Blood Storm

by Bill Brooks

  “Let me handle this, Mister Stevens,” Charley Coffey said.

  For a long moment, Winston Stevens didn’t say whether or not he would let Coffey try and handle Cole. Then he laughed hard and loud. “Grass! Steal my grass, indeed!”

  Cole saw the other two red shirts grinning. They weren’t quite sure what the joke was, but, if Mr. Stevens found it funny, then they reckoned it had to be funny. Cole thought again that it must have been a slow week around Deadwood before he had come along to cheer everyone up.

  “Can’t you see, Charles, that Mister Cole is implying that the reason I don’t want trespassers on my land is that I’m worried they might steal the grass?” This was followed by some more of the deep laughter.

  Coffey said: “No I can’t see, Mister Stevens. It don’t sound like no god-damn’ joke to me!”

  “Oh, but it is, dear Charles,” Stevens said. Then his laughter drifted away like a hot wind that dies out at sunset, and his gaze narrowed sharply. “You see, Charles, Mister Cole here obviously cannot see the point of why I don’t allow trespassers and he has made some sort of a joke about it. A rather sly joke, I must admit. But a joke nonetheless.” Then the nostrils of that unbroken nose of his flared and Cole knew Stevens no longer appreciated either his humor or his presence. “Tell Mister Cole what the usual penalty is for men who trespass on my property, Charles.”

  This time it was Charley Coffey’s turn to look happy. “Well, Mister Stevens, usually you have me and Fork and Tolbert whup a man with our quirts. Whup him all the way back to the boundary line where your property begins.”

  “Indeed I do, Charles. Indeed I do. What do you think of that, Mister Cole? Charles . . . Charles and Mister Fork and Mister Tolbert punishing trespassers in the way just described to you?”

  “I think a man who would allow himself to be whipped by these sisters of yours isn’t much of a man.”

  Winston Stevens straightened slightly in his saddle. “I see. You’re portending that you won’t allow my men to mete out the usual punishment on you, is that it?”

  “If you mean to order them to whip me, that’s it exactly.”

  He swallowed. He was close to the edge. Cole could see that veiled anger just behind the glass of his eyes. Anger just waiting to be set loose from under all the breeding and fine rich upbringing he’d had. Cole figured a man like Stevens enjoyed it more than most, seeing a man whipped, broken down. All his refinement didn’t stop him from liking the taste of a little blood now and then. He probably saw it as some form of high sport. “Well then,” he said, adjusting his jaw. “It would appear we are faced with a dilemma.”

  “Call it what you will.”

  “What say you, gentlemen?” he called to the other two red shirts, Tolbert and Fork. They offered him looks of uncertainty. Then Tolbert said: “Whatever you say, Mister Stevens. We work for you.”

  He looked pleased to hear the right answer. He was a man used to hearing the right answers to his questions. “There, you see?” he said, turning his attention back to Cole. “My men agree with me.”

  “Then let them begin,” Cole said. “But first, I’ll shoot Charley there, then you. Him first, because I figure he’s the fastest. Then you. I’ll take my chances those other two won’t have the stomach for it. How’ll that be, Stevens?”

  Cole saw the effect of that, how it settled in those eyes that had been enjoying everything so much up till then.

  “That sound all right with you boys?” Cole asked, without turning his attention completely to Tolbert and Fork. He could hear the way the leather of their saddles creaked when they shifted some of their weight. The sudden prospect of a gunfight was something they hadn’t counted on. Charley was another matter, however. He wasn’t a real smart boy, judging by the looks of him; most gun punks lacked good sense but made up for it with pure meanness. But the fact was, Charley was still sitting there with his Peacemaker halfway up his butt, so it wasn’t doing him much good just at the moment. Still, the odds were long in their favor if they did decide to fight.

  “Is it worth it?” Cole asked, pushing the point home, because a situation where men are being tested can turn south real quick.

  “I seemed to have misjudged you, sir,” Stevens said, after a long, unsteady moment. “I don’t enjoy this business with trespassers, but, then, a man must protect what is his, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Depends on the price he has to pay,” Cole said.

