by Ann Parker
“And, you, Mrs. Stannert?” He spoke stiffly, as if unused to making polite give-and-take conversation. “Do you and your husband reside in Leadville?”
Susan’s hand gripped tighter as Inez’s fist spasmed. “Indeed,” she said, ignoring her growing rage. “We, that is to say, Mr. Stannert has a number of business ventures in town.”
“Indeed.” He echoed her and gave her that odd look again. It was a cousin to the one he’d provided at their introduction. On hearing her name, he’d done a visible double-take, then stared with increasingly narrowed eyes, before finally offering her a stiff short bow. She had held her breath, to see if he would add anything damning, such as “You are that harlot who runs the saloon on Harrison and State streets!” He didn’t, but for that moment, it seemed as if he knew her, or knew of her, and not in a positive way. Inez had racked her mind, but could not recall having seen him in the Silver Queen Saloon. When he said nothing after his bow, she had decided to let it pass.
Realizing her musings had taken her mid-explanation from the conversation, she added belatedly, “What with all his various undertakings and his many investments in Leadville, Mr. Stannert decided it was best for us to remain in the city year-round. To keep an eye on things.”
“Leadville is a hard place for a gentlewoman,” Pace remarked, glancing at his own wife.
Inez smiled tightly. A sudden flash of memory from the previous week: her reflection in the Silver Queen Saloon’s dressing room mirror, hair in place, evening gown a rustle of satin and silk, diamonds glistening at her neck, brandy goblet on the washstand, and pocket pistol tucked safely in a hidden pocket. Her regular Saturday night visitors waiting across the hall for her to appear and for the late-night high-stakes poker games to begin.
“You are staying at the Mountain Springs House for the rest of the summer season, then? Are you intending to take the waters?” The wife’s question could scarcely be heard over the creaks of the coach, the squeaks of horse tracings, and the clatter of hooves.
“Miss Carothers and I are staying in the area for a short while. I imagine we will sample the mineral springs while we are there.” Inez started to say more, then stopped.
No need to explain her personal business to these people. No need to tell them that she was on her way to see her sister Harmony and her own son William, whom she had not seen since the previous August. Definitely no need to explain that the reason her husband, Mark Stannert, was not in the coach beside her was because she had threatened to put a bullet through him if he were to accompany her to Manitou.
Chapter Two
Leadville
Inez’s nightmare had begun eight days before the trip to Manitou. Memories of that early morning still burned like acid through her waking hours and her restless dreams. She had said her good-byes to Reverend Justice Sands at the Malta station, a few miles from Leadville.
The train waited, prepared to carry former president and Civil War general Ulysses S. Grant and his entourage onto the next stop of his Colorado tour. Darkness still shrouded the sky while Grant, his family, and others descended from their carriages and buggies. In the sheltered interior of the hired hack, Inez and the reverend exchanged one long kiss and lovers’ promises and counterpromises.
“Less than a month, and I’ll be back,” he said.
She’d closed her eyes, focusing on his voice, his touch as he traced the line of her cheek.
He continued, “I would not leave you now, but I promised the General—”
She placed a finger on his lips, stopping his words. “Justice Sands, you made a promise. You must honor it. No need to worry about me. The worst is over. What else can happen? I’ll be here, waiting for your letters and your return.”
Weeks ago, Grant had asked that Reverend Sands accompany him on his much-publicized Colorado tour. Such a request from his former commander-in-chief and supporter could not be refused.
Reverend Sands took her hand in his own, kissed her fingers. “Still, all the trouble of the past days, and now, your home is gone. Burned to the ground. I don’t like leaving you to deal with all this alone.”
“Nonsense.” She forced herself to speak lightly, glad that the dark interior hid the yearning that she was certain showed on her face. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. I’ll settle into the second story of the saloon for now. That will keep me busy. That, and sorting through to see if anything escaped the fire. Besides, I’m not alone. I have Abe to help with the business. Susan for friendship. The church for solace. I also have another meeting scheduled with the lawyer, to see what the next steps are in obtaining a divorce. He has assured me it will be simple. With no husband around to fight my suit on the grounds of desertion, how complicated a process can it be?”
