Bill Pronzini - Quincannon

“Would you know a man named Whistling Dixon?”

“That’s an odd name,” she said. “No, I’ve never heard it before. Is he a friend of yours?”

“Yes.”

“And is he what brings you to Silver City?”

“No, business does.”

“What is your business, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Salts.”

“Salts? Do you mean patent medicines?”

“Dr. Wallmann’s Nerve and Brain Salts. The finest blood purifier on the market today, guaranteed to — ”

She held up her hand. “Please,” she said, smiling slightly, “I’m not a prospective customer, Mr. -?”

“Lyons, Andrew Lyons.”

“I’m Sabina Carpenter. Now that we’re acquainted, I’ll feel better about being stared at. Assuming you intend to continue.”

He didn’t smile. “I will try to control myself.”

“It gave you quite a start when you first saw me, didn’t it?”

“Yes. Quite a start.”

Silence for a few moments. Then she said, “May I ask an impertinent question, Mr. Lyons?”

“As you like.”

“Do you always drink whiskey so early in the day?”

Quincannon said seriously, “Yes, I do. I’m a drunkard.”

“I see,” she said, as if he had just told her he was a Presbyterian. “But a harmless one, I trust.”

Harmless, he thought. He said nothing.

“Are you proud of your drunkenness, Mr. Lyons, that you speak of it so frankly?”

“Hardly that. But I see no point in telling a lie when the truth will suffice.”

“An honest man. How refreshing.”

“Don’t you know many honest men, Miss Carpenter?”

“Not as many as I would like to.”

“The two gentlemen riding with us — are they honest men?”

“I don’t know either of them well enough to judge,” she said. “At the least they are both influential men.”

“Oh? In Silver City?”

“Yes. The fat one is Oliver Truax, owner of the Paymaster mine. The Paymaster is one of the largest and richest on War Eagle Mountain.”

“You say that as if you have a proprietary interest in it.”

“I do, as a matter of fact. I recently bought several shares of stock in the Paymaster Mining Company. You wouldn’t happen to be interested in that sort of investment yourself, would you, Mr. Lyons?”

“Not I. I haven’t the money for it.”

Outside, one of the ferrymen shouted to someone on shore; through the door window Quincannon could see that the ferry was about to dock on the west bank of the swift-moving river. The other door opened just then and the tall man reentered the coach, followed by Oliver Truax.

Sabina Carpenter apparently decided that introductions were in order. Truax had no interest in a drummer of nerve and brain salts, especially one who began the day with a breakfast of straight whiskey; he said, “How do you do,” and gave his attention to what was happening outside the coach. The tall man, whose name was Will Coffin and who was the owner and publisher of the Owyhee Volunteer, seemed friendlier and more inclined to make conversation.

“These salts of yours, Mr. Lyons,” he said bluntly, “are they any good?”

“Excellent. The finest on the market.”

“What sort of ills will they cure?”

“Nervous irritability, night sweats, blurring of eyesight, slow circulation of the blood, swollen veins, and weakness of the brain and body as a result of excesses or abuses of any kind.”

“Very impressive. How much do they sell for?”

“One dollar the box.”

“Perhaps I’ll purchase one when we arrive,” Coffin said. “I have been under a nervous strain lately.”

“Pressures of your profession, Mr. Coffin?”

“Not that so much as the fact that I am being harassed.”

“Harassed?”

“By the Chinese population in Silver. Some of them have broken into my house and the newspaper office and destroyed property in both places. God knows what other indignities they’ve perpetrated in my absence; I’ve been two days in Boise gathering political news. I asked friends to watch my house and the office, but…” He grimaced and shook his head.

“The Chinese are generally a peaceable race where white men are concerned,” Quincannon said. “Why have some of them taken after you?”

“Opium,” Coffin said.

“Sir?”

“Opium. I have editorialized against the filthy stuff and their open selling of it in no uncertain terms. Do you know what yen shee is, Mr. Lyons?”

Quincannon nodded. It was the scrapings of the opium pipe, gathered and saved and sold to addicts who could not afford pure opium; a quarter teaspoon of yenshee mixed with a small amount of water sustained the opium eater’s illusion of well-being until his next pipe.

“The worst of them, a merchant named Yum Wing, gives small quantities of it away free — a means to corrupt men and bring him more customers.”

“And that ploy has succeeded?”

“All too well. My compositor, Jason Elder, became an addict that way and has been all but useless at his job since.”

“Was Elder a good printer before his addiction?”

“Yes. One of the best I have ever worked with.”

Quincannon filed Jason Elder’s name away for future consideration.

Oliver Truax said, “There are too many Chinamen in Silver, that’s the problem.” Now that the stage had come off the ferry and was underway again, he had apparently decided to make himself heard. “The whole lot of them should be run out of town. And Yum Wing and the rest of the elders tarred and feathered first.”

“What a quaint idea,” Sabina Carpenter said mildly.

Her sarcasm was lost on the fat mine owner. He said, “We would all be better off in that event. And it might happen, too. Mark my words, it well might.”

“Vigilante action, Mr. Truax?” she asked.

“If necessary. Wendell McClew is an incompetent buffoon, everyone knows that — the worst town marshal Silver has ever had. He can’t control the Chinamen and he can’t do anything about the outlaws running loose in the hills, preying on innocent men and women. He can’t do anything worth a tinker’s dam.”

“You’re being a bit hard on him, Oliver,” Coffin said. “McClew isn’t as bad as all that.”

“I say he is. I say he should be removed from office and a better man installed in his place before the Chinamen run amok.”

“Are matters with the Chinese really that serious?” Quincannon asked.

“Hardly,” Sabina Carpenter said.

Truax looked at her as if she were a child. “You haven’t been in Silver very long, Miss Carpenter. You haven’t a proper understanding of the situation.”

“But of course you do.”

“Of course,” Truax said. It was obvious to Quincannon that he was the kind of man who believed in the absolute sanctity of his own viewpoint. It was also obvious to Quincannon that he was an arrogant, pompous, and bigoted troublemaker. “Get rid of the heathens, I say. God-fearing men and women are what we want in Silver City.”

“God-fearing white men and women,” Sabina Carpenter amended.

Truax nodded emphatically. “Just as you say, Miss Carpenter. Just as you say.”

They lapsed into silence as the stage rattled on through fertile farmland, the coach jouncing and swaying in its thoroughbraces. The movement and the amount of whiskey he had drunk in Nampa gave Quincannon a vicious headache, created more queasiness in his stomach; he sat with his eyes closed, enduring it.

Noon came as they crossed less settled flatland toward the rugged, looming shapes of the Owyhee Mountains. Just before they reached the low foothills that marked the beginning of the Owyhees, they encountered a section of road covered with ruts that ran parallel to each other the width of the coach. The other three passengers had been over this road before; they lowered the side-curtains over the windows as the stage began to crawl through the ruts. Each was full of potholes, some hidden by buildups of powdery dirt; one wheel or another sometimes dropped clear to the hub and caused the coach to jerk and bounce violently, the four of them to hang onto the straps with both hands. Even with the curtains down, the air was clogged with dust. Quincannon had to struggle to keep his sickness down inside him. His head felt as if hobnails were being driven into the inside of his skull.