Leaden Skies

by Ann Parker

  He tore away and fled, the woman’s shrieks reverberating in his mind, chasing him into the anonymous crowds of State Street.

  ***

  Flo swept into the drawing room, tugging off her wet gloves, a frown hovering dangerously between her eyebrows. “I was almost knocked down by the mapmaker on the steps. What happened?” She looked around, her displeasure visibly deepening. “I’ve spent the last hour getting soaked, ruining my shoes, trying to round up business in this lousy weather…” Her gaze stopped on Molly. “Has he been the only customer?”

  Molly, gathering up empty glasses, nodded without looking at Flo.

  “Our only customer, and you all scared him away?”

  Dead silence. The women shifted in their chairs, smoothing fabric over their laps, licking their lips, examining their fingernails.

  Lizzie snorted. “He was only looking, not buying. Said he came here to talk, f’god’s sake.”

  Flo focused on the woman in the wrapper. “Lizzie, is this your doing?”

  Lizzie raised one shoulder in a shrug. The wrapper slid down, revealing a bare collarbone.

  Flo slapped her gloves down on the end table. Wet silk met wood, sounding like a hand smacking skin. “Lizzie! I’ve had enough of your antics. He might’ve changed his mind if you’d given him more time and liquor.”

  Lizzie smirked. “Oh, we gave him plenty of liquor.”

  One of the other women in the room spoke up. “Miss Flo, he might come back later. While Lizzie was tartin’ around, he was making eyes at Zelda.” She jerked her head toward the young woman lounging on the corner sofa.

  Flo raised one pencil-thin, calculating eyebrow, glanced at the young woman still curled on the couch, then turned her gaze back at Lizzie. “This is a high-class parlor house, Lizzie. Remember that.”

  Lizzie bared her teeth. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “No drinking. No drugs. No potions for female complaints. No laudanum. I have a reputation to uphold. The gentlemen expect quality, and quality is what we deliver. No sloppy whores, drunk and weeping, or worse. That’s how we can charge more than any other place on State Street. That’s what’s going to allow us to charge even more when we move up-town.”

  “Flo’s sold her soul to the Devil so’s we could move up-town to screw all the qual-i-ty gentlemen,” Lizzie said in a drunken sing-song.

  All the women froze.

  Flo swung around to her. “What did you say?”

  Lizzie shrugged, a smirk curling her mouth.

  Flo walked over to her, put two fingers under her chin and pressed upward, forcing the girl to meet her gaze. “Don’t cross me, Lizzie. Remember who’s in charge here.” The words carried a soft, dangerous charge.

  Lizzie yanked away. “Why don’t you tell us, Flo. Who is in charge?”

  A knocking on the front door interrupted further discourse. The squeak of hinges reached the parlor room, along with the low rush of men’s voices. The women stirred, like aspen leaves fluttering in the high mountain breeze, their lassitude vanishing.

  With a last glare at Lizzie, Flo snarled, “Why do I even bother with you! I shelter you. Feed you. Buy you the best, most up-to-date outfits….And what are you doing wearing my dressing gown? Go take it off and put on one of your own. Now!”

  Flo hurried from the room, her voice shifting to a cheerful trill as she approached the entryway. “Gentlemen! Good evening! Has the train arrived yet? No? Coming in to escape this dreadful rain, then? Well, you’ve come to the right place. Let Danny take your coats and hats, and I’ll escort you into the parlor where it’s warm and pleasant and the girls are waiting. We’ll get hot toddies set up all around, unless you’d prefer champagne or wine. We have the loveliest selection, shipped in from California. And the girls are just dying for some company.”

  Lizzie leaned forward and snatched up Cecil’s abandoned glass. Then she sat back, wiggling her bottom into the plush velvet seat. She lazily crossed her feet on the ottoman before tipping the glass back and, with a defiant glance around the room at the other women, drained the last of the wine.

  Chapter Three

  Cecil paused on the boardwalk, pulled his handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket, and wiped sweat and rain from his face. It was a July night, but here, ten thousand feet up in the Rocky Mountains, the cold froze the moisture to his skin. It was only when an icy breeze whispered through his hair that he realized he’d left his hat at the bordello.

