10
It is always hardest to say goodbye, especially to Father and Brother Bud. Father appears so sad and lonesome, yet is apparently pleased when I assure him I am through with breaking horses and never intend to spend another winter in the snow. If I had only known what the future held in store for me, I would have gone home and crawled under the bed and stayed there, but one doesn’t know, which is well. It makes each day yours to live as it happens. If it’s a good day, all well and good. You go ahead. If a bad one, you survive. Tomorrow is another day, and fate may be kind. There is always hope. If one could live by a motto I once read, “As we journey through life let us live by the way,” everything would be just perfect.
For my travels I have said all my goodbyes and done a complete switch in wardrobe, taking only my nice boots and spurs in my suitcase. In the event I should see some easy money in a rodeo, I could then borrow the other necessary equipment. My ropes, hacka-mores, saddle and ponies are in my brother’s keeping forever.
Catching the morning train for Denver, I intend to spend one day, then on to the place which appealed to me so much and which the advertisement said was paradise.
Going to the cowmen’s hotel, the Albany, where visiting cattle people make their home while in Denver, I am sure there will be someone I know, even if only the night clerk. My hunch is right, for the clerk informs me that there are six characters upstairs from home, including my two old pals the King brothers and four other fellows about the same age as my brother Bud.
While it is almost noon, the clerk tells me they never come in until the wee morning hours and have been living at the hotel for thirty days and are tight all of the time. Getting their room number, I go up to see what my gang is up to and how come they are leading the life of Riley without me. Here is where I should have gone back to the depot and taken a train for anywhere, so long as I was going away from this gang.
Their hotel room is unlocked, so I walk right in and think I have waltzed into a bad distillery. Three of the boys are in the first room, and looking through the bathroom into the adjoining room are the other three characters, my old pals. When I open the windows to give the joint an airing, the two King boys come to life and pounce on me like a long lost relative.
With this hell-of-aballoo everyone asks, “Have you any money?” and upon my answering with the affirmative “I’m loaded,” one of the lads grabs a telephone, calls the bar and orders a quart of bourbon, some ice and glasses, and I hear the story of why they are parked here in swell rooms but have run out of money and credit. They were all hired to join a Wild West show in Denver and start here with the first week’s performance that would put the promoters on Easy Street, then travel east. The promoters hadn’t paid the hotel bill or paid the gang any dough, nor had the stockyards been paid a feed bill for some thirty bucking horses. Something had gone wrong with their finances.
I have known this bunch all of my life. The King boys are old school pals, the others are older but wonderful fellows who have worked with me and my brother, so I do what Bud would do — give each a twenty-dollar bill, pay for the hooch and have breakfast at my expense.
When I ask how the hell they can get high every night without dough, Paul Lambert says, “Son, we’ll show you. Down Seventeenth Street is a bar run by one of our best friends. He is an old cowpuncher from our range who quit the cow business and has been carrying us on credit. The hotel stopped our bar business long ago, but the promoters are stuck for our room and wages. Look, Son, Walt Perkins says, ‘Join us, we can get you a job easy. You will only have to ride two bucking horses a day, ride in the parade and you can get some extra money for trick roping.’ Hell, they promised us we would travel everywhere.”
I don’t have the heart to ask them when, but join them to see their friend down the street. By this time, my bank roll has shrunk to a little over two hundred and sixty dollars, which is causing me no worry, for if I get out of town with a couple of hundred, everything will be good. Even if their promoter should show today, I am not going with any Wild West show, but decide to spend the rest of the day with the gang just for old times sake.
The money I have staked them will buy a lot of cheer and is something they would do for me, if they could. So, in high spirits, we go to their favorite rendezvous, where we meet more kindly souls, all our kind of people. By nighttime everyone is happy. I haven’t a care in the world, when one of the boys mentions going down to a new joint which had just been opened and was run by a gal, with wonderful gals, where money was no object. This joint had a player piano, a dance floor, an excellent bar.
My six friends have some money left. I haven’t been hurt much, so we pile into a taxi, the seven of us, and head for the promised land. The house looks nice from the outside and on the inside it is very plush. Anything for free I don’t see. I buy a couple of rounds of drinks. My gang is in the dance hall, either drinking or dancing, and I am standing at the end of the bar having just finished a drink, thinking of beating it out the back door and catching a taxi for the hotel and calling it a day. Without warning a long glass with a highball complete slides down in front of me from the opposite end of the bar where the bartender is standing with another fellow. With a signal from him, it is on the house.
I remember taking several swallows slowly, then the lights go out. My next recollection of anything is at daylight. I am in a big wide bed with all my clothes on with the exception of one shoe. My hat lies crushed in bed with me. I have a head that reaches from here to there and a taste in my mouth with the flavor of a dead cat. When I sit up, my head just about bursts. Taking it easy, I feel for my money. This, I know, is an unnecessary effort, for I have a definite feeling I am clean.
