I can’t just leave him…
She realized the dark world swam with crimson wavering faces, as if she were under water. Her eyes brimmed with wet she could not blink away.
Snaring his eyes with hers, Sary moved in—kneeling, she laid her head to his chest, ignoring the sparks landing soft as hot rain.
Her hand crept to the little boy, the gun now between her and Jude. She smelled Jude’s baby scent, next to the stench of old blood and corruption.
“Say…Julian. No thorn in your tongue. Just roses,” Julian whispered huskily.
“Julian,” she breathed, keeping her eye on the scabrous hand and clawed yellow fingers, mesmerized by those knotted claws tightening the trigger—and kissed him.
“Julian!”
Julian’s head snapped back…
His eyes flew open, mouth gaping like a fish, and a hole appeared in his temple as if painted on.
Handi stood above them with the long-barreled rifle. Smoke still curled from the barrel.
Julian’s trigger finger clenched. His hand flew up, involuntarily blasting the sky, and there was a howl and curse from the ring circling the pit.
Sary snatched Jude from Julian’s arms and raced up a worker’s ramp, passing Handi, who was hobbling slowly down, and dashed on through the ominous gathering.
Grace watched Sary, mute, and then followed, picking up speed. Determined now, Grace brushed aside folk drawn to the burning house.
It was evident Julian’s liquor stock had been broken into, for many waved bottles, to sounds of breaking glass and pistol fire. They seemed demonic, prancing before the flaming town.
A few doves joined Handi in the cellar, dancing away from the worst of the falling char, staring at Julian, helpless. Daredevils. Two feebly tried to lug him to the ramp. One searched his pockets. Another filched his watch. But the fire seemed to have spent most of its scraps of lumber and hogsheads.
Responsible townspeople, Aaron among them, still manned the brigade with the dwindling water supply.
“Sweet Jesus!”
Sary halted, shielding Jude’s face, startled at the scope—the complete morass of black, wet, burned-out hulks of what once was Big Bear.
Grace un-stoppered her mouth, shrieked, and pointed. “It’s her! Get her! She done this!”
As they spotted Sary, some dropped containers and joined Grace, who plodded faster after Sary, who was weaving for the bluff. Grace swatted Aaron to follow. The crowd divided as Grace shouldered past. More dropped buckets. It was futile, now the water was below Sary’s buckshot holes. They slipped in sludge, excited, vengeful, gaining even though Sary ran flat out, bouncing Jude on her shoulder, coming face to face with—“Tommy?”
Wide-eyed, breathless, and scared out of his wits, two rifles slung over his shoulder, his chest cross-braced with ammo, dragging gun belts and gripping two mismatched revolvers, Tommy appeared through the smoke like an anxious ghost.
She dashed past him.
Lost my wits! Surely! Her fantastical conversations with Tommy must have bloomed into full-flowered lunacy. She faltered, a few steps farther on as she raced for the bluff. My Tommy, in that ratty purple velvet cape, possibly the warmest garment he possesses. It’s tied about his neck, fluttering behind. Tommy.
Behind her, Tommy scanned the approaching mob, registered Jude, dropped the extra revolvers, and about-faced. Snatching Jude from Sary, he forged ahead, knees high and pumping hard.
“Tommy! What in pluperfect Hades are you doing…here?” Sary yelled.
“Sometimes gettin’ walloped with a bottle is like a kiss, in retrospect,” he yelled back, dodging and straight-arming a lout determined to make a name.
Sary raced to keep up. “It was—you, idiot!”
Tommy’s alarmed face looked back. The entire town was on their heels, at least the ones not ludicrously slip-sliding in muck made from the water tower.
As they reached the bluff, Sary yanked one of Tommy’s rifles, fanning it from the hip. Tommy slowed.
“Don’t dawdle!” Sary yelled, backing to the bluff. “How’d you get here?”
Tommy slung Jude on his shoulders, grabbed dirt, and climbed.
“Sold it! Knew this was where you’d end up. It was…” He slowed, looking back at the town and the mob overtaking Grace and plowing on ahead. “What the hell happened here, Sare?”
Sary clambered after, huffing. “What? Sold what?”
“Theater. Wagons. Props. Costumes. Malcolm!” Tommy shouted.
Sary checked the gaining mob. “Malcolm? You sold Malcolm?”
“The theater! To Malcolm. He always wanted to play Oberon…”
Sary shoved at Tommy’s behind. “Oh. Keep moving!”
Sary slithered backward.
Orvis was two feet away.
She sighted the green bottle—a glinting acid spark winking by a tower strut.
Orvis ducked, chortling as her shot winged past him.
“Never could shoot worth sh—”
She fired past him again.
The bullet plowed earth beside the bottle.
