Leaden Skies

by Ann Parker

  Elliston didn’t answer. He simply removed his hat and set it with precision on the bar.

  Inez noticed that his usually carefully groomed hair was in disarray, as if he’d rushed out of his rooms without more than a desultory combing that morning. An uncharacteristic faint stubble shadowed his usually clean-shaven face. He was but a rumpled shadow of his self on the previous evening at the reception.

  “Whiskey, please, Mrs. Stannert.”

  “What? You’re not going to celebrate your good fortune with something a little more substantial?” Inez turned to scan the bottles on the backbar for something better than the usual firewater.

  “I’ll celebrate later.” He scratched his chin, as if suddenly aware of its sandpapery condition. “Say, can I get whatever the daily special is? I’ve not eaten yet today.”

  Inez tipped some Old Forester into a glass and looked at Jed with concern. He was the kind of fellow who preferred to take his meals at the finer venues around town—the Saddleback, the Clarendon, or the Clairmont—the better to see and be seen and to pick up high-grade gossip and the latest news.

  “Well, Bridgette has a quantity of excellent stew and fresh biscuits. There might be sausages from this morning.”

  “Sausages sound good.” He took the liquor in a gulp and didn’t even shudder. Inez waved down Sol, who was doing double-duty as waiter that day, taking orders for comestibles. He scribbled down Jed’s order and disappeared into the back with a handful of slips.

  Inez leaned on the counter. “Jed. What’s wrong?”

  At that moment, the door blew open. John Quincy Adams Wesley stormed in, trailed by an avid pack and the unflappable Kavanagh. Wesley stopped, blocking the entrance yet again, looked around, and—

  “Coward!” He stalked toward Jed.

  His followers fanned out around him, an assemblage that included his usual coterie and a congregation of newspapermen, including, Inez noted, several of Jed’s competitors. The pencil-pushers hung back, eyes bright with the eagerness of newshounds scenting a story in the making.

  “Here you are. Hiding. I tracked you here after inquiring at your usual haunts. Flushed you from your liar’s lair. How dare you, you damned deceiver, teller of false tales, prevaricator, fraudster. My mother is prostrate. Distraught. Due to you and your lies.”

  Jed visibly pulled himself together, squared his shoulders, and turned. “Mr. Wesley. Good afternoon to you as well. Your complaint being?”

  “These, these, damnable lies! Fantasies fabricated from your febrile imagination!” Wesley thrust a crumpled copy of The Independent under Jed’s nose. The two men were of a size, but Wesley’s commanding presence and palpable anger set him degrees above the newspaperman.

  Inez glanced over at Abe, who had taken a station by the shotgun hidden under the bar. He nodded fractionally to her.

  Inez turned back. A heated political argument and shouting match was one thing. Should things turn physical, however, that was something else.

  Jed was talking, his stubborn won’t-give-an-inch streak reasserting itself. “I have my sources. My proof. I stand by my words.”

  “Proof!” Wesley spat. “What proof? Show it to me!”

  “Letters from your own hand,” said Jed staunchly. “On your letterhead. The first is addressed to none other than the owner of Silver Mountain Mining, Incorporated, Harry Gallagher. All here know that Harry would jump at the chance to fill his mines with cheap labor, from the Orient or otherwise, and throw honest men trying to support their families out of work. The other letter, again on your letterhead, is addressed to Mrs. Clatchworthy, who is the most ardent supporter of this ridiculous movement to gain women’s suffrage. A movement nipped in the bud, and rightfully so, by the faithful voters of Colorado a mere three years ago. Granted, women gained school suffrage, but that’s hardly the same as—”

  “Do. Not. Lecture. Me. About. Politics.” Wesley ground out. “You obviously know nothing, nothing, about my beliefs or my political stance. I don’t recall you interviewing me or approaching me in any way about my stands on various issues.”

  “I tried, but your bodyguard,” Jed threw a meaningful look at the lurking Kavanagh, “has seen fit to check me at every opportunity. Since you refuse to talk to the free press, we must get our facts in other ways. For instance, it’s well known that Lucretia Wesley—”

  “Keep my mother out of this!” Wesley shouted the words, drowning him out. “Her views are her own and do not necessarily represent mine. She has naught to do with this.”

