Felicia Andrews

by Moonwitch

  "Don't mind at all, " said Harley, though doubt was all too clear in his voice. "Are you sure you don't want me hangin' around, though?"

  "Wouldn't think of it," Wilcox said cheerfully. "I ain't going to be much of a host for your last days, but that shouldn't spoil them for you, isn't that right? I knew you'd see it my way. I expect you know how to get back on your own by now. " And again, without waiting for either of them to respond, he spun around on his heel and disappeared back into the workers.

  Amanda took a deep breath and blew it out loudly. "The man makes me tired just listening to him . "

  "He's goin' to kill himself, he's not careful," Harley grumbled.

  "But he's going to be all right, isn't he?" she asked as he turned her around and they began walking back toward the horses.

  "I don't know, " he answered. "He talks a good thing, but I doubt he has as much in reserve as he says. Coin' to take years to rebuild. Customers, they don't get what they w1mt here, they go some where else. You know that. We have a bad year back at the ranch, we lose to someone else. Will's the same. He's goin' to kill himself with disappointment. "

  Amanda said nothing. She only knew that she recognized in Wilcox a glimmering of herself, of the determination that nothing on earth was going to stop him from rescuing his life from oblivion.

  She knew, too, it was a lonely path to take.

  Once mounted, then, they wheeled around and began to thread their way through the carriages, trolleys, buckboards, and foot traffic that jammed the city's center. The pathetic sight of Wilcox picking through the rubble of his business had tempered her earlier ebullience, and she had to concentrate willfully on the promise of the evening to come so that she did not suddenly decide that her enjoyment would be inappropriate to the sorrows of the Wilcox household.

  As they moved past the foot of what she now thought of as Trevor's hill, she eased her mount closer to Harley's and pointed at the one-legged man still performing on the corner. She had to lean virtually into his shoulder to make herself heard over the racket filling the intersection and grinned when Peterson could not help gaping openly at the ornate peg. He slowed to look more closely, and Amanda, sawing hard on the reins to keep her horse from following the traffic's drift up the hill, let her gaze swing idly over the heads of the people below her.

  Without warning, then, she felt as if she were encased in a block of slow-melting ice.

  "Harley!" she shouted, nearly screaming.

  His right hand slapped instantly to his thigh where, in Wyoming, his holster would have been. His eyes narrowed, and he quickly examined the faces of those nearest him.

  "What?"

  Her right arm snapped rigid, her forefinger extended like a dagger as she jabbed at the air. "There! There! That man in the red shirt and black hat. Do you see him?"

  She did not wait for a reply; she tried to spur her mount into a run but there was simply too much crowding, and the best she could do was a near sideways plowing that provoked a loud chorus of halfhearted swearing from a group of ill-dressed men heading west toward the docks. One of them placed a restraining hand on her leg, and she lashed out at him, catching him weakly in the chest and spilling him backward.

  Harley, elbows out and scowl fierce on his countenance, followed gamely in her wake. "Damn it," he shouted to her, "what's going on?"

  "Last night!"' she called over her shoulder and pointed again.

  There was no more to be said. She rose in her stirrups with one fist punching in frustration at the air before her just as the object of her pursuit turned and saw her. He froze, his eyes flickering from Amanda to Peterson and back again, narrowing with surprise, hatred, and not a small trace of fear. And just as Amanda broke free of the impasse and into the upward flow of traffic, he shoved a large woman in hoopskirts to one side and broke into a dead run.

  "Harley!" Amanda yelled, oblivious to the stares she was producing.

  The red-shirted man reached the comer with ease and vanished around it, grabbing as he did the prow of a green and black pushcart and pushing downward, upsetting the two-wheeled conveyance's delicate balance and spilling its load of fruit into the street. Immediately, as though it were a signal, seemingly hundreds of women and ragged children dived toward the cobblestones and the bonanza of oranges, dates, lemons, and figs that tumbled like a rainbow under wheels and hooves. The merchant-an aged Chinese whose billowing black shirt and baggy white trousers were soiled and tattered-shrieked imprecations at the crowd, the sky, the vanishing back of the red-shirted man while, at the same time, he battled with sandaled feet and knobby fists to keep the growing mob from plucking what remained of his wares from the cart.

  Amanda plunged wide of the melee as her horse's eyes rolled wildly, then she jabbed her heels into its flanks. It hesitated, then bolted through the laughing, shouting hordes until it was free and pounding down the street with Amanda bent low over its neck to cut the wind, leaning far to her right to keep her eye on the man as he dashed openly through the marketplace. She cried out for people to stop him, but no one paid her any attention; she searched frantically for Harley, but the crush was too great and she lost sight of his red hair. She punched at her leg in frustration, wishing that she had a weapon, any weapon, that she could use to slow the man down.

