This Scorched Earth

by William Gear

  Another smashing of thunder startled the room, and left people laughing self-consciously.

  Martha’s first husband had been a blockade runner—a man intimately familiar with the coves and bars in the Laguna Madre and along the Texas Gulf Coast. She had been widowed two years ago when her husband had finally run afoul of a Federal steam packet and gone down with his ship.

  After a whirlwind courtship, Charlie provided her with companionship and the promise of a man in her life. One who was politically ambitious and willing to work with the powers rising in Texas. He in turn derived a measure of respectability from her name and standing, not to mention her not inconsiderable wealth. And one thing Phil was indeed correct about, the new Mrs. Martha Deveroux was still a woman in her physical prime. Charlie had explored the delights of her full body several times since their engagement. Martha, after two years of enforced celibacy, was a woman of considerable appetite. And from the looks she kept casting his way, she was just waiting for the last guest to leave before sating her hunger.

  Again thunder shook the house, and the frame rattled from a particularly vicious gust.

  Five hardened Texas Rangers. He’s either dead or captive. And even if they missed him, he couldn’t know I turned him in.

  Still, it wouldn’t hurt to lock the back door and check the windows.

  He gave Martha a reassuring wink and walked down the hall. The kitchen was dimly illuminated by a single lamp. A big pot stood steaming on the stove should anyone want coffee or tea, and a tray of pastries rested on the counter. No less than five were missing, and Charlie wondered which of the guests had sneaked back to pilfer them when he wasn’t looking.

  The dining room was dark, and in the dim light, the rear door behind the stairway where deliveries were made was firmly closed. Charlie reached down, flipping the lock, and glanced out at the small backyard and alley. At that moment a white flash of lightning cast the almond tree in the backyard in a stark light, its shadow falling across the toolshed and carriage house out back.

  Nothing and no one there.

  He reached down and checked the door, the knob feeling cold and wet.

  As he turned, lightning flashed again, and Charlie had the briefest glimpse. A second flash confirmed it. The floor was wet.

  He turned, running his thumb along the door as rain beat against it.

  “Nope,” a soft voice called from the dark shadows under the stairs. “Door don’t leak. Reckon that come off’n my slicker, Charlie.”

  He froze, breath choked in his lungs. It took him several tries to rasp out, “Billy? That you?”

  A shadow moved under the stairs, a form emerging from the darkness. “Looks like a right fine wedding, Charlie. And this, why, it’s a daisy of a place. Beats hell outta the bush where we first met. Now, how you reckon you come to all this good fortune?”

  “Don’t you go jumping to any conclusions.” Charlie’s heart had started to beat again. “Now, listen. I got another job for you. Best one yet. You know Anabelle’s? You go there. I’ll see you tomorrow at around noon. But for the moment, I gotta get back to my—”

  “Reckon your friend Phil … wasn’t that his name? Reckon he’s wrong about them five he sent to San Marco.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Charlie, I’ll be dad-swamped if’n those boys was tough old ex-Rangers. Hell, Danny hisself kilt two.” Billy paused, head tilting, and Charlie heard the patter of water draining from the brim of Billy’s hat. “’Course, that last ol’ boy. He might turn out tough in the end. And tough he’ll be if he lives after being shot in the guts like he was.”

  “Billy, I…”

  Lightning flashed through the rain-streaked window, illuminating Billy’s pale face, sparkling with water drops that beaded on his cheeks and nose. The eyes were a weird pale blue.

  Just in that white flash, Charlie saw the wet Remington where it stuck out of Billy’s slicker.

  “Billy, don’t do this. There’s money to be made. I just need time to…”

  Between the lightning’s white glare and the yellow-red muzzle flash the back room was almost day-bright. The pistol’s bang barely preceded the deafening crack of thunder.

  The feeling was as if someone had punched Charlie hard in the solar plexus. He bent over, struggling for breath. Backed into the wall. Breath still wouldn’t come.

  “Aren’t you one cool scoundrel, Charlie? Figgered to collect the reward fer that Yankee captain? Why, you made money all the way around on that deal. Took your share of the payoff, then figured to snag the reward, too.”

