Ice and Blood

by Oliver Altair

  Instead he walked back to his office in the cold. Alone.

  Always alone.

  3

  Tiberius rummaged through the disarrayed papers on his desk. He organized them into different piles of the same height, paying no real attention to their content, as he often did when he felt anxious. The group of travelers waiting at the Silver Moon disquieted him. His tolerance for strangers had diminished since their last batch of visitors: a mystic madman and a gunslinger who refused to stay dead.

  The wind sneaked between the nailed planks covering the office’s broken window. It weakened the already dim fire opposite his desk. The only glassmaker in town left in the fall, so the window would have to remain glassless for a while. Tiberius blew on his hands, rubbing them against each other.

  A soft knock on the door. Once then twice. Bennett Rowland appeared on his doorstep, shovel in hand. Snow crowned his beaver hat. “I’m done for the day, Sheriff.”

  Tiberius nodded. “Good.”

  He’d caught young Bennett throwing snowballs at his neighbors’ windows and made him the town’s snow-clearer in return. Made the punishment fit the crime. The baker’s son held in a lot of rage. Someone had to teach him hot-headedness was a liability—especially in a world that needed no excuse to send bullets flying.

  “Off you go then, kid. I bet your pa’s waiting for you.”

  Bennett leaned his shovel against the wall. He lingered around the office. “Ain’t it a bit chilly in here?”

  Tiberius jerked his head to the planked window. “No glass since I sent a man flying through. Not that it wasn’t worth it.” He waved his arm toward the blackened hearth. “Warm your hands and feet by the fire before you go back out, if you like.”

  He left his desk and joined the young man in front of the dancing flames. Bennett was growing into his looks. His jawline had sharpened, his brow widened. He shared the same dark eyes of his father and brother and their black, wavy hair, but his nose was less aquiline and more Roman, making Bennett the better looking of the three.

  “Is there anything else I can do, Sheriff? To help the town, I mean.”

  “You’ve done enough for a day.”

  The kid looked down to his hands and sighed, disappointed.

  Tiberius clapped his back. “How’s your pa?”

  Bennett shrugged. “He’s always in a foul mood come winter.”

  “Cut him some slack. After what happened to your brother—”

  “That’s nothing to do with it. He was like this before Julian died in the mine.”

  A charred log cracked. Orange sparks flew from the embers. One of them landed on the tip of the kid’s worn-out boot and disappeared. If only memories would vanish just like that.

  Bennett shook his head. “I shouldn’t speak ill of my pa. He treats me fine. But sometimes I think he doesn’t care about me much. Not really, anyway. Julian was always the one. I’m… I'm just there.”

  Tiberius scratched his lower neck, unsure about how to handle the conversation. “What about your friends? You used to hang out with the Thompkins boy. And that chap with the scraggly hair, what’s his name?”

  “Chuck Finney. Gone. Both of ’em.”

  “Winter will pass, kid. Everything passes.”

  “I guess.” Bennett smiled, but his eyes glistened with loneliness.

  The firelight projected their tall shadows on the floorboards. It hinted at the edges of the old furniture and the bars of the empty cell in the corner. Bennett seemed as much at ease inside that dreary office as Tiberius did. He showed no intention to leave.

  Tiberius cleared his throat. “Are you excited for your trip?”

  Bennett turned his face, unsmiling. “What trip?”

  “I heard you were staying with your grandparents for a while.”

  “Who told you that?” The kid’s voice was as taut as his face.

  “Sorry, I thought you knew.”

  Bennett stormed off. He left the door wide open behind him.

  “Goddamned kids,” Tiberius muttered.

  Through the open door, he spotted people racing up Main Street like a flock of chased chickens. The sound of their crunching treads added a rhythm to their jittery chatter. Tiberius exited the office and leaned over the railing of his porch. He outstretched his right arm, blocking the way of a passerby. “Where’s the fire, Jaime?”

  Jaime looked at him wild-eyed. He glanced at his equally agitated friends, who signaled him to wrap it up. “We want to see it, Sheriff. El santo. The saint in ice.”

  “The what now?”

