Читать книгу The Third Western Megapack - Johnston McCulley - Страница 9

BAD BLOOD AT DRY ROCK, by Arlette Lees

Deep in Vulture Canyon, an old prospector found my husband’s remains beside his mule. Both had been shot once in the head, the saddle bags emptied, his six-shooter gone. The gun, with its crooked barrel and loose chamber, was useless. It would probably have blown up in Rolf’s face had it cleared the holster.

Forgive me if I don’t wear black veils and widow’s weeds, but Rolf didn’t know I existed once he began his love affair with gold. Because I was stranded in a leaky tent on the banks of Lost Horse Creek at the tail end of summer, I dutifully cried a few tears and got on with the business at hand. Except for half an ounce of gold dust, a tired mule, a laying hen, and a handful of clothes and cooking utensils, I was flat busted.

I’d never wanted to leave our homestead in the mid-west to strike it rich in the Wild West, but Rolf was a stubborn German, the kind who was always right.

Now, he’s dead right.

I packed up old Tom and headed for Dry Rock. It was just as dry and dusty as the name implies, but it was where we purchased supplies and made a few friends. Like most wives who were dragged west, only to be widowed or abandoned, I was left with three options. I could starve, sell my virtue for two bucks a pop or…well…I hadn’t figured out option number three. All I knew was that I wasn’t particularly crazy about choices one and two. I had a few things working in my favor. I was young, pretty, and determined to survive. If I was going to starve, I might as well have stayed in Ireland where I was born.

Once I arrived in Dry Rock, I pitched tent in a vacant lot between the Last Chance Saloon and Quan Lee’s general store. Lee was a handsome young man who’d been born in San Francisco and spoke English more properly than most of the drifters and miners that walked through his door. Except for holidays when he wore red and gold embroidered silk, he wore traditional black pajamas with a shiny queue that fell to his waist. His store carried a little bit of everything, but he’d grown wealthy outfitting gold miners who were chasing their dreams.

Lee was the closest thing Dry Rock had to a doctor. At the back of the store he kept bottles and jars of mysterious powders, potions, and elixirs labeled with Chinese characters. On occasion, a white person under the cover of darkness would leave through the back door with medication to cure his ills.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Krause,” said Lee, as I lay my purchases on the counter.

“It’s just Susan Coyne, now that Rolf is gone.” With my long auburn hair and green eyes, the Germanic name never suited me any more than Rolf did.

“Gone?” said Lee. “Gone how?”

“Gone, like in shot dead for gold that was probably worth less than the bullet that killed him. He got more sand in his boots than gold in his pan.”

“My deepest condolences, Miss Coyne. Perhaps he was born under an unfortunate placement of stars.”

“Yes, he was not a lucky man.”

Lee measured out a small sprinkling of gold dust and returned the remainder to me in its red velvet pouch.

“I hope you don’t mind my setting up camp next door. I need a day or two to figure out my next move.”

“A quiet neighbor would be nice for a change,” he said, gesturing toward the saloon. “There’s a rain barrel beside the store. You’re welcome to the water.”

“Thank you, you’re very kind.”

His eyes rested for a moment on my face, his expression unreadable. Perhaps he was wondering how long a woman with limited resources could last in a hell hole like this. I wondered the same.

* * * *

That evening, I watered Old Tom and placed Miss Penny in a box of straw in the tent. I bathed by lantern light, then lay awake listening to the rowdy uproar from the saloon, the shattering glass, the drunken laughter of bar girls, the scrape of boots as fights erupted onto the boardwalk out front. Sometime after midnight I drifted into restless sleep.

The next morning I woke with an idea. Miss Penny wasn’t exactly the goose that laid the golden egg, but chickens and eggs were a rare commodity in frontier towns, and by noon I’d sold two lovely brown eggs for two dollars each to a lady who wanted to bake a cake for her daughter’s wedding. That left me with two eggs in my basket. Perhaps it was premature, but it gave me a guarded sense of optimism.

