This Scorched Earth

by William Gear

  “And after that?” Doc asked quietly.

  “Maybe I’ll land on your porch and beg for a full bottle of laudanum to take down to the river and chug to the dregs. But, enough of that. What do I owe you, Doc?”

  “Same as always. Two dollars a girl and five for Amy’s dosing.”

  Butler watched Phillipa count out twenty dollars, hesitate, and add another five.

  “Call that last a gratuity, Doc. You were always decent with me and the girls.” She glanced at Butler. “Even your crazy brother minded his manners when cunt was flashed in his face.”

  Doc pushed the five back. “You have more need of that, given the circumstances.”

  She studied Doc, nodded, and slipped the five into her bosom.

  Doc stood, saying, “Phillipa, stay in touch. You have skills. If I hear of anyone needing a manager…”

  “You’re a good man, Doc Hancock.” She winked. “You looking for a randy, older wife who could still squeeze your johnson hard enough to … Ah, I see. I didn’t think you were. But it’s nice to get a declining smile instead of a look of outright revulsion.”

  Doc led Butler to the door, saying, “It’s a hard life they’re facing, isn’t it?”

  “‘Oh, soft Eros and Cyprian lady, devise some surge of beauty, I pray.

  “‘To smooth between our nipples, and oh, Aphrodite slip beautifully between our brave thighs!” Butler quoted.

  “What dat be?” Kershaw asked behind his ear.

  “Aristophanes at his cynical best in Lysistrata.”

  Doc stopped at the door, giving him a look askance. Then he glanced back at Phillipa, still sitting at the table, and called, “This new owner? Who is it?”

  “Some Yankee. Tough-looking bastard. Said his name was Win Parmelee.”

  74

  October 5, 1866

  That night in Aggie’s parlor house, Sarah bent over the ledger book. Its columns of numbers had been carefully entered by her steady hand. Beside her—already stained by the grease on the kitchen table—were her work sheets. On them she first made her columns, writing down from each of the receipts what the expenses were. Only after she had totaled them three times did she laboriously copy them into the ledger book with the sums at the bottom.

  She straightened her back, winced at the cramp in her muscles, and paused long enough to sip from her lukewarm coffee cup. Her butt was sore from the uncomfortable wooden chair. The kitchen—always too warm—had brought a sheen of perspiration to her underarms and neck.

  Aggie had a cramped but efficient kitchen, with a cast-iron cookstove sporting a warming shelf and water heater. A wooden counter for preparing meats and vegetables stood waist-high along one wall. An icebox, the table at which she labored, and a wall full of shelves that brimmed with pots, pans, cups, and plates completed its furnishings. Just off the back door was a pantry stuffed full of tinned foods. Fresh meat hung in the closed-in porch out back.

  Through the kitchen door she could hear the professor’s voice rising and falling over the hired violinist and cellist playing music. Central City, with its cosmopolitan and diverse population, produced men with lots of unexpected talents—including remarkable musicians.

  Raised as Sarah was in backcountry Arkansas, she’d heard of Mozart but never thought she’d actually hear his music played. The same with Brahms and Beethoven, Handel and Bach. In the months she’d worked at Aggie’s, she’d come to appreciate how much life she had missed on the Upper White. As she did, bits and pieces had begun to form in her head. Things she anticipated she would do when she and Bret made their stake and moved to San Francisco. Opera. Symphony. Plays. Books she had never read. So many opportunities awaited her.

  But dang! In the meantime she was finding out just how much it cost to run a bordello on the Colorado mining frontier. Central City was so far from anyplace. The most expensive items were the European spirits and specialty foods. She had been stunned just to discover that people ate fish eggs, and was completely floored the first time Aggie showed her one of the little fifty-dollar caviar tins imported from Russia.

  In a town where hard-rock miners worked for less than a dollar a day, and twenty-five cents would buy a person a solid meal and a room, fifty dollars for a small can of fish eggs was almost more than she could get her head around.

  Then came all the other expenses.

  The first few weeks, Sarah had been appalled. Aggie’s ceramic jar had had five dollars that first night. Two the following week. On the third, Aggie had brought the jar down with one hundred and twenty dollars in it.

