Incident at Confederate Gulch
Chapter 7
Next morning, Tom woke up and realised with a shock that Jane was still laying next to him in bed. He could scarcely believe that what had taken occurred a few hours before was not just a dream. But here was the young woman herself, large as life. He watched her as she slept. He could not help but wonder if she knew that it was the first time that he had lain with a woman. Could girls tell such things? As he was wrestling with this perplexing problem, Jane opened her eyes and said, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he said politely, “I hope that you slept well?”
She burst into laughter and said, “Lordy, did you ever hear the like? How did you sleep? Gauging by how quickly you went to sleep afterwards, I should think you must have had a good night’s sleep.”
“Yes, I did. Thank you.”
“I never pegged you for the bashful type. What ails you now?”
For some reason that he could never afterwards fathom, Tom blurted out, “That was my first time. That is to say, the first time that I…”
“I get the idea,” said the girl, “Well you did real good for a beginner.” Then they both started laughing and before he knew it, they had their arms around each other and were embracing. There was no telling where this might have led, had there not been a knock on the door and a woman’s voice calling “Room service!” in a perfunctory way before opening the door and walking straight into the room. When the young woman saw Tom and Jane locked in an embrace she was quite taken aback and, mumbling a hasty apology, she backed out of the room again, blushing furiously.
The entry of the chambermaid somehow put their plans a little out of kilter and the two of them began to chat in the most natural way, which, thought Tom later, was odd under the given circumstances.
“Tell me,” he asked, “How did you come to work in a hurdy house?”
“That’s no mystery,” said Jane, “My Pa died when I was little and Ma remarried. My step-pa, he wouldn’t leave me alone, he was always catching me alone and trying to touch me and such. I told my Ma, but she said I was a liar and that if it was true, then I must have been leading him on and acting like a slut. So one day, I waited until I was alone with him and made sure to have a piece of lead pipe tucked away in my dress. Well, he started along his usual road and then I pulled out that length of piping and cracked him round the head with it. Then I lit out.”
“So where did you go?”
“I had a little handbill telling of the great opportunities to be had by pretty girls up here in Confederate Gulch. I found my way here and I have worked ever since at The Lucky Strike.”
“Do you miss your home or your mother?”
“Not I,” she said, “Course I soon began in on the other thing, soon after I started at the hurdy.”
“What other thing?” asked Tom.
“Whoring, of course.”
Tom nearly choked to hear her use such a bad word so lightly. He said, “How can you bear to do that, let alone talk of it so? I don’t understand.”
“What’s to understand? I need money and men are happy to give me theirs. It’s a business.”
Tom could not somehow tie in this kind, warm girl with the picture of a hard, heartless prostitute that she was trying to paint. He said, “Can’t you make enough at the hurdy gurdy house without resorting to such?”
She appeared to take the question seriously and frowned as she thought about how best to answer him. She said, “I don’t see that it’s a whole heap better, to speak plainly. There’s nigh on as much takes place in that dance-hall as you would see in a bedroom.”
“How’s that?” Tom asked, horrified and fascinated at the same time.
“Some of them fellows, they will try to get you to do things there on the dance floor or under the tables. Boy, you have no idea. A lot of those prospectors, they have nuggets of gold with them and they will push them between your breasts and then try to get you to fiddle with them down their trousers, while you are sitting on their lap. I could tell you some funny stories like that.”
“I have some business tonight, but perhaps we can meet again?” said Tom.
The girl looked at him for a long moment, before saying, “There was hell to pay yesterday, after you left.”
“What, you mean about those men I shot?”
“What, them?” said Jane, “No, I don’t mind that anybody cared a fig about that. It was what you might call a good clean fight and nobody was fussed. No, I mean after that.”
“Go on. Does this concern me?”
“You’d know that better than I would, maybe. One of the fellows came in from those houses that I told you about. You have not told anyone of what I said? I tell you now that it would go near to costing me my life were you to let on.”
“I have said nothing.”