  For a moment, standing on the slick and weather-warped boards, jostled on all sides by passersby, he wasn’t sure what direction he faced. How strange, for him. He prided himself on his sense of direction, always able to pick out north, no matter if he stood in a coal cellar or the middle of a windowless factory floor.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, blocking out the sights of State Street—the dance halls, saloons, hotels. But he couldn’t shut out the sounds or smells. Male voices clashed in argument and drunken laughter. The oompahs and blats from brass bands outside dance halls and saloons competed to lure in customers. Smoke from thousands of wood- and coal-burning stoves mixed with sulphur fumes from the smelters and the wet heavy scents of mud, manure, unwashed men, and wet wood. Over it all, like a light blessing from the hand of God, lay the clarifying smell of rain.

  After the debacle back home with Rachel, he’d let his supervisor know that he would accept the first assignment available out West, no matter where. Leadville had been a challenge he’d taken gladly. At first, all had gone well. He had been able to push his personal woes aside, be the professional strider that would make the company nod with approval. He met the local officials, explained his business, then dutifully went from building to building and explained his business again and again to owners and managers. Some were accepting, some wary, others downright hostile. He took notes in painstaking details, not to be hurried. Each night in his cramped hotel room, he carefully drew up his diagrams and forwarded his sheets once a week to the home office. The work had filled his days and nights, kept the darkness that was his failure with Rachel at bay.

  But all that changed when he first knocked on the door of the brick brothel on the corner of Second and Spruce. Miss Flo had been more welcoming than most. She’d listened intently to his explanations, examined his credentials, and then, with a brilliant smile, hooked an arm through his, and gave him a personal tour of the building. The woman who looked like Rachel had passed him on the second floor, glancing at him once. With that single glance, something inside him faltered. His moral determination melted.

  Chills, not all from the cold and wet, racked him. “I can’t go back there,” he whispered through chattering teeth. “God give me strength.” He pulled his jacket closer around himself.

  A violent jostling, followed by some creative cursing from the man who’d knocked into him, nearly sent Cecil off the boards and into the muddy river that served as the street.

  Cecil clapped his hand to his jacket pocket and almost swore out loud in return. His hat was not the only thing he’d left at that cursed brothel. His firearm, which the doorman had insisted he check, also waited for him.

  He remembered the words of warning from one of Leadville’s city fathers: Only a fool goes about at night unarmed.

  At that moment, someone across the street shouted, “Train’s down by California Gulch! They saw the light!”

  It was as if someone had opened the floodgates. People streamed across the street toward Cecil, heading toward Third Street. He was caught up in their sheer numbers, dragged along with the current, unable to stand fast against the unending flow.

  As he neared Third, he saw bonfires lining the sides of the road, police standing at intervals with local militia, straining to keep pedestrians, carts, and riders on horseback from surging onto the road where General Grant would pass by. He halted, in the middle of the cross street, behind the human barriers, unable to move in any direction. The deep mud sucked slowly at his boots. Mire oozed in over his boot-tops, began to
attack his gartered stockings with cold intent.

  He caught a glimpse of the shining black hulk of the locomotive, now stopped at the foot of Third. Spots of light from the bonfires set the wet black bulk agleam, steam from the smokestack rising through the rain. It looked nearly alive as it disgorged small figures, one after another. The iron horse, he thought. A carnivorous horse whispered back a voice from deep inside. He started shivering again.

  A compact, gray figure appeared on the platform, hat in hand.

  The crowd surged forward, and cheers rose from a thousand throats.

  The General, he realized. Ulysses S. Grant. Civil War hero and past president.

  As if in confirmation, the massive engine emitted an ear-splitting shriek.

  A commotion to one side drew his attention.

  Two pistol shots cracked.

  People nearby screamed, squeezing back. Police broke ranks, converged on a shadow figure yelling above the wash of cheers, “Butcher! He was nothin’ but a butcher for Mr. Lincoln’s War!”

  The police wrestled the would-be avenger of the South to the ground, but not before a last gunshot rang out.

