Chapter 43
Mayfield boarded the big, white horse at the livery and walked the streets of Leadville.
He hated this town. Its noise and commotion and teeming wickedness.
With its promise of quick money, Leadville led most folks to ruin.
To Mayfield, the whole place felt like a warning to the West and the nation as a whole.
The West was evolving quickly. The same could be said for the whole nation, especially as industrialization rose in the East, but the East already understood progress and wealth, and it would be stabilized against outsized change by its institutions and corruption and massive population.
Once a society was large and complicated enough, it could benefit only so much by increased productivity and revenue.
The wealthy would grow richer, the corrupt would grow more powerful…
and the working man? He would carry on, as he always carried on, sacrificing his time and health and ultimately his life for something to eat and the chance to marry and have children. That was it.
But in the West, things had been different.
Or at least it seemed like they might be different.
Different and better.
And in some stretches, the West was better. Of course, Mayfield rarely visited these places. There was no call for him in quiet regions where people treated each other with respect.
Places like Leadville, places where money flowed, vice thrived, and blood ran in the streets… these were his stomping grounds.
He just wished the West would pay attention to places like Leadville, put two and two together, and wipe them from the map.
As he walked along, he was unsurprised to see the town’s many saloons, gambling houses, and bordellos open and running at full capacity despite the state’s law against such establishments operating on Sundays.
People here didn’t care about the law. They cared about silver and alcohol, gambling and sporting girls.
None of which interested Mayfield in the least. Like money, these things held no power over him.
He cared only for the law and specifically, for enforcing the law and taking bad men out of circulation, alive if he must, dead if he had his way.
Somewhere here in this godforsaken town, Toole and his cronies were celebrating the murder of Conn Sullivan and Bill Sheffield.
Mayfield went from place to place, looking for them, starting with the saloons. People looked at him, saw the badge, and elbowed each other.
Some, no doubt, recognized him.
Even those who did not recognize him understood he was a U.S. Marshal.
And that meant real law.
Their reaction provided a degree of satisfaction. It meant U.S. Marshals still had a good name here, a name that invoked wary respect.
Mayfield cared about that.
Up and down the streets he went, visiting every saloon he encountered, but there was no sign of Toole or his men.
At less crowded saloons, he asked bartenders if they’d seen anyone fitting the description of Toole or the others, but he came up empty again and again.
That was all right.
He was nothing if not patient.
He would continue his survey. Then, if he uncovered nothing, he would find clean lodging, eat at one of Leadville’s fine restaurants, retire early, and begin again in the morning.
Never hurry, never worry.
Sooner or later, Toole would try something outrageous. And then Mayfield would have him.
It wasn’t a question of if. It was a question of when.
The marshal continued on his inexorable way.
He hesitated only once, while scanning a saloon. He felt someone looking at him and turned just as the man ducked out of the establishment and onto the street, which had grown crowded with merrymakers.
Mayfield’s intuition prickled.
He stepped in that direction, certain the man had recognized him and bolted to avoid contact.
He followed out of curiosity, knowing, even though he’d only seen the man from behind, that it couldn’t have been one of Toole’s gang. Whoever he was, he’d been far too tall for anyone in Toole’s gang.
He was likely just a miner, because he was hatless and filthy.
By the time Mayfield had pushed through the crowd and crossed the room and stepped out onto the street, there was no sign of the tall man.
Which was understandable, given the time it had taken and the big crowd out there.
Less understandable was the feeling that lingered, the sense that he’d missed something important, something significant.
Honestly, just for a second, the man had reminded him of Conn Sullivan.
Of course, that was impossible, because Conn Sullivan was dead and buried, sixty miles south of here in what had been the Sierra Perdida Mine.