by Chloe Garner
“And then I get here, and I’m not the only power here. There’s you, and instead of my ally, you’re my competitor. And we aren’t going to do anything we want, because we want different things. And I’d forgotten the heat and the dry and the dust that gets everywhere. The women are unlivable. The house is crowded, and the staff don’t know where anything is or how to do anything here. You can’t just go grocery shopping or have something you need dropped off by courier.”
“Nope,” Sarah agreed. “My first few days back from college were a shock, I’ll grant you that.”
“I’m not above standing out in the rain waiting for something to happen. I did that a lot, when we needed to. But standing out of the rain so I don’t get wet...”
“Life is hard, Lawson,” Sarah said. “Don’t come whimpering to me about it.”
He laughed.
“That’s what I missed about you. No mercy, not sympathy, nothing but tactics and stone.”
She shrugged her shoulders so the duster fell correctly again, continuing her cigarette.
“Should quit raining soon,” she said. “Never does it for long.”
He grunted, taking the cigarette out of her hand. She glowered after it, then looked up at the sky where even now the clouds were breaking up.
The downpour continued for a while, then quit as suddenly as it had started. She went over to where the black horse was grazing and resumed the ride into town.
She didn’t want to be up in the mountains after dark. As long as they got down before the light was gone, they’d be fine, but they needed to keep moving.
This trip had been so much shorter, last time.
“You got a body on your conscience?” Jimmy asked as they peaked the last pass and started downhill toward the plain.
“Shut up, Lawson,” she said.
“I had to kill a friend of mine in Intec,” he said. “I’ve done it more than once, over the years, but the last one always hurts the most.”
“Shut up,” she said again.
“He’d been running booze for me,” Jimmy went on. “Illegal stuff. You know there’s illegal booze, some places? Anyway, he’d been running it to various clubs for me, so the rich people who like selection for its own sake could have it on the menu, and we’d been making a good packet, doing it.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” she said.
“Problem was Petey,” Jimmy said. “He liked drinking at those same clubs, and he was blabbing about how we were the ones supplying some of the better stuff. Some of the stuff you couldn’t get anywhere else.”
She sighed.
“I can see the end of this story from here.”
“I had people approaching me to buy, people I didn’t know.”
She could imagine that one of his cardinal rules, outside of Lawrence, was to only work with people he knew and trusted. Inside Lawrence, that rule was redundant.
“It wasn’t that big a deal. I went a couple rounds with Petey. Lise was livid, but what was she going to do about it? She doesn’t like having a husband with a black eye, but she’s a big fan of the money I bring in, so there isn’t a lot she can say.”
Sarah looked back over her shoulder, waiting for the story to end so she could regain silence. She didn’t need a story, not from Jimmy of all people.
“The wrong people found out,” Jimmy said. “Guys I’d muscled out, ones that wanted in for the first time, ones that might have had connections that would get us all busted. My buddy, Gate, the club owners knew him. And a few of them were willing to point him out, for the right money. He had a wife, he had kids. Three little girls, actually. And some guy, no idea who Gate was representing, he takes Gate’s little girls and is holding them to make Gate deliver the booze somewhere specific.”
“You shot him?” Sarah asked.
“No, I put him underground, found his little girls and ended the guy who took them, but he was shook up after that. Always looking over his shoulder, jumpy. I took him off the entire project, found someone else who could do it, but he’s still sure someone’s after his girls, his wife.”
“He was a liability,” Sarah said.
“He brought a guy to me. One who’d told him that he knew who was after Gate’s family, who just wanted a meeting with me. Guy walks in, armed, and takes a shot at me.”
Sarah sighed.
“Stupid. Stupid as a five-legged cow.”
“We buried him outside of town. His wife thinks he left her. Finally went nuts and just ran off.”
Sarah shook her head.
“Can’t take responsibility for everyone.”
“Still hurts,” he said.
“Shut up,” she said.
They rode on, the light fading down darker. They weren’t down, yet, but they were close. She thought they’d make it before she had to bring out a lantern.
“How long you been sleepin’ with Lise?” she asked.
“What?” he asked. Too fast, Lawson. Too fast.
“She’s after the power,” she said. “Thought she’d be getting it with Little Peter, prob’ly what he sold her on, to get her to marry him, then she finds out you’re the one with any power. Woman like that, she’s coming after you with ev’rythin’ she’s got.”
“It’s her life,” Jimmy said.
“You’re a dog,” she answered.
“Petey doesn’t know,” he said.
“You’re screwing your brother’s wife,” Sarah said. “I hardly care if he knows or not.”
“I don’t think anyone else knows,” Jimmy said. “How long have you known?”
“Guess,” she said. “Picturin’ her talkin’ back to you, and I just ain’t seein’ it. She ain’t got no reason not to, and I bet she hopes she’ll turn your head.”
“She’s pretty,” Jimmy said. “You’ve got to give her that.”
“Ain’t the kind of head turnin’ I’m talking about,” Sarah said.
“I know,” Jimmy said. “It started right after they got married. I think she’d leave him if she thought I were interested in her.”
Sarah shook her head.
