Silver & Bone (American Alchemy - Wild West Book 1)

by Oliver Altair

  Tiberius looked Mountain Iris in the eye. “My town has gone downhill since the day I saw your goddamned wagon parked on the street. Too much of a coincidence, don’t you think? Give me one reason I shouldn’t lock you up right this instant.”

  “Please, Tiberius. I really need to go. Please.”

  “Let her go, Tibbetts. She’s innocent,” Obadiah said.

  Tiberius turned his face to look in the cell. “I’ll let her go when you tell me what you were yapping ‘bout when I came in.”

  Obadiah and Mountain Iris exchanged a glance. “Alright,” she said.

  Tiberius backed off from the chair, walked to the fireplace and threw a log on the fire, then stirred the embers until the flames grew stronger. “I’m listening.”

  Silence. Tiberius sighed. “Listen, I don’t have all—:

  Maxwell Donahue waved from the doorstep, a wide grin under his waxed mustache. He wore his spotless, neatly-pressed, dark red suit and held his ivory cane.

  “Here you are, my dear,” Maxwell said as he came in uninvited. “The wagon’s ready. We should leave soon.”

  Mountain Iris moved behind Tiberius’ desk.

  Tiberius crossed Maxwell’s path. “I though you two weren’t in cahoots anymore.”

  Maxwell laughed. “All business partners quarrel once in a while. Nothing we can’t solve with a long talk. Isn’t that right, Iris?”

  “Go away, Maxwell.”

  Maxwell laughed again. “Such fire. But you picked the wrong time to be difficult, Iris. Come.”

  Tiberius tapped Maxwell on the chest. “Back off. We were in the middle of a conversation, Donahue.”

  “Yes, yes, indeed. Do excuse my interruption. But I’m afraid we should be on the road already.” Maxwell offered his hand. “We thank you for your hospitality, Sheriff. I hope we’ll meet again in better circumstances. We want nothing more than to help those in need.”

  Tiberius looked down at Maxwell’s gloved hand, then up to his face. Tiberius smiled and nodded, slowly, one, two, three times… Then he punched Maxwell’s sharp jaw so hard he sent the salesman flying through the room’s front window with a loud crash.

  Tiberius shook his hand and blew on his knuckles as he reached for the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  XXI

  Tiberius watched from his porch as Maxwell steadied himself inside a cloud of dust, surrounded by an astonished crowd. Maxwell touched his broken lip and stared at his bloody fingertips, aghast, then waved his hand for the murmuring crowd to see.

  “I offered your sheriff my hand to shake this is how he responded!”

  “Shut up!” Tiberius voice thundered down the street. “My only mistake was letting you stay in the first place. Selling your lies to people who don’t know any better.”

  More curious people stopped to witness the commotion. More than one of them had waited in line in front of the gazebo and almost begged Maxwell for his tinctures.

  Tiberius raised his voice. “Clinton Eadds is dead. He shot himself in the chest early this morning.”

  The young baker who’d found Clinton in a pool of blood crossed herself.

  “Mister Miracle Recovery,” Tiberius scoffed. “Not for long. Clinton’s injuries came back in just a day.”

  Tiberius pointed to Maxwell. “I was there when Clinton came up to this man for help. He was desperate. He couldn’t bear to lose his legs again. And you know what this man did? He sent him away because he had no money for another tonic. That’s what Maxwell Donahue brought to Souls Well. Hope for sale.”

  Thick, uncomfortable silence.

  Miss Susannah Chipman wiggled under her heavy shawl and glanced at her elderly mother.

  “I’m here to protect Souls Well, but I cannot tell you what to do or not to do,” Tiberius continued. “Next time, before you so willingly raise your arms to a stranger, think of Clinton’s body, getting colder on Doc Tucker’s table.”

  Miss Chipman picked a small vial from the wicker basket hanging around her wrist. She looked at the potion, then at the wrinkled face of her mother. She patted her mother’s trembling hand then walked to Maxwell and threw the bottle at the salesman’s feet. Others followed, the small bottles clinking as they piled up in front of Maxwell’s bitter gaze.

  “The kid’s death wasn’t my fault!” Maxwell yelled. “I would’ve helped him. Honest to god! There’s still so much I can give you, my good people.”