  “And naught to do with your unnatural proclivities?” sneered Jed.

  Wesley’s face paled.

  The mob closed in.

  Abe brought out the shotgun and set it on the bar with an audible clunk that sounded loud in the sudden silence of the saloon.

  The passdoor to the kitchen swung open with a loud scrape and squeak. Sol emerged, balancing a tray holding bowls of stew, cups of coffee, and precariously perched plates of sausages and biscuits. He stopped, mid-stride, tray before him like an offering.

  Inez interrupted the tense silence, using a tone of almost motherly severity designed to defuse the situation. “Gentlemen. Civilized arguments on politics and differences of journalistic opinion are well and good and welcomed here at the Silver Queen. But I warn you, should this war of words escalate into violence or if we even sense a hint of impending fisticuffs—”

  Far from pouring oil onto troubled waters, Inez’s words had the verbal effect of tossing a match to a container of kerosene.

  “A black eye or broken jaw wouldn’t even begin to compensate the injury you’ve done to my mother’s and my honor by printing those lies and blasphemies, you bastard,” hissed Wesley. His large dark eyes had a nasty gleam to them now.

  Inez noticed the fourth estate scribbling in their notebooks, pencils on paper sounding like the scrabbling claws of rats.

  Perhaps Jed heard the noise as well. He took a step forward and said in a steel voice that Inez barely recognized, “Call me a bastard. Call me a son of a bitch, if you wish. But do not call me a liar. I have proof. Proof for everything that appears on the front page of today’s Independent newspaper.”

  His voice carried to all corners of the room.

  Inez winced. Now’s not the time to try to increase your circulation, Jed.

  “Liar!” Wesley shouted. “If you have proof, show me. You have until tomorrow night to produce your ‘proof.’ I challenge you to meet me at the portion of track where General Grant disembarked. Sunday evening. Six o’clock. Bring your pistol if you wish to defend your nonexistent honor. If you are not there, with your gun or your proof, I will hunt you down and kill you like the dog you are!”

  Jed locked eyes with the newsmen in the audience. “Gentlemen. I invite all of you to be present at that time. Where Third Street crosses the Denver and Rio Grande track and becomes the Boulevard. You can examine the letters and the inscribed photograph for yourself, and cast your own votes.”

  Wesley glared around at the room, gaze murderous. “You should all be there to see this sorry specimen of the so-called free press receive his comeuppance or die. He’ll be coming with his tail tucked between his legs. He will bring no proof, because there is none.” He swung back to Jed. “Who paid you? Which of my enemies paid you to tar me with such blatant corrupt deceits? Whoever they are, they are on the side of those who are working against my goals of bringing political parity to the common man. I shall drag the names of those responsible from you if I must disembowel you in the process.”

  With that, Wesley cast the crumpled newspaper into a nearby cuspidor, where it floated soaking up the brown oily liquid. He stormed out of the saloon, his entourage following like a shadow at his heels. Kavanagh brought up the rear. Inez saw him unobtrusively reholster his long-barreled revolver under his coat.

  A chill prickled her neck.

  Kavanagh caught her gaze and lifted his eyebrows as if to say, “Now that was a cl
ose one.”

  The door closed with finality on his heels.

  Inez released her held breath. Beside her, Abe did the same. A moment later, everyone else stirred. Glasses held at half-mast clinked down on tables. Others were lifted and contents emptied. Chairs shifted back, voices rose in a speculative murmur.

  “So how’s your aim, Elliston?” called out one wag.

  “Good enough.”

  Inez, standing close by, caught the faintest quiver of fear underlying Jed’s enforced bravado.

  “I’ll give two-to-one odds on our local scribbler here besting that Denver whelp tomorry night!” shouted one of the card players at a back table.

  Cries of “Done!” and “I’ll take those odds!” were interrupted by proposals offering alternative odds on one side or the other, including: “ten-to-one on young Wesley. I’ve seen Jed try to shoot!”

  Laughter and protests as to supporting one of their own versus the “outsider” erupted.

