Chapter 19: Las Vegas

I finally got to meet Wayne Burns, the Sheriff of Colfax County.

I was assigned a prisoner transfer trip, all by train. I was to bring two men, who were being held on federal charges in Colfax County and San Miguel County, back to Santa Fe.

On Wednesday, I took the AT&SF from Lamy to Las Vegas, the seat for San Miguel County. I arrived shortly before one in the afternoon and, after lunch at the Harvey House, I walked over to the county courthouse and introduced myself to Sheriff Pablo Callaghan. He was an affable man of maybe forty-five years, short but fit-looking, very bald, and with a full brown beard.

I asked if he or one of the deputies could bring his prisoner to the station on Friday to meet the train. I’d brought transfer shackles with me. They included ankle cuffs connected by a ten-inch chain and hand cuffs fastened to a waist chain which, in turn, was connected to the ankle cuffs by a twenty-four inch chain. I planned to return from Springer on Friday with the prisoner from Colfax County and hoped just to pass through Las Vegas without a layover.

Callaghan agreed to bring the prisoner to the station, but only if I’d buy him a drink, and he led me across the plaza to a saloon that backed onto the railroad tracks. They had ice-chilled beer for fifteen cents, which was stiff, but I bought us a couple glasses. When the barman pushed the glasses across the bar to me, he looked at me and said, “There ya’ go,” and his face piqued a memory.

I carried the beer over to the table Callaghan had chosen and, as I was sitting down, I asked him if he knew the bartender who’d drawn our beer.

“Not really. He started here a couple months ago. They call him Buzzy or something like that.”

“Would it be Bitsy?”

“Yeah, that’s it, Bitsy.”

“Bitsy Selkirk?”

“Maybe. I’m not sure. You know him?”

“I think he’s wanted for a bank robbery in Albuquerque.” I took another swallow of the beer, stood up, and said, “I’ll just be a minute.” Then I headed toward the back door, near the end of the bar, where a hand-lettered sign tacked to the door door read “JAKES.”

When I got to the door, I pushed through it to the outside, but then immediately turned around. Pulling my thirty-eight revolver from my shoulder holster, I walked back through the doorway and then into the passage behind the bar where Selkirk was working. He chose that moment to turn toward me. Without hesitation, he bent to reach under the bar and brought out a shotgun.

I yelled, “Stop! US Marshal,” but he’d set his course.

As he adjusted his hands to the stock, I shot him, hitting him in the stomach. He slumped sideways against the bar, knocking glasses to the floor, but he was still trying to bring the shotgun to bear. I shot him in the chest and he slid to the floor, where he lay still, amidst the broken glass.

“Sure enough, here he is,” Callaghan said, tapping a poster he’d pulled from the stack. Then he read, “‘Albert Selkirk, also called Bitsy Selkirk, Bert Selkirk, and Al Kirk. Wanted for robbery and assault, Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office, Albuquerque. Three hundred dollar reward offered by the Bank of New Mexico, Santa Fe, for apprehension or proof of demise.’”

We were in Callaghan’s office in the courthouse. I’d shown him how to use the shackles I’d brought. Afterward, he’d picked up the stack of reward and wanted notices that had been on a shelf behind his desk and began going through them until he’d found the notice on Selkirk.

He looked up at me. “I remember that bank job. Almost a year ago. He pistol-whipped some bank customer, ripping into one of his eyes, then broke some of the cashier’s teeth the same way. Got away with something like three thousand, I think.” He put his finger under the printed photograph. “That sure looks like him. Says here, under the likeness, that it’s from a photography studio in Albuquerque.” He shook his head. “The fool did himself in when he posed for that.”

I’d made arrangements with an undertaker to have the body preserved and put on ice, then shipped to Santa Fe to an undertaker that the local embalmer had recommended. I wired the bank of Santa Fe that the body would be available for viewing tomorrow, Thursday, at the funeral parlor and that I would see them about the reward when I returned to Santa Fe.

“How did you remember him? I looked at this photograph three or four times over the last few months, but I didn’t recall any of it.”

“Some tricks I picked up with the Pinkertons. Rather than just look at a face, I learned to examine it and notice particular features, then to describe those features to myself. I also repeat the name aloud several times while looking at the photo, but I also say the names aloud when there is no photo, in case I might hear it somewhere. I also have a better-than-fair memory. It helped me pick up Spanish pretty quickly when I was stationed in Texas.”

“Spanish, yeah, Ma spoke Spanish, though I was ashamed to use it, back then.” He shook his head. “I can still stumble through it, but I missed a real chance to be fluent. What a dummy.”

“Ah, you were a kid. Kids are foolish by nature.”

He nodded, still with apparent regret. Then he brightened. “So, you gonna split that reward with me?”

