by Chloe Garner
The corner of his mouth ticked. He didn’t like not bein’ able to bully somethin’ into working by sheer force of will. Sarah were secretly pleased that Lawrence were puttin’ up the fight she’d always known it to have.
“I’ve taken considerable resources to get that line running, specifically because I don’t like Jeremiah being the pinch-point it is. Dangerous enough for you to go there for Perpeto. They know all of my supplies have to come through there. Don’t know why he chose to go for the cars, though. Rash.”
“Good way to blow you up without havin’ to go through the station in Lawrence,” Sarah said. “Though, it ain’t got much finesse to it.”
“No, it hasn’t,” Jimmy said. “I’m missing something important.”
“What’s in Intec?” Sarah asked.
“Rhoda sent word to her family,” Jimmy said. “I’m not expecting to hear back for at least a few weeks, and it’ll take longer than that to get anyone here to help shore up our lack of gun arms.”
“Talk it out, Jimmy. What are you thinkin’?”
“We’re cut off, out here. Away from all supplies, away from all communication and transit. I wanted the cars because, really, the desert between here and Magnum isn’t that bad. A good, heavy car could manage it, if we needed to.”
“To what end?” Sarah asked. “You plannin’ escape routes? Ain’t like you.”
“Retrenchments,” Jimmy answered. “I don’t mind looking like I’ve got my back against a wall, when in reality I’ve got a path out.”
Sarah pointed up at the hills.
“You and me and a big box of ammo, we could live up there for a good couple months, run raids down here, kill whoever we liked. ‘Specially if they bring in outsiders to try to hold the place.”
“You think Kayla would survive?” Jimmy asked. “Or Lise? Or the baby?”
Sarah pursed her lips.
“Kayla’d live if she had to. Rhoda ‘n Sunny’d be fine. Tough stuff underneath of both of ‘em. Lise and that baby?” She shook her head. Didn’t like to think about what it would take to keep Lise healthy and happy up in the mountains.
“That’s our new reality, Sarah. This is our home, not just our fortress. It isn’t common knowledge that Lise is pregnant. I don’t even know if she’s told her parents yet. But that baby isn’t going to be a secret for very long, and it becomes a target, too. We need a plan.”
“How about shoot Pete better,” Sarah muttered, and Jimmy looked over.
They hadn’t talked about it in a long time, but this were exactly why Sarah’d shot her only real friend in Lawrence, before the absenta rush had touched all this off. Dyin’ a slow death were a bad way to go, but weren’t near so bad as dyin’ a hot, fast, chaotic death at the hands of an absenta rush. On her own, Sarah’d be dead by now, no doubt in her mind. With Jimmy, weren’t no guarantees, though that weren’t how she felt about it. She trusted Jimmy like she trusted the sun. Sure, he wasn’t gonna do like she wanted him to, and like as not he’d burn down stuff she cared about, but so long as he was there, things was gonna happen a certain way.
Pete, though, she’d betrayed, killin’ him to keep the secret that got out anyway. Killed him ‘cause there weren’t no way to keep money and guns and men willin’ to use the guns to get the money from pourin’ into Lawrence. Enforcin’ was hard enough when the prospectors was just barely scratchin’ a livin’. Sittin’ there on the fulcrum of the global economy, the way they was, weren’t no way Jimmy or anybody could put together the power to keep ‘em safe from the guys who cared most about what happened next.
“I know why you did what you did,” Jimmy said. “And so do you.”
She nodded. Sighed.
“What are you seein’?” she asked.
“I see wealth,” he said, lookin’ ahead, up at the mountains. “Wealth that we control. We just have to find a way to get it out of the ground. I see a new era of the Lawson family, bigger than the last, here, where we belong. And I see you at the center of it all. With me.”
“What about Pythagoras and Descartes?” Sarah asked.
He smiled. It wasn’t one of the sincere ones. Those were rare and never about business. This was satisfaction. He had a plan.
“It occurred to me, as I ate my steak last night, that what both of them want is to own us. Pythagoras thinks he’s lost his shot at it, because of Yip and Cassandra, but what if I gave him a path? Double-crossed his brother?”
