by Chloe Garner
“Mrs. Todd?” he asked.
“Miss will do fine,” she answered, leaving the door open to go back and get her hat. “What do you need?”
“Miss Todd, I...”
She turned, putting her hat on.
“Spit it out,” she said. “I got places to be.”
“My friend, Miss Todd,” he said. “They told me... Mr. Granger said...”
“I’ll ask Granger if I have to,” she said. “He’ll get to the point.”
“My friend is dead, ma’am.”
She hesitated, letting him see her weigh it, feel it.
“Lotta people dyin’ these days,” she said, not unkindly.
“I know, but he had a fight three nights ago, and I think...”
“You think your friend was murdered?” she asked.
“I do,” he said, crumpling his hat further.
“Leave that poor bit of cloth alone,” she said. He froze. She frowned. “Put it on your head. Good, now. Why do you figure he came to an ill end?”
“The fight,” he said. “Patty said he was gonna get Rut. That he was gonna get even.”
“That’s a promising start, but then there are the three days,” she said. “How did your friend die?”
“He didn’t wake up this morning,” the young man said.
“He been sick?”
“No, and if anything was going to get him, it was the fire. You pulled Patty off of him the night of the fire, but he ended up in a pile of rubble that...” he shook his head. “I just don’t think he died natural, you know?”
“Where can I find you?” she asked. He shrugged, holding his hands out helplessly.
“In the middle of all of it.”
She sighed.
“Tell Doc I asked him to take a look. I do need to be somewhere, but I’ll check in with you later.”
The man’s eyes came up, the first human look of hope lighting them for a moment.
“You’ll do something?”
“It’s my job to make sure any killin’ goes on in Lawrence is deserved. I ain’t gonna let it go ‘till I know it was most likely just a man who weren’t suited for Lawrence.”
“He wasn’t gonna let this place kill him,” the man said. “He had big dreams.”
Sarah thought that dreams were the first sign that Lawrence was goin’ to kill you, but she didn’t say it.
“I’ll look into it,” she said instead, going and finding the black horse and guiding him through town to where Jimmy’s new settlement was intended. Jimmy was already waiting for her.
“You’re late,” he observed as he watched over men with wagons unloading box after box and crate after crate.
“Got a murder to look into,” she said.
“Not now,” he said.
“Don’t do this,” she said. “That’s what I do. You ain’t gonna change it.”
His attention stayed straight forward. He didn’t say anything. She considered the matter closed.
“They’re using alternate materials for walls,” he said. “It’s all inflatable, but you have to do it fast, because they harden in sunlight. The furniture is all there, as are the rest of the interior needs. I’ve got a water pump and a digging machine, and a man from Wellsley to do the plumbing tomorrow afternoon, so you need to have the water source and drain run plus all of the homes up by then.”
“That ain’t possible,” Sarah said.
“I think you’ll find it’s easier than you expect. The layout of the buildings is up to you, both spatially within this area and inside of them. One bedroom, one bathroom, one common area, one kitchen area in each home. One story apiece. The air pump should be the one in that box over there,” he said, indicating a large stack of boxes, “and you use that to inflate the walls. The roof is the same, though you’ll want to wait until the internal walls have hardened, obviously. After they harden, the plumber and the electrician can cut into them as much as they need to to run wiring and piping, and then you’ll have to go through and do the patching over those cuts to finish for painting.”
“Paintin’,” she said.
“Of course,” Jimmy said. “You don’t think I expect my investors to stay in facilities whose only color is the default color of the construction materials?”
“And you think that’s more important than gettin’ barns back up and houses fixed?”
“Sarah, if we pull this off, this is how we’ll build barns and houses. If we do it right, the people in Lawrence will order their own homes and build them themselves, using the equipment I’ve got. But we’re too pressed for time to worry about them now. I need you focused here. I have already got the electrician started on the generator over there.”
The generator was a huge hulk of a machine that sat next to an even larger tank of fuel.
“It has a solar add-on that will help with fuel consumption, but at the level of air conditioning and heat they’re going to be running every day, we’re going to have to keep enough fuel on hand to power all of that.”
“How are they gonna get along without washers and dryers?” Sarah asked.
“We’ll be providing concierge services for that,” he said. “I’ve got another set of buildings that will go up as a second street in town once we get these done, but if those are a day behind, that’s okay.”
She turned to stare at him, fists on hips.
“And you expect folk here to just let you redesign the entire town?”
“I own the land,” he said.
“I have paper that says you don’t get to do this,” she said.
“You have a contract that says that you have reasonable input. I think I’m being very reasonable, letting you do all of the work, don’t you?”
His eyes flickered over toward her with amusement, but his face was still. She turned to look at the continuing flow of boxes.
“So just what else is going into town?” she asked.
“A bank, a laundry, a spa...”
“A damned spa,” she said.
“As long as they’re here, we may as well earn every dollar we can off of them,” he said. “You’ll have to figure out which of the women in town are able to run the spa. We can hire men if you want to, but I suspect that out of the people we have to pick from, it’s mostly going to be women.”
