(1986) Deadwood by Pete Dexter Read Free Book Online

point here. There wasn't anybody around to hang.
    "And so we have taken up arms to protect ourselves," Captain Jack said, and somebody shot a gun into the ceiling. "Forty-five volunteers, hard-working pilgrims of this territory, ride with me and patrol the mining camps on the outside of town. Three quick shots brings us on a run, and we are never more than a minute from the commencement of action."
    Charley said, "Shit, they shoot off side arms in this burg like they used it to keep time." Bill turned and saw him there, and smiled at that.
    Captain Jack nodded. "Discipline is always a problem," he said, "in any military situation. Compounded here by the fact that most of the Minutemen have no experience with arms or the military. That is why I would ask you"—he was speaking to Bill now—"to join me as a leader of the Minutemen. Together, we could make Indian fighters of these pilgrims."
    " Da-me ," said the Mex.
    Bill looked at Charley, dead solemn. Charley said, "I already been shot by accident, once in each leg. I know where fate intends to put the third one."
    The bartender filled the Mex's glass, and he offered another toast. " Tu mamá " he said again.
    " No da-me ," Captain Jack said. "We're discussing the protection of the miners."
    That stopped the Mex cold. He had repossessed the Indian's head and was standing with his foot on one of its ears. As he considered Captain Jack's words to him, he rolled the head back and forth under his foot, the way a white man might stroke his chin. Finally he seemed to decide on something. He raised the glass toward Captain Jack again and said, "Pro-tess-shion." Then he smiled and killed what was in the glass.
    "This greaser wears on you," Captain Jack said to Bill, "but he has proved himself in combat." The Mex set his glass on the bar and picked up the Indian's head. The eyes had shut, like it had seen the bullet coming that shot him out of the Mex's arm.
    " Mis amigos " the Mex said. He hugged Captain Jack, then Bill. Then he turned to the rest of the bar and said it again. " Mis amigos ." He started out the door, and the miners and reprobates cheered him, and some of them shot their pistols into the ceiling. The Mex smiled and blew them kisses. That caused more shooting and cheering, and the Mex, in a moment Charley considered inspired, stood at the door to the Green Front and blew the room a kiss from his own lips, and then one from the Indian's.
    Then he went outside, got on his horse, and drew his pistol. He rode back through town the way he had come in, holding the Indian's head by the hair so it could bounce, shooting his pistol into the air so nobody would miss it. He went out of the badlands into Deadwood proper, where he was arrested by Seth Bullock and escorted out of town.
    The citizens of Deadwood did not wring their hands over the workings of the badlands, but they drew the line at being shot in the course of their daily affairs by ambassadors of that part of the city, particularly a greaser carrying a human head.

    Sheriff Bullock was just back from seeing the Mex out of town, and was sitting down behind his desk when Boone May walked into the office. The office was at the corner of Main Street and Wall Street, and the sign across the front of it said deadwood brickworks, inc. Beneath that were the words QUEENSWARE, FURNITURE, HARDWARE, LAMPS, WALLPAPER, ETC. And beneath that, in smaller letters, SHERIFF SETH BULLOCK.
    Bullock's partner was a single-minded man named Solomon Star, who had come to Deadwood with him from Bismarck and put up the money for their business. He was tighter than Seth Bullock, and worried they were ordering too much, and too many different things. He had a wife back in Bismarck, but he had never loved anything but business, and did not see yet how much there was in Deadwood for the taking.
    When Boone May walked in, Solomon Star was sitting at another desk, going over an ordering form. He had been against it when Bullock agreed to take over