The Thousand and One Outfit
South of east, Al Stuart watched mountain monuments start to silhouette with a stark light low behind their jagged battlements. Those cliffs and crags soared and frowned thirty miles and more over yonder by the borders of the world. The land between him and there was covered with olive green creosote bush and mesquite here near the river and with saguaro and ocotillo nearer the heights. Rosy precipices like the bloody walls of castles broke from the deserts swells to rise skywards a thousand feet. No benign giants would live in malevolent castles like those damned mountains a-tryin now to hide the dawn from ole Al Stuart.
The Superstitions: Good mountains to avoid and avoid them he would. Off to the northeast reared the Four Peaks, shadowed and remote as the back side of the moon. Percy Allen Stuart swung up on his tall horse, the saddle and rigging creaking as his mount looked back malevolently. Percy was tall his own self, but not too heavy. Men these days in these places had noticed this Texans hands were large and rough and that his movements were quick and smooth, suggesting a manly strength. The few women he met saw icy blue eyes, set, perhaps, closer together than they would have wished. The mans face was lightly freckled under his outdoorsmans suntan, but, though handsome enough in profile, his nose was in some manner too high-bridged and sharp-edged for many ladies tastes. Every woman who had ever discussed such things approved of Percy Allen Stuarts large hands and big feet, but reserved their opinion of the cattlemans rough edges and sharp glance. He was clad in black jeans, faded red wool shirt and broad-brimmed black hat that looked slept in and as if used to water his stock. That old hat been so used, more than once. His tall-heeled boots were oily black mule hide with pull-on ears like a Kansas farmer wore. A corduroy-collared canvas coat was rolled behind his saddle. The rest of his tack marked him as a cowman used to living off alone in the hills. A worn Henry .44-40 was booted just ahead of his right knee. A double-barreled Greener shotgun rode before his other knee. His new Colts .45 caliber Peacemaker was worn on his right hip, though he regularly packed his handgun on his left when afoot. His buffalo butcher knife in its beaded sheath hung from the other side of his belt. Al Stuart was not overly armed for this day and place, except, perhaps, for the shotgun he kept loaded with double aught buckshot.
The day lightened enough that the muddy-streeted little town called Punkinville commenced to appear from the gloaming. Al had heard around here lately that some transplanted Englishman name of Duppa, or Lord Duppa had got some support in the local saloons for changing the name to Phoenix. Strange sounding name spelled strange. Sposed to mean something like an oldtimey bird what rose from the ashes somewheres over in the old countries. Folks hereabouts said this burg was built right atop where the old Indians had villages and canals and fields hundreds of years ago. Could still see the old canals they irrigated with. No matter. Al Stuart himself never expected to see this place again in his lifetime. He was looking forward to getting shed of Punkinville right soon. Folks here sometimes called him Percy, which fact was a-going to get him or them shot someday. He didnt fancy his front name, and took umbrage at its casual usage.
The familiar smell of the deserts dust made Al breathe deeply, counting that one of lifes unheralded joys. He caught up the lead rope on his pack mule, a-fixin to head up north. Within a few hundred yards the casas began to have greasewood between them. Some had wisps of early smoke rising and drifting westward. As the poor pueblo fell behind, the clank of buckets and slop jars, the slamming of doors, the odd spoken word slid off his back to fall, as far as he was concerned, into the abyss of Hell, itself. The odors of horse droppings and chick-sales, and of that old desert dust, puffed away to the west with a morning zephyr born on the Superstitions. Al saw the light improve to a less faint rose tint to the east; the mountains shadows quickly retreating back to their home at the Superstitions feet, though the sky to his left was still as dark as a bankers heart.
A sudden clatter echoed behind, making Al turn in the saddle to look. He saw a stage coach pulling up to the Butterfield office with a roiling shroud of dust and muted shouts from the driver. The six-up wagons arrival this early morning explained to Al the lamp lit inside the depot when hed passed it minutes ago.
The last man to disembark the dusty Concord coach was dressed like most city fellers: black suit, black high-top shoes, likely kangaroo, and black slouch hat such as a Bohemian would wear on a Sunday picnic back East. Only his traveling mates knew he had just now studded on his fresh celluloid collar, evidently in honor of this estimable community on the north bank of the Rio Salado. The pencil thin mustache and smallish spectacles worn down on the nose further separated him from the western men he was about to join. Most of them wore mustaches, too, but let them grow bushy and drooping down at the corners of the mouth. The spare traveler stared at Al Stuarts back while waiting for his bags to be thrown down to him. Al had already turned back to the north and never saw him.
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