Sarah Todd

by Chloe Garner

  He motioned to the homestead girls standing against one wall, then went to shake hands with one of the nearby men, initiating a private conversation and signaling the end of the auction.

  Sarah was mobbed for the next hour by a steady stream of men looking for information from her - the referrals Jimmy promised, or coordinates. No one set up trips up into the mountains yet, but several of them commented on her ability to deal with the bandits from the night before. It felt like weeks had gone by since that.

  She couldn’t count the number of times she asserted that mining was inherently a gamble. Everyone wanted to ask for assurances from her that they’d make their money back, and everyone knew better. Some were less tactful than others.

  When she finally got her head back up, Jimmy was nowhere to be seen. The room was a wreck with glasses and papers and plates, and the girls were cleaning and talking quietly to each other. Sarah went outside to see where everyone had gone, letting the young man who had dropped way too much on a dubious claim continue to try to get her attention as they walked. The business part of the conversation had ended ten minutes earlier, but he seemed to have intentionally waited until last to talk to her in hopes of making some kind of romantic overture.

  Outside, another young man was waiting for her, one of the vagrants.

  “If you’ll pardon me,” Sarah said, dismissing the investor and signaling the dusty man that she would talk to him. This was Clarence’s man, the one she’d paid for information.

  “Miss Todd,” he said, touching the worn piece of fabric that he was using as an impression of a hat.

  “What did you get?” she asked.

  “I know who killed Rut,” he said. “Guy called Greg.”

  “How do you know?” Sarah asked.

  “He told me.”

  “Impressive as that is, it ain’t against the law to brag about killing a guy,” Sarah said. “I only care if you actually done it.”

  “He isn’t the type to brag about something like that,” the man said. “It isn’t sitting well with him.”

  Sarah sighed, looking down the street after the last groups of people from the auction, then nodded.

  “All right. I’ll talk to him.”

  She followed her informant across town to the rapidly-rebuilding shantytown, taking a straight path through it to a wood-sided box where a man huddled in a corner. Sarah’s informant vaporized as they got close with a quick explanation:

  “Don’t tell him I told you.”

  She gave him a nod and went in.

  “You know who I am?” she asked the man called Greg. Greg looked her up and down, taking a moment to move past the dress.

  “You’re the law,” Greg said. “The one who punishes people.”

  “That’s right,” Sarah said.

  “You took Jeet away,” Greg said. She nodded again. Greg looked at her with haunted eyes. She’d seen eyes like that before. “Jeet didn’t do it.”

  “That’s what I heard,” Sarah said.

  “I did it,” Greg said. Greg was a big man, not quite as tall as Sarah, but with shoulders like a woodsman and hands that hadn’t been clean in months, if then.

  “Why?” Sarah asked.

  “They say you hang people for murder,” Greg said.

  “That’s true,” Sarah told him. “It woulda been best for you to come straight to me. Why you done it?”

  Greg swallowed.

  He looked terrified, but in a relieved sort of a way.

  “It’s weird, isn’t it, for a woman to be the one who hangs people? The one who looks into murders?”

  “Never gave it much thought,” Sarah said. “I am what I am.”

  “It is weird,” Greg said. “Place like this, especially.”

  “Like how?” Sarah asked. Greg shrugged.

  “In the big cities, the ladies, they do all the same bad stuff the men do. They do the killings, and they do the punishments. Out here, though, women are...”

  Sarah wondered how he would have finished that statement, if she’d made him, but she knew what he meant.

  “Yeah.”

  He looked at his hands.

  “Rut was a bastard,” he said. Sarah shrugged.

  “I heard that, too. Ain’t a reason to kill a man, no matter how much a bastard he is.”

  “I know,” Greg said. “I didn’t want to kill him.”

  “You tellin’ me you broke his neck by accident?”

  “No,” Greg said. “I did it on purpose. I just didn’t want to have to.”

