Leaden Skies

by Ann Parker

  Standing in front of Flo’s tiny house, Inez glanced quickly to left and right.

  No one.

  Inez opened the unlocked door and entered, removing the key from the inside lock. She pocketed it, saying aloud, “The least I can do is lock the door when I leave.”

  The house was too small to even send back an echo.

  As expected, Inez found her glove under the table.

  She retrieved it and pulled it on, flexing her fingers to cement the fit, and looked around.

  If I were Flo, where would I hide two contracts that I wanted to keep from prying eyes?

  There were no places to secrete documents in the simple front room. Inez strolled the perimeter, just to make sure.

  All I want to know is who the third party is.

  However, if she happened to come across the duplicate copy of her contract with Flo, all the better.

  Resolutely, she pushed temptation aside. A deal is a deal. Even if I didn’t have all the facts beforehand.

  Her circuit of the room complete, she headed to the back room, the room Flo had entered, clutching the contract, and exited, empty-handed.

  Inez stepped inside and looked around.

  This room was even smaller than the one in front. Just big enough for a bed, a rag rug, a petite secretary desk, a washstand, and a small clothespress. The bed was covered with an indigo and white quilt, all geometric triangles and squares, not a frill anywhere.

  Inez’s gaze wandered to the desktop, which held papers, inkwell and pen, and a cabinet photo. Truth to tell, it was the photo that drew her attention—an image of a baby, swathed in a white gown, held upright by an older man.

  Both man and child had something of Flo about the eyes and forehead.

  Inez frowned.

  Relatives?

  She shifted her gaze from the photograph to a capital-laden missive laying close by.

  “Dear Father,

  I have the Photograph of You and Jane before Me as I write this. How much Jane looks like You! I am enclosing Money for You and Mother and for Janie’s Care. Please Do not Fret. My Laundry and Lace-Making Businesses here in Leadville are doing Very Well. I live Comfortable but Frugally, as You taught Us. Please give Little Janie 3 Kisses and tell her They are from her Mother, who misses Her more than all the World—”

  The letter, unfinished, ended there.

  Inez’s heart constricted as if someone had suddenly wrenched her corset strings tight.

  Frisco Flo…a mother?

  She tried to think back to when she first became aware of Flo Sweet. Back when Flo was simply one of the soiled doves in the house at the end of State, one of the not-so-proper women who attended Inez’s church even as the mining camp coalesced into a town. A town that rapidly grew to a city of a size to rival Denver. Twelve, fourteen months ago.

  Inez eyed the photograph again, then turned away, feeling guilty, a voyeur. Determined to finish her search, she moved to the bed, lifted the mattress, and knelt awkwardly to peek underneath the simple iron frame. Nothing. Not even a stray pair of shoes or a smear of dust.

  The clothespress held only simple dresses and straightforward underthings. Not a flounce or bow in sight, much less a written contract or two.

  The washstand was equally disappointing. In the desk drawers, besides writing paper, nibs, and ink bottles, Inez found a packet of letters with a Kansas stamp, bound with a ribbon. Her curiosity over Flo’s past dampened by the half-completed letter, Inez let them lie.

  With arms akimbo, she cast a final glance around the bedroom. I’ve looked everywhere. There are no pictures on the walls to hide a safe. Nothing under the bed, under or in the washstand or the desk. I’ve looked everywhere—

  Her gaze fell on the rag rug.

  —except for one place.

  Inez dragged the rug back to expose the floor. A square section of planks revealed cut edges, flat hinges along one side. The opposite side had a cutout, just large enough to set one’s fingers in under the boards and pull up. The trapdoor opened soundlessly, hinges well oiled. Below, instead of the expected hidey-hole or modest lockbox was the dull gleam of a serious safe.

  “Blast!” Inez sat back on her heels, staring at the impervious metal terminus to her search.

  Her first thought: Flo must have had the safe built into the floor of the house.

  Her second: Cracking this safe was far beyond her abilities.

  Abe could perhaps open it, but I’m no cracksman.

  Her explorations, it seemed, would stop here.

