by J. P. Sloan
“It ain’t the land, ma’am. It’s the blight that resides upon it.”
We stand in silence for a while before Katherina unfurls her arms and stretches. The wind kicks up her lace shawl, spinning it up around her shoulders for a second.
“You help no one by moving into town.”
“Why are you fighting me so hard on this?”
“Because I worry about you.”
“Yeah?” I shout. “Well, so do I!” I turn away, trying not to show her my face.
“I am no threat to you.” Her voice creeps through the breeze. “I feel I have proven this.”
“Maybe I am. I’m a threat to you. And your husband.”
“You think so?”
“Listen, I’m trying to do the right thing before I manage to fuck it up. Don’t make this harder on me.”
We both turn as the sound of hoofbeats hammers over the hillock behind the shelter. I bustle up my saddlebag and move around to get Ripper awake and ready. By the time I get a blanket onto Ripper’s back, I spot Scarlow winding around the front of the shelter.
Katherina lingers by the cellar door, arms held stiff at her sides, eyes ablaze with confusion.
“Odell,” Scarlow announces with a nod before turning to tip his hat at Katherina. “Ma’am.”
She clenches and unclenches her fingers. “Edward.”
I shoot Scarlow a smile. “When did you start being Edward?”
He shrugs and reaches into his coat to pull out a kerchief. He gives his nose a long blow before grunting, “You ready yet?”
“Nearly.”
I don’t take much more time saddling Ripper up. Katherina steps slowly over to my side as I give the buckle a good tug.
“What is he doing here?”
“He’s riding with me to Broad Creek.”
She shakes her head and lays a tight hand on my arm. “You are insane.”
“Listen. You know what’s in those damn hills. You know anyone else you’d rather ride with a gun?”
“You cannot trust him,” she whispers.
“No, I don’t suppose I do. But I think I’ve got him figured out square enough. And if the man ain’t trustworthy, least he’s predictable.”
She releases my arm. Then, with a quick, unavoidable motion, she sweeps up to my face and kisses my cheek.
Before I can turn, she’s gone, the cellar doors clacking behind her. Guess that took us both by surprise.
I give Scarlow a stern look as his mouth twists up into a smug goddamn countenance.
“Shut up,” I grumble.
“I ain’t said shit.” He snickers as I mount my horse and pull alongside him. “What, no cart?”
“Not hauling that much paper. Quicker this way, anyhow.”
He nods. “Suits me. Quicker we punch through those hills, the happier I’ll be.”
“I’m surprised you showed.”
“Don’t recall you givin’ me much choice.”
I kick Ripper forward, and we move north.
The half-hour ride to the ridge is quiet as Scarlow and I keep our eyes forward and mouths shut. We pull back to a steady walk as the ridge approaches. The plan is to hit the mine hills at sunrise, but the turn of the night seems to slow up on us the farther we ride.
Scarlow reaches for his saddlebag and clears his throat just before tossing me a small but heavy pouch. I snatch it and give it a quick inspection. Cartridges.
As I shoot Scarlow an eyebrow, he says, “‘Bout time you fired something useful for a change.”
“Won’t do much good against what’s in those hills.”
“No, but it’ll be a mite useful once we clear the hills.”
“I got no quarrel with regular folk, Scarlow.”
He snickers. “Yeah, well, maybe they’ll find some quarrel with you.”
We reach the first incline of the hills well before sunup. We fall into a two-man line, me bringing up the rear as Scarlow laces us into a path, worn but quickly growing over. Low-hanging pine branches brush my sleeves as we climb. Ripper moves careful, his ears twitching more than usual. He knows something’s in these woods.
I cock my ear, but all I hear are hoof falls on rock and dirt, and the occasional cricket song.
Scarlow turns in his saddle and squints up into a nearby tree.
“What?” I whisper.
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
We push on. Minutes upon minutes, step by step, we wind up into the hills.
I spot something moving in the high branches. Could be an owl.
Could be.
