Drambuie Tam

Michael Andreoni

 

Drambuie Tam came down from the mountain with a powerful thirst. Astride a panther, she led a treasure horse between the water-hewn boulders that marked the nominal start to the mining town of Argent Springs. Crude store-fronts leaned on each other in shock at the dusty apparition swirling the expanse of red dirt jokingly known as “Main Street.” Scuttling men carried sacks with eyes averted, loading heavy wagons hitched to philosophic donkeys. Drambuie Tam spared them not a flicker as her claw-footed steed strutted toward the last ramshackle building on the street, jutting with wide-flung doors from the base of the mountain like a womb.

Every man in the Silver Lode looked to Ben Evans when the alarm was given. Head miner, the oldest man in town save for Old Dusty behind the bar, Ben was a cool head in emergencies. He had invented the insouciant drift toward the back door which preserved life and dignity and now they awaited his signal. Running for the door when Drambuie Tam hit town was frowned on because, they often reminded each other, “Durnit, she’s jist a woman!” For another thing, it was too dangerous for a bar full of large, panic-stricken men to go kicking and clawing to get out first, and to hell with everyone else. Casualties had a way of stacking up in the door-way, which only made easy pickings for Tam.

Seated at his favorite table, very much aware of the responsibility, Ben slowly leaned forward with his scarred hands braced against the matching wood. “Ah do believe two’s enough fo’ me.” He pushed himself up with a solemn grunt, a two-beer saint, and so believable in the role that everyone, even Powder River Charley, who seldom agreed with him on anything, was convinced that two, not twelve, was his daily limit.

“That’s Gud damn right for once, Ben,” Charley swore approvingly, pushing a half-full tin mug away and getting up. The other miners got up with him, some saying they’d had enough, others insisting the beer was worse than usual and what the hell was Old Dusty doing poisoning his customers? It was a shame, somebody muttered on the way out the back, that a hard-working guy couldn’t get an honest drink. The gray-haired man behind the bar watched them go with the expression of someone caught in his own trap.

Dusty tried to calm himself by checking the stock. Beer wasn’t the problem; he brewed his own from a concoction of loblolly pine bark and aspen leaves in an abandoned shaft under the mountain. Five barrels of questionable rye whiskey quickly became ten after a little spring water was factored in. The hissing snarl of a panther froze him for a moment. She was close now, probably tying up the horse. The panther was never tied, he knew too well, but left to sprawl in the red dirt and watch with green eyes full of lazy mischief. “Yer scairt like a rabbit smellin’ wolf,” Dusty barked at himself in disgust. “Old Dusty’s what they call ya and it’s ‘bout right; chock full of old dust. Now quit shakin’ an’ face it.”

“It” was the small cask stored in the back room with the mining supplies he sold as a sideline. Dusty slipped between the picks and shovels, dynamite, coiled rope, giving the liquid nitro- glycerin jugs a wide berth. He rocked the cask back and forth a few times with a foot while shaking his head doubtfully over the pitifully few drams of Drambuie on hand to appease her. “Won’t last her an hour,” he muttered, kicking the exotic looking wood in frustration. You could get almost anything from San Francisco by mule train in a few weeks, but Drambuie came only from Scotland, six months voyage around Cape Horn, all the way up the Pacific Ocean to the California coast.

Nobody but Tam would touch the stuff. Dusty himself hated the spicy sweetness of it; a terrible way to treat good Scotch whiskey to his mind. It wasn’t good business stocking what only a single customer wanted, except Tam was that customer, and supplying her needs was the only reason he’d lasted this long. Dusty had seen what happened when her blue eyes went all smoky on a miner. He figured age wouldn’t save him if they ever went smoky on him.

Footsteps on wooden planks startled him into action. He put the cask under an arm, picked his way quickly out of the room to the back of the bar and set the cask on its stand. A large glass tankard—the only non-metallic drinking vessel in the establishment— got a few swipes with the bar rag. Everything was now ready except for him and he never had been ready for Drambuie Tam. He cursed under his breath while putting on a welcoming smile.

Her hair was chestnut in the dim interior, though he knew it was red-gold under sunlight, and silky. So soft looking that some young fool of a miner full of payday whiskey had once remarked, within her hearing, that her hair must be the softest thing in the whole town. “Not as soft as yore head,” Ben Evans told the damned idiot before pulling him out the back door, unfortunately too late. Dusty remembered how the man looked, draped over Drambuie Tam’s horse, grinning like a prize pig as she led him out of town. It was always the younger men who were drawn to talk to her. Dusty and the older miners did what they could to protect them even if they didn’t always win.

