Clash of Mountains

by Chloe Garner

  “Rhoda has several men in mind,” Jimmy said. “She’s going to write a letter. She’s also going to interview the men who have applied to work for us.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Thought she’d be useful.”

  “You could have come in with us,” he said, not looking over. It wasn’t a request; he hadn’t needed her. He was giving her permission.

  “Kayla ain’t useless,” Sarah said. “There were a fight at Willie and Paulie’s two nights ago, what killed two men. They’re waitin’ on me to come back to deal with the men what done it.”

  “I thought anything that happened in the bar was Willie and Paulie’s problem,” Jimmy said.

  “They got a knack for throwin’ everythin’ out into the street ‘fore anyone actually dies,” Sarah answered. He pursed his lips, taking a draw on the cigarette and offering it to her.

  “So you’ll do that tomorrow,” he said.

  “No point waitin’,” she said.

  “I’ll have the architect draw up designs for a bunk house, here, for men to keep the houses safe and sentry houses up in the woods.”

  “You got an architect?” Sarah asked.

  “He just showed up with the rest of them,” Jimmy said. “Where did you think the house designs for the investors came from?”

  “With the boxes of git to build ‘em,” Sarah said. He smiled.

  “He’s very happy, being able to design anything he wants to. A lot of it might be small, but the cities are controlled by guilds, and he isn’t the type to play well with a guild.”

  Sarah looked over, seein’ the way his eye pulled. Jimmy weren’t the type to play well with a guild, either. Obviously.

  “Houses for the men to come up to, durin’ floods,” Sarah said. “Don’t gotta be much. No power. Runnin’ water and facilities. Beds could be built in, make sure they don’t walk off. Place with solid walls and a roof. We’ll deal with food when we get to it.”

  “I’ll add it to his list,” Jimmy said. “You expecting to get it done before the next flood?”

  Sarah looked out over the plain in her mind’s eye.

  “No,” she said. “But we need a plan for it. Could be any day.”

  “Shouldn’t be for weeks,” Jimmy said.

  “Sandstorms are big this year,” Sarah said. “Weather is off. Gotta expect it, else it’s gonna kill us.”

  Jimmy nodded.

  “We’ll plan on getting walls up before we finish the Lawson houses. Worst comes to worst, they can all move in here, while everything else is underwater. We’ll have to find a way to move everyone. Truck would be very convenient…”

  “No more convenient than a buckboard, and it ain’t gonna rust out and fail on you when it gets wet.”

  Jimmy smiled again, still not looking over at her.

  “Maxim is coming,” he said. “I got a letter from him while we were gone. He’ll be here tomorrow.”

  She shook her head.

  “Takes as long to send notice you’re comin’ as it does to get here,” she said. Jimmy frowned.

  “Yes. It does. And it’ll be several weeks before we hear anything back from Elsewhere.”

  She sighed.

  “Train may be runnin’, but it’s still Lawrence.”

  He nodded, finally lookin’ over at her.

  “And then we’ll take on Pythagoras,” he said. She nodded.

  “Make sure we’re on solid ground here,” she said. “Ain’t gonna make a silly mistake, in the meantime, and give him an advantage while we’re workin’.”

  His eyes glowed and he nodded slowly.

  “There are a lot of people out there who know what I’m capable of,” he said. “But none of them have seen me work with you next to me. They’ve got a reevaluation to do.”

  “Only one what matters to me, right now,” Sarah said. Jimmy nodded, something under his eye tightening.

  “Exactly my point.”

  --------

  Drunk men killing drunk men didn’t rise to the level of murder, in Lawrence, but she set the two of ‘em out, tied to hitchin’ posts, and laid ‘em open with her bullwhip for everyone to watch. Sent ‘em to Doc at the end, turnin’ to find Sid watchin’ from the opposite walkway with narrowed eyes and pale skin. Lawrence were too rough a place for a kid like that, all ideas and hope. Sarah put away her bullwhip and went to see Granger.

  He took off his glasses and wiped them on his apron as she approached, puttin’ ‘em back on and squintin’ at her.

  “You get stuck up in the mountains?” he asked.

  “In the sandstorm,” she confirmed. “Everyone hold their peace, down here?”

