that went into such things and all she could remember of those early years was glorious summers and happiness.
When it was time for her to try to earn a living the only thing she knew was domestic work so she became a maid. Having no social life she managed to save a few dollars and from time to time she would send her parents a little. All went well until something happened so that she was unable to send her paltry dollars.
One day the son of the family for whom she worked, thinking they were alone, had caught her in a bedroom and, despite her protestations had forced her onto the bed, tearing at her clothes. However, his mother had been in the house and, hearing the commotion, had burst in upon the scene to see the girl’s young body exposed. She blamed Constance for playing the temptress and dismissed her on the spot.
The girl was on the street, far from home, nowhere to live and only a handful of dollars and cents in her purse. Worse, her former mistress had quickly spread the word of her ‘character’, removing her prospects of further work in that line locally. She dearly wished to return home but, not wishing to put a further load on her parents, she just moved on and on till her money ran out. It was in a town called Hondo that she used up her last cents purchasing a meal. The town was small enough for knowledge of a newcomer to spread quickly. Especially when the stranger was a pretty young girl counting her pennies. Knowledge quickly reached the ears of a resident by the name of saloon owner Smokey Sue who offered to take Constance under her wing, to employ her in her drinking parlor.
However Smokey was not always herself. She regularly smoked some vile smelling concoction that she got from the Chinese coolies who had been left over after the railroad had been built. Whatever it was it seemed to take her mind away. Then Smokey would be ill, confined to bed for days. Constance had never seen the like before. But with the passage of time she noted that Smokey’s bouts of “illness” increased in intensity and frequency. Anybody with a pair of eyes could see that Smokey’s habit was killing her. Constance tried to talk sense into her to no avail.
After a completely bad bout Smokey became obsessed with death. She could see what she doing to herself but was incapable physically or mentally to lay it aside. Realizing her own mortality Smokey made a will. Constance didn’t know that Smokey was really Mrs. Cooper, wife of the infamous Harold. And she only learned that when Smokey said: ‘That bastard isn’t getting anything.’
During their time together Harold had given Smokey a bad time and she left. The Coopers owned most of Hondo and the Keys were in Smokey’s name, given to her as a present in the early days of their marriage. Then Smokey realized that having no written will meant that the Keys would revert to him on her death. So, in spite against her hated husband, she had a will drawn up making Constance the single beneficiary.
Constance began to take over the running of the place with her boss becoming increasingly incapable through her habit, her intervals of narcotic-induced torpor increasing. During all this, Constance had had to learn new skills––managing, accounting, dealing with the obstreperous bank manager––and so efficient was she at the exercise that she had returned the business to a profitable concern. The place had run to seed during Smokey’s last drug-fuelled years but Constance put every spare dollar into repairs and sprucing up the decor.
Eventually Smokey died and Constance gave her old savior a decent burial and destroyed the accoutrements of addiction.
Upon hearing the news Harold Cooper came striding round claiming ownership. He was shocked when Constance talked of her owning the deeds. And he didn’t believe her until she waved the document in front of him.
For a while she ran it quite successfully. But Cooper kept coming round, putting pressure on her to sell; owning the whole of town had become a principle for him and The Keys was the only establishment not in his ownership. Of course she turned him down. It was her living and she enjoyed it.
That was until things started to happen. Drunken brawls increased in number leaving a battle scene. While she was tidying up and repairing the newly-damaged interior, stones would smash windows. She couldn’t’ tie any of it down but she knew Cooper was behind it all. Not only were constant repairs eating into her money, customers became a feared of being seen drinking there lest they offend the town bigwig so her income fell drastically. One didn’t have to be an economic philosopher to know that costs up, income down leads to zero profit.
At the back of The Keys the couple basked in the sun, not talking, just happy to be in each other’s company.
‘Are you coming round this evening?’ she asked eventually.
‘Oh, I can’t sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I’m on duty tonight.’
‘Then give me a kiss to tide me over until tomorrow,’ she said.
He took her in his arms and gave her the most prolonged kiss he could muster.