Sheriff Longstreet stepped out of the saloon and strode my way. Despite the heat, he dressed in a black suit with a vest and tie. Silver spurs with Spanish rowels jangled with every stride, and he displayed a gun at his hip. My mother would have labeled him a real “show-offy” person, the kind you don’t want to get too close to.

Longstreet had blown into Dry Rock the previous year, running unopposed for the position that had cost the last two sheriff’s their lives. When asked about his background, his story changed with every telling, but he got the job anyway because no one else would take it. When he purchased a high quality horse, whose price far exceeded that of a sheriff’s lowly salary, people started to buzz with speculation.

I shaded my eyes from the sun that bounced off the silver conchos on his hat.

“I heard about Rolf,” he said. “Tough break.”

“News certainly travels fast.”

“He was an idiot to leave Wisconsin with all that water and nice green grass. He was out of his element here.”

“It’s a little late to impart that gem of wisdom, Sheriff.”

Longstreet had dark eyes, but no matter how hard you looked, you could never tell if they were brown or deep blue. A trill of anxiety ran up my spine as he took me in from head to toe like a butcher trying to decide which cut was the juiciest.

Lee was setting out crates of vegetables in front of the store, and when he glanced up and saw my distress, he dropped what he was doing and walked over.

“Good afternoon, Miss Coyne. Sheriff.”

Longstreet gave a stiff nod. “You’re just the person I want to see,” he said. “I’m looking for a girl called White Jade. I thought you might know her whereabouts.”

“I haven’t seen her,” said Lee. “I don’t frequent that side of town.”

“How noble of you. I’ve heard Woo Dock has been trying to buy out her contract.”

“My brother does not traffic in human flash,” said Lee.

“Certainly you’ve heard rumors. People talk.”

“I’m a businessman with no time for idle gossip.”

Faced with Lee’s impenetrable wall of non-information, Longstreet’s demeanor shifted. A bead of sweat ran from beneath his hat band and down his forehead. I could almost smell the bad blood between them. If the sheriff had been a bull, he’d have been pawing the ground and snorting fire.

“You know,” said Longstreet, “there’s talk of moving all of you Chinamen to the far side of Dry Creek, in which case I might be willing to take the store off of your hands if, of course, the price is right.”

Lee gave him a hard look. “That’s not going to happen, Mr. Longstreet. How about you stick to your side of the street and I’ll stick to mine.”

“Now that we’ve had our little chat, I hope you’ll be so kind as to excuse us. I have a matter of importance to discuss with Mrs. Krause,” said Longstreet, dismissively.

“I’d like Lee to stay,” I said. “And it’s Miss Coyne now that Rolf has been murdered.”

“Murdered? It was more likely an accident. He was a bad aim with a bad gun.”

“That may be true, but how he managed to shoot his mule after he was dead is something you might care to contemplate.”

“Well, you got me there. The point is, I can’t see how you can make it on your own now that he’s gone.”

“You presume a great deal for someone who barely knows me.”

Longstreet snapped a match to life with his thumbnail and touched it to the end of his charoot, the smoke collecting beneath the brim of his hat.

“You might not feel so cocky when your tent is three feet deep in snow. I’ve simply come to offer you employment at the Last Chance, Miss Coyne. Sooner or later you’ll have to do something to keep the wolf from the door. The saloon is nice and warm in winter, and you can sleep late in the mornings. Right now I’m saddled with half a dozen leather-skinned half-breeds. A year or two above stairs and you might say they’ve lost their bloom.” It was the first time I’d seen him smile, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. He looked at me expectantly, the charoot clamped tightly between his teeth.

I was close enough to Lee that I could feel the angry heat rising off his skin.

“Thanks for the offer, Sheriff, but I’d like to hang on to my bloom a while longer,” I said.

“I can pay you twice what I pay those…”

Lee advanced on him a step or two. “She’s already given you her answer. Isn’t Isadore Dunne capable of doing his own pimping these days?”

“I’m afraid you’re behind the times. Old Izzie is on his way to San Jose. The Last Chance is under new ownership…mine. And in case that son of his decides to raise a stink, I have documentation to back up my claim.”