How in hell does she do it? Dusty asked himself, not for the first time. He had to practically bend over the bar to get a good look at her. She couldn’t be five feet, though he’d sooner have chewed his own tongue off than ask. He’d seen them, strapping six-foot-plus miners, men who could carry off a hundred-pound sack of flour under each arm straight up the mountain. They stalked into the Silver Lode like tigers in their prime and he’d seen them leave on that treasure horse, weak as kittens.

They’d catch a man if they could, and he left them quickly, only to be captured further down. A leather jerkin set with multicolored gems won from the mountain sparkled at him, and Dusty was almost out of safe places to look. Tam always did herself up proud when she came to town.

He examined his boots. “Hullo, Tam. Strike any good color lately?” It was generally safest to start with that, for Tam was proud of her prospecting.

“Tolerable, Dusty.” She tossed a cloth sack on the bar after sliding onto a stool. “You gonna give a girl a drink? I’m plumb parched.”

“Looks like you done real good this month, Tam.” Dusty was eyeing the sack. He stooped behind the bar to bring up the scale.

“Hold it, Dusty. You pour me that drink first, hear?”

“Shore thang,” he agreed, relieved she could pay in silver. Dusty found it good business to stake the miners to a few drinks when their luck hadn’t been running, until they struck color again. He’d been rethinking that policy ever since Tam had asked, after one particularly unfruitful month: would he trade sweet for sweet? It still gave him the night shakes.

“Yep, real good month, looks like,” Dusty repeated, screwing a spigot into the cask. He drew a half-tankard of the amber colored liquor, set it on the bar with a little nod to Tam. “All the way ’cross two oceans.”

“Drinks gettin’ awful small in this town,” Tam grumbled after banging the empty tankard on the bar. “Afraid I can’t pay, Dusty? I reckon you better weigh my take, set your mind at ease.” Raspberry lips pouted. “Or maybe you don’t want my silver today. Maybe you want to ride that treasure horse after all.”

Dusty took a step back. “Now Tam, we done agreed on that a while back. I ain’t so young anymore; can’t be ridin’ no treasure horse up the mountain.”

Drambuie Tam’s gaze rested on him as she leaned forward to lick a drop off of the tankard lip with a little pink tongue. “Not so old is what I said then, and I still say . . . but if you don’t aim to ride you better start pourin’ big.”

“Shore thang, Tam.” Dusty grinned while he drew the tankard full to the brim. A secret little shake of the cask wiped the smile away for a moment, but it was back by the time he shoved the tankard in front of her.

“Now that’s a drink,” Drambuie Tam judged, and drained half of it in a few gulps.

Old Dusty kept on smiling.

Behind the Silver Lode, hidden under a canopy of rustling aspen, the displaced miners were sitting around waiting for Drambuie Tam to get her fill and ride out. There was grumbling as usual about the injustice of getting forced out again by “That durn woman” when the beer had been going down nice and easy. On this particular day, though, grumbling was secretly becoming full-blown revolution. Young Cletus Jenkins, tossing away the chunk of aspen wood he’d been whittling, jumped up to shock everyone by defiantly framing the debate in a loud voice: “Ah’m tired a-hidin’ from ’er when she’s in taown. What’s she want with stealin’ us away up the mountain anyhow?”

The men looked at each other in confusion, and it was surely a tricky situation because nobody could say for certain. Ben was of the opinion that Tam put the men to work on her own claim. Worked them to exhaustion mining the silver until they were ruined men, he maintained. Most everyone was ready to hitch their wagon to that explanation, except Powder River Charley shook his head obstinately. There were other ways a woman could work a man to exhaustion than swinging a pick, he muttered darkly, then refused to say any more when the younger men demanded to know what he meant. Charley let them make hash out of all the gossipy possibilities for a while before coming out with a story that froze them pale.

“You boys seen Caleb Smith ’round town? Know he used to hunt up on the mountain? Wall, he comes in the bar a while back, shakin’ like a leaf. Seems he’s trailin’ a grizzly deep in a pine thicket. He’s pickin’ his way through quiet-like, and comes out in this clearin’ where there’s a cabin he’s never seen. What’s more, a man’s sittin’ on a stump in front of the cabin, jist sittin’ there doin’ naught. So Caleb comes closer, and somethin’ ’bout the man says he seen him afore, and he recollects all a sudden it’s Jacob Green, used to be one of the best miners ’round, ’til he tole Drambuie Tam her hair looked soft one night. Last anyone seen him he was tied to that durn treasure horse, headed up the mountain.

“So Caleb goes right up to him, and Jacob’s makin’ this God awful noise like singin’ only it aint exactly singin’, more like hummin’, but jist scary an’ God awful, like I said. His eyes is closed, and he’s smilin’ like it’s a parade with free beer. ‘Jacob Green, wot the ’ell you doin’?’ Caleb asks ‘im. ‘Woll howdy Caleb,’ Jacob says when he opens his peepers. ‘Ah’m jist takin’ the sun and sayin’ howdy to all the little creatures.’ And he goes right back to hummin’.