  Sarah glanced at the shadow on the ground behind her, evaluating the time. Evening was getting close, and she still hadn’t spoken to Jimmy. She wanted to push Greg to get on with it, but she could see how much it was costing him, already. He’d get there when he was ready, and Sarah figured she owed it to him to hear him out, considering she might have to hang him as an example. Not everyone who hung in Lawrence was a scoundrel. There was a long silence between them as Greg stared at his hands.

  “What happened, son?” Sarah asked. Greg glanced at her and shook his head.

  “We came here together,” he said. “Rut was my boyfriend.”

  He looked at Sarah, waiting for a reaction. Sarah had none to speak of, so she finally shrugged.

  “Okay.”

  Greg blinked.

  “Oh. No. Not like that.” He looked away. “Before we came here, my name was Glenda.”

  Ah.

  “You followed him here,” Sarah said. Far be it for her to judge someone else’s life choices, but that was one she couldn’t rightly understand. Sarah looked hard at the girl, looking for anything that should have given it away, but there was nothing. The build, the figure, the hands, the face, all of them were masculine enough. Greg looked at her hands again.

  “I thought if we left Tinik, got away from his awful family, he might come around.”

  “Lawrence ain’t the kind of place people come to come around,” Sarah said. Greg looked glum.

  “I know that now.”

  Sarah waited, and Greg finally spoke again.

  “We haven’t got any more money. Spent it all on food and stuff when we got here. And drinking. He spent all our money drinking.”

  “Ain’t the first man to go broke out here on liquor,” Sarah said. Greg looked more glum.

  “So I can’t go home, but I told him we were done. I was going to make my own way, save up money and go home. He said he wouldn’t let me.”

  Sarah had to fight the unexpected urge to smile, the thought of anyone telling this powerhouse of a woman that she was not to do something.

  “So you fixed him,” Sarah said.

  “No,” Greg told her, looking up again with earnest eyes. Those eyes were going to get her in trouble. Too honest. “I told him there was nothing he could do about it.” There was a hesitation, then she went on. “And he said that he’d tell all of the men here who I really am.”

  Sarah scratched her chin, thinking about the state of the camp, the bubbling violence just under the surface everywhere, and she nodded, standing.

  “You need to stop telling people you done it,” she said.

  “You aren’t going to hang me?” Greg asked.

  “Clear-cut self-defense, what I see,” Sarah said. “I’m gettin’ Jeet out of here on account of him being a sociopath who’s gonna cut down a swath of Lawrence if he stays, but you’re gonna stop telling people you killed Rut, and you’re gonna make your own way, just like you said. I got the man who needs got, and I’ll see to it that you’re put on one of the first crews to go up into the mountains, if you don’t find nothin’ else, first. If you prefer, you could talk to Doc or Granger. Both of them are lookin’ for good help. I ain’t gonna vouch for you, but an honest young man can still do pretty well for himself, if he tries.”

  Greg blinked, then nodded.

  “Okay. Yeah. Okay. I can do that.”

  Sarah gave him a firm nod and turned to go.

  “Good luck, kid,” she said as she le
ft.

  The world was a tough place. It wasn’t her job to fix everything. She went back into town, intent on finding Jimmy, but Nina intercepted her in front of Granger’s, instead.

  “Sarah,” the woman said. “We need to talk.”

  Sarah looked at the sun then sighed and nodded. The shadows were getting longer, and people were starting to mill around the entrance to the tavern in a nighttime kind of way.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “You think Granger will let us use his office?” Nina asked. Sarah nodded again.

  “Always has. What’s on your mind?”

  Nina waited until they were safely behind the closed door to Granger’s office to answer.

  “We need to know what’s goin’ on,” she said. Sarah raised her eyebrows.

  “Don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, there.”

  “All of this stuff that’s goin’ on,” Nina said. “The building, the people, what’s gonna happen with all the men who keep swarmin’ us? What are the Lawsons doing?”

  “Selling claims,” Sarah said. “Thought y’all knew that.”

