William Diehl: Eureka

Four of Riker’s hooligans were in the lobby of the hotel shooting pool. Rodney Guilfoyle was leaning across the table, lining up a bank shot. The sleeves of the eighteen-year-old’s striped shirt were pulled back from the wrist by garters at his biceps. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. He slid the pool cue across the table and stood up. He was close to six feet tall, lean except for his thick neck and the beginning of a beer belly, which sagged over his pants. His red hair was an unruly mop. He looked through the big window in the front, and saw Ben and Brodie turn into the main street.

“Looka there,” he said, “the sheeny rich kid and his pal.”

He walked out on the porch, down the steps to the wood-slat sidewalk and, as the two boys rode past, he flicked his cigarette at them. It arced past Brodie’s face and bounced off Ben’s shoulder.

“Hey, kid,” Guilfoyle said to Brodie, “who’s your kike friend?”

Brodie did not hesitate. He handed his reins to Ben.

“Hold my horse,” he snapped as he swung out of the saddle and landed flat-footed on the wooden walk in front of the red-haired lout.

“What d’you want?” Guilfoyle sneered, his thumbs hooked though his suspenders.

Brodie didn’t say anything. He was sizing up Guilfoyle, remembering what his father had told him early on about street fighting: Size up your foe. Look for his soft spots. Distract him. Hit first. Go for his nose. It hurts like hell, knocks him off balance, draws blood. Draw first blood, you win.

Guilfoyle had three inches on him and probably twenty pounds. But he was a dimwit, which meant he was slow. And he had bad teeth, rotten teeth.

“Your breath is uglier than you are,” Brodie said. “I can smell you from here.”

On the porch, Arnie Riker frowned and leaned forward. His front chair legs smacked hard on the porch floor.

Guilfoyle’s smile evaporated. He looked puzzled.

Brodie took the instant. He kicked Guilfoyle in the shin. The big kid yowled like an injured dog, lost his balance, reached down and as he did, Brodie threw the hardest punch he could muster, a hard right straight into Guilfoyle’s nose. Brodie felt Guilfoyle’s bones crush, felt the cartilage flatten, felt the warm flood of blood on his fist.

Guilfoyle staggered back several steps, blood streaming from his nose, pain gurgling in his throat. Brodie quickly followed him, hit him with a left and a right in the stomach. Guilfoyle roared with rage, threw a wild left that clipped Brodie on the corner of his left eye. It was a glancing blow, but it snapped Brodie’s head and he saw sparks for a moment. But it didn’t slow him down. He stepped in and kneed Guilfoyle in the groin, and as the young thug dropped to his knees, Brodie put all he had into a roundhouse right. It smashed into Guilfoyle’s mouth and Brodie felt the big redhead’s teeth crumble, felt pain in his own knuckles.

Guilfoyle fell sideways off the walk into the mud. He lay on his back, one hand clutching his broken nose and busted teeth, the other grabbing his groin. Tears were flowing down his cheeks.

Riker stood up, his fists clenched in anger.

“Stand up,” he yelled. “Stand up, you damn crybaby.”

Guilfoyle groaned, rolled on his side, and tried to get up, but he was whipped. His hand slid in the mud and he fell again. He spit out a broken tooth and smeared blood over his face with the back of his hand.

Disgusted, Riker spat at Guilfoyle, and turned to the other three toughs who had joined him to watch the fight.

“Knock that little shit into the middle of next week,” he snarled.

One of them reached inside the door and grabbed a baseball bat. The three of them started down the steps.

Ben had eased the horses up to the hitch rail. He got off his horse, tied them both up, and hurried to join Brodie.

The three toughs walked toward Brodie, who didn’t move an inch. He was sizing them up as they sauntered toward him. He’d feint a left toward the one in the middle, smack the one holding the bat with a right to the mouth, and hopefully grab the bat and even things up.

It never happened.

A shadow as big as a cloud fell across them. Riker’s hooligans looked up and Brodie looked over his shoulder.

Buck Tallman was sitting on a strawberry roan, his back as straight as a wall, his blond hair curling down around his shoulders from under a flat western hat. His face was leathery tan with a bushy handlebar mustache, its ends pointing toward flinty gray eyes. He was wearing a light-colored leather jacket with fringe down the sleeves. His sheriff’s badge was pinned to the holster where his. 44 Peacemaker nestled on his hip. It looked as big as a cannon.

He smiled down at Riker’s young roughnecks and at the stricken Guilfoyle.

“One on one’s a fair fight,” he said, looking straight into Riker’s eyes. “Three on one don’t work with me. Understood?”

Riker didn’t say anything. The three ruffians nodded and went meekly back into the hotel. Riker stared down at the beaten Guilfoyle, who was still sprawled in the mud, and shook his head.

“You’re pitiful,” he growled. Then he turned and went into the brothel.

Buck Tallman was a product of the previous century, of lawless western towns where violence was a way of life. Tallman had brought to Eureka the harsh morality of that frontier, had ridden with Pat Garrett and Bat Masterson, and had dime novels written about him.

Nobody messed with Buck Tallman. Everybody knew he was hired by the men on the Hill, the Olympus of the gods who owned the railroad and the land, and had friends in high places in Sacramento. They called the shots. In Eureka, Buck Tallman’s job was to keep the peace within the limits they set.

Tallman leaned forward in the saddle and held his hand out to Brodie, who grabbed it and was swung up behind the saddle of the colorful rider.

“Thanks,” Brodie said.

“What are you two doin’ down here? Y’know how Mr. Eli feels about that.”

“Going to get a soda,” Ben answered. “We’ve been playing baseball up on the field.”

Tallman looked back at Brodie. “You got a little shiner there. Needs some ice.”

As they rode the block toward the pharmacy, Brodie put both hands under himself and swung over onto his own horse. They pulled up in front of a small shop with a large window announcing “Gullman’s Pharmaceutical Parlor,” with a rendering of a mortar and pestle under the lettering.

“Hey, Doc,” Tallman called out.

“Yes, sir,” came the answer from inside the store, and Gullman stepped out.

“How about bringin’ us three strawberry soda pops? Put ’em on my tab.”

“Good enough,” the owner answered. “They’re good and cold; Jesse just come back from the icehouse.”

“Good, throw some ice in a small bag while you’re about it,” Tallman said.

Gullman returned quickly with the three sodas and a paper bag of ice.

Tallman wheeled the roan around and headed toward the ocean, with Ben and Brodie following. They tethered their horses to a tree at the edge of the beach and hunched down Indian-style on the sand. For a change, the sun was out. The sky was cloudless. It was so clear you could see the waves breaking at the entrance to the bay, almost two miles away.

Brodie dug some ice out of the soggy bag and winced as he pressed it against the welt on the corner of his eye. Water dribbled down the side of his face.

“You’ll be goin’ back East soon, won’t you, Ben?” Tallman said.

Ben nodded. “Papa and I are going to Boston in a month to get me set up. Soon as school’s out.”

“You gonna marry Isabel?”

“Well, she’s going East to school, too,” Ben said, his face reddening. “But it’s too early to be thinking about getting married.”