Siren's Song

by D. L. Snow

  “Are you that good?”

  “I-I don’t know,” I sighed as he drew me even closer and nuzzled my throat.

  “No, of course you don’t. You’re Mrs. Sullivan’s sweet young niece, come to assist her mythical husband.”

  “What?”

  Morgan’s voice changed. “How much will I owe Kitty Sullivan for one night with you? Hmm? Will you be worth the small fortune Kitty is asking for your services?”

  I pulled back, gaping at him.

  “You play a dangerous game, Miss Sullivan.” He watched me with a knowing gleam in his eyes. “I don’t know where Kitty found you, but you’re good. I’ll give you that, you are very good. This little ruse you and Kitty have concocted is original if nothing else. But, I’m not falling for it.

  “Your mistress forgets that I made my fortune playing games. I’m the best there is. When I play, I play for keeps.” He gripped my shoulders and I was helpless to do anything but stand there and stare at him. “If I want a woman, I’ll have her.” He placed his lips on mine and kissed me like I’d never been kissed before. Morgan’s kiss was not gentle, it was controlling, demanding, possessive.

  Just as I began to kiss him back, he pushed me away. In a thick voice he said, “I do not pay for such things. Do I make myself clear?”

  He strode off through the darkness before I had a chance to reply.

  *****

  After the revelry of the night before, I came downstairs dressed in one of my less elaborate day gowns to find the main floor quiet and empty. Because I was no longer responsible for chores I had some degree of freedom and with Kitty still in her room I had an opportunity to slip out for a walk before she insisted on accompanying me. I wrapped a shawl around my shoulders, tiptoed past the kitchen and stole through the deserted tavern.

  Once outside, I hugged my shawl around me. The day was cool and a sudden gust of wind took my breath away. It was mid October and the leaves were turning shades of red and gold. The snow would come soon. I bet it snowed a lot here.

  Oh God, what would I do if I was still here when it snowed?

  I shook my head. I couldn’t think of such things. I would find a way home. I had to. Suddenly the old drunk who was a permanent fixture outside the saloon wandered toward me mumbling in that incoherent way of his.

  Startled, I backed away but he just kept on coming.

  “Watch out for them Injuns, Girlie.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He lurched forward and for a moment I thought he was going to grab me. “You got any hooch for old Jack?”

  “N-no.”

  “How about some hootchie kootchie?” He smacked his lips together in an obscene way and then stumbled on past, laughing and chortling at his own joke.

  With my arms still wrapped around me, I watched him go until I felt a strange prickling on the back of my neck. Slowly I turned, half expecting to find the ghost of Kyle Copeland standing behind me. There was no one there.

  My eyes were drawn, however, to the figures of two men riding their horses down the street just about to pass where I stood. I rubbed my eyes and blinked, hardly able to comprehend what I was seeing.

  The old man wore buckskin and had a leather bag and a rifle strapped to his horse. He looked like something out of an old western movie, with his deeply lined face held high, his long black braids threaded with feathers. But, it was the younger man who startled me most of all. He rode past wearing blue jeans, sneakers and a t-shirt like ones I’d seen in gift stores out west, with a picture of four Native American braves surrounded by the slogan, Homeland Security, Fighting Terrorism since 1492.

  “What the hell?” I whispered beneath my breath.

  I followed the two as they rode slowly up the street. Strangely, no one seemed to take any notice of the younger man’s unorthodox attire. They stopped and tied their horses to the rail outside of E.P. Grady’s Mercantile. Picking up my skirts, I hurried across the street, dodging horses and carts and whistling men, to follow the two inside the store.

  When I got there, they were nowhere to be seen.

  I walked up and down the two aisles searching for them, but there was no sign of them. It was as if they’d disappeared into thin air.

  “Can I help you, Miss?”

  “Are you E.P. Grady,” I asked.

  “Oh no. Mr. Grady’s out back meeting with the Indians.”

