Where Cowards Tread

by Sabrina Flynn

  Isobel bristled. “I’m not waiting here.”

  “It’s not a request.” The gentleness was gone. His voice came across like steel as he cinched his belt.

  “You’ll distract him, girl,” Tim said, resting a rifle on his shoulder. “A.J. doesn’t care if I get shot.”

  Riot didn’t say another word. He grabbed Mr. Mason up by the lapels and pulled him to his feet. The man screamed in pain, slipping in the blood pooled at his feet. “I thought I was gonna wait for the ambulance.”

  Riot dragged the man out the front door, and Tim slapped a hat on his head before following. Isobel ground her teeth together. What happened to being partners? Damn him.

  Matthew picked up the telephone, and Miss Off took another drink. She was muttering under her breath. “Just so you know, I’m not touching those,” the woman pointed at Isobel’s stack of newspapers. They were covered in blood and glass. “You can clean your own damn mess.” The old woman stomped down the hallway to get a broom.

  Isobel checked on Mack, who had finished off the whiskey bottle. He was singing a Scottish dirge in a slurry voice.

  “Hello, I need the police. There was an attack on Ravenwood Agency. On Kearney street, yes.”

  If Riot thought she’d wait here like a meek little wife, he was in for a surprise. Cursing his penchant for heroism, she raced to the upper room where they’d deposited their trunks and supplies. She grabbed out a rough coat and trousers, dressed quickly, and thrust her revolver in a pocket. On the way out, she grabbed Matthew’s bowler.

  “Hey!”

  Isobel didn’t stop. She sprinted towards the Barbary Coast—in over her head, terrified, and furious as hell.

  13

  The Morgue

  “You really think that woman of yours is gonna stay behind?” Tim asked.

  Riot sighed. Likely not. And there’d be hell to pay when he returned. If he returned.

  Fog was thick and cool, and phantoms moved in the night. It was the sort of night where bad things happened.

  “She handled herself well enough back there with the dynamite.”

  “And nearly got shot,” Riot said with a click of his teeth.

  “Shit happens, A.J.”

  “Not if I can help it.”

  “Cool that heart of yours, boy.” Tim warned.

  Riot didn’t argue. Tim was right. It’s what he needed just then—to slip back into his gunfighting ways. He took a breath and pushed aside thoughts of Isobel, of the live dynamite in her hand, of the bullets that sliced through her clothes. He wrapped himself in an old, familiar calm.

  The pair walked down the middle of the street. Riot hadn’t bothered with his coat. His revolvers were plain to see, and Tim had his rifle casually placed on a shoulder. The old man also had a revolver on his belt, a sawed-off shotgun tucked in his overcoat, and a bowie knife in easy reach.

  “Where are you taking me?” Mr. Mason gasped. The man was stumbling, dragging his bloody leg behind him. He was only upright thanks to Riot, who was half-dragging the young man down the street.

  “Quiet,” Riot warned.

  The only people they passed in the night were freezing whores, addicts, and drunks. Most with sense were indoors enjoying the district’s delights, and those outside who spotted the trio quickly looked away and quickened their stride.

  When Mr. Mason saw their destination, he tried to back away. “Wait now. You can’t take me in there. If they know I ratted ’em out, they’ll kill me.”

  “Will they?” Riot asked softly. He tightened his grip and marched the man towards a cavernous stairway on Battle Row. Two men straightened at the entrance. They wore thick coats and low caps, and had billy clubs in hand.

  The shorter fellow reached behind his back, and Tim stepped forward to drive his rifle butt into the guard’s face, then into his gut, and finally the back of his head. At the same instant, Riot shoved Mr. Mason towards the second guard. It was all the distraction he needed. He was right on the stumbling man’s heels. One upper cut to the second guard’s jaw stunned him. The billy club fell from his hand, and Riot caught it deftly and swung it against the larger man’s knee. A crack. And then another. Both men dropped to the ground.

  Riot divested them of their guns.

  “Shall we, Mr. Mason?”