His grip on her fingers tightened. “The sooner you are free of the past, the sooner we can forge a life together. I love you, Inez. From the moment I saw you. Meeting you was a gift from God.”
“Well, let’s not give thanks to the Almighty quite yet,” she said. “You may yet have cause to curse falling in love with a saloon owner and soon-to-be divorced woman.”
“That will never happen.”
Shouts from outside, the whistle of the train: it was time for him to leave.
Inez and Reverend Sands descended from the hack for a more formal farewell and parting.
Afterwards, back in the carriage alone, Inez watched with an aching heart as the train swallowed her lover, along with Grant and his followers.
Returning to the Silver Queen Saloon, Inez had felt weary to her very bones. Yet, with the graying of the sky toward dawn, a lightness lifted her spirit. She was finally looking forward with something approaching anticipation and hope. Thinking about her plans to see her little William and her beloved sister Harmony, in less than two weeks. Thinking about promising business deals, recently made, glinting like newly minted silver coins and shining bright with promise. Thinking about her impending divorce from her husband, Mark Stannert, who had been missing for well over a year. At last, she was moving forward with purpose in her heart.
Inez unlocked the door to the Silver Queen Saloon and walked into the gloomy interior. She could just make out the tables with chairs resting upside down upon them, creating a forest of wooden limbs. The rising sun hadn’t yet penetrated to the corners of the room.
By the backmost table, in the darkest shadows, a figure stirred, stood up.
Inez tensed, then relaxed, identifying a familiar black hat, pulled low, on a black-garbed figure. Did the reverend change his mind? But I saw him get on the train.
Then, a voice.
A voice she hadn’t heard in over a year.
“Hello, darlin’.”
He removed his hat.
Inez froze. For a moment, it felt as if all the blood had left her body, leaving her an empty shell, ready to collapse. Then, all that missing blood suddenly rushed back to her head and chest.
“No,” she whispered, willing it to be a bad dream. “It can’t be.”
Mark stepped out of the shadows. “Not the kind of welcome I was expecting from my wife after one year, two months, and fifteen days.”
“You! You can’t be here!” She swayed. The room swirled around her, darkness grew behind her eyes, blocking her sight. Inez reached out blindly for something to support her.
She heard the thump of a cane on the floor as he moved forward and grabbed her elbow to steady her.
More than his touch, it was Mark’s overwhelming familiar scent— sweat, travel, even the same pungent cinnamon-almond Macassar hair oil—that brought the old days stampeding back.
Sight clearing, Inez yanked her arm out of his grasp. “Stay back!”
He held the offending hand off to one side, as if trying to assure a jittery poker opponent that he was unarmed, with no cards up his sleeve.
Inez grabbed a nearby chair leg for support. At that moment, the forest of chair legs looked for all the world like a wooden audience, arms high in shock and horror.
&nbs
p; “I stopped at the house,” said Mark. He eased both hands over the head of his cane and leaned on it. “When I saw nothing but a burned plot of ground, I feared the worst.”
She closed her eyes. She could block the sight of him, but not the sound of his voice, the soft Southern accent blurring his words, smoothing them out until they were like silk wrapped around her throat.
The sun began to cast its light within. She opened her eyes and took a hard look, still not quite believing that her errant husband, who had been gone for so long, was standing there before her. Not a ghost, but real. A few things in his appearance registered as different from before. New lines creased his face, and he was lean in a way that spoke of illness, past or present. A scar extended from the corner of the left eye and disappeared beneath his light brown hair. He leaned upon a walking cane.
He smoothed his sandy mustache, which, she noticed with an odd detachment, was still the same. “I must ask—William?”
“He’s well.”
His shoulders loosened as he sighed, a sound of relief. “You’re both alive and safe. My prayers are answered then. When I first realized that you were still here in Leadville, I thought that William was…” He shook his head. “But then, when I got to town and saw the house gone, I imagined the worst. So I came here to wait. Waiting, for what, I didn’t know. So, where is he, our boy?”