  “I had to pay for a wagonload of supplies,” Aggie had explained. “That’s all them paper receipts I stacked there. To pay it off, Pat O’Reilly loaned me five hundred dollars.”

  Her pencil in hand, Sarah had stared, dumbfounded, at the woman. “Aggie, you borrowed five hundred dollars?”

  “Well, it ain’t the first time.” Aggie had given her the look a dog might when caught lifting its leg on a chair.

  “How much do you owe Pat O’Reilly?”

  “All told?” She’d looked away. “Reckon it’s close to six thousand or so. You’d have to ask him.” Then she’d dropped down to take Sarah’s hand. “That’s why you gotta help me, Sarah. We gotta figure out how to make this pay.”

  And over the months, Sarah had done so. Cutting some expenses, keeping track of orders and deliveries, double-checking the invoices for fraud. The work was dry, for the most part boring, but with it had come triumphs. Aggie’s was making a steady profit. Aggie had managed to pay Pat O’Reilly nearly a thousand dollars on her loan, and Sarah had another thousand saved away in a second ceramic jar for an emergency.

  She finished her final total as Aggie hurried into the kitchen, her hand pressed to her belly. She wore a green satin dress with velvet trim, cut low on the shoulders to show the cleave between her breasts. Her expression seemed strained as she hurried through and out the back.

  Sarah finished her figures, took another drink of her coffee. She was thinking of refilling it, when Aggie stepped back in, her blanched face pinched.

  “Are you all right?” Sarah asked.

  “Food poisoning. I think.” Aggie pressed her hand to her abdomen. “God, please tell me the girls aren’t going to come down with…” She clapped a hand to her mouth, turned, and charged back out the door.

  Sarah stood, poured more coffee, and gave her figures one last look. Aggie’s had made a solid seven hundred and fifty dollars and seventy-two cents profit that week. She sat down to do a final count on the money in the ceramic jar when Aggie staggered back in, her dress spotted with vomit.

  “Sarah? I’m sick. I hate to ask it, but there’s no one else. Could you attend to the gentlemen at the card table? Mick can see to the girls and johnnies. But the men at the game…” Her throat worked, and she whirled, fleeing once again into the night in search of the privy.

  Sarah took a deep breath, replaced the money, and closed the ledger. Standing, she brushed her skirt, a blue-and-white gingham, and smoothed her blouse. While her apparel was fit for a day dress, compared to Aggie’s verdant splendor she looked like a miller moth in a butterfly’s shadow. Nor was her hair done; it hung down her back in a simple ponytail.

  Nevertheless, a faint smile bent her lips. She’d been desperately curious about Bret’s game. Had never set foot beyond the kitchen during business hours. Generally, after the accounting was done, she’d compose herself in the kitchen chair, put her feet up on a keg or coal oil tin, and try to sleep until Bret came to get her. Usually sometime around dawn.

  Very well! Sarah had had ample opportunity to watch Mrs. Pennington act the perfect hostess in Little Rock, surely she could do just as well. Sarah left the kitchen, paused long enough to glance in the hallway mirror to ensure she at least looked presentable, and stepped through the door into the small side parlor Aggie had dedicated to the game.

  A thick blue cloud of cigar smoke hung low in the light of the oil lamps and stung her nose. She’d expec
ted this, given the way Bret’s hair and clothing smelled when he took her home.

  Stuffed animal heads hung from two of the walls. A large painting of a much-too-fleshy nude dominated the wall across from her. The artist had apparently never seen how a woman’s breasts looked when she reclined on a sofa; the nude’s defied both gravity and anatomy.

  A serving cart stood in the rear corner, bottles of cognac, whiskey, rum, sherry, and Madeira, ready to pour. Sparkling crystal glasses were stacked to either side, along with a box of two-dollar cigars from which four were missing.

  The table was felt-covered and had five chairs, of which three were occupied. Cards, stacks of greenbacks and coins, glasses with various levels of tan-colored liquor, and brass ashtrays marked each player’s position.

  At her entry the men looked up, Bret’s eyes going wide.

  The man to his right she recognized as the infamous Pat O’Reilly—a big bluff Irishman with ruddy features, blazing hair tinged with silver at the temples, and a pug nose. He wore a fine charcoal-gray broadcloth suit; diamond cuff links glinted in the light. His hazel eyes fixed first on her face, then he looked her up and down with open admiration, a red eyebrow rising.

