Sarah Todd

by Chloe Garner

  “Mine,” he yelled.

  She smashed someone for running into her horse, then booted the horse forward again into another group of men.

  There were bodies on the ground. Most of them writhed, some of them were still. She pointed at one of them that was much, much too close to a solidly-built structure with plenty of wood left to burn.

  “Careful,” she said. “Get him someplace safe.”

  The big man squatted.

  “Dead,” he answered.

  “Do it anyway,” she said, choosing not to believe him. He did as she asked. The black horse reared as a pair of men went tumbling by, one of them winning. Sarah hit the winner in the shoulder with her block of wood.

  “Get up,” she yelled. “Break it up.”

  Someone had decided to try to save the shantytown, and men around the edges of the fighting were throwing buckets of water at the burning structures. Another fifteen minutes and the men were all covered in red mud and Sarah’s horse was struggling to keep his feet under him on the slick mud that formed out of the desert clay. Sarah grew angrier, offering two more men money to help her and pulling more and more men out of the fighting. It was largely futile, but she might have saved lives, when it was all done.

  Come dawn, the fires were out, and the fight had died. So had a lot of men.

  The rest of them dragged themselves around the camp, looking for things that were worth saving. Blood, soot, and mud mixed together to dehumanize most of them. Sarah left her horse at the edge of the space and walked back through the remains of the shanty town, joining up with Jimmy silently at some point. She noticed that, behind them, they had seven men following them who looked, if no less bedraggled than the others, at least purposeful.

  “Start sorting,” Jimmy said, turning at one point. “Injured, fatally injured, and dead.” He pointed to three separate points around the perimeter of the camp. “The burial squad will take care of the dead.”

  “Burial squad?” Sarah asked. Jimmy glanced at her.

  “Had to,” he said. “They’ve had men dying of starvation and exposure out here every night for a while.”

  She shook her head. No wonder the whole thing had exploded.

  “They aren’t breaking in at Granger’s?”

  “They try,” Jimmy said wearily, “but Granger hired the biggest of them to stand guard. They’ve shot eight men this week trying to steal things.”

  Eight.

  That was a huge number for a single week on Lawrence. Maybe it wasn’t anymore, but it still felt like it. A bad bandit raid would leave three or four dead. The only one who did that kind of damage was Sarah when she went out hunting bandits.

  They continued walking.

  “This can’t go on,” she said.

  “What do you suggest?” he asked. She looked around the rubble and shook her head.

  “Dumber than horse snot,” Sarah muttered. “Let’s go.”

  She pushed her way through the terrible men, not looking any of them in the face. Finally, she found the road again.

  “If you got a buddy what needs help, stay and help him. If you got work from me or Jimmy, keep at it. Everyone else, over here.”

  She found a wagon someone had driven over that morning and stood on it, looking down at the orange-caked men.

  “This ain’t gonna happen again,” she said. “We ain’t got the resources, and I ain’t got the patience. Granger? Granger, you here?”

  The man waved from somewhere off to her right, putting his spectacles back on.

  “Granger, feed these men. Just feed ‘em, all right? I’ll pay for it.” She looked over the crowd. “Got that? There’s food comin’ to fill your bellies. Next up, the tavern is closed until further notice.”

  She hopped down as the complaints started, she ignored them, walking with Jimmy toward the horses.

  “You got no right, Sarah Todd,” Willie yelled from behind her. He and Paulie quickly caught up as Sarah waited. They might be her mortal enemies, but shutting down their business deserved at least a conversation, not that she intended to change her mind.

  “You can’t do that,” Paulie said.

  “Can, will, did,” Jimmy said.

  “If I’m payin’ for their grub, I ain’t gonna stand by while they spend the rest of their money with the likes of you two,” Sarah said. “Let’s be frank, here. Most ‘a the problems that crop up in Lawrence are ‘cause of you, and you just let me deal with ‘em ‘cause they happen outside the tavern. No more. ‘Till these men can afford to feed themselves, they ain’t buyin’ booze from you.”