Upon my staggering to the door, it opens into the kitchen where a big fat colored woman is cleaning up. She greets me as if it were an everyday occurrence. “How is you, boss? Can I give you a cup of coffee?” She evidently knows I’ve been rolled, but as to where my gang has gone or what happened, she is a total loss.
The only unlocked door is the one leading into the alley. The dirty bastards haven’t even left me taxi fare, and it is a long walk to the hotel. I don’t feel too good and want to get the hell out of the kitchen to fresh air, with a promise to myself that I will be back but not as a paying patient. I go through the alley into a street, where I catch a taxi.
Depending on the kindness of the hotel clerk to pay my cab fare upon arriving at the hotel, I put the bite on him for ten dollars, which he hands out like it grew on a tree. Nice guy. He tells me my friends were in early looking for me. They apparently think I ditched them to hole up with some gal. When they learn what happened, they will want to clean the joint out, which may be what we will do, but first I am going to see a real wise fellow at the stockyards.
Billy and Louie Degan are commission men, have known me since a boy and are great friends of my father and brother Bud. These gentlemen know their way about and will advise me right. I didn’t want to get my head busted and didn’t intend to be rolled and let some damn pimp enjoy my dough. Here I’ve been away from home almost twenty-four hours and am stone broke and owe the hotel ten dollars, plus. I just can’t be too bright.
As the bar is closed, and having seven dollars left after paying the taxi fare, I am going to try the rear door and see if there is anything this bartender can do for my head without cutting it off. I have several reasons for seeing my friend Billy Degan. First, to find out what I can do about my two hundred, which I’m sure a pimp has. Next, to see if he has a free ticket to some place far away and also loan me fifty bucks.
Billy is out in the stockyards when I arrive at his office, but his brother says he will be back. When he does return, he has with him one of my best friends, Russell Brown, who is two years my junior and has just run away from an Eastern military academy where his father thought he had him parked for safekeeping. The guy landed home, called my house and, finding out I was in Denver, stayed just long enough to telephone his mother and catch the next train to join me. This is a pleasant surprise, as I am very fond of Brownie, who has always looked upon me as a big brother, and his father and mother are always pleased when we are together. When I explain to Brownie that I am going south and am not going to do any more cowpunching, he’s pleased as punch.
I tell Billy what I want, only I now want two tickets. He says this is no problem. He has two return tickets to Flagstaff, two for Deming, New Mexico, and several others which he will look over and we can have our choice.
When I tell Brownie what happened at the new joint run by a gal by the name of Mabel, and that I am clean out of something to use for money except what I have from the hotel, he says, “Why, boy, I have some money. Let’s go get the gang at the hotel and clean the joint out. It will be fun. Those guys at the hotel, with two drinks under their belts they can really scrap. Let’s go.”
Billy says, “Wait a minute, Brownie, not so damn fast. That won’t get the money back. They will cry ‘copper’ and you will all make the can, then I’ll have to bail everyone out because the joint has a license. How they ever managed one in the first place, I don’t know, but I don’t want you fellows to get into trouble.”
I know Billy is right and there is no good reason for getting everyone in trouble just because I am simple enough to get taken by a lowdown bum of a parasite, who lives off the proceeds of a dame wiggling her bottom. Sure, I would like to murder the bum, but it’s my fault, so to hell with it. I know Bill will loan me fifty bucks, and I’m not going home and I am not going to wire Bud.
All this reminds me of the previous fall’s poker game when I lost all my summer wages in one hand. I wouldn’t mind so much if I had lost my two hundred in another poker game or out of my pocket, or been rolled by a dame. But this I am ashamed of, so let’s keep it quiet.
Billy asks when I want to leave town. I assure him the quicker the better. He says to be here tomorrow morning and he will have the tickets for Flagstaff okayed by the railroad and give me a letter to the Babbitt people. He says they are the largest outfit in that part of Arizona and will give us a job. Calling his bookkeeper, he has a check for one hundred dollars made payable to me, which I endorse and his bookkeeper cashes, so once again I am in funds but feeling plenty stupid.
Billy is a hard guy to thank, he is so gracious and decent, with his remark, “We have all had a bad winter, but your family have been our friends for years. Don’t worry about the hundred bucks. It’s only money. See me early tomorrow and stay away from Mabel’s.”
Brownie and I head for the hotel to kill time until morning. It’s good to have the kid with me. He is good company, full of enthusiasm and afraid of nothing. His father is one of the wealthiest men in our town and a swell fellow, even if he and his young son don’t see eye to eye.
About eight o’clock, Billy makes his appearance at the hotel bar with our tickets. They are shipper’s first-class return in the chair car. We will have our meals in the diner. Our train leaves at seven, so Billy has saved us a trip to his office. With a letter of introduction, money and tickets in our pockets, our future in the distance, we are on the move.