“Anyways, the story is that there was some attempt made to rob one of the places of all the morphine that had been made there. It was not clear to me what had happened, other than two men had been killed dead.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“To set you on your guard, you noodle. I can’t think it chance that I tell you of the whereabouts of those houses one day and then next thing I hear is where there has been shooting, killing and I don’t know what-all else going on at them.”
“Does anybody think I had aught to do with it?” asked Tom thoughtfully.
“Not that I heard. Why would they?”
“You’re not fixing to say anything?”
“I told you, I have put my own life at risk by setting you on that trail. Lord, I am not going to open my mouth.”
His face split into a huge smile. “Well then,” said Tom, “I reckon we should have us some breakfast.”
Word had spread around Diamond City of the boy who had shot and killed three men in the space of twenty four hours. There was a sheriff in the town, but he did not seem overly eager to look into the matter. The way of it was that if witnesses all agreed that a killing had been in self defence, then the sheriff would not go to too much trouble looking into and investigating the affair. The most that the law would do would be to take a statement or two and make sure that it had been a genuine and fair fight, rather than some assassination or ambush. The prospectors and miners were a hot-headed and wild bunch and killings were not uncommon. As long as they were only shooting and knifing each other and the fights were more or less fair, then the sheriff did not feel the need to exert himself.
A consequence of all this was that the shy young farm boy found himself to be something of a celebrity that day. He noticed that the bar of the hotel, where he was eating his breakfast, was very crowded when he entered it with Jane, but little guessed that most of those present had come for no other reason than to catch a glimpse of him. Shootings and knifings were, as has been remarked, far from uncommon in Diamond City, but it was rare for one so young to kill three men in such a short space of time. It was this great interest which prompted Sheriff Parker to recollect his official position and interview the young man.
Tom and Jane had just finished eating, when the sheriff arrived with a couple of deputies; prepared for the possibility that this cold-blooded killer would fight a bloody gun battle rather than come and explain himself down at the office. As for Tom Summerfield, he was astonished to see three heavily armed men, two of them with shotguns cradled in their arms, approaching the table where he sat. He stood up, with instinctive courtesy, causing the sheriff and his deputies to recoil, as though anticipating a fusilade of fire from the young boy. Tom said, “May I help you, gentlemen?”
“I have reason to believe that you were lately involved in three deaths. Is that so?” said Parker, eyeing the pistol hanging at the boy’s hip.
“Yes. Yes I was,” said Tom, “But I was defending myself against armed men. I had no choice.”
“That is what I have heard,” admitted Sheriff Parker, “Still, I would like you to come to the office and swear out a statement on it.”
“You mean right now?” asked the boy in surprise, “We were only now finishing our breakfast.”
The sheriff and deputies, all three of whom were quite familiar with Tom Summerfield’s companion at table, stared at Jane in a such a way that she announced, “Oh don’t mind me. I have to get off anyway, Tom. Don’t leave town without coming to find me.” She leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek and then stood up, nodded saucily to the sheriff and his men, and left.
“Well son,” said Parker, “Will you oblige us?”
“I suppose so,” said Tom and left the hotel, accompanied by the others. The procession through the streets to the sheriff’s office garnered much attention from the loafers and passers by in the streets. It was widely known that the young man had been set upon and provoked, drawing and firing his gun only after others had threatened to kill him. The good looking boy was therefore the object of sympathy, rather than condemnation.
Once they had reached the office and entered it, Sheriff Parker eased up a little on the act. He said to Tom, “It’s alright son, I have spoke to those who saw what happened. There is nothing for you to worry about, I know that you acted in defence of your own life. Still, three men have died and it is my duty to look into it.”
“What do you want from me then?” asked Tom.
“How would it be if you was to write out an account of the happenings from your side. You can write?”
“Sure I can write,” said Tom indignantly, “I bet I can write as well as you can.”
“That’s nothing to the purpose. It is not me as has shot down three men in a short space of time. By the by, how is that not one of the three was injured? Each was killed by only one bullet.”
“I guess that I don’t like to waste powder and lead.” said Tom.
