|
Short Stories & Tall Tales
The Barber of Copa Verdi
By Tom Sheehan
Just after the break of dawn, a cool September morning, Stem Swensen rode into Copa Verdi with a near empty saddle bag, a rifle without ammo, and no change of clothes. He looked the part he announced, or announced the part he looked… on the skids, on the run, on the take if he could find an angel with gifts. Even with all that, some people of the town took notice when he entered Paulie’s Tonsorial Palace. His beard was, without doubt, a month’s worth of bush.
Paulie in the barbershop, as disillusioned as a man could get, said, “You can shave yourself, mister, ‘cause I’m cutting outta here before the day is out. There’s plenty of hot water over there in that kettle, and what’s left of the soap and cream is yours for the taking. I have shaved my last beard, trimmed my last head of wrangler’s hair, and soaked the last sot back to sobriety or propriety, however you’ll have it. The sheriff can bang on the door all he wants.”
He watched with glee as Swenson soaked his face, lathered his beard, took a razor from his shirt pocket, and cleaned his face of hair as swift and as smooth as ever seen. He saw, in the difference, a whole personality change.
“You belong in a place like this, mister, carrying your own blade and working it like that. You can have the place for $25, payment due the first of the month after the next month. Time enough for raising the investment. I’ll be over in La Petra working for my old boss, Trip Eggerman. He has his hand on the pulse of the whole territory, and thinks something good is going to happen around here.”
“Like what?” Swenson said, interest riding on his new face, expressions more easily read.
Paulie brought up a half smile on his own face. “Private stuff comes with the job. You come in here, work the place, play dumb, keep your ears open and I’ll guarantee you’ll catch some stuff worth gold if used right. Don’t be too hungry, don’t push too hard or too fast and it’ll fall right into your apron.”
He dropped a black linen apron into Swenson’s hands. “Don’t take too long thinking about it. ‘Nother gent said he might be interested, but he won’t be back off the posse until tomorrow at the earliest. I heard from Eggerman they’re way over Tascosa way chasing a couple of robbers hit the stage a week or so ago. Black Cat Pownel’s one of them, and they say he come across the Big Lady Mississippi for the first time ever, looking for a piece of the bank for hisself, after raising hell in Tennessee. ”
Swenson, showing adventure or a new kind of gambling at hand, said, “All I need is a grubstake for the first day on the job. Maybe enough for a meal and a beer. He reached into his saddlebag and held up a small, dark, metallic-looking object. “This here’s a souvenir from a real New York bank a gent gave me when I got him out from under his rolled and dead horse. It’s worth some kind of stake for a steak.” He smiled.
Paulie, picking up on a slice of humor, said, “And a few beans and a beer. Okay by me,” and handed Swenson a gold dollar piece. “The deal is done. You’re the new barber of Copa Verdi.” The object sat in his hands. “What is it?”
“It’s just a trinket, a souvenir from a bank for making deposits, but it’s real silver. He said it fell off a wagon right there in front of him in Philadelphia as he was coming this way, in a hurry, of course. His horse, when I come up on them, had two broken legs and I had to knock him out of this life before I pulled the gent loose.”
Paulie smiled his understanding. “Did that lucky, finally undid gent happen to rob that there bank in Philadelphia? That’s some kind of story. Keep telling them like that and you’ll get yourself some steady hair customers. But put your good efforts at great shaves. Great shaves get remembered, the kind that brings a fellow back from where he’s gone in sour times. There’s always sour times hanging around. “
The real world suddenly sat full on Paulie’s face when he offered a weighty piece of advice as if he was dredging it out of his mind like he’d once read it in a big book, passing on the minor legacy of the barber shop. “Best other thing I can tell you is keep a gun close to hand. Like under a loose shirt or hung by the soap mugs or right in your holster, but the holster show makes you one of them whose hair you’re cutting or shaving their necks and that gets them real uncomfortable. One time comes you need a gun, better have it close. Temper changes men considerably, and there’s a lot of things happening around here. Some gents are going to have good luck and some are going to have bad luck. Watch for the difference ‘cause they’ll all come by here once a month or better and most’ll carry their disposition like a sign hung right out there on their chests. That should get you to know a man pretty good. It’s hardly any different than following trail. All you got to do is read the signs.”
