This Scorched Earth

by William Gear

  While one glass might get him to sleep, it wasn’t enough to keep him from popping awake a couple of hours later. That was when the emptiness and pain were the worst. That’s when he’d slip his hand onto her side of the bed only to find cold sheets.

  Two glasses would conjure a stupor that would carry him far enough through the night that he would wake headachy, mouth dry, his tongue like a stick. But lately that hadn’t been enough, either, so he’d gone to three glasses a night.

  “Physician, heal thyself.”

  He finished dressing, grabbed his hat and coat on the way out of the house, and locked his door behind him. A man didn’t leave his house unlocked. Not in Denver with its hordes of destitute and broken men—the ones who’d flowed west after the war to make their fortunes. All but a lucky few had discovered that if they’d been failures in the East, they’d be failures in the Rockies. But without family and friends to cadge from. Here they found only starvation, pneumonia, exposure, and exploitation by the gangs.

  Doc climbed onto Mick’s wagon seat and bent over the back. A man lay there, wrapped in a blanket. From habit, Doc checked his pulse and breathing as Mick started them for the surgery.

  “Who is he?”

  “George Nichols.”

  “Jesus! What happened?”

  “He come to the house tonight with a load on. Sarah took him upstairs to avoid a scene. Nichols got violent. Sarah pistol-whipped him with that big Colt she keeps. She wants you to take a look at him.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “A little shaken, Doc. Going to have a bruise on her throat, but she told me to tell you, don’t bother to come check her.”

  “She worries me.”

  “If there’s any worrying to be done, it’s about Nichols, here. His brougham and driver are still waiting out front. We took Nichols out the back. The driver isn’t a concern yet, he’s waited till nigh on midday before, but if Nichols doesn’t eventually come out? There, uh, could be complications.”

  Doc rubbed his face and tried to order his mind as they pulled up at the surgery.

  It took the two of them to carry Nichols back to the table. Most of the time, the man muttered and tried to stumble along.

  Doc lit his lamps and winced at the smell of vomit and stale drink. He slapped Nichols on the face, peering into the man’s eyes when he blinked. “Wake up!”

  Nichols made a face, squinted against the light, mumbling, “Where am I?”

  “You’re at Doc Hancock’s. What do you remember?”

  Nichols’s gaze wandered in confusion. “You said…” He blinked. “Where am I?”

  “Concussion,” Doc told Mick. He cleaned the cut on the side of Nichols’s head. “That and he’s so drunk he can’t stand. Hard to tell which is worse.”

  “So he’s going to live?”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Think he’ll remember what happened?”

  Doc shrugged. “Hard to say.”

  “Where am I?” Nichols asked.

  “So, what do we do?” Mick asked.

  “I’d say take him back, have his driver load him in the brougham, and haul him back to wherever he’s supposed to be.”

  Mick studied Doc warily. “If he remembers that Sarah whacked him in the head … Well, he ain’t the forgiving kind, Doc.”

  “With that goose egg on his noggin, he’s going to know it wasn’t just an ordinary fling with Sarah.”

  “Either way,” Mick told him, “Nichols is going to be trouble. He’s asked her to marry him more than once. She thinks she can handle him, but Doc, I been around. He’s a powerful man, and folks who stand in his way have a funny way of up and dying. Word is he’s got a killer working for him. Calls him the Meadowlark. No one’s ever seen him. But Nichols don’t need no help. If he is of a mind, he can break Angel’s Lair. Ruin it one of ten different ways.”

  “I’ve heard.” Doc stared down at Nichols. He’d closed his eyes, snoring softly.

  It would be so easy. He could soak a rag in chloroform and hold it over the man’s nose until he stopped breathing. No one would ever know. Tomorrow morning, Mick could have the body carried out to the brougham, claiming, “He just died in his sleep.”

  If there were questions, Doc, as the house physician, could certify that the man’s heart had stopped. While he was known to serve the demimonde, he had enough influential clients that his reputation would be untarnished.

  “Is this what I’ve come to?” he asked himself, feeling suddenly weak, as if his very soul had come unmanned.

  “What’s that, Doc?”

  “Nothing. Let’s get him back to Angel’s Lair.”