  “Quite true. And in this particular case, the price would most certainly be much too high. I will, however, insist that you vacate my property immediately.”

  “I’ve never been one to stay where I’m not welcome.”

  “You won’t mind if I have Mister Fork and Mister Tolbert and Charles here escort you to the boundary line?”

  “Not Charley,” Cole said. “You want those other two to ride along, that’s fine with me, but not Charley. I don’t care for the man’s company.”

  Cole could see Charley Coffey would have given up his mother’s virtue just for the opportunity to reach that .45 slid around to his tailbone, but his mama could rest easy; she wasn’t going to have her reputation stained this day.

  Cole cleaned camp, mounted the rented horse, and turned back in the direction he’d come, with the two red shirts in tow. One was smoking a shuck and the other rode with his right leg wrapped around the horn of his saddle, bored men doing a boring job.

  They reached the boundary of Stevens’s property just above the tree line, high up the ridge Cole had descended earlier.

  “This is it, Cole,” the one smoking the shuck said. “Don’t come back here, OK?”

  “What’s a job like this pay?” he asked.

  The other one dropped his head and said: “Thirty-five a month, and board.”

  “Somehow, it don’t seem worth it,” he said, “you want my opinion.”

  The first one said: “It’s steady work, though, working for the Englishman. There ain’t many good jobs to be had. Not around here, there ain’t.”

  “You mean as long as you don’t mind whipping a fellow with quirts for stretching out on some grass, maybe watering his horse?”

  Neither of them took any offense, but they were plainly uncomfortable with Cole’s end of the conversation.

  “We do what we’re told,” the one smoking the shuck said. “There’s plenty of hands’d be willing to take our places, we don’t take orders. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  They looked off, back toward the lake.

  “Tell me something,” Tolbert said. “Were you really going to shoot Stevens and Charley and me and Fork here? Were you going to go up against all four of us?”

  Cole looked him in the eyes. “What do you think?”

  They both looked sheepish.

  “A man’d have to be crazy going against four,” Tolbert said. “You don’t act like somebody that’s crazy.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. You just don’t know about a man, do you?”

  Cole could tell by their stares they weren’t certain.

  “We better be heading back,” the one called Fork said. “You ain’t intending on coming back this way, are you?”

  “If I do, I’ll let you know.”

  “Most likely you do, Mister Stevens’ll have us whip you. That’s if Charley don’t shoot you in the head first, or the spine.”

  “I’ll take my chances with Charley Coffey,” Cole said. “I knew him when he was stealing other men’s underdrawers from a widow’s clothesline.”

  That raised a couple of smiles.

  “He’d be the type,” Tolbert said.

  The three shook hands.

  “There’s work down in Texas,” Cole offered, as he turned his horse around in the direction of Deadwood. “A top hand might do well for himself a little farther south.”

  They didn’t reply.

  As Cole rode toward Deadwood, he knew that those two boys had one thing and only one thing on their mind
s—counting the number of days left till payday. That and maybe some plain-faced gal waiting for them down in the low country somewhere. He didn’t hold anything against them. They were just a couple of good men doing a bad job.

  Chapter Sixteen

  By the time Cole rode back into Deadwood, the sky was bunched with heavy gray clouds and the wind drew, sharp and cold, down through the gulch. The old man was still sitting out front of his livery when Cole arrived. It was as if he hadn’t moved since Cole had left that morning.

  He eyed the horse. “You come back,” he said, like it was a surprise to him.

  Cole dismounted and handed him the reins. He ran his hands over the haunches.

  “You looking for dents?” Cole asked.

  He grinned, showing Cole his missing teeth. “Just an old habit I picked up in my droving days,” he said, “running my hands over ’em, checking their legs and such.” Then he jerked the saddle free, set it up on a barrel, and led the horse inside.

  Cole was hungry, but he wanted to swing by and see Liddy first. He didn’t have to give himself a reason. He already knew the reason.

  Jazzy Sue opened the door a minute after he knocked. “Mistuh John Henry,” she said. Her smile was pleasing. She was an attractive girl.