  Jaime left the question unanswered. He crouched under Tiberius’ arm and scampered to catch up with his group. Tiberius reached for the coat rack behind his door. He donned his duster, locked his office, and followed. More and more people overtook him as he got closer to the town square. Small mounds of snow hid all the benches and the grid of stone pathways. Townsfolk raced from the four corners of the square to the gazebo in its center. Some fell on their knees or buttocks, stumbled up, and kept going as if nothing had happened. They encircled the gazebo like a human palisade, elbowing their way to the first row, yet no one dared to mount the steps to its top.

  Tiberius walked toward the round kiosk towering above the frozen ground, like a lonely isle in the Arctic Ocean. Beyond stood Whitlock Manor, drowning in shadows and snow. He did his best to ignore the abandoned building in the near distance. And the memories it carried. But every step he took closer to the house felt like a needle pricking the soles of his feet. Sarah Anne would always haunt those dark windows, no matter if dead or alive.

  He cut through the herd of agape faces, but no one paid him that much attention. All heads pointed to the standing man on top of the platform. El santo. A saint that was no saint, no man, but a statue carved in ice. Tiberius leaped onto the gazebo planks. He circled the statue. It represented an upright, naked male with his arms down and to the side. The body had been sculpted with anatomical precision, but it was the chiseled face that held the most astounding detail: the smooth chin and thin lips, upturned nose, almond eyes, and wide brow. Tiberius could even tell apart the locks within its frigid hair. The finesse could put many an artist to shame.

  He rubbed the statue’s forehead with his thumb. There seemed to be words carved just below the hairline. The artist’s signature, maybe. “Who made this?”

  The crowd answered with nothing but sparkling gazes.

  Tiberius smiled. “No reason to be shy. I’d like to congratulate our first local artist. Come on, who was it?”

  “We don’t know, Sheriff,” Jaime replied. “It just… appeared.”

  “Out of thin air?”

  Jaime pointed up to the sky. “I mean…”

  Tiberius made a conscious effort not to roll his eyes. “Got it. Is the fellow anyone we know? Face doesn’t ring a bell.”

  The group replied with silent shrugs.

  “What are y’all gawking at?” a voice thundered. It was Henry Albers, the carpenter. He cut through the crowd and careened up the steps of the gazebo.

  Tiberius stopped him. “It’s just an ice statue, Hank. Move along.” He turned to the onlookers. “Same goes for the rest of you. Don’t you have anything better to do before the sun sets?”

  The townsfolk whined and only pretended to leave. Henry stared at the statue’s face, mesmerized. “I’ll be damned…”

  “Come on, Hank. Time to go.”

  Henry swayed a few inches away from the sculpture. He cocked his bald head left then right, squinting. He froze, bellowing through his teeth as if bitten by a rattlesnake. Then he rammed the statue like a furious bison. It fell backwards but didn’t break, so he stomped again and again with increasing rage until a crack crossed its frozen head.

  Tiberius took hold of him. “What the heck’s got into you?”

  Henry juddered. He glowered at the bystanders. “Do you think this is funny? You’ve no heart!” His breath reeked of ale.

  “You need to calm the hell down, Henry. Or
else,” Tiberius whispered in his ear. He gave the man a minute to get hold of himself then slackened his grip.

  The carpenter shook him off. He tripped down the steps of the gazebo, landing face down in the snow. Some people gasped, some laughed, but no one came to the man’s aid. Henry stumbled to his feet and walked away. “You’ve no heart.”

  Tiberius placed two fingers into his mouth and whistled to reclaim the crowd’s attention. “Still here? Show’s over. Skedaddle.”

  People parted in small groups. Some looked behind their shoulders every few steps. Tiberius leaned on the weathered balustrade. He wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “Not a goddamned day of peace.”

  The sun descended lower behind the western mountains. The sky shone purple and fiery pink. Under the light of dusk, the fallen statue gleamed like a blue flame behind a misted glass. Tiberius felt at peace watching the waves of fading light on its surface. He set it back upright. He brushed off Henry’s footprints with his sleeve. “There you go, pard.”