“You see them, too?” Scarlow grunts.
“Strigoi, you think?”
“Whatever you call them.”
Another shadow slides beyond us overhead, silent and quick. Scarlow pulls up his reins, and we stand still for a second.
No motion overhead.
So we continue.
After a pace, we both spot more Strigoi darting along the tree line overhead.
“If I didn’t know better,” Scarlow says over his shoulder, “I’d say they was escortin’ us.”
“Who says you know better?”
“Suppose I don’t.”
“Katherina,” I offer. “She has a nanny’s sense about her, sometimes. Probably sent the orphans to keep an eye sharp on us.”
“She sent what, now?”
“She calls them orphans. The Strigoi what don’t speak.”
Scarlow shakes his head and slides his rifle behind his saddle. “Whatever you say, Odell.”
At length, the sun finally decides to rise, and the Strigoi leave us to our own devices. The terrain levels out considerably by the time bright orange clouds peek through the pine branches overhead.
“We’re about clear,” Scarlow declares as he reaches into his pocket for a slug of chewing tobacco.
He cuts off a bite with a hunting knife, then offers me the slug. I refuse, pulling Ripper up even with his horse.
“What, tobacco against your religion or somethin’?”
“Not much for religion in general.”
“For a man who guns down unholy Hell in the name of God, you say you ain’t got religion? That don’t make no kind of sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” I reply, kicking Ripper ahead.
We clear the last of the dwindling pines and reach the open plain. Kicking the horses into a run, we make better time moving north.
Broad Creek doesn’t put more than a full day’s ride on us, but we make camp anyway. No one’s going to talk to two turned-down and road-dusted sumbitches in the middle of the night. Might as well make a fresh start in the morning. We gather up a spot between hillocks just south of Broad Creek and get some brush started licking flame.
As we settle and the sun drops low behind us, I stare up at the sky. My head spins, for no particular reason. I just lay back and stare. The stars seem impossibly high. So much space.
I look over at my pack and saddle sitting close to where I tied Ripper. Everything I own in the world.
And all the Hell and drama in Gold Vein is well behind me.
I’m free.
I am absolutely free to move wherever I care to.
I hadn’t felt this particular tug on my insides in a long time.
“You sigh a lot for a gunslinger.” Scarlow chuckles from across the campfire.
“What?”
“Gettin’ wistful over there?”
“I’m just appreciating the goddamn beauty of fucking nature, Scarlow. You have a problem with it, you can blow it directly out your ass.”
“That’s more like it.”
“The Hell you know what I’m thinking, anyway?”
He smiles and looks up. “I’m thinkin’ the same thing.”
“That a fact?”
“Both of us got obligations we don’t particularly care for. You got plans, I got plans, and all these plans are keeping us in Gold Vein.”
I sit up and watch Scarlow as he shifts in the dirt.
�
�You ever put serious thought into up and leaving Richterman to hang?”
His cheek twitches. “If I were to do that, I’d be shooting the golden hen right through its gizzard.”
“But you’d be free.”
“Not sure what that even means. Free to do what? Scratch together more ranch work? Keep duckin’ the law every time someone thinks they recognize my face? Dig my hands into blisters for pennies? Hell. A slave in the house of the emperor eats better than a king of a pile of shit.”
“You have absolutely no scruples, do you?” I grumble.
“Scruples don’t help me sleep at night.”
I laugh myself into a cough. “You’re saying you sleep at night?”
His face pulls into a wide grin. “No, don’t suppose I do.”
“Where’s Richterman getting his cash money to pay you, anyway? The mine’s been dead for how long?”
Scarlow’s grin melts. “Who said the mine was dead?”
I sit upright. “The mine’s operating?”
“Not the mine proper, but there’s a good bit of ore rock loaded up in a pit just south of the old entrance. Not sure where it comes from, and I suppose we all just figure Richterman’s got some kind of labor workin’ the mine on the sly.”
“The orphans, if I had to put money on it. Probably where they bed down at daybreak.”