  “They done all right,” Granger said, wiping his forehead with a cloth, then shovin’ the cloth back down in his pocket. “Came in here, lookin’ for shelter, but mostly behaved themselves well enough.”

  “You hear from the homesteaders?” Sarah asked. “How’d they hold up?”

  He nodded, rubbin’ one palm with the other thumb.

  “They done okay. Still gettin’ things put back together from last year, you know. Got holes still need filled.”

  Sarah sighed.

  She’d pushed as hard as she knew how, hired men to do the work, taken every day of heavy machinery Jimmy had seen fit to give her, and while all the buildings they’d lost in the flood last year were up again, the damage weren’t entirely done up, and the homesteaders were doin’ their best, but weren’t enough men nor enough lumber to go around.

  “What’re you doin’ with your prices, these days?” Sarah asked Granger, tippin’ her head up to look at him.

  He twisted his mouth to the side.

  “You can see ‘em,” he said. “I’m gettin’ a lot more orders, got a lot more stuff goin’ through here than I can remember, even goin’ back to Elaine and Peter’s day. Chargin’ more, cause I’ll get paid more, and I ain’t gonna hide it from you.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “I assume you’re giving… the locals… a family discount?” she asked. He gave her a twinkle of a half-smile.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Wouldn’t do them like that.”

  He was squeezing Jimmy, and he didn’t even know the terms of the contract that said that all commerce had to go through his shop. He was just shrewd, knew the value of bein’ the guy what had the stuff, when someone needed it bad. Also knew the value of havin’ guys ‘round who thought you and they was on the same team. Sarah nodded.

  “You decide you want to pick up another shop, maybe sell somethin’ don’t fit right with the rest of your stuff here, you let me know,” Sarah said. He dipped his head.

  “I reckon, with the amount of money comin’ in, these days, there’s gonna be some fellas who might like to buy some clothes that don’t look like everyone else’s,” he said. “I ain’t got the space for it, here, but I could store it upstairs and out back, with the rest of it, if I could get some more space for puttin’ it out to show.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “You ain’t fixin’ to compete with Kayla Lawson, I’d guess,” she said, and he shook his head quickly.

  “Nothin’ fancy like what she does,” he said. “Maybe some dresses, you know, but nothin’ one of the homestead ladies wouldn’t wear out to the barn.”

  Sarah nodded again.

  “I’ll talk to Jimmy.”

  Granger narrowed his eyes.

  “I don’t reckon you need to,” he said, going to lean against the wall behind the register, and Sarah slid over her hip, crossin’ her arms over her chest, and she raised an eyebrow. Granger shrugged. “Just sayin,” he said. “Ain’t never been a landlord, here, and I know Jimmy’s frontin’ the money to build up, but…” He shrugged again. “If I wanted to put up a store and put some things in it for sale, so long as I’m puttin’ it up and doin’ the rest of that, is that somethin’ Jimmy Lawson needs to say yes or no to?”

  “Anybody else, I’d tell ‘em they ain’t spent enough time contemplating Jimmy,” she said, the
n nodded. “You do it, but what happens next is between you and Jimmy.”

  He took out his cloth, rubbin’ his hands on it and then his forehead again, then tucked it under his arm. Sarah gave him a little nod, lookin’ round the store.

  “I got a list,” she said.

  “Happy to deliver it to you, if you just want to leave it,” Granger said. She nodded, goin’ to the register and motioning for a pen. He got out a pencil and a piece of paper and she wrote out the things she’d found she needed, up in the mountains, and a number of other things she were runnin’ low on or wanted for new work. She took a pair of bills out of her pocket, puttin’ ‘em down on top of the list.

  “Change for the boy you get to deliver it,” she said, and Granger nodded.

  “I ain’t gonna tell you everything going on has been welcome,” he said. “But it’s a far sight better than it was before.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “I’ll talk to you later, Granger,” she said, going back out to the boardwalk and lookin’ to the end of the street where the young men had set up their camps with whatever scraps of material they could find. Didn’t matter how many of ‘em they hired up into the mountains, the camp grew weekly as more men heard about absenta up in the hills. Lawrence were gonna grow, weren’t no question of that, and that meant not just men diggin’ holes, but men tendin’ shops and deliverin’ goods, puttin’ their backs to buildin’ and plantin’ and workin’ cows. Jimmy brought in cars, proper, they’d be tendin’ those, sellin’ fuel and takin’ care of the machines themselves. After this wave, there’d be the more opportunistic, adventurous of the professionals, like Sid or Jimmy’s architect. Chemist for Perpeto, chemist for measurin’ absenta quality, veterinarian, blacksmith, craftsmen.