  The evening wind picked up. Its crisp scent announced another batch of snow during the night. It carried the voices from the busier Main Street within its soft howl. Most of the sounds were distant mumbles, but one word stood out, sharp as a ringing alarm, so powerful Tiberius jumped over the railing of the gazebo and rushed across the town square like a wild stallion.

  Fire.

  4

  The murmurs in the wind grew to voices grew to shouts. A column of smoke guided Tiberius to the burning stagecoach in front of the Main Street stables. Tall flames whirled around the vehicle like ruby snakes. As nightfall deepened, the firelight shone brighter, bouncing off the windows of the nearby buildings.

  A human chain passed buckets filled with snow from the closest mounds to the flaming carriage. Ray Wilson watched the fire from afar, paralyzed. Tiberius slapped him. “Snap out of it, Wilson. If the flames reach the stable, we can kiss your horses and half of the street goodbye.”

  They both joined the chain at its front. The smoke attacked Tiberius’ eyes, his throat. The heat choked his lungs. He skidded on the slush, half-blind and out of breath. He received, emptied, and sent back bucket after bucket. The flames hissed and shrank under the falling snow, only to resurface with renovated strength.

  “We’re not moving fast enough!”

  Ray pointed to a man swaying one step too close to the flames. “Who’s that kook?”

  Tiberius shielded his brow. Goddammit. Who else?

  He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Stay away, Doc!”

  Doc Tucker stumbled even closer to the blazing stage. His messy hair and unkempt beard seemed fairer under the orange light; the circles under his eyes, blacker. He wore no coat. His shirt was open and untucked over a pair of dirty corduroy pants, suspenders down. He stretched both arms to the deadly glow with the suicidal zeal of a moth. His sleeve caught fire. He let it burn.

  Tiberius left his post. He tackled Doc Tucker and rolled him on the ground until the flames licking his shirt disappeared. They left a smoking hole in the fabric and a patch of blistered skin underneath.

  He lifted the doctor by his lapel. “Do you want to grill yourself like a beefsteak or what?”

  “Don’t talk to me,” Doc Tucker muttered, trying to fight Tiberius off. “And don’t you ever touch me.”

  Tiberius pushed him up the steps of the nearby saloon. He beckoned Madame Valentine, who was shepherding a bunch of curious girls back inside the building. “See if you can get him to drink some coffee.”

  She guided the doctor inside with kindness. He reacted docilely to her touch.

  Tiberius rejoined the battle against the fire. After an eternity of sweat, and smoke, and feverish dread, he threw the final bucketful that killed the last stubborn flames. Everyone stared at the charred frame of the stagecoach, grim as the blackened skeleton of a dead cow. All five travelers watched their tragic turn of events from the porch of the Silver Moon, stiff and silent as totems.

  Ray Wilson raised both hands to his head. “I’m a dead man. The company will flay the skin off my ass.”

  Tiberius patted his shoulder. “At least no one got hurt. And you still have the horses.”

  Ray shook his head so fast his curls seemed to fly off his head. “How the hell did this happen?”

  “Were you carrying something flammable?”

  “Like what? ’Twas a passenger’s ride.”

  Tiberius shrugged. “Sometimes all it takes is a cigar butt.”

  Ray turned on his heels so fast his boots left two spiraling marks on the snow. He pointed an accusatory finger at Reverend Conn, his face as red as the tip of a branding iron. “If you torched my ride with one of your filthy smokes, you better pray I never find out, minister!” He stampeded into the saloon, pushing the double doors with such anger they almost gave in on their hinges.

  Tiberius followed but stopped to address the five stunned travelers. He scratched his jaw. The lick of the flames had left soft patches on his stubble. “I’m afraid you might need to stay with us for a while longer.”

  The reverend discreetly put the unlit cigar in his hand into his pocket. “We can but accept the tests of the Lord.”

  Miss Sheppard stomped the floor. “Shut it, Elmer. Just shut it.” She covered her mouth. “Excuse me.”

  Tiberius smirked. “It’s within reason to be upset, miss.”

  She glanced at the smoking remains of the stagecoach. “What are we going to do now? Are there any other carriages in town?”

