by Chloe Garner
“He told me not to tell anyone, because it would start a civil war.”
“Wouldn’t be nothin’ civil about it,” Sarah muttered with a nod.
Rhoda looked at Toby as he went by with Thomas.
“Who is he?” she asked quietly. Sarah shook her head.
“You’re lookin’ at the new face of absenta minin’ in Lawrence,” she said, reachin’ into a pocket and workin’ on a cigarette as Thomas and Toby came back.
“You up for that many days on horseback?” Thomas asked Toby. The kid shrugged.
“I guess I have to, right?” he asked. Thomas shook his head.
“It’s hard riding. If you get hurt, Sarah will take care of you, but it can be hell, just getting back.”
“Uncle Maxim says I have to,” Toby said. Sarah raised an eyebrow at that, but kept her thoughts to herself.
“Be safe,” Rhoda said. “We’ll have a hot meal waiting for you at the main house when you get back. Three days, Sarah?”
“Three, four,” Sarah said. “Depends on the weather and the mines.”
“Nothing is ever for certain, when you’re up in the mountains,” Thomas agreed.
“You need to take me, at some point,” Rhoda said, loud enough for the men to hear her, but her tone directed at Sarah.
“Ain’t a sight-seein’ trip,” Sarah said. “Still men with guns up, those parts, what’ll shoot you off a horse just to see what’s in your pockets.”
“But you’re going to fix that,” Rhoda said, and Sarah shook her head.
“No. Jimmy and I are workin’ like dogs to make it as bad as fast as we can,” she said. “Too much money up there to be safe. Not ever.”
She watched Toby, and the kid swallowed, lookin’ away.
“So,” Rhoda said, dragging the conversation back toward friendly. “The face of absenta mining. What does that mean, exactly?”
“I’m supposed to move here and manage things,” Toby said. Sarah shook her head.
“You even on Perpeto yet?” she asked.
He blinked quickly, lookin’ at her again.
“I have been for six years.”
Her eyebrows found her hat of their own accord.
“Started too soon,” she said. “Most folk like to wait ‘till puberty.”
“Sarah,” Rhoda said. “That was rude.”
“He ain’t got the muscle mass to choke a bug,” she said. “Perpeto is for keepin’ a body at its workin’ state long as possible.”
There was a flash that might have been anger in Toby’s eyes.
“It’s on trend,” he said. “All the kids at my school started Perpeto at fifteen or sixteen. We’re allowed to enjoy our lives, first, before we have to think about work.”
And the flash of kindling respect vanished. He had a spine, but it were an insolent one.
“Not ‘round these parts,” Sarah said. “You’re gonna miss those years, you end up here any stretch of time.”
She couldn’t imagine trading years in that skinny, awkward mid- and post- pubescent body for what she was now. She was still skippin’ her Perpeto when she went up into the mountains, and any day she just forgot it, lettin’ her body drift older maybe a month a year, feelin’ it out. Gettin’ on toward time to make a more serious effort. But to hold on to sixteen?
Dumber than dirt tea.
“Look, I didn’t ask for this,” Toby said, finally holdin’ Sarah’s eye. “My mom and Maxim got this great idea, and suddenly I’m on a train and he’s telling me about all of the women he’s tied up in his basement.”
Basement was too obvious. Usually Maxim’s type went for a top floor with a good view.
“You need to sort that out,” Sarah said. “Lawrence ain’t the type of place you go hang out ‘till someone tells you you can go home. You don’t hold yourself up right, it’ll kill ya quick.”
He wrinkled his nose, then went limp as Maxim rounded the corner of the house, leadin’ a pair ‘a Thomas’ horses.
“What do you think, Toby. Which one?”
“Like hell,” Sarah said. “Rhoda.”
Rhoda were already movin’, goin’ to untangle the reins Maxim had wound round his wrists. Good way to get yourself dragged halfway dead, that. Rhoda was friendlier about it than Sarah woulda been.
“Those ain’t mountain horses,” Sarah said. “Mountain horse is a special-bred beast, tough enough for the work without havin’ the air to do it.”
Maxim slapped Rhoda’s hands away playfully.
“I’ve got it, I’ve got it,” he said. “I’m just ready to be going.”