  Riot shoved the man down the narrow lane. Shadows with hungry eyes were hunched along the walls, a row of misery and filth. Riot dragged Mr. Mason down an uneven, slick stairway, and shoved him through the door of the Morgue. The door crashed open. Light spilled outside, and Mr. Mason fell into a cramped barroom with filthy sawdust on the floor. It was dim and dank and sparsely furnished. The denizens ranged from wild-eyed executioners to men one breath away from the grave. Thieves, macks, and addicts, and every despicable criminal under the sun.

  No one looked at Mr. Mason whimpering over his blown-out knee. They looked at the man in the doorway. Blood splattered his spectacles and his once snowy shirt.

  Tim came in behind him, and moved to one side of the doorway, his rifle held loosely, both hands at his waist.

  “I’d keep your hands where I can see them,” Riot said easily. “I’m Atticus Riot, and I understand there’s a thousand dollar bounty on my head. I’d like to know who’s fronting the money.”

  The thugs didn’t move. They were busy sizing him up. One of them, a grizzled old man with one eye and scars crisscrossing his face, started chuckling.

  Riot nodded to the grizzled man. “Old timers like Max Savage there will tell you a thousand dollars isn’t worth the trouble for me.”

  “Damn straight,” Savage muttered. “I warned those greenhorns they’d have difficulty beefing a curly wolf like you.”

  “Hobble your lip, Savage. You and this old maggot don’t matter in this century no more. It’s a new world. The likes of you are relics.” This from a man who wore a silk tie and a brightly colored vest with a striped shirt. His blonde hair was slicked back with oils that gleamed in the light. He was flanked by two toughs.

  “It is a new world,” Riot agreed amiably. “A more civilized one. I encourage you to take a good look at Mr. Mason here and ask yourselves if it’s worth it to play puppet to whichever swell is fronting the price for me.”

  “Money is money,” the silk dandy said, studying his nails.

  “Then shoot me here and now.” Riot spread his hands. “I’m an easy target, right here in your very own territory.” The room went still, so tense that the air thickened.

  Riot watched the men in the barroom. All action is of the mind and the mirror of the mind is the face, its index the eyes. Riot could read eyes like an open book. He knew who’d keep still and who would shoot. He knew who would draw first.

  Isobel kept to the shadows along the street. She hung back, watching as Riot strode up to a pair of toughs in front of a dark lane. As a teenager, she had roamed these streets, visiting gambling halls and dives in male clothing, but even she had her limits. This was the kind of alleyway she instinctively knew to avoid in the Barbary Coast.

  The denizens of the street paused too, some curious, fearful, and feigning disinterest while the wise quickened their pace and fled.

  In a blink, Tim and Riot struck. So quick that it took a moment for her to register the attack. Two guards dropped to the ground, and Riot dragged his prisoner into the alley. Two shadows came out of the fog, running up to the unconscious pair. Others joined them, and fights broke out as thieves and whores rushed to relieve the men of their weapons, billfolds, and clothing. They were stripped bare in seconds.

  Isobel hugged the filthy wall and slipped past the mob. Dim light came from the end. But the darkness was so complete it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. People were lined along the walls of the alleyway. Hunched, miserable, and no doubt crazed, they looked at her with hungry eyes. She glimpsed a limp arm with festering sores that ran like tracks up it. Needle marks? No, too thick. They were more like small bore holes along the veins. The arm was attached to a man, his eyes staring si
ghtlessly into the fog. How long had he been dead?

  Voices echoed against stone. Riot’s.

  “Money is money,” a smooth voice drawled.

  “Then shoot me here and now. I’m an easy target, right here in your very own territory.”

  Fear gripped her. Fear of losing the man she loved. Heedless of the danger, Isobel rushed down the steps. She shoved open the door and realized her mistake. Too late.

  Riot’s back was to her. He cocked his head at her entrance. A flinch of movement to the left, at his back—a man reached for his revolver and Isobel threw herself at him.

  Gunshots filled the barroom.

  Wood creaked at Riot’s back. He cocked his head to the side. The distraction was all the invitation the men needed. Riot drew. Shots roared in the cramped barroom, an explosion of noise that left ears ringing. A crash, groans, screams. The first man caught a bullet in his eye. His hand on a revolver. He slumped forward in his chair, dripping blood on the table. A second man fell off his bar stool, and wheezed for a few scant breaths. His revolver had cleared the holster. And the third choked on the blood bubbling from his ravaged throat. He dropped his gun on the floor, one round spent.

