by Marc Graham
Tuck rose from his place.
“Come on this way, Pinky,” he said.
The boy froze and his eyes changed to those of a cornered fox, casting about to see how many hounds had him hemmed in.
A shot rang out, the sound amplified to a deafening roar as it echoed off the stone walls of the hideout.
A spray of red puffed out from Pinky’s chest, sprinkling the fresh snow in front of him with a rose-shaped, crimson-dropped pattern. His eyes went wide with shock and dim understanding, and the shotgun fell from his hands as he sank to his knees and pitched facedown into the blood-spattered snow.
The shotgun fell with the body and landed butt first on a solid patch of snow. The hammer dropped with the impact and a second shot rang out. The recoil kicked Pinky’s feet out, twisting the cruciform figure into a crooked snow angel. I followed the direction of the gun’s barrel to where Tuck Foster lay in the snow, clutching at his gut and writhing in pain.
“Tuck!” Kimball cried out, and rushed to the fallen man, pressing his hands against the blood and steam that rose from the younger man’s belly.
In that same moment, an unearthly groan and rumble shook the ground. A slight hiss stirred the air around us. Looking around, I saw a plume of white powder rise from the direction of the peak above the camp.
Avalanche.
The thought echoed in my head even as my tongue froze to the roof of my mouth, unable to form the word.
“Avalanche!” Dave shouted for me. “Move, move.”
He grabbed me by the collar and half dragged, half lifted me to a standing position and pushed me toward the entrance of Garrett’s shelter. Kimball abandoned Foster to his fate as we rushed toward the protected rear wall of the bluff, heedless of the armed fugitive within.
Garrett seemed not to notice the world crashing in around him. He crouched behind his fire pit, shotgun raised against the three men who now charged his position. The single-barrel gun would only give him one shot, and he aimed for the easiest target.
My knee buckled as the shot echoed off the rock walls, and I collapsed in a tangle. Even as I fell, the whiz of pellets flashed past my ear, and I felt the bee sting of several pieces of bird shot biting into my right shoulder. I twisted with the impact and caught a glimpse of Garrett rushing toward me. He carried his shotgun like a club, oblivious to the huge wall of white that chased after him.
As he reached me, the frozen tidal wave swept over us and we were entombed in the cascading blanket of snow. The slide carried us farther and farther down the slope, toward the cliff I knew lay somewhere beyond the whiteness. The ground gave way beneath me and I felt an odd, weightless sensation.
Pain shot through my wounded shoulder as my fall stopped, and the solid wall of the cliff emerged from the whiteness to slam into my body. Pain and shock threatened to overwhelm me, but I managed to cling to consciousness.
“Still with me, Jimmy Boy?”
The voice came from somewhere above. I craned my neck to look, but the pain of just that little movement sent jolts of lightning down my spine.
“Jimmy, you still with me?” the voice called again.
“Yeah,” I managed to grunt.
My right wrist was caught in a firm grip, but started to slip until another hand added its strength to the first.
“This puts us in a bit of a fix, now, don’t it?” The deadly humor was unmistakable in Garrett’s voice, the danger underscored by a coarse chuckle.
“Charlie,” I gasped against the pain as I tried again to look up, “pull me up and we’ll get all this sorted out.”
“Oh, but everything was already sorted out,” he said, “until you stuck your nose into things. You couldn’t just leave it be. You couldn’t let it go.”
“Let it go?” I shot back, my anger overcoming the pain. “You murdered—”
“What? Your slanty-eyed cunt?”
I looked up into hate-blinded eyes set above a bone-chilling leer.
“Y’know, it’s true what they say,” he pressed on. “I’d about had my fill of killing those Chinks, but an hour later I was hungry for more. I only wish I’d gotten me a better taste of your sweet little dish, maybe dipped my chopstick into her sauce for a little stir-fry.”