  “None. At best, a wagon, but in this weather… My advice would be for you to have a drink, a warm meal, and go rest. We can figure it out in the morning. I’m sure the Valentines will be happy to host you at the Silver Moon. They have plenty of empty rooms.”

  Miss Sheppard gasped. “You cannot possibly expect us to spend the night here.” Her voice fluted up and down like a broken whistle.

  Tiberius frowned. “You’re welcome to stay wherever you please. I’m just trying to help.”

  The other lady passenger, the silver-haired woman with the warm smile, stepped forward. “We all thank you, Sheriff. The Valentines have been nothing but pleasant, and I’m ready to put this day to rest.”

  Tiberius tipped his hat and held the door open for her. “Have a good night, Mrs.…?”

  “Miss. I never married.” She winked. “Leona Gray.”

  Miss Gray bowed her head and walked inside. Tiberius looked at the young deputy and his prisoner. “What ’bout you, Westshore? All good?”

  “As good as it gets, I guess.” He eyed the handcuffed man to his right. “And I’m sure Mister Bisby has no problem delaying his appointment with the Silverton marshal.”

  Pleasant smiled. “Indeed, I do not.”

  Tiberius nodded. He reached for the prisoner’s arm. “Let’s go then.”

  Westshore blocked his way. “Go where, Sheriff?”

  “To the empty cell in my office. Where else?”

  “That won’t be necessary. He stays with me. I’d rather keep a close eye on this one,” the deputy sputtered, twisting the over-polished star pinned on his chest.

  Tiberius raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? If he causes any trouble—”

  “He won’t.” Willoughby tipped his hat and pushed Pleasant through the door.

  Tiberius kept it open. “In or out?” he asked Miss Sheppard and the reverend.

  She looked away. Reverend Conn tapped her palm. “Come, come, Georgina. No reason to be so stern. Let’s put some food in our stomachs, then decide, yes?”

  He offered her his arm. She took it with an exasperated grunt. “Fine.”

  Miss Sheppard gifted Tiberius her best, most venomous glower before entering the saloon. The music of the old pianola traversed the open door and flew into the night. Music, bursts of laughter, and clinking of glasses.

  That’s all anyone needed to forget a day gone south: a song and a fiery drink.

  5

  Every winter, the Silver Moon trans
cended its original birth as a haven of entertainment, alcohol, and sex. It doubled as Souls Well’s social eatery. Every family brought whatever they could spare from their pantries: a piece of dry meat or cheese, a handful of mushrooms, wild nuts handpicked in the fall, anything good enough to add to a big pot of stew. They all dined together around a long table set at the back, finding comfort in their neighbors. While the cold outside remained, even the most pious turned a blind eye to the girls keeping the sheets of the establishment warm. Winter was too lonely to be picky about where to socialize and with whom.

  Tiberius grabbed a bowl from a passing tray and retired to his usual spot at the bar. He leaned on the counter with both elbows, facing the dining crowd. That night their casual cantina was livelier than usual. The five strangers piqued the curiosity of the chatty locals. Reverend Conn sat in the center, an equal number of people to his left and right. He drank more than he ate and talked more than both. To his left, Miss Sheppard stared at her steaming bowl as if she planned to read her fortune in the stew. She hardly ate. She looked around with her stiff neck, relaxing a little when Fanny Mae sat at the opposite side of the table.

  Fanny talked to Miss Gray in what she considered a polite whisper but sounded like plain conversation to anybody else. She stole quick glances at Tiberius and the rest of the men standing around the bar, giggling. Miss Gray was far from shocked by the girl’s rowdy comments. She looked at her with the same tolerant gaze a grandmother would use when listening to her granddaughter’s innocent indiscretions.

  Deputy Westshore sat by the two women, bent over his food, too busy gulping to chitchat. To his right, his handcuffed prisoner showed a great deal of skill when bringing a spoonful from his bowl to his mouth. Not even a drop stained his vest or ran down his chin.

  A big man with a bushy red beard joined Tiberius at the bar. There was hardly any separation between the man’s long hair and the furs wrapped around his neck and shoulders. He sat on a stool and huffed his pipe. “Evenin’, Sheriff.”