Redemption's Blood

by Chris G R Webb

  Thud…

  The door crashes open as if butted by a ram, Hawker and Penny are startled, Penny from surprise, Hawker's shock is quickly chased to fear. Was the ogre in his doorway, silhouetted by the sinking sun, sent by Penny’s Father?

  Did Abraham not approve of his intent upon his daughter?

  Did Penny say something?

  The stirring that arose quickly buried itself under the folds of self-doubt and self-preservation.

  “Si-sir… can I… we…. help you?” Penny had never seen Mr. Rawlings stumble so much over his words, only when the Colonel was around.

  Jensen doesn’t answer, though locked in a grim exterior, he is impressed with the office. It smelt nice, and as his strides carried his mass to the desk, the carpet under feet cushioned; like the sponge dirt in a swamp.

  Both Hawker and Penny stare up to Jensen, Jensen reaches inside his jacket, Hawker flinches. As Jensen pulls out a piece of ragged parchment, stained and worn.

  “This here is deeds to my farm.”

  Hawker relaxes, he knows who the person is. “Mister Hills?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I know you’se being wanting and what-not… so here it is.”

  Jensen gently hands over the deeds. Hawker examines them.

  “They’re in order. It’s a sound decision Mister Hills, very sound, as for payment, we can arrange a cashier’s cheque within twenty-one days.”

  Jensen looks perturbed. Hawker quickly counters.

  “Though I’m sure we can forward some dollars to you, as a sign of good faith.”

  Jensen is quiet.

  Hawker grabs a pencil and paper from the desk and jots down his inner workings.

  "Thirty dollars will keep you in bed and board for a week."

  Hawker glances to Jensen, who’s stony silent.

  “While the generous offer of the Colonel, of four dollars thirty cents an acre plus two hundred dollars for your… Eh… Shack? Will amount to eight hundred and thirty-three dollars, seventy-seven cents, by the end of the month… You won’t get a better offer.”

  Jensen isn’t listening. Hawker continues. Jensen’s holds a serious look.

  “How much do you have in you’s safe?”

  Hawker's initial instinct is to raise his hands in the air as if being robbed. He then realizes that this gunless oaf in front of him wants cash quick and is prepared to make a deal.

  21

  THERE WERE FEW OPIUM EATERS left in the den. The thin veil of smoke was confined to a small spread across the ceiling. Business doesn't usually pick up till later.

  Chyou Chen was gliding between pipes, ensuring that all was ready before the hoard of dreamers came knocking.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  Rattled the front door, Chyou kicked of suspicion; she knew Beau Dunston tolerated their presence, is today the day they ask her to leave?

  Chyou accepted the inevitable; she would simply have to move on, adding to the countless moves she’s made before.

  She opens the door, the idea of Dunston rough-housing them out of town was more reasonable than what she was exposed to right now.

  Jensen, his large bulk fitting into fine clothes; more functional than smart. All the same, there are no stains, hems that need fixing, or holes for darning. A new shirt, with elegantly stitched yoke with decorative piping. A softened buck skin jacket, denim trousers, all housed in a Duster jacket of linen and boiled linseed oil for waterproofing. Jensen is also clean shaven and smooth, almost respectable, nearly handsome. Jensen stares thoughtfully, nervously waiting for a response.

  “Sorry, do I know you?” Chyou breaks the moment with a joke, she sweetly smiles.

  "Lo-Lotus… It's Jensen… Hills?”

  Chyou, gently humoured, takes Jensen's arm and guides him into the den. Jensen breathes the luscious flavour of seared poppy tears. Chyou's fingers slides down from Jensen's arm to his hand. Jensen feels a churning in his stomach, the same churning as the first burning of opium. He hasn't felt this since… Since… Her, and that was seasons past.

  “So, you’ve come to say goodbye?” Chyou words jolt Jensen. Jensen’s surprised she knows.

  “Please, Jensen, I’m no child. I am a Hakka Han, displaced by the Taiping Rebellion; my country’s own civil war. I lived in peace by the Yellow River, to become the Yellow Peril of your land. My eyes have been made open to many things..."