Sheriff Parker gave the boy a cold look. “Do not venture to make jokes here in my office, son. If nothing else, I can keep you here for weeks as a material witness, even if you are not charged with aught. How would that suit?”
Tom shrugged his shoulders.
“Well then, suppose you answer my question properly. This is the way of it. We have our fair share of shootings round here in Confederate Gulch. Mostly, the only casualties are pier-glasses, windows and chandeliers. Even when men are firing at each other, they are often as drunk as fiddlers’ bitches and don’t hit anything. Those that do stop a ball are generally only wounded. You shot three men and with only three bullets you killed them all. I say again, how come? Are you a professional at this?”
Tom could not help but smile at such a question. “Lord, no. I work on my Ma’s farm. I hardly ever touched a handgun until but a few days back. My shooting has been with rifles and such.”
There was something about this whole entire business that Sheriff Parker did not like. He could not precisely put his finger upon it, but he knew that there was mischief afoot. He said, “May I look at that pistol of yours?” With considerable reluctance, Tom handed the weapon, hilts first, to the sheriff. Parker turned the gun over and examined it closely. “This is not a new weapon. Do you mind telling me where you acquired it? Was it your pa’s or something?”
“It was lent me.”
“There is something not quite right about you, young man. I cannot put my finger on it, but I have a nose for those that will cause me problems. You are one of them. Do you mind telling me what brings you to this part of the country?”
“I am travelling about a little. There is nothing more to it.”
Sheriff Parker looked long and hard at the youth sitting in front of him. He was not in general a gambling man, but he would have bet a hundred dollars right then that his path would cross this boy’s again before too long.
After Tom had written out an entirely truthful and accurate account of the two shootings and the sheriff had compared it with the statements that he had already taken, the business was concluded. Before sending him from the office, Sheriff Parker thought it might be wholesome for the young man to hear his views and opinions upon recent events.
“Where I come from,” said Parker, “We have a saying. Once is chance, twice is coincidence and three times is enemy action. You have been mixed up in two killings and I don’t see that I have much choice but to call them coincidence. Don’t let me hear that you are at the heart of any more such affairs or I will be thinking that you are not the innocent boy that you represent yourself to be. Now be off with you.”
It was not yet ten in the morning and Tom Summerfield had the whole day before him. He was not meeting Chan until the evening and so it came into his mind that he should make the most of being in an exciting place like Diamond City. So far, he had been too tied up in his mission to give much thought to the pleasures of a large town like this; which was certainly very different from the sleepy little backwater of Cooper’s Creek. He had plenty of money at his disposal and the day before him and he was a young man. Perhaps, he thought, he should set out to enjoy himself.
The people in Diamond City could be divided into two very different categories. First, there were the miners and prospectors who came to town for their provisions and other needs and secondly, there were those who furnished the gold miners with the necessities of their lives; which is to say, food, liquor, gambling and prostitutes.
On the whole, it was the townspeople who supplied services and goods to the prospectors and miners, who had the best of the deal. Those who lived by searching for gold and digging it out of the ground had a very relaxed attitude to the wealth that they acquired in this way. They spent money as freely as they collected it from the streams and hills of Confederate Gulch. It was common for a prospector to run out of money entirely and be forced to leave the district. This did not happen though to the storekeepers and saloon owners. Somehow, the gold excavated from Confederate Gulch had a way of slipping through the fingers of those who worked so hard to get hold of it and then sticking to the men in town who were running all the commercial concerns. None of this mattered overmuch to Tom Summerfield, who had several hundred dollars and a day in which to spend some of the money. He was like a small child let loose at a fair.
The first attraction which to which Tom gravitated was a gambling hall. He had already found that he had a natural facility at the faro table and wandered into a casino to try his luck again.
Although it was only morning, the house into which Tom went had a fairly good crowd in it. Some of the men had been there all night, others had come as soon as they had slept and had breakfast. The establishment which he had chosen was like a big saloon, only with a dozen games of cards running at tables. The dealers and bankers changed regularly, but The Golden Nugget never closed; it was open twenty four hours a day.