The concern and relief in his voice sounded real. Or was it all for show? Even in the old days, even after ten years of marriage, sometimes she wasn’t sure. Her love and jealousy had so often blinded her to where the truth lay.
She slipped a hand in her coat pocket. “You need to leave.”
The cane was suddenly against her wrist. He took one limping step closer. “You still in the habit of carrying that little Smoot pocket revolver, darlin’?” The cane pressed lightly, testing her.
“The Smoot,” she said coldly, “went up with the house.”
With the cane resting against her arm, she slowly extracted a ring of keys. The cane slid away as she held one up before him at eye level.
“This is the key to the dressing room behind the office.” She saw him glance up toward the second floor. She continued, “My room. I’m the only one with the key. We—Abe and I—changed the locks to the office and dressing room some time ago.”
She stared past the key, straight into his eyes, willing him to recognize the depth of her seriousness. “Speaking of the Smoot and such, do you remember what you impressed upon me, early on, in our marriage? Shoot first, ask questions later. If you gain entrance to my room through any means whatsoever—pick the lock or copy the key—I will shoot you with your old Navy revolver, which I just happen to have up there. I’ll shoot first, deal with the questions later. Actually, I doubt there will be questions. I will simply claim I didn’t know it was you, that I thought you were an assailant, breaking in.”
She pressed her lips together and stared, daring him to call her bluff, hoping he wouldn’t.
To her surprise, he nodded, and took a step back. “We need to talk, darlin’. Not now, but soon. I know you’ve got questions.”
“No questions.” She started toward the stairs and the office. “I’m tired. Leave.”
“Just tell me,” he said, “and I’ll go for now. Is my son up there?”
My son.
One foot on the stairs, she turned. Her hand gripped the handrail so hard she felt her knuckles shift. Finally she said, “William is back East with my sister. He’s safe. He’s well.”
With that, she continued up the stairs without another look back.
Once in her room, she waited by the window. A few agonizing minutes ticked by. Finally, she saw his lean figure appear on the boardwalk below and, with that unfamiliar limp, cross the street to the Clairmont Hotel.
Inez paced from one end of the modest room to the other, trying to calm herself. She thought of all the plans she had put into motion, with the expectation that her husband was dead or, at least, not returning. Her plans to obtain an uncontested divorce from an absentee husband. Her ever-closer liaison with the reverend. Her plans to reconnect with her young son, William.
My God, he’s back. Why? Why now?
She had arranged to meet her sister Harmony and William in Manitou, less than two weeks hence. Keeping those plans secret from Mark would be impossible. Once he knew that William would be in Colorado and that Inez would be traveling to see him, he’d insist on coming. Maybe I can insist that I must go to Manitou first, alone, to prepare Harmony. She thinks he’s dead. Good God, I thought he was dead.
Inez stared at the silver lamp sconce on the wall, unlit, her mind racing. Does he expect to just pick up where we left off before he disappeared?
She went to her fainting couch and gripped the tasseled pillow in both hands. Underneath, Mark’s Civil War Navy revolver lay in cold, dark stillness. Loaded. Ready.
Inez twisted the pillow viciously, as if strangling it.
“God damn you, Mark Stannert!” she hissed. “God damn you to hell. You can’t just waltz back in here and expect me to forgive your sins and kiss your wounds. I don’t care what happened to you! I will not let this happen. Not now. You will not ruin my life. The life I have planned. I’ll kill you first.”
Chapter Three
Inez became aware of Susan, gently patting her hand, and shook her head, disengaging from the past. Susan knew Mark, knew of Inez’s reluctance to revisit those days of chaos after his sudden and recent return. But apart from all that, something about the Paces also urged Inez to caution.
Early the previous day, the Paces, their entourage, and their confusion of trunks, hat boxes, carpet bags, and travel cases had unexpectedly popped up at the Leadville stagecoach office as Inez and Susan were boarding the hotel’s private coach to Manitou. Mr. Pace had strenuously demanded seats, and got them. After the tense introduction, Inez had decided not to divulge any more than necessary during the journey.
