by Dutchman
Now what he wanted was Roberts. This time he dispatched the neighbor’s boy, who found Roberts in a matter of minutes and rushed him back.
When he saw the fast and awful changes in Weiser’s condition, Roberts stopped dead in his tracks.
Eased by the laudanum, Weiser wasted no time on polite remarks. “Stop standing there staring at me, Roberts. You got to get on the road as quick as you can. Get your saddlebags, an’ be quick about it.”
“What about you?” Roberts asked.
“I ain’t going with you. Do I have to spell it out?” Weiser said sharply. “Do I look like a man who’s ready to jump on a horse an’ gallop away?”
Roberts raised his eyebrows. This bitter humor was a side to Weiser he hadn’t seen before. But then, Weiser’d been ten years younger, and healthy to boot, the last time they’d prospected together.
“My plans have changed,” Weiser continued with exaggerated patience. “Julia is poisoning me to get my gold.” He raised his left hand, palm toward Roberts, to forestall further interruption. “I’m dying, an’ my last wish is to keep that woman from getting the gold she’s after.”
Weiser paused for breath, then showed his teeth in the semblance of a smile. “That makes Julia’s bad luck your good luck, so what are you standing there for? Grab your bags, fill ’em with gold, an’ hit the road!”
Roberts still hesitated. “If you ain’t going, how’ll I find your mine?”
“‘How’ll I find your mine?’” Weiser echoed, his words dripping with contempt. “You greedy sonofabitch! I’m giving you more gold than you ever dreamed of, an’ you’re asking me where it come from?”
“Damn straight, I’m asking,” Roberts snapped back. “With a track record like yours, I don’t trust you any farther than I can throw you.”
Weiser checked his anger. He had to have Robert’s help for his revenge on Julia.
As Roberts stuffed gold into his saddlebags, Weiser took a pencil and a scrap of paper and drew a pair of wavy lines winding diagonally across the paper. They looked pretty good, so he licked his pencil point to make the lines darker and wrote “Salt River” between them. Weaver’s Needle was the landmark every prospector used when he went into the Superstition Mountains, so Weiser added five upside-down V’s with a taller V in the middle, and wrote “Weaver’s Needle” under it. For the finishing touch, he put a tiny X below the V’s. “If that don’t send ’em into those miserable Superstition Mountains, nothing will,” he thought. “An’ every step’ll take ’em farther away from the Bradshaws an’ my mine. And every last one of ’em will die cussing the day they ever went after my gold!”
Roberts was just putting the last nuggets in his saddlebags. Weiser handed him the map. “I was just fooling about a map,” he said to Roberts. “This ought to take care of you. Now hit the road before Julia shows up!”
As soon as Roberts was gone, Weiser drew a second map like the first and tucked it in a corner of the otherwise empty candle box. Using his last ounce of strength, he closed the box and shoved it under his cot before lying down on his cot and trying to doze. But even with the laudanum, his legs cramped and his nose began to bleed again. He began to wonder how much more pain he could bear.
While Weiser eased his pain with laudanum, and his anxiety by giving Roberts his gold, Charlie left Julia drowsing in the afterglow of lovemaking, and went out for some fun of his own. He let himself out and stood on the bakery steps, enjoying the shade of elm trees lining the wooden walkways of Washington Street. Across the street, ash trees glowed yellow in the afternoon light. He pulled his watch from its pocket — it was 4:00 o’clock. Smiling, he returned the watch to his pocket, adjusted the brim of his spotless Stetson hat and strolled over to the Palace Saloon for a little fooling around with the whores who worked there.
The Palace was Charlie’s kind of place, with its elegant mahogany bar, wide mirrors, and shelves of whiskey bottles. As he bellied up to the bar, a busty blond turned away from a man holding a losing poker hand and put her arm around Charlie’s shoulders.
Without asking, the bartender poured two shots of Johnny Walker, and left the square bottle between Charlie and the blond.
The man on the next stool looked at Charlie, turned back to the man with him, and whispered something. They looked more closely at Charlie, and the first man said, “Ain’t you the fella who’s romancing the Dutchman’s girl friend?”