He finished up with another piece of advice. “Best spend your new-gotten money, at least for starting, over at the hotel. Best food in town. Miss JacksonMelba Abilene’s one great cook and one great lady. She don’t play any games with you or your money. If you want a friend in town, trust her. She is real trustable.” Paulie walked out on his five-year investment, and Stem Swenson had his first customer before he could get to spend any of his small stake.
“I just saw Paulie headin’ for the livery. Says he’s done with barberin’ and shavin’ and that you gotta pretty steady hand. I’m needing a fix-up. Name’s John Weller and I don’t like no gun at your side when you got me all hunkered up.” He sat in the big chair and saw his face in the mirror. “Best get home cleaner than this. Woman ‘spects to recognize me out by the gate. And I been gone on trail for a spell.” Then, to cap off his homecoming, he added, “Throw on some of that pretty stuff Paulie says can’t do no harm at all.” His hand was on his own revolver until Swenson tossed his up on the little shelf where the pretty stuff was.
Swenson said, “I’m not anywhere as good with the gun as I am with this razor. I brought it along the trail with me all the way from Philadelphia my last trip home. Got another one just like it in my saddle bag.”
Weller sparked with interest. “I guess you’re figurin’ on stayin’. You ever see the Liberty Bell?”
“I sure did, but it wasn’t in Philadelphia. I saw it on a train in Maryland one day when I was heading out from home. They had it out for traveling around some of the country.”
“Didn’t hear it ring? That would’ve sprung me all loose, for a whole day anyhow, just thinking about it.”
“I didn’t hear it ring. Don’t think it rung at all, not down there in Maryland. Heard it had a crack made it dumb.” Swenson nodded his head in a mark of frustration and swung the conversation around in full stride. “That Paulie who sold me this place thinks this area’s going to get good things happening to it. You think that’s true?”
“Hell, no. I just heard Black Cat Pownel’s scouting out the area this side of the big river, wanting a new home, a new hang-out, getting’ chased outta too many places from what I hear. Sheriff got no call on him here but rumors sail fast as tumbleweed front of a fire. There’s some say he’s already got a new gang. Any strangers come in here for shaving and such, don’t wear that gun on the hip.” He nodded at Swenson’s gun sitting on the shelf. “It don’t say welcome.” He sat back in the chair as Swenson swung a hot towel over his beard, leaving his first customer’s eyes clear so he could see in the big mirror who was coming or going, or even passing by with so much as a hint of looking in. The same precautions held true at a campfire out on the trail; both men in the shop knowing survival anywhere demanded alertness, awareness at all times, good lines of sight.
“From what I heard myself, coming past the Mississippi, is all that stuff about Black Cat is all made up. Nobody’s ever seen him rob a bank or a train, nor shoot that lady in the stagecoach that was sitting near the bank in Missouri one time.”
“I never heard about that one, not about no lady gettin’ shot up while she was sittin’ still, maybe waitin’ to go someplace special for her or just gettin’ there. Sure is a damned shame, that twist of the Black Cat.”
“See, pard, that’s what I mean,” Swenson said as he started the heavy lathering. “Some gent sitting here listening to me might walk out of here and start saying that stuff all over the place. Pretty soon this Black Cat gent is hung for nothing he did.”
“You talk like you was favorin’ him. I bet I’d watch my tongue I was you. That Black Cat’s got lots of meanness goin’ for him right now, and most people won’t let it go.”
“I guess you’d be one of them,” Swenson said, sliding that smooth edge down over Teller’s chin, Teller sitting real still at the move. “I don’t crib my words at all, John Weller. I wouldn’t go to your hanging either less they proved to me you did some crime and someone truthful saw it and swore it. Same way with the Black Cat, or whatever they call him for real. I don’t want to see no man hang for something he might have done.” Swenson drew the next pass of the razor down over Weller’s face. The razor made no sound at all and Weller smiled and closed his eyes.
“You got some kind of smooth, mister. Never felt a second of that.”
Swenson knew for a fact that the smooth draw down on Weller’s face would be echoed in the saloon before nightfall. As well as his stand on trials and juries and hangings, and the Black Cat in particular.