  Inez replaced the rug, checked that the bedroom was restored, with everything as it was. She glanced toward the photograph and half-finished letter one last time and passed swiftly through the house, locking Flo’s front door behind her and pocketing the key.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “What have I done? And what the hell am I going to do?”

  Muttering to herself, Inez unlocked the safe in the upstairs office of the Silver Queen. She crammed the offending legal documents inside, taking care to tuck them way back on an upper shelf where Abe was unlikely to discover them.

  As if life hasn’t been unsettled enough lately.

  With Grant and his many hangers-on in Leadville, it wasn’t likely that things would return to normal for the next few days, she mused. Too, plenty of people seemed unhappy about Grant’s visit, and an air of unrest hung up and down State Street. Fires. Arson. Death.

  Inez shivered, trying to dispel the foreboding that crawled up her spine.

  At least, she and Abe would make a fortune in liquor sales, if what she saw when she entered the saloon was any indication There had not been a place to stand at the mahogany bar, unless someone was willing to perch on one of the strategically situated spittoons. The tables were fully occupied as well. The saloon doors—one fronting the proper business district on Harrison Avenue and the other leading to the shadier district on State Street—were in constant motion from customers entering and leaving.

  Inez slammed the safe shut, gave the dial a twist, and tugged on the door. Her secrets were safe. For now.

  She put her hand in her other pocket, intending to set her Smoot revolver on the desktop, and gasped in dismay as her fingers touched a slender metal shaft.

  “Blast!”

  Flo’s house key.

  Back to the safe, spin the dial, open it again. She pulled out the divorce document and dropped the key in the envelope. I’ll get this to her once she’s out of jail.

  After re-securing the safe, Inez straightened up and hurried into her private rooms adjoining the office. A change of clothes was definitely in order. She shucked the dress and petticoats, tsking over hems stiff with mud.

  Inez turned to her wardrobe, pushing aside walking suits and a somber “Sunday best” polonaise. She settled for a dark blue ensemble and, after dressing, squinted into the mirror and checked her appearance. Her hair continued to grow out, recovering from a near scalping the previous winter when she had parted with her waist-length braid in a determined masquerade. Now, eight months later, it was long enough to twist into a tight knot at the nape of her neck. She leaned forward, noting her complexion.

  Too much running about without a proper hat.

  Sighing, Inez pushed up her sleeves to expose wrists and a few inches of forearm. She tugged her conservative V-shaped neckline down a little, and ran a hand over the dark-blue bodice, eyeing the light blue piping. Perhaps not as celebratory a costume as Grant’s visit might allow, but I’m not one for dressing up in red, white, and blue like a flag.

  Inez grabbed a folded apron and, with a swish of long skirts, whisked out of her private rooms and the office. The contained roar of masculine conversation lapped at her as she locked the office door behind her and descended the stairs, tying the apron as she went.

  She slid behind the bar and approached Abe, who was busy pouring shots. Amongst his customers, Inez recognized three prominent Leadville pen pushers, deep i
n conversation with a handful of strangers. Probably fellow ink-slingers from out-of-town, she judged, since they had all ordered the same brand of inexpensive whiskey, eschewing the cheaper rotgut or more expensive liquor.

  “How are things going?” she asked Abe in an undertone.

  “Right fine, Mrs. Stannert.” He paused, jingling the journalists’ coinage in his hand like a pair of dice. “Sol and me haven’t had a chance to draw a breath since we opened.” He glanced down the bar to where Sol was mixing a mint julep. “Boy’s comin’ along right well. Think the next few days’ll show us and him whether he’s got what it takes for this kind of business.”

  “Shall I take over here, Mr. Jackson? You could replace Sol at his end so he could help Bridgette with the tables,” said Inez.

  Their cook looked harried as she rushed from table to table, dispensing bowls of stew and plates of sliced bread.

  “Sol could take orders,” Inez added, “and Bridgette could handle the kitchen. She’s none too happy when she has to deal with the clientele.”

  As if to prove Inez’s point, a man who looked no more than twenty slapped Bridgette’s ample derriere as she squeezed between two crowded tables. The gray-haired matron twisted and, with a dexterity born of raising five sons, boxed the offending fellow’s ears.