  “They know you,” Charlie finally managed to gasp. “They’ll get you now.”

  “Reckon not,” Billy whispered as Charlie slid down the wainscoting. Billy leaned down, water dripping.

  Charlie blinked in the dim light, hearing loud laughter from the parlor. God, wouldn’t someone come? Hadn’t they heard the shot?

  Lightning flashed through the back-door window again. Gleamed off the long Bowie held low in Billy’s hand.

  The sting drove into Charlie’s belly, then rose, fiery hot to his mule-kicked gut. A low squeal passed his lips, driven by his sudden fear. Then came the warm rush of urine between his legs. After wiping the blade on Charlie’s pants, Billy stood.

  Charlie heard the lock click, felt the door open, and close. For a long moment he sprawled there, warm fluids and guts spilling over his hands.

  And then the world faded into a soft gray and vanished.

  67

  December 15, 1865

  The sign proclaimed the place to be the REBELL SALUNE; the proprietor’s spelling turned out to be every bit as atrocious as the vile alcohol he sold by the tin cup. Word was that it was little better than Indian whiskey: ten gallons of pure grain alcohol to which five twists of tobacco, a dram of gunpowder, two cups of molasses, and five rattlesnake heads had been added.

  The establishment, were it to be called such, consisted of a weather-grayed canvas extended out, ramada fashion, from a rocked-up cavern overhang just below the Llano River bluffs, and about a half mile upstream from the town of the same name.

  The bar—behind which One-Legged Shiloh Pete stood to dispense his heavenly spirits—was no more elaborate than a wagon tailgate laid atop two fifty-gallon barrels. Propped up on a stone shelf behind was the notorious ten-gallon keg of whiskey, cups of which were dispensed from the tap at its bottom.

  Billy Hancock sat at one of the two rickety tables, his foot up on one of the three mismatched chairs that furnished seating for any weary customers who happened to pass by. Billy’s butt was in the second chair, and Danny Goodman slouched in the third. Atop the battered table between them a deck of cards had been abandoned for lack of interest.

  A meadowlark trilled out in the winter-bare mesquite along the river.

  “You hear that?” Danny asked. “Wrong time of year for that ol’ bird.”

  “Maybe it’s the weather. Must be nigh on sixty degrees.” Billy rocked the tin cup back and forth on its bottom. “If I know shit about anything, tonight the wind’s gonna pick up, and by morning a blue norther’s gonna be blowing down on us.”

  “Could be.” Danny leaned forward, lips pursed.

  “Spit it out. You’re about to bust with whatever’s been eating you since Austin.”

  Danny studied him thoughtfully and began. “Right now Texas is wide open. Lots of folks hate other folks over things done during the war. I’m not arguing that. But here’s the thing: Charlie sold us out.”

  “You think I don’t remember that?” Billy stared at his dusty boot where it was propped on the chair. “I never had such a bitter taste in my mouth as that. I can’t say as I never felt better killing a man, but slipping a blade into old Charlie was right up there.”

  For whatever reason, the Sarah demon hadn’t been haunting his dreams since. What was it about spilling a man’s guts that would make a demon nightmare keep her distance?

  “And we’re still paying for it,” Danny growl
ed. “How we gonna do business?” He ticked off on his fingers. “To start with, now they got a name for you and know what you look like. Next, they’s a price on yer head. Five thousand dollars. In this country, that’s all the money in the world. Third, we can’t trust nobody. We’s just lucky that that little whore down to Magdelena’s liked you. If’n you hadn’t overpaid her by ten dollars, she might not have gone outta her way to warn us. We’d a been dead men.”

  “Feller gets a right powerful kick out of ambushing the ambushers, don’t he?” Billy grinned at the memory.

  Danny continued to tick off on his fingers. “Fourth is that Charlie was the front man. He was the one that found the clients and set up the work. Did the business, if you will. He had the connections. We’re just two bush soldiers out in the brasada.”

  “Then we have to make the connections ourselves.”

  “That’s the part where we get killed.” Danny leaned forward, expression earnest.

  “How’s that?”

