Roy Bean's Gold Read Online Free Page B

skinful.
    I wasn’t paying him much attention, for it was as clear as mud, as my brother Josh would say, exactly why Jeff Kirker’d latched on to me.
    With the U.S. Army after him for desertion and that bandit, Joaquín Murieta, also on the scout for him, Kirker had to get some happy-go-lucky bonehead to scout along and see if the coast was clear enough to ride in and dig out that $50,000 in gold. No wonder he’d cottoned to young Mr. Roy Bean.
    Passing through a scattered stand of ponderosa pine, we crested the hill and could make out the cabins and corrals of Zuñi Jack’s trading post in a shallow valley just ahead. Several small figures stood out by the corrals watching our approach.
    â€œThere’s Zuñi Jack,” Jeff grunted, spurring into a brisk gallop. “Probably wonderin’ if we’re gonna fetch in his red brothers for a snootful of his bad grog.” As we racked downhill, Jeff went on to tell me that Zuñi Jack had been one of Kit Carson’s scouts in the California campaigns and was said to be a pretty bad actor, tough as an old he-bear. In fact Jack had tangled with a mountain grizzly a few years back, with the bear coming out a close second best in a regular hand-to-paw Donnybrook.
    Arriving at the corrals, we were hailed by a squatty-looking Indian in dirty buckskins who shuffled up, long musket cradled under his left arm. Another Indian, this one as skinny as Jack was fat, and dressed as shabbily, stood behind him holding a rusty pistol.
    â€œHey now!” the first man shouted. “Thought you were part of that war party. They wuz here this very mornin’ but we made th’ red buggers clear off. Saw the bunch of you up past the pines but couldn’t make out who wuz who, since I busted my spyglass.” Zuñi Jack’s English was passable enough, but it sounded sort of like he had a mouthful of hot mush.
    â€œThey was here before?” Kirker asked, while rubbing his black chin whiskers. “Well, they didn’t git nuthin’ from us, except a drink. And that reminds me, we need us some supplies.”
    Jeff followed the Zuñi into the trading post’s dim interior. I tagged along a few steps behind, as did the other Indian, who’d turned our mounts into the corral.
    â€œOther trouble around here?” Jeff asked the portly proprietor of the Blak Bare Tradin Stashun, which was the way the crudely daubed sign read across the adobe building’s front.
    â€œNaw! Hardly never see a soul, red nor white, since th’ wagon trains are takin’ th’ old Mormon Battalion route southwest inter Californy.”
    â€œWhy’s that?” I horned in.
    â€œU.S. dragoons keep that route open mostly, since that talk about th’ gold strike,” Zuñi Jack explained, fiddling with the stub of an ear which was all the bear had left him on the left side of his head. “You headin’ that way? Y’can pick up an escort of soldier boys down ter th’ Pima Tradin’ Post as they ride through once a week or so on the scout fer hostiles. like them damned feather-sproutin’ Comanches.”
    I knew what Kirker would reply before he opened his mouth.
    â€œOh, we’re goin’ around the old north route,” Jeff answered shortly, then ordered another round of Mexican beer from Zuñi Jack’s squaw, who hovered near the rickety bar, looking for all the world like the spitting image of her lord except for a red skirt and two whole ears.
    By the time we’d taken on board half a dozen bottles of warm beer, Jeff Kirker had expanded into his usual talkative self, insisting we’d got the best of the Comanches in a little swap. He had me show the tintype to Zuñi Jack and his help. “Look-it that! A genuine five-dollar tintype for an old Bowie knife and a blamed gimcrack of a greaser medal,” Kirker crowed. “If that ain’t tradin’ them red devils outta their clouts,