“You could ask around at the tavern,” Sarah said darkly. “Seems like their kind of work.”
“I want to have a shopfront set up for a chemist and pharmacy, even if we don’t have the professionals for it yet, and get Doc a better setup, too. I’ve got some equipment coming for him, but that can wait until after everyone else leaves. I was going to show you the map last night, but you didn’t seem to be in the mood.”
“Still ain’t,” she answered. “But I’ll do it.”
“I’m going to check on the generator,” he said as she had begun to consider picking another fight with him. It was with some relief that she watched him walk away, turning to look at the piles of crates stacking up in front of her.
“Who the hell knows what’s goin’ on here?” she asked, plunging into the midst of the chaos.
No one answered. A few people looked at her with a sort of dread anticipation, but no one spoke. She shook her head.
“Ain’t no one got a plan in their heads. Just get all the stuff and put it in a pile and let Sarah sort it out. All right. Should be buildin’ stuff in some of these, and stuff that goes in the buildin’s in some other ones. I need ‘em sorted.”
No one listened. The line of carts was still stretched back toward the railway station, and most of the men were preoccupied with getting them unloaded. The random stack of boxes grew.
“Hey, now,” she yelled, pulling a few more heads up. “I want y’all listening, and I want y’all listening good. This stack of boxes? It ain’t staying here. It’s splittin’ up and makin’ some sense. Hey,” she said, pointing at the pair of men who were getting ready to get the next box off of a cart. They froze. “What’s in that box?”
&n
bsp; They stared.
“I ain’t doin’ this,” she said. “You. Yes, you. You split ‘em. Jimmy?”
She turned after throwing the invoice list at a stunned man, going after Jimmy. He was watching her with his hand over his mouth.
“Jimmy, this ain’t an army, and that’s what you need to get this done. You know it, and so do I.”
“I need you to figure it out,” he said.
“Hell no,” she said. “It ain’t gonna happen, Jimmy. This needs people who know what’s what, not just a pile of dumb labor. Dumber than broken teeth, every last one of ‘em.”
“I doubt that,” he said. “Your delegate seems to be doing just fine.”
She looked back over her shoulder to find the man with the invoice yelling at the men in the cart, pointing angrily off to one side.
“Damn,” she said.
“Sometimes dumb luck is all you need,” Jimmy said. “I’m going to finish up here with the generator and leave you to it.”
“Come by tonight,” she said absently, watching the newly-empowered list-holder as he intercepted the next cart before anyone tried to unload it. “I wanna talk about what you’re plannin’ on doin’ with Second Street.”
“Second Street?” he asked.
“You got a better name for it?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Like it fine.”
She nodded without looking back, turning square to watch as the laborers reluctantly began taking direction from the man she’d thrown the list at. Boxes were lifted, crates hoisted, and groups - a hell of a lot more than two of them, Sarah noted - began to form.
“Mrs. Todd?” the young man asked, jogging over to her.
“Miss,” she answered. “What’s your name?”
“Clarence,” he said. She tried not to look like it suited him. “Miss Todd, this is a big project.”
“Damned right,” she said. “And it’s gonna be done in three days.”
“I need more men,” he said. “And a plumber and an electrician.”
She blinked at him once and he looked at the list, scratching his forehead.
“By my count, you’ve got fifteen houses you’re trying to get up, and I need to go through the specs on the material you’re using before we actually unpack any of it, because if we pull it out before we’re ready to use it, it’s just going to turn into great big bricks, and while they’d build one hell of a house, I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for.”
“Plumber comes tomorrow afternoon,” she said. “Electrician should be along after that.”
He continued to peer at the list for a full five seconds before he looked up at her.
“Come again?”
“Plumber. Electrician. Tomorrow,” she said. “We get these up by then, and then we start on the Second Street construction.”
“I need cranes,” he said. “Forks. Hell, pulleys. Oh, there they are. Somewhere in this mess, there’s a box full of pulleys.”
“There you go,” Sarah said.
“Second Street?” he asked, looking up at her again. She nodded.
“Runs along at the end of Main Street,” she said, “like you might think.”
“Are you planning on doing any survey work for this or the street?” he asked. She motioned with her chin.
“It’s the desert. Pretty flat, to start with.”
“They have to have sent directions,” he said. “No designer worth his salt just sends that much material without the specs.”
“You need someone doin’ something, you just tell ‘em,” she said. “They don’t do it, you send ‘em to me. This gets done.”
Clarence scratched his forehead again.
“From the look of it, this is a miracle material. I’ve heard of it, but I’ve never seen it before.” He looked at her. “Who’s going to be staying in these?”
“Ain’t your concern,” she said, “but it ain’t you.”
“No, not from the look of the furniture invoice,” he said. “I guessed that. You planning on setting a guard tonight?”
“Course,” Sarah said, wondering where she’d find men she could trust to sit and watch boxes all night. Damned Jimmy Lawson.