  “What do you expect us to do in the meantime?” Willie asked. “What about the locals that can afford it?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Sarah said. “You got plenty ‘a cash, don’t pretend you don’t. Maybe you could put it to use building a place for these boys to stay that ain’t gonna wash away in the rain.”

  Willie, Paulie, and Jimmy all looked up at the sky. Sarah nodded.

  “That’s right. It’s a’comin’, and it’s gonna be a bad one this year, on account of all the boys sitting around in the dirt like this.”

  “We built a dormitory for ‘em, you’ll let us open again?” Willie asked. Sarah glanced at Jimmy. He shrugged. Her call.

  “You keep the girls out of there, it’s a deal,” she said.

  “We can’t put ‘em all up,” Paulie warned. “There’s too many of ‘em.”

  “Just get started,” Jimmy said. “Get done what you can before the rain comes, and I’ll talk her into letting you open again.”

  Sarah grunted, then turned on her heel again and continued on toward her horse. Young men continued to lob complaints at her, but they were getting thinner as they drifted back toward what had been their temporary home. A sense of despair was only just suspended off of the encampment as they dealt with the immediate fallout of the fire and the fight. By afternoon they’d be out of things to do, and who knew what would happen then.

  “A burial brigade,” Sarah said. Jimmy nodded.

  “Yup.”

  “Didn’t think it’d come to that,” she said. “Never would’a thought.”

  “I know,” Jimmy said. “It’s going to be different this time. Everyone knows we have absenta, and everyone knows how much it’s worth.”

  “You hear from the boys up at the mine?” she asked.

  “I was going to ask if you wanted to go up there tomorrow,” he said.

  “I’m takin’ the cows up to the high country today,” she said. “Won’t be back ‘till late tomorrow.”

  “Could just ride straight from there, couldn’t we?” Jimmy asked. “I know you want to be there, but they sent the laborers home yesterday and they’re waiting on us.”

  Sarah considered.

  “S’pose,” she said. “But you can’t find your way up there on your own.”

  “No, but I’ve got to get used to days on horseback, anyway,” he said. “Might as well just do it.”

  She gave him a small smirk, then shrugged.

  “Can’t argue with it,” she said. “Be at my place in an hour. Bring your own provisions.”

  “All right,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “Bad timing, for this. Could have made a much better plan if it had all boiled over yesterday.”

  “Or not at all,” Sarah said.

  “It was bound to,” he said, his voice distant. “I should have pushed it earlier.”

  “You’d’a had all those young men kill each other a day earlier so that it were more convenient for you?” she asked.

  “They died, anyway,” Jimmy said. “Their last day was hardly something to write home about.”

  “You’re a bad man, Jimmy Lawson,” she said, without emotion. “Don’t be late. I will leave without you.”

  She swung her leg over the black horse’s back and booted him up to speed, not thinking about the men picking up their lives behind her as she made her way back home to pack her saddle bags.

  Thirty minutes
later, Jimmy let himself into the house.

  “Didn’t forget nothing important, did you?” she asked from the stove where she was brewing tea with Dog at her feet.

  “Don’t think so,” he said. She’d intentionally decided not to pack redundantly. If he forgot anything, outside of a water canteen, it wasn’t going to kill him.

  “Cows are ready,” she said. “Dog’s ready. You ready?”

  “I think so,” he said, sitting down at the table. She poured two cups of tea and sat.

  They drank quietly for several minutes, then she tipped her head to the side.

  “Is that a handprint on your face?” she asked. He touched it self-consciously, confirming it. She raised an eyebrow and took another sip of her tea.

  He dropped his hand back to the table and leaned back slightly in his chair, an affect of comfort and lack of concern. He was good, but he wasn’t that good.

  “She have something to match, or is she untouchable, being your brother’s wife?” Sarah asked nonchalantly.