Straight away, Tom found a game at which he could not really lose. In high-class gambling spots, a new deck of cards is opened regularly. At the very least, the pack is shuffled frequently between games. This was not happening in The Golden Nugget, either through negligence or the sheer tiredness of the dealers; some of them working twelve hour shifts. Tom found that one of the games being played, he already knew under a different name. Here, they called it Ving et Une, which was French. The idea was to get as close to twenty one as you could, by asking the dealer for cards one at a time. If you went over twenty one, you were bust and lost the stake.
After watching a few hands, Tom knew the order of cards in the pack. He could not be quite sure, because as the discarded hands were collected up and placed on the bottom, the order sometimes got muddle up, but he had a pretty good notion of how the cards would run. The dealers here were a lot more careful about taking the gold for bets here than they had been in the tent which he had visited on the edge of town. Here, they had little scales at each table, where they weighed out an ounce at a time to make sure that nobody was short-changing the house.
On his first few hands, Tom won eight ounces of gold; which worked out at around two hundred dollars. At that point, the dealer took it into his head to shuffle the pack and so Tom withdrew for a while and watched the play until he had an idea of how the cards were running. Then he sat down again and after half an hour was ahead to the tune of twenty four ounces; a little shy of five hundred dollars. At which point the quit the game and went out into the sunny street to see what else Diamond City might have to offer.
Had Tom Summerfield been in the vicinity of the sheriff’s office at the time that he was taking his leave of The Golden Nugget, then the conversation taking place there would have interested him greatly. Three US marshals were sitting at their ease and pretty well telling Sheriff Parker what they would be doing in his jurisdiction; without seeking either his leave or blessing. The oldest of the three, a grizzled army veteran called Loames, said, “To be blunt Parker, these characters have set up shop in your area because they know they will not be troubled overmuch by the law. We’re here to set that right.”
“You’re not suggesting that I am on the take, I hope?” said Parker, his wrath rising.
“You hope away,” said another of the marshals, “We ain’t answerable for your hopes. Fact is, we mean to hit those bastards good and hard tonight. You better hope,” he continued, with an emphasis on the word ‘hope’, “You better hope that word does not leak out about our intentions, on account of where you are the only person in this town we have told of our intentions.”
Sheriff Parker thought that it was time to assert his own authority a little. He said, “Let me see that warrant again.”
Loames handed him a folded sheet of paper, which directed Sheriff Parker, and also everybody involved in law enforcement in the state of Montana besides, to offer their help and assistance to Marshal Loames and his colleagues.
“More of my men will be arriving at intervals throughout the day,” said Loames, “We do not want to give the impression of an army mustering or anything of that sort and so we will not be riding as a party until we assemble outside town at dusk.”
“What do you want from me and my deputies?” asked the sheriff.
“You can start by keeping your mouth shut about this to everybody, including and I might even venture to say, especially, to your deputies. I tell you once for all, if word of this raid reaches anybody, then you are answerable.”
“And all this is over a little bit of opium coming across the border from the north, is it? I don’t see where it needs a dozen of you fellows to come riding down on us like I don’t know what.”
“Don’t you though?” said the third marshal, who had not yet spoken, “Then it’s because President Johnson himself ordered this action. That good enough for you?”
“What it is, Parker,” said Marshal Loames in a less confrontative way, “What it is, is that there is too much of this new opium based drug floating around. Since the war ended, more and more men and not a few women too, have been fooling round with it. It is the very devil and we are the boys to put a halt to it. Do you know how many men are using this morphine?”
“I could not guess.” said Parker.
“Well then,” said Marshal Loames, “It is the better part of half a million, if you can believe it. Most all of it is being made with opium coming into Vancouver and San Franciso, through the Chinatowns in those cities. Tonight, we are going to close down two of the little factories turning it out and we will do so in such a way as to make damned sure that those involved in trafficking the stuff get the message. God help anybody who is in those places we will hit tonight, because if we receive the slightest resistance, we will burn them to the ground.”