“That’s news to me,” said Lee. “He told me just last week that he has a new piano arriving by wagon freight. That doesn’t sound like a man who’s about to sell out.”

“Let’s just say he drew a bad hand of poker and leave it at that.” He turned his attention back to me. “You’d be wise to consider my offer while it’s still on the table.” The sheriff reached out and ran a lock of my hair through his fingers. “Gold silk,” he moaned.

I jerked away from him, and Lee pulled me behind him, acting as a protective shield. When I saw him clench his fist, I touched his arm in a cautionary gesture. There’s nothing Longstreet would like better than to gun Lee down in the street and steal his store.

The sheriff flicked his charoot into the dirt. “Looks like you’d rather take up with a dirty Chinaman,” he said. “Too bad his days in Dry Rock are numbered.” He looked as if he was about to walk away, then turned back and picked an egg out of my basket. He rolled it thoughtfully in his hand, then let it drop to the ground with a splat. “Ooops!” he said. “Delicate little things, aren’t they? You know, Susan, the only thing that stands between you and the crib above the saloon is a scrawny chicken and two…make that one…lonely egg.”

He walked away, spurs jangling, sun flashing from the conchos on his hat.

“The man’s a menace,” said Lee. “Are you all right?”

“I will be in a minute. I doubt we’ve seen the last of him, though.”

“He’s the only man I’ve ever known who can strut standing still.”

We shared a good laugh. “You have a fine sense of humor, Mr. Lee.”

“I need a cup of tea. How about you?”

“Yes, that would be lovely.”

“By the way, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re being watched.”

I turned to see a woman in the second story window of the saloon. Lupita Gomez. I was shocked at her appearance. She’d lost a great deal of weight since Rolf and I left for Lost Horse Creek. The once-beautiful girl pressed her palm against the pane as if to impart a message, then dropped the curtain.

* * * *

Lee put the Out To Lunch sign on the door and pulled the shades against the brutal angle of the sun, casting the room in a soft amber glow. Using the pickle barrel as a table top, we drank jasmine tea and ate almond cookies. Red lanterns with gold tassels hung from the ceiling, and the aroma of exotic spices and perfumed soap and fresh onions hung in the air. We shared a comfortable closeness, made even more meaningful by the introduction of a common adversary.

I admired Lee’s strength of character and calm self-assurance. For the first time since I arrived on the frontier I didn’t feel lonely, abandoned, hungry or cold. The only shadow over my head was Longstreet, but it was a big scary one.

“Lee,” I said. “What do you think really happened to Izzie?”

“The same thing that happened to Lum Tan.”

“Lum Tan? I’m not familiar with the name.”

“Of course, you’re not. He ran the cribs of Chinese girls on the other side of Dry Creek until someone put a bullet in his ear. White Jade was his youngest and most beautiful girl, a painted doll with tiny bound feet, reserved for special clients at a high price. When Lum was murdered, she ran away. She was a girl from a rich family. It was never the life she chose for herself.”

“What happened?”

“The same thing that happens to many girls. They are kidnapped from China, like White Jade was. Others are sold into slavery by poor parents. Most, however, indenture themselves in exchange for passage to America, the place they call Gold Mountain.”

“Indenture themselves for how long?”

“Eight years would not be uncommon, although most of them never see freedom. One sick day adds two weeks of servitude to their contract, a pregnancy a year. If they run away and are captured, they are bound for life, a life which is cut short by disease and mistreatment.”

“I’ve never heard such a terrible story. They wanted the Last Chance and Izzie disappeared. Now, he wants your store. God knows what he’ll do next.”

Lee put down his cup and took both of my hands in his. “I don’t want you to worry about me. I can take care of myself, and I can take care of you too.”

* * * *

When I returned to the tent, I kicked off my shoes, let Miss Penny out to forage, and collapsed exhausted on my nest of quilts, the stress of the day having overtaken me. I felt something hard against my hip and tossed back the covers. It was Rolf’s gun…the same crooked barrel…the same loose chamber.

