Blood Storm

by Bill Brooks

  Cole’s feet and hands were cold, stiff. They’d gotten wet from the snow, from falling in it and lying in it and waiting in it.

  “Have a drink,” the old man said, holding forth the bottle.

  Cole didn’t object. The whiskey put some of the fire back in his blood.

  “Ya want,” he said, “you can have her after I’m done.”

  Cole walked back toward the hotel. He’d been thinking about how close he’d come again to being killed, and he’d been thinking about Suzanne Logan and all the rest of what was waiting for him in Deadwood.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The child was asleep, the room quiet, peaceful. Suzanne sat in a chair, her gaze fixed on the window, staring out into the night, the sky red now from the storm, the snow collected against the sills. The glass windowpane had patterns of frost on it.

  John Henry Cole removed the heavy coat, thankful once more that it had saved his life, and dropped it on the floor over his bedroll. In spite of the cold air outside, his shirt was soaked from sweat. Suzanne watched him in silence.

  He sat down, cross-legged, on the floor and pulled off first one boot, then the other. Still she watched him. His chest was bruised from the slug that had never made it through the curly coat. He winced when he touched the spot.

  “Are you all right?” she said at last as he rested his back against the wall.

  “I’ve been better,” he answered. He searched for his makings, but for some reason wasn’t able to do much because of the cold stiffness of his fingers.

  She moved from the bed, knelt beside him, looked into his face. The light in the room was soft yellow. The shadows played against her face as she took the tobacco and paper from his hands and began to roll the cigarette for him.

  “How bad are you hurt?” she asked.

  “Not very.”

  She wound the tobacco in the paper, licked the edges, sealing it, then twisted off the ends, and handed it to him. He struck a match off the floor and the flame from it danced in front of their eyes. She moved behind him, placed her hands on his shoulders, and began to knead the flesh there where his muscles were tight and aching. Her hands were cool, the fingers strong, knowing just where to squeeze. He closed his eyes and leaned into the pleasure of it.

  “I worried about you today,” she said, as her hands continued working at the knots in his shoulders and neck.

  “Suzanne, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Hush, don’t talk, just let me do this, let me take away your pain.”

  The cigarette tasted good. He reached up with his right hand and placed it atop one of hers, stopping it for a moment

  “Am I hurting you?” she asked

  “Suzanne, Johnny’s dead.”

  Something audible caught in her throat, but she didn’t say anything. Her other hand ceased its movement, its cool strength resting just at the back of his neck.

  “He was killed earlier today,” Cole said.

  She lay her head on his shoulder near the hand he was holding.

  “Why?” she said. “Why was he killed?”

  “It’s complicated,” he said. “Maybe we can talk about why in the morning. Right now, I just need to rest.”

  For a long time she left her head on his shoulder, her breath warm and soft and sweet against the side of his face. A single teardrop fell onto the back of his hand. It was warm as rain in summer.

  “I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you, Suzanne.”

  She swallowed. “I didn’t love him any more,” she murmured. “But I feel badly for him, and I feel sorry for myself for feeling that way.”

  He moved around, took her face in his hands. “Don’t be,” he said. “Don’t be sorry because you feel bad for him, Suzanne.”

  “I’m sorry for Tessie,” she said. “She will never know her father now.”

  “Only what you choose to tell her about him. Maybe she just needs to know the good parts, Suzanne.”

  For a long moment, she didn’t speak except with her eyes, then she whispered: “Why do I feel so alone?”

  “You’re not alone,” he said. “At least not tonight. Look at me, Suzanne. Tell me what you see.” At first she avoided his gaze, but when he held her that way, she finally looked. “What you see, Suzanne, is a man who has spent most of his life drifting. What you see is a man who lost the only woman he ever learned to love and who has never quite drifted far enough or long enough to get over it. You had a man who hurt you, Suzanne. Maybe you’ll be lucky and get over it. You deserve better.”