  Inez reached over and tapped Jed’s arm. He whirled around. His eyes were as wide as a deer’s facing a forest fire bearing down at full speed.

  “Mr. Elliston, allow me to offer a round for the house, and to place a private bet on your behalf,” she said loud and clear for all to hear.

  A general hurrah arose, and patrons raised glasses empty or near so. Abe looked disgruntled.

  “Too many free drinks these days,” he grumbled.

  She leaned over and murmured, “The rotgut is fine. If it’s free, they don’t care what kind it is.”

  “Your call, Mrs. Stannert,” was his reply. He began pulling bottles of their cheapest out from beneath the backbar. Sol brought a plate of sausages to Jed before grabbing several bottles to fill glasses waving from various tables about the room.

  “Mr. Elliston.” Inez released his arm and took the sausages hostage. “Please, come up to the office. Let’s discuss what odds you think I should favor for this contest between freedom of the press and the overweening ambitions of politicians still wet behind the ears.”

  She came around the bar, took his arm, and, holding out the sausages as an inducement, dragged him upstairs.

  Once in the office, she closed the door for privacy, guided him to the worn velvet loveseat, and pulled out a bottle of her private stash of brandy from its place of honor on her roll-top desk. She poured two glasses and handed one to Jed, who sat staring at the untouched sausages on the plate.

  Inez lowered herself into her rolling desk chair, then pulled it forward with a squeak of wheels so she could better gauge his expressions and ascertain when he was telling her the truth and when he was lying.

  “Jed. Look at me.”

  He looked at her. Dejection and panic clear on his face.

  “You have the letters and the photograph?”

  “As I told you at the reception, they were delivered last night in a single envelope—”

  “Do. You. Have. The. Letters?” she emphasized.

  He didn’t answer.

  He didn’t have to.

  “And this purported image, this lewd carte de visite?”

  His shoulders slumped further.

  “Jed.” She injected a note of urgency into her tone. “What possessed you? It’s one thing to make up stories of swells picking silver up off the ground on Capitol Hill on their way to the opera. It’s quite another—”

  “I had them. Had them all,” he said. “I gave them to my typesetter to put in the desk. I had to get to Grant’s reception. When I went to the office this morning, they weren’t there.”

  “Well, where is this typesetter of yours? Perhaps he inadvertently took them home. Given the nature of the photograph, I suppose I could understand if he—”

  “She! She was a woman.”

  Inez blinked. “What? Who was a woman?”

  “The typesetter.” He shoved the plate of sausages off his lap and onto the nearby table, and clasped his hands between his knees. “I’d just hired her. She and I worked together all day yesterday. She was quick to learn, I was patting myself on the back for having found a typesetter I could count on. I even paid her a full day’s wages! But then, when the letters and photograph weren’t in my desk, and when she didn’t show up this morning…Oh hell. Could she have been in on this? Have I been played for a dupe?”

  He looked at Inez, agony on his face.

  Inez tried to think. “What do you know about her? What’s her name? Do you know where she lives? Anything?”

  He sighed heavily. “Her last name’s Thomas, first name Zel, or some variation of that. She lives with a blind father and a couple of young twin brothers on Chicken Hill. I looked through the city directory. I even went up to Chicken Hill this morning and asked around. There are a fair number of Thomases up there. No luck.”

  Inez sat back, thinking. “Thomas might not be her real name. Who knows if anything she said is true? It could be, Jed. It could be that you were taken. What kind of a shot are you?”

  He closed his eyes. For a moment, with his hands clenched, he looked to be in prayer. He opened his eyes. “Not all that great. A duel? Jesus, he’ll kill me. If he doesn’t, the publishing fraternity will stick their quills in my heart and finish me off.”

  He loosened his hands, picked up the brandy snifter, and drained it.

  Inez couldn’t help but calculate the worth of the brandy he inhaled at such a rapid rate.

  He looked at her, desperate. “Mrs. Stannert. Can you help me?”

  “Help you? If I can. I’ve no love for that Wesley. From what his mother said last night, I suspect that at least the letter to Mrs. Clatchworthy you described might express his true stand. Although, who’s to say? But he is such a cock-arrogant young whelp.”

