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She had noticed his limp when he came into the parlor. “You lookin’ to
work in the mines?”
Bell tapped a hand against his leg. “My mining days ended when I was injured by a badly laid stick of dynamite.”
She eyed him suspiciously, beginning to wonder where any future rent was going to come from. “Where do you expect to find a job?”
“A friend found me work as a cleanup man at the New Sheridan Hotel.”
She smiled. “They couldn’t find you a room in the basement?”
“All beds in the basement were taken by miners,” Bell lied. He had no idea if miners slept in the basement.
The impression of a crippled miner, he knew, would satisfy Mamie Tubbs enough so she wouldn’t gossip around town about her new boarder. She showed him to his room, where he unpacked his valise. He removed a towel wrapped around a Colt Browning model 1905 .45 caliber automatic pistol with a custom twenty-shot magazine and shoulder stock that fit in a slot behind the grip. He slipped the weapon under the bed but kept his trusty Remington derringer inside his Stetson. He retightened the wrapping around his knee so it hindered normal movement.
After a beef stew dinner in Mamie’s dining room, he met the other people who were staying at the boardinghouse. Most were miners, but there were a few store clerks, and a husband and wife who were opening a restaurant. After dinner, Bell strolled up Pacific Avenue and studied the layout of the town.
Telluride—the name supposedly came from the saying “to hell you ride”—was launched after gold was discovered in the San Miguel River. The gold, along with silver-bearing ore, found high in the San Juan Mountains, quickly attracted an army of prospectors and miners over the next fifty years. By 1906, more millionaires per capita lived in Telluride than in New York City.
The miners eventually dug three hundred fifty miles of tunnels that honeycombed the surrounding mountains, some as high as twelve thousand feet above sea level. The population soared to over five thousand, and the rip-roaring town soon overflowed with wild and crazy living mixed with a healthy dose of corruption. There were three dozen saloons and one hundred eighty prostitutes to keep the army of miners in a good mood after long twelve-hour shifts in the Silver Bell, Smuggler-Union, and Liberty Bell mines at three dollars a day.
When the sun dropped behind the mountains and darkness came, a blaze of lights flashed on up and down the streets. In 1892, mine owner L. L. Nunn had hired the electrical wizard Nikola Tesla to build the world’s first alternating-current power plant to move ore on cables down the mountain and miners up from town. After running lines from the power plant into town, Telluride became the first town in history to have electric streetlamps.
Bell walked past the notorious cribs where the scarlet women plied their trade. The upper-class houses were called the Senate and the Silver Belle. Music could be heard through the windows out on the street as a piano player pounded out the “Dill Pickles Rag” and other ragtime tunes. The street was called Popcorn Alley, its name coming from the constant opening and closing of doors all night.
He moved up to the main section of town on Colorado Avenue and looked through the windows of the Telluride First National Bank. Tomorrow, he would meet with the town sheriff and the bank manager to plan a reception for the Butcher Bandit, should he swallow the bait and make an attempt to rob the bank. He passed the old San Miguel Valley Bank that Butch Cassidy had robbed seventeen years previously.
The evening air had turned cold, once the sun took its heat beyond the mountain peaks. Bell noticed that the nine-thousand-foot altitude caused him to take deeper breaths. He ignored the main street saloons and headed for the New Sheridan Hotel.
Bell stepped inside the lobby and asked the desk clerk to see the manager. In a minute, a short man with a florid face and bald head came out of the office with quick, hurried steps, like a mouse running from a hole in the wall. He smiled an official smile, but not too warmly, as he sized up Bell’s rather dowdy appearance.
“I’m sorry, all our rooms are taken. The Sheridan is full up.”
“I don’t want a room,” said Bell. “Are you Mr. Marshall Buckman?”
The smile straightened and the eyes narrowed. “Yes, I’m Buckman.”
“I’m Isaac Bell with the Van Dorn Detective Agency.”
Buckman eye’s widened again and he bowed. “Mr. Bell. I received your telegram. Permit me to say the Sheridan will cooperate in every way.”
“The most important thing,” explained Bell, “is to confirm to anyone who asks that I work here as a janitor.”
“Yes, of course,” Buckman said in a patronizing manner. “You can count on me.”
“Thank you, Mr. Buckman. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I will enjoy the best whiskey in your bar.”
“We serve only superior whiskey from the finest distillers. No local rotgut is tolerated at the Sheridan.”
Bell nodded and then turned his back on Buckman and stepped toward the bar. He paused and read a plaque listing rules for the hotel patrons.
Don’t shoot the pianist, he’s doing his damndest.
No horses above the first floor.
No more than 5 in a bed.
Funerals on the house.