He lunged, encircling her ankle.
She ignored him, aimed meticulously, and blasted the bottle.
Earth moved.
Planks blossomed out from securing bands.
The remaining water exploded in a mist. Slats shot skyward, then clattered to the ground like wooden daisy petals around a giant smoking black epicenter. Orvis leaped in the air.
Sary hung on. Slivers and gouts of earth peppered and pocked the cliff side, and the tower ponderously tipped as the struts buckled, water turning the earth into mud, as the townspeople yet clawed the bluff at her heels.
Tommy, sheltering Jude, watched anxiously as she crested the top and flashed a look back. Flipping his cape, he loped for a horse. Even then, he expected her to follow.
She picked up the pace, sparing a startled glance at the horse and wagon with the battered Gatling gun with the ring of barrels, tilting on two giant wheels, stenciled with US ARMY.
“What?”
Racing past, Sary regretfully brushed the Gatling as if it were a tame beast. “Damnation!” She was reluctant to leave it.
Tommy gasped, clutching his knees. “Always wanted—one—of—those—” He broke into Cockney. “Thought to me’self, you could use ’alf a ’and.” And he gestured to the ruined, smoldering town, shaking his head. “Shoulda but known. Blimey!”
Sary shoved him. “Move!” One and then two murderous faces breached the bluff, spilling over, followed by a stream of enraged, mortified ranchers, miners, drunks, gentle mothers, a contingent of soiled doves, and shop owners.
“Sary! Don’t stop!” Tommy put on speed, heading for horses awaiting beside the Mercedes. Sary veered back, hopped onto the wagon, and shouldered the broken Gatling. The wagon’s list gave it momentum—it moved a grudging inch and centered on the mob.
“Not worth a tinker’s farthing, love!” Tommy shouted, scared. “Make haste!”
“They don’t know that!”
Sary cranked the gun around.
Faces grew distinguishable. There was Grace, right in front—yet Sary felt no anger or hatred, only pity. Sary had her child.
The mob stopped short, focused on the unlikely sight of the Gatling and Sary, who stood with one hand on the crank, the other feeding a half-empty cartridge belt through the slot.
They faltered, staring into multiple snouts of multiple barrels, and backed and spun in their tracks to pelt off. Only a few crouched, arms swinging, waiting to see what would happen next.
“Oh, the hell with it!”
Sary cranked a few rounds over their heads.
The gun bucked and rattled from its braces as Sary forced the balky bent crank into a few more goes. Reverberation stuffed cotton in her ears and rattled up her arms, past juddering teeth, as the mob dove, scrambling, over the bluff’s edge.
Sary laughed and jumped from the cart, racing joyously for the remaining horse.
Mounted, Sa
ry looked back.
“Come, sweeting!” Tommy exhorted.
“No, just a bit!”
She and Tommy edged to the bluff, and Sary gazed sadly down at Handi, a miniature old woman slumped over Julian in the cellar among smoldering wood. Pearl stood beside her. Some of the water had run off into the pit, and Sary hoped Pearl would soon lead Handi away.
The fire had bypassed the saloon. A stick figure shoved through the doors with cradled bottles in her arms. It could only be The Hag. Her Hag.
“We could buy this lot for a nickel’s worth of pinchbeck, Tommy. Rebuild the house. Have a theater. A grand place. Chandeliers. Velvet seats. Pictures in big gilt frames like—”
She stopped. “I owe you,” she said simply.
“Oh, Sary! And, miss all the divertissement? ’Sides, Malcolm’d never forgive me.”
Sary giggled, reaching for Jude. She peered into his trusting jade-green eyes.
“I’m your mama. Forever!”
Jude studied her, round-eyed.
“Pway poker?” he lisped hopefully.
Sary squeezed him, and then Tommy, with Jude squashed between. “Apparently!” She chuckled, and Jude grinned around his thumb as he looked up at them.
They mounted the horses, and Sary cantered ahead, yelling back at Tommy, “’Sides, I hear there’s diamonds in Africa…”
She galloped on.
Tommy, laughing, head thrown back, whooped and gave chase.
If you enjoyed this story,
watch for SARY’S DIAMONDS,
as Sary continues her adventures with a trip to Africa…
A word from the author…
As all writers with creative monkeys on our backs, after wading through the muck of pottery, hacking away as a sculptor, sucking up paint fumes, dabbling in stunt work, plus years of hurry-up-and-wait background performing…the Art of Writing is an exhilarating medium, beyond blood-spattered laptops and with few tools outside of a feverish brain and a doorstop thesaurus…
I live, play, and write in Pacific Palisades and Big Bear, California.
~Sharon
Thank you for purchasing
this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Sary's Gold Page 24