I stepped outside, the hard-packed earth hot on the soles of my feet. I saw nothing unusual…children playing…dogs sleeping in the shade…riders trotting down the street. I glanced up, and Lupita was looking down at me from the second story of the saloon like she had earlier. The petite Mexican girl with the snapping dark eyes was now old and used up before her time, like a once-golden peach sapped of its vital juice.

I lay my hand over my heart to convey friendship, and she returned the gesture, a plaintive smile on her lips. She leaned over the sill and etched the shape of a star in the air. It took a moment to grasp her meaning. The sheriff, the man who wears the star, had killed Rolf and taken the gun that Lupita placed in my tent. I nodded my head. She knew I understood.

Sheriff Longstreet had plenty of gold, although I suppose people like him never have enough. My husband, however, didn’t have enough of anything to warrant a thief making the rugged ride to Lost Horse Creek. What Longstreet wanted was Rolf’s wife, not his gold. The problem is, I’m not the easy pickings he counted on

I was born to stubborn stock who figured they’d already been pushed around enough. Longstreet had always been fascinated by the red-gold color of my hair and my light green eyes, characteristics that are unremarkable among the Irish, but at a premium here in the southwest. Longstreet could charge men twice what he’d get for the average poke, at least until I was as used up as Lupita was.

A dark form appeared behind Lupita. She’s pulled back into the room. The window slammed shut.

I had a lot of suspicions about a lot of things, but I couldn’t take them to the sheriff. Longstreet was the sheriff. That evening I conspired with Lee, and we decided to place the gun in the safe at the assay office. Between the gun and a statement from Lupita, we’d have the beginning of a case.

* * * *

Deep in the night, I woke to the sound of weeping. I pushed the tent flap aside and stepped into a heavy mist that had settled over the town. A large, blurry moon floated over the rooftops, and for once the saloon was quiet, the patrons either passed out or gone home.

A green lantern flickered uncertainly in the access alley behind the Last Chance. A man with a big square head and a nose the size of a ship’s rudder was unloading seven or eight trembling Chinese girls from a barred cage on the back of a horse-drawn cart. When the smallest girl among them began to wail, Squarehead backhanded her in the face and the others went silent. He rushed them up the back stairs to the cribs, and the night once again went quiet. I wondered if White Jade was among them.

As I turned back toward the tent, a wavering candle flame appeared in Lee’s upstairs window. A shadow moved across the shade, then two shadows met in an embrace. I dropped my gaze, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I realized with a jolt that Lee had come to mean more to me than just the man who ran the general store. I had sensed a connection between us, a subtle visceral tug…at least I thought I had. I took a deep, centering breath. I’d been indulging myself in a fantasy born of loneliness and misdirected longing. It wasn’t Lee’s fault. He’d made me a cup of tea, not a promise, and I’d been foolish to read more into it than was intended. A chill gust of wind lifted the hair from my shoulders and ruffled the hem of my nightgown. I slipped quietly back into the tent.

* * * *

The next morning, I tucked my feelings away, unwilling to admit that a heart can be as fragile as one of Miss Penny’s eggs. I put on a smile, my blue calico dress, and arranged my hair in one long braid down my back. There was a big brown egg in the straw beneath Miss Penny, and I sold the last two in my basket to the preacher’s wife. She and the preacher had a rough row to hoe if they thought they were going to Christianize the heathens in this town. As she walked away, the eagerly awaited freight wagon pulled in front of the saloon. For the inhabitants of Dry Rock, it was better than the circus coming to town.

Jasper French jumped down from the high wagon seat and commenced watering his six sweaty mules. Longstreet stepped out of the saloon with some kind of document in his hand, and I moved closer to the boardwalk to get a better view of what was going on. Jasper examined the Bill of Lading, and soon the men were engaged in a heated conversation. Jasper, a crusty character not easily intimid-ated, held his ground, and Longstreet stomped back into the saloon.

A feisty black terrier began nipping at the heels of the mules. After a kick sent him rolling in the dust, he changed tactics and chased a cat up a pole. I picked up Miss Penny, placed her in her box inside the tent, and tied down the flap.

