Hiram Bledsoe was not a creature of habit.
He liked to vary his daily routine so that neither friends nor enemies could pin him to a regular schedule or track his movements.
He was curious about the Chinese laborers he had hired, but had no particular desire to see them at work. He had hired hands to look after such interests, and he knew they would report back to him.
The Sawtooth Saloon was Hiram’s second home. He headed there late in the afternoon, alone. He liked to go there when it was quiet and sit at a corner table at one end of the large room and watch who came in without being noticed.
The saloon was quiet at that hour. Joe Filbert was behind the bar. Jake Hornsby, the swamper, was sweeping the small dance floor in front of the even smaller stage. Funny, Hiram thought, because there would be no dancing now that all of the miners were gone.
“Howdy, boss,” Joe said as he swiped a cloth across the bar. “I’ll make you a drink and carry it back to you.”
Hiram went straight to his table, sat down. He looked up at the lamp set on a wall shelf above him, then at Jake.
“Snuff this lamp, Jake,” Hiram said.
Jake looked over at his boss.
“Sure thing, Mr. Bledsoe. Have it out in a jiffy.”
Jake walked over to the lamp and turned the wick down until it went out. Now Hiram sat in a pool of darkness while the other lamps cast yellow light onto the bar and tables, chairs and flooring.
A few minutes later, Joe brought a mixed drink on a tray and set the glass down in front of Bledsoe.
“Ginger soda and the good Scotch, boss. Just the way you like it. We won’t have ice until it snows and the weather gets cold.”
“I like it warm anyway, Joe.”
“You’re in early, boss.”
“Rooms get small and tight when you stay in ’em too long.”
“I know what you mean,” Joe said. “You expectin’ anybody?”
“Alvin is due in before sundown. Seen him around?”
“He came in for a short beer about an hour ago. Said he met up with that stranger who knows as much about prospectin’ as my old lady, rest her soul.”
“You see the stranger, Joe?”
“He came in a while after them Chinks showed up. I saw him, but he don’t look like much. Alvin said he was as dumb as a sack full of ball bearings.”
“We’ll see,” Hiram said. “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”
Joe scratched his head in puzzlement and walked back to the bar, where he adjusted a pair of stools, then went behind it to wipe off some of the bottles. They sat in plain view in front of a large mirror with patches of black where the reflective surface had worn off.
Men who worked for Hiram began to come into the saloon as they got off their shift. Ronnie Sweet was the first of the glitter gals to arrive. She saw Bledsoe at his usual table, but ignored him. Instead, she sat down at a table near the swinging doors and greeted each man and gal who came in. Joe served drinks from then on as the afternoon shadows began to stretch down the street and paint the buildings with soft shades of gray.
Alvin came in and spoke to Joe, who pointed to the table where Bledsoe was still nursing his first drink.
“Set yourself down, Alvin,” Hiram said. “You order a drink?”
“Yeah. Penny will bring it. I just want a beer this time of day.”
Alvin sat down at a side table so that he did not obstruct Hiram’s view. He knew Bledsoe liked to see who came and went in his saloon when he was there.
Alvin took off his hat and set it on the floor next to his chair.
“Long day,” he said to Hiram. “I rode up beyond the bluffs, slow and real quiet. Never saw hide nor hair of any of them miners. Listened a whole lot, too. Nary a sound from anywheres. They must be camped somewhere way off among them little mountains.”
“What about the latest prospector to hit town?” Bledsoe asked as he was about to tip his drink and take another sip.
Penelope Oglesby sidled up with a tray and a glass of beer. She smiled at Hiram and winked at Alvin.
“You need a refill, sugar, you just give me the high sign,” she said.
Alvin grabbed one of her buttocks and gave it a slight squeeze. Her taffeta skirt whispered as she wiggled away, a smile on her face.
“I sure will, Penny,” he said.
“Joe’s got you tallied,” she said, and trotted away on the front soles of her patent leather shoes. Like all of the girls who worked there, she wore a low-cut blouse, with white and black stripes, a short ruffled taffeta skirt that was robin’s egg blue, high-heeled shoes, and mesh silk stockings. She wore a small money belt that rustled with bills and clinked with loose change. Her lips were painted rosy red, and the peach blush on her cheeks was from cosmetics and had been gently powdered.
“You fancy Penny, do you, Alvin?” Hiram asked as he pulled a cigar from his shirt pocket, snipped off the end with a pair of small scissors, and rolled the end in his mouth before clamping his teeth down on it.
Alvin took a pack of matches from his pocket and struck one as Hiram leaned forward. Hiram puffed as Alvin touched the match flame to the tip of the Corona.
“She’s one of the sweet ones,” Alvin said. “I’ve plumbed her a time or two.”
“Humph,” grunted Hiram as he pulled smoke into his mouth. The tobacco had a strong aroma and the smoke curled upward in a blue spiral as Hiram let it blow out of the side of his mouth.
“What do you make of the stranger, the latest prospector to visit our fair city, Alvin?”
“I met him. He won’t make a livin’ here likely.”
“Is he what he says he is?” Hiram asked.
“’Pears so, Hiram.” Alvin pulled beer into his mouth. Foam flecked his lips as he set his glass down near the wet ring it had left on the table.
