At sunset we found a nice place with some rock shelter to make camp. While he went after some quail, I gathered wood, started a fire, and dug up some sego root and prickly pear. I was cutting the spines out of the prickly pear when he returned swinging a plump pair of quail.
He held the birds up by their feet. “I snuck up and caught ’em in the act.”
The male’s plume dangled like a sagging upside-down question mark.
“It’s mating time, Detective. Did you at least let them finish?”
He laughed off my question, although I hadn’t been joking.
“What are you doing with that cactus?” he asked.
“A little green to go with the meat. Don’t you Texas boys eat vegetables, or are you strictly the flesh-eating kind?”
“Well, I try and eat greens when I can. But I never ate a cactus, that’s for sure.”
At dinner, he was surprised and pleased that the cactus was palatable, and I was happy that I could teach him something. After we ate, he pulled out a harmonica. We both stretched out on our bedrolls by the fire. He played and I sang. First, “Oh! Susanna,” then “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” We ended with “Amazing Grace.” He played well. I supposed it was a skill perfected on lonely nights traveling the west in search of train robbers and outlaws. While he played, his hands obscured his mouth, but his large eyes filled with sentiment as he looked at me singing across the fire.
I had sung to Pearl on her deathbed, and I had sung in smoky saloons and dance halls. I had sung sultry tunes at the Doll House with the aim to seduce. Yet only under the stars in the cool night air, did my voice feel clean and free. When we finished “Amazing Grace,” warm tears rolled down my dusty cheeks. I smiled and hoped that he would know I was happy and that he didn’t have to worry about his blubbering fair-sexed companion. With wet glistening eyes, he hollered a rebel-yell and slapped his knee.
“Ophelia!” He looked at me and smiled wide, “We make a good pair!” A coyote filled the following silence with one lonely howl followed by a discordant chorus.
“The coyotes think so too, Detective Sirringo.”
“Please call me Charlie.” He smiled. “You sing like an angel.”
I laughed and sighed. “Too bad they don’t let whores into heaven.”
“Awww, who wants to go there anyway? Full of temperance ladies, reformers, and preachers—sounds more like hell.”
“You know, if you were Mormon, you could be the ruler of your own eternal kingdom.”
He snorted. “What would I want with that? Texas is big enough for me.”
I nodded and smiled. “Charlie,” I began again, “what do you think the chances are that this man is my brother?”
“Well . . .” He absentmindedly chewed on the side of his mustache. “I’m almost positive.”
“How are you so sure?”
“Although he’s a half-breed Indian, in some way that I can’t really put my finger on, he looks like you. Also, he goes by the name of Eli.”
“That was my father’s name!”
“I know.”
“How did you know that?” I asked.
“Miss Oatman —”
“Please, call me Ophelia.”
He grinned. “Ophelia, remember I’m not just a Texas cow drover who plays mouth organ to the stars. I’m also a former Pinkerton, and Pinkertons is arguably the best detective agency in the country, maybe the world.”
I thought of Scotland Yard, but didn’t say anything. Perhaps all of Charlie’s tall tales were real. But a larger than life character from the pages of a dime-store novel was too good to be true. I wondered what his flaw was.
He stood up, raised his fists to the sky, and cracked his neck from side to side. His dark fire-lit shadow stretched long on the sand behind him. He retrieved a bottle of spirits from his saddlebag and then sat down by the fire again. “Just a little nightcap.” He uncorked the bottle. “I regret that I don’t have a glass. Would you like some?” He carefully wiped the rim with his kerchief and handed the bottle to me.
I took a sip, bracing for the usual gut-rot whiskey. The smooth orangey taste was surprisingly pleasant. I looked at the unmarked bottle and took another sip. “Mmmm, that’s good. What is it?”
“French brandywine.”
“I think I’ve had something like this before.” I took another sip and handed it back. “It’s delicious. Thank you.”
“Have more, please.” He held out the bottle to me.
“No, thank you. I don’t want to take it all.”
“I normally liquor myself on something a little stronger, Miss—Ophelia. I brought this along for you.”
