Amy shrugged. “Reckon he’ll be gone a couple of days.”
Doc turned to Butler. “It’s a little after three. I need you to be at Macy’s by six. Tell him I need a favor. A place for four, and hopefully five, girls under Big Ed’s protection.”
But even as he spoke, Gina twitched, her breath rattling in her throat as she spasmed and died.
79
May 4, 1867
Billy glanced up and down Eureka Street. He had just located a livery for Locomotive, paid the exorbitant rate for stabling, and was told, “This is Central City, boy. Got to haul in hay! It sure don’t grow on these cussed mountains, young man.” The gangly owner had stuck his thumbs in his hip pockets in emphasis.
Billy walked along the busy avenue, his boots thumping on the boardwalk. Around him, the denuded hills had begun to green, spring coming as late as it did to the high country. But, scarred as they were by diggings, roads, and colorful waste and tailings, they reminded him oddly of a battlefield and its fortifications.
So this was Central City? The “richest square mile on earth” sure as hell didn’t look like much. Just a ragtag collection of frame and log buildings jumbled together in the valley bottoms. Unlike any town Billy had been in before; from the moment he’d ridden over Dory Hill and down the road to Gregory Toll Gate, the conglomeration of buildings had reminded him of a town on a string—crowded as the communities were along the bottoms of the gulches.
While mining had taken a downturn after the war, the big news was that a new smelter was going in down in Black Hawk. The one being built by Nathaniel Hill’s Boston and Colorado Smelting Company. All Billy had heard was that it would unlock a fortune in gold from high-testing ore.
Stepping from the boardwalk, he started up the hill toward High Street. He got his bearings and made his way to the rather imposing frame house, whitewashed, with red trim around the windows. It had been set on a foundation of native rock, and smoke rose from a red-brick chimney.
Billy clumped his way up the steps, spurs jingling, cast a look up and down the street, then knocked at the ornately carved door.
Moments later a well-dressed woman answered, asking, “Yes, may I help you?” Her shrewd eyes took in Billy’s travel-worn clothing, his muddy boots, and soot-stained coat.
“I’m looking for George Nichols. Heard he was boarding here.”
“If you would be so kind as to give me your name, I will see if Mr. Nichols is scheduled to receive you.”
Billy laughed, slapping his side. “Reckon he ain’t scheduled to receive shit, ma’am. Why don’t you run back and tell him that Billy Hancock would like a word. Tell him I want to talk about a little bird. That I’m an old friend from just outside Albuquerque.” He flicked his fingers. “Now, go on. Shoo.”
As he talked, her dark eyes had frosted, expression turning glacial. She closed the door in his face with a bang, and he heard her steps hurrying into the rear.
Billy grinned, worked his tongue around his dry lips, and looked up and down the street. No one was giving him a second glance.
He heard the woman’s hammering steps approaching, and the door was opened. Her expression was, if anything, more prim. “I have relayed your information to Mr. Nichols. He asked me to convey his intent to meet with you at the Colorado Nugget at two P.M. You will find the establishment on Main, just past Gregory Street. Good day.”
And the door closed again, the bolt clicking home.
Billy narrowed an eye at the door. Considered busting the damn thing down, and decided against it. Maybe George had his own concerns.
Billy skipped his way down the wooden steps to the rocky and rutted street, and proceeded—stopping to ask directions once—to the Colorado Nugget.
The place was a saloon, built wall to wall on a narrow half lot between a laundry on one side and a harness shop on the other. Entering, he found a long bar made of rough-cut lumber running the length of the place.
Bottles lined narrow shelves behind the bar, and a man in a stained white shirt wearing an apron stood ready to dispense drinks. As Billy entered, the barkeep was talking to two miners, their pants tucked into muddy boots.
All three looked up, taking Billy’s measure as he walked down the narrow aisle, his shoulder rubbing the wall. Must have been a common practice because the wood looked polished.
“What time is it?” Billy asked.
“Little after one, mister. Make yourself at home. What can I get you?”
“Supposed to meet a man here at two. You got a good rye?”
“Such as it is.” The barkeep turned back to a bottle. “Can’t hardly get the good stuff. The damn Injuns got the trails shut down to the point only large caravans with army escort make it through. That’s what we get for turning that damn Chivington and his murderers loose.”
Both the miners grunted, taking in Billy’s garb.
“Some folks still call him a hero,” Billy noted, tossing a silver dollar onto the bar.
The bartender offered him a tin cup filled with brown liquid. “Up to the Masonic lodge, it used to be called Chivington Lodge Number One. They got so disgusted they sent back the charter. Now they’re Central Lodge Number Six. You see, here’s the thing: you kill a man’s wife, cut her privates out of her body and stretch her cunny into a hatband? Kill his little boy and little girl and scalp ’em? Don’t matter that he’s a red savage, he’s gonna fight and kill every white man he sees till he’s dead and gone to the spirit world to find his loved ones.”
“Like poking a wasp nest with a stick,” one of the miners said, his accent thick with Cornwall.
“I’ll leave