  Quick as he drew, Riot holstered his gun. There was a slice in his waistcoat along his ribs. It seeped blood. Max Savage started laughing, a deranged rasp that accompanied the third man’s dying gasps. He slapped his hand on the bar burbling with mirth.

  Tim cursed under his breath, pulled the lever to his rifle and trained it on the remaining patrons.

  Keeping one eye on the barroom, Riot turned slightly. A dead man lay behind him to the left. The top of his skull blown off by Tim’s rifle. And then Riot saw her.

  Isobel lay on top the dead man, her hands on the forearm that gripped a revolver. He hadn’t cleared the holster when Tim fired. But Isobel had been there—in front of Tim’s muzzle. That was why Tim had aimed high and sheared the top of the man’s head clean off. It was fortunate Isobel was on the small side.

  Pale, wide-eyed, and covered in gore. Isobel swallowed, looked down at the dead man, and quickly scrambled away.

  She was alive. That was all that mattered. Riot shoved possibilities aside, and turned back to the room. “I’ll ask again. Plainly. Who wants me dead?”

  The slick mack licked his lips, and his two toughs decided to study their drinks on the table. It was the bartender who answered. “He gave no name, Mr. Riot. A man with a mustache is all. But I seen him with the Pinkertons once upon a time.”

  “I’ll take my leave then.” Riot fished out a few dollars from his billfold and tossed them on the counter. “For your troubles. If any more of your patrons want to come and collect on me, make sure they keep it personal, otherwise I’m liable to fall into old habits.”

  “And just what are those habits?” the pimp called.

  Savage wheezed out a laugh as he drew a bowie knife and bent over one of the recently deceased.

  “I’ll let Mr. Savage fill you in.”

  Savage’s wheeze turned to a mad cackle. The barflies watched as Savage sliced off the dead man’s ear. He put the bloody organ in his pocket, and turned to Mr. Mason who was curled around his knee.

  “I’m not dead!” Mr. Mason pleaded. “What the hell—” His words turned into a scream as Savage added another ear to his collection.

  Isobel was numb. She could not look away from the man with the blown out brains, and worse she could not look at Riot. Somewhere distant, a grizzly bear of a man cackled his insanity while another screamed.

  Riot’s hand curled around her arm, but the gentlemanly gesture sparked anger, and she jerked away from his touch. He nodded towards the door, and she stumbled up the steps—the laughter following her out into the filthy lane, past the dead addict, and huddling misery.

  Riot didn’t speak. And neither did she. Isobel didn’t trust herself to say a word. She walked in a daze, the taste of blood and gunpowder heavy in her throat.

  The silence wasn’t a comfortable one. Tim smoldered with anger. Every once in awhile, he turned and spat. It was far worse than a verbal dressing down.

  To stave off the adrenaline drop, she reached for anger. It kept her walking.

  A policeman waited outside the ravaged agency. He puffed into his hands as he stood guard over three dead bodies.

  “Back away now,” the patrolman said to Isobel.

  Isobel stopped short and studied the dead trio from a distance. Two had been shot cleanly, and the other… Well, Isobel had a good throwing arm. The stick of dynamite she’d tossed outside rendered him to bits. With what remained, it would be difficult to identify the corpse. Bile rose in her throat.

  “Bel,” Riot said.

  “No,” she said sharply. It was a nonsensical word. But it stopped him short. Her fury boiled over. With herself. At their would-be assassins. And she flung it all at Riot. “At the first sign of danger you try to tuck me away. I admit I’m out of my depth here, but I thought this was a partnership. Not servitude. We’ve not been two weeks married, and I’ve been reduced to a distraction.”

  “Bel, you’re not a—”

  “God dammit, Riot!” Her shout echoed in the street.

  The policeman took a step back.

  Isobel couldn’t face the police. She couldn’t take the questions, the accusations, the mess of paperwork and disapproving gazes. She’d had enough of it in the past year, and she’d crack if she were trapped in another interrogation room just now. So she ran.