  But one thing was certain, Sarah was dancing with a serpent, and if she wasn’t damn careful, it was going to get her killed.

  109

  April 30, 1868

  The water was as hot as Butler could stand as he waded in naked and kept his father from sinking. The Smoking Waters were indeed hot springs, big ones that gushed up from the ground at the base of a series of low red hills and upthrust ridges. To him it looked as if the sloping mountains to the south had been broken, bent, and cracked. Where it emerged from the narrow canyon carved through the mountain, the Wind River ran clear, cool, and deep, passing within an arrowshot of the great springs.

  “Got to get the sepsis out,” Butler told his father as he brushed at the dead and necrotic tissue with a brush made from a frayed willow stem.

  Tears ran from his father’s face, suffering sounds came half choked from the man’s convulsing throat.

  “Please, stop!” Paw whimpered, struggling weakly against Butler’s grip. “God … that hurts!”

  Butler glanced at the shore. His men sat in a line just off to the side of where Puhagan, Cracked Bone Thrower, Red Rain, and Mountain Flicker waited. Dirty Face and several of his young men squatted to their right, concern in their eyes.

  “I have to cleanse you, Father,” Butler told him. “I have to wash away the corruption. The slashes on your chest should have been sewed up, but they’ve healed too much now, so we’ll let them go. The same with the lacerations on your scalp.”

  “Just let me die?” Paw wheezed, still trying to break free. Impossible given his right arm was shredded and useless, a chokecherry-stave splint immobilized his broken leg, and that he was drained by fever.

  When Butler was finally finished, his father floated in the water, gasping and exhausted. Butler turned to Puhagan and nodded. The medicine man waded out, not even making a face as the hot water swirled around him.

  Butler got a grip under Paw’s right armpit, and together he and Puhagan dragged the man up onto the stone-hard mineral of the shore. Mountain Flicker supported Paw’s broken leg.

  Butler waded back into the water only long enough to splash himself all over to wash off the sweat that beaded and trickled down his hot skin. After the heat it was a delight to just stand, naked, letting the breeze blow over his red and dripping body.

  Mountain Flicker stepped close and used her hands to slick the water from his hide, asking, “Will Silver Eagle be well now?”

  “I have more to do.” Butler glanced uncomfortably at his father where he lay gasping and limp on the blanket. “The arm’s ruined.”

  “Puhagan says the same,” she told him.

  “It’s gonna be plumb ticklish,” Kershaw whispered from behind Butler’s ear. “Reckon I wouldn’t give yer paw a coon’s chance, Cap’n.”

  “I have to try, Sergeant. He’s my father.”

  “Butler?” Paw asked after Butler had pulled on his clothes and bent down. For the first time, his father really seemed lucid. His lips were working, sweat beading on his forehead.

  “The arm has to come off,” Butler told him. “It’s dead, Paw.”

  “No.” Paw licked his lips, his chest rising and falling.

  “What are you doing here? What happened at Shiloh?”

  Paw glanced at him, worked his mouth, and looked away. “Shiloh? Can’t … bear it. Death all
around. The sounds … screaming, shrieking bullets … they sing … sing of death…”

  Butler nodded, a pain in his heart. “I need you to chew on something for me.”

  “What?”

  “It’s called toyatawura.”

  Paw blinked, throat working as he swallowed. “You a puhagan, son?”

  “No. Water Ghost Woman just said—”

  “Jesus, Butler, what happened to you?”

  “I had to bring the men home. The ones who were killed at Chickamauga. Philip threw me out. Said I was crazy. So the men and I marched here; because you always talked about it when I was a boy. And Water Ghost Woman said she had a gift, the Silver Eagle.”

  “That’s what they call me now.” Paw glanced at him, his thoughts seeming to scatter. “Ain’t never been nothing but a failure. Tell Maw…”

  When no more was forthcoming, Butler said, “She’s dead and buried behind the farmhouse. Everyone’s gone but me and Philip. And now you.”

  He took the toyatawura and slipped it into his father’s mouth, ordering, “Chew that, Paw. Chew it hard.”

  For whatever reason, his father’s jaws began to work as he ground the bitter plant between his remaining teeth.

