The last ride of the dir.., p.29
The Last Ride of the Dirty Creek Gang,
p.29
He slowed at the northwest corner of Hell’s Half Acre. The bank the gang had robbed stood at the corner of Throckmorton and Weatherford. Or it had. An empty lot littered with bricks and other building debris taunted him. He rode around, making sure he had the right corner. The Pacific Billiard Parlor and Saloon had been a few yards farther east.
The gin mill was still there and doing a roaring business for this time of day. Piano music drifted from the open doors, competing with the loud clatter of dice cups and the rough laughter of cowhands too deep in their cups.
“Hey, mister,” he called to an old-timer sitting under an awning beside the door into the saloon. “You live here? In Fort Worth?”
“What’s it to you, stranger?” The old man pushed back his hat and peered at Carson. One eye was blind white. The other wandered about for a spell until it located him in the street.
“A year back, wasn’t there a bank on the corner?” He pointed.
“Yup, surely was.”
“What happened to it? There’s nothing but a hole now.”
“Stemmons done made off with all the money deposited there.” “The bank president?”
“None other than. I lost purty near eighteen dollars. My life savin’s.” The old man leaned closer to Carson. Focusing on him still wasn’t working for him. “You lose money there, too?”
“No, I got my money out before a crooked banker stole a penny.”
“You got more smarts than half the folks at this end of town. Warn’t a one of us what ever thought Martin Stemmons was a sneak thief. One night, eight months back, he snuck into the vault, emptied it, got into his buckboard, and ain’t been seen since.”
“Do tell.”
“May the devil take him.”
Carson nodded in the man’s direction and tugged on the reins to move on.
He rode back to the corner to satisfy himself the entire building was gone. Hearing that the bank president was a bigger thief than the entire Dirty Creek Gang did nothing to make him feel better. Memories still haunted him.
He walked his horse around the block, then wondered what he should do next. Seeing a paperboy hawking the afternoon edition of the Daily Gazette, he rode over.
“Paper, mister?” The boy thrust up a copy, just beyond Carson’s grasp so he wouldn’t grab it and ride away.
“The bank down the street. The one that used to be there. Do you remember a woman who sold flowers in front of it a year ago?”
“Miz Van Camp?” He sounded tentative. “Why you askin’ after her?”
“She had a little girl with her while she was selling the flowers.”
“Elizabeth,” the boy said. Something in the way he spoke the girl’s name caused Carson to perk up.
“You know her? Them?”
“What’s it to you?”
“I’d like to buy a paper.” He pulled a ten-dollar gold piece from his vest pocket and let it reflect sunlight into the boy’s face.
“I can’t give you change for all that. The paper’s only a … dime.”
“A nickel,” Carson corrected the little thief. “And I don’t want change.”
The boy looked around as if someone spied on him. He stepped a little closer.
“You lookin’ to harm them?”
“No.”
“That’s good. Miz Van Camp got blinded during a bank robbery.”
“I … heard tell. An accident.”
“Naw, the danged bank robber done it on purpose. He smashed her across the face with his gun and then raked out her eyes with the front sight.”
“How do you know all this?”
The boy smiled shyly, then grinned broadly.
“Me and Elizabeth are, you know, special friends.”
“You’re sweet on her and she doesn’t know you exist.” Carson had to laugh at the boy’s expression. He had described the problem exactly.
“Her and her ma have a hard life. There ain’t much I can do.”
“You can go to school and learn proper English. Maybe you’ll be the editor someday.”
“Old man Touhey won’t never retire. He’s too ornery.”
“Elizabeth and her ma. Where can I find them?”
“Miz Van Camp still sells flowers. A couple blocks over on Houston. She moves around, so I don’t know where perzactly.”
Carson flipped the boy the coin. He marveled at the quick reflexes and how easily he snatched the coin in midair. Youth.
“Buy yourself an English book.” He hesitated, then said, “Or maybe a dime novel. Ned Buntline writes some decent stories.”
The boy bit down on the coin to make sure it was really gold.
“Thanks, mister. And don’t you go botherin’ Elizabeth or I’ll have to come for you.”
Carson laughed and rode east. He searched Houston Street for the better part of a half hour before he saw the little girl on a corner selling wilted flowers. She wasn’t having much luck. He rode over and dismounted. She looked up at him expectantly.
“Buy a flower for your best girl?” She held out the flowers.
“Your name Elizabeth?”
She backed away.
“I’m not going to hurt you. I wanted to know about your ma and pa.”
“Pa left,” she said in a little voice. “Right after Mama lost her sight.”
“After the bank robbery?”
Carson held his breath when she nodded.
“You’ve been helping her out, selling the flowers, haven’t you?”
The little girl nodded again.
“I’ve got something I want you to take to her right away. Will you do that?”
“What is it? I have to sell the rest of my flowers.”
“She won’t mind when she …” He paused. He’d started to say “when she sees this,” but knew that would never happen because he had collided with her as he left the bank. His reaction when he had plowed into her had been instinctual, not intentional, and that didn’t matter. “When she hears what you have for her.”
He unfastened the leather straps on his saddlebags and heaved them off the back of his horse. The horse let out a grateful whinny at being relieved of such a burden.
“Here. Can you carry this by yourself?” He handed over the saddlebags.
Elizabeth sank under the weight, then balanced the load.
“I’m strong enough. What’s in here? Can I look?”
“You take this to your ma, and when she opens it, you tell her what you see.”
She hesitated again. He reached into his pocket and found a silver dollar.
“I’ll buy all your bluebonnets, so you need to go home to get more.”
“These are all I have.”
“Good,” he said. “Go on. Skedaddle on home.”
She looked skeptical, but struggled to drag the bag with ten thousand dollars in gold coins. Carson watched as she strained to pull the gold down the street. He mounted and trailed her at a decent distance, wanting to see but not be seen. Elizabeth finally entered a small shack at the north edge of town. Carson waited until he heard the cry of disbelief and the girl’s squeal.
He wheeled his horse about and rode back into town. The old man had left his chair outside the Pacific Billiard Parlor. Carson thought this was as good a place as any for a drink. Or two.
He went into the saloon and surveyed the sparse crowd. Two men played some kind of double-handed solitaire at one green-felt-covered table in the back. Another had passed out in the corner.
“What’ll it be?” asked the barkeep.
Carson fumbled around in his pockets. All he had left was a dime and the twenty-dollar gold piece that had led him to the treasure cave.
“What’ll ten cents buy me?”
“A shot of rye that’ll take the tar off your roof.” The leather-apron-clad bartender eyed the gold coin. “That’ll buy you a case of Billy Taylor’s finest bourbon.”
“The rye,” Carson said.
He stared at the brimming shot glass, then picked it up and said softly, “To the Dirty Creek Gang.” He knocked back the liquor, put the empty shot glass down on the bar with a loud click, and started away.
“Mister, wait. Why don’t you spend some of that gold piece?” Carson flipped it in the air and caught it easily.
“This is my lucky piece. And if I get real lucky, a lovely lady who lives outside Boone will be where I left her.”
Clay Carson had quite a few miles to ride to find out her name.
William W. Johnstone, The Last Ride of the Dirty Creek Gang