“You have a painting crew?”
“Will as soon as you point at ‘em,” Sarah said.
“If you’re going to use this kind of nice stuff, you should have guys painting who know what they’re doing,” Clarence said, then shrugged. “Just saying.”
“Then find ‘em,” Sarah said. “Jimmy Lawson is payin’ for it to get done.”
He nodded, then yelled as another cart started to unload into the main pile of mess. He glanced at her, then took off running, trying to get there before the men had the cart emptied. Sarah crossed her arms.
Dumb luck. Well, how do you like that?
––—
As evening approached, the man with the generator helped Clarence and a team of more-capable vagrants set up spotlights and keep working. The houses were beginning to take shape; Sarah and Clarence had agreed on a layout and that they would get everything inflated overnight to bake the following morning. The air pump was up and running, the material was unrolling from box after box after box, and Clarence was practically buzzing with energy.
Several of Jimmy’s men from the fire had shown up with guns, and Wade had arrived in the last fifteen minutes, sitting on a wagon and smoking with a rifle across his lap.
“We got this, Sarah,” he said when he arrived. “You shouldn’t expect any trouble here tonight.”
Jimmy had thought of it. That made sense. She flagged down Clarence.
“I’m done, kid,” she said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“What, but, all this?” he said, motioning with his arms the feverish activity going on amid the long shadows of the spotlights.
“I ain’t helpin’ you any, am I?” Sarah asked. “You got your guns lookin’ out for you, you got your men to do what needs done, and you got your plan. I aim to get some sleep.”
“While the rest of us work all night,” Clarence said wryly. She shrugged.
“I got a meetin’ with Jimmy, and then I’m gonna sleep, ‘cause we got more to do tomorrow.”
“What about all of us?” he asked.
“They can work in shifts,” Sarah said. “You, I’m payin’ to work ‘till it’s done. You can quit if you don’t like it.”
He considered that, then nodded.
“I understand. We’ll have the frames up by morning.”
“Should have a plan for the roofs,” Sarah said. “Ain’t gonna need ‘em bad until we paint, but the longer they’re open, the more dust there’s gonna be to clean out ‘fore we can get paint on them walls.”
He nodded.
“Sure. Maybe we can get them up house by house as the electrician and plumber finish.”
“Don’t forget town,” she said. “More to do, yet.”
He shook his head.
“Couple of crazy people.”
She grinned at him, then went looking for the black horse.
“Damned animal,” she said under her breath. “Dumber than burnt coal.”
She finally found him standing behind Wade’s wagon, having a quiet conversation with the little mare.
“I told you she’s too good for you,” Sarah said, pulling him away without looking up at Wade. She made her way out of the construction area, through the very sleepy town and the shantytown outside of it and toward her house, getting there as the darkness fell completely. She could see the cherry of Jimmy’s cigarette well before she spotted his horse tied to the front porch.
“Everything going okay?” he asked.
“Clarence has it under control,” she answered, loosing the black horse and going up onto the porch to let herself and Jimmy inside. “You’re lucky he turned up.”
“Put you in charge,” he said. “It was going to work out. I don’t care how.”
“You know I can’t do that stuff,” she said. “I can point a bunch of
men at a project and say ‘go do it’, but they ain’t gonna listen to me when I tell ‘em how.”
“Told you it would work out, and it did,” Jimmy said, sitting down at the table as she went to fix tea. She leaned against the stove as the water set to boil.
“You ain’t got any clue how close you ride to the edge, do you?” she asked. “When all this is done, you’re gonna look back and think you had it under control the whole time.”
“I do have it under control,” he said. “Have a seat.”
She resented the juxtaposition of those two statements, but she was tired and wearisome of fighting.
She sat.
He brought out a large sheet of paper, one that had been printed by a machine, and rolled it flat in front of her.
“This is the existing street,” he said, indicating a section of the drawing.
“Where’d you get this done?” she asked, running her finger over the machine-printed lines and shapes. The paper was thin, but high-quality. Something she wouldn’t have expected to find anywhere until she hit Carson.
“Been bringing things in as I needed them,” he said. “We aren’t going to live in a mining town forever.”
“This is expensive,” she said.
“Not really,” he answered. “Just a matter of ordering the right machine and actually having the electricity to power it.”
“It ain’t from Lawrence,” she said softly.
“Not your Lawrence,” he answered. “So this is the existing main street. It just turns into a delta of riding paths after this point, so we’re going to pave that...”
“Pave it with what?”
“For now, sand,” he said. “Once we get some time, we’ll get down something more permanent.”
“I see,” she said. He pointed along the direction that the new street would take.
“We should have room for nine shopfronts here. I don’t want to take them all up now, just to have them filled, but we also don’t want the town to look empty.”
“Main Street’s got that covered,” Sarah said. Jimmy shook his head.
“We’ve got rebuilding to do there, too, I know, but for now most of it is going to be fixed up and look good by the time the investors get here.”