by Jane Toombs
“Put him down, put him down,” Braithewaite ordered. “Over there out of the sun.”
They laid English Bob in the shade of a cabin across from the hotel. The men, hushed, crowded around. Selena stood on tiptoe trying to see over their shoulders.
“What happened to him?” Braithewaite asked as he knelt beside the wounded man.
They all spoke at once.
“Knifed.”
“Up to McCowan’s Hill.”
“The new man. The one with two slaves.”
“At his place.”
“The Mex girl did it,” Pike said. “English Bob told me. She stabbed him.”
Braithewaite stood up. “He’s hurt bad,” he said. “All I can do is bandage him up and pray. And give him morphine for the pain.”
“Will he make it?”
Braithewaite raised his palms. “It’s in God’s hands,” he said.
A murmur ran through the crowd.
“The Mex gal,” Pike said. “She’s the one what did it.”
“Let’s get her. Bring her back. Hold court.” “All legal-like. We’ll try her and hang her.”
“A woman? We can’t hang a woman.”
“We’ll give her a trial. That’s what the trials for, to see if we hang her or send her back where she come from.”
“Damn greasers. Stealing our gold.”
“Them and their knives. Guns ain’t good enough for them.”
“A rope’s good enough. As long as they’re dangling at the end of it.”
“Don’t be hasty,” Braithewaite said. “You don’t rightly know what happened.”
“He’s right,” Selena said. “It could have been his fault.”
“She knifed him. English Bob said so.”
“She must have had a reason,” Braithewaite said. “Bob might have tried to force her.”
“English Bob’s not that kind. A regular gent he is.”
“She’s a Mexican. You know what they’re like, doc, enticing men into their tents to rob them.”
“Then knifing them.”
“No!” Selena cried out. “She wouldn’t. I know her. She wouldn’t. Not without a reason.”
“She robbed him and killed him.”
“Why are we standing here talking?” Pike asked.
“Let’s go!”
The men, shouting and cursing, surged up the street. Selena ran behind them, clutching at their sleeves, pleading with them.
They shook her off, refusing to look at her. They cheered and pointed upward as they passed under the oak that had given the town its name, the oak where three men were hanged for robbing a storekeeper.
The mob bore right at the fork, silent now, intent, grim, determined. More men joined them, the mob growing. Selena gasped for breath as she tried to keep up. They halted at the foot of the hill, looking up the steep slope dotted with stumps and slashed by gullies left by the winter’s rains.
At the top of the hill Selena saw two tents in front of a stand of pines. When she saw that the tents seemed deserted, she sighed with relief. They had fled, she told herself. Esperanza was safe.
The men, thirty or more by now, began climbing the hill. Selena followed. When they neared the top, three men appeared at the crest—Sutton flanked by his two blacks, Joshua and Jed. The men lower on the hill hesitated, then came on, scrabbling upward. Sutton watched until they were no more than twenty feet from him, then raised his hand.
“No farther,” he shouted.
“We don’t want you,” Pike called to him. “We want the girl. The Mex girl.”
“You shan’t have her.”
Pike turned to the mob. “Are we gonna let him and his two niggers stop us?” he asked.
“No!” they shouted.
“Then let’s go get ‘em!”
“Listen to me,” Sutton called. “Let me tell you what happened.” His voice was drowned out as the men surged up the hill.
The young black, the one called Jed, seized the first man to reach the top, raised him over his head, holding him there for a moment, then hurled him at the others. Three men went down but the others scrambled past, sweeping Sutton and the older slave before them. They surrounded the young black, ten or more circling him warily. Jed waited, ready, the men still circling, afraid to close on him.
As Sutton lay struggling on the ground, Selena tried to force her way to him. An arm seized her from behind, thrusting her away, and she fell. She pushed herself up and ran forward, screaming at them to stop. Men swarmed into the first tent, smashing the canvas to the ground and scattering Sutton’s provisions. Selena didn’t see Esperanza. Had she escaped after all?
