Ragtime Cowboys by Loren D. Estleman Page B

granted. All part of your education. How much do you know about phrenology?”
    â€œI learned just enough to break up a fortune-telling ring in Sausalito.”
    â€œIt’s science, not palmistry. I wouldn’t have been a detective without it.”
    â€œIt was just a paycheck to me.”
    â€œHow’d that work out?”
    Then, for no reason worth examination, both men broke into bunkhouse guffaws, ending in three minutes of coughing on Hammett’s part. While he was catching his breath, Siringo did the honors, emptying a Mason jar into their glasses, just enough to float the ice.

 
    8
    â€œHow’s your head?”
    â€œMy bump of regret’s pounding fit to bend my hat,” Siringo said. “How’s yours?”
    â€œNo complaints. The thing I don’t get about drys is how can a man wake up knowing that’s as good as he’s going to feel all day long. Did you remember to pack some hair-of-the-dog?”
    Siringo patted the new bedroll strapped behind the cantle of his hired saddle. Hammett grinned, excavated the flask from inside his whipcord coat, and helped himself to a swig. His companion shook his head when he offered it. “I’d go slow, too. No sense making things easier for this eel character.”
    â€œI think we’re safe this trip. I never heard where he had any equestrian leanings.”
    The proprietor of the livery, an elderly Chinese in traditional dress garnished with yellow rubber boots to his knees, had placed the money they gave him under his mandarin’s cap and brought out a dappled mare and a blue roan gelding for their inspection. Siringo checked both from teeth to fetlocks, pronounced them sound, and selected the mare for himself. The two detectives rode them to the Golden Gate ferry, paid the fare, and loaded them aboard. Leaning on the railing, they smoked and watched a luxury liner steaming north where the Pacific met the sky, pouring black smoke into the latter. Siringo had thought the Titanic would have put an end to all that, but folks were restless.
    â€œThey say they’re going to build a bridge across the bay,” Hammett said. “The bill’s in the legislature. That’ll make a cozy retirement for Clanahan and every other tinhorn politician in town.”
    â€œAin’t interested. Talk about something else.”
    â€œThat’ll be a challenge. I don’t go to church and I gave up baseball when Chicago threw the Series. I can’t impress you with my detective stories. Politics is all that’s left.”
    â€œI ain’t voted since Taft. When I saw what we got I figured I didn’t qualify to make that decision.” Siringo shifted his weight from one foot to the other. They’d only ridden a few blocks and already his backside was as sore as his head.
    â€œI cast my ballot for Debs.”
    â€œThere was a vote wasted. You can’t go from the hoosegow to the White House.”
    â€œIf Doheny gets his way it may go the other way around.”
    â€œBetter a crook than a radical, I say.”
    â€œThey jailed Debs for speaking out against the Espionage Act. Wilson was using it to open his opponents’ mail. If that makes Debs a radical, what was Thomas Jefferson?”
    â€œChange the subject before we end up drawing down on each other.”
    Hammett coughed and spat over the railing. “What’s this lie you called Earp out on?”
    â€œAncient history.”
    â€œOh. A gentleman.”
    Siringo chuckled around the stem of his pipe. “That’s one accusation nobody never made before. I don’t own a stick and I’d rather cut my throat than put on a stiff collar.”
    â€œPrettiest man I ever saw in a dinner jacket cut up his wife and shipped her to Boston in a trunk. It isn’t a question of dress.”
    Siringo had on the new Stetson he’d bought with Earp’s money to replace his disreputable old one, his canvas