Chapter 14

The Cantina El Toro was a large three story building that sat on a corner and fronted the north side of El Paso’s northeast-to-southwest Main Street. The second floor was composed of small bedrooms for the girls who worked there. The third floor also had a few bedrooms and a large storage area. Pen had a three room apartment on the back side of the building, with an entrance from both the saloon and the back of the building. I had never been in his apartment until I helped carry him in there. I have to say that what I saw of it impressed the hell out of me. Pen had excellent taste and an eye for quality. A quick look around was all I got that night, as I had to lock up the saloon and secure the night’s proceeds.

As soon as we brought Pen inside, Dr. Willis started working on him with Liz and three of the Toro’s dancers helping him. By the time I’d finished what I needed to do, Doc Willis had Pen’s torso tightly wrapped, and the women had him all cleaned up. Liz was sitting by the bed, dabbing his face with a cool wet cloth. Doctor Willis gave Pen a slug of laudanum for his pain and said he’d see him in the morning.

I shooed the dancers out of the room and walked the doc to the door, so I could unlock it and let him out. As we were walking, Willis told me that he was able to get to the Nugget so fast because he had just left Rosa’s on a similar call. Coincidently, it was George Howard and one of his men who had been involved in the fracas at Rosa’s. George and his partner had pistol whipped a drunk vaquero over the attention of a dancer. I had a sickening feeling I knew which dancer was involved.

It sobered me considerably to know that if I had taken up Feleena on her invitation to visit her, tonight would have been the night George Howard died. It would have also marked the beginning of Ty Ringo McGuinn’s last few days.

I walked back to check on Pen one last time, and made sure Liz was okay before I headed out myself. Liz said she was going to stay the night, and one of the other women would sit with him tomorrow morning while she went home to freshen up and pack a bag. I wasn’t surprised much by that revelation, because from talking to Pen, I knew the two of them were seriously in love. I had to figure that even if Pen wasn’t injured, Liz would have moved in with him soon anyway.

It was after one-thirty, when I finally dragged my carcass back to my room. I was too keyed up to sleep, however, so I did my accounting and wrote in my journal. I had my best week yet financially, netting almost a hundred and fifty dollars from gambling, my legal practice and my salary from Pen. I had almost five hundred dollars in my valise under my bed. That was a lot of money in 1877, about three years’ salary for the typical family, and more than most families managed to save in a lifetime. And I hadn’t scrimped to accumulate the money, either. I’d spent money as needed on both myself and others.

I had a plan for the money I was saving though, and strangely enough, it was the same plan my great-great uncle Ty had when he started hording it. We both wanted to buy a ranch, then stock and equip it; and, if the place didn’t come with one, build a house. I had a further ambition, though, because unlike Uncle Ty, I wanted a wife and a passel of kids running around.

Land during the 1870s was dirt cheap around El Paso. Land nearer the river was as much as ten dollars an acre, but further out it was as little as twenty-five cents an acre. I had more than enough now to buy a few hundred acres with a house and some stock north of the city. If I doubled my stake, I could afford the same sized piece of land with reliable water on it. Water around West Texas was always a concern. The area was arid enough that it took at least three or four acres to graze one cow.

One of the nice things about living at Molly’s was learning all about the innovations built into the place by her husband, that I could eventually incorporate in my own place. The principle innovation was his plumbing and water system. Yes, the Dean house had running water and more important, it had a flush type bathroom. The bathroom was still located in a separate building out back, but it beat the heck out of the typical outhouse.

Molly’s outbuilding had two separate rooms with English porcelain commodes in them and a room with a big porcelain coated cast iron bathtub. Water came from a two hundred gallon tank set on stilts about twenty feet in the air. A windmill ran the pump that lifted the water out of the well up to the tank. Gravity supplied the water to the plumbing fixtures. Another innovation Dean had installed was a black cast iron tank that sat on the roof above the bathtub. For most of the year, the sun heated enough water to fill the tub two or three times a day. At my place, I vowed that the tank would supply a shower too.

Molly even pointed me toward the catalog and reference book that Mister Dean had used for his design. The equipment was expensive, but I thought it well worth the money.

The differences between Molly’s house and most of the homes around El Paso, highlighted the dichotomy between having money and getting by. Conveniences that made for a much better quality of life were available; they were just out of most westerners’ reach. For once in my life, I was motivated enough to make sure my reach became long enough. I fell asleep that night, more determined about that than ever before.

Sunday mornings were usually quiet around El Paso, as the saloons and dance halls were closed, per city ordnance. Sunday morning was the one time a week I used Molly’s bathtub instead of Clem’s. I usually bathed at Clem’s, because his Chinese helper had plenty of hot water always available, and I was at Clem’s six days a week for a shave anyway.

The Chinese fellow and his family had a small house in back of Clem’s shop, and ran a laundry business for Clem. As time went by, I found that Clem was quite the entrepreneur.

Anyway, I was sudsing up in Molly’s tub when she came through the door with an impish smile. Without a word, she pulled the shift she was wearing over her head and daintily stepped into the tub with me. She turned her back to me and sat down between my legs with a sigh.

“I didn’t think I had the nerve to do this, Ty, but when I saw you headed out here, I couldn’t resist.”

I told her I was happy she did, as I picked up the soap and started washing her. Molly and I were squeaky clean when we got out of the tub thirty minutes later, some places cleaner than others. We did a lot of kissing and mutual groping, but nothing much past that. We decided to save the rest of it for tonight, when she slept with me again.

While we were sitting in the tub, I filled her in on what happened to Pen the night before. She told me how appalled she was at the casual violence of some of the people out here. On that, I had to agree. We also talked some about Agent Jones and his exploits. She was concerned that he had disappeared. To ease her mind, I told her about Jones’s mission in El Paso and how he was probably in Mexico as we spoke, breaking up the counterfeiting ring. It turns out my guess was fairly accurate, but I wouldn’t know that until Jones returned a week later.

After my best bath yet in Old El Paso, I dressed in my charro suit, put on my way cool silver spurs and walked over to the stables for Melosa. I saddled my filly up with her new rig, stuck my gunbelt and pistol in her old saddle bags and slung the new saddlebags across her butt too. I was bringing the saddle bags, because they were bulging with presents for the Lopezes, thanks to a buying spree at Pritchett’s and across the river yesterday afternoon, using Feleena’s money.

I staked out my usual place at the mission and waited for what I considered my adopted family. They arrived early this Sunday and they didn’t come alone. Behind the Lopez’s, there followed a second wagon driven by a nice looking Mexican man. Juanita was sitting on the bench with him, holding little Anna. In the back of the wagon, two serious faced young boys were staring at everything and everyone. Hector Lopez stopped his wagon right next to where I was standing and the other man pulled up on the other side of Hector.

I greeted everyone and helped Maria and Anna down from the back of the wagon. After everyone was on the ground, Hector introduced me to Juanita’s suitor; his name was Emilio Cortez. My first impression of Emilio was that he seemed a good man. From what I gathered, today was get acquainted day for Emilio, Juanita and their children. So far, it appeared as if everyone liked each other just fine and dandy.