“That was very thoughtful. Let’s save it for later. You never know when we’ll have to hunker down from a storm.”
“Good thinking, best to hit the hay and get an early start.” He stood up and put the bottle away. When he came back, he paced in front of the fire and looked at where I had laid out my bedroll far away from his on the other side of the fire. He stroked his chin and chewed on his mustache again. “I don’t mean to sound improper, but can I make a suggestion?”
“What’s that?”
“Just in case of danger, I think we ought to sleep close together.” He patted one of his six-shooters. “With this at my side and a Winchester pillow, I can protect us from anything or anyone that tries to sneak up in the night.”
I didn’t know what to do or think. After a day’s riding, then making music and drinking brandywine, I could feel an unwanted affection growing between us. I’d felt it from the day he got off the train, and it was growing stronger. I tried to suppress my lustful nature. After I’d spent nearly ten years working as an upstairs girl, a proper romance was impossible. My mission was to find Zeke, not to have a tryst with a mustache-chewing cowboy detective.
“For safety?” I asked.
He held his hands in the air. “As your employee, I feel the duty to protect you.” He put his hands behind his back and said, “I’ll keep my hands to myself, promise.”
“Okay.” I began walking away from camp so I could relieve myself before bed. I called to him over my shoulder. “You really ought to stop chewing on your mustache. A habit like that can mark a man.”
“Was I doing that again?”
“Yes.” I turned and smiled.
“Where you going?”
“Just the privy, I’ll be all right. I’m a pioneer girl.” I squatted in the bushes, remembering a story about a little pioneer girl who’d been dragged away by Indians when she wandered off to pick flowers. The frontier was a dangerous place.
When I returned, he’d moved our bedrolls close together. He sat against a boulder with his drover’s coat over him and his boots still on. His Winchester sat right next to him. He had taken off his hat and placed it between the back of his head and the rock. He smiled at me in the moonlight.
I lowered myself to the ground, got comfortable on the bedroll, and looked up at the night sky. An awkward silence stretched between us. I was aware of my every breath. Charlie’s eyes closed and his head drooped. I remembered having romantic relations outside with Whiskey Pete and Samuel Cox. Some of the whores were forced to work outdoors in alleys and pens. I’d never had to stoop that low. I had enjoyed sex under the stars. Those nights had been magical. If Samuel Cox and Peter hadn’t betrayed me, they would have been good memories.
The possibility that Detective Sirringo was full of bull crossed my mind. Perhaps he was a charlatan detective who would lead me on a wild goose chase and take the ruby necklace despite his failure. Perhaps he was a bad man, the kind who liked to cut up whores. Perhaps he would rape and kill me, or gouge out my eyes.
I looked over at him. He’d awakened and looked up, contemplating the stars as innocent as a baby watching a mechanical toy.
He looked down at me. “Are you comfortable?” He squinted in the dark. “You look distressed.”
“I was just thinking.”
“Don’t think, sleep.” He clos
ed his eyes again.
And I wished I could. But sleep did not come easily that night. Soon enough he was snoring. He was a deep sleeper. His mouth hung open so wide I imagined a spider or scorpion crawling into it. I marveled that one of his enemies hadn’t already killed him in his sleep. The night became colder, and I caught a chill. I moved closer to Charlie, snuggled under his coat, and finally fell asleep with his warmth on my back.
Sometime in the middle of the night or maybe the early morning before sunrise, I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach. The agony crippled me. I couldn’t stand or walk, so I crawled away from where we slept. I vomited onto the sand, gagging and retching over and over until I yearned for a bullet in the head. I must have passed out, because the next morning sun tickled my eyelids and I awoke in Charlie’s arms with his coat over me. I felt drained, and weak, and embarrassed.
He held a canteen to my lips. “See if you can hold down some water.”
“No. I’m okay. We have to get going. We have to find Ezekiel.”
“You’re in no condition to ride.”
“I must. We can’t risk losing him.”