  “Is Liddy home?” Cole asked.

  “Miss Lydia be with somebody.”

  “Oh.”

  “Some young man,” she said. “Wanted to talk to Miss Lydia.”

  Dust blew up from the street. The gusts of wind pinned some pages of yellow newspaper against the white picket fence.

  “You want to come inside?” Jazzy Sue asked. “Look like a storm fixin’ to come.”

  “I’d like that.”

  She stepped back, led Cole into the front parlor. “I can take your hat for you,” she said.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “I take it off, I’ll just have to go through the grief of having to put it back on.”

  When she smiled, so did her eyes. “Would you like me to bring you something to drink, Mistuh John Henry?”

  “A little of that cognac would do the trick.”

  When she returned, she was carrying the crystal decanter of cognac and two glasses on a silver serving tray. She set the tray down on a small black walnut table in front of him.

  “There you go,” she said.

  “You want some of this?” he asked, pouring out a couple of inches of cognac.

  Jazzy Sue’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes grew wide. “Oh, no, suh. Miss Lydia’d whup my bottom she was to catch me drinking that devil water.”

  This time it was his turn to grin.

  “I could dust off your coat while you was waitin’,” Jazzy Sue offered.

  He was about to decline the offer when a door across the hall opened. He stood, thinking it was Liddy coming out of the room. But he was a little more than surprised to see the kid, Rose, coming out of the room. Liddy appeared just behind her, supporting her by the elbow. Cole stood and went to the hall to meet them.

  Rose saw Cole, stopped, looked uncertain. “Mister Cole, what are you doing here?” she asked. Her cheeks were strained with tears, her eyes red and full of hurt.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said.

  Rose looked like she was about to come apart. She looked at Liddy, then back at Cole. “Oh, Mister Cole!” she cried, then threw herself at him, and suddenly he was holding that frail body again, uncertain about the cause of her pain and grief.

  His gaze lifted past Rose’s shaking shoulders and was met by Liddy’s questioning stare. “What is it, Rose? What’s the matter?” he whispered to her.

  “Maybe we should all go in there,” Liddy said, pointing to the parlor.

  Cole led Rose into the room, helped her to the settee. She didn’t want to turn loose of him. He looked at Liddy again, looked for answers.

  “Jazzy Sue, bring some water,” Liddy ordered.

  Jazzy Sue brought a glass of water, offered it to Rose. She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and sipped some of the water. She looked up at Cole, then at Liddy.

  “It’s my mama,” she said.

  “What is?” Cole asked.

  “She’s been killed . . . murdered,” she sniffed.

  Cole glanced across the room at Liddy. She nodded. “Do you remember the matter we discussed,” Liddy said, “the reason you’ve come?”

  “The killings?” he said.

  “Yes. Rose’s mother was one of them.”

  “Her name was Flora,” Rose said. “Mama’s name was Flora.”

  “She worked for you, Liddy?”

  “Yes. She was the last one to . . .”

  Cole remembered what Liddy had said, how they’d found the last woman murdered by a butcher knife. He knew Liddy wouldn’t have gone into detail with Rose about it. At that moment, he felt as sorry for Rose as he had ever felt for anyone. She was frail in lots of ways.

  Rose’s hands trembled as they tried to cling to him. “That’s why I came, Mister Cole. I came looking for Mama . . .”

  “I’m sorry, Rose.”

  She had the look of the lost now, the look that comes when the hard cold reality of a loved one’s death sets in.

  “I didn’t know Flora had a daughter,” Liddy said hesitantly. “She never told me.”

  “Mama left me when I was little,” Rose uttered. “But I was old enough to know she was my mama. She promised she’d come back. Left me and Daddy ’cause Daddy went a little crazy with drinking and quoting the Bible all the time and swinging his fists at her. I guess Mama couldn’t take no more of Daddy hurting her. But I remember her saying she was coming back. I remember her saying that to me. . . .”

  Liddy’s hand closed over her mouth, the fingers pressing her lips.