“Right off, Caleb knows Jacob’s in a bad way. He’s got to do sumpin’ quick. ‘Jacob, come have a beer wit me,’ he says. ‘Jacob, there’s good color for the takin’ down the mountain. Don’t ya want ta git yore pick an’ go a-silverin’ again, see Dusty, and Ben, and Powder River Charley, all the guys?’ Jacob quits hummin’, looks Caleb in the eye. ‘Jist tell im’ Jacob Green’s happy,’ he says, and commences that racket again. Caleb’s debatin’ if he should take Jacob down the mountain in front of his gun, or maybe shoot ’im for his own good, when he hears a panther scream and he lights out of there directly. Nobody’s clapped eyes on Jacob Green since and nobody ever woll.”

Only wind-blown leaves disturbed an otherwise perfect silence when Charley finished. The miners’ jaws were slack with horror. Fists thrashed the air as frightened men aimed unconscious punches at nightmare fates. Ben Evans wore an expression normally reserved for mine cave-ins and other disasters. He squinted determinedly at his old adversary.

“Charley,” Ben cried, “Ah knows we ain’t agreed on much, but ah wants ya ta promise if you finds me sittin’ in the sun hummin’ you’ll put a bullet ’tween me peepers. Don’ hold back like Caleb done. Promise?”

Powder River Charley stood up, a bit unsteadily, but he made it. Tears shone on his weathered cheeks as he stumbled over to shake Ben’s hand. “Ah won’t hold back an instant, Ben, if ya promise ya won’t hold back on me.” The other miners were so impressed by this rare understanding that several more agreements pledging mutual destruction were struck. Only Cletus and a few of the younger men looked unconvinced.

Dusty’s smile was all that was left when the last drops from the cask had gone the way of the others. Tam banged the tankard down in front of him with an expectant stare. His grin directed somewhere over her left shoulder, Dusty knew his time had come. The most dangerous time was when she’d had just enough to wet her whistle. Dusty usually brought out another cask about now, pushed more and more Drambuie on her like the good barkeep he was, until Tam was barely able to stand. He’d help her outside, bravely stand his ground while she got settled on the growly panther, wave her out of town, and everyone was safe until next time. That was the way to handle Drambuie Tam.

Even as he was sifting his mind for a solution, the change came over her. Tam began darting sharp little glances around the empty bar as though prospecting for silver. Dusty knew where those blue eyes would come to rest if he wasn’t quick. He looked heaven-ward for a long second even if he’d never been much for church.

“It’s the durndest thing, Tam . . . but . . . I ain’t had my shipment yet . . . run low on Drambuie . . . plenty good whiskey an’ beer . . .”

Dusty stared at the cracked floor boards while mumbling on about bad trails and slow delivery, so he never did see how such a tiny woman got over the bar that quickly. One moment he was confidently predicting the imminent arrival of five casks of Drambuie and the next . . . well, his mind was muddled regarding the chain of events that unfolded. At some point he was aware of being pressed against the storeroom wall, a fragrance of wood smoke mixed with horse, Drambuie, and an undeniable floral note tickling his senses.

“Been waitin’ a long while, Dusty,” she breathed, her hands warm on his chest. “When the drink gives out it’s time to ride, is what I say.”

Dusty looked down into grey smoke dancing over mountain top sky. Maybe it was time. He smelled flowers; he felt . . . he didn’t know what he felt, but it wasn’t unpleasant. A man couldn’t spend his whole life in a bar, nothing but dirty miners swilling day after day, could he? Her lips were perfect. He suddenly wanted them more than a hundred-pound silver nugget. He wanted to see dark chestnut hair turn red-gold up on the mountain. Dusty’s legs went shaky under him; maybe it really was time.

The panther squalled beyond the open doors, sounding like an angry woman. Dusty shuddered, pulled away. Another snarl split the air. Mouth gaping, he gulped air like a fly-caught trout flopping for its life on a stream bank. Slumped against the storeroom wall, he struggled for words.

“Jist remembered.” He gasped another breath. “Got ’nother barrel out back. Ah’ll bring ’er.”

Dusty lurched away on tingly legs. Drambuie Tam watched with moist eyes as he disappeared into the storeroom. “Best be quick, Dusty,” she called after him softly. “I’m powerful thirsty.”

Cletus stood with clenched fists, staring down Powder River Charley.

“Who ah talk with don’t concern ya, Charley. Maybe ah wanna sit in the sun . . . an’ hum. Ya ever think a that?”

Charley could barely speak he was so angry. “Ya god-durned fool!” he spat, and couldn’t get anything else past his rage. Swallowing hard, he looked beseechingly to the man who commanded every miner’s respect.

