to pieces!”
“Well, you can talk to Little Ed’s lawyer about the estate payin’ for the damages, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waitin’ for it if I was you,” Hamlin advised. He looked around the room and raised his voice. “This saloon’s closed for the night! Everybody out! Go home!”
Davidson said to Bo and Scratch, “Do you fellas have a place to stay here in town?”
Bo shook his head, and Scratch said, “Not yet. We’d just rode in and stabled our horses. This was the first place we stopped.”
“Come on over to the Camino Real with me then,” Davidson suggested. “That’s where I’m staying. We’ll see about getting you some rooms and a good hot meal.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Bo said.
“I think I do. Churchill would have killed me, sure as hell, if not for you two.”
Bo and Scratch couldn’t argue with that, so after saying good night to Strittmayer, who promised to see to it that Johnny Fontana got a proper burial, they headed for the Camino Real Hotel with Davidson.
The Camino Real was El Paso’s best hotel, and its rooms didn’t come cheap. The fact that Davidson was staying there confirmed that he had plenty of money. As the three men walked along the street, he said, “We were never actually introduced. I’m Porter Davidson.”
“Bo Creel,” Bo said as he gripped the hand that Davidson put out. “This fancy-dressed drink of water with me is Scratch Morton. But I reckon you already know that since we told our names to the marshal.”
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Davidson,” Scratch said as he shook hands with the man. “Too bad there had to be so much gunplay first.”
“Yes, it ruined what had been a fairly pleasant evening. But maybe we can make something out of it yet.”
Davidson spoke to the clerk at the desk in the hotel lobby, and maybe slipped him a greenback, too. Bo wasn’t sure about that. But either way, within minutes the clerk was sliding a pair of keys across the desk to them. Even though the clerk had said originally that the hotel was full up, at Davidson’s urging he had somehow found a couple of vacant rooms on the third floor.
“Is the dining room still open?” Davidson asked.
“I believe it’s just about to close,” the clerk said.
“Would you go out to the kitchen and let the cook know that we’ll need two dinners? Whatever’s left will be fine, as long as it’s hot.”
“Yes, sir.”
As they went into the empty dining room and sat down at one of the tables, Scratch commented, “You seem to be the big skookum he-wolf around these parts, Mr. Davidson.”
“Not really,” Davidson said with a laugh. “I guess it doesn’t take long for word to get around, though, when you own a gold mine.”
Scratch lifted his eyebrows.
Bo wasn’t particularly surprised, though. Davidson hadn’t struck him as a cattleman, and on the frontier a rich man who didn’t run cows was usually mixed up with either the railroad or mining.
“I didn’t know there were any gold mines around here,” he commented. “There are a few down in the Big Bend, but they’re not what I’d call bonanzas.”
“The mine’s not in Texas,” Davidson said.
“New Mexico Territory?”
“No. It’s across the border in Mexico, in the mountains. A place called Cañon del Despiadado.”
Bo and Scratch looked at each other, then back at Davidson. “Cutthroat Canyon,” Bo translated.
“That’s right.”
“Does it live up to its name?” Scratch asked.
Davidson chuckled. “No, most of the time it’s a pretty peaceful place.” His face grew more serious. “The trouble happens between there and here.”
Bo said, “You have trouble, do you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. That’s one reason I wanted to talk more to you two fellows. That and my gratitude for what you did for me, of course. I’m hoping I can persuade you to do even more. I’d like to hire you both.”
Before the discussion could continue, the white-aproned cook came out of the kitchen carrying a couple of plates of food. “The waiters have all gone home already,” he explained as he set the plates in front of Bo and Scratch. They contained thick steaks, baked potatoes, and biscuits and gravy. “That’s all we got left.”
“Looks mighty fine to me,” Scratch said with a smile. “We’re much obliged, mister.”
“Got half a pot of coffee back in the kitchen, too, if you’d like some.”
“Bring it on,” Bo said.
For the next few minutes, they were too busy eating to ask Davidson what he had meant about hiring them. The mine owner sat there with an amused smile on his face as he watched them putting away the food.
“You fellows look like you’ve been on short rations for a while,” he commented.
“We had to stretch our provisions the last few days on the trail,” Bo admitted. “I figured we could shoot a jackrabbit or something while we were on our way across the southern part of New Mexico Territory, but game was pretty scarce.”
“It’s been mighty dry over that way,” Scratch put in. “Reckon most of the critters ’cept for the rattlesnakes have gone off lookin’ for someplace that’s more hospitable. And I’ve never cared much for eatin’ snake, although I’ve known some hombres who think it’s good.”
“Well, you won’t go hungry if you work for me,” Davidson said. “There’s a nice little valley right outside the canyon where the Mexicans from a nearby village have their farms. We buy our food from them. And there’s a cantina in the village with some pretty girls who work there, too, if you’re interested in such things.”
“Interested in tequila and señoritas?” Scratch said. “I hope to smile we are!”
Davidson leaned forward and clasped his hands together on the table. “I think we should discuss wages then.”
“Let’s talk about the job first,” Bo said. “Just what is it that you’d be hiring us to do?”
“That’s a fair enough question. Like I said, there’s been trouble between El Paso and the mine. I bring the ore here by wagon. There’s no way to refine it in the canyon, and this is the closest railroad stop so that I can ship it out. There’s been talk of building a spur line down there into the mountains, but the railroad and the Mexican government have to work out all the details first. It’s liable to be a long, drawn-out process. In the meantime, I’ve got ore sitting there that I can’t get out because of bandits.”
Bo nodded. “I reckoned that was what we were getting to. Your ore shipments have been