“That’s a hot game,” Sarah said.
“Absenta always is,” Jimmy said. “Two generations ago, when my grandfather was out here digging, the world wasn’t what it is now. We have higher stakes just because there’s more technology available, more people. But absenta is always involved with the highest stakes anywhere.”
“So you’re gonna play both sides ‘gainst the middle. You reckon you can do it without them findin’ out?”
He shrugged.
“Maybe, maybe not. But in the end, they need me more than I need them.”
Sarah blew air through her lips, dismissive.
“How you figure? Neither of ‘em want you to be diggin’ absenta out on your own. Worst comes to it, they put you down, stuff goes back to normal soon enough. Claims go to hell, eatin’ each other, ones what get proved kill off everyone, ones what fail spawn bandits raidin’ the others. We seen this before. ‘Less you’re plannin’ on bringin’ in one of ‘em to back your play to control the whole place.”
“No,” Jimmy said. “We control Lawrence. No one else is going to, and I don’t think anyone else can. We were bred to do this, you and I. Like you said, if they bring in outsiders, it’s just going to fall apart on them as the natives take advantage. It just takes too long to really learn how to survive, out here.”
“Flood ‘d clear ‘em all out right quick,” Sarah muttered.
“The ones who accidentally survive the sand storms,” Jimmy answered.
She shrugged.
“You ain’t so good at that, yourself,” she said. He snorted.
“Says the one who got caught out in one not four months ago.”
He weren’t wrong.
Gremlin got to dancin’ again and Sarah let him do it. When they got to the house, they let the horses go for the stable boy to gather in, and Jimmy pointed, walkin’ past the front of the house over to where they could see where the other houses were goin’ up.
“Lise was up here earlier today,” Jimmy said. “I took her up to see the house they’re working on for her and Petey.”
“Didn’t know she were still gettin’ out,” Sarah said. Lawrence women rode until they dropped a baby, ‘cause there weren’t no way to get ‘round it, but Sarah was surprised Lise’d found a way to get this far what suited her.
“She’s concerned about the house,” Jimmy said. “Spent the entire time complaining.”
“Ain’t got much sense, that one,” Sarah said. He glanced at her, eyebrow, and she shrugged. “You want a piece of someone else’s man, ain’t no sense in provin’ beyond doubt he’s better off with what he’s got.”
“Because doting kindness has worked out so well for you,” Jimmy said.
“Didn’t say you had any sense, either,” Sarah answered, lookin’ at four foundations, walls headed up here and there. “Why do ‘em all at once, rather than finish one to start the next?”
“Because I didn’t want to deal with who got to move up here first,” Jimmy said. “These will all finish at the same time.”
“Ain’t a one of ‘em gonna be done before the flood,” Sarah said. “Meanin’ they’ll all be back at the house with us, again, on account of you not wantin’ to deal with your brothers like grown men.”
“Perhaps when they act like grown men, I’ll deal with them that way,” Jimmy said.
“Ain’t the order that normally goes,” Sarah said. “Saw plenty ‘a boys at Oxala never did plan on growin’ up, ‘cause they had no cause to. Ain’t a problem we see, out here.”
“I’ll keep that in mi
nd,” Jimmy said, and she shot him a dark look, then turned to face the foundations again.
“What are we gonna do with all the boys from town?”
“How long do you think we have?” Jimmy asked. Sarah looked at the sky over the mountains, weighin’ things out in her mind.
“Could be any day. Could be a couple months. Hard to say until it happens. But I’d wager it’s gonna be early and it’s gonna be big. We get another big sandstorm ‘tween now and then, could glue us all in for days.”
He sighed.
“I want to get the outposts done, first, but we don’t have time. They broke ground on a shelter for them yesterday, but if we need a roof up ASAP, we’ll let the houses here go and get that going. It’s sparse, but it’ll keep everyone alive for a week or more at a stretch, with the right provisions.”
“You got an idea for who’d be in charge, in the meantime?” Sarah asked. The front hill that the Lawson house was on routinely flooded all the way around. Couldn’t get to the next ones without swimmin’ for it, and swimmin’ were a good way to get dead in a flood.
