Iron Ties

by Ann Parker

  Cheered by the thought of having Sands to herself and a pleasant ride the next day, Inez pushed on the door of the Silver Queen Saloon and entered.

  She blinked to adjust from the bright outdoors to the subdued interior. A strange tableau greeted her: Abe and Sol, behind the bar, looking gloomy. Bridgette on the other side, arms crossed tightly over her ample bosom, a wicked meat cleaver gripped in one hand. All eyes were pinned on an enormous misshapen mound on the bar.

  Inez heard Bridgette say ominously, “Heavens above and the devil below, Mr. Isaacs. Not in my kitchen you don’t—”

  “But we can’t put it above the bar,” Sol objected. “If it fell down, we’d be brained for sure. Besides, Mr. Jackson says—”

  Conversation ceased as the floorboards creaked beneath Inez’s boots. The group turned toward Inez.

  “What’s this?” She tugged off her cloak.

  Abe tipped his head at the mysterious object. “Chet.” Anger simmered in the terse word.

  Inez raised her eyebrows.

  “Chet brung it by, half hour ago.” Abe looked pointedly at Sol. “I wasn’t here yet. If I’d been, I’d’ve thrown him and that damn—” He glanced at Bridgette. “Pardon.” Then he focused back on Inez. “Let’s just say he’d be lyin’ in the street, and the crows’d be breakfastin’ on his innards. There wouldn’t’ve been any speechifyin’ or,” he pointed with his chin at the lump on the bar, “this.”

  “Chet was waiting when I unlocked the door this morning,” Sol said. “He apologized for his conduct with Mrs. Jackson the other day. Said this was for Mr. and Mrs. Jackson. A late wedding present. A way of saying, uh, sorry.”

  And a sorry-looking thing it was. Inez finally identified the object as an enormous, somewhat moth-eaten buffalo head, mounted on a polished wood slab. Curved horns glinted wickedly. Dust—whether picked up from the journey to the saloon or from sitting in some corner, long ignored—powdered the fur.

  “He sounded sincere.” Sol hunched his shoulders as if afraid of being further berated.

  Inez sighed and rubbed her forehead. An ache was forming behind her eyebrows.

  Bridgette cleared her throat. “We were just discussing, ma’am, what to do with this—” she pointed the cleaver at the buffalo, as if Inez might not grasp the topic of conversation— “hideous thing. Mr. Jackson said toss it in the alleyway with the trash. Mr. Isaacs said no, hang it in the kitchen. I said it would be a sorry day when I’d allow that in my kitchen. I told Mr. Jackson to take it home.”

  “I’m inclined to throw it out,” said Abe. “Can’t say the missus’d welcome it.”

  Picturing Abe’s small and tidy cabin, Inez said, “Of course she wouldn’t. My God, it’s ugly.” A fly crawled over the buffalo’s snout and disappeared up one nostril. Inez wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Where on earth did he get this? It’s not as if buffalo roam nearby.”

  “Lookin’ at it reminds me of what he said to my wife,” grumbled Abe. “I didn’t take kindly to his words or actions. Man’s a fool, if’n he thinks I’m gonna forget about it.”

  Inez gingerly touched the tip of one of the horns. She was gratified to find it wasn’t quite as sharp as it looked. “I understand, Abe, but perhaps we should hang on to it for a while. After all, Chet didn’t know you and Angel were married. It was an honest mistake, given her previous profession.”

  Abe’s frown deepened.

  She ratcheted up the persuasiveness. “It’s summer. He won’t be here long. He’ll take off soon, go back to wherever he’s prospecting nowadays. But while he’s in town, he’s bound to be hanging around, and he is certainly free with his money when he’s flush. It can’t hurt to display his…gift…while he’s here. We’ll hang it someplace obvious, but away from the bar and more in the shadows, so we don’t have to look at it all the time.” Inez surveyed the room. The walls were already filled with sporting prints and punctuated by wall sconces. Her gaze traveled upward. Not over the piano. God forbid, not on the wall leading upstairs.

  “There!” She pointed.

  Sol swiveled to look. “Above the door to State Street?”

  “Consider. They come in sober from Harrison, leave drunk by State. Maybe they’ll look up and reconsider, stay for another drink. In other words, we’ll buffalo them into spending a little more money here before they move along.” She smiled, then sobered. “We could certainly use every short bit and shinplaster that comes our way. And, it’s the only open area not on the ceiling or floor.”