Three weeks later, Swenson by then a piece of town fabric and his trade prospering, the Black Cat still a matter of talk, the sheriff and a small posse were chasing down some rustlers a ways out of town. At the peak of noon on an idle Saturday, four men walked into the bank, drew bandanas or kerchiefs over their faces, showed their guns in earnest fashion and ordered saddle bags to be filled with new paper money.
“We don’t want all of it,” one big robber said, “just most of it.”
When they left, the last man going out the door tossed a wood carving of a black cat at the feet of the teller. It was painted a glossy black. The man, his kerchief still tight in place, said, “Tell the sheriff I said hello.” He pointed at the carving at the teller’s feet and offered a conciliatory nod the teller understood all the way.
The robbers made off with a good haul, and the word went all over the territory that the Black Cat had struck again.
Stem Swenson was in a number of arguments with customers, the barkeep at the saloon, and the sheriff himself. “How do you know, sheriff, it was Black Cat Pownel that did it?” Who saw him? Nobody according to the teller. Who’s to say it was the Black Cat?”
“Hell, man, he left his calling card. That carved kitty. That’s his sign.”
“Who says so?” Swenson said. “I never heard any talk like that on the other side of the river. Nobody ever said anything about a carved toy.”
“You sticking up for him, Mr. Barber?” The sheriff’s tone was getting stiff and edgy. “Sounds odd to me, the stand you take.”
“You like to see a man hung for something he didn’t do? Is that a piece of your law here, sheriff? Is the Black Cat wanted here?”
“He is now.”
“Was he wanted here before this robbery?”
“No, he wasn’t.”
At the other end of the bar, John Weller broke himself loose from some trail hands getting wet and joined the sheriff and Stem Swenson. “Sheriff,” he said, “you make damn sure you don’t put the barber on the jury when you catch the Black Cat. He’ll give him the key and let him walk away he has the chance.”
Swenson, putting himself apart from the sheriff leaning on the bar, said, “Do you know where John Weller was during the robbery, sheriff? You know where Artie here behind the bar was? Or Crokie over there and his pal, Thurman? Or me, for that matter?”
“Course I do,” the sheriff said, “I got my trails all covered, considering the robbers were all masked up. Weller was with me. Artie here was setting them up right where he is now. Crokie and Thurman were on the drive with Eggerman. And you, Mr. Barber, were working in the barbershop. You had a big day, from what I heard. You made some headway in that place already, but you’re falling short as an upstanding citizen, from where I see it. If you’re putting people in places where they weren’t, to explain yourself and your take on things, and throw dirt on my fire at the same time, it won’t cut it with me.”
Swenson had his palms up, a prelude to his questions. “You have a poster on Black Cat, sheriff? A drawing or picture of him? How will you know him to arrest him?”
The sheriff smiled again, a coy smile. “If we catch him in the act, or with some of them cat carvings, we got our man. It’s that easy.”
“Is that enough for you to put a rope around a man’s neck? You feel sure about that, without seeing him do what a plain old somebody said he did?”
“You sound like a damned lawyer, Mr. Barber.”
“What if those carved kitties were in your place if we searched it tonight?”
“But you all know me. I’m the sheriff. You know I won’t do something like that.”
“Won‘t or wouldn’t or didn’t?” Swenson leaned on the last part. “There’s a whole lot of difference if the rope’s dropping around your neck, wouldn’t you say so, sheriff? Won’t or wouldn’t or didn’t? Which one would you lean on first?”
The sheriff was visibly uneasy for the first time. “You got a ton of questions for a barber new in town. Don’t seem natural. Why’s that?”
John Weller, suddenly taller than he’d been in a week, said, “I told you there was something fishy about the new barber. He’s too damn smooth for just a barber.”
“My real name is Ed Pownel,” Swenson said. “They call me The Black Cat, and I work for the railroad. I got a paper here from the governor, saying I’m checking out this area for a new line, but we’re doing some other things for the governor at the same time, trying to find out the real lay of the land. What the law is like if things get busy here. Who’s ready for big changes.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “and who isn’t.”
He carried no expression on his face, but Weller and the sheriff did, looking oddly at each other
|
|
|
|
|
Send this story to a friend
|
|
|
|
|
