Page 11 of A Good Prospect

It was shameful because in North Carolina he’d been toyed with and humiliated by men, and he had vowed never to have any physical congress with members of that sex again. Now, to have it occur even in his imagination was infuriating to the utmost, so he was already predisposed toward wanting to shoot the first handy target that presented itself.

“Low indeed lie the social sewers,” Salvador muttered as they ambled through what appeared to be the main street into Hornitos. “This town was named for the hornos, the little ovens where Sonoran women bake bread.” Salvador inhaled with gusto, tipping his sombrero to some women who were, indeed, baking bread in beehive-shaped ovens. He added, “But it was never more than a few shacks before.”

As in Bear Valley, the main preoccupation here seemed to be getting “hilarious” on aguardiente while losing one’s pile of gold dust at three-card monte or faro, guessing cards at gaming tables. The street was an endless din of little tent-stores and groggeries, shacks thrown together to make human dormitories where men spewed in and out. Ophir noted a rude coffin, thrown to the side of the road with its denizen’s hand sticking out, covered with a grey monte tablecloth.

“This town appears to be laid out in the style of a Mexican village.” Salvador pointed to what might be considered a town square, where a couple of men wailed upon horn instruments, accompanied by a guitarist almost as competent as Knut Frostad.

They stopped in front of one such groggery. Salvador drained the last of his whiskey flask, so Ophir surmised he wished to refill it.

“I heard,” said Ophir, “this town was named from the graves made of brick and adobe. In the summer the clay is too hard to dig, so the dead are buried in ‘little ovens.’”

Salvador approached the German barkeep, who dispensed odorous compounds from a whole army of brightly labeled bottles.

“Schtand back, poys!” the German commanded to the native citizens. “Let de shentlemens to de bar.”

Ophir regarded the patter of the gamblers.

“Here’s the place to get your money back!”

“The genuine string game!”

“Three, six, twelve ounces no one can put his finger in the loop!”

Ophir was not a gambling man, but even he had his hand round his purse and was contemplating putting his finger in that man’s loop when Salvador whisked him off his feet.

“I found him,” he growled in Ophir’s ear, emanating aguardiente.

They mounted, and Ophir followed Salvador onto another street that radiated from the ramshackle town square.

“Tyke McCarthy?” Ophir queried.

“Sí,”Sal called back over his shoulder, his serape flapping quite handsomely. “He fancies himself alcalde, the mayor, and presides over a grand tent atop that knoll. Paying Sonoran miners to build him a big hacienda.”

Ophir frowned. “You do realize you can’t possibly hope to drive off all four hundred of these corned…settlers.” He had thought about this. They had probably only succeeded in scaring off one out of five hundred squatters they had warned—probably only the one fellow who missed his mother in San Francisco, anyway. “The nearest regiment, what’s left of it anyway, is in San José. They’re not going to waste their time coming all the way here to back up a grandiose old Californio, just to protect his land.” He was silent for a moment. “I mean, we could start a war, but it seems to me the majority of people would be on the side of the squatters, and you’d go broke paying soldiers to fight for you.”

“I’ve realized that,” Salvador said as Ophir came abreast of him, sidestepping a team of oxen hauling boards. “If I have to accept squatters they are going to have to pay rent for the privilege, and to whom should I address my demands? The alcalde, of course.”

They started up a series of diagonal trails that snaked up the knoll. Salvador added, “I intend to address this hijo de puta with the utmost respect.”

“Certainly,” Ophir said sarcastically.

“Going in blowing off steam will only, as you said, start a war. Perhaps I won’t be so angry if I feel I’m getting paid for my losses. I don’t like being angry all the time. Who does?”

“That’s very…” Ophir was at a loss for words. “Republican of you.”

At the top of the knoll, Ophir was surprised to see that, indeed, a dozen Sonorans scurried about hammering at a new building while a few dissipated-looking Yankee hard cases lounged under an oak snoring loudly. There were no cognizant white men to be seen, so Salvador dismounted and asked a Sonoran, “¿Dónde está tu jefe?”Where is your boss?

The fellow gestured toward a large tent where already someone was emerging, alerted by the arrival of the horses. This fellow was gangly and squinty-eyed with a shock of hair streaked by many colors, and he hardly resembled the intimidating hombre peligroso that Savage had described. Yet there was something in the manner in which he sidled up to them, not walking erect and proud like Salvador, but veering almost like a crab, so that he wouldn’t have to address them frontally. Well, perhaps he was lame.

“Greetings, fellow American!” Tyke McCarthy, if this was indeed him, sneered at Salvador, ignoring Ophir completely, as Ophir was accustomed to. McCarthy obviously thought Salvador, with his light skin, was a fellow American.

Salvador extended a hand. “Mr. McCarthy?”

“That’s what they call me.” Tyke McCarthy shook Sal’s hand briefly, limply. He then attempted humor, though it was with a face unfamiliar with the genre. “Though some have been known to call me worse.”

Salvador attempted to smile. “I am Salvador Palomares, and this is my partner, Ophir. Mr. McCarthy, I’ve come to you—”

“Call me Tyke.”