Charlie grinned and said, “I might be.” He held out his hand and said, “Charlie Smith, Arctic Soda Fountains, St. Louis.”
“Jim Grant,” the man said, shaking Charlie’s hand. “Lemon Hotel Livery & Feed Stables.” He leaned back and gestured to include the man beside him, “This here’s Burt Munro, my partner.”
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Charlie said, shaking Burt’s hand as well.
Burt looked at Jim over the top of his rimless eyeglasses and said, “Go on, ask him about the Dutchman’s mine.”
Jim pursed his lips, hooked his thumbs in his vest pockets, looked sideways at Charlie as if he were assessing him, then back at his buddy. “I dunno, Henry. Maybe it’s none of our business.”
“ ’Course it is,” Henry said quickly, drawing himself up to his full height of 5 feet 10 inches. “We have a right to know if a fella finds a strike.”
“No, we don’t,” Jim said, shaking his head from side to side. “There’s no law says a man has to register his strike. He don’t have to tell no one, if he don’t want to.”
“That’s right,” Henry said quickly, thrusting his head forward, “but if he don’t register his claim, anyone else who finds it has just as much right to the gold!” He turned to Charlie, “Ain’t that so?”
Charlie laughed, raised his shoulders slightly with his palms up, and said, “Don’t look at me, fellas. I ain’t no prospector!”
“No, you ain’t,” Henry said, “but you’re flirting with the woman who’s gonna inherit plenty when that old man kicks the bucket. An’ since you ain’t no prospector, we was hoping you’d sell us his map.”
“If you found it,” Jim said.
Charlie knew an opportunity for a fast buck when he saw it. He could draw a map, pass it off as the old man’s work, and nobody’d know the difference. He grinned and said, “Supposing I have a copy of this map, what’s it worth to you?”
Henry turned to his buddy and said softly, “How about five bucks?”
Jim scratched his head. “I dunno,” he said ruefully, keeping his voice just loud enough for Charlie to hear, “that ain’t much.”
“Well, I ain’t John Jacob Astor, an’ I ain’t seen any evidence this guy has something we can use,” Henry said, planting his feet firmly and putting his fists on his hips.
Jim tilted his head to the left, as if considering this, “You got a point there,” he said.
A small crowd was gathering. A woman with crimson cheeks and full breasts overflowing the bodice of her low-cut dress nudged the man beside her and asked, “What’s going on?”
“They’re selling a map to the Dutchman’s mine,” the man replied.
“I bid twenty bucks,” a short man shouted, jumping up and waving his arm for attention.
“Wait a minute,” Henry objected, “We was here first!”
Jim glared at Henry and said, “I told you five wasn’t enough, you cheapskate.” He raised his arm along with his voice and shouted, “Twenty-five; we bid twenty five!”
“Thirty; I’ll give you thirty,” from the man behind him.
“Fifty!” from the short man. The whore beside him whispered in his ear. He grinned and said, “What the hell, make that a hundred!”
“Well, now,” Charlie grinned, “that’s more like it.”
As soon as the bakery closed for the day, Julia tied an old apron around her waist and sighed, wishing the whole damn business with the old man was finished. And that Charlie had stuck around for moral support and some of the dirty work. But he hadn’t, so she pulled herself together and got to work. Not
wanting to take a chance on contaminating her good stew pot, she found a discarded pot from the back of her pantry and filled it half-full of chili from the ice box. Then, with a quick glance over her shoulder, she took the box of rat poison from its hiding place and emptied it into the pot. Even though the chili was cool, it steamed and hissed with a life of its own as she mixed it with the powder. Her hands trembled so badly, she needed three matches to light the burner.
When the cooking flame burned steadily, she wiped her brow with her sleeve, lifted the pot, and placed it on the range. As her stew came to a boil, she lowered the flame, poured herself a shot of cooking sherry, tossed it down, and went upstairs to change her dress, taking the bottle with her.
An hour later, Julia brought Weiser a steaming bowl of chili.