  Maxwell Donahue’s last plea fell on deaf ears.

  “Good day, Sheriff,” Miss Chipman said, abashed.

  Tiberius tapped his hat to her. The crowd scattered as fast as it had formed. People moved along like nothing had interfered with their daily routine and walked by Maxwell Donahue as if they’d never seen the man before in their lives. The salesman picked up the tonics and brushed the bottles with his fingertips, muttering.

  “Don’t bother, Donahue. You’ll need none of those where I’m taking you ,” Tiberius told him as he came closer.

  Maxwell leered at him, his eyes sizzling with anger. “You already humiliated me in front of half the town. What more could you possibly want?”

  Tiberius grabbed Maxwell’s forearm and shook him. The salesman dropped his potions, and they crashed on the gravel, creating a muddy, iridescent puddle.

  “Justice for the ones I love,” Tiberius said.

  Maxwell tried to shake him off, but Tiberius twisted his arm behind his back.

  Maxwell winced. “You can’t blame me for Clinton’s death. I didn’t pull the trigger, did I?”

  “Not Clinton. Lucy Mills.”

  “Who?”

  “Let’s go back inside, shall we?”

  Maxwell grimaced as Tiberius pushed him towards his office. Tiberius found Sarah Anne waiting outside his door.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Tiberius noticed a battered suitcase in her hand. “What’s that, Sarah?”

  Sarah Anne looked down. “I had no right to nose around in my father’s things. I wanted to trust him, Tiberius, I truly did. But I needed to know. I found this hidden at the bottom of his closet. But I didn’t have the strength to open it.”

  Tiberius let go of Maxwell and grabbed the suitcase from her hand. He set it on the floorboards under the window of his office. The pieces of broken glass cracked under the weight.

  Tiberius crouched and unlatched the straps of the suitcase. He looked at Sarah Anne, but she kept her eyes away from the brown case.

  Tiberius opened the suitcase. It contained three bright-colored garments, a pair of red high-heel shoes, and a headpiece with pink feathers and white, silk flowers. Under the folded undergarments and stockings, Tiberius found a small, yellowed watercolor of the streets of Paris. All things he’d seen before. There were Lucy’s favorites.

  “Should I wait inside or what?” Maxwell asked curtly.

  Tiberius closed the suitcase and stood up. “Get out of my sight, Donahue. And never set foot in my town again.”

  Tiberius darted inside. He dropped the suitcase on his desk with a loud thud then looked around.

  “Where the hell did Mountain Iris go?” he asked.

  “She left,” Obadiah replied.

  Tiberius opened the suitcase and turned it so Obadiah could see its content from his cell. “How do you explain this, Whitlock?”

  Obadiah’s eyes widened. His lips trembled. “Where did you—"

  “I found it.” Sarah Anne’s backlit silhouette stood in the doorway. “Hello, Father,” she greeted, her voice lifeless, icy.

  She went straight for the cell without breaking eye contact with her father then placed her hand on the iron bars. “How could you hurt an innocent girl? She was my own age.”

  Obadiah tried to touch her daughter’s hand, but she moved it away quickly.

  “We were always strangers you and I, isn’t that right, Sarah?”

  “I guess we were.”

  “Have you talked to your mother?”

  “Mother’s gone.”

  “Go
ne? Gone where?”

  Sarah Anne walked to the fireplace and ungloved her hands. She rubbed them close to the flames. “Silverton. She said she’s never felt better and it’s time she got her life back. I don’t think you’ll see her again, Father.” Sarah Anne turned her chin slightly. “Not that you ever saw her to begin with.”

  Tiberius closed Lucy’s suitcase and put it under his desk, unable to look at her old belongings any longer. “Why did you keep her things, Whitlock? As a memento of your crime?”

  Obadiah faced the small window of his cell. Sunlight cast shadows of the bars on his tired face. “Since the silver mine collapsed, I knew I’d die with nothing left. Maybe I deserve it.”

  “I asked you a question.”

  Obadiah shrugged. “Who cares? No answer can save me from the gallows, can it? But here’s a last request from a dead man: send my daughter away. She’s not safe here, even if she thinks she is.”