After Jasper finished watering the mules, he pulled the wagon in front of the general store. Lee waved me over, and the three of us went inside. We settled in chairs around the barrel, and Lee passed out bottles of sarsaparilla.

Jasper was as done in as his team. He took his hat off and rolled a cigarette. He was a tough sun-pickled mule skinner who delivered goods to the far-flung outposts of the west. He had been shot by bandits, porcupined with Apache arrows, but never lost a shipment, To the delight of local youngsters, he’d display his multitude of scars and let them feel the arrowhead still embedded somewhere north of his liver. Of course, a harrowing story went with every battle wound.

“So, what’s going on at the Last Chance?” said Jasper. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to turn Izzie’s piano over to Sheriff Longstreet. It’s been bought and paid for, and if it goes to anyone, I figure his son is next in line.”

Lee proceeded to tell the story that he heard Longstreet repeating all over town.

“That’s a crock,” said Jasper, scraping a match to life on the sole of his boot and firing up his cigarette. “The only place Izzie is headed is Boot Hill. I found him lying in a gully twenty miles east of town with two bullets at the base of his skull. Indian’s don’t kill folks that way. This was an assassination, plain and simple. His son Alvie and the undertaker are on their way out there now.”

“This comes as no surprise,” says Lee. “What was the paper Longstreet was waving in your face?”

“The Bill of Lading for the piano and the Bill of Sale to the saloon.”

“Did the Bill of Sale look genuine?” asked Lee, leaning forward in his chair.

“Yes and no,” said Jasper. “It was signed by Dunne all right, but instead of Isadore Markham Dunne, he signed it, I. M. Done.”

Lee and I look at one another in disbelief.

“That would never hold up in court,” I said. “Dunne was trying to tell us the document was coerced.”

“What court?” said Jasper. “The Circuit Judge won’t be back in Dry Rock for another six months.”

“Then we’ll need to come up with a plan of our own,” said Lee. “If you can get a hold of Alvie, we can meet back here tonight.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” says Jasper. “In the meantime, there’s a great big piano blocking access to your delivery.”

The piano came in a sturdy wooden crate, and I got out of the way while the men wrestled it into one of the two back rooms of the store. Jasper helped unload the wagon, and after he left to bed down the mules at the livery stable, I stayed to help stock the shelves with the new merchandise. There was coffee, flour, sugar, tobacco, whiskey, patent medicine, hard candy, bolts of calico, prospector’s tools, guns, ammunition, lanterns, tents, boots, slickers, and toys. It was all very exciting.

Lee opened the door, and customers piled inside. I soon found myself measuring cloth, bagging vegetables, and weighing gold dust. By the time we closed at the end of the day, I was in high spirits and wearily brushing dust from my sleeves.

“That was fun,” I said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear.

“Here comes your reward,” said Lee, opening the door for the boy from the Chinese restaurant who arrived with steaming bowls of vegetables, rice, noodles, and deliciously seasoned beef with mushrooms, all in cartons and packed in a woven basket. Lee paid the boy, and we feasted around the pickle barrel. Afterward, we settled back and finished the meal with green tea and fortune cookies.

“I couldn’t have managed without you today, Miss…”

“For heaven’s sake, Lee, we’re friends. Please, call me Susan.”

“Susan then. Did you know I was married when I was just a boy?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“It was a long time ago. We were only together a year when she died giving birth to a stillborn child.”

“How very sad. You must have been heartbroken.”

“I’ve long been resigned to one day dying an old bachelor. Then a pretty green-eyed girl came to town with an old mule and a pet chicken and I began to hope that in time…”

A shrill scream cut him off mid-sentence. It was a shocking, terrified scream, followed by the sound of feet clattering down the boardwalk. We dashed outside, expecting to see a child run down by a wagon or gunfighters squared off in the street. Instead, we found a crowd gathered in front of the vacant lot. Every eye was focused on the side wall of the Last Chance Saloon. A girl was hanging by the neck from the second story window.

I heard a man say: “It’s that Mexican whore used to be so popular. Look! Someone’s cut off all her long hair.”