  14

  A Turbulent Sea

  Riot watched the fog swallow his wife.

  “Time and silence ain’t gonna help that, boy,” Tim muttered.

  Riot tensed to go after her, but stopped short at his name. He turned to find a familiar face standing in the agency doorway (what was left of it). He hoped Detective Inspector Coleman hadn’t seen Isobel, or worse, heard her heated words. Silver-haired and studious, Detective Coleman was one of the few honest policemen in San Francisco.

  “We need to talk,” Coleman said.

  Riot swore under his breath. He was torn, but duty called. And it would give Isobel some time to cool down, or quietly smolder. Either way, he knew where she’d go: the Pagan Lady. She always took refuge in her cutter when she was shaken to the core.

  When Riot entered the remains of his agency, Sergeant Price gave him a salute. He was a bull-like patrolman who had accompanied Riot on countless raids over the years. Price still took great pride in his handlebar mustache. “I see you got yourself into more trouble, A.J.”

  “It’s a hard habit to break.”

  Matthew Smith stood at attention. “Mack was taken away in an ambulance, sir,” he reported.

  Miss Off was busy hitting at the other police officers in the saloon with her broom as she tried to clean up the mess. It seemed a hopeless task.

  Coleman eyed Riot, taking note of his weapons, the blood on his face, the gash in his vest. Not much escaped him. “Smith says one of the gunmen survived.”

  Riot nodded. “He escaped.”

  Coleman pursed his lips. “Did he?”

  “He did.” Riot walked around the bar, and plucked a bottle of whiskey from an interior shelf. He uncorked it and took a swig. Warmth spread through his body. “I suppose you’d like a statement, Inspector.”

  “I would,” Coleman said. “I’ll need Mr. Von Poppin’s statement, too. And Mrs. Riot’s. I certainly hope we won’t need to drag her to the station.”

  Matthew shifted on his feet.

  “You won’t have to. Mrs. Riot was very much disturbed by events, as you can imagine. She needed to go home.”

  “I’ll expect her tomorrow at the station. Is there somewhere more private we can talk?”

  Riot took the bottle with him as he led the way upstairs.

  Sergeant Price stepped into the storage room first. He filled the cramped room, and searched the corners for any lurkers. The Inspector settled himself on a trunk. It was an informal gesture, and Riot relaxed some. This wasn’t to
be an interrogation after all. Feeling suddenly exhausted, Riot seated himself on a crate, and took another draught of whiskey.

  “You’re injured,” Coleman gestured to Riot’s side.

  Riot looked down, and carefully probed the slice in his vest. “A small thing.”

  “What happened, Mr. Riot?” Coleman asked.

  Riot relayed the night’s events, starting with the dynamite thrown through the window. He stopped at Mr. Mason being dumped in a chair.

  “What did you do with the gunman?”

  Sergeant Price held his notepad and pencil at the ready.

  Coleman had been present in the cemetery when Riot gunned down Ravenwood’s murderer. He was well aware of the politics at play in San Francisco, and had testified at Isobel’s trial. Coleman was by the book, but he was also practical, which was a rare thing.

  Riot glanced at the notepad in Price’s hand. “Is this an official interrogation, or a friendly discussion?”

  Coleman frowned.

  “I’ll remind you, Inspector, that no whistle was blown when my agency was attacked. A stick of dynamite blew out the front off my office, and gunshots were exchanged. Either your officers on duty were attacked, bribed to look the other way, or they had orders. And I sure as hell can’t be dragged into an inquest every time I defend myself. Not with the undercurrents at play in this city.”

  Coleman nodded to Price, who lowered his notepad and tucked away his pencil.

  Riot studied Coleman for a moment. He was taking a risk confiding in an honest policeman, but he needed an ally. “I took Mr. Mason to the Morgue on Battle Row. He was supposed to collect the bounty on me there.”

  Coleman leaned forward. “Who put the price on your head?”

  “The Morgue doesn’t ask names. The bartender said ‘a man with a mustache’ offered a thousand dollars for my head. And that he’d seen the man with the Pinkertons.”

  “The Pinkertons?” Price asked.