  She turned back to catch Abe’s gaze on her, skeptical.

  “Just don’t look at it, Abe. We’ll take it down as soon as he leaves town.” She turned to Sol. “Hammer and nails are in the back. When you get it up there, be sure it’s secure.” She started toward the kitchen, Sol trailing behind.

  “Inez.”

  She turned at Abe’s voice. He came out from behind the bar, heading her way. Something about the way he rolled down his sleeves and straightened his gray waistcoat warned her that he had other business on his mind. Like he’s preparing for battle.

  Bridgette remained where she was, arms crossed, staring at the mounted head as if to make sure the buffalo didn’t magically migrate into her kitchen. The cleaver bobbed slightly; the blade glinted.

  Abe caught up with her and Sol. “First off, Angel’s not goin’ t’ be workin’ here anymore.”

  Inez nodded. “That’s good. She’s too close to her time. It isn’t proper that she be here in her condition. It’s not good for her or for business. Especially with Chet in town. He may’ve apologized, but I don’t trust him to remember that she doesn’t work anymore as a—” Inez saw Abe’s expression and amended her statement. “That she’s a married woman now.”

  “It wasn’t easy convincin’ her. She wanted to work until the baby comes.”

  A vision of Angel giving birth on the kitchen table flashed through her mind. Inez winced. “I’m glad you changed her mind. Home is the proper place for a woman in confinement.”

  He crossed his arms. “Don’t know how much changin’ she did. But anyways, speakin’ of bits and shinplasters and such, Taps and I worked somethin’ out that’s a sure thing for bringin’ in more revenue.”

  “Ah?” Inez experienced a tiny twinge of displeasure at having been excluded from a business decision. “What might that be?”

  “New act at the Opera House, they’re wantin’ to drum up business around town. Taps talked with them, then me. I told him we’d be interested.” Abe opened the passdoor and held it for Inez and Sol.

  “Actors?” Inez felt her displeasure twist sharper and deeper. “You know my thoughts on those in the acting profession.”

  She entered the kitchen, and heat slapped her face like an open hand. A stew was in the making on the huge cast-iron stove. Liquid roiled in an enormous pot while a large but empty fry pan radiated heat on the rangetop. Sweat formed instantly, pricking her forehead and her neck.

  A haunch of pork rested on the trestle table, half carved. Raw chunks and glistening fat were neatly piled to the side. A small cloud of flies rose from the meat, buzzing, then settled again.

  Inez took three steps to the table and waved her hand. The flies dispersed briefly. “My God, it’s hot in here!” She moved to the back door and threw it open.

  Sol and Abe reappeared from the storage room. Sol, carrying a hammer and a box of nails, said, “We’re taking on the new act from Tabor’s Opera House? I’ve seen them. They’re good. Had the miners from the Adelaide crying in their beers over Hamlet.” He looked from Abe to Inez, then added hastily, “I’ll go see to the buffalo.”

  As soon as the kitchen door swung shut behind him, Abe leaned against the frame, effectively blocking Inez from retreating to the barroom. “They were going to talk to Pap Wyman about appearin’ here. Taps said they should talk to us first.”

  She raised her eyebrows at the mention of their main competitor, then shook her head. “I’ll not have any of the act
ing trade performing their tricks here.”

  “This is a bar, not a drawin’ room. Tricks are what we need to bring in business. They’re comin’ round tomorrow. ’Bout four o’clock. We’ll talk and strike a deal.”

  Inez gazed out into the alley and fanned herself with a hand, wishing for a breeze. The sun shone overhead, banishing shadows from the momentarily deserted passageway. The alley’s dirt-packed path, a quagmire of mud when it rained or snowed, was hardened into ridges and ruts that could turn an ankle or, in the dark of night, send the inebriated or unwary plunging forward facedown. Broken wooden boxes, some filled with debris, lined the back of the Silver Queen. Garbage piled along the backsides of the other buildings on the block and floated out into the alley. Inez thought she spotted a swollen dog carcass, legs extended stiffly, behind the dance hall two doors down.

  Dance halls. Actresses.