“Sure. What d’ you figure sitting at the table and drinking a beer while I’m facing down a shotgun is worth?”

“Hey, I identified him for you.”

“You mean when you told me his name might be ‘Buzzy’?”

“I believe I added, ‘or something.’”

“You’re right.” I began digging in my pocket. “Do you have change for a dollar?”

He said, “I was planning to invite you to my house so you would have to deal with my wife’s cooking. Just for that, I’m going to insist on it.”

Actually, his wife, Flora, turned out to be a good cook. She was a rotund but attractive woman and their three teenage children were polite and friendly. She made a gazpacho soup, chilled using ice she’d bought at the railroad freight yard. Then we had fried chicken and a potato salad. I ate too much.

After a dessert of peach pie, we lingered over coffee while the children excused themselves for other pursuits. Feeling mischievous, I reached into my pocket and brought out a twenty dollar gold piece and slid it toward her.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“I think you made a larger contribution to my catching a bank robber today than your husband did. Here’s a cut of the reward.”

Flora looked puzzled. “How did I help?”

“Well, it wasn’t that you did so much, it’s that he did so little.”

She smiled and shook her head, but then her expression became serious. “I heard a man was killed by a deputy today. Was that you?” Pablo and I had agreed to avoid speaking of the violence while we were at his home, so Flora was just now grasping the significance of my presence.

Pablo said, “It was. He told the man to put down the shotgun, that he was a marshal, but the man was still going to shoot him.”

“Who was he?”

Pablo said, “A bank robber from Albuquerque. During that robbery he pistol whipped two men. He blinded one man’s eye and broke the other man’s teeth.”

She shook her head, then slid the double eagle coin back to me. “I’m the one who nags at him to avoid ... trouble like that.”

“And you punish him like this to keep him in line?” I said, indicating the empty plates.

She smiled uncertainly as she looked at her husband. “As often as I can.”

I pushed the coin toward Pablo. “In that case, under this sort of duress, I’m surprised you even stayed in the room with me.”

He pushed it back. “You know I was only joking. I was ashamed to be so useless.”

I gave him a sour look. “What could you have done? You had no idea what I was planning. I’m not even sure I did. It was over in five seconds.”

Then I pushed the coin to the center of the table. “So let’s say this is for homemade box lunches on Friday, for me and the two prisoners, delivered to the station.”

Sheriff Wayne Burns was a politician, a full-time, in-your-face politician. It was like he was always trying to sell you something.

He was taller than me by two or three inches. He wore his tawny hair long, to his collar. He had a fierce visage not noticeably softened by a full beard and mustache of a darker shade than that of the hair on his head. If anything, I was reminded of the lions I had seen at the circus.

And he talked politics incessantly, the politics in his county, in Washington City the nation, but mostly about the politics in Santa Fe, which he thought was being managed all wrong. He kept after me for my opinions on this or that, most of which opinions did not exist and those few that did I decided to keep to myself, as they ran contrary to his.

I had intended to stay the night in Springer, but changed my mind after spending some time with Sheriff Burns. The train schedule allowed me to catch the westbound a mere three hours after I had stepped off the eastbound.

Be that as it may, I wired Sheriff Callaghan that I would be passing through Las Vegas at five forty-seven that afternoon. Then I asked the ticket seller about the fares. When he found out I would be traveling alone with two prisoners, he said their policy was that prisoners should travel in the baggage car. The advantages were that the prisoners, who would have to sit on the floor, could have their chains bolted to the floor, and they would travel at the same fee as freight. I could use one of the crew chairs and travel at half fare. The disadvantage was that there were no windows.

“But,” he said, “most times the crew will leave the baggage door open, even though it’s against the rules.”

And so it was that I was standing in that open baggage door, peering ahead toward the platform as we pulled into the Las Vegas depot. I could see five people, but two of them were women and none of the others was wearing shackles. Nor did anyone else appear as we pulled abreast of the depot building, save for the station-master.

I called to him, “Mister station-master, I was expecting to meet Sheriff Callaghan here on the platform. Have you seen him?”

He walked over and said, “There’s some sort of ruckus over at the Wells Fargo office. I think he and the town marshal and some deputies are all over there.”

The train’s conductor had walked up, as he knew what I’d expected and I told him, “Looks like I’m getting off here. I’ll need to unbolt my prisoner.”

He said, “The wrench should be in that middle drawer.” He pointed toward a built-in desk. “Do you need help with that?”

“No. Just don’t shove off if I’m still aboard.”

“Don’t worry, there’s no hurry. It’s easy to make up time along this stretch.”

