Mojave (6 page)

“Calico,” Whip answered.

A few days later, I got my first look at Calico.

Late morning, we come to a crudely painted sign that read:

Well, maybe if all the flowers in the desert had wilted and died and been blowed over with dust, then, maybe, just possibly, Calico could've been queen.

First folks we seen come scurrying down the trail that led to town, raising more dust than our Columbus carriage was forcing up. I eased the Holsteins to a stop, set the brake, and just stared. Four men, bearded, dirty, but with massive arms, come up pushing an empty wheelbarrow. “Welcome,” one of the fellows cried out, “welcome to Calico. Right this way, gents, to the Hyena House.”

Another one said, “Best hotel you'll find in Calico.”

“Yes, sir, this here's your bus,” the first one went on, motioning at the wheelbarrow, and he started to say more, but the third man poked him in his ribs with an elbow.

The fourth one spit a river of tobacco juice onto a beetle, which probably appreciated the moisture. He laughed like those proverbial hyenas.

The first fellow blinked, and stared, and blinked again.

“Why,” he said after the longest pause, “you ain't the stagecoach.”

“But,” the second one said, “you still won't find a better place to hang your hats than the Hyena House . . . gentlemen.”

I figured they'd all gotten the sunstroke. Right severely.

The fourth one shifted his quid of tobacco into another cheek.

“Drive on, Micah Bishop,” Whip Watson said, like he was the Prince of Wales, and I clucked my tongue and flicked the lines, and the Holsteins carried us past the four guys. A few minutes later, we rode right past the Hyena House. Wasn't more than a cave in the canyon wall, though the four proprietors had built a wall of rocks out front. And the sign, painted the same color and probably by the same shaking hand as the sign welcoming us to Calico, hung above the cave's opening.

I sure hoped that wasn't the best lodging Calico had to offer.

Next, we passed lean-tos, and crudely built stone huts—no mortar—and dugouts, and, of course, caves. That's where some folks lived, and then we looked off and seen the cemetery.

“Well, now,” Whip Watson said, “that boneyard reminds me of something, Micah Bishop.”

“What's that?” I asked.

“Juan Pedro owes me ten dollars. You made it to Calico, and you ain't dead.”

“Glad to be of your assistance,” I told him.

Guttersnipe Gary spit tobacco juice into the street, mighty careful not to get any on Whip Watson's fabulous buggy, and a short while later we entered Calico proper.

Near as I could tell, the Queen of the Desert Flowers was a one-street town. Well, it was a long street, with high, barren hills off in the not too distant distance. I guessed that those were the Painted Hills I'd heard tell of.
Painted
, I said to myself,
four shades of brown
. Most of the mines lay beyond the town. I could see specks that was miners moving in and out of caves in those dark hills. Off to the south was a deep—and I mean deep—canyon. I reckon the only place you could put a town was where they put Calico.

Overall, however, Calico turned out to be not that bad of a burg.

I mean, we passed a couple of water wagons, so they had water here. Had to haul it from somewhere, and I don't know where they found the wood to build some of the businesses. Certainly not in the hills. Only thing that could grow in this desert was rocks. But, yep, some of the buildings were wood frame, although about every third or fourth one was dirty brown, made of what they called “rammed-earth adobe,” which bared little resemblance to the adobe houses across New Mexico and Arizona territories. Reckon this was a California thing.

Miners and merchants walking along the boardwalks stopped to stare as I drove our Prince of Wales, Whip Watson, down the street.

“Where we going?” I asked.

His Highness said, “Just drive to the end of town, turn around, come back down. I want to get the lay of this place.”

Hell, there wasn't much of a lay to Calico, but I was just the driver. Did some more tongue-clucking and more line-flipping, and the Holsteins kept high-stepping down the dusty street.

The lay of Calico, on the right side of the street, went something like this: More water wagons. A nicely built frame building with freshly painted (not even brown) wooden columns and a crowd of folks sitting on barrels and empty crates watching us go by. The sign, painted by someone who knowed what he was doing, read:

“That'll be our first stop,” King Whip said.

