This Scorched Earth

by William Gear

  “Until it consisted of torn clothes, and overcoming the resistance of reluctant women? Agatha was marvelous, don’t you think?”

  “And that actor? David? Is he one of yours, too?”

  “He was one of Langrishe’s theater troupe. We hired him for the week. Generally it takes that long to train them how to act at the same time they’re, um, doing the deed. Some men just can’t keep their rods stiff, remember their lines, and still give a credible performance. It takes a special sort.”

  “I don’t think I could.” Nichols sighed. “Sarah, let’s get back to the subject.”

  “And that is?” She freed her hand to pour coffee for both of them.

  “You and me.”

  “What about us?” she asked as Mam pushed the kitchen door open, two steaming plates in her hands. These she set first before George, and then Sarah. With a slight bow, she left.

  Nichols had picked up his fork, glanced to be sure that they were alone, and said, “I want you.”

  “You had me all night, George.”

  “I mean I want you all the time.”

  Sarah laughed, giving him her conspiratorial half wink. “Then I’m still worth the price.”

  “I want you to be my wife.”

  The way he said it, she knew he wasn’t joking. A coldness slipped down her spine.

  “I’ve thought about it all night. I am in love with you. The knowledge that you entertain other men … that callous and beastly Chase, Pat O’Reilly, others … it almost makes me insane.”

  “That’s my business, George. And it is strictly business. I am an entertainer, but in addition to spinning a story, or playing a part, I use my body and a man’s to explore delight. I think there’s an entire science to be made from the study of sexual union. Given what I’ve learned so far, any man who spends the night with me never views his sex, or a woman, in the same way.”

  “But I want more than the short hours we get here. Come with me. Move back to Central City. Marry me.”

  Dear God, how do I handle this?

  She patted his hand and began eating. Between bites, she said, “George, you don’t want me. You, Pat, you both honor me with proposals, but I’ll never love again. You don’t even know the kind of woman I am. How I came to be here.”

  “I don’t care.”

  She studied him as she chewed the venison in gravy. “As a girl I dreamed of a family and society. Funny, isn’t it? On the day Paw left for war, I had no idea that my hopes had just died. It didn’t set in when men were bleeding to death on our floors, or even when the armies took our food. Nevertheless, I clung to that misguided hope right up until Dewley and his raiders killed Maw and packed me off.”

  She saw his face go slack, saying, “See. You don’t know me at all. That revolver hanging behind my bed? I took that from Dewley. You should have heard him scream when I cut him apart. Even after that I still had to be betrayed, humiliated, and hounded to the lowest rung on life’s ladder.”

  “But you came back,” he told her forcefully.

  “Bret brought me back. Taught me to love, to trust, and I gave him everything that I ever was or would be.”

  She paused, seeing the turmoil in his black eyes.

  “Parmelee shot Bret down in front of me. I still can’t remember what was going through my mind while Parmelee had me tied to the bed. I have a vague memory of the pain and violation, but mostly all I recall is a weird, savage scream howling in my head. Didn’t matter that I opened my mouth and filled my lungs. I just … couldn’t … get it out.”

  She shook her head, taking another bite. “It’s still there, George. Way down deep. Can’t hardly hear it at all these days, but it’s there.”

  “You know I’ve had people looking for him.” George smiled. “One of my sources who works for the Helena Herald sent word he was in Montana earlier this year but couldn’t confirm it.” His eyes sharpened. “Now, if I was to kill him for you, would that be proof enough of my devotion?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “One day he’ll show up here full of anger and revenge. After I’ve shot him dead, you could show your devotion by disposing of the body.”

  George laughed from deep down in his belly. “By God, Sarah, you are a woman after my own heart. Marry me!”

  “Not a chance, George. I might have you bedazzled for the moment, but your true love is power. You mean to make yourself the richest man in the Rockies no matter who you have to kill, bully, or intimidate.”

  “Would it be so bad to stand at my side when I become that man? You could have anything you wanted. Wealth, property, or—”

  “I mean to have them on my own.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink.