  A draught wagon, its barrels of ale piled precariously high, wheeled in front of her, and she had to cut to her left to avoid being thrown.

  A parade of landaus occupied by men in dark suits and top hats, women in full stiff skirts and feathered bonnets, blocked one intersection temporarily, and Amanda wasted no time in yanking at the reins to run her mount over the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians to doorways and the gutters.

  And still the man ran, ducking around pavement displays, breaking through groups of strollers and shoppers without apology, and finally, with one frantic glance over his shoulder, cutting around a comer and plunging downhill again. Amanda reached that spot high in her stirrups and saw him dart in front of a trolley and carry his flight into the mouth of a narrow alley on the other side of the avenue between two taverns.

  She did not hesitate at all, but plummeted down the street, swerved around a pair of coopers' wagons, and pulled her legs tight against the horse's sides as she followed her man. Hooves echoed off the grimy walls like gunshots. Dark shapes scuttled out of her way and hid behind mounds of garbage. Oddly, then, the alley came to a T, and she had to make a rapid decision; she sawed on the reins and turned to the left. She could barely see now-the light was cut by deepening clouds and the looming wood and stone structures that seemed intent on closing in on her and crushing her. She shivered, squinting in hope of catching a glimpse of the red shirt, but there was nothing she could do now but continue as fast as she dared and find her way out of this carvernlike warren.

  And finally the alley opened onto a narrow, filth-encrusted street which she thought ran north to south. Most of the shops she could see were boarded up or burned out, and those that were still in operation were dingy and disreputable.

  The traffic here was primarily pedestrian, men and women in shabby clothes, gray faces bent against the sudden tunnel wind that tore through the debris and puddles on the cobblestones and carried with it the lash of cold rain. Light was now restricted to the infrequent lamppost whose amber globe had not been shattered, and to gaslight feebly drifting from tavern doors and second- and third-story windows. She looked behind her anxiously but saw no sign of Peterson. It was then that she felt most keenly the absence of a weapon, and she nudged her mount into a slow, hurried trot as she sought for a way to get back to the city's heart.

  The rain began falling more heavily, and the tart scent of salt filled the air.

  She passed bedraggled mongrels rooting in the gutters for whatever scraps they could find; she swerved uneasily around rib-thin horses pulling buckboards and carts laden with crates, barrels, and piles of what looked to her to be useless junk.

  She kept her shoulders hunched and her head down, partly to hid
e her womanhood and her fear, partly to drive out the voice of this portion of San Francisco, a voice whose words were dipped in anger, in exasperation, in hatred of those who lived on the slopes of the hills overlooking them, who sneered down at them.

  The red-shirted man was gone.

  Her nose wrinkled at the sharp, distasteful odors and noises that assailed her; the flesh along her back crawled as she imagined the stares that followed her progress through the gloom. When a scabby hand fumbled for her boot, she kicked it away without a sound. She felt somehow soiled, then, and despite the rain wiped at her face with her sleeve, spitting dryly to one side in hopes that the sudden sour taste that filled her mouth would vanish.

  She felt as though she were lost, and would be forever, even though she knew that she need only find an interesecting street to the right and she would be clear to fight her way back to what her mind sardonically called civilization.

  This street and its squalor and hopelessness brought her thoughts once again back to Natchez-Under-the Hill, and to the stark, almost pristine contrast that her beloved Wyoming provoked. While she had seen Indians and poor whites living in similar conditions on reservations and in the less-publicized sections of Cheyenne and Casper, the fact that they were not so enclosed made their plight seem somehow relative, almost temporary. Here, however, the iron band of permanence had evidently been tightened around whatever dreams these people had left to them; and as the rain slackened abruptly to a foglike drizzle, she found herself believing that she would never again return to the daylight world of Trevor Eagleton and Four Aces.

  She almost wept. She had to forcibly wrench her thoughts out of the despair such a place engendered and stare hard at each gap in the buildings for hints of escape.

  And then she saw him. He was standing with his back to her in the middle of the street, his hands in his pockets, his bare head tilted back to look into the mud-colored eyes of a giant of a man talking down at him. The mottled scalp, the wisps of gray behind the ears, the elongated arms--she felt dizzy and swayed slightly in her saddle, had to grip the horn tightly to keep from falling into the street.

  It was Simon Maitland. There was no question about it.

  Her first reaction was one of total and absolute terror, one that transmitted itself to her mount, who suddenly reared and nearly tossed her over his haunches. Her second was a need to escape, to run from the images that filled her mind with burgeoning nightmares. But before she could act, she found that she had nearly drawn abreast of the two men, and the larger had shifted his gaze to her face.

  He grinned.

  Amanda gasped, was working to find control of her hands when the other man turned.