With Pike in the lead, the men ran to the second tent. Pike threw aside the flap and suddenly stopped. After a moment, he turned away. The others crowded past him, looked into the tent and then they, too, turned away. Selena pushed by them and drew back the flap.
Esperanza lay on her side on the ground inside the tent. At first Selena thought she was asleep, hoped she was asleep, but knew she wasn’t. Esperanza’s hands were still on the knife and Selena saw blood pooling on the ground from the wound in her stomach. Crying out wordlessly, Selena knelt beside her, cradling Esperanza’s head in her arms. The girl’s lifeless eyes stared past her.
Chapter Thirteen
“Is she dead?” Sutton asked. He knelt beside Selena who still held Esperanza in her arms.
“Yes.” Selena felt numb. Stunned.
“I’ll have Jed and Joshua dig a grave.”
“Is there a priest? A Catholic priest?”
“I’m sure there isn’t.” King Sutton put his hand on Selena’s shoulder, then got up and went out of the tent.
Selena laid Esperanza on the ground and made the sign of the cross over her before covering her with the black shawl. When she left the tent she saw Sutton some distance away leading the two blacks, both with shovels on their shoulders, toward a knoll. The other tent was a shambles and the men from town were nowhere to be seen.
Selena turned away and walked into the pines. Without purpose, without direction, she stumbled ahead beneath the giant trees, the pine needles slick under her feet, the forest around her dim in the hush of late afternoon. She heard the faint gurgle of water, made her way toward the sound and after a short time came to the top of a steep bank. Looking down, she saw a glen through the trees where water spilled over a series of falls to form a pool directly below her. Beside the pool dirt and sand had been piled, the tailings where miners had once panned for gold.
She climbed down the bank along a zig-zagging track to the stream. She knelt on a flat boulder to splash water onto her face, the chill shocking her back to awareness. Still kneeling, she scooped water into her palms. As she drank, she became aware of the reflection in the pool of the boulders on the opposite bank, the spires of the pines, and the white clouds drifting serenely across the azure sky.
Esperanza was dead. A sob wrenched Selena and she cried, the reality of the young girl’s death overwhelming her. Never again would Esperanza gaze into still waters, never again walk beneath the vault of the sky. Selena lowered her head into her hands.
When at last she quieted and looked up, she shivered. The sun was now behind the hills; the glen lay in deepening shadows. A movement in the water caught her eye. Glancing down, she saw the reflection of her own face and, next to hers, a second face. She gasped and spun around. King Sutton stood behind her.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, taking a step back.
She stood up and flew at him, pounding his chest with her fists. He raised his hands to defend himself, finally grasping her by the wrists to hold her away.
“Damn you,” she cried. “Why didn’t you help her? Why didn’t you take her away?”
He released one of her hands and she swung, striking his shoulder. Reaching out, he slapped her face hard, sending her head jerking to one side. For a moment she stared at him, her eyes wide, and then she covered her face with her hands.
“We�
��d just returned from scouting the diggings,” he said. “The three of us, Jed and Joshua and myself. I heard the girl moaning so I looked into her tent to see what was wrong. She said a man she didn’t know had attacked her and she fought him, hurt him with a knife, and she was afraid. It was the first time the poor child ever spoke to me. By that time I could hear the mob coming up the hill.
“I told her to run and hide in the woods, we’d delay them, and I left her there and we made our stand at the top of the hill. You saw what happened.”
“Why didn’t you shoot them? You have guns. I saw them when you rode into town.”
“Because there were thirty of them and only three of us. I don’t mind long odds but I’m no fool. They had guns too. If I started shooting there’d be four dead now, maybe more, instead of only one.”
Selena rubbed her stinging cheek. “It’s not your fault,” she said. She was terribly tired. “I know you did what you could.”
“I tried.”
“It’s not your fault,” she said again. “It’s mine. I killed Esperanza.”
