This Scorched Earth

by William Gear

  “And I you,” he replied, his voice gone husky again.

  She reveled in the glistening depths of his soft brown eyes, seeing right down to his emotional soul. Dear God, so this is what it really meant to be loved? How on earth had she ever managed to find this one man? This mate for her soul and dreams?

  “Come on, Bret. I just declared our honeymoon.” She pulled him to his feet, leading him back to the bed. “Hope you ate enough oysters, because now that we’re officially man and wife, I want to see just how far beyond ‘conjugal duties’ two pariahs can go.”

  78

  April 22, 1867

  The knock in the middle of the night sounded oddly timid.

  “Coming,” Doc called as he slipped his feet into his worn slippers and made his way from the cramped bedroom in the back of the small frame house.

  The night was as black as pitch, and he could hear water dripping from the eaves as he hurried across the front room.

  At the door, he fumbled for the matches, struck one alight, and lifted the chimney as he lit the wick. Holding the light, he unbolted the door and opened it.

  Three wet and bedraggled women, scantily dressed in white cotton chemises, huddled together under the protection of his small porch. Two were holding up the third, and now he could see the rain-washed pink of blood.

  “Come in,” he urged, throwing the door wide. As they did, he raised the lamp, peering out into the gently falling spring rain. The lamp’s feeble light failed to pierce the cold stygian darkness.

  Closing the door behind him, he followed the girls, who had veered into the small parlor and eased the bleeding girl onto Butler’s chaise longue where he “read to his men.”

  “Sorry, Doc. Didn’t know where else to go.” The first of them turned to him, pulling back her wet and dark hair with thin white fingers. She stared at him with worried eyes made large where kohl had run and streaked her cheeks. Water beaded on her face, her thin cotton chemise clinging. Her nipples stood out on her breasts, the wet fabric outlining her belly and the concavity of her navel.

  “What’s happened?” Doc asked, bending down with his light. The second of the girls was holding the wounded one’s hand, whispering, “Gina? We got you to Doc Hancock. It’s gonna be all right.”

  “Excuse me.” He bent down, holding the light as he raised Gina’s chin, seeing the bruises, her left eye almost swollen closed. As he lifted, he felt bone rasp in her mandible. Broken jaw. “What happened? Who did this?”

  “Parmelee. That mother-fucking bastard!” The first almost spat the words.

  “Amy!” the second cried in shock. “You’ll get us th’owed out! Then what?”

  “No one’s being thrown out for profanity,” Doc told them, pressing fingers to Gina’s neck and finding a strong pulse. “Let’s get back to the beating. I assume that’s what this Parmelee did?”

  Amy crossed her arms, apparently unconcerned about how it displayed her breasts. “It ain’t been the same since Phillipa left. Parmelee is a whore’s nightmare. Don’t know how, but he done found the roughest johnnies in Colorado. Advertises that we’ll do exotic. Like he can find every headsick fuck in the country … and ain’t no limit. Then Gina today, she had Collette and me giving her the relief. You know, like you said we should when we get the hysteria?”

  Collette, the second, interrupted. “Well, we was on Gina’s bed, giving her the relief. She says it helps with two to do it, and Parmelee just busts in. He takes one look and bellows, ‘By damn, I ain’t even off to Central to kill that deserting son of a bitch, and you’re giving it to each other for free.’ And he just tore into us.”

  Doc watched Gina gasp as he felt along her ribs, finding a hardening bruise. “He kicked her? That how he broke her ribs?”

  “Yes, sir. After he’d throw’d her on the floor,” Amy added. “Collette and me, we just got hit and smacked a couple of times. But he was plumb gleeful going after Gina. She done give him lip a couple of times. Ain’t the first time he beat her, neither. Said she bit his cock one time when he had her playing his flute.”

  “Why’d you bring her to me?”

  “’Cause you’re a good man, Doc.” Amy stared down at him with desperate eyes. “We gotta get her help. Parmelee, he don’t got no doc. He just doses us once a month for the clap hisself. Says why should he pay a sawbones for what he can do for free.”

  Doc took a deep breath. “Oh, hell.”