  EIGHT

  The wind gusted suddenly. On its back she could hear the faint cry of a child drawn from one of the windows nearby. She could also hear, with gratitude for its grounding her back in reality, the urgent clanging of a trolley bell as its pulling team forced its way through some distant intersection. Her eyes had closed as soon as the smaller man began to swivel his head, and she swallowed hard in reaction to a low chuckling. There was no menace, only a curious and amoral signal of impending trouble.

  The horse skittered to one side, and she felt a hand hard on the bridle to still it.

  She opened her eyes.

  The man was one-eyed, a soiled dark patch held in place by a stretch of motley cord. His face was round, almost flaccid, and as far as she could tell, there wasn't a single tooth in his head. And when his chuckling grew louder, she realized it was in reaction to her own smile, one of relief born of salvation.

  "Ah, miss, you be lost, are you?" It was a high-pitched voice that pierced her near stupor, touched with a heavy lisp.

  "She not one of us," the big man said, his stubby fingers still gripping the bridle.

  "Now how can you tell that, Martin, m'lad?" the small man said without shifting his gaze. "By the clothes?"

  "Savage," was the reply. "Her skin ain't right. " His tongue licked at thick lips. "You got scalps, squaw?"

  Amanda could not resist the feeling of weakness that crept over her. She was still trying to eradicate the image of Maitland's sneer from the lisping man's face. Her arms felt as though they were boned by liquid, and her fingers fumbled constantly to keep hold of the reins.

  "Martin," said the lisping man, "perhaps this fair visitor to our city would like some refreshment. D'you think Molly would be taking customers about now?"

  Martin only grunted. He could not take his eyes from Amanda's breasts, and his own gaze was growing cloudy as he stretched out one arm and sought to cover her knee with a palm.

  "Now, Martin, " the lisping man cautioned, but he made no move to stop him.

  The touch was galvanizing. Amanda jerked back her head as though she had been struck, and the horse sidled to the right slightly, enough to break the contact and return her to the present. Martin, she saw, did not seek to touch her again. The small man, however, was running one hand over his rain-splattered face in thoughtful consideration. She met his stare squarely, with far more courage than she felt, and it did not take him long before his eyes wandered away toward his partner.

  "Martin," he said softly, "I think this young lady would not appreciate Molly's fare. "

  "Only an Indian," the big man said. "Molly got taste. "

  "Indeed. "

  "She don't belong here, this one don't."

  "Right again, Martin. "

  A small knot of people had gathered off to one side as the two men began discussing Amanda's presence in this shadow-town, and Amanda noted that more than a few of them carried weapons of some sort either in their belts or protruding prominently from the tops of their work boots. Her throat went suddenly dry. The horse began to dance nervously, its hooves ringing sharply on the cobblestones. A blowsy redhead in a shabby dress that revealed more than it concealed cackled loudly at something whispered in her ear. It took all of Amanda's will, then, to keep her face impassive, to keep her eyes from darting to either side to see if there were some route of escape she could take, someone who might be moved to extricate her.

  She knew there was no one.

  Harley had probably roused the entire state by now, but she had no illusions that the cavalry would suddenly burst out of the alleys and disperse the growing crowd.

  She was on her own.

  The lisping man took a step toward her, and she pinned him in place with a look that paled him. He raised a hand to placate her, motioned with the other that Martin should drop the bridle. The big man hesitated. Amanda did not look at him. Finally, with a toss of its head, the horse pulled away. . . but she did not yield to the urge to flee. Instead she folded her hands atop the saddle horn.

  "Tell me something," she said quietly, flatly.

  "Red-skinned bitch," Martin muttered angrily.

  "Quiet, Martin!" the small man snapped. It was clear by his expression that he was puzzled and intrigued. By all the street laws he knew, this woman should not have been here in the first place, should have by now been pelting off on her horse as though the devil himself were after her. But she stayed. She sat regally in her saddle, oblivious to the wind and the light rain, and she held his gaze no matter how hard he tried to break free. His hands drifted into his pockets, and when the redheaded woman shouted something at him, he ignored her.

  "There was a man in a bright red shirt and black hat with a narrow brim. He hasn't shaved in several days. He came running out of one of these alleys just a few minutes ago. Do you know him?"

  "Lots of men like that, " Martin grumbled, though his anger was gone as his partner's ambivalence had transmitted itself to him.

  "He's right," the small man said. "I don't know him by that description. I didn't see him, neither. "

  Amanda was silent for a moment, considering, then slowly and emotionlessly gave them as complete a description of her two attackers as she could. There was no recognition in either of their faces, but they listened intently, nodding at each other when she was d
one.

  "There will be something in it for you," she concluded.

  "How much?" Martin asked.

  She did not look at him. To the small man she said, "There was a fire last night, on Union Street. There are several men working there now to clear away the debris. If your memory improves, or your ears hear things that have the ring of gold to them, you will leave a message with one of the men in charge. It will get to me. We'll meet. "

  "You be rich, then?" the small man asked.