“You? You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I thought I was in love with Diego. Diego’s her brother. I was going to marry him. He might have kept the ranch. Esperanza might still be there living with us. She’d be married by now with a baby on the way. I killed her.”
“Selena, you’re talking nonsense. I don’t know what happened between you and this Diego or between you and Esperanza, but I know you didn’t kill.” He spoke slowly, as to a child. “You are not responsible for her death. They killed her, those madmen. They didn’t listen to me, didn’t want to listen.”
“If I hadn’t. . .” Selena began.
King took her by the shoulders and shook her. “Stop it. With that reasoning we could blame ourselves for all the troubles of the world. Listen to me. Last year I was deer hunting. I stopped to talk to Tuttle, a friend of mine, and five minutes later he was dead, struck down by a stray bullet. If I hadn’t talked to him, would he be alive today? Did I kill him? Answer me, did I?”
Selena shook her head.
“Of course I didn’t. We have to do the best we can. What happens, happens.”
She sighed, shivering.
“You’re cold,” he said, putting his arms around her, holding her to him.
Selena pushed him away and walked to the water’s edge, where she looked down into the pool. When she heard King Sutton behind her, sensed him inches away, she looked for his reflection in the water. Not seeing it, she turned. He seemed to loom over her. Backing away, she almost fell into the water. He reached down and lifted her into his arms.
She felt the beating of her heart, the quickening of her breath. “What are you doing?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer. He carried up the long zee of the path, holding her close against his body, his warmth strangely comforting to her. When they came to the top of the hill he carried her through the pines, the sun slanting between the trees. He laid her on the sunlit grass in a glade and knelt alongside her.
“Esperanza is dead,” she said softly.
“Esperanza’s dead, yet we’re alive.” He brushed a lock of golden hair from her forehead. “We’re alive. Say it, Selena.”
“We’re alive.”
“Again. Louder. Say it again.”
“We’re alive.”
“Again. Louder.”
“We’re alive,” she screamed.
“Yes, yes.” He pulled her to him, kissing her. Selena raked his face with her nails.
“I’ve hurt you,” she said. Blood-red slashes streaked his cheek.
He shook his head.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” She held his head in her hands. “I never want to hurt you. I never want to hurt anyone.”
With one hand he stroked the back of her head and with the other he held her breast, kissing her lips. Selena moaned, lying back on the grass, King following with his lips to hers. She responded, kissing him, her body writhing against him.
“Oh!”
She cried out, holding him from her with her hand as a trembling grew in her, a mounting warmth, a strange awakening quivering, which shattered her and passed on, leaving her limp in his arms.
“King.” She said his name for the first time.
His hands were on her calves, stroking her legs beneath her dress, caressing the softness of her thighs. Hard hands, a man’s hands. She shifted away from him yet his hands followed, insistent, and again she felt the warmth rising within her. She clung to him, eyes closed, trembling against the maleness of his body.
She felt his hands desert her, heard him fumble with his clothes. She waited for him, wanting him, wanting to be held and caressed by those hands.
“Selena?” he asked.
“Yes, King. Yes, yes, yes.”
The shock of him against her, in her, made her open her eyes. He kissed her eyelids, crooning to her, his words without meaning. And then he was saying her name over and over, “Selena, Selena, Selena,” and the warmth mounted in her, became a storm, shaking her. She grasped his hair, pulling it, screaming at him to stop while her body urged him on as she rose and fell beneath him. He seemed to burst within her and she cried out and fell back.
He left her. Drew away to lay on his back beside her.
Selena opened her eyes, glancing across at him. His eyes were closed and he was smiling. On his right hand a fire opal gleamed redly.
“King,” she said. She felt empty. Incomplete. “King, why did you stop?”
He opened his eyes. Selena turned onto her side, clutching his shirt front in her hand, shaking him. “King,” she said, “answer me.”
“Selena,” he said. “I can’t again.”
She raised her hand, pounded at his chest, clawed at his face. He grasped her fist in his hand pressed her arm back until she was pinned to the ground. She squirmed, trying to free herself.
