Bill Pronzini - Quincannon

When they cleared the rutted section the driver stopped and allowed his passengers to rest briefly and compose themselves. Quincannon took the opportunity to drain his flask. The whiskey steadied him again, but added to the pounding in his temples.

Early in the afternoon, well into the lower elevations of the Owyhees, they reached a way station that had been built at a point where two other roads joined the one they had been traveling. The main building was wood-frame, with a covered porch and a sign above it that read: Poison Creek Station Meals at All Hours. At the rear were a large barn and corral. In front was what Coffin referred to as “the big hill”: the road seemed to climb straight up until it disappeared around a curve on the towering mountainside.

“Eight miles from here to Sands Basin and Silver City,” Coffin said. “And uphill all the way.”

The others ate beans and biscuits inside the station; the sight of the food made Quincannon’s stomach jump, and he went back outside to the water pump and washed his face and neck. The rest of his supply of whiskey was in his warbag. He asked the driver, who had just finished putting oats into gunny-sack nose bags for the horses, to get the bag out of the boot for him. When his flask was refilled he had another drink, a small one this time, and judged himself ready to resume the trip.

The uphill trek was slow but not nearly so rough; the road had a natural gravel surface and was less rutted up here. They climbed past basalt bluffs, through stands of juniper and cottonwood and mountain pine, toward granite heights that were partially obscured by low-hanging clouds. Deep canyons fell away below them, some with willow-choked creeks bubbling along their bottoms. The smell of sage that had stayed with them all the way from Nampa was replaced by the spicy scent of juniper. And the air grew cooler as the sun westered and was lost behind the high rocks.

When they neared New York Summit, less than three miles from Silver City, Quincannon could hear dull pounding echoes that he identified even before Truax said, “Powder blasts in the mines. We’ll soon be able to hear the stamps as well. It won’t be long before our arrival.”

Quincannon nodded.

“You’ll like our city,” Truax assured him, as if he were a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He seemed to have forgotten that Quincannon, at least as far as he knew, was a mere patent medicine drummer. “It’s the fastest growing and most progressive in Idaho.”

For anyone who doesn’t happen to be Chinese, Quincannon thought. He said, “I hope to make many new acquaintances there, Mr. Truax. And to renew an old one.”

“Ah? You know someone in Silver, then?”

“A man named Whistling Dixon.”

“I don’t believe I’m acquainted with anyone by that name.”

“I am,” Coffin said, “though not personally. He works for one of the cattle ranches at Cow Creek — the Ox-Yoke, I believe.” He glanced at Quincannon. “Odd that you should know an old Owyhee cowboy, Mr. Lyons. To the best of my knowledge, Dixon was born in these mountains and has seldom been away from them.”

Quincannon said, “My father ranched cattle in Oregon for a time, along the Rogue River, and worked with Dixon there. I was a boy then; Dixon took me under his wing and we became friends. He told me, of course, that he was from this area.”

It sounded flimsy in his own ears, but Coffin and Truax seemed to accept the explanation at face value. Sabina Carpenter, however, was watching him curiously again — perhaps even speculatively. A bright woman, Miss Carpenter. And in a way he could not quite define, an odd one too. He wondered just what she was thinking at this moment.

It was coming on twilight when they arrived in Silver City. The town had been built on the western flank of War Eagle Mountain, a thousand feet below the summit — the highest peak in the Owyhee range, Truax said. It nestled along the upper grade of a deep canyon, cut through by Jordan Creek and full of shadows now, that ran down past smaller and now mostly abandoned mining settlements: Ruby City, Booneville, Wagontown. Mountain peaks rose majestically around Silver, their flanks steep and rocky and supporting few trees; patches of snow still remained in protected spots under the peaks. A saddle coated with gray-green sage and chaparral connected War Eagle with Florida Mountain to the northwest.

Most of the mines were on the sharp-angled slopes of those two peaks. Through the door window, Quincannon could see some of the larger ones built down the side of War Eagle — the long, sweeping angles of their roofs, the fans of faintly luminous white tailings alongside. But while his eyes were on the slopes and on the town ahead, his thoughts were on the drink he would have when they arrived.

They rolled down past a large stage barn, across a railed bridge, and onto a crowded business street that curved up the steep grade of the canyon — “Jordan Street, our main stem,” Truax said. The business section appeared to encompass several blocks of Jordan Street and the two immediately parallel to it on either side. Out away from Jordan, the cross streets turned residential. Most of the buildings that stairstepped up the bald, brown hillsides were the high, narrow type common to mining camps; weatherbeaten, constructed in close packs. Lamplight already glowed palely in many of the windows.

As the stage climbed uphill, noise hammered at Quincannon’s aching head: the whistle of the hoisting and mill engines, the sullen roar of powder blasts, the tinny throb of saloon music, the rumble of wagons, the cries of animals and the raucous shouts of men. Horses, ore and dray wagons, and private rigs jammed the roadway; people filled the boardwalks. Several of the men wore the garb of cowboys, in for the evening from the nearby ranches. The cattle industry was almost as important in the Owyhee region as mining, Quincannon knew from the government survey pamphlet he’d read in San Francisco. The bare plateau that supported the silver-bearing mountains was carpeted in rich bunchgrass that had drawn stockmen from as far away as Texas.

The driver finally brought the stage to a stop at the Wells Fargo depot. Will Coffin was the first to alight; he helped Sabina Carpenter down. Truax went out next, and as Quincannon followed he saw a woman come forward and embrace the fat mine owner. She was blonde and somewhat Nordic-looking — half Truax’s age, half his weight, and twice as pleasing to the eye. But overdressed for a rugged mining town, Quincannon thought, in a silk-and-lace dress and a fancy plumed hat, and carrying a parasol.

“I’ve missed you, darling,” she said. “How was your trip?”

“Fine, fine.”

She stepped back a pace, smiled at Truax, and then allowed her gaze to shift to Quincannon as he swung down. Her eyes were light-colored, he noticed; they reminded him of a cat’s. “Who is this, Oliver?”

“Eh? Oh, Mr. Lyons. A medicine drummer.”

She favored Quincannon with a smile, but it was impersonal and disinterested. Medicine drummers were of no importance to her and therefore not worth her attention.

“This is my wife, Helen,” Truax said to Quincannon. Then he laughed and said, “She has no need of your nerve and brain salts, as you can plainly see.”

“Indeed I can.”

Truax took his wife’s arm. “If you’ll excuse us, Mr. Lyons. Come along, my dear.”

As they moved off, Quincannon turned toward the rear of the stage where the driver was unloading the boot. Sabina Carpenter stood there watching him; had been watching him, he sensed, throughout the brief conversation with the Truaxes. In the twilight the resemblance between her and Katherine Bennett again seemed strong and unsettling. He felt an even sharper need for a drink. The long stage ride had set his nerves on edge.