  “Marry me, and you’ll have them sooner.”

  “George, I’m a momentary obsession, just like so many of your mines and properties have been. But once acquired, they’ve vanished into your vast holdings. Forgotten, but for the money they make.” She shook her head. “I will not marry you.”

  Nichols pushed back, his black eyes seething like heated cauldrons. “Don’t spurn me, woman.”

  “Never, George.” Careful now! She met his stare with her own. “But if we were to marry? Given what I want and what you ultimately want? One or both of us would be dead within a year.”

  “What if I can’t take no for an answer?”

  “You’ll have to.”

  “No one has ever told me no before.”

  “You could abduct me. Carry me off and rape me. You wouldn’t be the first. But the magic would be gone.” She hesitated, heart racing as she fought for the right words to mollify the black anger in his eyes. “Too many people would be looking for me. Would you kill the magic?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sometimes, George, the only way you can win a woman is by accepting who she is, and letting her go.”

  “That’s your final word?”

  “It is.”

  His face like dark granite, he pushed his chair back and stood. Wheeling, his heels beat on the spruce floor as he stalked from the room.

  Sarah dropped her head into her hands. Dear God, I’ve played hell.

  103

  April 1, 1868

  “Philip?” Her voice woke him from a sound sleep.

  Doc blinked awake, fragmenting dream images splintered and fell away. Images of James huddled on a bunk in the Camp Douglas barracks, of a young man’s pain-glazed eyes as they laid his bullet-shattered body on the table in that farmhouse at Shiloh, of maggots crawling through damp muck on the prison camp hospital floor.

  He stared up at the darkness, taking a second to remember where he was: home. His bedroom in Denver. A faint beam of moonlight angling down from above the curtain rod and across the foot of his bed.

  “What is it?”

  Bridget took a deep breath. “I’m bleeding. Don’t know when it started, but the bed’s a mess.”

  Doc sat up, puffed in the cold air, and reached for the matches. Striking a Lucifer, he lit the lamp and adjusted the wick. “Let’s take a look.”

  Bridget had thrown back the covers, and as Doc turned, his soul froze. Her cotton nightgown was soaked at the crotch, the blood bright red.

  “Dear Lord God,” Philip cried.

  Bridget’s eyes had gone wide, her mouth dropping open. She seemed frozen, propped up on her elbows as she stared over her protruding belly at the spreading gore. Her hair lay in tangles around her shoulders.

  Doc ripped off his nightshirt, then pulled Bridget’s hem up above her waist. She’d been bleeding for a while, lines of blood having caked on the inside of her thighs. As she spread her legs for him, Doc used his nightshirt to wipe away the blood. A thin stream of bright red continued to seep past her labia.

  “Is there any pain?” Doc asked, using his fingers to press around the swell of her distended abdomen.

  “No,” Bridget told him in a weak voice. “I just felt funny. It was the wetness that woke me up. I don’t hurt at all.”

  Doc’s heart bega
n to race. Fear made him want to knot his hands.

  “What is it, Philip?” Bridget asked him, her eyes searching his face. “You’re scared.”

  “No pain. Sudden onset bleeding late in pregnancy. I think it’s placenta previa.”

  “Is it bad?”

  Doc hesitated, the platitude rising to his lips. But he couldn’t lie. Not to Bridget. “It’s bad.”

  “Can you fix it?”

  Doc rubbed his hands to stop the sudden shaking. “I saw this once as a student in Boston. The placenta is in the wrong place. Over the cervix. It’s torn loose, which is why you’re bleeding.”

  She closed her eyes, face ghost-pale, her cheeks hollow in the light. “Am I going to die? Is the baby?”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  Doc wadded his nightshirt and used it to absorb the blood. “Just stay there and don’t move.” He tugged on his pants and shirt, found his boots. Looking at his watch, he saw it was a little after three. Where in hell would he find a carriage at this time of night?

  Frantic, he bent over Bridget, scooped her into his arms. Surely he could carry her as far as the surgery. Even as he lifted her, he could feel Bridget’s blood, warm, wet, dribbling her life and their child’s life away like sand through an hourglass.