“You’re a dog. He will find out.”
“Hasn’t so far,” Jimmy said. “She has her own room. Told him she can’t sleep with his snoring, which is loud enough to keep the whole house up, in truth. So there’s no one to notice she’s gone.”
“Your own brother’s wife,” Sarah said. “Shame, Jimmy.”
“What would you do?” Jimmy asked.
“Put her out on her ass,” Sarah said. “Tell him the first night she showed up in my bedroom and be done with her.”
“You would, wouldn’t you?”
He couldn’t see her shrug in the dark, so she didn’t bother.
“You haven’t taken a lover, either, have you?” Jimmy asked.
“Don’t see how that’s none of your business,” Sarah said, squinting. The trail head was down here somewhere, and then they were down into the foothills where the biggest risk to the horses was the holes the varmints dug to get away from the sun.
“Did you, in college?” he asked.
She started with a sharp retort about keepin’ his damned mouth shut, then frowned at what he was implying.
He’d seen other women while she was away.
“Who?” she asked.
“I don’t know, a classmate, someone you thought was attractive. Hell, a professor.”
“No,” she said, turning in her saddle. “Who did you screw while I was in Oxala?”
“Oh,” he said.
She waited.
“Well, it was Lawrence,” Jimmy started.
“Jezzie,” she said, turning back to face forward again. “You screwed around with Jezzie while I was gone.”
“She’s not the type to say no,” Jimmy said. She wasn’t sure if he was intentionally provoking her or not.
“Bastard,” she muttered.
“Why?” he asked. “We weren’t together. We’ve never been together, Sarah. Why in hell should I care what
you think?”
“Sleeping with your brother’s wife and you have to ask?” she answered. “I’ve always known you weren’t a good man, but I thought you were better than that.”
“Which one bothers you more, Lise or Jezzie?”
He knew the answer, the bastard, and she could see his point.
Jezzie.
Lise was a beautiful, statuesque woman who probably showed up in his bedroom naked from time to time. She could see how that would go the same way every time, and not mean anything. But Jezzie.
“Who in this damned town hasn’t she screwed?” Sarah asked. “Dumber than tree snot.”
“Available,” Jimmy said. “Experienced. Pretty enough. It’s just sex.”
“No, I thought you were in love with her,” Sarah said sarcastically. “No one screws a whore for anything other than sex.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“You know damned well what the problem is, and if you ask me again, I’m going to belt you ‘cross the mouth. Shut the hell up, Lawson.”
She found she was almost out of breath. Like something was squeezing her chest and she couldn’t see it or fight it. She hated him.
Oh, she hated him.
He was her business partner. Nothing more. They would get filthy rich scalping his prospector buddies, and then...
And then what?
He would stay. Make more money. Run the town. Grow it. Turn it into Lawsonland or whatever.
Would she leave?
Where would she go?
Why?
“I’m gonna have to put up with you my whole damned life, aren’t I?” Sarah said rhetorically to the night.
“Looks like, unless you manage to screw this up,” Jimmy answered.
“Screw you,” Sarah said.
“Clearly that’s what you want,” Jimmy told her.
She was on the verge of turning around again to say something cutting to him, she had no idea what, when she heard something odd up ahead.
Shouting.
They were close enough to the Lawson house that it was likely coming from there, and she glanced back at Jimmy.
“You hearin’ that?” she asked.
“I am,” his voice came back. It was too dark to see his face.
“You good to ride faster?”
“You just go,” he said. “I’ll keep up.”
She flicked the black horse hard with the reins, letting him find his own footing as they reached the dry at the bottom of the mountain and started up the first of the smaller hills. The Lawson house should have been on the second hill, if she’d gotten the direction right. She heard the sound of hoofbeats behind her, trusting Jimmy and his mount to make their way safely along behind her.
The Lawson house came into view, casting pools of orange light down the hillside that silhouetted a crowd of men in front of it who had started a bonfire. Sarah pushed her horse into a sprint up the hill, landing on heavy boots in the midst of the men with her rifle in one hand. The black horse danced away, disappearing before the angry men, but he’d done his job. Sarah looked scathingly around at the men.
“What seems to be goin’ on here?”
“You just get ‘em to come out, and we’ll take care of it,” one of the men said. “This is ‘tween us and the Lawsons.”
“By which you mean me,” Jimmy said from behind her. He was still mounted. She didn’t turn around.
“I can’t let you do that, Prave. You need to tell me what’s goin’ on.”
“Those bastards killed my brother,” a strange man screamed, trying to charge Sarah. She let the balance of the rifle drop, leveling it at him even as his friends grabbed his arms and held him.
“She ain’t one of ‘em,” Prave said. “That’s Sarah Todd.”
“I don’t care,” the man screamed. “They need to pay.”
“You’re drunk,” she said, keeping the rifle casually level. “Y’all are. Go home. Sleep it off.”
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘till someone pays,” Prave said. “Neither is anyone else.”
“Who would that be?” Sarah asked. “I can make any one of you pay, if you like.”
“One of them,” the brother screamed. “I want one of them dead.”
Sarah turned to look at Prave more directly.