  The fellow on Bret’s left was dapper, mid-thirties, impeccably dressed in a black wool suit with a frock-cut jacket and a frilly cravat at his throat. He had a strong jaw, thick black hair, and dangerous midnight-dark eyes. He stopped short, a card half extended, a hawkish interest glittering behind his stygian gaze.

  O’Reilly spoke first, quoting, “‘Oh, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here. How beauteous womankind is. O brave new world. That has such people in it.’”

  Sarah couldn’t help herself. “‘’Tis new to thee.’” She smiled. “But you make a poor Miranda.”

  The black-haired man, as if not to be outdone, stated, “‘Is she the goddess that hath served us and brought us together?’”

  “The goddess, aye,” O’Reilly agreed, his voice slightly awed. “And tell me, lassie, where has the lovely Miss Aggie been keeping ye that we’ve not the joy of yer previous acquaintance?”

  Bret spoke firmly. “In the kitchen, gentlemen. Doing the accounts. May I present my wife, Mrs. Sarah Anderson. And I do stress the missus for a reason. Her employment here is strictly of the nonsporting sort.”

  Both O’Reilly and the dark-and-dangerous one immediately stood, O’Reilly beating his fellow to take her hand and bow. “My distinct pleasure, Mrs. Anderson. Patrick O’Reilly at your service, ma’am.”

  “The pleasure, I assure you, is mine, Mr. O’Reilly. I’ve heard a great deal about you from Aggie and my husband.”

  “Alas, madam, I do hope they didn’t speak the truth about me, or I’m desolate.”

  “They speak quite highly, sir.”

  “George Nichols, ma’am,” the dark and handsome one said as he took her hand and kissed it. “Also at your service, though at the moment that service seems to be limited to losing hand after hand to your husband.”

  “My pleasure to meet you, Mr. Nichols.” She took her hand back, oddly uneasy at his continued predatory inspection. Some primal instinct made her wish for her pistol, so long relegated to a place under the bed.

  “Sarah?” Bret asked. “Is there a problem?”

  “I’m so sorry to interrupt. Aggie has taken ill.” She clasped her hands before her. “She has asked me to see to your needs. Can I get you anything?”

  Nichols reseated himself, glancing at his fellows. “I might find a plate of oysters suddenly to my liking.”

  “George, you really are a cadger,” O’Reilly said as he seated himself. Looking up at Sarah, he added, “Indeed, Mrs. Anderson, do bring George a plate of oysters. Low as he is, he no doubt needs all the help he can get.”

  “Coffee?” Bret suggested, the quirking of his lips she recognized as embarrassment.

  “Yes, gentlemen.”

  Retreating to the hallway where the music was louder, she closed the door and frowned, then made her way to the kitchen.

  Aggie was back, leaning against the door frame, her bodice unbuttoned, looking hot as she panted, eyes closed. “How are they?”

  “Oddly literate. I was greeted with a quote from Shakespeare’s Tempest. O’Reilly—”

  “‘O brave new world’?”

  “That’s it.”

  “He says that any time a new girl comes into the place. I hope Bret didn’t shoot him.”

  “Bret was fine. Only asked for a cup of coffee. But after calling me a goddess, Mr. Nichols asked for a plate of oysters. Some interplay I didn’t understand.” She stepped past Aggie and into the pantry to reach down a tin.

  “Bret didn’t shoot him?”

  “No. Why are you stuck on this?”

  “Pat no doubt had a witty comeback?”

  “Something about George needing all the help he can get. That’s when Bret seemed embarrassed.”

  Aggie took a deep breath, seeming to be on the verge of agony. “You must have made quite the impression. Oysters? One of the reasons we sell them here? Men think that by eating them, they’ll put a little more oak in their peckers.”

  “Oh, dear God.”

  Aggie smiled, fought her stomach, and added, “Don’t worry, girl. Take George his oysters. If he’s thinking along those lines, my guess is before morning, he’s going to spend some time with Theresa. I’ll have Mick raise her rate another five dollars tonight.”

  “Why Theresa?”

  “Of the two blondes here, she’s the one who looks the most like you.”