“Oh my God, it’s Lupita,” I said. Lupita’s left foot twitched, and her shoe fell downward into the dust.

“Come inside,” said Lee. “There’s nothing we can do.”

I looked over at my tent. Something wasn’t right. The tent flap was wide open and some of my things were lying in the dust. I rushed over with Lee behind me.

My clothes were scattered around inside the tent. Miss Penny lay motionless in her box. I knelt down beside her nest. Someone had broken her neck and a shattered egg lay in the straw. A bolt of fear shot through my body.

“Old Tom!” I cried, gathering Miss Penny in my arms and running from the tent. When I saw the mule nibbling nonchalantly on a clump of sage at the back of the lot, I let out a cry of relief. I started to cry and my knees began to tremble.

Lee waved over three Chinese boys who had gathered at the edge of the crowd. He barked something in Mandarin and handed each boy a coin with a square hole in the center. Then he reached out for Miss Penny. I didn’t want to let her go and wiped my tears on her feathers. She was soft and warm, and I held her for a moment longer. He handed her to the smallest of the boys, who ran off in the direction of Dry Creek.

The second boy led Old Tom down the street to the livery stable. The third boy found a wheelbarrow behind the store and moved my possessions into one of the back rooms. In front of the Last Chance, Longstreet stood shoulder to shoulder with Squareface. They were watching me, smiling and whispering conspiratorially behind their cigarettes. Longstreet pointed a finger at me as if he were siting a deer in a rifle scope.

Squarehead grabbed his own throat, tilted his head toward his shoulder and let his tongue dangle from his mouth. A man on the second floor of the saloon appeared at the window. He pulled out a knife and began sawing at the rope that suspended Lupita in mid-air. The rope gave way and her body landed with a thud on the ground. I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach.

“Don’t let them spook you, Susan. Be brave. They want to see you crumble,” said Lee. “Come inside.” He put his hand at my waist and guided me toward the store. I stood straight with my shoulders back, but I thought my knees would collapse at any moment.

Once inside, Lee caught me as I fell and carried me into the back room where the piano was stored. There was a large safe against the wall and several boxes of merchandise. He laid me on a cot at the foot of the safe, smoothed my hair back from my face, and covered me with a light quilt.

Lee left but soon returned with a small bottle of emerald green liquid from his apothecary.

“Here, drink this.”

“If you help me, he’ll get back at you. He’ll kill you or burn down the store.”

“I don’t think so. If the store goes, the whole town goes. There’s not enough water in this town to tame a glass of whiskey, let alone put out a fire. Longstreet is crazy, but not that crazy. Now, drink this,” he said, holding up the sparkling green liquid.

“What is it? It looks like absinthe.”

“It has a long Chinese name. It translates to, Sleep Like Death.”

“You must be joking.”

“Why don’t I put it on top of the safe. It’s effective but harmless. They give it to children”

I was so exhausted I couldn’t raise my head. As I dozed off, I heard footsteps coming from the living quarters above my head. Lee might not have a wife, but he certainly had a secret that he kept in the rooms above the store.

* * * *

It was dark beyond the window when I woke to the murmur of voices. Lee, Jasper, and Alvie entered the room.

“Feeling better?’ asked Lee, coming to my side.

“Much better, thank you,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed and smoothing my skirt. “Hello Alvie. I’m sorry to hear about your father.”

“Thank you, ma’am. At least we got him back home where he belongs.”

Alvie was only twenty-three and not the biggest pup in the litter, but he had a good head for business and grew up in the saloon at his father’s elbow.

The men began ripping into the piano crate with claw hammers and crowbars until the lid was off and the piano was out.

“Wouldn’t it be easier to move it when it’s in the box?” I asked.

“There’s method to our madness,” said Jasper. “The trick is getting Longstreet over here.”

“You mean to the store?” I said.

“Yup, that’s the idea. Once he’s here, we’re going to jump him.”

I considered that for a moment. “I can get him here.”

“You?” said Lee. “I don’t want you in the middle of this mess.”

