“WHERE’S THE GIRL?” he screamed into the man’s face.
Wong wilted. His whole flabby body collapsed inside those loose garments. Even his long mustache seemed to droop before Sylvester’s beet-red fury.
“L-l-l-lily?” Wong stammered.
“THE ONE I PAID FOR? WHERE IS SHE?”
Wong tried to shake his head, but the gesture came as a wobble. “I… I do not know…”
Sylvester howled. He hurled Wong across the room, and the man rolled pitifully over the scattered cushions of his den.
By now the women had scattered. Where they went, Sylvester didn’t care. As he bounded toward Wong, he knocked over the water pipe from which the old man had been smoking. Water splashed on the carpet, and glowing embers scattered on the wet fabric. The air was a blend of strong odors—incense and flavored tobacco, perspiration and burnt coals.
Sylvester pounced on Wong, clamping his hand around that fleshy throat. Wong squealed in terror, but only for a moment. Sylvester squeezed the folds of his neck, until the only sound was a gargle. But as Wong realized his attacker wasn’t letting go, he grabbed Sylvester’s wrists, trying to wrest himself from that grip. He writhed and kicked; his robe fell open, revealing the pasty, bloated body underneath. His eyes bulged. His black velvet cap fell from his head, revealing the thinning gray hair beneath. In one last, desperate effort, Wong started to smack Sylvester across the face, but the mercenary’s beard softened the blows.
Wong’s body gave out. His arms dropped crookedly at his sides. His eyes aimed upward, toward the paper lamps suspended above them. Still, Sylvester didn’t let go. He wanted this feeling to last. He wanted that familiar euphoria, detonating in his brain like a thousand rockets. When he finally loosened his hands and stood up, he inspected what he’d done. He saw the red bruises of his fingers imprinted in Wong’s neck.
Elizabeth unfolded a map across her saddle. Her horse trotted slowly; she could study the local geography and also keep her balance. The shadow of a cliff fell over her, a relief after so much blistering sunlight. With her finger, she traced the crooked line that represented a railroad track. The railroad bisected the map, all the way from Pickleburg to Phoenix.
Elizabeth dipped the map in the middle and peered over its edge. Ahead of her, two tracks curved their lonely way through the ravine, receding into waves of heat. Just ahead, the railroad ties looked firm and evenly spaced, but they blended together down the line, until they disappeared.
Her horse’s hooves thumped lazily in the dirt. The animal’s head hung low, exhausted from all their relentless miles. Elizabeth’s heart ached; never in all her years of riding had she worked a horse so hard. They’d gathered their things the previous evening. They’d ridden for hours, up into the mountains, in the cool night. They’d camped in a ditch, sleeping a few hours beneath the stars. When dawn broke, they’d eaten stale bread and drank warm water. They had spent hours descending the warped road to Pickleburg. When they were close, they’d skirted the edge of town, then veered northwest, until they’d found the tracks.
A slow passage, requiring all their patience. Now Elizabeth was greasy with sweat. She lusted for a bath.
The worst part was not the distance, but the trousers. Robins had insisted she change into something durable, especially for such a long ride. Her riding skirt wouldn’t hold up in a tussle, so the Deputy loaned her a pair of khakis. Incredibly, their waistlines were nearly the same, and Elizabeth only needed to roll up the long pant legs, fastening them with safety pins. Still, she hated them. She’d worn pants before, and always resented their constrictive cut. How pitiful, that men had to shackle their gams in those narrow sleeves, while women’s legs moved so freely. If men only knew the lightness she felt with each stride, every male of the species would buy himself a kilt.
Elizabeth glanced at Robins. His long torso slouched like a collapsing tower. His fingers barely held the reins. More than once she thought the old man would slip from his stirrups and collapse in the dust.
Elizabeth had anticipated this moment—when they would run out of conversation. They had barely spoken in hours; the sun was low and fierce, and even the shade could not protect them from drowsy boredom. Elizabeth’s mind wandered. What were they doing out here? Did their plan even make sense? Was all this worth the terrible strain?
“So,” Elizabeth said, her mouth cottony. “How did you think to send me that telegram?”
Robins brightened. His mustache rose with his smile, and his back straightened.
“Forgot to tell you, didn’t I?”