Two minutes later we were on the platform. I’d gotten my shotgun out of its case and had it tucked under my right arm, but my duffel, the empty shotgun case, and my rifle case were all in my left hand. I saw a man sitting in a buggy by the depot steps and, to my inquiry, he said that he was for hire. The railroad had laid the tracks more than a quarter mile west of town and I didn’t think I had the time to watch my prisoner shuffle all that way, then through town to the courthouse. I had the hire buggy take us over to the courthouse where I turned my prisoner over to the jailer.

“Best take him out of those chains, that other bird, too,” I told him. “Looks like we’ll be stayin’ the night. Do you know what’s going on with the sheriff?”

“No. All I know is, one of the town deputies came over and said the marshal needed help, pronto. It’s something to do with the Wells Fargo depot.” He shrugged while shaking his head. “They sometimes get cash or gold shipments, but I don’t know if that’s it or not.”

I took off my frock coat and hung it on the coat rack. I was still wearing the shoulder harness and the thirty-eight I carried in it. Then I took the rifle, a Winchester Model 1876. from its case. I opened some cartridge boxes and put four extra shotgun cartridges in my left trousers pocket, a handful of rifle shells in the right, and a dozen or so thirty-eights in the waistcoat pocket, then asked the jailer which way I should approach the Wells Fargo office.

He told me it was on the main street two blocks north of he plaza.

I put my hat on, made sure my badge was visible, then walked out of the courthouse, and started jogging, rifle in one hand, shotgun in the other.

As I ran north, I noticed how eerily empty the street was, then I saw some people peeking out of doorways several blocks down. At that point, a man stepped partially out of a doorway just ahead of me and I asked him if he knew where the sheriff was.

He pointed across the street and down a block. “See the sign for the butcher shop, that white store front? I think they’re in there.”

“Is there a door on the alley?”

“Yeah, the butcher gets his deliveries there.”

I thanked him, then jogged back to the last corner I’d passed and went down the cross street to the alley, then headed again in my original direction. I crossed the next street and, about halfway down the next block, I found a stained loading dock with an overhead trolley rail that extended out of the building. A screen door, hosting several dozen flies, provided access to the interior. The odor of meat and blood came wafting out.

I called through the screen, “Sheriff, it’s Deputy Marshal Becker. Are you in there?”

“Becker, what are you doing here?”

“I heard you were having some trouble, so I came down.”

“And you’re just going to stand there in the alley?”

“It’s okay to come in?”

Another voice called, “Just make it fast, ‘cause a’ the flies, an’ don’t have both screen doors open at once.”

Now I realized the interior looked dark because there was another screen door about five feet beyond the one where I was standing. I slipped through the first, gave the few inside flies a chance to land, then ducked quickly through the second. I walked down a hall under the trolley beam, with its branches running into rooms behind closed doors, and an empty meat hook hanging from the track here and there.

In the front service area I found six men. One, in a red-stained white apron, was obviously the butcher. He said, “Thanks for bein’ quick.” I nodded in response.

Pablo scooted back from the window, where he’d been crouching, rose to his feet, and started pointing to the men. “That’s town marshal Dwight Wilkins, his deputy Ricky Peña, my deputy Alistair Cobb, and the man sitting over there is Las Vegas Mayor Reynaldo Osterman, oh, and our butcher is Henry Butterfield. Men, this is Deputy United States Marshal Judah Becker. He’s the deputy assigned to northeast New Mexico. He operates out of Taos.”

“Gents,” I said, by way of a succinct greeting. “What’s going on?”

Marshal Wilkins said, “Three men attempted to rob the express company of a payroll for the one of the mining outfits. One of my deputies walked into it just by chance and the shooting started. He got out with a bullet in his side and is over at the doc’s, but the express agent and his daughter, who helps out in the mornings, are both In there with the two men. My deputy’s pretty sure he killed the other one.”

“Did he recognize them?”

“No. Their horses are tied to that post and look trail weary, so we figure they’re from somewhere else.”

“Have you talked to them?”

Pablo said, “Only to tell them that we have the place covered front and back and they needed to come out unarmed with their hands behind their heads.”

“Did they say anything?”

Wilkins said, “They told us they’d kill the two hostages if we didn’t let them go.”

I said, “I wonder how they figured that was going to work?”

Pablo said, “From the way they talk, I’d be willing to bet these boys never even contemplated the idea of being caught. This robbery was all just sweet clover and rainbows in their imaginations, I’m sure.”

“Do you know where they are in the building?”

“From what we can tell, they’re watching out the front windows,” Wilkins said.

“And the agent and his daughter?”

“Not sure,” he said, “Haven’t seen ‘em.”

I stepped up behind Pablo, who was crouched, again, at the window. Placing a hand on his shoulder for balance, I leaned forward and looked across toward the express office, which was two lots further north.

“What kind of building is directly across the street from them?” I asked, then moved back from the window.

“A haberdashery. Why?” Wilkins asked.

“One story or two?”

“Two. The proprietor lives upstairs with his family.”