  “Doc?” Butler asked, appearing in the parlor doorway. He was rubbing his eyes, wearing his long handles, partially exposed since the fly was unbuttoned. He glanced around at the girls, saying, “It’s all right, Johnny. Report to the sergeant that the rest of the men should stay in bivouac.”

  “He thinks he’s a johnny?” Collette wondered.

  “He’s referring to Johnny Baker, one of his phantom men,” Doc told her. “This is crazy Butler, my brother.” He turned. “Butler, go get my case. We’ve got work to do.”

  As Butler vanished into the hallway, Doc asked, “What about Parmelee? Surely he knows you’re missing.”

  Amy, arms still crossed, shrugged. “He lit out for Central City. The professor’s running the house. We took Gina off the line, of course. Then when the last of the johnnies left, Elvina and Circe grabbed the professor by the cock and dragged him off to Circe’s room. They figgered they could keep him the rest of the night with a twosome so’s we could get Gina looked at.”

  “You gotta fix her,” Collette insisted, “so’s we can get her back a’fore the professor’s back on watch.”

  Doc raised Gina’s eyelids. Even in the lamplight he could see the two different sizes of pupils. “She’s not going back,” Doc said sadly. “He kicked her in the head, too, didn’t he?”

  “Doc,” Amy pleaded. “Come morning, if the professor don’t find her in bed, we’re all gonna pay. He’ll know he’s been had.”

  Doc sat back, looking up at the terrified women. “She may not come out of this as it is. She’s got a broken jaw and an injured brain. When I press on her abdomen, it’s hard, which means she’s bleeding on the inside.”

  Butler appeared, wedging himself into the small room and setting Doc’s case on the floor. He bent to open it.

  Doc said, “I’m going to treat her pain with opiates, and I can bind her ribs. Once she’s out I’ll see if there’s anything I can do about her jaw. But if this girl’s got any chance to live, you’re not taking her back there.”

  Collette’s thin face whitened, her wet hair leaking water onto her shoulders. “What are we gonna do? The professor’s gonna know someone had to help Gina get away. And he’s damn sure gonna know it was me and Amy.”

  Doc carefully rearranged Gina’s wet hair then reached for his bottle of chloroform. “How about all three of you get out of there? If you want to relocate, I can find you safer houses either here or in Colorado Springs, Cheyenne, or Colorado City.”

  He had not only discreetly been treating Margaret Jane Chase, Big Ed’s wife, but also the kingpin’s mistress from the theater at the Cricket. Ed owed him a favor or two.

  Amy’s expression pinched, her eyes hardening. “And what’s in it for you, Doc? You get a piece of our action from here on out? A man don’t do for the likes of us w’thout he’s gonna get his pockets lined or get his johnson slick for free from now on.”

  Doc smiled wearily, watching Butler’s lips quiver as he whispered to his men in secret. “Nothing’s in it for me. I can get you moved into houses under Big Ed’s protection, or at least up to Cheyenne with enough for stage fare to End-of-the-Tracks or Salt Lake. Meanwhile I need one of you to slip back and get those other two out without the professor knowing. And once you’re relocated, you’ll never, ever, mention this again to another soul.” He looked back and forth. “We clear?”

  Amy looked warily at Collette. “If Circe and Elvina had any damned sense, they’d have doped him to the gills to keep him from thinking.”

  Collette, however, remained fixed on Doc. “So, we just supposed
to think you a saint? That it?”

  “Actually, Collette, I don’t know what I did to offend God, unless it was pride. But I made my deal. If, by my actions, I can convince God to restore my brother’s sanity, I’ll do whatever it takes.” He paused. “And then there’s the pragmatic. Parmelee left for Central City? To deal with some gambler?”

  Amy shrugged. “Reckon he’ll be gone a couple of days.”

  Doc turned to Butler. “It’s a little after three. I need you to be at Macy’s by six. Tell him I need a favor. A place for four, and hopefully five, girls under Big Ed’s protection.”

  But even as he spoke, Gina twitched, her breath rattling in her throat as she spasmed and died.

  79

  May 4, 1867

  Billy glanced up and down Eureka Street. He had just located a livery for Locomotive, paid the exorbitant rate for stabling, and was told, “This is Central City, boy. Got to haul in hay! It sure don’t grow on these cussed mountains, young man.” The gangly owner had stuck his thumbs in his hip pockets in emphasis.