  Abe nodded. “Good idea. This keeps up, Bridgette’s likely to cut a switch and start thrashin’ some of our payin’ customers for misbehavin’.” He added, glancing at the Harrison Avenue entrance, “Seems like most the good quality from out of town is comin’ in through this door anyways. Better you be meetin’ and greetin’ them than me. They’re more likely t’ stay around, drinkin’, talkin’, and preenin’, tryin’ to impress a good-lookin’ woman behind the bar, ’stead of an old bent nigger like me. Let ’em think I’m just one of the hired help.” With a parting wink at her, Abe moved down the long length of polished wood, now shining with wet dark rings and puddles of spilled liquids, toward Sol.

  Inez took her station and smiled winningly at the journalists. “Are you gentlemen interested in a chaser with that? We have some fine local beer and, of course, Coors from down mountain.”

  The scribbler from the Leadville Herald grinned. “Well, howdy and felicitations, Mrs. Stannert. Quite a show in town! Coors sounds good to me. What about you, boys? Stand you a beer from Golden?” He slid a dollar coin across the counter to Inez. “Keep the change, Mrs. Stannert.”

  As Inez provided chasers all around, they dove back into their ongoing discussion.

  “So, how d’you boys assay Grant’s chances?” asked the Herald man. “He’s got lots of backers here. Darn near made the nomination in Chicago, except for that underhanded business at the end.”

  A reporter Inez recognized as being from the Denver Tribune snorted. “Third term? Not a chance. I’m betting this was his last shot at the presidency. He might’ve captured it, too, if he’d spoke up, instead of just sitting back and waiting to be anointed, like the Republicans’ appointed king.”

  “I’d sooner risk eternal torture in the bowels of hell than see that spawn of the Devil take a third term!” boomed from beyond the group.

  The writers jumped at the voice, which had the timbre of an evocation from heaven itself. Inez identified the conversational interloper and grimaced, irritated. Preacher Thatcher. How did he get down Chicken Hill on his own?

  The answer manifested in quick order as one of the preacher’s twin sons—which one, she couldn’t tell—popped up from a back table and hurried over to grab the wavering old fellow’s shoulder. “Pa. Come on thisaway. You kin have somma my stew.”

  Preacher Thatcher turned sightless eyes on his son. “Zechariah. What’s wrong with the food your own sister places on the table, bought with the sweat from her own brow, that you spend precious coin on victuals prepared by others?” His voice carried above and beyond the immediate vicinity, as if he spoke from the pulpit.

  At least, Inez thought, his speech solved the mystery of which twin it was.

  Zeke winced, unseen by his father. “Pa. Only thing Zelpha kin fix that’s edible-like is grits. An’ I’m tired of grits. C’mon.” He tugged on the sleeve of his father’s shabby coat, the black so worn and shiny it looked almost green.

  Inez crossed her arms. “Zeke, Preacher Thatcher, I do believe it’s time for you to take a stroll and enjoy the invigorating nature of this early afternoon air.” Inez’s tone left no room for argument or debate.

  Zeke frowned. “Hell, Pa. You just got us thrown outta the saloon.”

  “I’d not have come to this den of iniquity if I’d known it was peopled with harlots,” said the preacher with dignity.

  Inez felt her blood begin to boil darker than coffee on a hot stove. She caught Zeke’s gaze with her own and stabbed a finger toward the exit.

  Zeke groaned. “Shoulda kept you at the table with a stew spoon in your maw. Or better yet, left you home with cold grits fer dinner and supper. Let’s go see Pap Wyman, then. You kin quote scripture and Pap won’t mind none.”

  He hooked the preacher’s arm, and, with a last longing look at the half-consumed bowl of stew and his table companions, ushered his father out the Harrison Avenue door.

  Inez sidled over to Abe. “Tell Sol that Preacher Thatcher is persona non grata. At least until Grant has left town. His sermons are capable of inciting a small riot, and I certainly don’t want that here. We should keep an ear out for political talk about Grant or any ‘war reminiscences’ so those for and those against don’t get into a serious row. We’ve had more than our fair share of such.”

  Abe, fixing a gin fizz, grunted. “Hard enough to see who’s comin’ and goin’ with this crowd, much less hear what they’re sayin’.”