“Forgot or omitted, I have no idea,” said Elizabeth. “But I can’t figure it out. My reputation rarely precedes me at all, much less across a continent.”
“Well,” Robins said, “about a year ago, a feller came through town. Some kind of inspector, he said. He was chasing a fugitive. Hearing him talk, I thought he’d come up from Mexico, but he’d traveled a lot farther than that—all the way from Panama City.”
“Panama City?” Elizabeth echoed. “You don’t say?”
“Turned out I knew the man he was talking about—the fugitive, I mean. I’d seen him, anyway. Didn’t know he was a-running from the law, or else I would’ve tossed in him in clink. But I helped the inspector as much as I could. He was gracious, I’ll say that much. What them Spaniards call a real caballero. To show his thanks, the inspector treated me to a couple of drinks at the local speakeasy. I guess he knew a boozer when he saw one. Spent the whole night talking, trading tales. That man’s name was Carlos Alcazar.”
“Carlos.” Elizabeth shook her head bemusedly. “Two billion people in the world, and you ran into Carlos.”
“Sure did,” Robins said. “Anyways, he told me about some doings, down in Panama. Spun a yarn like I’d never heard before. Any other feller, and I would’ve called him a liar. But the way he talked, I knew he was honest. By the time he finished his tale, my head was spinning, and not just owing to the hooch. I found myself pretty well convinced.” He paused. “But of course you already know that story, because you’re what you might call the star. He said he owed you a great debt, and if I ever needed someone who would believe, who was sure to help me out of a jam, I should send a telegram to such and such an address. Now normally, my memory ain’t too sharp. Age has not treated this noggin well. But I didn’t have to write down 206 Cressida Street. I tucked that address away, never forgot it. And sure enough, not even a year later, I figured I needed that tip. And here you are.”
“Carlos is a persuasive fellow,” Elizabeth said. “But not every man would write a girl he’s never met to lend a hand. For that matter, most men wouldn’t ask any girl to lend a hand. And I wasn’t exactly around the corner.”
“No, indeed,” agreed Robins. “But I had a feeling.”
They trotted in warm silence for some minutes. Elizabeth turned her attention to the vista spread before her. She had always marveled at open spaces, even a ravine like this one, where no trees or buildings stood in the way of distant formations. In Pittsburgh, nothing ever appeared until the last possible second; even skyscrapers ambushed her from behind gutters and brick walls.
But here, a faraway shape gradually caught her eye. Elizabeth. That’s it, she thought.
She consulted her map again, and it only confirmed her intuition. Slowly, the monument grew in size, and with every step of her horse’s hoof, Elizabeth swelled with awe.
The rock looked like a half-shell, or maybe a sail. It extended from the hills, tall and majestic, its creamy surface shining brightly. Once, the rock had been a perfect circle, fanning across the divide. Now, it was cut clumsily in half, a fragment of its former grandeur. As they came closer, Elizabeth could see the tiny perforations where dynamite had been inserted. The edges were chipped and broken, hurriedly blown apart by the railroad workers. The track ran alongside, with only enough yield to prevent train cars from clipping the stone.
“I reckon this is it,” declared Robins. “The place Sparrow told us about.”<
br />
“I reckon it is,” replied Elizabeth. “Which means we’ll have to give it another mile.”
Sylvester blustered down the street, his gunny sack thrown over his shoulder. It never took him long to pack; he wore the same clothes week after week, and he needed neither shaving kit nor cookware. The man made his rounds of hotels and brothels, and he’d never prepared a meal in his life, preferring cantinas and lunchrooms. Nomads like him required only the right girl—to fetch him food and wash his occasional laundry.
Sylvester watched the flood of strangers passing him from every direction. He tried to read their faces. He glanced over his shoulder, uncertain what he was even looking for. He’d killed plenty of men, and even a few women, but never in the middle of town, in the middle of the afternoon. The sun was still high and strong. Wong’s orgy had likely gone on for days, oblivious to the hour outside, until Sylvester had arrived to unleash his wrath.
But so what? Would the local sheriff really care about some pimping Chinaman? Wouldn’t it be a relief that someone had finally rubbed the fat man out? Sylvester loved his sloe-eyed honeysuckles, but wasn’t it high time a white man took back that lucrative trade? The Orientals had reigned too long over the molls of Pickleburg. If anything, Sylvester deserved a medal. So good riddance.