Ben sat on a stump, studying both men. He’d been around, seen a few things in his time. On one hand it was clear young Cletus didn’t know the danger he was in. On the other, Ben had learned it was sometimes better for one man to be sacrificed if it saved the rest.

“Go ’head, boy. Go talk ta ’er.”

Powder River Charley turned his back and gazed up at the mountain as Cletus nodded once and walked slowly toward the back door of the bar.

“He were a good ’un,” Ben eulogized. The men bowed their heads.

Dusty checked the full tankard carefully. It was about the right color. He put his nose to the lip, yanked it back. It smelled awful, but then Dusty hated the odor of Drambuie as well, and he supposed, he hoped, Tam wasn’t inclined to smell it. He put the nitroglycerin jug down carefully before heading just as carefully for the bar. Years of listening to drunken miners arguing the merits of various explosives had given Dusty the notion that a tankards worth of nitro was enough to solve all his problems. It was unclear as to what would happen if Tam tried to drink it down, and whether he and/or the Silver Lode would be around afterward if it actually detonated. Dusty told himself he didn’t much care.

Drambuie Tam was seated back on the customer side of the bar when Dusty came out with the tankard cradled in both hands. He pushed it in front of her. “Plenty more where this come from. Drink up.”

Tam looked at him with hands folded on the bar top. Dusty noticed the nails were raspberry the same as her lips, wondered how long it had taken her to get ready for town. Something about that made him feel worse than he’d figured on. He looked past her, out through the open doors to the red dirt, wishing he could leave himself behind and just start walking. But a skunk was still a skunk wherever it went, Dusty knew, no matter how bad he wanted things different. Wishing wasn’t going to change him, or sell any beer.

Still watching him, Tam picked up the tankard. “Thought this might be our day,” she said in thoughtful tone. “Fine weather up on the mountain; gives a girl funny thoughts about how good things could be.” She raised the tankard to her lips, but paused. “You ever get any funny thoughts, Dusty?”

Dusty considered it for a moment. “Only kind ah got, lately,” he answered, watching the tankard.

Heavy footsteps made them jump. Turning quickly, Tam slopped a little over the top of the tankard. Dusty followed the drops down the glass onto the bar as though each one was a different destiny. Chest pounding, he looked up to scowl at whoever was fool enough to be walking into the Silver Lode just then.

Young Cletus filled the doorway tall and proud. The warning Dusty thought to shout came out as a rumbling of heavy rock groaning deep under the mountain. Ignoring him, Cletus stood looking at Drambuie Tam. The panther screamed loudly beyond the doors. Cletus showed no sign of hearing that either, but took a single deliberate step toward Tam. “Ah wants ta say . . . ah think yore hair’s softer ’en anythang.”

It seemed a dream to Dusty afterward . . . how Tam, eyes alight, slid from the stool, left him behind. She closed the distance to Cletus, put a hand on his arm. They turned together and Dusty was left with the receding tread of their boots on wooden planks, and himself, an old man behind a bar, caught in his own trap.

Powder River Charley never tired of telling the story of Drambuie Tam, especially how poor Cletus smiled as he rode up the mountain with her on “that durned panther.” The younger miners shook their heads and teased him about spouting such nonsense, even as they demanded more. What about the treasure horse, somebody was sure to ask, and Charley, knowing he had them just where he wanted, would take his sweet time. He’d call for another beer and make them wait until Old Ben, the barkeep, brought it. “Woll, that were the puzzle, sure ’nuff,” he’d begin, after an improving quaff from his mug.

He’d tell how Drambuie Tam left her treasure horse tied up in front of the Silver Lode, which was strange, but not the strangest part of the story. The next morning the horse was gone and the doors to the bar were shut tight for the first time anyone could remember. The thirsty miners broke the doors down after awhile, but Dusty was never found. Ben Evans took the bar over immediately and everyone drank one on him in honor of Old Dusty, wherever he was.

Some fresh-faced miner was always popping up to say it was all just a tale. How could a bunch of rough and tough miners be so afraid of a little woman, he’d challenge with a smirk. Charley would get angry then, slam his mug down on the table. The mountain was stranger than any fool could know, he’d declare, staring down the ignorant youngster, and just because Drambuie Tam hadn’t been in town for a while didn’t mean she wasn’t up there right now. All the older men would solemnly nod agreement. Charley liked to finish by pointing through the open doors, across the red dirt to where the land rose. When you heard the panther scream, he’d say, you’d know she was coming down from the mountain, and that she was thirsty. Drambuie Tam had a powerful thirst.

 

 

 

Michael Andreoni’s stories have appeared in Euphony, PIF, Iconoclast, Fogged Clarity, Thumbnail Magazine, and other publications. He lives near Ann Arbor, Michigan.