“So, he just stumbled in here out of nowhere?”
“He ain’t the brightest lamp on the wall, that’s for sure,” Alvin said. “He don’t know much about mining, but he worked up a sweat swirling water and gravel in that pan of his.”
“What’s he call himself?”
Alvin told him.
Hiram looked up at the ceiling for a moment and closed his eyes.
“Name don’t ring no bell,” Hiram said. “He say anything about the Chinamen? Did he ask why there was no white miners at work?”
“Nope. He didn’t seem curious at all. Just an ordinary guy. Looks to be poor as a church mouse and dumber than a hickory stump.”
Hiram laughed deep in his throat.
“That’s the way I like ’em,” Hiram said. “Maybe he’ll stumble onto another vein and file a claim with Eb Scraggs.”
“You never know. He might get lucky.”
While the two men were talking, another of Hiram’s men burst through the batwing doors and ran to the bar. He bent over it to talk to Joe. Joe pointed to Hiram’s table. Alvin heard the sound of the running boots and turned around to see who was in such a hurry. The footsteps rang on the hardwood flooring as the man headed for Hiram’s table.
“That’s Pete Eddings,” Alvin said. “He was up on the ridge today.”
“One of three or four,” Hiram said. “And it’s plain he’s got something stuck in his craw.”
Pete rushed up to the table, slightly out of breath.
“Mr. Bledsoe, I just come off the ridge and I saw somethin’ you got to hear about.”
“Spill your beans, Pete,” Hiram said.
“That new galoot what come here this morning busted into a fight and waylaid Ortiz and Elizando. Them Mexes was knockin’ down one of them Chinks and this feller, well, he just waded in and I saw him knock them Mexes down. Couldn’t make out what any of them was sayin’, but the gold grubber took a pistol, emptied it, and threw it off a ways. He grabbed one of the Mex rifles, too. They didn’t have no chance.”
“Sit down, Pete, and tell me all you saw and heard,” Hiram said. “Catch your breath first. You want a drink?”
“That prospector don’t look like much,” Pete said as he pulled a side chair away from the table and sat down. “But he knocked the sass out of them Mexes. He spoke the lingo, too, but I don’t understand Mex.”
“So would you say this man is tough? What’s his name again, Alvin?”
“He calls himself Dave Sinclair. He’s big and kind of muscular, but I wouldn’t take him for no saloon brawler.”
“Well, I sure as hell would,” Pete said. “Carlos and Fidel are no spring chickens. They got steel wires in their arms and they’re both dead shots. But this Sinclair feller made ’em look like schoolboys in short pants.”
“Hmm,” intoned Hiram. “Interesting. So Mr. Sinclair is handy with his fists. Did he draw iron on Carlos and Fidel?”
“Nope,” Pete said. “Didn’t have to. He took out their teeth like some practiced dentist, I’m tellin’ you. He walked off and them Mexes just stared at his back like they had just saw a dadgummed whirlwind pass by ’em.”
Alvin shook his head. “So he was defending one of the Chinks,” he said.
“Yep. Butted into somethin’ that was none of his damned business.”
“I’ll have a talk with Carlos and Fidel when they come in,” Hiram said. “Pete, go get yourself a drink. That Sinclair ain’t nothin’ we can’t handle.”
Pete stood up. “Seems to me, he needs to be taught a lesson, Mr. Bledsoe. A good hard lesson.”
“I’ll take care of it, Pete.” Hiram waved the man away then put his cigar in a clay ashtray and picked up his drink.
Alvin turned around after Pete left. “Either we got ourselves a Good Samaritan, Hiram, or a Chink-lover.”
“I wonder,” Hiram said. “Sinclair didn’t draw his gun. Used his fists. He might be as dumb as you say.”
“I wouldn’t want to tangle with either Fidel or Carlos,” Alvin said. “Especially if they had guns in their hands.”
“And it appears they did, doesn’t it?”
“I reckon so,” Alvin said.
“On the other hand, this Dave Sinclair might bear watching. Maybe he isn’t what he says he is.” Hiram drank another swallow from his glass.
“He don’t look like no gunfighter I ever saw,” Alvin said.
Hiram picked up his cigar and puffed on it.
“Maybe that’s the way he wants it, Alvin. Maybe . . .”
Hiram did not finish what he was about to say. Instead, he looked toward the batwing doors.
A tall man in nondescript clothes entered the saloon. There was something about his walk and the way he looked around the room that sent a tingle of chill up Hiram’s spine.
“That must be Sinclair now,” Hiram said, nodding toward the door.
Alvin turned and saw Slocum, who called himself Sinclair, walk toward the bar. No, he shuffled toward the bar, his shoulders slightly hunched, his feet dragging.
He looked like any other gold-panning prospector to Alvin.
“That’s him,” Alvin said. “That’s Dave Sinclair.”
Hiram’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re right, Alvin,” he said. “He don’t look much different from any of those galoots who run off into the hills. That’s what bothers me.”
“What do you mean, Hiram?”
“There’s a book there maybe, but you can’t read it right off. All you see is the cover.”
Alvin’s face fell in puzzlement. He turned away as Slocum sat on a stool at the very end of the bar. From there, he could look over the entire room.
Just like a gunfighter, Alvin thought.