  “We heard you say it, but don’t know what it means,” Nina said. “No one has ever sold claims before.”

  It was a fair point. Claims had always been first-come, and any money that changed hands was afterwards, when the claim paid.

  “You know Pete found absenta, before he died,” Sarah started. Nina nodded.

  “We heard as much.”

  “He told me there was a way of predictin’ it,” Sarah said. “That he was workin’ there cause he’d guessed the absenta was there.”

  “Same with every miner ever been up here,” Nina told her, and Sarah nodded.

  “‘Cept he was right,” Sarah said. “He found a boatload of the stuff, highest quality ever come out of Lawrence, and I’m workin’ off of his claim to put some flags down where there might be more.”

  “You know better,” Nina said. “It’s absenta greed.”

  Sarah had almost forgotten how poorly the homesteaders thought of the prospectors.

  “It’s a good guess,” Sarah said. “Ain’t tellin’ anyone anything else.”

  “So you brought in this flood of broke men to work the claims for the rich guys the Lawsons brought in,” Nina said.

  “One’s got nothin’ to do with the other,” Sarah said. “Men come out here lookin’ for absenta any time there’s a whiff of it. This is more than a whiff, and they’re stampedin’ over each other in hopes of striking it big.”

  “But you’ve got all the good land locked down,” Nina said disapprovingly.

  “I’ve got my best guesses, sure,” Sarah said. “What’s this about, really?”

  Nina shook her head crossing her arms across her chest.

  “You always done right by us, Sarah, and ain’t none of us forgot it, but the Lawsons turned tail when the rush dried up, and we don’t trust them.”

  For good reason, Sarah reflected. Jimmy didn’t care much about them, at the end of the day.

  “I’m still lookin’ out for you,” Sarah said.

  Nina gave her a casually convicting glance.

  “Looks to me more like you’re becomin’ one of them.”

  “Cause I wore a dress for the auction?” Sarah asked. “Lady, there was more money movin’ around in that room than Lawrence has seen since Eli hisself got here.”

  “You’re changing,” Nina said. “We don’t know if you’re still one of us.”

  “If we didn’t go back so far, Nina Joiner, I’d give you the back of my hand.”

  “That’s why they sent me,” Nina said.

  “This is how the lot of you feel?” Sarah asked. Nina shrugged.

  “Can you blame us? You’ve been out of touch since they got back.”

  Sarah sat back in Granger’s chair, producing squeaks of protest out of the hinge, and lowered her eyelids at Nina. The other woman, bold to the last, finally squirmed an inch.

  “Listen here, Nina. We go way back, and you always been the best of ‘em, far as I’m concerned, but you go back to the rest of whoever you been talkin’ with and you tell ‘em that the Lawsons are back. I ain’t gonna fight ‘em. Pointless, anyhow, but they’re gonna change Lawrence. They left ‘cause we were hopeless, and that’s just what we was. Hopeless. Think it through and tell me I’m wrong. Ain’t nothin’ changed here since they left, ‘cept everyone keeps gettin’ poorer and more desperate, and deader. We got a shot at makin’ this a place where you actually let your daughters grow up.”

  “They’re gonna bring in big money that don’t care nothin’ about what Lawrence is,” Nina said.

  “Money’s dumb, Nina. It don’t care nothin’ about anyone. It’s him who’s got it that makes that call, and right now, the Lawsons have got it. I got some comin’ to me, too. But, really, what’s so special about what Lawrence is? You heard from Sophie lately?”

  It was low, but it was effective. Nina had sent her daughter away to school six years ago, and given the reliability and frequency of post to Lawrence, she’d probably only heard from the girl three or four times since. Nina’s mouth went hard, and Sarah met the woman’s gaze unblinkingly.

  “You really think things are gonna get better?” Nina asked.

  “For some of us,” Sarah said. “Can’t speak for everyone, ‘cause I don’t know. But I’m lookin’ out for you, the ones I been standin’ by all this time. I ain’t forgot you.”