  I whipped my head around looking for a back door. “I need to see them. How do I get back there?”

  “The door’s behind the counter but…oy! What do you think you’re doing?”

  I hopped up on the counter and slid my legs over, jumping down on the other side. I strode right past the startled young man who stuttered and stammered over my brazen move, pushed through the curtains to the back room filled with kegs, baskets of produce and canned goods, and out to the back door. Just as the door opened, a dust devil whipped up around me and I covered my nose to keep from breathing in the dirt.

  When the wind settled I was faced with a troubling sight. Mr. E.P. Grady was indeed talking to the men who were showing him various animal skins, which I suppose wasn’t so unusual. It was the younger man who shocked me. He was no longer dressed in T-shirt and jeans but now wore buckskin with a black vest over his shirt. On his feet he had moccasins and leggings made out of animal fur that wrapped up around his calves nearly to his knees.

  He glanced up, saw me and nodded. Then he turned his attention back to the conversation going on between the other two men. After negotiations were complete, Mr. Grady took the bundle of skins and handed the younger man a sack of flour, some blankets and a few other things I couldn’t identify. When he turned he finally saw me.

  “Can I help you?” he said with a thick Irish accent.

  “I need to speak to these men.”

  “Who? John Black Plume?” He pointed at the younger man.

  “Yes.” I flashed a Joss Jones smile, counting on the fact that it would work as well in 1899 as it did in the twenty-first century.

  “I can’t imagine what business you have with this lot, but I’ll give you five minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  Once he was gone I stood there with my arms wrapped around myself, not really knowing what to say. The two men crouched down onto their haunches and the older man reached into his pocket, pulled out a little packet and a pipe. Then he lit the pipe and the two smoked it passing it back and forth between them and speaking quietly in a language I’d never heard before, acting as if I wasn’t even there.

  My five minutes were almost up so I cleared my throat hoping that would gain their attention but they continued to ignore me.

  I walked closer and finally said, “I’m Joss Jones. I think maybe you can help me.”

  Nothing.

  A sense of urgency made me blurt, “Please, I need your help. Please. I know you’re like me.”

  Without looking up, the man named John said, “Like you? How am I like you?”

  “I saw you, the way you were dressed. You don’t belong here.”

  After another puff on the pipe, John said, “We are Crow People. We belong.” He turned his head and used his lips to point at the mountain top to the west. “We are travelers but we always winter beneath this mountain. It’s named for our people.”

  The man spoke quietly but with a thick, halting accent and my stomach sank. Like everyone else in this god-forsaken place, he didn’t know what I was talking about. I must have been seeing things again.

  The two continued to speak quietly and just as I was about to leave, John said, “Grandfather says you are a traveler too. He says you have traveled a great distance.”

  My heart lurched in my chest and I crouched down beside them, no easy feat in a corset. “I have,” I whispered. “But I need to go home. Can you help me go home?”

  The old man smoked his pipe and spoke in his soft language. Tilting his chin up at the mountain, he waved his hand like it was a bird. Then he clapped suddenly and I jumped. The old man chuc
kled at my response.

  “What? What did he say?”

  “You travel like this mountain.”

  “That doesn’t make sense. Mountains don’t travel.”

  He shook his head. “The Creator makes the mountains. Boulders fall down. They fracture into stones. Some turn into pebbles and are washed downstream into the great rivers and seas. Some turn into earth. One day the mountains will be gone – it will be spread out all over this land and the Creator will have to start all over again.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand. What has this got to do with me?”

  The old man spoke again and John translated. “Even though the mountain comes apart it is all still part of the mountain. A pebble from that mountain still is…” the grandfather spoke again and John listened before continuing, “…the pebble still is, the stone still is, the boulder still is, the mountain still is. They are all one yet all in different places. Travelers.”

  I still didn’t understand. I didn’t want to hear about mountains and stones and stories and myths. There was only one thing I cared about. “So, can you help me?”