Charlie got up and gently guided me into a sitting position. He tucked his coat around me to protect me from the morning chill. “Ride on the back of my horse until you recover some strength. If you fall off your horse and injure yourself, things will get a lot worse.” He began packing up camp. “I don’t suppose you want anything to eat?”
I shook my head and squinted. It was difficult to keep my eyes open.
“Who’s Samuel?” Charlie asked as he saddled the horses.
I looked at him surprised. “Samuel? Why do you ask?”
“You were delirious. You kept yelling, ‘Samuel, don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.’ I kept telling you I wasn’t Samuel and I wasn’t going to leave you. But I couldn’t get any sense into you.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been such a burden. Thank you for staying and caring for me. I’m not usually like this. I’ll be better soon.”
“I wouldn’t leave any lady out here, even if I wasn’t working for her. I don’t know who Samuel was, or what he did, but I’m not like him. You can trust me, Ophelia.”
As we rode that day, it took all the strength I had just to hold on to Charlie. We trailed my pony and went at a slow pace. But at least we were moving forward, getting closer to Silver Reef and Ezekiel. We stopped at noon. I drank some water and had a nibble of a Johnny cake.
“I haven’t eaten game for a long while. It could have been the quail.”
Charlie nodded. “That could do it. How are you feeling?”
“I’m feeling a little stronger. I think I can ride.”
We left behind snow-capped peaks and descended into a warmer, arid climate filled with sand and sage. Parched throats and the heat evaporated our conversations. Even Charlie’s stories eventually dried up. A giant sandstone reef appeared, stretched as far as the eye could see. It reminded me of my childhood—my family. Our lives and struggles had transpired in a gigantic amphitheater of strange magnificent rocks. “Are we close?”
“Very close.” Charlie stopped and let his horse drink from the creek. He squinted into the distance ahead and grimaced. “I’m not so sure it’s a good idea that you meet your brother. I don’t think he’s the same person you remember.”
There was something about Ezekiel that Charlie didn’t want to tell me. “I’m hardly the same person either. I wasn’t a whore when we were children.”
“Stop!” He looked at me sternly.
I wondered if he’d spoken to any of his male employers with such impunity.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that. It’s in the past. Put it behind you. Keep it dry.”
I got off my pony and let her drink. “Eventually, I will have to tell my brother.” I snapped sage leaves from a bush and crushed them between my fingers. “What makes Ezekiel so dangerous that you couldn’t approach him?”
“There’s been trouble in Silver Reef: labor riots, people disappearing, arson, all sorts of things. I think he’s involved. Ezekiel goes by Eli Black now. But some people call him Chinese Red.”
“Chinese Red? What does that mean?”
“He worked as a blackleg in the silver mine during a strike. They would never employ him for white wages, so he worked for Celestial wages. Some people say he looks like he’s half Chinaman.”
I shook my head and felt sad for Zeke. Curse of the half-breed: no race or tribe would accept you. You might belong to any, but none wanted to claim you. I would accept him. I couldn’t wait to embrace him. “He’s half Indian, not a Celestial.”
“All the whites hate him for being a blackleg. Finally he quit, but it was too late. Now he works for Mr. Gee.”
“What’s a blackleg and who is Mr. Gee?”
“A blackleg is a strikebreaker. Mr. Gee controls the Chinese lottery, opium trade, and a whole lot of Celestial prostitutes in Silver Reef, including a handful of white girls. Silver Reef residents hate the Celestials for taking miners’ jobs. Yet many of the whites are hooked on Celestial habits, opium, lottery, and even their girls. A mob tried to burn out Gee, but he just used the opportunity to rebuild bigger and better. Some say he’s the richest man in town.”
“Silver Reef doesn’t sound too different from any other mining town. I’m sure at heart Zeke is still the same. He’s just trying to survive.”
Charlie nodded, but his eyes told me there was something else. “Silver Reef is the only place in the whole country they ever found silver in sandstone.”
I looked at the sandstone reef. “I love being back in red rock country, especially in spring. Summer just about melts the flesh from your bones. I’m sure you’ve experienced that.”