  “You can understand why we’d be nervous,” Nina said. “We don’t got a seat at the table, none of us.”

  “Only Lawsons at that table, anyway,” Sarah said.

  “And you,” Nina told her. Sarah shook her head.

  “I got Jimmy’s ear, but he only does what’s right by the Lawsons. You know that as well as I do.”

  “We could fight them,” Nina said. “The town would back you.”

  Something about that had the ring of preparation. This was what Nina had actually come to say, the reason for hiding away in Granger’s office.

  “Y’all’re dumber than empty eggs. You put those thoughts away,” Sarah said. “You speak ‘em aloud again, I can’t say what happens, but I ain’t gonna stop it. You tell your folk the same. I ain’t goin’ up against the Lawsons, both out of my own self-interest and ‘cause they ain’t wrong. Lawrence was dyin’, and we all knew it. The place has got a shot at life, now, and I ain’t in the mood to be the mad dog who bites hisself for spite.”

  Nina’s expression went cold.

  “No one wants to put you in the middle, but if it comes down to more than words, you should know that you’ll either be with us or with them.”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “No one goes up against the Lawsons without regrettin’ it. Don’t be that dumb, Nina.”

  Nina shrugged.

  “When it comes down to defendin’ our way of life, we’re willin’ to die for it.”

  “What’s to die for?” Sarah asked, then shook her head. “Don’t do this, Nina. Hold tight and see how it turns. It ain’t as far off as you’re thinkin’ from a good thing.”

  “You’ve got money comin’ to you,” Nina said. “You would think that.”

  Sarah felt her nostrils flare.

  “Have I ever, ever held out on y’all when you needed me?”

  “It’s hard to know where your priorities are gonna be, this time next year. Hard enough to get the rebuildin’ done, this year. Still ain’t got barns on three homesteads.”

  “Missin’ one myself,” Sarah said darkly. “Things are tough, just now, but hold tight. Now ain’t the time for violent talk.”

  “The time is always before you’ve lost completely,” Nina said. “None of us know just how much time we got left.”

  “Trust me,” Sarah said. “I’m askin’. Trust me and give it some more time.”

  There was reluctance, but a softening at the same time.

  “Not forever,” Nina said. “We need to know that there’s somethin’ for u
s in this new world the Lawsons are bringin’ in.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Trust me.”

  Nina shrugged and stood.

  “You keep in mind what I said,” she said, going to stand in front of the door. “The town would back you.”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “I told you not to say it again, and I meant it. Go home, Nina.”

  “Night, Sarah.”

  The sun was down outside. Sarah watched as Nina climbed up into her buckboard and turned out of town, then went to find Gremlin. The horse was tangled in his tack, having spent the entire day apparently making a puzzle of it out of boredom.

  She sighed and started taking the pieces apart when she heard the muffled noise to her left.

  Kayla was sitting in the shadows on the sidewalk, at nearly eye-level to Sarah.

  “Why are you still here?” Sarah asked. “Why haven’t you gone home?”

  Kayla sniffed.

  “I can’t stop thinking about it,” she said. The wretchedness in her voice was all Sarah needed to hear to know what she was talking about. Damn. With everything else, she’d forgotten. She left Gremlin as he was, giving him one final disgusted look and going up onto the walkway to sit down next to Kayla. The girl started to protest in defense of Sarah’s dress, but flopped a hand with limp resignation.

  They just sat for a number of minutes, as the street darkened around them. Gremlin snorted once or twice, just an equine sneeze, and the sounds from the tavern down the street grew louder and rowdier, but their stretch of street was quiet, dim.

  “I killed him,” Kayla finally said.

  “You did,” Sarah answered. She remembered the first man she’d killed, a claim-jumper up way back in the mountains, almost a full two-day ride from home. Her horse had been Jasper, the gentle gray that Elaine had given her. Jasper had lived a full life, for a working Lawrence horse, seventeen years old when she’d gone out one morning to find him lying cold in his stall. Good horse. Never been one like him.