“Damned fool,” Sarah said, steppin’ toward him with enough fire that Rhoda had her hands full keepin’ the horses on four legs. Thomas went to help her, and Sarah ignored the whole battle. She came to stand a foot-length away from Maxim, tippin’ her head back to look at him.
He grinned.
Just about got a fist across his mouth for it, but Sarah kept her temper.
“Jimmy may be too busy to see to you, but it don’t mean I’m gonna let you do what you like,” she said. He started to say somethin’ bawdy, but she just kept talkin’. “It’s my job to see you to your claims, see you home in one piece. Answer questions related to absenta, Lawrence, diggin’ holes in the ground. Ain’t nothin’ writ nowhere says I have to let you walk free even once the whole time. You think I can’t do it, think I might be jokin’ around with you, you turn around and look in that woman’s eyes and tell me I won’t do it. I’ll hogtie you to the horse, daytime, and tie you to a tree at night, you give me even the slightest cause to do it.”
He didn’t take her invitation to look at Rhoda, who was giving Sarah an alarmed expression just the way Sarah had hoped. Rhoda knew Jimmy wanted to care for the investors with kid gloves. What she didn’t know was Sarah’s history with Maxim.
“The things you’d be capable of with the right equipment,” he said, shakin’ his head.
“You got those fool beasts under control yet?” Sarah asked. Rhoda handed the reins over to Thomas, who seemed concerned about Maxim’s tackin’ job and whether it’d hold long enough to get back to the stable again.
“Hats,” Sarah said as Rhoda came ‘round Maxim. He held his gaze casually on Sarah. Rhoda went to the swing where she’d left them, handin’ ‘em to Sarah, and Sarah reached up to jerk the lunatic black hat off Maxim’s head, throwing it at random to one side and plonkin’ the proper one in place.
“Ain’t a game, Maxim,” she said. “You do what I say, you don’t do what I don’t say.”
“You going to give me permission to take a piss, or do I need a hall pass to go to the tree?”
She tossed the second hat at Toby, who missed the throw and had to squat to pick up the hat. He put it on without brushin’ it off, and Sarah shook her head. He’d get a sand rash on his forehead from that mistake, but she didn’t say nothin’ about it.
“Keep movin’,” she said. “Day’s wastin’ and we ain’t got but two miles yet.”
She went to get up into the buckboard again, waitin’ on Maxim and Toby, then set the mare back to her compact trot, eyes on the hills.
It was gonna be a very, very long couple days.
--------
Took her longer than it should’ve, gettin’ all the gear packed away, on account of there bein’ an extra set of useless hands and Maxim keepin’ to his intent to wander off when Sarah weren’t lookin’. She left Flower in his stall, puttin’ Maxim and Toby on a pair of stable horses she didn’t much know. Weren’t necessarily the best decision, but she couldn’t stomach the idea of Maxim ridin’ either Gremlin or Flower, and weren’t no way Toby’d handle either horse.
Sarah’s horses had a habit of formin’ their own ideas ‘bout things, even compared to normal mountain horses.
They ate lunch in the kitchen - Sarah didn’t let Maxim no further into the house than that - and they set out.
“So what’s Jimmy so busy with he can’t at least come out and say hello?” Maxim asked as they started down t
he hillside away from the Lawson house.
“Up to him to tell you that, not me,” Sarah answered.
“Aren’t you the good subordinate wife,” Maxim teased, and Sarah raised an eyebrow at him. He grinned. “Seriously, though, where is he?”
“There in the house,” Sarah said casually. “Ain’t got no need to come see to you. Knows I’m watchin’ over you, and knows same as me you’d waste a good hour of his time, tryin’ to get him to tell you things he ain’t gonna spill.”
His fever had broke, by mornin’, but he’d spent the entire night mutterin’ to hisself, tossin’ like he weren’t sleepin’ at all. He’d finally started breathin’ easy as Sarah’d dressed herself to go. She’d left a cup of tea next to the bed - no harm, him drinkin’ it, whether or not the fever came back - but he’d like as not sleep all the next day, lilla or no.