“Have I told you about the desert turtle drive?” Charlie asked. He began telling me a silly story about hard-up drovers trying to herd desert tortoises.
At sunset we stopped riding and made camp. The next day I found out we’d only been about fifteen miles from Silver Reef. Charlie seemed reluctant to leave the wilderness and go into town.
“Would you like to be my sister or my wife?” Charlie asked as he saw to the horses.
After that long in the saddle my brain was addled and my behind felt like blistered mush. I didn’t know what to say, so I just looked at him cockeyed.
Charlie explained. “We don’t want to attract scandal or unwanted solicitations, so we should establish false identities.”
“Right. A whore traveling with a former Pinkerton in search of a half-breed turned Celestial’s henchman is indeed scandalous. What do you want, Charlie? Do you want me to be your wife or your sister?”
“I think we should be married. We’ll draw less attention if we’re married. I’ve changed my getup, so hopefully I won’t be recognized. Of course, this is just for the purpose of finding Ezekiel.”
I smiled. “Of course, I understand. And why are we visiting Silver Reef?”
“We’re in the cattle business, just passing through, on our way to Los Angeles. Whatever you do, do not mention to anyone that I’m a detective, especially a former Pinkerton.”
I began collecting kindling for the fire. “So what do we want with Zeke?”
Charlie watched me with his hands on his hips. “Remember his name is Eli. Call him Eli. It’s okay to tell people we are looking for him as long as no one discovers our true identities. We can say he worked for us once. You should have a fairly brief reunion, and then we should leave Silver Reef. It has the feeling of a town about to explode. I suspect Gee is planning some sort of retaliation. I’ve been in the middle of riots, and they are no place for the fairer sex.” A worried look crossed his face. He lost track of the task he’d been doing and began pacing.
“Come on, Charlie, I’m no owl afraid of the woods. Don’t you think Ezekiel will come with us?”
Charlie stopped in his tracks and looked at me. “What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t planning on finding my brother just to say a brief ‘How
do you do?’ I want to take him home.”
Charlie looked troubled. “Ophelia, you need to meet him first. He’s hardly a kitten. It’s also possible he’s indebted to Mr. Gee. Seems half of the town is.”
“Well, I can pay off his debts.”
“Perhaps, but not with opium.”
We ate salt pork and beans with the rest of the Johnny cakes. I was pretty sure the quail had made me sick. After dinner we sat around the fire. Charlie took out the bottle of brandywine and handed it to me first.
I held the bottle up in a toast and took a little sip. The fire warmed my front, but I felt the cool night air bite my back. The liquor warmed me all over. I warned myself not to drink too much as it always made me overly affectionate. I handed the bottle back to Charlie. “Thank you. Pearl said never to trust sheriffs or Pinkertons. But so far you are all right.”
Charlie raised his brows. “Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black! I’d no more trust Pearl than a bull in a China shop. Look what she did to you. How old did you say you were when she so kindly took you in?”
“No one did anything to me. I chose my life. Maybe it’s just what I am. What I was born to be. The feelings I sometimes have are not natural for a lady.”
Charlie scoffed and shook his head. “Ha! Ladies don’t act natural. They are the furthest thing from it. Nature knows nothing of ladies and gentlemen, of society and civilization. Here in the wilderness ladies and gentlemen would perish. Real men and women do whatever’s necessary to survive. They can’t afford pretentions.”
I slept well that night. The novelty of Charlie had worn off, and I relaxed in his presence.
THIRTY-TWO
We dawdled the next morning. By the time we arrived in Silver Reef the next day, it was close to candle-lighting time. We were saddle sore, covered with dust, and stank to high heaven. Charlie secured lodging at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. They brought me up a steaming bath. While I bathed in the room, Charlie walked down to the bathhouse. After cleaning ourselves up, we took a late supper at the Cosmopolitan restaurant next to the hotel. With no rail service in Silver Reef, I don’t know how they secured such fresh food and fancy English crockery, but the establishment exceeded my expectations.
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