‘And meanwhile,’ she said, pulling away, ‘I’ve got a saloon to run and you’ve got a fort full of little tin soldiers to return to.’
Before they parted they embraced once more.
There were hardly any customers that evening in The Crossed Keys. When it came time too close, there was only an old man in the corner. He hadn’t drunk much and had not spoken to anyone.
‘Time to hit the trail, sir,’ she said, looking at the big wall clock in the bar section.
‘Can I stay here a little longer?’ he asked. ‘I don’t feel too well.’
‘Well, I am closing. Tell you what, you stay here until I’ve finished locking up.’
Minutes later she presented herself to him, keys in hand. ‘Come on, sir. Time to move.’
He tried to stand but tottered and fell back in the chair.
She looked at him. He hadn’t had much to drink and there was no smell of excess alcohol from him.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I don’t feel very well.’
‘So you’ve said but you’re really gonna have to go. Where d’you live?’
‘Got a drovers’ pallet the end of town.’
‘How long you been lodged there?’
‘Only came to town yesterday.’
‘You’re never going to make it all the way there. What’s the problem?’
No answer.
‘Has this happened before?’
‘Yes, but not as bad as this. I need rest. That usually does the trick.’
‘I’ve got a couch in the room behind the bar. You can rest on that while I tidy up. But you’ve got to go in a few minutes.’
When she returned he was lying still, his face seemingly screwed up with pain. ‘You’re in no fit state to go anywhere, are you? Do you want some water.’
He shook his head.
The big wall clock in the saloon struck twelve. She appraised him for a few moments. There was no way he could get home like this. She thought then added, ‘Listen I’ll fetch a blanket and you can stay on the couch for the night. But you’ve got to go in the morning.’
She fetched a blanket and laid it over him.
‘You’re good to me,’ he muttered with closed eyes. ‘Nobody treats old Jed like this.’
‘I’ll leave the lamp on low.’ She turned the spindle. ‘Goodnight.’
‘You’re good to me. Marry me.’
At the door she grunted, hoping this whole fandango was not some silly ruse.
‘Get to sleep.’
On the landing she heard loud groans. She harrumphed and returned downstairs.
His face looked even more subject to pain. ‘If you marry me you can look after me,’ he said without opening his eyes. His whole behavior said he was drunk, but he’d hardly had much liquor.
‘Saloon girls get offers of marriage ten times a week,’ she countered. ‘Now go to sleep.’
‘Your different. You’re kind.’
‘I really must go, I need to sleep if you don’t.’
‘I’m serious. Just because you can see my elbows through my sleeves you think I ain’t worth much. I tell you, lady, I’m one of the richest guys around. I could look after you well.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she sighed. She’d heard it all before.
‘Me and my pardner, we been working this gold seam for years up in the Badrocks.’ Tiredness and possibly illness blurred his speech. ‘Don’t trust banks so we’ve hid the money in a cave near our workings. Couple of seasons back my sidekick, poor critter, died in a roof fall––so there’s only me now. My memory plays tricks these days so I drew a map of where it is, ‘case I forgot. All drawed out clear. The thing’s in my warbag.’ His voice got fainter as sleep or unconsciousness grabbed at him. ‘Believe me, gal, there’s enough to see you and me into our old age.’
In her time she’d been promised everything by drunken would-be suitors from a ranch in Texas to the moon itself. This was a new one to add to the list, being promised a share in some prospector’s El Dorado.
‘What do you say?’ he said in slow, fading tones.
‘Let’s talk about it in the morning when you’ve sobered up,’ she said, hoping that by then he would have forgotten it.
‘I’ve told you I’ve had very little to drink.’
‘True. Now, do you want a drink of water before I go?’
He didn’t answer and she once again made her way upstairs.
She was asleep the next time he made a loud noise. She didn’t know how much sleep she been able to grab. ‘This is beyond a joke,’ she muttered.
She rolled out of bed and fumbled for the matches, eventually lighting the kerosene.
Not yet dawn; downstairs the old fellow was just a vague shape in the darkness. When close she see him grimacing, eyes creased shut.
‘What can I do?’ she asked.