  “Maybe you ought to lay down for a little while, Rose?” Cole suggested. “Just rest a little. Liddy, how would it be if you poured a little glass of that cognac for Rose?”

  Rose was still staring into that netherworld, talking the whole time about her mama leaving her and about her daddy and how he went crazy afterward. Cole put the glass to her mouth and encouraged her to drink it. She made a face, but drank it, anyway. Liddy asked Jazzy Sue to make up a bed for Rose.

  “Don’t leave me, Mister Cole,” Rose pleaded. “Don’t leave me here in this room alone.”

  Cole helped Rose to a nearby bedroom, Jazzy Sue’s. Jazzy Sue partially undressed Rose and helped her into the bed.

  The light outside had grown dark from the coming storm and the room had a gloomy cast because of it. Cole pulled up a chair next to the bed.

  “Let yourself rest, Rose.”

  She looked up at him with those sad, bittersweet eyes of a woman who was not quite a woman yet and not quite a girl any longer. Cole didn’t know the words to say to her, at least the ones that would make it better, make the ache go away. So, instead, he held onto her hand, and she to his. And they stayed like that until the bedroom grew dark and the silence and the cognac soothed her and her fingers grew limp in his. She fell asleep like that, with him holding her hand.

  “How is she?” Liddy asked, when he rejoined her in the parlor.

  “Resting.”

  “How do you know her?” Liddy asked.

  “We rode here on the stage together.”

  “Just that?”

  “There was a problem out on the road. I offered my help. That’s all.”

  Liddy handed him a glass of cognac. He drank it down.

  “She showed up at my door an hour ago,” Liddy said. “She told me she was looking for her mama, Flora Pride. It was totally unexpected. At first I thought she was a boy, in those clothes she’s wearing. But then I could see, when she took off that big hat, that it was Flora all over again, only younger. Only her name wasn’t Flora Pride when I knew her, it was Flora Reed.”

  “How’d Rose learn of it?” Cole asked.

  Liddy shrugged her shoulders. “She had a small tintype, showed it around to some of the locals. Flora w
as a pretty girl, the kind men wouldn’t forget seeing.”

  “How much did you tell her?”

  “The truth, but not all. She didn’t need to know it all,” Liddy said.

  “I met your friend today,” Cole said, pouring himself a second glass of the liquor, feeling a need to change the subject.

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes widening slightly.

  “A real son-of-a-bitch,” he said.

  Cole saw how that took effect. Her face flushed red, those lovely green eyes turning more jade. “You don’t have the right . . .” she started to say.

  Cole cut her off: “Why’d you leave before I woke this morning?”

  “I thought it was better I did.”

  “Better for you? For me? Better for who?”

  “For everyone concerned.”

  “I don’t understand you,” he said, feeling an anger toward her that he didn’t want to feel.

  “Would you be happier if everyone knew that I’d spent the night with you? Is that what you want, for everyone to know?”

  Cole wasn’t good at this sort of business, of dealing with feelings he knew he shouldn’t be having. He didn’t want to get into a fight with her over something that wasn’t her fault, or his. It’d been a bad day all around, and he was carrying a lot of anger from a lot of different sources, and the day didn’t seem to be getting any better.

  He drank half the cognac. He didn’t know if he wanted to walk out the door or pull her to the floor. He wanted to do both, but found he couldn’t bring himself to do either. “I’ve had a long day,” he said.

  “I heard about the shooting this morning,” she said. “Why didn’t you come to see me?”

  “I needed time to think about things, to get away.”

  “Everything’s becoming entangled, isn’t it?” she asked. “Us, the killings, now Rose?”

  “It’s my fault,” Cole told her. “I shouldn’t have allowed things to get out of hand . . . I mean, between you and me.”

  “Could you have stopped it?”

  He looked at her, looked into those ever-darkening green eyes that he’d never seen on any other woman, and knew the answer. “No, I couldn’t have stopped it.”

  “No one could have.”

  He wanted to kiss her mouth, kiss it and never come up for air. “It’s going to get me killed,” he said, “the way I’m feeling about you.”