Fear, grief, even pain fell away in that instant. Only rage remained as I tightened my grip on Garrett’s arm and pulled myself upward. I swung my left arm up and groped with my hand until I found a hold in his thick, oily hair. His eyes went wide as I pulled my face to within inches of his. He tried to loosen his grip as he slid closer to the edge of the cliff.
“You crazy son of a bitch,” he said. “You’ll kill us both.”
“You did that when you killed Mae,” I spat back.
He tried again to loosen my grip, but only sped his slide toward the edge. His eyes flashed from panic to rage, rage to acceptance, acceptance to cold-blooded determination.
“If that’s how you want it, Chink lover,” he said, saliva dripping like venom from his bared teeth, “I’ll see you in hell.”
I tightened my grip and pulled myself up until our noses touched.
“Save a seat for me.”
With that, I drew up my legs, planted my feet against the cliff wall and pushed.
Garrett’s eyes went beyond fear as he joined me in the void. He let go his grip, and I released mine as the air moved past us faster and faster.
Something hit the side of my leg and raked up the side of my body until it lodged painfully in the pit of my wounded arm. Garrett rushed past me and I fought through the pain to keep my eyes on his. A part of my mind counted out a childish One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi . . . until, at the count of Four-Miss—, his body plunged into the remains of the avalanche.
“Jim?”
The voice called from above, and I looked up into a shower of snow and ice. Through the thin, white cascade, I could just make out Dave’s head, poking over the edge of the cliff.
I tried to answer but couldn’t find my voice. I waved, then clutched at the pine bough that had saved my life, growing straight out from the steep rock face.
“Hold tight,” Dave said. “Kimball’s run to fetch some rope.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I managed in a raspy voice.
“That’s good to know.”
Part of my mind noted that Dave kept speaking, but the last bit of consciousness I could muster was focused solely on holding firm. No Dave, no pain, no rage, no grief. Only my arms wrapped tightly about the miracle pine.
I felt a tickle against my cheek, and opened an eye to see the rough braid of a rope dangling next to me. The end was tied into a loop, which I tucked over my head and under my good arm. I tugged twice, and instantly the weight came off my wracked shoulder. Foot by foot, I rose out of the void, spinning like a watch on the end of its chain.
When I reached the top, strong hands stretched out to pull me back onto solid ground. Heedless of my injuries, Dave tugged on my right arm, and the pain finally had its way.
I let out a scream, and part of my mind feared I might set off another avalanche. A cocoon of oblivion soon held at bay any conscious thought. I was only dimly aware as Dave and Kimball reset my dislocated shoulder, wrapped my arm in a sling, carried me up the slope and propped me up on Rigel’s back.
The fallen—friend and foe—could only be abandoned to the graves the mountain had made for them. Buried with them was all thought of justice and vengeance, and the survivors—or the part of us that still survived—rode down from the mountain to take our place among the living.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SS Hardesty, Pacific Ocean—April 1876
I leaned over the rail and spat out the bile that remained in my mouth. A full day at sea, clinging to the deck rail, had left my stomach empty and my head dizzy. I took a pull from my flask to rinse my mouth, then swallowed, loath to waste the precious drops.
It’ll be in the ocean soon enough, I allowed. Might as well enjoy it while I can.
“Do I even want to
ask how you’re doing?” Dave said from a safe distance upwind.
“I’m still breathing,” I said. “Whether that’s a good thing or not, I’m not so sure.”
“Looks to be a squall coming on,” he judged. “We’d best get you below decks.”
“You mean it gets worse?”
Dave laughed.
“You see the big yellow glowing thing in the middle of all that blue? If you see that, it means smooth sailing. Now that,” he added, pointing toward a massive stack of clouds on the horizon, “could make for a rough ride. You really need to come in.”
“To that death trap? No thanks. I’ll take my chances up here.” I took another pull at my flask and savored the liquid burn as it coursed down my throat. “If it’s my time to go, I’d just as soon be able to see the sky—whatever color it is. Hell, maybe a wave will come along and put me out of my misery.”
The humor left Dave’s eyes.
