Chapter 4

I had a very good night playing poker and getting to know Pen Smythe. He was one of those colorful characters that made the American west such an amazing place.

Pen had immigrated to the United States when he was about my age. He was drawn by the idea of wide-open spaces and a chance to strike it rich without sucking up to English Royalty. He had packed a lot of living into the twelve years he’d been here.

Pen was delighted when I told him I was an attorney, and he immediately became my first client. He had some paperwork he needed drawing up for the purchase of some land on the northern side of Fort Bliss. I did the ritual collecting of one dollar for a retainer, so we’d have the attorney-client privilege. He liked the hell out of that idea. Pen was not so delighted, however, when I cashed in on his bluff on a big hand that he’d been setting up. The money wasn’t anything to him. It was the losing that he didn’t like. I let him bluff me out of half of it an hour later and headed over to the Gold Nugget at midnight, still thirty-five dollars richer.

I didn’t gamble at the Nugget. Instead, I danced with Liz. When we took a break from dancing for a drink, I asked her if she wanted to go on a picnic the following day. She liked the idea, so we ended up making arrangements to meet at the stable. Liz had a horse there, she said, so we could ride for a while then stop for our lunch. We danced a few more times before I headed back to the hotel.

Back in my room, I sorted out my money and carefully entered my winnings and expenditures for the day on some paper I’d bought at Pritchett’s store. I back entered the same information from the day before. It was nice to know that I was ahead of where I started, cash wise, even after buying clothes, the books and a watch. I had sorted the money into gold and silver, US currency and railroad script. I was planning on unloading the twenty dollars worth of script I had left. I would then put the gold and silver away and operate on the currency.

US currency was starting to be grudgingly accepted in the late 1870s, because with the establishment of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, only one type of paper money was being issued. The government had been buying back all the various notes printed by the national banks since 1874. I would be a lot happier walking around with folding money instead of a poke full of heavy coins.

As I sat there on the bed with my three sad little stacks of money, I briefly thought about ways I might get rich by taking advantage of my knowledge of future events. I thought about it and forgot about it in the span of about thirty seconds. I was enjoying life just the way I was living it, and being rich was never a priority of mine anyway. As I said before, except for a hot shower in the morning, I had yet to miss anything about the twentieth century.

That lack of ambition to be wealthy was a big factor in three of my wives leaving me. It never got to that point with Cora Leigh, (Mrs. Tyler McGuinn the fourth). It was never an issue with Cora Leigh, because she was a psycho. Here’s a little free advice from your old buddy Ty: never, ever, marry a woman you meet in a bar in Las Vegas on the same night that you met her. I don’t care if the Elvis Chapel is running a discount; it is still a bad idea.

On the fourth day after we were married, Cora Leigh tried to run me over in the parking lot of a Waffle House, because she said I was flirting with the waitress. Which might have been valid except the waitress was about eighty years old. The police became involved, because Cora Leigh hit two other cars while chasing me with my own pickup truck. It took six deputies to subdue her, but the kicker was that she turned out to be an escaped mental patient from a hospital in Birmingham, Alabama. I would have been the second husband she had offed, if I hadn’t been trained to avoid large objects hurtling toward me. I was crushed (almost!). She was beautiful and had the sex drive of a chinchilla on steroids. It just didn’t seem fair somehow that her only character flaw was being a homicidal maniac.

The sun didn’t awaken me the next morning, thanks to the blanket I hung over that southeastern window. As a result, I slept in until nine. After doing my morning thing, I visited Clem at the barbershop for my shave, and to put out the word about opening a law office. I also asked Clem about Pen Smythe. As usual, Clem had all the pertinent information.

“You mean ‘English Penny’? He’s quite a fella, comes in here about once a week for a trim. I hear tell he was a gunfighter and riverboat gambler before he bought that saloon of his. He fancies the ladies and they seem to think right well of him, too. He’s about the only man in town that will stand up against Judge Howard, that right there takes some cojones.”

Judge Charles Howard was a besmirched character in El Paso’s history that we suffered through learning about in the eighth grade. As I remembered it, Howard was a lawyer from Missouri or some place back east, who came to El Paso and schmoozed his way into becoming district judge. Before anyone knew it, he was the richest and most powerful man in town. It was Howard, some railroad people, and a crooked Catholic Priest who were responsible for the El Paso Salt War.

Howard and the other two tried to buy up access to the natural salt flats near El Paso, so they could profit from the salt. The Mexicans — on both sides of the river, who had been gathering salt there for centuries — objected. The Salt War was going to happen about four months from now, in October of 1877.

As wars go, the one over the salt flats weren’t much. Fewer than ten people lost their lives, but it set back relations between the Anglos and Mexicans for decades. In addition, the Salt War resulted in the only case ever, where a Texas Ranger Detachment surrendered.

Here’s another bit of trivia for you: the man Uncle Ty supposedly shot that day in Rosa’s Cantina, was Charles Howard’s son, George T. Howard. The fact that it was Howard’s son was why Ty Ringo McGuinn was hunted down and killed, even though George drew first that day.

I made my decision right there in the barbershop to make sure George Howard lived, and the Salt War either never happened, or ended differently.

After I left the barbershop, I hustled over to Pen Smythe’s saloon. Pen was a sophisticated guy for 1870s El Paso, so I was hoping he’d have a bottle of wine to impress Liz with. Pen didn’t mind a bit overcharging me for a bottle of red wine, the label written in French. He even loaned me a corkscrew.

The hotel kitchen staff fixed me up with a picnic lunch to include a wicker basket and a checked tablecloth. Juanita Lopez actually prepared it while I stood talking to her.

“My sister was unhappy that you were here last night with the saloon puta with the big chi-chis,” Juanita said as she held her cupped hands in front of her chest to simulate Liz’s bounty. “Now you are taking her on a romantic picnic.”

Juanita almost sounded jealous. I laughed and eyed the front of Juanita’s straining dress.

“Hers can’t be much bigger than yours, Nita,” I teased. “Yes, I had dinner with someone last night, but she is not a whore. I brought her here as a way to discourage your sister. Sunday I think I will chase after you to make sure Maria gets the message.”

Instead of laughing, Juanita just nodded.

“In that case, Gringo, I probably won’t be hard to catch.”

Liz was already astride her horse when I walked into the stables with the picnic paraphernalia. Her horse was a big bay Tennessee Walker gelding. She was perched on one of those little English saddles that easterners prefer. Her outfit was all brown, long split skirt, high leather boots, long-sleeve fitted top, and flat crowned hat. She looked the way cowgirls should look.

Melosa was out in the corral, munching on some hay with her back turned toward me, when I whistled a few notes of “Amazing Grace”. Her head came up as soon as I started whistling, she spotted me and came trotting over. She followed me down to the gate of the corral. I let her out and saddled her up. The whistling thing was something I started doing on the trail during the endless hours riding drag. To relieve my boredom, I whistled and sang every song I could remember. Melosa seemed to enjoy it too, as she appeared to almost strut when I was whistling or singing. For some reason, I fancied Amazing Grace was her favorite.