She was not in her usual hurry to leave. On the contrary, she was prepared to stay as long as it took to make him eat her deadly dish. She wore a new gown with a low-cut bodice that showed off her ample bosom, and softened the usually tight knot of her black curls to frame her face. She knew she was beautiful, and was not above flaunting her figure, pouting her lips, and sweet-talking to get what she wanted. Her future was riding on her success at putting the final nail in the coffin!
The earlier dose of poison had already taken effect. By now, not even laudanum could relieve Weiser’s pain. And now that his dastardly plan was in place, he was resigned to the fact that he was dying. Now, all he wanted was to end the pain, and his devious mind quickly constructed yet one last twisted plan: get Julia to finish him off quickly.
Weiser’s internal bleeding had increased, and he stank of shit and vomit. It took all Julia’s skill as an actress to rise above his odor. Nonetheless, she gritted her teeth and managed to smile almost as sweetly as she had before Charlie had come on the scene. “I made your favorite chili tonight,” she purred, and put a steaming bite of chili on the spoon.
All too aware of what she was up to, Weiser averted his face and growled, “I ain’t hungry.”
“You don’t mean that,” Julia said softly, leaning closer and giving him a good look at her breasts.
In spite of everything, the sight of her breasts made Weiser’s loins tingle. He reached up for one last feel, but his groping hand fell short and knocked the bowl out of her hands, spilling the red-hot mixture in her lap.
She screamed and jumped to her feet, “What the hell are you doing? You damn near scalded me!”
“You deserve it, you no-good floozie. I know damn well what you’re up to, you an’ your pretty-boy salesman, an’ you ain’t going to get away with it.”
Attempting to regain her composure, Julia said, “What’re you talking about? I ain’t trying to get away with nothing. I’m just trying to help you eat your supper.”
“Which you’ve laced with rat poison!” Weiser spat. “Get away from me, you stupid slut. The smartest thing your fool of a husband ever done was leave you for a white woman!”
He hit a raw nerve with that one. “You nasty old man! You think I liked going to bed with you? Hah! All I ever wanted was your gold,” Julia shot back.
“The only thing I ever wanted was sex, an’ it weren’t nuthin’ special when I got it,” Weiser jeered. “Hell, woman, you’re so stupid you don’t know your boy friend’s at the Palace Saloon screwing a white woman right this minute!”
Julia let out a piercing shriek. Desperate to shut Weiser up, she tore the stinking pillow out from under his head and covered his face with it, pressing down with all her weight as he struggled to free himself.
Weiser was too weak now to defend himself and had no desire to try, so the struggle was short-lived. Nonetheless, Julia held the pillow over his face for what seemed like an eternity before her own breathing returned to something like normal. At last, she eased her pressure and lifted the pillow.
She stepped back and looked at the body lying on the cot. The old man looked kind of peaceful. Maybe she could make it look like he’d died in his sleep. She put the pillow under his head, straightened his body and put his arms at his sides. That was better. But the sheet was filthy. Careful not to track any of the mess on the floor into the kitchen, she went to her linen closet and found an old sheet that was clean but ready for the rag bag. She pulled it out, crumpled it enough to make it look slept on, carried it back to the old man’s room, and put it on his body.
Satisfied with how he looked, she turned her attention to the mess on the floor. Her mouth twisted in wry humor. “All I wanted was to get rich and have servants to do the dirty work, an’ here I am stuck with the nastiest job of all. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.” God, she was tired, but she didn’t dare risk leaving any evidence of her attempt to poison the old man. Unsteady with fatigue, she got a bucket and swabbed the soiled floor.
When that was done, she forced herself to keep going, go back to the kitchen sink and scrub the bowl, cutting boards, spoons, and old pot until they were spotless.
She took one last look into the old man’s room and noticed that the cleaned part didn’t look natural. Was she ever going to go to bed? But every little thing had to look right. She went outside with her bucket and brought a little dirt in, scattering it enough to conceal her cleanup. That was better.
Nearly done now, she filled her sink with water, took off her stinking clothing and stuffed it in the trash barrel. Burning her dress could wait till tomorrow. She washed her body from head to foot, went upstairs, and fell into bed. Right at that moment, she didn’t feel anything but tired. Moreover, she didn’t know what she should feel. Happy didn’t seem right, after just killing a man, no matter how much gold she’d get. But ever since Charlie had moved in, her only feelings for the old man were impatience waiting for him to die.