Never mind what he’d do when he found that girl. The whore had slipped out while he slept, taking $27 from his dresser drawer. For that, he’d hunt her down. A Chinese girl wouldn’t be hard to find, not in these parts. When he found her, she’d pray for death. But he wouldn’t let her off so easy. There’d be hours of punishment first. That thought cheered him. He tasted saliva on his lips.
Sylvester dragged open the sliding door and barged into the warehouse. There was no card game this time, only a trio of Paddington men smoking in a tight bunch. They stopped their chatter and doffed hats at Sylvester.
“Afternoon, boss,” they all said at once.
Sylvester stormed wordlessly past them, toward the opposite door. He pushed outside, onto the railroad platform. Crates and barrels were stacked haphazardly against the wall, and a tarp was loosely strung over the piles. Beyond lay a jumble of railroad tracks, which crisscrossed confusingly over the bed of blackened gravel. They were mostly empty, with bits of grass sneaking up between the rails and ties. Some boxcars stood alone; an abandoned handcar sulked nearby.
But one train was parked imperiously in the middle of the yard. The train was short but hulking. A gray locomotive stood at the fore, its body long and cylindrical. A stubby cattle catcher sprouted from the front; red paint was faded from its steel grille. The two boxcars behind it were standard shape and size, but the walls were a quilt of steel sheets. Each square and rectangle had been welded to the car, an ugly patchwork of weeping metal. Sylvester peered into the narrow windows, which had been left ajar to ventilate the cars; but those windows could also be shuttered, sealing out men and bullets alike. In the middle of the fortified wall, a small slot had been cut into the steel, and Sylvester grinned. Protruding from the car was the snout of a Vickers machine gun. He loved the sight of that weapon. The second boxcar had its own gun, aimed the other way.
Ain’t nobody getting into this here train, he thought. But I’d dare anybody to try.
Sylvester rounded the train, touching the hot surfaces with his fingers. As he meditated on the dark machinery, his nerves calmed, until he felt downright giddy. This shipment was the biggest he’d ever guarded—a safe full of gold bricks, straight from the Murphy Drake foundry. He didn’t know their worth. He’d never see the gold, since he wasn’t allowed to open the safe. But Sylvester would be satisfied by its proximity. Gold bullion—the most precious of metals, the building blocks of banks, the lifeblood of civilized people. How perfect, those sparkling surfaces, the soft and soapy edges, the tinfoil-like smoothness. Gold—somehow both a color and not a color, polished to perfection, the most beautiful substance in the world. In its ineffable veneer, a man could see his own distorted image. And Sylvester J. Kid, sixth son of a drunken Kentucky sharecropper, cavalry deserter and killer-for-hire, a man barely able to write his own name, would get to escort those bars to Phoenix. Never in his life had such a privilege seemed possible.
Sylvester puffed out his chest and ran his callused hand along the metal frame, titillated by every seam and bolt. This was the big time. He was at the top of his game. The company trusted him with enough gold to buy this whole county. That was worth losing a night with Lily, worth having to sleep here in the railroad depot and not in a regular bed. All Sylvester wanted now was for morning to come, so he could mosey out of town.
He was so pleased with himself, so delirious with pride, that he failed to notice the tiny object stuck to the locomotive’s smokebox. If he had only looked, Sylvester would have spotted the strange little shard stuck to the metal surface. He would have seen that the shard was a crystal, probably quartz, pasted to the train with a dollop of tar. He might have picked up, studied it, and tossed it into the dirt.
But Sylvester didn’t notice. He just kept walking. If he had only spotted that strange bit of rock, things might have turned out differently. Now, it was too late.
Chapter 16
Robins crouched low and set the dynamite on a railroad tie. He moved tenderly, as if putting a newborn in her crib. When he was satisfied with its placement, Robins spread his hands wide and stepped away. Then he grasped a small spool and walked backward. The wire unraveled, foot by foot, until he reached the boulders. There, he snipped the wire and inserted it into the waiting detonator box. He worked with patient intensity, sweat beading along the crevices of his face. Even his mustache dripped, but Robins was too focused to dab himself.