Not much farther down the road, we passed a building, and the smells coming out of those windows made my stomach start growling because Guttersnipe Gary ain't much of a cook, but there ain't much anybody can do with hardtack, jerky, salt pork, and beans. Felt like a long time since I'd tasted Jingfei's chow.

“And that,” King Whip said, “will be our second.”

I made a note in my mind to remember the Globe Chop House. Like I'd forget that place, or them smells.

On the opposite side of the street I spied a bridge, if you would call it that, that crossed the canyon, and there was more buildings that looked like dirt, and just caught a glimpse of someone running down into the canyon. Next to the bridge, on this side, stood a schoolhouse. Didn't see no one in it, and now that it struck me, I hadn't seen any kids anywhere in Calico.

Back on the right side of the street, there was more men in wool coats and black derbies who stared at us as we passed. On the other side, men in tattered clothes and thick beards stared.

We saw some more mines off behind the buildings, some privies, some holes, some narrow draws, a few smaller hills. Then we reached the end of town. Nothing beyond that but homes in holes in the rocks, decorated with barrel staves, and a crew of miners walking down a path like they was heading toward the gallows.

Guttersnipe Gary said, “Reckon that's the way to the big mines.”

I said, “Reckon so,” and got busy turning the team around.

“Stop,” Whip Watson said, and I stopped.

He leaned over and said, “That's a nice building going up, ain't it?”

We looked. We agreed. Seemed to be a two-story frame structure, with even fancier wooden columns than those outside of Noel's watering hole. No glass yet, but two holes told me there would be two plate-glass windows on either side of some fancy doors. Six or seven carpenters kept busy pounding nails or sawing saws.

“That'll be the palace of Calico,” Whip Watson said as he leaned back in his shiny leather seat.

“Beats the Hyena House,” I said, and clucked at the Holsteins.

This time, I focused mostly on that side of the street. A rammed-earth adobe that called itself a post office . . . a rough-hewn cabin that said it was a grocery . . . some buildings that looked like they'd been standing here since the time of Adam, and some new ones, and dirt ones, and dirtier ones.

“How old's this mining camp, Whip?” Guttersnipe Gary asked.

“First strike was five-six years ago,” Whip answered.

We passed a pile of garbage where some dogs was digging, and a couple of men, too, in rags. The garbage wasn't brown like most of the hills and most of the buildings. Mostly, I saw ash.

“Fire?” I said.

“Yep,” Whip Watson said. “That's why some of the buildings look new. First fire swept through here back in eighty-three, I think it was. When they rebuilt, they made every third or so building be made of dirt, or adobe, or rocks. Something that would keep the fire from jumping from building to building.”

“Did it work?” Guttersnipe Gary asked.

“I guess,” Whip answered. “There was another fire the year after the big one, but it didn't burn near as much. And you can see for yourself . . . this place is booming. Stop here.”

We wasn't at Isaac Noel's saloon, but I tugged on the lines and said, “Whoa,” and the Holsteins whoaed.

“Wait here,” Whip Watson said, and he leaped out of the carriage, with some writing papers in his hand, and he . . . disappeared on the other side of the street in a building with a sign that said:

Guttersnipe Gary wasn't much of a converser, and I didn't feel much like talking, so we sat there in the front seat, nodding at some men who passed our way, not making eye contact with some of the other brutes.

Five minutes later, I heard barking, growling, then a savage attack of yipping and screaming. The Holsteins got a little skittish, and I got a better grip on the lines, wanted to look back, but didn't dare take my eyes off our horses. Whip Watson's dander would get up if I wrecked this carriage, and I remembered Conrad, and what Whip Watson was capable of when his dander—not to mention that whip of his—got up. Guttersnipe Gary leaned out his side to see what the commotion was about. The barking stopped, a yelping replaced it, and Guttersnipe Gary leaned back inside and fingered the brim of his fancy top hat.

“Dog fight back at the garbage pile?” I asked.