“King!” she cried.
He tore at her bodice, ripping the cloth asunder, exposing her breasts. She drew his head to her, to her breasts, felt his tongue on her nipple. Again the flame grew in her and she moaned, her fingers clutching his hair as her body shook uncontrollably beneath him.
When Pamela arrived at the Empire at ten o’clock that night she was surprised to find the gambling saloon dark. Upstairs she saw the glow of lights through the red calico curtains of three rooms—Rhynne’s and two others.
She yawned. She hadn’t been able to stop yawning all day. Even though she had slept for ten hours the night before, her sleep had been restless and troubled and she’d awakened unrefreshed. She knew the reason. She had been without laudanum for two days.
Yet she would never give herself to Rhynne.
Then why was she here? she asked herself. Why was she skulking in the darkness across from the Empire? Was she afraid of Rhynne? No, it wasn’t fear--the thought of Rhynne filled her- with distaste, a repugnance even more distressful than the agonies brought on by the lack of laudanum. Yes, laudanum. She no longer referred to the opiate as medicine. It was laudanum.
I’ll confront Rhynne, she decided. I’ll demand he help me. He’s not a cruel man. Devious, not cruel. I’ll offer him money, give him a greater percentage of the profits from the Empire. She sensed that Rhynne didn’t desire her as other men had in the past. Rather, she thought, he was taken with the idea of possessing her as he might desire a painting or a piece of sculpture.
She looked carefully up and down the road. Did she actually expect Diego to come riding into Hangtown bent on vengeance? Ever since she heard that Esperanza was dead she had wondered what Diego would do when he found out.
Seeing no one about, Pamela crossed the street and climbed the steps to the Empire, walking rapidly. If she didn’t go quickly she knew she wouldn’t go at all. No one was in the hotel lobby so she climbed the stairs. Rhynne’s door, the first on the right, stood slightly open and, tapping once, she stepped inside.
Rhynne, who had been writing at his desk, stood and
nodded to her. She sat primly on the edge of the only other chair.
“You’re dressed in mourning,” Rhynne said. “I haven’t seen you wearing black since we left San Francisco.”
Pamela said nothing, her eyes avoiding his yet still noting his red vest, the gold watch chain looped from vest to pocket, the fawn-colored trousers, the leather high-topped shoes.
Rynne tapped his fingers on the desk like a schoolboy. making her realize he was ill at ease, Which reminded her of Danny O’Lee and she blushed. Luckily, Rynne didn’t appear to notice.
“I closed the Empire as soon as I heard about the young Mexican girl,” he told her.
Rynne, she thought, will I ever untangle your contradictions? She nodded, saying nothing.
“Is Selena all right?” he asked.
“She’s staying the night with Clara Colton. It must have been terrible for Selena, knowing Esperanza as she did. She’d gone to Sutton’s camp, where those men were, and she saw the girl just after she’d killed herself. Then she wandered off into the brush. When she finally came home her clothes were all dirty and torn.
“When you’re older, as we are, Pamela, you become hardened to tragedy. More’s the pity.”
“By the time I talked to her Selena seemed to have accepted Esperanza’s death.”
“Esperanza. Doesn’t it mean hope in English? Yes, I’m sure it does.”
“Selena was in such a strange mood, sobbing and laughing, pacing about the cabin. She didn’t want to talk to me about Esperanza.”
“English Bob, by the way, is better. Unless infections sets in, he’ll live. He’s not talking either. The waste. The terrible waste.”
“W.W.,” she said, “I’ve come for my laudanum.”
He nodded. Kneeling, he pulled a black traveling bag from underneath his bed. The cot was gone, Pamela saw; this was a brass bed. Rhynne unsnapped the bag and removed a small medicine bottle, slipping it into his pocket as he stood up.
“I’ll pay you for the laudanum,” Pamela told him. “I’ll pay you well.” She drew a deep breath. “In gold and nothing else.”
“So young Danny O’Lee is to have your favors and I’m not?”