At last Robins straightened and removed his hat. He swiped a wrist across his brow. “That oughta do it.”
Elizabeth had seen every kind of weapon imaginable. She could identify the gamut of blades and firearms, gases and poisons, bombs and artillery. Yet she could not remember ever seeing an actual bundle of dynamite. She studied the detonator with quiet amusement; the trigger was a stick with a horizontal handle, exactly as she’d always pictured it. But Robins clearly saw nothing strange about this primitive device. To him, it was not the stuff of comic strips, but the tool he had once used to burrow through the earth.
“I suppose there’s no way to test TNT,” Elizabeth said. “Not without blowing our cover.”
“Just have to find out in the morning,” said Robins. “Let’s see what else we’ve got.”
Their shadows were long as they moved to an old army blanket, which was spread out on the ground. Their equipment was spaced evenly across this gray textile: two pairs of gloves, two gas masks, a box of shells, and two double-barreled shotguns. They were a mishmash of borrowed items, which Robins had wheedled from his neighbors during their final hours in Ezra. It was an arsenal of cashed-in favors, as only the Deputy could have assembled.
“Not to doubt you,” said Robins, “but you sure you can handle one of these?”
“I am.” Elizabeth put her hands on her hips, grimly assessing the firearms at her feet. “I won’t lie—I hate shotguns. But I shoot them just fine.”
They lit no fire that evening. Robins dug out two cans of beans and sawed them open with his buck knife. They gnawed at some strips of jerky, and they washed it down with swigs from their canteens. Elizabeth appreciated the simple meal, despite the growing ache in her teeth.
They unfurled their bedrolls in the last light of the evening. Each sat down, watching the pink conflagration above. As always in the Sonoran backcountry, a perfect sunset set the whole cosmos aglow.
Elizabeth reached into her bag. She had waited the entire trip, and now it was time. Robins watched her with tired curiosity. When she found the deeply stowed item, the Deputy could barely contain his surprise; between two fingers, Elizabeth held a densely rolled reefer. The paper was twisted and dried-out, but Elizabeth’s skills were still evident in its tapered edges. She scrutinized her marijuana cigarette fo
r a long moment, then turned to Robins.
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“Be my guest,” he said. “At least something’s still legal.”
Elizabeth struck a match. The flame quavered as she inhaled. Smoke danced around her face in the dying light. She spotted a sliver of moon rising above the crags, and Elizabeth blew a long stream in its direction. Then she reached over and offered the smoldering concoction to Robins.
“What the hell,” Robins mumbled, and he drew long and hard.
Point by point, the constellations pieced themselves together. As the ganja did its magic, the sky seemed to rotate, like a slow carousel, and the faraway galaxies swirled with it. The clarity of the atmosphere reminded Elizabeth of her months at sea, back in her fleet-footed youth. But Pittsburgh wasn’t generous to stargazers. She’s weathered so much overcast in recent years, and she hadn’t even realized it. How she’d missed those precious pinpricks. She could live without a thousand quotidian frills, but a big sky was something she suddenly needed the rest of her life.
“I’m making a promise to myself,” Elizabeth said in a sandy voice. “I’m sleeping outside more often. From here on out, the more stars I can see, the better.”
“That’s a worthy promise,” said Robins.
A long silence passed—so long that Elizabeth wondered whether the Deputy had drifted to sleep, or his mind was so unfettered that he could only chase the stampede of thoughts. But then he smacked his lips, leaned against his knees, and spoke.
“Honestly, I look at my life, and I get to wondering. Maybe all I ever done is break my vows. I told my daddy I’d take care of my mama. But in the end, I sought my fortune instead. Promised I’d be a good Presbyterian, but I haven’t stepped inside of a church in years. Told my preacher I’d keep away from whiskey, but somehow I keep on drinking it. Swore to keep my wife safe, but wasn’t much I could do against Spanish flu. Told the Sheriff I’d do right by him—” He faltered. “And see what good that did. But this vow, I plan to honor. Whether or not they’re on that train tomorrow, I will find the bastards who did this deed. I’ll track ’em down. And when I do, I’ll see that justice is done.”
Ghost Bandits of Sonora (Elizabeth Crowne) Page 11