  “Me? If’n I was one of Throckmorton’s boys? I’d place me an ad in the paper. Maybe just whisper it around in the saloons. ‘Need Billy Hancock to do some killing. No questions asked. Five hundred dollars.’ And then what? We just ride up to the Travis County courthouse a-singing out, ‘We’re your men! Whar’s the Dick as needs to be shot?’”

  “You’re saying they’d bait us in.”

  “Damn right.” Danny nodded soberly. “They want you for that Yankee captain. Want you enough they found Charlie and brought him in to heel on their leash. Then we kilt the five men they sent to take us. Then you spilt Charlie’s guts all over the hallway in his own house, in Austin, on his wedding day, with the mayor’s right-hand man as good as in attendance. You think they ain’t got a burn up their assholes over that?”

  Billy grinned. “Right pert bit of work if’n you ask me.”

  “Maybe too good.” Danny leaned back and sipped his whiskey. As he swallowed he made a face and screwed his eyes closed. “God in heaven, that’s awful.”

  “Puts a fire in a man’s gut, all right.” Billy shook his head. “But that’s about all, I reckon.” He paused. “So what are you thinking, Danny? Go back to Arkansas?”

  Danny reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a scrap of newspaper. “Read that.”

  “I ain’t that good at reading.” Nevertheless he picked it up, pronouncing the words as he made them out. “New ditch will free millions in gold at Last Chance Gulch, Montana.” He licked his lips, frowning at the names. “Chessman and Cowan should be able to increase profits tenfold from rich aggregate. According to Mr. Chessman, over one million dollars should pour from the earth.”

  He looked up, puzzled. “What’s Montana have to do with anything? How does a ditch make gold? What’s aggregate? Who’s Chessman?”

  Danny thumped the table. “That don’t matter. What does is mining. That’s the business we need.”

  The meadowlark trilled in the brush again.

  Billy gestured around, as if to include most of Texas. “And where is all this mining at?”

  “New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Montana. Places where you ain’t twisted every politician’s pecker. Whoa, now.” He held up a hand. “Next yer gonna tell me you don’t know shit about no mining. My answer is that you don’t need to. You’re just my assistant. The man I send out to do mine scouting. Locate claims and all. Anyone asks why you ain’t around I say you’re headed to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to look at a claim. Meantime you ride to Montana to shoot a man in Bozeman.”

  “What are you planning on doing? Hanging out a shingle with big block letters saying KILLER FOR HIRE?”

  “That’s the tricky part where I come in.”

  “Go ahead, Danny. You got my interest like a bee on a flower.”

  “I been learning a lot doing these scouting jobs. There’s always trouble brewing somewhere. Sometimes it’s in the papers, but other times it’s just gossiped about in the bars and brothels. John is feuding with Dick. It’s gonna come to blood. And that’s when I step in and drop a word in the right ear. I offer to solve the problem, fast, simple, and without complications.”

  The meadowlark broke out in melodious song again.

  “What is wrong with that bird?” Billy wondered.

  “Maybe it’s a sign. Just what we need. A new name. From here on out you’re the Meadowlark. And we advertise that. But Billy, once we do, you cain’t never tell no one. Not no whore you’re poking your johnson into, nor no loudmouth you’re drinking whiskey with. Cain’t never be no tie a’twixt the two.”

  Billy’s sober appraisal had Danny to the point of squirming. “That means I pretty much gotta trust you with my life. Like Charlie, you could make a lot of money turning me in.”

  Danny swallowed hard, a glitter of fear behind his eyes. He jerked a nod, almost too fast. “Well, Billy, here’s the thing: when I was a kid, I was in Fayetteville one day when a fella comes through with this snake in a glass box. Cost a nickel to see the snake. It was a pretty thing. Called it a cobra. In return for the nickel the man would reach in the box with a stick and make it rear up and spread its neck wide. Heard he got down to Van Buren and the snake bit him and killed him.”

  “I ain’t following you, Danny Goodman.”

  “Billy, you’re my snake. You’ll make me a passel of money, but I know you’ll kill me quicker than spit if I make the smallest mistake.”