  Billy walked along the busy avenue, his boots thumping on the boardwalk. Around him, the denuded hills had begun to green, spring coming as late as it did to the high country. But, scarred as they were by diggings, roads, and colorful waste and tailings, they reminded him oddly of a battlefield and its fortifications.

  So this was Central City? The “richest square mile on earth” sure as hell didn’t look like much. Just a ragtag collection of frame and log buildings jumbled together in the valley bottoms. Unlike any town Billy had been in before; from the moment he’d ridden over Dory Hill and down the road to Gregory Toll Gate, the conglomeration of buildings had reminded him of a town on a string—crowded as the communities were along the bottoms of the gulches.

  While mining had taken a downturn after the war, the big news was that a new smelter was going in down in Black Hawk. The one being built by Nathaniel Hill’s Boston and Colorado Smelting Company. All Billy had heard was that it would unlock a fortune in gold from high-testing ore.

  Stepping from the boardwalk, he started up the hill toward High Street. He got his bearings and made his way to the rather imposing frame house, whitewashed, with red trim around the windows. It had been set on a foundation of native rock, and smoke rose from a red-brick chimney.

  Billy clumped his way up the steps, spurs jingling, cast a look up and down the street, then knocked at the ornately carved door.

  Moments later a well-dressed woman answered, asking, “Yes, may I help you?” Her shrewd eyes took in Billy’s travel-worn clothing, his muddy boots, and soot-stained coat.

  “I’m looking for George Nichols. Heard he was boarding here.”

  “If you would be so kind as to give me your name, I will see if Mr. Nichols is scheduled to receive you.”

  Billy laughed, slapping his side. “Reckon he ain’t scheduled to receive shit, ma’am. Why don’t you run back and tell him that Billy Hancock would like a word. Tell him I want to talk about a little bird. That I’m an old friend from just outside Albuquerque.” He flicked his fingers. “Now, go on. Shoo.”

  As he talked, her dark eyes had frosted, expression turning glacial. She closed the door in his face with a bang, and he heard her steps hurrying into the rear.

  Billy grinned, worked his tongue around his dry lips, and looked up and down the street. No one was giving him a second glance.

  He heard the woman’s hammering steps approaching, and the door was opened. Her expression was, if anything, more prim. “I have relayed your information to Mr. Nichols. He asked me to convey his intent to meet with you at the Colorado Nugget at two P.M. You will find the establishment on Main, just past Gregory Street. Good day.”

  And the door closed again, the bolt clicking home.

  Billy narrowed an eye at the door. Considered busting the damn thing down, and decided against it. Maybe George had his own concerns.

  Billy skipped his way down the wooden steps to the rocky and rutted street, and proceeded—stopping to ask directions once—to the Colorado Nugget.

  The place was a saloon, built wall to wall on a narrow half lot between a laundry on one side and a harness shop on the other. Entering, he found a long bar made of rough-cut lumber running the length of the place.

  Bottles lined narrow shelves behind the bar, and a man in a stained white shirt wearing an apron stood ready to dispense drinks. As Billy entered, the barkeep was talking to two miners, their pants tucked into muddy boots.

  All three looked up, taking Billy’s measure as he walked down the narrow aisle, his shoulder rubbing the wall. Must have been a common practice because the wood looked polished.

  “What time is it?” Billy asked.

  “Little after one, mister. Make yourself at home. What can I get you?”

  “Supposed to meet a man here at two. You got a good rye?”

  “Such as it is.” The barkeep turned back to a bottle. “Can’t hardly get the good stuff. The damn Injuns got the trails shut down to the point only large caravans with army escort make it through. That’s what we get for turning that damn Chivington and his murderers loose.”

  Both the miners grunted, taking in Billy’s garb.

  “Some folks still call him a hero,” Billy noted, tossing a silver dollar onto the bar.