  “I don’t think Miss Thomas lied to me,” Jed insisted. “She was far too desperate for the job. Too…I don’t know, genuine. You’d think a girl who’d been tasked with weaseling her way into the newspaper would do some batting of eyes or flashing a bit of ankle or something. She was straight up with me. Well,” he amended, “maybe not when she gave me her name. I asked her and she hesitated a bit. I guess I wondered why at the time. Thought that Thomas might not be real.”

  Inez closed her eyes in turn.

  “Good lord,” she said under her breath. “Jed. What a mess you have gotten yourself into. Why didn’t you wait to publish that, that inflammatory article? You could have checked some sources. Talked with Mrs. Clatchworthy to find out if she even knows the Wesleys.”

  “There was no time!” Jed said desperately. “I had to strike when the iron was hot! I was going to press! I thought I’d corner Wesley at the reception and ask a few pointed questions, but…You!” He sat up straight, sudden accusation focused on her. “You stopped me. Then you told me about what Mrs. Wesley said to you. And I figured that was good enough. I could let it go. If it hadn’t been for you, I might not be in this mess.”

  “Oh for…Don’t blame this on me. But I’ll help you as best I can.” Inez glanced at her lapel watch. “It’s three o’clock now. You’ve got little more than twenty-four hours before you have to face young Wesley. This girl can’t just disappear off the face of the earth, and I doubt she can simply walk out of town. I’ll see what I can do about chasing down some information on Chicken Hill.”

  Bridgette might be helpful in that regard. And she’ll be in tomorrow morning early instead of at Mass, thank the Lord.

  Inez continued, “And, there’s Mrs. Clatchworthy. Jed, are you attending the veterans banquet tonight?”

  Jed shook his head, slumped on the sofa. “Couldn’t cadge an invitation.”

  Oh, that’s right. He’s far too young to be a veteran of the War.

  “Well, I’ll bet you a dollar to a dime that William Casey, the lawyer, will be there. He’s of the proper age. And, if he’s going, he’ll bring his sister. I can’t imagine she’d pass up the opportunity to see Grant and hear all his cronies talk of the ‘old days,’ even if she h
as to promise her brother she’ll remain silent as a statue. So, perhaps I can talk to Mrs. Clatchworthy this evening, see if she regularly corresponds with the Wesleys. She might be more forthcoming with me about this than with you, in any case.”

  There was something else. Something niggling at Inez about the girl’s first name, a debilitated father, twin brothers. Zelda. That was the name of the girl who’d killed Lizzie. Zel could be a diminutive. Though most prostitutes don’t use their real names or something that close. Still. What else did Flo say about her? I remember an invalid father. Twin brothers. Did she say the father was blind?

  Too many demands, too much yammering in her brain. She couldn’t focus on it.

  Perhaps I should make a trip to Flo’s pleasure palace and ask a few questions.

  She opened her eyes and looked at Jed, who was watching her as if she was the one and only true Savior.

  “What is it, Mrs. Stannert. Did you think of something?”

  “I’m not sure. Is there anything else you can tell me about this Miss Thomas? Anything that seemed unusual? Unexpected?”

  He frowned, blushed, looked away.

  “Ye-e-e-e-s? What is it, Jed?”

  He cleared his throat. “That photograph. Odd thing. She said there was something still in the envelope after I pulled the letters. So she took it out, it was wrapped in a piece of paper. She unwrapped it, it fell onto the tabletop, and, well, it knocked my socks off. And I’m no neophyte in the ways of State Street.” He stopped.

  “Y-e-e-e-e-s?”

  “I’m not even going to attempt to describe it to you, Mrs. Stannert. Except for what I said in the paper. But Miss Thomas. She, well, she…”

  “What? She fainted dead away?”

  “No, not at all. I suppose that’s what I found odd. In fact, she went out of her way to assure me that everything was quite all right and that she’d keep plugging along. I was ready to send her home, you see. I thought a proper young woman would have refused to have any more to do with it, right then and there. Not that she acted in any way improper, you understand. She was just rather matter-of-fact, I guess you’d say. Didn’t seem nearly as shocked as I felt, I’ll tell you that.”