‘Nothing, I think this is it.’ He was having trouble getting the words out.
‘I’ll get you a glass of water.’
‘No, no.’ The words staccato’d out.
‘You’ve had this before?’
‘Yes, but never as bad as this. This is the big one.’
She rubbed at his chest around where his scrawny fingers were groping.
‘Listen,’ he whispered. ‘Got no family, nobody. You been good to me, Miss Constance’. Everything’s yours. And don’t forget the chart. It’s yours.’
He went rigid, his back arching, his heels thrusting into the couch. His arms fell away and his body went limp, the only sound a long-drawn-out exhalation of breath that seemed to go on interminably until it faded.
She checked for pulse at wrist and throat, found none. She slapped at his face, rubbed his chest, his fingers. Nothing. She sat holding his hand as the first glimmer of day appeared at the gap between the curtains.
He was buried later that day in the cemetery up on the hill that overlooked Hondo. It was a simple affair with Constance the only mourner. As a lone through-traveler no one in town knew him. She was not particularly religious and she didn’t really know the old-timer but she felt there should be someone saying goodbye and giving him a decent if sparse ceremony.
Although the arrangements had been as simple as possible, there was not enough cash in the old man’s wallet to cover the funeral so she gave his mule and tack to the undertaker.
‘The tack ain’t worth a cent,’ the latter complained, ‘and what am I gonna get for a flea-bitten pack-ass?’ So she threw in a few dollars of her own to make up the difference in an attempt to shut up the moaning mortician. All she had left was the threadbare warbag and its redundant gewgaws. Why she didn’t throw away the chart with the rest she didn’t know. She didn’t even open it, just abstractedly stashed it at the back of a drawer.
The next morning Harold Cooper came a-calling. ‘Hear you had a death here last night.’
‘You know very well.’
‘Trouble is a death ain’t good for business especially in a place selling food and drink. You’ll be lucky to get any customers for a while.’
‘I’ll be lucky to get any customers at all, the way you’ve been attacking this place. Arranging for your lunkheads to hold fracases here. Look.’ She pointed at chipped wood, cracked and shattered mirrors. ‘I can’t keep up with the damage. Not to mention you fixing for your yahoos to hurl stones through the windows.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Suddenly she’d had enough and everything was clear. ‘OK. How much?’
‘‘You’re willing to sell? So that I can legally own the Keys?’
‘Yes it’s what you want isn’t it. How much?’
‘To make it legal requires money to change hands. So what about a dollar?’
She laughed and said nothing.
‘OK, if that not good enough let’s start at two dollars.’
‘Let’s start at $5000.’
‘My lady jests, as the Bard said.’
‘$5000.’
‘$1000’ was the grunted reply.
‘$4000.’
‘$2000’
To her surprise as well as his she suddenly said , ‘Done.’
‘You’ll take a bank draft?’
‘Don’t start your silly capers again. I don’t trust banks. They all wear flashy vests and suits like you. Cash. Folding stuff or gold, I’m not choosey.’
‘I’ll get it right away.’ And he dashed outside as fast as he could before she changed her mind,
She dropped into a chair. Not believing what she’d just done. What the hell had happened to her? Spur of the moment, that was it. Never mind it was better than a kick in the bustle and, to boot, the Keys’ problems were no longer hers.’
As she walked up to the fort it struck her why she had jumped at $2000 when maybe she could have a little more. It clicked––it was the magic figure of $2000––that would get John out of trouble.
‘Constance Shaw to see Lieutenant Haycox.’
‘Of course, ma’am,’ the sentry said pointing back. ‘Go right on through.’
She was shown to a room in the administration block. When her soldier eventually came in she placed the $2000 on the table.
‘There you are. It’s yours.’
‘Mine?’
‘Of course.’
‘How much?’
‘As much as you need.’
She explained her selling of The Crossed Keys. ‘Once you’ve paid off the debt to Cooper, there’s no stumbling block to our getting married.’
He grabbed her, squeezed her tight. ‘I’ll pay back every penny.’