Sarah’d come to recognize a good half-dozen mountain fevers, over the years, helpin’ Doc with the worst of ‘em. Wouldn’t ever know which one’d got Jimmy, but he ought be up on his feet, at least, by the time they got back. They wrecked a body, worst of ‘em, and Jimmy weren’t gonna be happy, losin’ the days.
“Guess I’ll just have to work on you, then,” Maxim said. Sarah looked back at Toby. She’d gotten him some pants what weren’t gonna chafe in the first hour’s ride, but the trek was gonna take it out of him, no two ways about it. He watched the upcoming mountains with his head back, eyes big enough to let Sarah know he were at least takin’ it serious. Sarah checked to see that Dog were followin’ at the back, then nodded to Toby.
“You get some good, open space where you ain’t like to kill yourself, fallin’, you ought take your feet out the stirrups, let your knees relax,” Sarah said. Little tendon in your knee, that were what did you in. He’d have a sore seat, sore back, sore muscles most everywhere, dependin’ on his fitness, but it were the tendons, set long for that many hours, what could lay a man out. Ones up in his hips’d be plenty sore, too, but you could get away, babyin’ those ‘round camp. The knees. Those’d do ‘im in, more like than not.
“I’m fine,” Toby muttered, just loud enough for her to hear him. She hauled herself round in the saddle.
“You reckon?” she asked. “How many hours you spent horseback, last two weeks?”
He glanced at Maxim, hesitant.
“She asked you a question,” Maxim said. “This woman kept me alive, the last time I was here. If she says she needs to know something, I promise she isn’t asking out of curiosity.”
“I’m a dancer,” Toby said. “I promise, this isn’t anything harder than what I do, dancing.”
Maxim blew air through his lips.
“Dancing,” he said. “That’s why your mom sent you out here in the first place. Need to do something that people will take seriously.”
“Ain’t no worse than men who go diggin’ around in the dirt out here hopin’ the ground is gonna make ‘em rich,” Sarah said.
Maxim gave her a look, and she looked back at Toby again.
“I mean it about the knees,” she said. “They’re gonna lay you low, you ain’t careful.”
He shrugged.
She sat forward. Done the best she could.
“So what’s there to do out here, when Jimmy isn’t throwing the big dog-and-pony show?” Maxim asked.
“Birth calves, butcher feeders, tend gremlin, dodge bandits,” Sarah said. “Weren’t much goin’ on with the absenta, ‘fore Jimmy came back, but there was a handful ‘a guys up in the hills, pannin’ things and diggin’ things, hopin’ for the best.” She let herself remember for a minute. “Nobody in Lawrence has power but the Lawsons. You get up with the sun, use it ‘till it’s gone, then you go to bed. Need it, you might have a candle to work with.”
Gremlin wick in beef tallow. Hell of a piece of work to make. Granger had imported candles, but everybody watchin’ their pennies made their own.
“That’s bracing,” Maxim said. “Why did you stay?”
“Home’s home,” Sarah said.
“No,” Maxim said. “That isn’t it.”
“It ain’t?” Sarah asked, raisin’ her eyebrows at the horizon.
“Nope,” Maxim said. “Woman like you doesn’t stay in a place like this without something more than the ground being under where she was born. There wasn’t a man? While Jimmy was gone?”
“You see that rifle?” Sarah asked, noddin’ down at the holstered weapon at her knee.
“Hard to miss,” Maxim said.
“You’ve killed men,” Sarah said. “I know that, ‘cause you’re the kind Jimmy trusts. Jimmy don’t trust easy, and he don’t take to men, as a rule, what don’t know about takin’ life when they got to.”
“Accurate enough,” Maxim said. She nodded.
“You notch your guns?”
“Don’t know what you mean?”
“Gun’s got a body on it, you mark it to say so?”
“No.”
She looked over. It told her somethin’ about him, that he didn’t see the point in such a thing.
“I don’t either,” she said. “If I did, what do you reckon? How many notches on that gun?”
He frowned, lookin’ at it like it might tell him.
“What do you think, Toby?” he asked.
“Don’t care,” Toby said. Maxim snorted.
“I’ve seen you fight. You’ve been doing it a long time.”
Sarah nodded.
“I have.”
“Lot of experience.”
“Lots.”
“Twenty? Thirty?”
“A year,” Sarah said.