“Is that the demand? ‘Cause you know I can’t do that.”
“Peter Lawson killed his brother and a friend,” Prave said. “I seen it, and so did a bunch of them. Only reason he got away alive was that he had his brothers with him. He’s gotta pay for that.”
“I can’t speak to that, Prave,” Sarah said. “All I know is y’all are in the Lawsons’ front yard burnin’ stuff and actin’ rowdy, and I can’t stand by.”
“We all know why that is,” someone yelled from outside the immediate halo of firelight. The man whose brother had been killed threw his arms down, storming away, and Sarah let the rifle ease down to point at the ground over the crook of her arm.
“You go now, I’ll look into it,” Sarah said. “You don’t, you got me, you got Jimmy Lawson, and you got a hell of a lot of staff in there who all know their way ‘round a gun. That’s what I’d call a war, and they got the stronghold.”
“Not till he pays,” someone yelled.
“I’m Sarah Todd,” Sarah said, her voice booming. “You got somethin’ to say, you come step into this here light and you say it. Else you get your yella chicken asses home to your mommas and stop botherin’ me.”
Prave pointed at her.
“I’m holdin’ you to that, Sarah,” he said. She shrugged.
“You got my word. Git.”
Prave stood straight, looking around.
“We know her,” he said loudly. “She ain’t given us reason yet to not expect somethin’ from her when she says she’ll do it. I’m goin’ home.”
He started across the yard, and she stepped aside to let him past. A few men joined him, and a few others melted away less formally, there for the drinking and the throwing things, but not for the real confrontation.
Then there were just shadows outside of the fire’s range and Sarah.
“I ain’t afraid of you,” she said, pulling a paper out of her pocket and beginning to roll a cigarette. “I killed more’n what you got left in just about any bandit fight I been in. And y’all’re drunk. Take what you got and get.”
She lit the cigarette and she waited.
There was muttering, a bit of cursing, and some dark promises, but one by one, the men left.
And then she was alone on the hillside with a giant fire and Jimmy Lawson.
“Impressive,” he said, easing himself down off of his horse.
“I been here a long time, Lawson,” she said. “That tavern feeds ‘em poison enough to make ‘em sick in the head, they always turn up at someone’s house makin’ demands.”
“You’ve got a problem,” he said.
“I’ve always got problems,” she answered, pulling at her cigarette once then throwing it into the fire. It had been buying time; she didn’t have the patience right now to stand and smoke it.
“You’ve promised them justice,” he said.
“I promised I’d do somethin’,” Sarah said. “‘Round here, that’s diff’rent.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m’unna find out what happened, and I’m’unna do somethin’ about it.”
“What if I told you Petey shot him for no reason worth discussing, and then shot his friend just for being there?”
“Is that what happened?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jimmy said. “It’s what all of them are going to believe by tomorrow.”
“‘Cause it’s close enough, isn’t it?”
Jimmy scratched his head.
“Doesn’t matter. What would you do?”
“I’d do what I do,” Sarah said, turning her eyes down the hillside to find her horse. “Damn animal blends in, in the dark.”
“You should come in,” Jimmy sa
id. “We need to talk about what happens next.”
“Don’t need you to figure that out,” Sarah said. He shook his head, waving at someone from the house.
“No, we really should talk,” he said. “I’ll have someone find your horse and have him ready, but... we need to talk.”
She looked hard at him.
“I’m hard but I’m fair. You don’t get the respect of a town like Lawrence without some kind of consistency.”
He eased up next to her, taking her elbow gently.
“Please,” he said. “This gets hard from here, if it goes wrong, and I don’t want that.”
She let him guide her into the house.
“Find Miss Todd’s horse and get some feed into him,” Jimmy said. “Have him ready to ride when we’re done.”
She glanced at Jimmy as the boy scurried away.
“You mistreat that animal, Jimmy,” she said. He shook his head.
“No, I know that all bets are off if I hurt your horse,” he said. “I wouldn’t dare, and neither would any member of my staff.”
“But not your brothers,” she muttered. He shrugged.
“They’re Lawsons. You know I can’t make promises for them.”
She glowered at him, but knew it was the truth.
The family was gathered in the front room.
“Hey, Sarah,” Thomas said. Sarah threw herself onto a couch, ignoring the man who tried to take her coat. She tossed her hat onto a table and draped her arms across the back of the couch as her heels followed the hat.
“I’m listenin’,” she said.
A woman came in, probably in her fifties, but still looking late twenties on account of her Perpeto.
“Can I get you a drink, Miss Todd?”
“You know how to make gremlin tea?” Sarah asked. The woman looked around quickly, then shook her head.
“No, ma’am. Can I get you a different tea?”
“Anyone in this place know how to make a cup ‘o gremlin?” she asked.
“Probably not,” Jimmy said from the wall. “They all came with us.”
She shook her head in disgust.
“I’ll do it,” Thomas said, standing. He shrugged when the rest of the brothers turned to look at him.
“What?” he asked. “It’s not like you’re going to be arguing about anything different when I get back. It’ll take two minutes.” He paused. “Though I expect we don’t actually have any gremlin in the house.”