“Leadville is played out,” he snapped. “There are no decent opportunities for growth and investment. Only fools invest there.” Pace paused, tugging on his collar as if it was too tight. “But Manitou, now that is a place of great interest and promising growth.”
“Miss Carothers, are you also going to Manitou to take the waters? Or are you meeting relatives there?” Mrs. Pace’s voice flowed over her husband’s rant.
Susan sat up straighter and Inez could imagine the smile radiating from behind the net covering her face. “I’m a photographer, Mrs. Pace. I will be spending some time with Mrs. Galbreaith, who is a photographer in Manitou. She’s promised to introduce me to the natural wonders of the area, including the Garden of the Gods. With Mrs. Stannert coming down for a holiday it was the perfect opportunity for me to accompany her and bring my equipment.”
The stage slowed, then creaked to a stop. A few muffled thumps and bumps punctuated the sudden silence, along with the snort of the horses and jingle of the traces. The door flew open and the driver pulled down the kerchief covering his nose and mouth, showing a definite demarcation between dirt-red skin on the upper half of his face and weathered brown below. “A few minutes, mistresses and sir, whilst we be changin’ the horses,” he said, as he helped Susan, then Mrs. Pace, Inez, and the nanny disembark. “Timest to walk the kinks out.”
It was the same speech he had delivered at the previous two stops of the day, and at the four stops on the day before. Inez accepted the driver’s proffered hand as she stepped down out of the stage and observed Susan and Mrs. Pace chatting as they repaired to the facilities by the shabby way station. As she watched, Mrs. Pace paused and set a protective hand over her midsection. At Susan’s apparent inquiry, the young wife shook her head, and the two women continued on to the water closets.
Another little Pace on the way? The thought crossed Inez’s mind, in a desultory fashion, as she added the inadvertent “tell” to other signs she’d gleaned on the trip.
Inez strolled across the hard-packed ground, grateful for a moment’s rel
ease from the rolling motion of the coach, and lifted her veil up and over her hat, breathing deeply. The lungful of air carried with it the hot summer scent of pine, dust, and well-exercised horseflesh. She wandered around the back of the carriage to the banks of the South Platte. Sunlight, inclining toward the west, glinted ferociously off turbulent water. Its rushing sound—cool and full, like the roar of wind through a forest—carried her to a rare peacefulness. Inez closed her eyes and tipped her head back, feeling the strength of summer sun heat her eyelids.
“Manitou Springs is the coming place, you know. This physician, Dr. Aurelius Prochazka, he knows what he is doing.”
Inez’s eyes snapped open. She turned to Mr. Pace, trying to contain her irritation. The businessman had pulled yet another pocketchief from the depths of his jacket.
“Well, sir, as you appear to be well-versed in such things, you would know.” She hoped he would take the hint and leave her to a moment’s tranquility.
“Oh, yes.” Pace rocked on his heels, gazing at the river. “There is no doubt. I have spent many a summer at the health spas and watering holes back East. My wife, you see, is declining in health, but determined to chase the cure and I am in complete agreement. None of this ‘keep in closed rooms, dose with cod-liver oil, and pray to God nonsense.’ Begging your pardon, Mrs. Stannert, if you are a devout woman.” He didn’t even look her way to register her reaction.
Inez’s temptation to turn and walk away melted in the sudden torrent of personal information pouring from the businessman. She had wondered about Mrs. Pace, thought that, on top of her possibly delicate family condition, there was something else behind the deep cough that occasionally rattled her otherwise healthy-seeming frame. And here was the good husband, spilling all to a stranger.
“In Manitou, I see the seeds of growth. Nay, not just seeds, for they have already sprouted, but a healthy sapling, which has taken root and flourishes. Mark my words, Mrs. Stannert, there are fortunes to be made in Manitou. I am certain of it, and I have the nose for a going proposition. I am most hopeful concerning Dr. Prochazka and his formulations and his prescribed regimen of exercise, fresh air, healthful food, and the mineral waters. Truly, it is as if a miracle had…”