  Finally John looked at me, right into my eyes. “A crow can carry a pebble to the top of the mountain but he cannot put a mountain back together once it has fractured. Only the Creator can do that.” He took a puff of the pipe. “I am sorry,” he said. “A traveler must find her own way. It is between the traveler and the Creator.”

  Chapter 9

  Before I could ask any more questions, the back door opened and out came E.P. Grady followed closely by Cap’n.

  “Here she is, like I told you.”

  Cap’n extended his hand. “Come along Miss Jo-Jo. Mrs. Sullivan is fit to be tied.”

  I reluctantly followed Cap’n back down the street to the Powder Horn, my mind wholly occupied by the words of John Black Plume. A traveler must find her own way. It is between the traveler and the Creator. What the hell did he mean?

  It was late that night while I laid in bed up in my own room at the Powder Horn that something dawned on me. What if I was going about this all wrong? What if I wasn’t supposed to go back yet? What if I was there for a reason, to accomplish something? Maybe this place was purgatory and I was sent here to atone for my sins. The idea was no more bizarre than the notion of returning to the past. And if that was the case, the only way I would be able to leave was if I figured out what I was doing here.

  As far as I could figure, there had to be a reason for me to be here and I was positive whatever that reasons was, it had something to do with Morgan Hawes.

  *****

  For the next two weeks I threw myself whole-heartedly into rehearsals and learning the music of the time followed by long nights entertaining at the Powder Horn. Every night I looked for Morgan Hawes and every night I saw him, sitting in the back of the room playing faro with the other men. I would often look up to find him watching me. But, he never approached me and I never ran into him, not at the opera hall and not on the street.

  It was a Friday night, a few weeks after my debut, and Kitty let me sing a few songs at the old piano in the bar. My repertoire of popular music of the time was growing – not that I enjoyed playing, they were simple songs with uninspired melodies – when someone burst into the room shouting, “FIRE!”

  Everyone jumped up from their tables. Chairs fell over backwards, tables tipped, poker chips went flying and drinks were left undrunk. I watched the melee with ignorant fascination, but I quickly understood the harried response. This was 1899. Most of the structures were made of wood. We were surrounded by trees and there were limited sources of water. A fire could very well destroy the whole town.

  Forgetting all the warnings Kitty had issued about me leaving the premises on my own, I rushed out the door with everyone else, doing my best to keep up with the throng of people moving toward the billowing smoke at the north end of town. What had seemed like a mass of confusion quickly turned into organized chaos as shouts and bells sounded, clearing the way for two horse-drawn fire engines to come barreling through.

  Within moments small sheds beside water pumps were unlocked and hundreds of black buckets were distributed. I soon found myself in a bucket line, passing filled buckets toward a house whose roof caught on fire. My back ached from the constant turning motion and I could feel blisters starting to form on the palms of my hands, but I paid no attention. To the north of where I stood, flames licked the night sky amid the unmistakeable shout of men and the horrible sound of screams that sent shivers down my spine.

  “What’s going on?” I asked the woman standing behind me. “What’s wrong? Are people trapped somewhere?”

  “It’s the horses in the stables.” She pointed toward the thickest cloud of smoke and fire. “Sometimes the horses get so confused in the smoke and heat they refuse to leave.”

  I shuddered with the thought of the poor creatures burning to death in the horrible inferno and wanted to cover my ears to block out the terrible sound they were making.

  When next I turned to take a full bucket, the woman said, “You’re Jo-Jo Sullivan, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said, grabbing the bucket and turning to pass it to the miner standing in front of me.

  On my next turn, she said, “I heard you at the opera house. You have a beautiful voice. It’s so nice to have a little culture here in Bandit Creek.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I just hope Bandit Creek is still standing tomorrow so that we both still have jobs.”

  “What do you do…” my voice trailed off, partly because I turned to pass another bucket and partly because I was afraid of her answer. There were few jobs available to women and I feared that I might have just embarrassed both of us by asking.