“The ones I give guns to,” Jimmy said. “I’ll let you look at the list and pick your favorites, and then we’ll set them loose on one another. The ones who don’t survive weren’t fit to be here, anyway.”
“Jimmy, they kill each other, I gotta do executions again. Bad enough with Willie and Paulie feedin’ ‘em brain poison to send ‘em at each other. You put ‘em together, scarce resources and a mountain-load ‘a fear, I may take the population of the town down a tenth. And that’s after the killin’s done.”
“I’m not trying to cause problems,” Jimmy said. “If you have an idea you like better, I’m happy to hear it.”
“You gotta keep Lawsons with ‘em,” Sarah said. “Ones with real authority who are gonna keep ‘em in line. And you gotta keep the stuff locked up so the boys can’t get at it, even if they take out the Lawson.”
Jimmy nodded.
“That’s valid. We’ll look at a storeroom design before it’s all done, but it ought to just be the door.”
Sarah twisted her mouth to the side.
“Sad to say, this lot ‘a boys, you’re probably right.”
Both she and Jimmy knew instinctively that a door was rarely the easiest way to get into a space.
“Lot ‘a stuff half-done these days,” Sarah said. “Not like you, less like me.”
“Nature of the scale of the project,” he said. “Going to keep happening, too. Any time something gets done, I’m just going to start something new. We have no limits, Sarah. I don’t think you understand.”
“What I don’t understand is where you’re gettin’ the list ‘a things you’re tryin’ to get done,” Sarah said.
“You know, I’ve never asked,” he said. “With all the money you’ve got sitting in your Pa’s safe, what would you have done with it?”
They both knew.
They knew she didn’t envision like that.
“Paid a chemist,” she said. “Expanded the station. Put some boys on salary to do the work ‘round town needs doin’.” She shrugged.
“Why would you have expanded the station?” Jimmy asked. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”
She smiled.
“’Cause there’s too much money goin’ through it, even now, to look the way it does,” she said. “Don’t gotta be nicer, but it should at least be the length of the train, so they don’t keep havin’ to roll up to load and unload.”
Jimmy nodded.
“That’s nothing, compared to the money you’ve got. What else?”
“Buy guns, dig in for when the absenta runs out again,” Sarah answered. The corner of his mouth came up.
“It isn’t going to matter, when I’m done,” he said. “Not at all.”
“How you figure?” Sarah asked. He nodded, his eyes not seein’ at all what he were lookin’ at.
“Lawrence is going to be more than the last stop on the line,” he said. “This is going to be a major city, rivaling Intec or Oxala, one that sits back, away from all of the churn at the coast, and calls the shots. No rivals at all.”
“How you reckon you’re gonna manage that?” Sarah asked. The corner of his mouth came up, and his eyes closed.
“One opportunity at a time.”
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They walked the buildings. Houses, certainly. They had a familiar floorplan with kitchens and sittin’ rooms and eatin’ spaces, but they didn’t feel like much, not even bones at this stage. Jimmy had his eye on things here and there, checkin’ that everything was bein’ done to standard, but Sarah just looked.
They were up in the hills, above the worst of the floodin’ - no standin’ water at this elevation at all, just the hard flow of run-off rain durin’ the storms leadin’ up. Meant the construction were necessarily different. Thing was, they weren’t just different. They was cut into the ground, deep, safe spaces at the back, rooms too far down to have even parts of windows. Weren’t no consideration for water, for flood. Just bunkerin’ in, gettin’ where they’d be hardest to hit. Made Elaine’s house feel proud, by comparison, up near the top ‘a the hill, not duckin’ down for anyone or anything.
Elaine, to the end.
“You don’t like them,” Jimmy observed as they walked back toward the main house. Sarah heard cows callin’ each other, the higher-pitched tone of new calves.
“You didn’t expect me to,” Sarah answered.
“No,” he said. “But I want you to tell me why.”
“Don’t matter, does it?” Sarah said with a shrug. “Ain’t ever gonna be my house.”