  Seein’ the world the way Jimmy saw it, seein’ where he wanted to go from here, she could understand why it felt like a sunrise in his head.

  Sarah just saw a mess ‘a dirty, hungry men willin’ to drink to forget what they’d hoped, gettin’ off that train, and angry enough to kill each other when they was drunk.

  Things’d even out, eventually, but the meantime - both how bad it got and how long it took - weren’t so much up to her as the mountains themselves. She’d cast her die, settin’ the claims, and oddly, the better she did, the worse things were gonna get. The further the town’d drift from what it’d always been toward what Jimmy saw for it.

  Granger were still feedin’ ‘em all. Sarah wouldn’t stand for men killin’ each other in Lawrence for bread, and she were payin’ for it, out of her own pocket. Meant any bit ‘o shine they had comin’ to them went to Willie and Paulie, and weren’t nothin’ Sarah hated more than that, but she saw no option, in the short. She had the money - more money than anyone else in town - and if the men got true desperate, they’d just go bandit, like all the ones what come before ‘em. Start attackin’ homesteads and takin’ anything weren’t bolted down.

  They was still hopin’ for gold, they was. Hope was keepin’ ‘em in line, for now, and Sarah had to keep it there, didn’t matter what it cost.

  The claims, up in the mountains, they were startin’ to send down test drills, bound for Preston, findin’ out whether or not they’d find absenta in the first go, and a couple of ‘em, Sarah reckoned they would. She’d seen the blue gleam in the rocks under a methane flame with her own eyes. Jimmy were leakin’ the reports to the other investors, keepin’ them diggin’, pushin’ to get tests done, keepin’ ‘em from walkin’ away.

  Maxim was comin’.

  Sarah hadn’t any idea what the man would be lookin’ for, comin’ out to Lawrence, and weren’t no secret she liked him less than most, but it meant he were still excited about the dig. Minin’ were an addiction, easy one to get. Lotta men spent their whole lives in Lawrence, pokin’ around here and there, out in them mountains, hopin’ to be the next Eli Lawrence. Weren’t no guarantees in minin’, not ever, and it just made it more excitin’.

  Sarah suspected Maxim had got hisself bit.

  She went to stand at the end of the boardwalk, lookin’ out at the sea of shanties, the dormitory fit for demolition what Willie and Paulie had put up to get Sarah to lift the ban on the tavern. She still hadn’t done somethin’ about that, though Jimmy had insisted she let Willie and Paulie sell while the investors were here, and she hadn’t managed to get it shut down again, after.

  She looked behind her at the sound of boots, findin’ Rhoda comin’ up behind her.

  “Gremlin showed up at our barn,” she said, and Sarah nodded.

  “Vote ‘a confidence,” Sarah answered.

  “I have a stack of applications to get through,” Rhoda said. “You have any words of wisdom before I start talking to them?”

  “We ain’t lookin’ for the smartest of the smart or the bravest of the brave,” Sarah said. “Lookin’ for men what are lookin’ to stay in a place for a long time, who are gonna look at Jimmy and identify with him, thinkin’ he’s the kind of guy they want to be standin’ behind when the fight’s over.”

  Rhoda looked up at her for a moment, then nodded.

  “That’s not going to be hard at all.”

  “Most of ‘em are gonna come from Elsewhere,” Sarah said. “Good folk out there, just the kind we need, just the kind what need to be a part ‘a what we’re doin’ here. These guys are just the fill-ins for where we ain’t got ‘em, yet, and to make this lot see that Jimmy is takin’ ‘em in as our own, even if it ain’t but just a few.”

  Rhoda nodded.

  “You want men who are going to be willing to die for you,” she said. It wasn’t a question. Sarah nodded.

  “Lawsons have always depended on family and nothin’ else. Jimmy’s lookin’ to remember Lawrence is family.”

  Rhoda shook her head.