  Jensen stares into those soft almond eyes, framed by soft, velvet skin. He realises that everyone carries with them the pain of life. Some, he decides, bear the pain, some inflict it. Jensen's gaze slips to the floor, he knows both, and maybe his kind had also caused her pain.

  “So Mister Jensen. Where will you go?”

  "I'll know when I get there."

  “I’m sure they’ll know as well…” Chyou seems to know Jensen better than he expected. “You’re a man who needs purpose. It seems you’ve found one. So you’ll need supplies?”

  “No…” Jensen softens “I’ve come to see you.”

  Chyou passes Jensen a finely rolled smoke. He accepts it helps settle his nerves. She strokes the skin that's been buried under his thick wool of beard for so long.

  “Your face, so smooth.”

  Jensen feels as if the sun was blazing down upon his chest, as this small, lithe Chinese woman strokes his face.

  “I… It’s been a long time since…”

  “I know.” Chyou knows intimacy is something Jensen hasn’t searched for in a long time.

  Jensen tries to explain himself. "I have to leave; I got this gnawing in my belly… I got's ta-do what's right… While I can."

  Chyou breaks the boundaries, she tip-toes up and gently pulls at Jensen’s duster, until his craning allows her lips to tenderly pillow against his. Jensen is nervy, yet willing.

  "It's okay; it's okay." She whispers. She takes his hand and leads him upstairs.

  Hawker Rawlings Jr sits patiently in the Municipal Bank's waiting room. He should be excited, yet the glare of Dunston's right-hand man, Daniels, has him verging on cold sweats.

  Hawker hadn't been in fist-fight since Sunday school; he's never been in a gun fight, he had always concentrated on what he was good at, thinking. Daniels was an anomaly in Hawker’s world, a man without thought, a man of deed, who is told what to do and does it. Hawker had heard how the Colonel and Daniels had slaughtered Indians; there was even a tale of how Dunston had taken a squaw bride. Hawker looks to Daniel's low strung Colt Armies, and the bulge under his waist coat, no doubt another pistol. A thought strikes him. The Colonel is your thinking man's Daniels. A man of deed and of thought.

  A beautiful, long legged woman leaves the Colonel's office; she turns to Hawker on the way.

  “He’ll see you now, Mister Rawlings.”

  Beau Dunston’s thumb lightly packs his pipe, while Hawker waits patiently. Dunston indicates for him to sit, Hawker does. The flame of a match teases the tinder of tobacco as Dunston sups breath through the pipe, after a moment the tinder burns.

  Hawker gazes around Dunston's office, the carpet is an exotic tapestry from a far off land, dark wooden paneling, an exquisite yet modestly sized chandelier hangs in the room’s center. There's a painting of Dunston himself, a plantation, and a photo of Keystone mine. On the wall is a map of Dunston, with a line where the imagined railway will run through.

  The first satisfying smoke fills Dunston's lungs; he's ready to begin.

  “So Mister Rawlings, to what do I owe this pleasure… have you had any further progress on Keystone?”

  “I’m still working on that sir, if they go into debt, Mister Devon’s side of the business will become yours. I’m not here about that, Colonel.”

  Dunston nods, waits and gestures – well?

  “It’s Jensen Hills, sir.” Dunston shakes his head in response. “No, sir, I have some good news.” Dunston sits upright. “We originally offered four dollars thirty cents an acre plus two hundred dollars for the property amounting to eight hundred and thirty-three dollar
s, seventy-seven cents… Or there abouts… Obviously, that transaction would have taken the prerequisite of twenty-one days to complete an-"

  “-Rawlings, get on with it.” Dunston’s impatient.

  “Well, Colonel, sir. He accepted the one hundred and thirty dollars from the safe, the ten dollars and twenty-five cents from my purse, and the two dollars from Miss Penny’s purse as payment.”

  “What?”

  “Mister Hills took one hundred and forty dollars, twenty-five cents as payment.”

  Dunston looks to the map of Dunston Town; he now can have the railroad build its metallic canals across Jensen's land to Dunston. Dunston doesn't hear what Hawker is going on about as he guides him out the room, years of work are coming to fruition.

  Beau Dunston is unsure what these emotions he feels are, but he needs to experience them alone.