I rose from the cot and neatened my hair. I hadn’t come all the way from Ireland and across the Great Plains to be defeated at the end of my journey.

“I’ve been in the middle since the beginning, Lee. I’ve earned the right to be part of this. Now, air out the smoke and blow out the lanterns. We’ll never get him here unless he thinks I’m alone.”

* * * *

I carried my lantern through the windy, moonless night. The first chill of autumn was in the air. When I entered the saloon, every man who wasn’t too drunk to find his head, removed his hat, not unusual in a town where there was one woman to every two hundred men. The saloon was uncharacteristically still, men slumped over their drinks, the Mexicans and half-breeds subdued and red-eyed. Lum Tan’s girls, some with bruises and black eyes, were huddled together near the stairs.

Longstreet pushed back from the poker table and strode toward me, spurs jangling, eyes cold as stone, with an expectant glint of lust in their depths. I spoke before he had a chance to open his mouth.

“Awfully quiet for a Saturday night,” I said. “Funny, how a murdered whore can put a damper on things, not to mention the bullets you pumped into Izzie Dunne and my husband Rolf.”

He glanced at his customers, who were suddenly coming out of their stupors to listen.

“She’s over-emotional,” he said. “Turn around and enjoy your drinks.”

No one turned around. No one was enjoying their drinks. They were all looking at me.

“You’d better watch your mouth in my establishment,” he said, muscles flexing dangerously in his jaw.

A customer gave Longstreet a venomous stare and walked out. Two more men abandoned their unfinished drinks and followed suit.

“You come here to start trouble?” he said, or to fill the recent vacancy. My generous offer still stands.”

“We’ll see what happens when winter comes,” I said, dangling the carrot. “Right now I’m not that desperate. In the meantime, I have a message from Alvie Dunne.”

“He might as well get it through his head that he has no ownership in the Last Chance.”

“He realizes that, and he’s ready to give up the piano. Every classy saloon this side of the Mississippi has a piano. You can pick it up tonight from the back of Lee’s store.”

“What’s the catch?”

“You need to pick it up before Lee returns from Dry Creek. You have thirty seconds to decide, then I’m leaving.”

“I want the Bill of Lading.”

I removed it from my pocket, unfolded it, and handed it over. Longstreet motioned to Squarehead, who was watching us from the bar. He sat his drink down and lumbered over.

“Let’s go, Greig,” said Longstreet. “We have a piano to move.”

* * * *

The wind was moaning around the corner of the building when we entered through the back of the store, and I could feel the first cold breath of winter in the air.

“There’s the piano,” I said. “The crate stays.”

“Looks like she’s shacking up with the Chinaman,” said Greig, looking at the cot.

Longstreet laughed. “I’ve never stood in line behind a Chinaman before.”

I stuck to our plan, refused to let him get under my skin.

“There’s a dolly in the storage room. Out the back door to your left. I expect it back here first thing in the morning.”

“Get it,” said Longstreet to his lacky. He smiled to himself. “Take your time.”

Greig left the room with a smirk on his face. Longstreet drew a bead on the safe and noticed the emerald liquid on top of it. Golden lights from my lantern danced along the rim of the glass.

“Open the safe,” he said.

I set the lantern down on a stack of boxes.

“I don’t have the combination.”

“Don’t play innocent with me, Susan. It’s obvious you’re playing the Chinaman for a fool.” He kept eying the emerald sleeping potion. “Where the hell does Lee get absinthe? I can’t even get a bottle for my private stock.”

“It’s not what you think it is.”

There was a thud and a few sputtered expletives from the adjacent storeroom. Greig wasn’t going down without a struggle.

“You clumsy ox!” I called out. “You break something, your boss pays for it.”

Longstreet wasn’t paying attention. He was transfixed by the enticing green potion…so like liquid emeralds…so like rare absinthe…a man of indulgence, unable to resist temptation. He picked up the sparkling crystal glass and downed the contents in a single swallow. The taste wasn’t what he expected, and he grimaced. My nerves were beginning to fray. Why were the men taking so long? How long before the green stuff kicked in?

“Now you can tell me what you did with Rolf’s gun.”