  68

  December 24, 1865

  Since their arrival in Colorado life had been hectic. Bret had checked them into the Broadwell House on Sixteenth and Larimer. He had insisted Sarah take the bed, while he unrolled his bedroll on the floor. It was, as he reminded her, a vast improvement over the cold ground. And while Sarah amused herself during the day, Bret’s nights were spent in pursuit of the tables.

  Everything changed on Christmas Eve when Bret arrived back at the room early, sometime just after nine. A bottle of fine champagne dangled in one hand, and a folded piece of paper was clutched in the other. Sarah had been reading, the lamp turned low to save fuel. With a total of three books in her possession, she was on her third reading of Homer’s Odyssey.

  “Victory, my love,” he said seriously. “Prepare to pack. We’re off to Central City.”

  “Bret?” she asked, sitting up in bed, her hair in tangles. As she pulled it back out of her eyes, he turned up the lamp, cranking the wick. He kicked his bedding out of the way where she’d unrolled it on the floor, ready for his late-night return.

  He plopped himself down beside her on the hard frame and worked the champagne cork loose with a pop. He emptied her tin cup of water into the washstand, and poured her cup full.

  “We own a gold claim,” he told her proudly, handing her the deed. “It’s up just above Central City, almost to Nevadaville, and consists of a discovery shaft, a cabin, a creek, and a tailings pile. But more to the point, it’s a ten-minute walk from some of the richest poker tables in the territory.”

  He clinked the neck of the champagne bottle to her cup and they both took a drink.

  She studied him over the rim, the champagne’s fizzy sweetness tickling her tongue. “Central City? Up in the mountains? I have to tell you, I’m already about to go mad with boredom. Bret, I’ve got to have something to do. Are you sure that a snowed-in cabin up in—”

  “You now have a house all your own, my dear.” His eyes were dark and twinkling. “Though I’ve no idea what sort of shape it might be in. The man who just bet three sixes against my full house lamented not only its passing, but the six hundred and forty dollars he tried to recoup by wagering the value of the claim.”

  “My own house?” She felt herself warm on the inside. “Don’t you mean your own house?”

  His brow furrowed. “Odd, isn’t it, but I’ve come to think of my life as before Sarah, and after Sarah.” He paused, as if searching for words. “I’ve been giving our future a lot of thought. Central City should only be a stepping stone. I’ll play conservatively, small pots, and e
ach night I’ll bring you a percentage. You’re to be the banker. I want you to sock it away. When we reach twenty thousand, I say we leave. Pull stakes, and take a stage to San Francisco. Buy a nice house. Maybe I’ll read the law, or invest in property. Something more stable and profitable. I have the skills and education.”

  She felt her heart skip. “Are you sure?”

  “I would like to see you in a nice house, Sarah. One built of brick, with a proper parlor where we could spend our evenings sipping sherry, talking by the fire, and I could just watch you smile.”

  Dear God, he was serious, his expression taking on that solemn look.

  “Bret, I…” She averted her eyes, watching the slowly flickering flame in the lamp. Her blood seemed to quicken, and she could feel the rapid beat of her heart. “Honestly, Bret, you leave me speechless sometimes.”

  She surrendered her hand when he took it and lifted it to his lips. “You are my reason for being, Sarah. I love you with all my heart, and I will do anything I have to just for the joy of sharing your company.”

  She drank down the champagne, her insides seeming to flutter. Over and over, she kept thinking, I’m not worth it.

  She blinked, stared into his eyes, alternately frightened and excited. “Bret, I’ve … Oh God, I’m the luckiest woman on earth.”

  At that his lips broke into a beaming smile. “We’ll do it, then! Twenty grand. And then we’ll go to San Francisco.” He poured her tin full again, looking bedazzled by his own machinations.

  Dear God, do I want to do this? Can I?

  The demons flickered, leering, whispering, making her soul shrivel. She forced the memory of groping hands away, stilled the violent ghosts. Sought to ignore the stench of sour breath, the cooing words accompanying her violation.

  She slipped her legs past him, and stood. Setting her cup to the side, she pulled him to his feet and looked squarely into his eyes. All she saw was dancing anticipation of the future and a sense of shared excitement.

  The pounding inside left her fingers trembling as she undid his coat, pulled his cravat loose.