“Well,” Scarlow continues as he leans back down into the dirt, “they’re doin’ something down there. Richterman ever deals you in, I’m sure he’ll tell you all about it.”
I doubt Richterman would ever deal me into this particular game he’s playing.
At this point I wonder if Gil will deal me in, either.
road Creek is only a hair larger than Gold Vein in size, but it’s more than triple the population. The common bustle of folk in and out of the street gives me the clench-ass. It’s too damn easy to get shot in this town and not know where the bullet came from. Too easy to find yourself facedown in your own insides and not have a single soul give a shit until you’ve sullied his nice-steppin’ shoes.
I linger on the end of one of the lanes, not quiet as sure of where I should go as I would be in Gold Vein. Scarlow lifts a hand and wiggles his finger in the direction of a fine-shingled two-story with a sign reading “Josie Henry’s.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“It’s where Folger keeps tryin’ to drop off his papers. I figure that’s your first stop.”
“And my second?”
Scarlow nods with a smirk. “Got more business for you, if you’re game.”
“Go on.”
“This whole affair with Magner and his man-eaters. Ain’t natural.”
“That’s a fact.”
“Well, seems to me we could benefit from a word or two from a holy man.”
I stretch my neck and shake my head. “Ain’t nothing a priest can help with, Scarlow.”
“Not a priest. Not in the strict sense of the word. There’s an old feller by the name of William Redhawk. He’s an old Shoshone medicine man who lost most of his band to an army pacification sweep. He holed up in Broad Creek and is tryin’ his best to carry on his work. Found him a year ago. He helped me grip a solid read on Richterman. Figure it’s time we put a question or two about Magner his direction, see what insight he scares up.”
“What kind of ‘work’ is he carrying on with?”
Scarlow turns to me, his face tight with a new kind of tension. “Your kind, if you take my meanin’.”
That notion burns a hole directly in the center of my thoughts. Another kind of demon-hunter? At once I feel a rush of anticipation and a kind of turf-jealous pucker that brings me no kind of dignity.
Scarlow lingers awhile, his face twitching with words unspoken. Finally he nods and dismounts, leading his horse to the livery.
I take a good grip of the papers and step into what I discover is a fairly well-patronized saloon. A gentleman staggers down a far staircase from the recent care of a working girl. The dull thrum of conversation washes over the tops of greased pates, rolling through tobacco smoke and some odors more exotic.
Several pairs of eyes follow me as I make my way to the till, one in particular fidgeting like he has a pocket full of red ants. I keep a mental note of that one and drop the stack of bound papers onto the planks in front of the barkeep.
He pauses over a length of cigar he had just fished from a pocket, his bulging eyes boring holes into me. “Well, now, what do you want?”
“Got papers from a Mr. Denton Folger in Gold Vein. Said you was like to hand them out.”
The barkeep lifts the top sheet and gives it a cautious glance before sniffling. “I ain’t selling these.”
“Don’t have to sell them. Just put them into hands.”
He stares at me.
“Listen,” I add, “do you or don’t you know who Denton Folger is?”
He nods slowly.
“Well, these are his pressings, and I can guarantee he ain’t expecting a repayment.”
The man stands stiff, eyes screwing into a question mark. “Something wrong with you?” he asks before coughing into his sleeve.
I reach for the papers and untie the knot, slipping a handful out from the brown top sheets.
“Hand them out,” I say as I wander to a nearby table, shoving individual sheets in front of anyone not laying cards in front of hisself. “You know, like this? It’s important words about what’s happening in Gold Vein. People need to know. And you need to spread the word around.” I toss a couple pages with perhaps a touch more bellicosity than the sumbitch deserved. Something about him just crawled under my skin.
I stop short in front of old Red Ants. He moves his hands in and out of his pockets as his face takes the color of a man holding his breath. Speaking of breath, mine is heaving.
“This ain’t no way to fight a war,” I mumble.