  Jimmy raised his eyes to meet hers, steel behind them. She knew that look. She knew she should fear that look. But Lise had slapped him, and she’d never been much for fearing Jimmy Lawson, anyway.

  “You have to break a date?” she pushed.

  “Dammit, Sarah,” he answered, putting his cup on the table. “Can’t you ever just leave anything alone?”

  “Why would I do that?” she asked. “I’m not the one with a handprint on my face.”

  “But you make me decide,” he said. She knew what he meant without asking. She knew that decision. Every time a drunk man put his hands on her, or a cowboy assumed that because she was a woman he could say something to her that would get him punched, if Sarah were a man. It wasn’t that she couldn’t defend herself. It wasn’t even that she didn’t want to have to. It was that moment when she had to decide: ignore or engage? Ignoring it had its own power, certainly, because it said that she didn’t feel the need to deal with lowlifes, but there was a risk if she did it too often. There was a risk that men, as individuals or as a group, would decide that she was unwilling to take care of herself, when people insulted her. Every single incident was a decision. Every time.

  And here she was, doing it to Jimmy. Insubordination was something he could only afford to ignore sparingly, or else he wouldn’t be Jimmy Lawson, anymore. It was the risk of rule by power, rather than by near-universal consent.

  And she didn’t feel bad about it at all.

  She liked making him squirm. And she’d long, long ago known that. She wasn’t the type to apologize for doing what she liked.

  She sipped her tea, letting the amusement show in her eyes, eventually putting her feet up on the chair next to her and shifting further down in her own chair, mimicking Jimmy’s affectation to excess. He glowered at her.

  “You know there’s no one else in the world I’d tolerate that from,” he said.

  “Evidently there is,” she said. “Unless you put her down for it.”

  His jaw flexed. Just for an instant, but she saw it. It made her smile, which made him angrier.

  “Damned women,” he said. “Always thinking that they can get away with it because they’re women. That I won’t do anything about it.”

  “Not what I think at all,” Sarah said. “I think I licked you as kids, and I can do it again.”

  “Oh, really?” he asked.

  “You’re soft, Jimmy,” she said. “Sure you got a gun with a lot of notches on it, but you been out of the real scuffle for too long.”

  “You don’t know that,” he said. She smirked.

  “I can see it on you like you was naked.”

  “Is that so?” he asked softly. She shrugged, finishing her tea.

  “We’ll put the edge back on you, ‘fore too long, but yeah.”

  He shook his head.

  “You have no idea the things that I’ve been through,” he said. “No idea.”

  “You, neither, Lawson,” she answered, standing. He stood, facing her, chest to chest. There was a moment of measuring.

  He was half an inch taller than she was, and they both knew it. He was proud of that half inch. But in her hat and boots, with her duster making her look fifty pounds heavier than she actually was, he didn’t stand a chance. He didn’t want to be a frontiersman. He wanted to be the city man who civilized the frontier. She understood that, not just from what he’d told her, but from the way he dressed, the way he moved. But it meant that when they measured each other up, like predators in the wild, he had no way of getting close to the intimidation of her bulk.

  “I ain’t a pretty woman, Jimmy,” she said. “It ain’t how I’m built and it ain’t how I’m made. But I ain’t soft. You pick any day you like to try to prove otherwise, but I ain’t the kind of woman you can make vague threats at and expect me to cow, you got me?”

  “I never expect you to cow,” he said. “But you make me angry on purpose. One of my brothers did that, I’d beat him with my belt.”

  She nodded.

  “And they’d take it. That’s why you’re Jimmy and they ain’t. You try to come after me with your belt, you’ll find my bullwhip a lot more suited for the fight.”

  He stared her down a moment longer, the steel in his eyes almost enough to win out, but not quite. Not quite.

  “You ready, then?” she asked.

  “She doesn’t want me going out with you,” he said.

  “So?” Sarah asked. “She ain’t your wife, and neither am I.”