  Her hand balled into a fist against the doorframe. She said bitterly, almost to herself, “Nothing but trouble.” Unwanted, a vision arose of Mark, flush with winning at the Lone Star’s faro table. A blonde woman swinging herself onto his lap, stockinged legs flashing under a knee-length skirt, arm curled around his neck. The orchestra on the stage playing a fast version of “Little Brown Jug.”

  “Inez.” Abe’s voice cut into her thoughts. “We’ve got expenses to cover. Bridgette. Sol. Now Taps. I don’t want to start buyin’ liquor on credit. And if you want to finish that fancy gamin’ room of yours upstairs, we gotta think about what’s gonna draw in the moneyed crowd this summer.”

  She looked from the alley to Abe. His arms were crossed, his face tight.

  “I’m just sayin’ let’s try them out, see how it goes. I listen to your ideas, like that buffalo, right? We’re partners, half ’n’ half.”

  “Thirds.” She walked away from the door and faced him across the table. “It’s a partnership of thirds. Mark, me, and you. As Mark’s wife—” She stopped at Abe’s expression.

  He spoke slowly. Deliberately. As if he wanted to be sure she heard every word he said. “I’m gonna let you reconsider playin’ that hand. If Mark were here, he’d see the sense of it. If you were thinkin’ straight—”

  The passdoor flew open, and Bridgette burst into the kitchen.

  Abe threw up an arm to keep from getting smacked in the face by the solid wood panel. Staccato hammering echoed from the barroom beyond.

  Bridgette looked startled to find the kitchen occupied. Her gaze flitted over Abe and Inez, then zeroed in on the back door. “My lands! Who opened the door? It lets in all the flies!” She bustled to the back door and slammed it shut.

  The temperature in the room ratcheted up a degree.

  “Sol found a good Samaritan to give him a hand, seeing as there was no other help to be found.” She approached the pork and snapped a wave through the air. The flies scattered. “Now, Mrs. Stannert and Mr. Jackson, if we had one of those new doors, with those screens I keep hearing about, why we could get a nice bit of air in here and keep out the vermin.” She volleyed a look at the pair of them. “What are you two talking about that has you glowering like a pair of thunderclouds?”

  Abe smoothed his mustache. Inez saw his shoulders ease down a bit, the tension flow out of his stance. “The act at the Opera House. We’re considerin’ havin’ them here to drum up business.”

  “Michael, my eldest boy, says they’re very good.” Bridgette addressed herself and the cleaver to the pork. “He went to the opera just last Friday after he got off from his job at the smelter, that’s a good-paying job, it is. He couldn’t stop talking about them, the Mr. and Mrs. Fairplay. If they came here, we’d get quite a crowd.” She stopped chopping and looked up brightly. “Maybe Michael could help, if it doesn’t interfere with his job. He’d jump at the chance. I believe he has a bit of a case on the missus, the way he keeps talking about her.”

  Inez threw up her hands. “Very well. We’ll talk with them tomorrow.” She brushed past Abe and said, “Sorry, Abe. It hasn’t been a good morning so far.”

  He followed her out into the barroom. “You talk with Ayres?”

  “I did. He says they cleared the tracks and found no bodies. Ayres thinks Susan was imbibing and not thinking right after that knock in the head. If that particular fabrication makes its way around town….” She shook her head, thinking of the shambles it would make of Susan’s reputation, and by extension, her business.

  “Hell of a thing.” Abe stared at the State Street entrance. Sol’s helper had crowded up onto the ladder and now struggled to hold the mounted trophy on the level while Sol pounded nails into the wood frame.

  Abe looked back at Inez, bleak. “Here’s the deal. Long as that damn thing of Chet’s is hanging up there, you’re gonna give those actors a fair shake. If we can strike a reasonable deal, we’ll do it. And if the lady actors get happy while quotin’ Shakespeare and decide to show an ankle or throw a wink or two to the customers, you’re gonna just smile and pour the beer.”

  Inez blinked, taken aback by his intensity. “Abe—”

  “I’m not gonna see our business go bust, just because you can’t put the past where it belongs.” He moved off to steady the ladder for the two men.