  A mixed blessing, she had to admit. More folks meant more drinks and more profits. But the variety of people—greenhorns just to town in their fancy duds, prospectors from out of the nearby districts, visitors from who-knew-where staying who-knew-how-long, miners from the consolidated mines, blacksmiths, businessmen, and more—made for a volatile combination. That didn’t even include the footpads, pickpockets, and other con men out to pull a bunco on those nïve enough to fall for their tricks with walnut shells and hidden peas, soap bars and hidden coins, marked cards and confederates.

  “Barkeep!” The shout jolted Inez from her ruminations and sent her hurrying back to her end of the counter to serve beer to a prospector with bleached out and ancient garments, just in from Ten Mile Canyon. She was vaguely aware of Bridgette, passing by in a whirl, with a fistful of orders.

  Next, she heard Bridgette say with delight, “Why, Officer Ryan, fancy seeing you here!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Inez froze at the dreaded name.

  Sure enough, The Hatchet stood just within their Harrison Avenue entrance, not six feet away. Rain dripped from his waterproof coat into the sawdust scattered in a futile effort to keep mud and wet to a minimum inside the saloon.

  He looked at Bridgette, and his face creased into a polite smile.

  Inez thought she must be having a delirium.

  Then…

  He removed his hat. “Mrs. O’Malley.”

  Bridgette stood before the feared lawman, hands laced together under her chin like a starry-eyed schoolgirl, the orders scrunched into a papery fan. “I’ve got stew, Officer, just made, and some nice strong coffee.”

  “Coffee sounds mighty good, if it’s not a bother. Do you have any cream?”

  “Oh no bother, no bother at all. Cream, yes, yes, delivered fresh this morning. My lands, it’s a pleasure to see you. You and the others on the force work so hard. This weekend especially, with General Grant and his missus and all the folk like Lieutenant Governor Tabor and Governor Pitkin come to town.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” The Hatchet treated Bridgette’s discourse with gravity. “We’ve got our hands full right now. There’s some who aren’t happy about the general’s bein’ here. The force’s pulled thin.
Pockets of trouble, here and there. The hard cases in town are determined to do harm, if they can.”

  “And then, the fires. Why, and I heard that the city marshal’s house went up, poof! Just like that. Poor man. I wonder if he’ll stay in town or leave? Are you looking for the firebug?”

  “Yes, Mrs. O’Malley, it’s a tragedy about the marshal. Not sure what his plans are, and that’s a fact. My coffee, ma’am? I’ve only got a minute here.”

  “Right away!” Bridgette dashed into the kitchen.

  The Hatchet approached Inez. Set his wet cap down in front of the prospector’s glass of beer. The prospector took the hint and removed himself and his beer to a position further down the bar.

  The Hatchet leaned over the mahogany surface toward Inez. She instinctively stepped back.

  “Didn’t know you and Flo were friendly,” he said.

  “Friendly? I’d not say friendly. We both own businesses on State Street. We both pay our fees and fines, excuse me, ‘taxes,’ as required.”

  “Then why’d she ask you to take care of that dead girl of hers?”

  Before Inez could fabricate a reasonable lie, The Hatchet added, “I’ll say this. I’ll say this once. Stay away from Flo and her girls. It’s a bad business, Mrs. Stannert. Don’t get tangled up in it.”

  “Officer Ryan, your coffee,” chirped Bridgette. She was hovering at his elbow, beaming and blushing.

  “God bless you, Mrs. O’Malley. There’s got to be a special place in heaven for women like you.”

  Bridgette looked as ecstatic as if blessed by the pope himself.

  The Hatchet lifted his cup, the wet sleeve of his coat riding up his arm ever so slightly, pulling the jacket and shirt cuff with it. Inez blinked and bit back an exclamation of surprise. A mass of scarred flesh, long healed, showed at his wrist and disappeared below the cuffs.

  Officer Kelly breezed in the State Street door. After a quick look around, he spotted The Hatchet and wove through the crowds to his side. “Sorry t’ trouble you, Ryan, but more trouble in Coon Row. Kate Armstead.”