  “You make her insecure,” Jimmy said. “Lise is never insecure.”

  “I can see that,” Sarah said. He put his fingers through his hair.

  “I need to put the two of you in a room. Only one of you would come out, and it would make my life a hell of a lot easier.”

  “She got a grip in you, Jimmy?” Sarah asked.

  “No,” he answered. She raised an eyebrow.

  “She got a grip on you, Jimmy?”

  “No, Sarah,” he said. “She hasn’t.”

  “Lady that comes to your room at night, in secret, only has a couple reasons to do it. And she ain’t in love with you.”

  “No, she isn’t,” Jimmy said. Sarah kept her eyes level on him for another moment, then sighed and shook her head, turning away.

  “Rather take a viper to bed with me,” she said, heading for the back door with a short tone for Dog to follow.

  “Obviously,” Jimmy said. “Seeing how you don’t take anyone else.”

  She spun at him, her hand up.

  “You want a matching one?” she asked. “I hit a man, it’s with the back of my hand; we can get both sides if you want.”

  He didn’t wince. He didn’t back down.

  “Tell me I’m wrong,” he said.

  “You’re disgusting,” she said.

  “I’m right,” he answered, following her out. Dog gave him a small snarl, and Sarah enjoyed a private moment of satisfaction.

  “He would be that loyal,” Jimmy murmured. “He’s the only one you do sleep with.”

  She ignored him this time, going to tack the black horse and turn out the cows. She’d fed them an hour before to make sure they had enough grain in them to make the trek comfortably.

  Jimmy went and got his horse from around front and met up with her as she and Dog had the cows moving.

  “It’s a nice herd,” he observed.

  “It is,” she said. “I need to trade out one of the calves this year. Gonna grow it one.”

  “You eat the rest of them?” he asked.

  “Or sell ‘em,” Sarah said. “Some of the folk in town haven’t got herds.”

  “Won’t be long,” Jimmy said. “Once we get enough money moving through the town, everyone will be able to afford to buy whatever kind of food they want from Granger.”

  It would be a change, Sarah realized. The freedom from the herds and the crops would change a lot. She suspected the homesteads would still do what they’d always done, raising cows and greml
in, but they’d sell it up the line and buy... other things.

  “They don’t eat gremlin much, do they, outside of Lawrence?” Sarah asked. Jimmy shook his head.

  “Not a lot. The ranchers will do okay, but the farmers are going to have some tough choices coming up.”

  They could probably do about as well as they had been, living hand-to-mouth generation after generation, but if Lawrence really did turn into a real town, it was going to be hard for the younger members of Lawrence’s homestead families to accept that older standard of living.

  “What happens then?” Sarah asked, letting the logical gap hang. He knew where she was.

  “They decide,” he answered simply. To react or not to react. She nodded at no one in particular, watching the cows as they browsed the last of the scrub grasses.

  “They decide,” she echoed.

  ––—

  They made the high country as the sun began its descent behind the mountains, letting the cows loose and turning back for the plain.

  “Gets cold either place, but up here, it’s wet and cold, and down there, it’s dry and cold,” Sarah explained as they rode. “That and we’ll make better time on the flat than we do up here. Should be at the mine tomorrow, if we take the flats all the way south.”

  He didn’t argue.

  “We used to play out here,” he said. She nodded. He shook his head.

  “I was a tough kid.”

  “You were,” she agreed. “We both were.”

  “You know if any of the pits are still out here?” he asked.

  “‘Course,” she said. “Where would they go?”

  He was watching something beyond her.

  “How close is the nearest one?”

  She scratched her head.

  “Maybe an hour that way,” she said.

  “Still got wood and supplies?” he asked.

  “You reckon someone’d steal ‘em?” she asked skeptically, then looked over her shoulder. “Dammit.”

  She flicked the ends of the reins across the black horse’s flank and whistled to Dog, squinting to try to read the surface of the flats as best she could at speed.