“What does that mean?” Maxim asked.
“I probably averaged between fifteen and thirty men a year, while Jimmy was gone. Just with the rifle.”
“It’s bolt-action,” he said. She shorted.
“Means it’s got range. Might have done the same again with hand guns, but I carry more ‘n one of them.”
Maxim whistled, low.
“You get that much action, out here?” he asked.
“Home’s home,” she said. “I stayed ‘cause I cared about the people out here. Money dried up, all the miners went rogue. Hundreds of ‘em. Preyin’ on the families what stayed and tried to make a go of it. Jimmy saw it, and he walked away, lookin’ for green.”
“Green what?” Toby asked.
“Green anything,” Sarah said, not turnin’ her head back. “I had my pa to look after, and I had a town what was gonna die at the end of a gun, I didn’t stand up and do what I could to keep death back.”
“You lasted,” Maxim said. “Made it to the other end.”
She snorted.
“Don’t know what fairy-tale dreams you’re chasin’ out there on the coast, but things ain’t any more simple or any more safe ‘n they were ‘fore Jimmy Lawson made his grand re-entrance.”
“I’d heard there were things going on out here,” Maxim said. “Part of the reason I came. Jimmy knows if he needs another gun out here, I’m willing, and he can count on me. I owe him at least a couple.”
“That’ll be between him and you,” Sarah said. “I don’t much trust outsiders, even if Jimmy does.”
“I’d love to talk to him about it, but he made himself scarce,” Maxim said. Sarah shrugged.
“His decisions, not mine.”
“So there’s nothing to do around here at all?” Toby asked.
“No fancy-foot dance clubs,” Maxim said. “That’s for damned sure.”
“Folk from town have festivals and celebrations few times a year,” Sarah said. “Markin’ time so it don’t get away entirely. I don’t much go, but they seem to look forward to ‘em.”
“Uncle Maxim, I can’t stay out here,” Toby said.
“You can and you will,” Maxim said. “You’re going to learn to take care of yourself, and you’re going to get rich. After you’ve done both of those, you can go anywhere you want and do whatever you want, but your mom and I aren’t going to let you grow up like
your friends.”
“What’s wrong with them?” Toby asked. “They’re happy. Their parents are proud of them.”
“They aren’t in charge of their own destinies,” Maxim said. “You’re going to be more powerful than any of them.”
“From where I sit, looks like he ain’t so much in charge of his own destiny, now,” Sarah said. Any other time, any other person, she would have kept her thoughts to herself, but Maxim just rubbed her that way, and she liked throwin’ a wrench in the gears, if he were gonna leave the door open like that.
Maxim gave her a look, and Sarah kept her eyes steady on the horizon.
“Gonna be a long couple days,” she said. “Best if everyone just settles in.”
--------
They didn’t reach Maxim’s first claim by sundown. He’d gotten one of the more distant ones, and Toby had to take three breaks outside of meals to get down off the horse. Sarah weren’t surprised none, but Maxim didn’t take it well. Sarah set camp as the sun headed for the mountains, gettin’ out her cook pot and puttin’ it over a low fire, the settlin’ back onto her saddle as Gremlin grazed nearby.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tie them?” Maxim asked, lookin’ after the other pair of horses. “What happens if they wander away?”
“Where you think they’re gonna go?” Sarah asked. “Horse don’t have some idea that the ground over there’s more interestin’ than the ground over here. They’re herd animals. They’ll stick together, and Gremlin’ll turn up in the mornin’ ‘cause that’s what he’s always done.”
“But if they did wander away, what would we do?” Toby asked. Sarah shrugged.
“You lose horses up here. Trip, snap one of them long bones in a their legs, have to put ‘em down. Mostly you carry what you can, leave the rest, hope you don’t get jumped by a guy with a gun on your way home.”
“How do you get home?” Toby asked.
“Wear good boots,” Sarah said, sittin’ forward to check the water.
“You’d walk that far?” Toby asked. Sarah gave him a half a smile, dark.
“’Less you want to start choppin’ trees and set a house up here, don’t reckon I know what else you’d do.”
“He thinks someone ought to come get you,” Maxim said. “Preferably someone he could call up and that would show up in five or ten minutes.”