  Three blocks.

  All he had to do was make it three blocks.

  104

  April 6, 1868

  Spring was coming to Virginia City, laid out as it was along the westward-trending Alder Gulch. To the north and south the logged-out slopes were green with grass, the black stumps of long-gone trees speckling the rocky ground. Outcrops, roads, tipples, and prospect holes gave the mountains a hivelike look. Overhead a spring-blue sky was dotted with clouds that drifted serenely up from the southwest.

  Virginia City’s element-gray, plank-board buildings contrasted with the painted establishments, many of them weather-faded. Whitewash was expensive and hard to come by, having to be shipped in from the east to Salt Lake and then north, or by ox train from San Francisco. Most structures were allowed to just warp and fade with the seasons.

  Two days ago, Billy had made use of just that weather-dry character to set fire to a miner’s cabin down on the Ruby. After Billy had cut the man’s throat, a sprinkling of kerosene from one of his lamps and a match had sent the shack up like a torch. Before the ashes had cooled, one of George Nichols’s agents was filing on the man’s claim. Being no miner, Billy couldn’t make sense of it—most of the valley looking like nothing but granite and quartz outcroppings.

  But that wasn’t his business.

  His war bag packed, hat clamped firmly on his head, he felt jittery. His dreams had been haunted with Maw’s body rising from the grave, as if she were stalking him. The line girl he’d slept with last night didn’t know how lucky she was. He’d kept from choking her as he bucked up and down on her body. Maybe it was her half-lucid brown eyes, vacant from the opium she’d chugged down from a patent-medicine bottle. Maybe it was the slack way she’d held her jaw, as if it were already dislocated. Whatever the reason, he’d popped his cork, rolled off her, and found himself somewhat relieved that she was still breathing when he’d awakened that morning.

  The snow high up on the mountains was mostly melted. Grass was up. Time had come to make his way back toward Colorado. Truth be told, he was tired of being alone. Not that he and George had ever had much in common, but he wondered if maybe he shouldn’t see the man one last time and close the books on the Meadowlark’s activities.

  “And do what?” he asked himself as he strode down to the Pork and Bean, a moderately acceptable eatery featuring hot-cooked meals. Stepping in the door, he made his customary scan of the clientele.

  He stopped short. At a back table, Win Parmelee sat over an empty plate, a cup of steaming coffee resting by his right hand. His cold blue eyes were fixed on Billy, and narrowing. The man’s lips quivered, then he looked away.

  Win Parmelee. Seemed that wherever Billy went, he stumbled over the man as if he were a stone in the road.

  Billy found a table across from Parmelee and tried to ignore him. It wasn’t like Montana Territory was that all-fired big despite the distances. Benton, Helena, Virginia City, Dillon, Bannock, Bozeman, and a handful of failing placer camps were about the only real towns. If a man did business in Montana, he’d be in one of those few places.

  Or was it that Parmelee suspected who Billy really was? The thought of that sparked an almost insatiable curiosity. He fought down the impulse to walk over and ask the man flat out.

  A girl of about ten came with a coffeepot and cup, asking if he wanted breakfast. At his nod she filled his cup and flounced off for the kitchen.

  The rest of the clientele were the normal miners in their filthy boots, saloonkeepers in decidedly natty dress, freighters and mule skinners, and even a fellow in a sack suit who might have been a banker.

  Through breakfast, Billy remained acutely aware of Parmelee. Watched him pick up his travel satchel, and step warily out the door.

  Definitely a hunter.

  “Just like me,” Billy whispered under his breath as he chased boiled beans across his plate with a piece ripped from a loaf of bread. But, did he really suspect?

  Leaving a fifty-cent piece for his two-bit breakfast, he picked up his war bag with his left hand, leaving his right to dangle by the Remington’s butt. At the door, he glanced both ways, then stepped out on the street.

  Despite having a woman in his bed, Maw had come last night. There would be trouble today. She’d warned him from the grave. The Cherokee used to tell him about how important it was to listen to the dead.