  “This is the line of people to die before the Lawsons do,” she said. “I know it, and so do you.”

  Sarah looked at Rhoda, feelin’ it out before she spoke.

  “That’s what I told Jimmy, and that’s what Jimmy believes, but if you fall for it, you ain’t been around the Lawsons enough, yet, to know it ain’t true. Bullets start flyin’, Jimmy’s gonna be at the center of it, and if Jimmy goes, the rest of ‘em are gonna follow.”

  Rhoda nodded slowly, eyes serious.

  “That’s why people are going to follow them,” she said, then gave Sarah a tight smile. “I didn’t remember to say it last night, but Thomas said you said yes to being in our wedding. I’m really grateful. It’s kind of the closest I’ll probably get to having my family here.”

  “You ain’t gonna make Thomas bring ‘em?” Sarah asked. Rhoda laughed.

  “Would you have gone to Kayla and Wade’s wedding, if they’d invited you?” she asked. Sarah twisted her mouth, then shook her head.

  “Wade weren’t ever family to me the way Jimmy and Thomas are,” she said, “and I didn’t have a train to ride. I’d ‘a been ridin’ out to Jeremiah and then tryin’ to find a way out to Preston on the train with a horse waitin’ for me in Jeremiah. Diff’rent thing. Your family should be here. ‘Specially if you want ‘em.”

  Rhoda gave her a little shrug.

  “I don’t expect them to come. But you’re right. I should ask, if I want them there.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “You think the flood is going to come early this year, don’t you?” Rhoda asked.

  “Reckon there might be more’n one,” Sarah answered.

  “We’re getting married two weeks after the hobflowers,” Rhoda said, giving Sarah a little smile. Sarah shook her head.

  “Gonna have a lot ‘a competition,” she said, and Rhoda shook her head.

  “Kayla won’t let it happen. No one is going to compete with this wedding.”

  Sarah closed her eyes, and she heard Rhoda giggle.

  “She’s got a photographer coming,” Rhoda said.

  “Dumber than tree feathers,” Sarah said. “Why?”

  Rhoda grinned.

  “Because she’s going to put
together a portfolio and start advertising in Preston and Tyrew.”

  Sarah paused.

  “No,” she finally said. “No. Thomas said he’d get me out ‘a wearin’ a dress.”

  Rhoda nodded, dark eyes dancing.

  “She’s got plans for you,” she said. “But they don’t involve a dress.”

  Sarah shook her head.

  “I’m too busy to worry about this,” she said, and Rhoda grinned.

  “Nothing you can do about it, anyway.”

  Sarah glowered and Rhoda grinned again.

  “Are you going back up?” she asked. “Thomas didn’t say what happened, but you came home faster than you should have.”

  Sarah nodded.

  “Sooner than later,” she said. “Got a lot ‘a men to check in with, make sure they’re doin’ what needs done.”

  Rhoda watched her for a moment, then nodded.

  “I’m glad I can help,” she said. “After everything…”

  Sarah could see the memory of the attack on the house in Rhoda’s eyes. It made the problems up in the mountains seem trivial, by comparison.

  Miners’ problems, couple’a guys up in the hills, off on their own, sittin’ on the promise of easy wealth, completely different thing from men with guns goin’ through town and killin’ anyone got in their way. Rhoda had probably seen her share ‘a stuff, in Elsewhere and then when she were with the Lawsons, but an attack on home… You didn’t walk away from that not thinkin’ the world were different.

  Sarah still remembered the first time she’d gone out to a homestead to defend it against bandits. Not many weeks after the Lawsons had left.

  Sarah nodded.

  “Ain’t Jimmy’s fault there are folk lookin’ to kill a hellova lot ‘a people, round here. Different guy, different reason, but that’s been Lawrence since the absenta dried up. He’s gonna turn it around. Won’t be like this, forever.”

  Rhoda pressed her lips and looked at the tent city again.

  “I’m going to go do my job. Thanks for your input.”

  Sarah gave her a shrug and watched as the woman hopped off the boardwalk and started into the camp. It were a good pick, that one. Everyone knew Rhoda were a Lawson, just by the look of her. Dominant and powerful, well-dressed, apart. They’d respect her, right enough, and she’d get a good lot of ‘em off Jimmy’s list to talk to.