  “I’m the schoolteacher,” she said the next time I grabbed a bucket. “My name’s Annie.”

  “Nice to meet you, Annie.” I passed the bucket and then turned again, adding, “Although I wish the circumstances of our meeting were a little better.”

  She nodded and we passed buckets silently for what seemed like half the night. Eventually the screams stopped. I supposed that was a good sign, although from the sound of the awful screams there must have been many horses that died in the stables that night.

  Despite our efforts, the roof of the house in front of us collapsed and people started shouting for the lines to draw back as sparks and embers flew high into the air. Men with shovels showed up to dig trenches around the burning house and I stood there watching and feeling completely helpless. Annie stood beside me.

  “Whose house was that?” I asked, unable to tear my gaze away from the horrible sight of the crumbling home.

  “Mr. Hawes house.”

  “Morgan Hawes?” I whispered. His house was burning? That couldn’t be right. His house was located up on the hill on Spruce Ave…

  I glanced around town, trying to get my bearings, but it was no use. The smoke was too thick to see even the outline of the mountains in the moonlight. Finally it dawned on me. My grandmother’s house was built in 1900. Morgan Hawes was going to build the house that I’d eventually live in…next year.

  But he couldn’t build it if he was dead.

  Maybe that’s what I was doing here. Maybe I was in Bandit Creek 1899 to save Morgan so that he could build my house, so that my grandmother would live there and I would be born. Yes, the rightness of that thought blasted through me like a double shot of espresso. Without thinking, I rushed toward the burning house, shouting, “Morgan!”

  The searing heat enveloped me and I felt like I was rushing headlong into a furnace. Someone grabbed me from behind before I could get closer. I twisted within the person’s grasp, crying, “No. Let me go! I’ve got to get to Morgan!”

  “Shh, it’s okay,” a familiar voice whispered in my ear. “I’m right here.”

  I turned within the circle of the man’s arms and looked up into a nearly unrecognizable face. “Morgan?” His hair was black with soot, his face blackened as well. The only
thing that told me this man was Morgan Hawes were his green-brown eyes, surrounded by singed lashes and eyebrows.

  The relief that flowed through me at the sight of him was sudden and complete and I responded without thinking, throwing my arms around him and kissing him full on the mouth. “Thank God,” I whispered against his mouth. “Thank God.”

  He gently set me away from him and looked down into my face with a look of tender confusion. “You should go back to the Powder Horn,” he said softly as he smoothed some errant hair out of my eyes.

  I shook my head, looking over his shoulder at the still out-of-control fire. “No. I need to stay. I need to do something to help.”

  He studied me for a moment and then nodded. “Do me a favor. Stay well back of the flames. If things get out of control, head straight for the train station and get out of town as quickly as possible, do you understand.”

  I gazed over his shoulder again, fear starting to mingle with the adrenalin that had been pushing me for the last few hours.

  “Promise me,” he said again tilting my chin up so that I had to meet his gaze.

  I nodded. “I will. You be careful too, okay?”

  His smile looked more like a grimace. Then he grazed my cheek with his thumb and let me go. I watched, breathless, as he strode toward a man who was bent over and coughing. He took the shovel from the man’s hands and went to work digging with a single-minded determination.

  With my emotions in turmoil, I backed slowly away. I needed something to do, something to keep me from thinking about what had just happened between Morgan and me. I looked for Annie but she was gone. I caught sight of Cap’n shoveling alongside the other men. His dark skin looked blacker than ever. He lifted his head as I passed and he urged me to head back to the Powder Horn. “Kitty’s going to need your help…if the fire spares us.”

  I nodded at him, though I had no intention of going back yet. I joined another bucket brigade, this time shuttling empty buckets back to the pump. It was much easier, but just as important.

  I don’t know how long I stood there passing empty bucket after empty bucket before I felt a tug on my sleeve. Camille was at my elbow looking grimy and tired. I’m sure I was a mirror image of her.