“I didn’t drag your ass off a battlefield,” he said, “or down a mountain for that matter, just so you could drown in the middle of the ocean. Or in a God-damned bottle of whiskey.”
He stalked toward me, cocked back his arm and let fly. The move caught me by surprise, and his blow sent my flask pin-wheeling over the rail. The precious amber liquid spiraled out behind it.
“What did you do?” I cried.
“Look,” he said. “Whether it matters to you or not, there’s people who care about you. People for who it actually makes a difference if you live or die. So you had your heart broke— that’s a hard thing. But do you know how many men would give their right arm to feel the kind of love you had, even if they knew it was gonna be taken away?”
I glared up at him, and his return gaze was ice cold.
“Shit,” he went on. “You want to cash it in, there’s the rail. Don’t worry about the rest of us. We’ve all lost folks before. We got over them, and we’ll get over you.”
With that, he turned on his heels and stomped toward the hatch that led belowdecks.
“Wait,” I called after him.
He either ignored me or my voice was too weak for him to hear. Crewmen scurried about the deck, doubling the tie-downs on the flapping sails, fastening loose rigging and clearing the decks of anything that couldn’t be secured. I grabbed the deck rail to pull myself up but, as I stood, the ship pitched sharply. I briefly saw the stanchion as I lunged toward it, then all went mercifully black.
“Easy now,” a soft voice cautioned me.
My head ached and throbbed as I came to, making me wish I could pass out again. The whiskey that had numbed my mind and dulled my senses for the past year was already withdrawing its insulating blanket, leaving my spirit bare, exposed to life’s cruel coldness. That coldness was palpable now, and seemed to wrap about me from head to foot.
As my mind cleared, I realized the coldness was no illusion, but a very real sheet wrapped about me and soaked with my own sweat. Whiskey leached through my pores, and the stench of it made my stomach churn.
“Take this,” the voice said, and the genteel drawl was like a salve to my soul.
A wooden spoon pressed against my lips, and I parted them to let warm liquid trickle into my mouth and run down my throat. The taste was of broth and—something else.
“It’s ginger root,” the voice replied to the face I must have made. “It’ll help settle your stomach.”
After a few more spoonfuls, the bowl was set aside and the cool cloth lifted from my eyes. The cabin was dimly lit. Shadows danced wildly across the walls as the single lantern rocked and swayed with the motion of the ship. A small brazier burned in the corner of the room. It added to the soft glow but did little to hold back the chill from wind and waves that roared on the other side of the bulkhead.
As my eyes grew accustomed to the dim and shifting scene, they settled on the figure that sat beside my bed. The face was masked in shadow, but the coppery red hair captured every spare bit of light to glow with a warm radiance.
“Gina?” I rasped the word in little more than a whisper.
The figure leaned nearer and the features resolved into the warm, freckled face of another.
“No, silly. It’s Cassandra.”
She dipped the cloth into a basin, wrung out the water and placed it on my forehead.
The soothing touch did little to clear my mind, but did help me find my voice.
“What are you doing here?”
An impish grin creased the thin lips she’d inherited from her mother, and her eyes sparkled with her father’s good humor.
“I suppose Dave enjoys his surprises a mite too much,” she said. “He didn’t tell you we were sailing with you?”
“ ‘We’?” I said. “You mean your folks are here, too?”
The humor in her eyes dimmed a bit.
“Papa’s here,” she said. “Mother passed on, a year ago Christmas.”
I sank a little deeper into the thin mattress.
“I didn’t know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
Cassandra managed a smile and picked up the bowl once more.
“Nothing to be sorry about. You couldn’t know. Besides, you had enough to deal with at the time.” She paused her ministrations, and looked me in the eye. “I was truly sorry to hear about Mae and her father. I wish I’d had a chance to meet them.”
I struggled to swallow a spoonful of broth past the lump that rose in my throat.
“You would have liked them,” I managed after another slurp. “But you still haven’t told me what you’re doing aboard the ship.”