  22

  JENSEN HADN’T SLEPT so deep since he can't remember. His mind wraps around Lotus, how her lithe, petite frame was cupped by his. They spent the night together, in her small room above the opium den. They joined in a tender release, then they smoked on the poppy and slept. Lotus asked him why he was going, he spoke about William Grace and how he died, how nothing was being done for retribution. She then asked Jensen why he was doing this? Jensen confused by the question.

  “Cause, it’s the right thing to do.”

  She understood. Lotus wasn’t bitter or angry. She just said to Jensen.

  “I hope you find your retribution.”

  Jensen didn’t quite catch the meaning, and when he said he’d come back when it is all done, she simply smiled. She gave him opium resign for the journey, in a small jade necklace, which he promised to return.

  As Jensen crossed the morning’s dusted street, he turns back to look at the opium den and up to Chyou Chen’s window. Chyou is looking out from behind her veiled window at Jensen.

  She sees him looking up; she moves as if to remove the veil to wave goodbye, she doesn't. She waits. Jensen finally turns away and keeps on walking; he's headed to the gun store. Chyou sits on her bed, her hand strokes the buckled mattress from his mass, she ponders upon a future she knows will never materialise, and it makes her smile.

  Cranley Crawford was a man of routine, he stoved his breakfast of eggs, bacon and had his coffee. He made his way downstairs into his shop store. Cranley, spindly yet spritely and youthful, with three scores and a dozen years under his belt, has seen his fair share of history. Family and friends dying, wars from foreign contingents. Though through it all he’s noticed what’s changed more than most, not men, or their attitude to other men, or women, not the land, but guns. Man has a knack of a way of making better weapons for killing than just about anything.

  Cranley stands in the middle of his store: rifles, pistols, flintlocks, single shot, shotguns, ammunition, belts, tools, and oil to ensure they all work in the field. Cranley's routine normally consists of dusting down the displays, ensuring each and every mechanism was fluid and firm. This morning was different; there was a person at the door, he opened to a fellow; cleanly shaven and dressed in fine, functional clothes. The first thing Cranley noticed is this fella doesn't have any guns on him, though he stands with a pistoleer swagger. The stranger tears into a wad of tobacco, and turns to Cranley.

  “You’se open for business?”

  Cranley swings the sign on his door to ‘open’ and gestures to it. Jensen takes one last glance at the opium den and enters. Cranley too glances to the opium den before following.

  The Colt Navy is over a foot long of iron, yet two dance and spin in Jensen's hand, cradled, cared for and understood. Cranley puts his glasses on and pushes it up his nose. He looks at Jensen; this bulky man should be ungainly, slow. But he ain’t.

  “You obviously been handing iron before, son.”

  Thump - Jensen drops one. He bends and picks it up, flips the pistols, so the grips point towards Cranley.

  “Sorry, it’s been a while.”

  Cranley checks the gun, “It’ll be fine, it’s a Navy. But you don’t want those precision pistols. The cartridge is the way to go.”

  “I hears they've bought out some contraption where a man no longer needs to cock his own hammer," Jensen says.

  “Double action” Cranley looks dubious. “Yeah a few of the youngsters have ‘em, but I say, if your gun was meant to be loading the hammer isself, then why did God give us thumbs?”

  Jensen nods in agreement, as Cranley passes him a different pistol.

  “Here’sa Colt .45, the peacemaker. Been around for five years.”

  This Colt had a little less iron to it, shorter in length, perhaps better on the draw.

  Jensen looks down the lines. He nods reassured in its potential to get a job done. He hands it back to Cranley.

  “It’s called the Peacemaker, cause if that Colt round hits somethin’ it’s gonna make pieces of it.”

  “Any good?” Jensen asks.

  “Well it’s all about feel, you know, you might not like my woman, but I do.” Cranley holds a Smith & Wesson Model 3, along its body, are fine carvings. "This is a Smith an' Wesson .45, embellished by Gustaf Young.”

  “I ain’t buying a pistol on the pretty.”

  “It’s more than pretty, son. A top break system,” Cranley pivots the pistol in half, showing the six chambers for loading, with a flowered prong raising up the further the pistol opened. “That extractor takes the empty cartridges out… saves time on the loading.”