  “Whatever happened to you, John Gritts?”

  A one-legged Indian? John had sided with Stand Watie’s Confederates. John Ross’s Union faction had won in the end. If Billy knew anything about Cherokee they would continue killing each other for years after the whites had finally made peace. It sure didn’t take no fortune-teller to figure that out.

  But, damn it, he’d like to see John again. Sit with him on a porch, smoke a pipe, talk about old times. A sudden longing—almost a physical pain— brought tears to Billy’s eyes. By Hob, he wished he was home. Wished he could hear Maw’s voice, smell Paw’s pipe. See Sarah, still innocent and pure, prancing in from the springhouse with her water pails.

  Foolish damn nonsense.

  Billy wiped away a sudden tear, glanced around the rutted and rocky street, seeing no sign of Parmelee.

  Odd to think of John Gritts. To think of home. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe time had come to go back to Tahlequah, look up the Gritts family and find John. Hell, he had plenty of money. It wouldn’t take much to set John up with a small cabin, keep him in food and company. He owed the man that much.

  Or was that just the devil playing him, baiting a hook to see if he’d take it?

  At the livery where he’d stabled Locomotive and the packhorse, he took one last look around, and stepped inside.

  “You looking for me?” a voice asked from the shadows.

  Billy turned slowly, hand resting on his pistol.

  Parmelee was watching him from the shadows, a rifle held low at his waist.

  “Nope. Just come to head out, is all.”

  “Where to?”

  “Colorado. California. Salt Lake. Maybe that ain’t your business.”

  “I’d hate to see you show up on my back trail. Might give me the wrong idea.”

  “Seems to me a man with those kind of worries has enemies.” Billy kept his hands wide. “All my enemies are dead, which means you’re not one. I got no quarrel with you, Parmelee.”

  The man stiffened. “How’d you know my name?”

  “You told it to me across the table up at Fort Benton over breakfast.”

  Parmelee seemed to deflate. “Yep. Reckon I did.” He snorted derisively. “Man can be a damn fool sometimes.”

  Maybe he didn’t suspect. Still …

  Billy lowered his hands slightly. “I’m fixing to leav
e Virginia City. You got a problem with that?”

  “I do.” Parmelee raised the rifle slightly. “How about you wait a couple of hours and let me get a head start? That way I know for a fact you ain’t gonna ambush me.”

  “How do I know you won’t be laying in ambush for me?”

  “Thought you said you didn’t have any enemies.”

  “A couple of hours? Sure. I’m a maudlin sort. Reckon I’ll go see what’s in the stores, maybe smoke me a cigar in the sun. But this is the only time I’ll play the tune for you.”

  With that, Billy backed out, holding his war bag wide so that Parmelee could see his revolver.

  Billy frowned, wondering what had Parmelee up in a snit. Nevertheless, as he walked back toward the street, he was instantly aware of the two men who leaned against a blacksmith’s wall. Something about their posture, the Henry rifles propped beside them, and the way they were dressed wasn’t right.

  Billy gave them a slight nod as he passed, feeling their hard eyes, the threat in their expressions.

  An hour later, figuring Parmelee had had enough time, and wouldn’t dawdle on the trail, Billy saddled Locomotive and tied his packs onto the packhorse.

  He headed out on the Bozeman Road, climbing up over the divide to the Madison Valley. Locomotive was making good time, seeming to relish being on the road again. Last night’s rain had softened the tracks, and so far, only one rider was ahead of him.

  This, he assumed to be Parmelee, having not stood around to watch the man leave. The blond man was making good time, apparently well mounted given his horse’s stride.

  As the shadows lengthened, Billy followed the trail down toward the Madison River. Where the trace dipped through a draw, Billy was surprised to see tracks coming in from either side. Four of them. He could see where Parmelee’s horse had pulled up, sidestepped, and then stood for a moment before heading out at a walk, followed by the others.

  Billy chewed his lip, glanced uneasily around, and backtracked two of the newcomers to the place where they’d been in wait. Boot tracks, piles of manure where the horses had been tied, told him they’d been there a while.