‘No need; husband and wife share everything. Besides there’s no point in paying off a debt to one person just to take out a debt to the same amount with another. The only thing you owe me is––a lifetime of happiness. And I owe that to you so it’s not so much a “debt”. More like an exchange!”
‘I’ve got some good news too.’
‘What?’
I’ve got a furlough. Three clear weeks.’
‘When can you take it?’
‘Whenever I like.’
‘What about tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow? Why sure, easy done.’
‘Then we can get the hell out here and find a quiet little place to have a honeymoon.’
‘Yeah, anything you say. By the way, I’ve been given the furlough for a special reason.’
‘What’s that’
He straightened and saluted ‘Say Good Morning to Captain John Haycox.’
‘Oh darling.’ She grabbed and hugged him, her head tight against his chest.
She spent the rest of the day auctioning off the furniture––much to the chagrin of Cooper; but he didn’t have a legal leg to stand on as their dealing had been so hasty that there had been no mention of either way about accoutrements.
The next morning she made preparations for leaving––and boy, what preparations she made. She turned the focus on herself and prepared to catch the 3.10 out of Hondo.
Before the mirror she pursed her lips at the mirror once more, and then donned a saffron dress with matching coat and lappeted bonnet.
Several times she drilled it into Little Jim not to come back to the Keys once she had left. Remember her departure? Yes, they would remember her departure all right
Her lieutenant had ordered a carriage to take them the short distance to the station.
Little Jim was waiting for her at the platform, having earlier brought her traps. In front of a growing audience she gave him a hug and slipped some bills in his hand.
‘Be a good boy for your ma,’ she whispered, ‘and remember what I said. Don’t go back to the Keys. It doesn’t belong to us anymore and it’s all locked up. Remember, don’t go back. Promise.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
It wasn’t because it was locked up that she had been so insistent that he keep away, but that was all the explanation she was giving him. Shortly the bell-stacker clanked to a standstill and Little Jim helped the conductor load her luggage. As the train pulled out she leaned her head against the backrest and closed her eyes. She hadn’t slept much for two nights and her head was still in a whirl at the notion of how quickly the circumstances of one’s life could change.
As the train picked up speed she tried to imagine her life ahead, clenching John’s hand to remind her she wasn’t dreaming. And never once did she look back at the receding town of Hondo. In her book it was already history.
‘Isn’t this wonderful, darling,’ John said as they snuggled into the upholstery and each other. ‘It’s a rare thing that everybody comes out a situation with something good. ‘You and I are getting married. You’ve got cash for the furniture. You’ve seen to it that even I have no debt to worry about. Even the evil-hearted Cooper has gotten himself a hotel at a bargain price, Yes, Everybody’s come out of this well.’
‘Not quite,’ she said enigmatically with a knowing smile.
The train had disappeared from sight from the town when someone on the main drag shouted ‘Fire’. Flames were licking through the windows of the building that bore the name of The Crossed Keys. There was little chance of saving the place. The candle she’d left burning amongst the oil-soaked rags and lumber in the cellar had finally done its trick.
The pretty woman snuggling against her soldier’s shoulder had a soft side. But she had a hard side too.
They were a good hour on when Constance said, ‘Oh was forgetting. Pass me my luggage, darling. The soldier eased the trunk from the rack and placed it on the seat. She opened it and ferreted through until she found old man Jed’s piece of scruffy paper.
‘Are you happy with everything as they are, John?’
‘Of course. Need you ask?’
‘Will you be happy if something that you don’t know about doesn’t come off?’
‘Of course, but what’s this all about?’
‘Well this may yield a bonus. This humble piece of paper might be quite valuable. But the emphasis is on might be.’
‘I’m intrigued.’
She flattened it on the seat. ‘Now this is just a shot in the dark. We’ve got time to spare so before we decide on our final honeymoon destination we shall make a detour to this place. She tapped the X on the map
‘Not a treasure map?’ he said incredulously.
‘Indulge me, darling. It might very well be pie in the sky. We may not find it and even if we do it may not be a cache of untold riches.’
But they did and it was.
A couple of cents over fifteen grand.
(Some of the bones of this story were incorporated into the novel ‘Jake’s Women’.)