Shootout of the Mountain Man

outlaw.”

“Outlaw?” Clark replied.

For a moment the smile left the woman’s face. “Honey, you are an outlaw, aren’t you? Because if you aren’t, I would advise you to just keep on goin'.”

“How did you know I was an outlaw? Does it show in my face?” Clark asked.

The woman laughed at Clark’s question.

“Oh, honey, didn’t you know? Everybody in Desolation is an outlaw,” she said.

“No, I didn’t know.”

“Hey, you, Cindy,” a man called from a table near the back of the saloon. “Get the hell away from him. You are my woman!”

“I ain’t nobody’s woman, Jules Stillwater,” Cindy replied.

“You’re my woman until I tell you you ain’t my woman no more,” Stillwater called back. “Now, get me and my friends a drink.”

There were two other men sitting at the table with the one Cindy had called Stillwater.

One of the men sitting with him was a fairly large man with broad shoulders, but what stood out most about him was the disfiguring scar on his face. Half of one eyelid was missing, and part of his lip was cut away so that he couldn’t completely close his mouth. This fit exactly the description Clark had heard of Frank Dodd.

“Is that Frank Dodd?” Clark asked.

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“I’d like to meet him.”

“Honey, believe me, you don’t want anything to do with him. If you think Stillwater is trouble, you ain’t seen nothin’ till you cross Frank Dodd.”

Clark smiled. “Well, I’ll just have to see to it that I don’t cross him, won’t I?”

Chapter Eleven

The town of Cloverdale was divided into three sections: the American section, the Mexican section, and the Chinese section. The large Chinese section was the result of Chinese having been the principal labor force for the building of the Western railroads. Original plans called for the Nevada Central Railroad to continue south until it connected with the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad at Columbus, but the Nevada Central ran out of money.

The cessation of railroad construction left a lot of Chinese laborers stranded, not only in Cloverdale, but throughout the West. Always an industrious people, the Chinese managed to find other means of employment. In Cloverdale, most sustained themselves by working in the mines, or doing menial labor. But many became merchants, providing unique services, not only to their own race, but to the other residents of the town as well. These services ran the gamut from laundries, to restaurants, to craft shops, to opium dens, to houses of prostitution, to Chinese saloons where specialized Chinese liquor, such as huangjiu and choujiu, were sold.

Andy Emerson enjoyed spending time in the Chinese section of town because he took pleasure in the game of fan t’an, which was a Chinese game of chance. In addition, he felt less intimidated in the Chinese section of town because he was small of stature, as were most of the Chinese. Another advantage to being there was that he was less likely to encounter Sheriff Wallace or any of his deputies.

That was not the case today, though. Sheriff Wallace, who was frequent visitor to the Fangzi Lei Shi, or House of Pleasure, had just finished his visit with one of the whores. The visit had not gone well—he didn’t get the whore he wanted, and the one he got would not respond to his specific requests, even when he hit her.

Angry and unfulfilled, he stopped at the Chinese saloon for a glass of huangjiu, and was even more irritated when he saw Emerson playing the Chinese gambling game of fan t’an. The fact that Emerson not only understood the game, but was good at it, annoyed Wallace, who had never quite caught the hang of it.

“What are you doing here, Emerson?” Wallace asked.

Startled at the unexpected sound of the sheriff’s voice, Emerson jumped, knocking the pieces off the board. The t’an kun, or operator of the game, called out in angry Chinese.

“Ha!” Wallace said. “You pissed off the Chinaman.”

“No, Sheriff, you did,” Emerson said.

The game operator said something else in Chinese, and Emerson replied in the same language.

“You can speak that gibberish?” Wallace said, surprised to hear Emerson and the Chinese man in conversation.

“Yes, and it isn’t gibberish. It is an ancient and honorable language.”

The Chinese man put his hands together and made a slight bow toward Emerson, who returned the salute.

At that moment, another Chinese man showed up, and he began shouting angrily at Wallace.

“What the hell is he jabbering about?” the sheriff asked.

“He says you broke the jaw of the young lady you were with,” Emerson said.

“Young lady, hell. She’s no lady. She’s a whore.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to beat her,” Emerson said.