“What does it matter? You’re through in this town. Your customers liked Izzie. They liked Lupita more than they like you. They finally know you for what you are.”

“I might be through, but I’m not through with you.”

Longstreet reached out and grabbed my hair close to the scalp. I gave a yelp of pain. He forced a bitter-tasting kiss on my lips and started ripping at the buttons of my dress. I jerked my head to the side and bit him sharply on the cheek. He let go of my hair and cocked a fist. I closed my eyes and flinched, but nothing happened.

I looked into his face. The angry light in his eyes had lost focus. Strength wilted from his fist, then his arm, then his entire frame.

“What’s in that…?” he said.

“It’s called Sleep Like Death,” I said.

His tongue thickened. He struggled to catch his breath, but failed. He was allergic to the medication and it was putting him into anaphylactic shock. His eyes rolled back into his head until only the whites were visible. He folded at the knee, hitting his head on the safe as he went down.

Lee burst into the room. He looked at Longstreet lying in a heap on the floor.

“What happened?”

“Sleep Like Death,” I said. “He drank it.”

“What do you mean? It’s only a sedative. Are you okay?”

“I am now.”

Jasper and Alvie dragged Greig’s bloody corpse into the room.

“He put up one hell of a struggle. Even after we got him down, he took a long time to die.”

The men scooped Greig off the floor and struggled him into the piano crate.

“The bastard must have swallowed an anvil,” says Alvie. “I heard something pop in my back.”

He moved aside while Lee and Jasper dumped Longstreet on top of his henchman. A moan was heard as they nailed the lid down tight and loaded the crate beneath the canopy of Jasper’s freight wagon. Alvie jumped on the seat next to Jasper and Lee, and I watched them disappear into the darkness.

Back inside the store, Lee picked up a broom and tapped on the ceiling with the handle. I heard a door open at the top of the interior staircase. Light footfalls descended the stairs. Before my eyes was the most exquisite little creature I’d ever seen, her eyes demurely downcast, long black hair tumbling over her shoulders. She was dressed in white, silk brocade, tiny beaded slippers on her bound feet.

“Susan, I’d like you to meet my thirteen year old niece, White Jade. She was kidnapped from the house of my elder brother in Shantou, China and will be living in the household of Woo Dock and his wife.

* * * *

The next morning, Lee and the Chinese boys delivered the piano to the Last Chance, where Alvie hired an old black piano man who’d panned out on Lost Horse Creek. The Chinese girls were freed and sent off to San Francisco to find suitable husbands. The other girls decided to stay, now that order had been restored.

As soon as Lee and I had a moment to ourselves, we tracked down the preacher and tied the knot. A month later, we were married again in a traditional Chinese ceremony. I had no idea what was being said, but I got the general drift.

* * * *

At high noon, Jasper French pulled his team up next to a 200-foot drop in the badlands of Apache country. Longstreet had been a disruptive pain in the ass, cursing, begging, and kicking the inside of the crate for the last twenty miles, his silver spurs jangling against the wooden interior. Jasper couldn’t really blame him, being stuffed in a hot box with a dead man. He only wished he had the foresight to remove those fancy, Spanish spurs before they nailed down the lid.

Jasper backed the wagon to the edge of the gorge and considered pumping a few bullets into the crate before he sent it cartwheeling into space. It would certainly be the civilized thing to do. Then again, Longstreet wasn’t a civilized man, and this wasn’t a civilized country. He fingered the arrowhead imbedded beneath his skin and decided he might just need his ammunition for a more worthy cause, like saving his own hide.

Jasper climbed into the back of the wagon. It took all of his wiry strength to inch the crate along until gravity finished the job. He watched the crate somersault end over end until it was the size of a die and disappeared into the chaparral at the bottom of the gorge.

Of course, someone would stumble onto it…eventually…an Indian looking for a lost colt or a bandit running from the law. It could happen tomorrow. Then again, it might not happen for a hundred years.

In time he’d forget Longstreet’s face. He’d even forget his name, but he’d never forget leaving behind them fancy silver spurs.