The whole room stares at me. I drop the last couple sheets back onto the tiller and rub my face.
“That’s all,” I add, straightening my hat.
The room is absolutely silent, until one voice from a card game mutters, “Call.”
Coins drop onto the table, and someone raises.
The barkeep lights his cigar, and conversations resume. I turn a slow circle, taking in the room, feeling suddenly humiliated with myself.
I hear a cork pop behind me, and I turn to find the barkeep holding up a bottle of whiskey. “Offer you a drink, Mister?”
I wave him off and take a quick exit amid the chuckling of some onlookers inside. As I step outside, the sunlight strikes the back of my neck. I peer up at a clear, blue sky. There’s a light breeze puffing at my shirtsleeves. It’s a much milder day than we’d had the last couple weeks down in the valley. Summer’s last hurrah.
My chest is light. I turn and look up and down the street, wondering where Scarlow had lost hisself.
Or whether I should even bother finding him.
Scarlow’s right, after all. I can ride on. My job is technically done, if I were to account for Folger’s view of things. I fought his fight his way. And for the first time since he’d been waging war on Richterman with his printing press, the papers have made it outside of the valley. I’m very sure it won’t amount to a pile of road apples, but I did it his way.
And there was Magner, with his band of cannibals. Magner wouldn’t stop for an ignorant damned newspaper. He wouldn’t stop if the whole of the U.S. Army rode up into those hills loaded for bear. He’d keep making more of those abominations, and they’d sweep down into town and devour every last person in Gold Vein. I couldn’t leave them to that fate.
I couldn’t leave her to that fate.
I shake my head.
This ain’t right. I’m not worried about a Strigoi woman. She could handle herself, probably Denton, too. Magnificent woman. She don’t need me.
A hand lands on my shoulder, and I draw up just short of throwing a fist into Scarlow’s jaw. He lifts a hand with a grin.
“Found y
ou.”
“Christ, Scarlow. About shined your apple.”
“You get those papers delivered?”
“You don’t see them in my hands, do you?”
He nods. “Then on to business of actual worth, then.” He motions forward, and I follow. “Old Redhawk usually keeps a man or two in and around the laundry tents. Told me once the moisture in the air helped him breathe, but I think he just likes to keep out of the notice of Broad Creek’s favored sons.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“So, he’s old, and a bit crotchety. Try not to mention the Army around him, and he shouldn’t give us shit.”
Scarlow makes an amused sound as we step up to a curled-up old man with long braids of silver-and-black hair hanging from a Union riding hat. Don’t mention the Army. Cute.
The old man lifts his face and straightens up about as much as I figure his spine would allow. I figure he’s looking at us, though his cheeks and eyelids are so puffed up I can’t quite tell for sure.
“William Redhawk?” I offer.
The old man lifts a shaking finger, pointing over my shoulder. I turn to find an extraordinarily tall drink of water looming behind me. His face is leathered, but his eyes are sharp and full of quick thoughts. A single white braid of hair shoots from underneath a buckskin riding hat. His shirt tucks into his pants, but his buttons lay open near the chest for virtue of being a size too small for his physique. This is most certain a man who could hand me my ass in my own hat.
Redhawk sizes me up, then looks over to Scarlow.
“Who’s this?” he asks in a thunderous baritone.
Scarlow chuckles, though without his usual heft. “He’s a man from Gold Vein. Runs with…” He leans into me. “Godpistols, you call them?”
I nod, keeping an eye on Redhawk.
Scarlow continues, “He and I are workin’ the same problem, and we hope maybe to bend your ear.”
Redhawk holds out his hand. “I know the Godpistols. They are… efficient.”
I shake his hand, and he nearly crushes mine with immense grip.
Scarlow sniffles, reaches into his pocket, and pulls out three gold coins. Couldn’t be dollars. Can’t quite tell. He hands them over quick and tight-fisted.
Redhawk makes a quick evaluation of the coins and nods to himself, pocketing them in his shirt. “What’s your problem?”