“Something like that,” Guttersnipe Gary said. “Only it wasn't the dogs, but the men we passed.”

“Oh.”

I stared off down the street at the endless desert. It could drive a man insane, living out in a place like this for . . . what? . . . five or six years? A long time to be in a furnace with no trees and nothing at all but mines.

“You reckon mining silver's worth it?” I asked.

Guttersnipe Gary snorted and spit tobacco juice onto the boardwalk. Dust soon covered it. “Well,” he said, “there's a bunch of borax nearby, too.”

“Oh,” I said, like mining borax made living in this hellhole worth getting so addled that you think you're a dog and fight over scraps to be found in a mountain of ash and garbage.

About that time, Whip Watson stepped out of Slater and McCoy's mercantile, and climbed back into the carriage. He was smoking a cigar that wasn't a Havana, but wasn't no two-center, neither, and he passed one to Guttersnipe Gary and another to me. By the time we reached our next stop, Guttersnipe had thumbed that tobacco out of his cheek and was puffing away like a satisfied man.

I wasn't satisfied yet, even though I was smoking a cigar, too, because we weren't at Mr. Noel's saloon, but at the grocery store. Once again, we waited, and Whip Watson went inside. No dog fights this time, but a few rowdies standing in front of the hovel on our side of the street stared at us a most uncomfortable time. We didn't say nothing. They didn't, neither.

Whip Watson came out, and we continued our way back down the street, stopping at just about every business that wasn't a saloon or a café.

More men passed us. We nodded.

One even come up to us, the first sociable fellow we'd met, and put his left hand on the lamp on Guttersnipe Gary's side and said, “Fancy rig you boys got here. Interested in sellin'?”

“You'll have to talk to the boss man,” Guttersnipe Gary told him.

“You tell him to look me up,” the gent said, and he fished out a card and passed it to Guttersnipe Gary, who took it and slipped it in one of them green and velvet pockets. The gent told us his name, but I disremember what it was, and tipped his derby and went on down the street, whistling.

Eventually, Whip Watson had been inside most of the businesses, and we finally got to stop at Noel's saloon. I feared Whip might make me stay out with the Columbus carriage, on account every man we'd met seemed to fancy it. Or maybe they just admired the Holstein geldings and Whip Watson's trailing black mare. I surely did, and I know something about horses. At least, stealing them.

But whip in hand, Whip said, “Come along, boys, and let's cut the dust.”

On the crowded boardwalk, he stopped a little waif—first kid I'd spied in town—and said, “Boy, do you know a Rogers Canfield?”

“Can't say I do, sir,” the waif said.

Whip produced a half-eagle from his fingertips. He was good at magic, too. “Find him,” he said. “Send him here.” He let the boy take the gold coin. “And there's another one of these for you when you fetch him.”

The boy's eyes growed like mine was probably doing, and he took off running. Whip laughed, rose, and noticed—like me and Guttersnipe Gary already had detected—that the crowd of men had given us a berth, and everyone who wasn't eyeing Whip Watson was watching that kid run down the street.

“If something happens to that boy,” Whip told the waif-watchers, “something happens to every mother's son of you.”

He grinned that scary look, told me to fetch his black horse to the water trough, then join him and Guttersnipe Gary inside. Which I done real quick.

The saloon was crowded, but I made my way to the corner table where Whip sat with Guttersnipe Gary, and I slid into the vacant chair as Whip filled a long-stemmed glass with wine. I would have preferred whiskey, Irish if they served it, but a beer would have tasted good, too. Still, I accepted. Guttersnipe Gary lifted his goblet in toast.

“To Calico,” Guttersnipe Gary said.

“Calico,” me and Whip said.

Glasses clinked. Wine wasn't bad at all.

“What did you notice about Calico, boys?” Whip said, and set his glass down on the table.

“Not big,” Guttersnipe Gary said, “but plenty of people.”

Whip nodded. “More than twelve hundred, Max Slater told me. And that don't count miners in the district.”