He stopped walking.
Forced her to turn around to look at him.
“Why don’t you like them, Sarah?”
His fingers flicked at each other, but she ignored them.
She held his eye for a long time, not even sure what her answer would be, not sure she would tell him when she found it.
“They assume we’re gonna be fightin’ the rest of our lives,” she finally said. His lips twitched, pressin’ ‘em together, and he looked at his feet as he started walkin’ again.
“Will you be the woman from Oxala, tonight?” he asked. “Change your clothes and everything?”
“Why would I?”
“Because I asked,” he said. She looked back at the sun.
She had a fierce need for a wash, and a fiercer need to not explain herself to the Lawsons. None of ‘em, save Jimmy, had ever seen her like that. He’d been the only one to visit her at school, the only one to travel with her beyond Jeremiah.
“And if I say no?” she asked.
“Then I’ll tell you to, instead of asking, and we’ll have a problem.”
He was still walkin’, not makin’ threats. It were true enough. The Jimmy who’d come back from Intec weren’t like to ask her somethin’ like that.
She’d made him come to dinner like he was actually from Lawrence. And it weren’t even that much a challenge, for her. She had all the clothes, includin’ the great big dress Kayla’s ma had made, custom, for Sarah to meet Descartes.
Inge Turnlake.
Bright blue and purple, she’d worn it once and packed it away, no intent of bringin’ it back with her, but somehow it had made the trip. Kayla swooned about it, time on time, talkin’ ‘bout how perfect it were for Sarah.
How much she wanted to see Sarah in it.
“Inge’s dress?” Sarah asked.
It was still rebellious. She wasn’t supposed to wear it again. It was a one-meeting dress. And it would put everyone on edge, her bein’ that far out of her normal. Jimmy pursed his lips and nodded.
“That’ll be fine.”
“I got some work to do, then,” Sarah said.
“You haven’t got very much time,” Jimmy said. “I expect everyone will be here at dark, and chef is putting together an Intec gourmet meal that will start more or less immediately.”
Sarah glanced over at him and saw the tick on the side of his f
ace. Humor. Turnabout, even.
“What’s your game?” she asked. He reached over, taking her hand. She almost jerked it away, just reflex.
“I told Wade. I meant it. We’re going to war.”
“What’s me gettin’ dudded up got to do with it?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“I’m casting a spell, Sarah. It starts here, but it’s got to spread. And you are a key ingredient in that spell. You get too self-aware, you aren’t going to act right, and it won’t work.”
“I don’t like bein’ one of your chesspieces,” Sarah said.
“Yes you do,” he answered.
The pressure on her hand was light. Affectionate. Consistent. He wasn’t mocking her, and he wasn’t toyin’ with her.
She looked at the back of her hand in his. His hands were clean. Neat. Soft, even, at least by contrast to hers. She had darker skin, tougher skin, and desert dust that felt like it was permanently dyed into her skin.
Jimmy’s chesspiece.
Jimmy’s attack dog.
Jimmy’s lap dog.
Jimmy’s wife in a grand, blue dress.
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “I’ll do it.”
--------
She dressed in her own room, taking a bath that lasted as long as she dared, then pulling her hair up and back and braiding it. She went to find the dress where it was ensconced in a special bag off in a corner of her room, putting it on without the help of Kayla’s myriad sisters and with great difficulty. Inge had told her it was made of solid stuff, and the woman hadn’t been kidding. It was heavy like wearing a saddle pad and blanket, and the layers all shifted over top of each other rich blue sliding away to reveal a deep maroon. She finally got all of the folds of the dress straightened, and she stood in front of a mirror.
She wasn’t a beautiful woman. That would have meant caring. But she did have a face capable of expression, eyes that very clearly saw everything. Reluctantly, she went to get lipstick and eye liner, doing just those before stepping back again. The effect was dramatic and unwanted, as necessary as it was. She always wore makeup on the coast. Not much, but the way it changed the drama of her eyes and her mouth, the weight of expression it gave her, there was no excuse for letting that go. She drew herself to her full height, missing her boots, missing her hat, but feeling powerful all the same.