  Struggling to contain her ire, Inez went behind the bar for her apron. As she tied the strings behind her, she glared at the mounted head. It was, she thought, starting to look more and more like Chet himself. Unkempt, moth-eaten around the ears, glazed eyes, yet, despite its patent silliness, dangerous. Damn your hide, Chet. You’d better make yourself worth the trouble by bringing all your paying buddies next time you show up and drinking like there’s no tomorrow.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “So, what are we looking for?” asked Sands. He stood next to Inez at the top of the ridge, gazing out at the view. The Collegiate Peaks marched south, while the Sawatch Range faced them across the river and the valley beyond.

  Inez kicked at the dirt, part experiment, part frustration. All she got for her efforts was a puff of dust and another scuff on her worn riding boots. “I’m not certain. I thought perhaps the marshal and the railroad men didn’t look up here. Susan insists shots came from above her. This is as above as it gets.”

  “Unless you want to climb this.” Reverend Sands leaned against a jagged finger of rock, nearly twenty feet tall, standing sentinel at the ridgeline.

  Inez shook her head, then put a gloved hand on the outcropping, curling her fingers around one of its many stone protuberances and ledges. “No need to hazard life and limb. Whoever was up here would’ve had a good view of everything going on below, right from this point.”

  Inez peered down to the ledge, nearly sixty feet below. She could clearly see the rubble that had pounded the hovel and Susan’s camera to smithereens the previous week. Looking over toward the train trestle and the gulch, she noted that the shoulder of the gulch, where Susan had tied her horse and burro, was hidden from view.

  “He could have watched the tracks, seen the whole episode unfold,” she said aloud. “He might not have known Susan was around. You can’t see the spot where she left her animals from here. And you certainly wouldn’t see it from the back trail to the ridgeline. So Susan would not have been visible until she ran from the shed.” Inez thought a moment, then added, “No, probably not even then. With rocks and dust flying everywhere, I’m sure he didn’t linger.”

  Sands leaned forward, examining the debris. “A convenient landslide.”

  “I thought the same thing. Perhaps we should look around the tracks. I don’t believe those dead men got up and walked away. Particularly from under a ton of rock.” She paused. “The gunman might have stood right here.”

  She looked at the ground, willing it to give up some secret, a clue. The dust, stones, and pebbles remained mute. She scuffed the earth again, none too gently. For the first time, a small worm of doubt wiggled its way into her thoughts. Susan did have quite a dreadful blow to her head. Could she have possibly imagined it? The
crack of rockfall transformed into gunfire? A discussion between two men, changed into a deadly argument?

  The reverend’s arms snaked around her waist pulling her back against him. Her wide-brimmed hat tipped forward over her face.

  “What are you thinking?” His voice sounded close to her ear.

  She tugged her hat off and crossed her arms over his. “I’m just trying to see what Susan heard. If that makes sense. It’s tempting to think that perhaps the marshal might be partly right. That she remembers some garbled version of what happened. But that doesn’t play.”

  She shook her head, frustrated. “There were two horses. One ridden by a railroad man. The other, if Hollis is to be believed, was ridden by his business partner, Elijah Carter. So, if Carter and the railroad man weren’t killed, where are they? Why leave the horses? And why isn’t anyone looking for them?”

  “But when the rockslide was cleared, they found no remains.”

  “And only Susan, you, and I believe that two men died,” added Inez. Suddenly, she stiffened. Remembering. “There’s one other. Hollis. He asked why I was so interested in Elijah’s ‘final hours.’ Now, why would he have said that unless he believed Elijah dead? And if that’s the case, how did he know?”

  She broke away and turned to Sands. A frown of concern, mirroring her own, marked his countenance.

  “Oh pshaw.” Inez felt irritated, unbalanced. “This just doesn’t make sense!”

  The wind picked up, loosening the pins in her hair, whipping stray strands into her face. She pulled the hairpins all out and laid them on a stone ledge, nearly at eye level. “I know. I sound ridiculous. What am I thinking…that Hollis had some hand in killing his business partner? They fought in the war together. At least, that’s what Hollis claims.” She scrunched her hair into an untidy knot and attacked it vigorously with the pins. “I must have said something to him earlier. When I brought back the horse. He is so unpleasant that I just try to wipe my conversations with him from my mind.”

  Her fingers sought the last pin. It evaded her grasp and fell behind the ledge. “Pah!” Inez stripped off her glove and groped in the crack at the back of the ledge. It was just barely wide enough for her slender fingers. She felt the blunt points of the pin.