  “You don’t know what I deserve,” she said, her voice breaking, her tears spilling onto his hands. She wiped at her eyes. “Tell me something,” she said, straightening, holding back her pain. “Are you afraid that you might meet someone that’s worth falling in love with again? Or is it that you’re afraid if you ever stop drifting, you’ll learn the truth about yourself, that you don’t deserve to be happy?”

  “Maybe both, Suzanne. Maybe both.”

  “Our loneliness comes from the same place, John Henry Cole,” she said. “Believe it or not.”

  He lay awake a long time that night, thinking about what Suzanne had said, about the loneliness coming from the same place. He thought of Liddy, of the passion between them, and wondered what it would be like with Liddy and him, once the passion burned itself out. Liddy was like a prairie fire burning across his soul, burning up his logic and reason, burning up all the will he had to resist her. But when the fire finally burned out, would there be anything left, he wondered. Was that where his loneliness had led him, in the path of a wildfire? And what of Suzanne and Tessie? What was he supposed to do about them? His thoughts turned to another town and another woman. A woman he had killed a man over without meaning or intending to, a woman who in the end had seen him as just another sorrow for her to have to learn to live with—at least, until the next man in her life came along. Juanita Delgado—what had come of that? Lying there in the dark on the floor of a Deadwood hotel, Cole thought of how cruel life seemed to be sometimes, by giving us what we need, but seldom what we want.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Cole awoke to find Suzanne packing clothes into the carpet-sided satchels. Tess sat on the side of the bed, watching her.

  “I’ll accept your offer of a pair of tickets to Denver,” she said, seeing that Cole was awake.

  “You’ve given up on the idea of staying here in Deadwood, then?” he said, not sure that he wanted her to go now.

  “I’ve decided to take your advice and leave this unholy place,” she said as she cast an eye toward Tess, who was holding a bisque doll dressed in a white linen dress.

  “Just like that?”

  She paused for a moment, the child’s bonnet in her hands. “I finally realized that with Johnny Logan dead there really would be no point of our staying on.”

  He didn’t really want to talk her into staying, but it did seem sudden, Suzanne’s wanting to leave. But then, why not? He was doing all he could for them, and his life was complicated enough, what with Liddy and the ultimate reason he had come here in the first place. He had said he would be leaving himself in a few days. Why shouldn’t Suzanne and Tess leave? What reason now was there for them to stay?

  “We’ll get some breakfast, and then I’ll get you the tickets,” he said.

  “We’re so grateful. I think you know that. I don’t even know how we’ll ever be able to repay you for all you’ve done for us.” She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “It seems so inadequate, somehow, but . . . thank you.”

  The meal was somber, Suzanne speaking mostly to Tess, urging her to eat her flapjacks and not to dawdle. Cole rose and went over to check on the stage’s departure. It was in less than an hour. He came back to the café and handed Suzanne the tickets, along with what money he’d gotten in an advance from Ike Kelly when he’d left Cheyenne. She was reluctant to take the money.

  “Let’s not have this conversation,” he said.

  Her lips wer
e compressed, but she took the money.

  They had finished the meal, so he carried their satchels over to the stage office and waited until the Concord was brought around. The weather had cleared, but the air was cold, and snow still covered the roofs of every building. Wisps of black smoke curled from every stovepipe. It was a dreary day.

  He held the door open for Suzanne and Tess. Tess climbed in first and took a seat next to a man whose bulk took up the space of two. Then Suzanne climbed in and sat next to the door. The canvas curtain was drawn up to allow light; later, on the road, it would be rolled down to help against the cold.

  Suzanne reached out and touched Cole’s wrist. “Remember, you’ll always be welcome if you come to Denver. We’ll make out.”

  “I’ll remember, Suzanne.” Even as he said it, he felt they both knew that this was the last they would ever see of each other. “Good bye, Tess.” She smiled and thanked him again for all the flapjacks. She was a sweet little girl. Cole couldn’t fathom how Johnny Logan had been able to deny her.