  The bartender offered him a tin cup filled with brown liquid. “Up to the Masonic lodge, it used to be called Chivington Lodge Number One. They got so disgusted they sent back the charter. Now they’re Central Lodge Number Six. You see, here’s the thing: you kill a man’s wife, cut her privates out of her body and stretch her cunny into a hatband? Kill his little boy and little girl and scalp ’em? Don’t matter that he’s a red savage, he’s gonna fight and kill every white man he sees till he’s dead and gone to the spirit world to find his loved ones.”

  “Like poking a wasp nest with a stick,” one of the miners said, his accent thick with Cornwall.

  “I’ll leave that for you gentlemen to decide.” His eyes having adjusted, Billy could see a table in the back and made his way.

  The rye—or whatever it was—warmed his belly, reminding him he ought to think about eating. His last meal had been beans and sowbelly at a roadhouse in Golden Gulch that morning.

  The time passed slowly, Billy sitting in the back, nursing his drink, his coat thrown wide. He’d eased the thong off the Remington’s hammer, just in case George had either caught a whiff of why Billy’d come, or even had a change of heart about their relationship.

  It must have been a little before two when the back door opened and George Nichols slipped in wearing a slouch hat and an oiled canvas slicker. To look at him, he might not have been anything but a local miner. Unless one noticed his polished boots.

  “How do, George?” Billy asked, his right hand easing the Remington out beneath the table.

  “Mr. Hancock,” George said, tipping the brim of his hat with a lazy finger. He walked to the bar, calling, “Whiskey, Mooney.”

  Mooney poured and asked, “You know a Win Parmelee, Mr. Nichols?”

  “Not to my knowledge. Should I?”

  “He’s asking around about that gambler friend of yours as runs the games up at Aggie’s. Just an impression, mind you, but you might want to keep an eye on Parmelee. To my reckoning, he’s trouble.”

  “I’ll have some of my people ask around, Mooney. Thanks.”

  “We’ll give you your privacy, Mr. Nichols.” Mooney told the others, “You boys, let’s go down here by the front door so’s we don’t bother Mr. Nichols.”

  Cup in hand, George walked back, pulled out the opposite chair, and seated himself. He sipped at the drink, made a face, and said softly, “So, what brings you here, Billy?”

  Billy eased the pistol back into its holster, then reached for his coat pocket. He slipped a piece of paper across the table. “Ripped that out of the Rocky Mountain News. As you might imagine, having just traveled down from South Pass City, Danny and I were somewhat out of sorts to read this.”r />
  Nichols pulled the torn sheaf of newsprint his way, glanced at it, and nodded, not even bothering to read it.

  Barely above a whisper, Billy told him, “Headline says, ‘South Pass City Speculator Murdered.’ Then it goes on to say that Harold Jones was gunned down outside Atlantic City by an unknown party. Local sources suspect the paid assassin known as the ‘Meadowlark.’”

  “It does indeed say that.”

  “Why’d you tell them about me, George?”

  Nichols made sure the barkeep and his clients were out of hearing. Voice low, he asked, “You left the feather, didn’t you?”

  “Sure. But someone had to give them the name.”

  “Billy, there’s times that a threat has no value unless it has a name. A dangerous name. Time’s come for the Meadowlark to gain a little notoriety. Sometimes, just leveling the threat is as powerful as the killing itself.”

  Billy felt his heart slow, the deadly hollow emptying his gut. His fingers danced lightly on the Remington’s grip. “You start advertising my killings, they’re gonna start putting the facts together. Lookin’ to see who’s profited by the killin’ … and it’s gonna lead right to you. The Meadowlark’s a tool, just like a single jack, and you’re the one a-swinging it.”

  “Way ahead of you, Billy.” George leaned back, tilting his head so he could peer out from beneath the low brim. “Got Meadowlark stories planted in California, Nevada, and Arizona. Places you’ve never been. Unsolved murders of prominent folks whose holdings I never had anything to do with. So, who’s behind the Meadowlark? Some interest from the Comstock? Or Sacramento? You lay false trails to cover your tracks, just like I do mine.”

  “Wish you’d talked to me first.”

  “I would have loved to, had I known where you might have been on any given day or even in which territory.” Nichols chuckled. “If anything, speculation about the Meadowlark will work to your advantage. Facile minds will soon attribute any unsolved murder to his name.”