Seven

 

His mother ordered him to stay home that afternoon, out of further trouble, while she visited several lady friends to spread word her son was seeking employment. Gillom watched her walk off in high-button shoes, stepping high, like her feet hurt with the task. The house was silent as he stood in the bedroom where J. B. Books had killed two midnight assassins only a week ago. Until echoes from that bloody set-to died down, Bond Rogers wouldn’t have to slave afternoons cooking more big meals for boarders. They were all gone.

Sure his mother was gone, Gillom left the house and headed for Mose Tarrant’s livery stable. All he needed now was a horse and tack. With that damned marshal chasing me and my pistols, he decided, I gotta get the hell out of El Paso for a while.

He hurried along Overland Street, keeping his head down under his new Stetson. Tarrant’s stable was on Oregon Street, a cross street. He walked south, toward the river and Mexico. Glancing back, Gillom saw two Mexicans riding slowly along the street after him. Gillom had noticed these two young men sitting beside the dirt road under a shade tree, holding their horses’ reins and conversing as he passed.

Gillom checked behind before entering the stable, and sure enough, the two Mexicans on horseback were still dogging him. Inside, Mose Tarrant was attempting to curry an anxious stallion tethered outside its stall.

“Mose! I need to buy a horse!”

“Whoa, settle down there.” Twisting the stamping stallion’s bridle, the liveryman turned the gray horse’s rear hooves away from his new customer.

“Got any money?”

“Yes, I do,” nodded Gillom. “Mister Books left me a little.”

“Really? After that shitty trick you pulled, sellin’ me Books’s horse without his permission?”

“Well, said I was sorry. Thought we settled our personal differences … before his shoot-out. You still got his horse?”

“Yessir. Dollar. His fistula’s healin’. Expensive animal, though.”

“How expensive?”

“Three hundred dollars.”

“What! That horse ain’t no racer.”

The older stable owner gave the teenager a mercenary look. “Son, that horse belonged to John Bernard Books.”

“Well, I just need a fit animal to ride. Doesn’t have to be blooded stock.”

“I’ll look around. When do you need this mighty steed?”

“Oh, next couple days. You still got Books’s saddle?”

“I do.” The tall, stooped white man gave the stallion’s mane a couple last swipes with his brush, then led the restless bangtail back into its stall.

“Hundred and fifty dollars for all his tack.”

Gillom shook his head. “Pretty dear.”

“Hey, that’s a Myres saddle, a good double rig. Where you ridin’ to?”

“Oh, north, probably. Into the mountains.”

Mose Tarrant ran long, dirty fingers through his own thinning hair, brushing loose straw from the tangle.

“Then you’ll need a breast collar, too, so that big saddle won’t slip back when you’re climbing. Might throw that in for the price.”

“See what I can afford.”

“Tomorra’s Sunday. Come back Monday, see if I’ve found anything can still trot.”

Gillom grinned. “Gallop would be preferred. Thank you, Mose.”

Mose Tarrant cleared his throat, expectorated into the pungent dirt on his stable’s floor. “Don’t forget to bring your money, Junior. All of it.”

Gillom stuck his head round the barn’s corner to peer both ways, up and down busy Oregon Street. He saw several Mexicans going about their business, but not those two young vaqueros.

*   *   *

Next morning, his arm hooked into his mother’s, Gillom attended church. Methodists occupied the greatest number of churches at this turn of El Paso’s century, five, and Gillom was seated in a pew of the oldest, Trinity Methodist South, on the corner of Texas and Stanton. His mother wanted his attendance noted but not to put Gillom on display, so they were seated near the middle of the congregation. Bond Rogers sat on the aisle, so her son couldn’t escape.

From his pulpit, the Reverend Henry New was excoriating his flock about sinners swimming in “hot agua,” and how he’d rather be a doorkeeper in the House of God than dwell outside forever in the tents of wickedness. Biblical hot air drifted over Gillom like sleep until a rap in the ribs from his mother startled him awake. The preacher was climaxing about the Lord leading him to a sacred rock that was higher than he was, when the youth’s bored glance out one of the side windows caught sight of two Mexicans riding slowly up to one of the tall oaks in their church’s backyard. The young vaqueros halted and bent to speak to one of the girls skipping rope outside now that Sunday school had released. Gillom sat straight up in his pew seat. The little girls gabbed with those same Mexicans and pointed toward this church!

Gillom was restless through the final hymn and benediction, while the riders sitting their horses under the big oak were patient, quiet. After the service, Gillom tried to bound down the front steps past Henry New, but the reverend was too quick.

“Gillom! Any luck with the job hunting?”

“No, sir. But I plan on goin’ lookin’ tomorrow.”

His mother wedged in her two cents. “I heard Jay Cobb’s parents need somebody to deliver milk from their creamery, after what happened to their poor son in the Books tragedy.”

Reverend New’s smile folded into a funereal frown. “Their only son. Those who live by the sword, or the six-gun in young Jay’s case, shall perish by it. I must step round with my condolences.” He turned back to Bond’s wayward son. “Milk deliveries would be a starter job, Gillom, until you found something better. Did you find those pistols?”

Gillom wasn’t partial to a Sunday grilling, especially with other parishioners hovering.

“Nope.” Gillom pushed from the knot of people awaiting the preacher’s blessing and down the front steps. The reverend, however, always liked the last word.

“Hope you’re not back in jail before you find a job!” he yelled at the retreating young man.

Bond Rogers stood embarrassed. Realizing even he might have overstepped the bounds of propriety, the parson patted Mrs. Rogers’s wrist.

“A wise son maketh a good father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”

Mrs. Rogers gave her preacher a hard eye before marching away from the gossiping churchgoers.

There was no stopping Gillom as he strode toward the big oak up the grassy rise. Seeing him coming fast, the two Mexicans were already turning their horses.

“Hey, you fellers! Wait up!” The vaqueros gave their mounts the spurs. Only their dust lingered.

*   *   *

That afternoon Gillom told his mother he was going to see his pals.

“I can’t look for work, it’s Sunday. Maybe Bee or Ivory will know of a job, or they can spread the word at school tomorrow. See if anyone’s dad’s looking for someone full-time.”

“I’m surprised those boys would have anything to do with you after you shot at them.”

“That was just at Kneebone, after he stuck his knife in my bare foot. Don’t believe everything the marshal said, Ma. I’m still friends with most of the kids at school. They ain’t scared a me.”

Mrs. Rogers rubbed worry from her hands. “I certainly hope not. You’ll never find any job if people are afraid of you, or hear even a whisper you’re dangerous.”

“I’ll be back for supper.”

“Think you’ll find those pistols?”

Gillom’s grin turned downward. “Don’t bet on it.”

“Don’t make J. B. Books your dime novel hero, Gillom. He was nothing more than a shootist.”

“Maybe, but he also made history.” Then he was out the front door, bounding down their whitewashed steps. He gave his mother a backhanded goodbye as he strode out their front gate. He halted on their wooden sidewalk to check up and down Overland Street, looking for Mexicans.

No spies in sight, so he turned left, away from downtown. When he saw his mother had closed the front door of their two-story brick house, he side-straddled their back fence, ran to the woodpile behind their backyard tool shed. Moving some firewood, Gillom dug out Books’s revolvers again from their burlap swaddling. He’d soaped and cleaned the leather late last night in his bedroom closet, then oiled the old holster to preserve it and speed his draw.

I’ve gotta practice, he realized. Fire these pistols before somebody tests me. These two Remingtons are gonna be my only protection from thieves and pistoleros trying to prove their speed, so I better get comfortable with ’em. These guns and I need to become friends.