  A constriction and jolt transmitted through the mob and slammed into Cecil. At the same time, a thunderous crack sounded, not a block away. The blue and red of fireworks lit the frenzied multitudes.

  Cecil stumbled sideways, off-balance, crashed into the person next to him, and collapsed to one knee. A commotion behind him. More screams. He couldn’t tell if they were made in anger, fear, or warning.

  With one hand in the mud to steady himself, Cecil twisted around. A rearing horse plunged down, hooves flashing, missing his face by the merest breadth. His heart, his breathing, froze.

  More commotion and warning shouts came from those who had been quicker to evade the terrified horse than he. The rider slid from the saddle and knocked Cecil aside, all the while saying urgently to the horse, “Easy, easy, Lucy girl. Whoa!”

  Cecil’s supporting hand slipped, his elbow and left side landing in the mud, while the rider fought to keep the horse from rearing again. With the horse finally under control, reins gripped taut in one hand, the rider hooked a shrinking Cecil under one arm and hauled him to his feet.

  Cecil blinked, inches away from the ashen face of the rider. Smooth, sharp features were branded with fear, anger, and something else. The phrase “exhaustion of the soul” popped into Cecil’s numb mind from somewhere.

  Cecil watched, as if from a distance, as the rider’s mouth opened. He fully expected a stream of curses to emerge, accompanied by a blow or a knife to the gut.

  An undignified end seemed imminent.

  Automatic words surfaced, wrapped around his mind, as familiar and smooth as the worn beads of his childhood: O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee—

  Instead, the mouth croaked:

  “Jesus! I almost killed you!”

  It took a moment for the fact to penetrate his numbed senses that the voice belonged to a woman. Details pricked through the fog of misery and self-loathing that enveloped him: She was dressed, absurdly enough, in men’s attire. Tall, about his height. Her face, illuminated by the stark light of a nearby bonfire, held none of the feminine softness he so admired in his Rachel’s face. Instead, high cheekbones echoed overall angular planes. Eyes cut through him with a gaze sharp as the knife he’d been expecting. Dark, unaccountably short hair hung loose, plastered to her cheeks. Her mouth tightened, thinned out by anger or perhaps worry. The grip on his arm shook as if with palsy.

  Someone seized his other arm.

  “Are you injured?” A masculine voice, too close, almost at his ear.

  Cecil shrank from the concern in the tone. He didn’t deserve it, this compassion.

  The gentleman addressed the rider. “He doesn’t appear hurt, Mrs. Stannert. Mostly shaken. Those shots, it’s a good thing the police were nearby. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more mayhem in store. For certain, that fellow isn’t the only one plotting against Grant. In any case, we should take this gentleman somewhere where he can recover. Perhaps to your saloon.”

  His mind tried to wrap around what he was hearing: A woman. Dressed as a man. Who works in a saloon. What manner of woman is this?

  She spoke rapidly, with intensity. “It will take forever to get up State to the saloon in this crowd. We can’t cross Third until the procession passes. I don’t know. He looks like he’s not altogether right in the head. Can he walk, do you think? Can you walk?” This last was directed at him. Without waiting for a response, she continued to her cohort, “Should we put him on one of the horses? Turn him over to the police for safekeeping? What do you think, Reverend?”

  Cecil blinked. Confused. Reverend?

  The man’s somber dark garb, mellifluous words, the professional sympathy—now, it all made sense. The reverend hemmed and said to the strange woman, “Perhaps I should take him to the church. Or the mission. It’s not far from here. Someplace quiet until he recovers.”

  The situation suddenly came clear to him.

  A man of the cloth. And—

  Another she-devil from State Street.

  His strength returned. His feet came unstuck from the mud. He ripped from their holds and bolted, pushing his way through the crowd, heading toward Harrison, the main street of town. Rain pelted his face, ice-cold needles driving into his flesh.

  He stopped only when he reached the cross street that would lead him to the brothel.

  I can’t go back. I shouldn’t. Not now. I should go to the hotel. Get my hat and gun tomorrow. Or buy new ones.