  Other passengers boarded, then the driver and the guard climbed up top. Cole heard the driver urge on the teams and snap the reins, and the Concord jolted, breaking free of the sucking mud. He watched as it rocked down the street, the wheels shattering plates of ice where the ruts and puddles were. Then they were gone, the stage and Suzanne and the little girl, Tess.

  “You and that woman,” a voice asked. “Something up between you?”

  It was Miguel Torres, his usual stalking self, out of nowhere, suddenly there, having approached as silently as a cat.

  “No. They needed help, that’s all.”

  “How’s the other one,” he asked then, “the little gal that sent Johnny Logan to the happy hunting grounds?”

  “I’ve got someone taking care of her, keeping her out of sight.”

  “That’s good, because the way I hear it, some of that constable’s friends are talking about revenge.”

  “They know who it was that killed him? They know it was Rose Pride?”

  “They think they know.” He snorted.

  “Let them think what they want.”

  “You might not want that if you knew who it was they’re saying killed him.”

  Cole was finding that Torres could sometimes be irritating. “You want to tell me who?”

  “You. They think you killed Logan.”

  This was something Cole didn’t need to hear.

  “They think maybe you had a reason to kill him because of the way he opened your head with the butt of his shotgun. Not only that, but lots of folks saw that business between the two of you out on the street the other day when you shot King Fisher. They say you were ready to kill him then. They’re pretty sure it was you who killed him.”

  “I guess you didn’t bother to tell anyone it wasn’t me.”

  Torres was doing his usual—scouting the street with his eyes as they talked. “You mean I should have told ’em it was the girl that did it, not you?”

  “No, that’s not what I meant.”

  “What, then?”

  “Nothing.”

  “The other thing . . . they brought in two bodies this morning.”

  “Who did?”

  “Fancy-talking Englishman, him and his ramrod, boy named Charley Coffey. You ever hear of Charley Coffey?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Charley’s made a name for himself.” A wry smile played on Torres’s lips. “If they had a contest for low-heeled assassins . . . men that’d shoot you in the spine . . . I imagine Charley would win hands down.”

  “I killed them,” Cole said. “The two men they brought in.”

  Torres didn’t act surprised. “You have any more tobacco?”

  Cole watched as he rolled himself a cigarette with the tobacco and papers he gave him. He handed them back to Cole before striking a match with his thumbnail. “That’s four,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “The number of men you’ve killed since Cheyenne.”

  “I wasn’t keeping count.”

  “Maybe you should.” He blew out a stream of blue smoke.

  “It’s a violent world. What can I tell you?”

  “More so in your case than in others. Why’d you kill them?”

  Cole told him why, about his suspicions of Leo Loop, and of having followed him into the ambush. Torres nodded and smoked and kept his gaze scouting the street.

  “So, you think it’s this fellow, Loop, is it? You think he’s behind the killings of those prostitutes you come up here to investigate?”

  “I’d be damned surprised if he wasn’t.”

  “How’d you come to figure it out?”

  Cole told him the part about his visit with Leo Loop, about passing himself off as a new dealer in town, about asking Loop’s permission to set up shop. He told him how Leo had wanted to shake him down.

  “That it?” he asked. “You have a conversation with this man and you figure from that he’s been killing whores? Why, because they’re not paying for permits to operate?”

  Cole figured Miguel was challenging what few investigative skills he had, that he was testing Cole to see how he matched up to a professional lawman, to himself.

  “I think maybe the Englishman’s in on it, too,” Cole added.

  Torres looked at Cole through the haze of blue smoke lifting upward from the cigarette that clung to his lips, his right eye squinting. “What makes you think so, that this Englishman’s in on it, too?”

  “My guts tell me.”

  “Guts,” he said, then ground the spent shuck under his heel. Torres was a man Cole could easily dislike, but a man he had to respect. It was out of respect that he didn’t tell him to go to hell. “There’s also another consideration,” Torres added.