  Jensen is impressed.

  “I’ve got the Russian model too, it’s shorter of the barrel, and the Scholfield” Cranley enthused.

  Jensen checks the weight of the Schofield Model 3, Cranley keeps going.

  “Used by Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack and the like.”

  "I guessing you need quickened chambering if you're gonna keep missin'."

  "Speed helps," Cranley responds.

  Jensen palms the Colt .45 he flips it.

  “I prefer a slow mind to quick hands.” Cranley ponders on Jensen’s words. “Makes aiming easier.”

  Jensen flips the Colt, and draws it as if coming out a holster; he practices a couple of times

  “I’ll be needing something to be holding one high, under the shoulder, two on each hip. One in the small of the back.”

  Cranley takes his spectacles off. “Four pistols?”

  Jensen nods.

  “What’s your size?”

  Jensen without thinking, as if he remembered himself from a different era.

  “Medium.”

  Both Jensen and Cranley gaze at Jensen’s ample girth. Jensen continues.

  “What’s up from medium?”

  Jensen is buckled up, with a Cheyenne holster of recently rubbed sandalwood, flexible and creaked to the bend. A rawhide strap looped through the holster and around his leg, another in the nape of his back and one under his shoulder. Each holster has a pistol in, Jensen wears it like a second skin. In turn, he reaches for each, with a snap of iron on leather, he draws them with ease.

  Jensen's gazes around the store at the ammo, and the rifles, his eyes settle upon a Winchester 73. Cranley instinctively passes it to him. Jensen nods in thanks and shoulders the rifle.

  “Winchester 73. That’s nearly 50 inches of precision machinery. A fifteen-round tube, lever action, .44-40, centrefire cartridge. We have the Winchester 76 also.”

  Cranley points to another rifle; it's larger, heavier. Jensen chuckles.

  “I ain’t hunting grizzly.” Jensen taps his finger across the Winchester 73’s stock. “It’s a thing of beauty, that’s for sure, old man.” Jensen tests the lever, a buttery smooth action. “I don’t plan on carrying round one cartridge for me pistols, ‘other for me rifle.”

  Cranley winks and smiles.

  “I saw you took a liken to those Colts, well they’se seen to it that the Colt Army Frontiers has matching calibers.”

  Jensen takes the Frontiers and weighs it. Cranley is curious.

  “Sorry, son. I s
ee lots of folks coming through here, ol’ Cranley can kind o’ tell a man’s or woman’s needs when it comes to arms. But you… Do I know you’se from somewhere?”

  Jensen brings out a wad of bills; he's ready to move on.

  “Cranley, I’m just a farmer that needs to track down a few wolves. That reminds me, I need a Jim Bowie knife. I got a wolf caged an’ I plan on taking its pelt.”

  Jensen heads to the store, for tobacco, supplies, water pouches. At the corral, he spends the last of his money on a mule to accompany his large roan and feed for them both.

  23

  SHERIFF GILL TUNSTALL leans back in his chair, boots off, feet up on his desk. He has a precision Colt Navy in hand, a gun common in the civil war. He'd nearly been in a gunfight once, but thankfully Sheriff McCoy talked the hoodlums down. Gill chews his lip in focus, tries spinning the pistol on his trigger finger. It loops, and he catches it in his hand.

  Loop, and again. Loop… Crash - It hits the slatted floor. Tunstall looks around; he tries to reach for the Colt from his chair, his fingers glance its body. He stretches and twists, determined not to get out or up from his position. Tunstall cranes his neck and just manages to loop his finger in the trigger guard and pick it up.

  “There-”

  Tunstall freezes and slowly raises his hand. A gaping gun muzzle, from a Colt Frontiers, is waving in his face.

  Tunstall was handcuffed once before, as a joke by the other deputies. It wasn’t funny then, and it sure as hellfire isn’t funny now. Jensen has Tunstall handcuffed to his desk, arms stretched out, and in a prone position.

  “He’s got “friends” that Winston…” Tunstall tries to warn the crazy old man.

  Jensen grabs a dirty cloth and goes to shove it in the sheriff's mouth. Tunstall manages to get some words out before his tongue tastes dirty, covered linen.