  Sarah Anne strode to the cell, holding the front of her shawl so tightly her knuckles turned white. “Don’t talk about me as if I weren’t in the room. I’m not a helpless little girl anymore. I’m staying right where I am.” She turned to Tiberius. “You take it from here, Tiberius. I’ll wait upstairs.”

  Sarah Anne kissed Tiberius on the lips and mounted the stairs to his bedroom.

  Tiberius touched his upper lip where Sarah’s touch was still fresh. He sat on his chair, then stood up, then sat again.

  Obadiah chuckled. “No need to be so flustered, Tibbetts.”

  “I want to marry her.”

  “I believe you. But she’d never accept.”

  “She would have already if she hadn’t been so afraid of your judgment.”

  Obadiah laughed. His smoky laughter was more pleasant than Tiberius would’ve imagined for such a humorless man.

  “How I pity you. You’re just a naive fool. There’s nothing left in Souls Well but decay, but you won’t accept it.”

  “I think you’ve talked enough for the day.”

  The room turned colder. Snowflakes blew through the room’s broken window. The first snow of the year had come. Tiberius threw another log on the fire. He grabbed a couple of blankets from a wicker basket, hung one above the window and handed the other to Obadiah. No prisoner under his care, guilty or not, would freeze to death.

  Obadiah stretched his hand to grab the blanket, but he never reached it.

  The sound of the gunshot bounced on the murky walls of the cell. Obadiah Whitlock grimaced, reached between the bars, and grabbed the lapels of Tiberius’ coat. Then his lifeless body slid down to the floor

  The smell of fresh gunpowder filled the air. The smoking barrel of a long gun pulled away from the cell’s barred window and disappeared into the morning sky.

  XXII

  Tiberius took the black key from his belt and twisted it inside the cell’s rusty lock. The iron door screeched open. Tiberius turned Obadiah Whitlock’s lifeless body over and saw the clean, deadly shot on the man’s lower neck. He closed Obadiah’s eyelids and heard Sarah Anne’s quick steps coming down the stairs.

  “Stay there,” he yelled, still kneeling by her late father.

  Tiberius met Sarah Anne at the bottom of the staircase and hugged her. “I’m sorry.”

  Sarah Anne’s stunned gaze didn’t leave the crimson puddle forming under his father’s head.

  Tiberius pulled her chin up. “Lock yourself upstairs and don’t move until I come back.”

  She showed no sign of understanding.

  Tiberius grabbed her shoulders. “Listen to me, Sarah. Whoever did this might still be around. I need to keep you safe. Go to my room, lock the door, and stay there. Can you do that?”

  She nodded. “What about my father? I can’t leave him like that, Tiberius. I just can’t.”

  “I’ll go fetch Doc Tucker after I make sure the streets are safe.” Tiberius hugged her again, and caressed her brown hair. “Now, do as I say, please.”

  Sarah Anne broke the embrace, her face so white her tears shone on her skin like raindrops on white marble. Tiberius stayed at the bottom of the staircase until he heard the slam of his bedroom door and the sound of the key turning on its lock.

  When he stepped outside, the snow fell in big flakes, covering the streets in a thin layer of white. It swirled around him on a chilling breeze. Tiberius buttoned his coat, then drew his gun, his breath leaving a trail of white smoke. He circled the building to the narrow alley behind his quarters..

  The snow had already half-hid the large footprints under the window of the cell. The shooter had left a track in the mud, but if Tiberius didn’t move fast, it would soon disappear. He tracked the shooter through the narrow passages and alleyways between the buildings, gun in hand, until he found himself under the wooden archway that read: Welcome to Souls Well.

  The wind blew wilder as Tiberius left the protection of the houses behind, and followed the open road into the mountains. The track of Obadiah’s shooter looked unhurried, constant. Almost hard to miss. Tiberius glanced back, just once, at Souls Well’s distant streets. Then he walked deeper into the storm.

  The curtain of falling snow thickened, and an icy wind whipped at Tiberius’ bare face and hands, burned his cheeks. Tiberius thought of his neighbors, in front of their fireplaces, listening to the howling wind outside their doors, oblivious to any new threat that would endanger their town. On days like this, it was hard to remember why he’d become sheriff in the first place.

  The snowstorm worsened as Tiberius followed the old road to the silver mine. After less than a mile, it became impossible to seek the track any longer. The snow-covered ground gleamed like a still sea.