  Sarah had a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach as she cut open the can and spilled the oysters into a china bowl. “How on earth am I going to set these on the table next to Mr. Nichols? I’ll be burning red from embarrassment.”

  Aggie gulped air, hand still to her stomach. “Oh, you’ll do fine. Just set them down, and give Bret a big old saucy wink as you do. And if you want to rub it in, tuck your blouse a little tighter into your skirt so that magnificent bust of yours stretches the fabric as you do.”

  “Aggie!”

  “Think of it as strategy. A way to help Bret and our take. Tall and blond, built the way you are? You are a goddess. That slight sheen of perspiration and smelling the way you do? Neither O’Reilly nor Nichols is going to have his mind on the cards.”

  75

  December 25, 1866

  Billy cried out, sweating, fear running like water in his veins. His body seemed to burn as he backed away, terrified, from the hellish apparition.

  “Hey, wake up!”

  Billy jerked his eyes open to darkness. Instinctively reached for his pistol. Only to have an ironlike grip fasten on his wrist. Where the hell was he?

  He struggled, his assailant pressing down on top of him. He threw himself sideways; they rolled off the bed and slammed to the floor. Panic gave him strength, the banshee presence holding him only adding to his terror.

  “Billy! Damn it, it’s Danny! Wake up!”

  Danny? He stopped struggling, panting in cold air.

  “That’s it,” Danny’s voice soothed. “Now, I’m gonna let loose of you. Don’t you go grabbing for no gun now, you hear?”

  “Danny?” He blinked in the darkness, the floor hard and cold beneath him.

  “Yes, Danny, you fool.”

  Billy felt the grip loosen, the weight lifting. He lay panting as Danny’s dark form stood and backed away.

  “Where the hell are we?”

  “Planter’s House Hotel. Denver City. You remember?”

  Billy felt the fear drain away, sweat cooling in the cold. The terrible images from his nightmare slowly faded, his heart beginning to slow.

  “Son of a bitch,” he whispered, and sat up.

  Danny walked over to the door. Opened it a crack and looked out. “Well, at least there ain’t no crowd out here wondering what happened.”

  Billy pulled himself up to the bed. “What did happen?”

  “You was howling. Like the devil hisself had hol
d o’ you. Screaming, ‘Maw, I didn’t kill her.’ And ‘Sarah, go back to hell! Leave me alone!’ And a whole lotta ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!’ Like to waked the dead.”

  Billy rubbed his wet face. “I did?”

  The image of Maw was still so clear. She’d risen from the grave, clods of dirt dropping away from her thin bones and gray flesh. Her torn-out eye sockets red and burning, her half-rotted finger pointed at him. Her death-bloated face had been filled with hate.

  “This ain’t the first time,” Danny told him softly. “Mostly, it comes when we’re out on the trail. Before a job. I just let you howl until it’s all wore out.”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “’Cause I’m afraid if’n I wakes you up, you’ll shoot my ass afore you figger out which world yer in.”

  Danny settled onto his bed. “Usually you’re some better after a killing. Wasn’t nothing different about the one you did tonight, was there?”

  “Naw, I just walked up behind him and stuck the Bowie up under his ribs. He never had a clue until that blade sliced his insides apart. Wasn’t enough left in one piece to let him pull a breath, let alone give off a scream.” Billy grinned. “Merry Christmas. Reckon that’s all the gift he’s ever gonna get.”

  Danny was silent for a while, head bowed in the darkness.

  Softly, he asked, “What happened to Margarita? Seriously? Warn’t like you not to talk about her. That clip-jawed ‘She run off with a gambler’ don’t cut no water with me.” He paused. “Just answer me this: she didn’t make it to Sante Fe at all, did she?”

  He didn’t know why he said it. Maybe it was the presence of Maw’s ghost, ranting and raving mad from the afterlife. “No.”

  Danny took a deep breath. “Any way anybody gonna recognize her body?”

  “No.”

  Danny exhaled. “Well, at least there’s that.”

  Billy rubbed his face. “I think Sarah’s dead, ’cause her spirit done become a demon. Like happens sometimes among the Cherokee. It’s ’cause of me letting her get taken. Then all them men used her hard. You should have seen her eyes that day when she went down and cut up Dewley. All crazy and haunted.”