Cassandra shook her head as she tipped more broth between my lips.
“I can’t believe Dave didn’t tell you,” she said. “Papa’s been named director of the Western Australia Railroad.”
I blinked in surprise, the coincidence too great to accept. Not long after our final run-in with Charlie Garrett, Dave had left me in Truckee, California. He gave no explanation, only saying he’d be back after a month or two. Just a week ago, he’d shown up out of the blue, dragged me out of a saloon, thrown me on the flatcar of a westbound train, and produced a recruitment flyer for the Western Australia Government Railroad.
“You’ve gone west to start your life over before,” he observed. “It doesn’t get much more west than this.”
Two days later, I was emptying my stomach into the Pacific Ocean.
“But Cy doesn’t know anything about running a railroad,” I objected as I tried to wrap my mind around Cassandra’s words.
“No, but he knows how to invest in them. The day-to-day he’ll leave to his foremen.” She arched a conspiratorial eyebrow.
“Foremen?”
She rolled her eyes and groaned in exasperation.
“You and Dave,” she explained. “He didn’t tell you any of this?”
I shook my head.
“Honestly, that man will be the death of me.”
I came to his defense as best I could.
“He’s really not all that bad, once you get to know him.”
Cassandra’s eyes sparkled as her brow softened, and her cheeks glowed with a fresh blush.
“I know that, JD,” she said. “I married him three weeks ago.”
“So you’ve had a rough go of it,” Uncle Cy observed as I replaced the pawn he’d moved into my king’s row with a queen piece.
He could have meant anything from the chess game to the voyage to my whole damned life. I crafted my answer for the easiest choice.
“Game’s not over yet,” I said, and slid a knight into a blocking position.
“That’s very true,” he said. “I’ve seen games that last for ages, while some seem to end even before they get started. Check.”
I studied the board as Cy plucked my knight from the field, set a bishop in its place, then lit a fat cigar. I pulled my blanket tighter about my shoulders even as the older man wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow. Under Cassandra’s care, I’d mostly recovered from my year inside the whiskey bottle, but I was still wracke
d by alternating bouts of fever and chills.
“Feel like giving up?” Cy asked, his words accented by a cloud of blue smoke.
“Sometimes,” I admitted, and it wasn’t because of the queen and bishop that hemmed in my king. “How do you go on?”
Cy’s bushy eyebrows arched over brown eyes that glistened in the equatorial sunlight.
“Some days, I really don’t know,” he said. “Helen may not have been perfect, but she was the best part of my life for nigh on forty years. When she passed, I found myself lost, alone in a way I’d never known before. If not for Cassandra, I mightn’t have been much longer for this world.” He took a long drag on the cigar and leaned back in his deck chair. “Then there was Helen herself.”
“How do you mean?” I asked.
The older man grinned sheepishly.
“She came to me in a dream a couple of months after,” he said. “Told me I’d moped around plenty long, that grief is a vain luxury of the living and I’d pampered myself enough. As usual, she was right.”
I blinked at him a couple of times.
“How can grief be a luxury?” I said.
“Pretty simple, really—so simple we can’t even see it when we’re in the midst of it.” He took a deep breath, and the air filled with his blue-tinged sigh. “There’s nothing wrong with mourning a loved one. Dead or alive, when they leave they take the part of us that joined with them. It’s only natural we should feel the pain of their loss. But, when we live in that grief, we turn love into self-centeredness.”
I opened my mouth to object, but Cy waved his free hand to silence me.
“When I mourned Helen,” he said, “it was because her time had been cut short, because Cassandra had lost her mother. When I let the mourning turn to grief, though, it became about my loss, about how alone I was. It didn’t matter that Helen had given me years of more happiness than I deserved, or that she’d given me a beautiful daughter. All I could see was my own pain and how my life was now something less than it had been.”
I nodded my understanding, but Cy shook his head.
“I couldn’t have been more wrong,” he said.