  Tiberius stopped and squinted. A blurry shadow stood by the nearby firs. Before Tiberius raised his gun, a bullet zipped and scratched his shoulder, tearing his coat and the skin below. Tiberius winced but held tight to his Smith & Wesson. The shadow vanished between the trees. Tiberius shook his shoulder and ventured into the dark forest.

  The white firs grew so close together that they offered some shelter against the raging snowstorm. The stranger had made no effort to cover his tracks. Tiberius grumbled. Obadiah’s murderer didn’t seem to be in a rush. Maybe his killer was a better shooter than scout. Most likely, he just enjoyed the taunt.

  A smudged, gray handprint sparkled on a tree trunk. Tiberius stained his fingers with what seemed like a coat of silver paint. As he moved forward, he saw more of those gleaming marks on the bark of the firs along with gray drips close to the footprints on the forest floor, like the wax trail of a silver candle.

  The whistling of the wind was a slow, spectral cadence, a musical lament. Tiberius arrived at a familiar spot: the outcropping of black rock. Someone had removed the brambles at its base, revealing an opening to a slope that dove under the stone. Drips of silver vanished into the darkness.

  Tiberius felt a warm draft. He smelled sage… and a mellow hint of burning oil. He also heard a repeating clink, clank, coming from the hidden entrance. Tiberius held his gun tight and descended the slope rapidly, but he slowed down as soon as the wet soles of his boots slipped on rusty cart tracks. The air thickened as he followed the slope into a narrow tunnel. Warm lights flickered in the distance.

  Tiberius shook the snow off his coat and walked through the tunnel as the warmth of the mountain’s bowels revived his frosted hands and cheeks. The calming drip, drip, drip, of the forming stalactites above his head made him forget the screeching wind above ground.

  The dark tunnel opened to a wider passage where flaming torches hung from the walls every few steps. The echo of pickaxes hitting raw mineral came from somewhere down the dimly-lit path. Both left and right, there were openings that led to narrower side tunnels. The clank, clank, of the picks resonated more strongly from one of them, so Tiberius trusted his ears and crawled through a thin passage that went down for what felt like an eternity. Tiberius left the glow of the oil lamps far behind and submerged back into the darkness. Clank, clank, clank. The rhyth
m of the pickaxes continued, closer at times, far away at others, but there at an unknown distance.

  The air turned thicker and dustier. Tiberius covered his mouth to contain his cough. Stealth was his only advantage. The tunnel lightened a little and Tiberius gave his eyes time to adjust. The passage widened and Tiberius breathed better, but he couldn’t shake off a sudden feeling of entrapment.

  Tiberius pushed forward with one burning desire: uncovering, once and for all, the truth buried in the silver mine.

  XXIII

  Tiberius exited the tunnel and placed his palms on his thighs, breathing deeply and letting go of the choking claustrophobia of the tunnel. He walked across a ledge of black rock that overlooked a round cavern. Above, a stone dome covered in stalactites, sharp and threatening, twisting like deformed chandeliers. Twenty feet down, the rocky floor pulsated with an orange incandescent glow. The pickaxes rumbled like a thunderstorm.

  Gray veins meandered and twinkled down the walls and joined the quivering sparkle of the picks that moved up and down. The miners worked at a steady pace, almost in unison, their backs arched under the weight of their tools. They inhaled raising their pickaxes above their heads and exhaled with every hit on the sturdy rock. Piles of raw mineral fell at their feet, dusting their shackled ankles. A long chain danced between the legs of the working men like an iron snake.

  Only one flickering torch lit the cavern. Its dim glow sharpened the cadaverous faces of the miners and darkened their sunken eyes. Their shadows melted on the walls, like a shapeless monster with many arms.

  The miners stopped digging and, one by one, turned their heads toward the opposite side of the cavern, rattling their chains as they moved. They stood still and silent. Tiberius receded into the shadows as someone else entered the cave below. A sudden scent of wild roses and licorice dazed his senses and made his heart beat faster.

  Mountain Iris entered the cavern, walked straight to the miners, and raised the red lantern in her hand. Under the glow of her lantern light, Tiberius recognized a string of faces: Threadwell, Sawyer, McDee. All three he’d once known; all three now a nightmare’s version of their former selves.