Relief, that’s what she felt. No more and no less.
But as she sank into a deep sleep, Julia’s last feeling was maybe she didn’t need Charlie as much as she’d thought she did.
The cock’s crowing awakened her. Slanting rays of early morning sun shone on her ivory pillowcase. Julia yawned and rolled onto her side, half-expecting to embrace her lover, but found only a pristine pillow. She was too exhausted to care. She turned over and went back to sleep.
An hour later, the cock crowed again. Julia shook the cobwebs from her mind and smiled, remembering she was a rich woman. She wanted to run downstairs and throw open the lid of the old man’s treasure chest and let gold nuggets run through her fingers. But that wouldn’t do. “No,” she thought, “I need to act like this is just another ordinary day at the bakery. I can’t let on that I know the old man is dead, an’ I won’t let myself look in his room until I’ve made coffee. That’s a good idea — I’ll have a cup of coffee for him in my hand when I open his door.” She went to her closet and chose a plain-Jane calico dress that wouldn’t show the stain when she faked surprise and spilled coffee on it.
She put the plain-Jane dress on, buttoned its bodice, subdued her unruly black curls into a tight coil at the nape of her neck, and went downstairs, giving no more than a passing thought to Charlie.
Charlie showed up as the coffee grounds were settling in the pot. “Good morning, my dear,” he said, kissing the back of her neck.
She paid no attention and began to pour coffee into a white mug.
“So that’s how she wants to play it,” he thought. The best way to deal with that was turn a deaf ear to the ice in her tone. He looked around the kitchen and said, “How’s the old man this morning?”
Without looking up, Julia said, “Still sleeping.”
Charlie looked at her more closely. He assumed she was sulking because he had stayed out all night, but his intuition suggested another possibility: maybe she wanted to cut him out of sharing the old man’s gold. He wasn’t going to stand still for that! The old man was as good as dead already, probably too weak to put up a fight if he went in an’ helped himself to some gold. It was worth a try. He started toward the storeroom, and, as he did so, Julia put down her coffee and stepped between him and the
door. “Don’t open it!” she commanded.
He pushed her aside, threw open the door, and recoiled at the burst of putrid air from the storeroom.
“I told you, don’t open the door!” Julia said, but Charlie paid no attention to her or the stink of the old man’s remains. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, used it to cover his nose, and went for the treasure chest. To his astonishment, it slid out easily, and he landed on his ass. He righted himself quickly and opened the chest.
It was empty. “What the hell’s going on here?” he demanded.
Julia was right behind him. He swung around and struck her, knocking her to the floor. “What’re you trying to pull, sweetheart?”
“What’re you talking about?” she said, just as surprised as Charlie.
“Don’t try to play innocent with me, bitch,” Charlie spat. “Where’s the goddamn gold?”
Julia got to her knees and stared at the empty chest. Dumbfounded, she sat back and rubbed her eyes in disbelief, “I swear to God I don’t know.”
Charlie ignored her and peered intently into the undeniably empty chest. He thought he saw a small piece of folded paper tucked in a corner of it.
On the off chance it was a map, he had to get Julia out of the room before checking it out. Putting on his best rueful smile, he helped her to her feet and said, “Julia, honey, I’m so sorry for my rude behavior. We have to stick together here, if we’re going to get our gold back. Let’s kiss and make up.”
Old habits die hard, and Julia wanted to believe he was still her loyal partner. She didn’t protest when he put his arms around her and kissed her lips.
Nor did she protest when Charlie said casually, “Now, how about making us a pot of tea?” and gave her a gentle nudge toward the kitchen.
Julia went, but not before she saw him stoop down, reach into the supposedly empty chest, and pick up a scrap of paper. She saw him glance at it, but instead of showing it to her, he shoved it in his pocket.
“What do you have there?” she said sharply.
“Nothing,” he said quickly, meeting her eyes with the direct gaze of a practiced liar.