  “What’s that?”

  “Something that calls itself the town peace commission held an emergency meeting right after the Englishman and his gunner brought in those two corpses. They hired Charley Coffey as the new town constable. Your man, Loop, is he a big man, belly out to here?” Torres asked, holding his hands out in front of him.

  Cole nodded.

  “He’s the one that suggested it, that they hire Charley. The Englishman backed him. Everyone else went along with it.”

  “Charley was the one that set up the ambush,” Cole said. “Then, when it came to the real fight, he damned near beat his horse to death trying to get away.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Torres said. “You want, you can go over to Nutall and Mann’s and finish your business with him. He’s over there now, having drinks bought for him by a grateful community of his peers.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.”

  Torres only offered that little smile that let Cole know he was enjoying the turn of events. “You think I am, go over and see.”

  “What are they claiming, the Englishman and Coffey, about the two men I shot?”

  “Said you ambushed them. Charley said you were a professional assassin. Then the fat man said they should get a warrant for your arrest. But before they could do that, they needed someone to serve it on you. That’s when the fat man nominated Charley, and Charley jumped to his feet like a schoolboy asking permission to go piss. They gave him Logan’s badge and shook his hand and said go ahead, arrest you. But Charley said he needed deputies, in case you had friends about. You got any friends about, Cole?”

  “Counting you, Miguel, or do you mean others?”

  He gave Cole a look and said: “Charley and his would-be deputies are over there, getting themselves oiled to come looking for you. Because of Johnny Logan, and now those two dead cowboys. Thought maybe you’d want to know what they have in store for you.”

  “How far does your jurisdiction reach, Deputy?”

  “However far I want it to reach,” he said. “I’m an employee of the United States. The rest is my discretion.”

  “Does that include investigating the murder of innocent women?”

  He shook his head. “Far as I’m
concerned, John Henry, there’s been no requests to the federal government to investigate the murders of whores.”

  “That’s what you need,” Cole asked, “an official request?”

  Torres gave him a hard stare. “Don’t push your luck with me, John Henry. I’ve got other things on my mind. This damn’ gulch still belongs to the Indians as far as I know. I haven’t heard differently.”

  “Here’s what I know,” Cole said, and told him of his suspicions that Johnny Logan had killed Flora, and maybe even the other two prostitutes. He told him about Flora’s diary. He told him about why he didn’t think that Leo Loop was a man to dirty his own hands. He told him about Calamity Jane and what she’d told him and that maybe there might even be a connection to Bill Hickok’s murder.

  Miguel Torres wasn’t impressed. “You forget, I’m here looking for my brother and Shag Hargrove, or someone that knows where they’re at. I didn’t come here for any other reason. And until I find out about my brother, I’m not much interested in sticking my nose in business that has nothing to do with me.”

  “Let’s go,” Cole said.

  “Where?”

  “To see a friend of mine. Maybe she’s heard of Robertito, or this Hargrove hombre.”

  He looked skeptical, but then, most lawmen do when it’s not something they thought of themselves.

  Jazzy Sue let them in, then, at Cole’s request, brought Liddy to the parlor where Torres and Cole stood waiting. Cole made some quick, unadorned introductions between Miguel and Liddy.

  “Mister Torres is here looking for his brother,” Cole said. “Maybe you’ve heard of him. Robertito Torres is his name.”

  Cole could see Liddy running the name Robertito Torres through her mind. Finally she shrugged. “Sorry, I haven’t.”

  “How about a man named Shag Hargrove?” Miguel interjected.

  She thought again for a few moments, testing the name, then a light of recognition flared in her dark eyes. “The name’s unusual enough,” she said, “that I do remember it. He used the services of one of my girls at least once, maybe even twice.”

  Miguel shifted his gaze from Liddy to Cole, then back to Liddy. “I’d appreciate it if you could tell me which girl it was,” he said.