Free The Last Shootist by Miles Swarthout Page B

gelding he’d been riding all day, turning it into his packhorse. Adjusting the narrow, leather-covered Oxbow stirrups, tightening the single cinch, he climbed atop the smaller mare and set out again into the storm, pulling his worn black horse along behind.
    An old El Paso adage that the wind went down with the sun once again proved true. He saw lights beginning to twinkle in a town in the distance. But Gillom still looked like the sandman, so he reined his horse and dismounted. The teenager partially stripped, shaking like a dog, then stretched, trying to shed grains of sand which seemed to have embedded themselves in every crease and crevice of his pale skin. He rebuttoned with one hand while chugging the last of his canteen water with his other. Gillom switched horses again, too, back to riding the black gelding.
    Gotta look good, he thought, hittin’ Tularosa.

 
    Twelve
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    Tularosa had the black reputation of an outlaw town, where unsmiling men arrived by horse or stage, between two suns and one jump ahead of the sheriff. Laws there were minimal and their few enforcers indulgent. It was a community of small farms growing alfalfa mostly, worked by Mexicans with a liberal splash of gringo blood running the town’s businesses. Swift Tularosa Creek watered the long and narrow town with fingers and thumb of orchard and farmlet via acequias off the smoother ridges as they fell away from the narrow shelf of land below the Sacramento Mountains, which loomed barrier-long to the east. Transplanted Texans ran their cattle near springs in the stony hills and slopes extending up into the mountain range and fed their herds and horses on that alfalfa during the harder winters.
    Gillom rode past mud-daubed adobes and a couple more substantial structures, the Santa Fe railroad office and the post office. It was a town of little shade. He smelled the stable at the south end of the town before he rode up to it. The old stableman was more interested in his supper, but they bargained a wash and a couple days’ feed for his two tired horses.
    â€œGene Rhodes? Yeah, I think he’s in town. Either at his wife’s house, or at the Wolf, playin’ cards. Right down this street, right-hand side.”
    â€œWhere can I get a good meal, maybe a bath, this time of night?”
    â€œTularosa House, center of town. Expensive, though, if they ain’t already full.” The proprietor scratched his stubble. “The Wolf, too. Bed down in their storeroom, them that’s over-indulged.” The old man smiled, displaying partially vacant gums. From the odor off him, this wasn’t the man to ask the whereabouts of a bath.
    The Wolf was better than he expected, with its head of the predator painted larger than life over the batwing front doors. A real grey wolf’s head was mounted over the bar inside, jaw stretched, yellow teeth frozen in a snarl. Intimidating, especially on a dark night with a few whiskeys in your gut.
    Gillom limped to the long counter, feeling every muscle ache after three days in the saddle, by far the longest ride he’d ever taken. The tall bartender eyed his young, grimy guest skeptically.
    â€œMister, I need a bath and a bed for the night.”
    The barkeep smoothed his waxed mustache. “Can throw your bedroll in our back storeroom for a dollar. Wash trough out in the alley is free. Towel’s your own.”
    â€œI could also use a beefsteak, burnt, fried potatoes, and a beer.”
    â€œThat’s two dollars. In advance.”
    Gillom dug into his grimy new jeans for two singles, which he thumbed from a wad.
    The bartender took his money. “Drop your gear in back. Time you clean up, your supper’ll be ready.”
    Gillom Rogers smiled for the first time in three days. Sauntering down the long bar, his limp forgotten, he noted the free lunch set out—pretzels, sausages, mustard, olives, crackers, and cheese. He helped himself to a pickle, crunching