Press (Part 2)

There are five small tables set up in the area to the left of the door as you come into the hotel, and I had taken the one that had the best view of the front door and was nearest to the hallway that accessed the double row of rooms. There are four small rooms on the left side of the hall and there are three rooms on the right side, the last one being the double room. At the end of the hall there is a wash basin and water pitcher on a small table. Above the table is a large window with a good view of the snow peaked mountains off in the distance. It was now late morning and I was finally getting ready enjoy my breakfast. Doc did most of the cooking himself while Etta Sue waited tables and cleaned up after. There were never many customers at one time except when a wagon train came through the area or when a bunch of ranch hands got paid and came into town to blow off some steam, it was during those times when Mrs. Grissom would come to lend a hand.

Luke, the Grissom boy, and his dad Jake had helped me lay the stranger to rest just after daybreak. They lived in a small two room cabin just at the edge of town and were usually available to make a dollar or two doing odd jobs for just about everyone in town. After completing that chore I had been going through what few things that I found in the gunmans pockets and in his saddle bags to try figure out his identity, if there was any family, or if I could discover any clues as to why he had come gunning for me. I found twenty four gold coins that had been stuffed in a crudely seemed money belt around his waist, and a Telegraph from a company called “Port Charles Mill & Supply” and it was addressed to Sam Ford in Mudville, Alabama. Everything else that the man had brought to town were things commonly carried by any person traveling the back country, including his saddle and horse. The saddle was light weight and it had a sleek design so that a skilled rider could lean forward easily to gain speed at a dead run, and it was well worn. It was not a working cattleman's saddle for sure, my guess would be that it was from some Calvary unit but it was nothing like I had ever seen before. The horse was a good one, tall and well built with nice straight lines and a head held high, ears up and alert when I did my inspection. This horse had been bred for both speed and distance, the thought of a Calvary unit again came to mind. The brand looked like a horseshoe with a crooked closed end like a snake. That telegraph simple stated “Please complete the contract as agreed upon at the earliest possible date, final payment will be delivered to the bank of your choice in any town along the rail line, and it was signed M.R.. The next time Gus goes for supplies I would have to send a note with him for the telegraph operator, maybe someone in Mudville, Alabama could shed some light on this mystery man, and maybe the telegraph operator knows something about Port Charles Mill & Supply, or at least where Port Charles is located.

Shortly after Etta Sue arrived with my breakfast and some fresh coffee, Doc appeared from the kitchen, seems like I was the last customer for the morning. Doc filled me in on what he knew from the brief conversation that he had with the stranger when he signed up for a room. He had paid in advance with a gold piece and told Doc that he was not sure how long that he would stay but to let him know when he had used up the $20. That seemed odd to me since most men bent on killing don't intend to hang around afterward, it gave me the idea that there was more to this than met the eye. He had signed the register with a simple mark and had left the “From” space blank. Doc went and got the register so that I could see, and sure enough the mark was similar to the mark made by the branding iron on that horse. This was going to take some contemplating, and I was going to need to be even more careful and wary if possible until I could get the straight of all this.

I had finished eating and was sipping a last cup of coffee when the stage pulled up to a stop outside. This caused quit a stir in town since Gridiron is not on the regular stage route, someone had paid extra, a lot extra, to be brought here special. There were four people riding the stage, two in the coach and two stage hands up on top. The driver was an older man with a large hat siting atop a graying head of hair and shading a face covered by a bushy salt and pepper beard. I could see at a glance that his left hand was game and curled in at an odd angle, and when he stood I saw that he was sporting a peg leg, the victim of some bad accident in his past no doubt. The fella riding shotgun was slim and gaunt of face, he wore beat up and frayed cloths and a floppy plowmans hat. When he opened his mouth it was nearly toothless and it looked like it took a lot of effort to smile as he turned our way. Above the coach were several trunks and bags that were lashed down securely. The toothless fellow was already starting to work at the knots as we approached. Two men stepped out of the coach, the first was a short quirky looking fellow with abnormally large ears, a wildly crooked nose that looked to have been broken many times, and flaming red hair and beard. His face was twisted in a snarl and when he stood to the side to allow the other man to exit he spoke with some low words to him in an Irish seafarers brogue that rolled and lilted off of his tongue, and though I couldn't understand exactly what he said it sounded much like some type of insult directed at the town to me. The second man out was average height and rotund in girth, he wore a three piece suit with a bow tie, a boler hat and wire rim spectacles with round lenses. He used a cane to walk even though there was nothing apparent that might be wrong with him and he barked orders to the smaller man in a crisp Eastern accent. This was sizing up to be another eventful day in Gridiron!

As the stage was being unloaded the Easterner pushed his spectacles, that had slid part way down the bridge of his nose, back into place with the tip of a forefinger. Then, with a straight back and a stiff brisk walk he entered the hotel to “Procure lodging” as he spoke over his shoulder at his sidekick. One thing that I can say for the little Irishman, he was obviously not shy nor was he afraid of hard work. He seemed to be all over the stage simultaneously, first he was on this side, then the other and now on top. His movements were very fluid and easy and his arms and legs were shockingly strong for his size. He reminded me of a worker ant or a small wasp buzzing over a bit of bread soaked in honey. He untied, unloaded and then retied all of the baggage on the boardwalk under the hotel awning at a breakneck speed. All the time and at every step his mouth never stopped working, cussing, spitting out insults that were unintelligible but you knew what they were, whistling and shouting out commands to the bewildered stage hands. The man tied knots like I had never seen before, and he could have one tied and cinched up before you hardly had time to blink. I noticed that one of the large trunks was stamped “Gutenberg Co.” and I thought, a printing press? No it was too small for a press even if it had been disassembled, but it could be type sets! I had seen the press at the printing shop in Kansas City and was amazed at the inner workings, some genius that Gutenberg guy, imagine coming up with an idea like that and then having the skill to build a machine that would do the job!

But why would anyone bring a printing press to a place like Gridiron Crossing? Come to think of it, why would a high falutin' Easterner go to all of the trouble to hire out the stage coach and come here in the first place, it just made no sense at all. I learned from Doc later that the guy in the suit was named Tomas Burlington and that he had listed New York as the place where he was from. The little Irish guy went by the name of Flynn and had also been registered as coming from New York. A mysterious gunfighter apparently from Alabama and now two strangers from New York with an even more unusual load of baggage. No one would ever accuse me of being a particularly smart man, but I ain't no greenhorn neither. I've been across the meadows, through the river, over the mountains and rode trails in places a callous won't even grow. I had some long thinking to do to try and figure all this out, and I do my best thinking from the back of a horse along some lonely trail. But first I needed as much information on the matter as possible, so I would be dinning at the hotel this evening and I'll ask big Sam to keep his ears open for any tidbit of new information coming through the saloon. Whatever was going on in town the first to hear about it would probably be Sam, the saloon was the clearinghouse for such things and men liked to talk more over drinks. Right now I was going to head over to the livery and ask Gus to have my horse fed and ready for a long ride before daylight in the morning.