  Even as these possibilities crowded his mind, he was moving toward State Street, shaking, every nerve screaming for release, sweat soaking his undergarments and seeping into his outer clothes to mingle with the mud and rain. He pushed against the tide of humanity pouring in the opposite direction, all moving as one to greet the incoming train.

  Chapter Four

  “My God,” Inez Stannert whispered. “Oh, my God.”

  The sweat, which had coursed down her back as she’d fought to bring her horse Lucy under control, was now an icy sheet on her skin. Her fingertips tingled inside her gloves from the force at which the older man had twisted away. “I almost. Almost.” Her throat closed up.

  She couldn’t say it.

  I almost killed him.

  Inez closed her eyes, blocking out the night and the shimmering rain made visible by the bonfires.

  A hand found hers. Reverend Sands’ fingers tightened on her own, a warm presence.

  Inez opened her eyes and turned to Sands’ gaze.

  She sensed that the reverend was peering at her, even though his face was cast into darkness under his soggy, wide-brimmed hat. His voice wrapped her chilled soul like a blanket, soothing, offering comfort. “The man, just now, he’ll be all right. We helped him get to his feet, and he ran away. He lives because of your quick thinking.”

  He drew her close, in a brief hug. Inez allowed herself to relax into the familiar yet furtive embrace, stolen, as it was, in tight quarters and within the possible observance and subsequent disapproval of surrounding strangers. Inez and the reverend were shielded from eyes in one direction by her horse Lucy’s proximate bulk and from eyes in the other direction by a sea of backs and general disinterest. Any possible spectators had turned away, no longer entertained, now that the show of near death was over. Instead they all strained forward on tiptoe, attempting to catch a glimpse of Grant and his entourage, to hear the distant voices of Leadville’s city fathers delivering their initial greetings.

  Sands let her go. Inez, pushing unwelcome events into the past, looked to the train and saw that most of the arrivals and welcoming party had mounted into carriages, wagons, and other conveyances. Lucy huffed, a weary breath that expanded and collapsed beneath the saddle cinch. Inez stroked Lucy’s wet and matted mane. “Soon, Lucy. Soon,” she murmured. “I’ll get you to a stable where you can rest.”
>
  The procession on Third jerked into motion. Inez tightened her hold on Lucy’s reins to keep her from responding to the crowd that was backing up against them, squeezing away from the streets. Mounted police and military companies passed by first. Colorado state cavalry were followed by a drum corps, infantry, a band, and the battalion veteran corps.

  An open-topped barouche, drawn by four black horses and nearly invisible beneath red-white-and-blue decorations, came abreast. Figures waving from the seats. A beard-rimmed square face, just visible beneath a hat.

  “Is that General Grant?” she asked.

  Reverend Sands nodded.

  As neighboring spectators pressed around her, jostling for a better view, Inez held fast to Lucy’s reins and prayed that there were no more men intent on violence. Waiting. Men waiting for the right moment.

  Grant’s carriage passed up the street. More vehicles followed, occupants shrouded in wet weather wear and hidden under umbrellas. The city’s hook and ladder company was next, followed by volunteer fire companies and trailed by the town’s prominent citizenry in carriages.

  As soon as the last of the mounted police went by, the people lining the road flooded into their wake.

  Inez turned to Sands. “What is the parade route?”

  “Spruce to Chestnut, then Harrison to the Clarendon Hotel. Grant is supposed to speak briefly there.”

  Inez nodded. “Going up State Street would be best. It probably won’t be as crowded.”

  They crossed Third, walking their horses, and proceeded toward State. The bonfires, which had illuminated the path of the parade, receded, leaving them to travel in the dark as quickly as they dared. Bone-deep weariness tugged at Inez.

  They squeezed their horses onto the hitching bar by the State Street entrance of the Silver Queen Saloon. Even though there was little room amongst the twitching, wet beasts of burden, the saloon seemed unusually quiet. Inez gazed at the lamplight pouring from the windows. She bet that her business partner, Abe Jackson, waited within, even though every other soul in the city seemed to be jostling for position out on Harrison for a view of the procession. Probably not a single customer with belly to the bar. But perhaps that will work to our advantage right now.