  “What next?” Puhagan asked as he settled beside Butler.

  “We have to cut this arm off. Can you smell that? It’s rotten, what’s left of it.”

  Puhagan glanced at him. “You can do this? Pa’waip showed you?”

  “No. But Philip did.”

  Butler glanced at the men where they crowded around, faces hard and skeptical. Butler waved them away. “Sergeant, set up a perimeter. We don’t want to be caught by surprise if enemy vedettes are in the area.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  To Mountain Flicker he said, “I’ll need that thread and the iron needle I asked you to bring. I’m going to have to sew arteries closed.”

  She nodded and went to retrieve her pouch.

  Paw’s eyes had gone glassy and vacant. Butler wondered what he was seeing in his vision.

  “You know,” Corporal Pettigrew told him from where he stood with arms crossed, “you’re gonna kill him.”

  Then, with the men slowly shaking their heads, Butler reached for the knife he’d spent the last two days sharpening.

  110

  May 3, 1868

  The light blue taffeta day dress Sarah wore had a high collar to hide the bruises at her throat: they’d turned that hideous yellow-green and were still sore to the touch. She had added a hat, which though a couple of years out of style, matched the dress’s color. She’d had Agatha cinch her curved corset a bit too tight, but then this wasn’t just an ordinary meeting.

  She was through with having choices made for her, of suddenly and traumatically finding the course of her life irrevocably changed. One way or another, her days of being a victim were over.

  She’d come to that conclusion the night George Nichols had tried to force her. She’d let her rage get the best of her. Some unfettered insanity had goaded her to write a note on a scrap of foolscap stating: I will never marry you. Do not come back!

  When no one was looking, she’d unbuttoned his fly, used a bit of string to tie it around his limp penis, and buttoned him back up before he’d been carried to his brougham. The rest of that day she’d waited with her five-shot pocket revolver. George hadn’t come.

  But he would. And the tension was killing her.

  She made her way across Lawrence Street to the office on the northeast corner of Fifteenth.

  Opening the door to the law offices of Hughes & Welbor, she found Doc already waiting. She stopped short, really seeing him in the light of day. His features were sallow, the flesh of his face sunken, his eyes bloodshot and set back in their sockets. His hair hadn’t been washed in days, and his clothes were rumpled, food stains on his coat.

  I haven’t been seeing to him as I should.

  Fact was, she’d been avoiding him since the funeral. Some part of her was made uncomfortable by the hideous depth of his grief. Another part of her justified her abandonment of him with the self-serving platitude that just being around him was a reminder of Aggie—and only served to pick the scab from a poorly healing wound.

  “Philip,” she greeted him warmly, stepping forward. “Thank you for coming.”

  He glanced to where the legal secretary sat behind a desk, pointedly pretending to ignore them. “Want to tell me why you called me here?”

  “I need you. I’m a woman, Philip. A condition which the laws of men insist make me both incompetent, unreliable, and impotent. You, however, were born a man, and therefore wise, temperate, and in remarkable control of your faculties. Should I succeed in my endeavor today, you shall become the senior partner whose lawful signature will guarantee the legal validity of any silly actions my flighty female mind might have led me into.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Business, Philip.” She placed a hand behind his shoulder, directing him to the desk. “I think Hancock and Hancock shall do nicely.”

  Now the secretary looked up, a nice young man, moderately well dressed, a trimmed beard on his cheeks. “May I help you?”

  “Dr. Philip Hancock and Mrs. Sarah Anderson to see Bela, please. We have a two o’clock appointment.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he told her, rising. “If you’d follow me, I believe the other parties have already arrived.”

  Sarah gave Doc a suspicious smile, and lowered her voice. “Whatever on earth could they have been discussing prior to our arrival?”

  Doc shrugged his bony shoulders, looking even more mystified. She noted how her brother’s coat hung on his rack of a body. What was the man doing, starving himself to death?

  Perhaps he was. She remembered how little she herself had been interested in food after Bret’s death.

  Well, brother, if today works out, I promise I’ll take better care of you.

  They were led upstairs, down the hall, where the clerk opened a door and stepped back.

  Sarah strode into a corner conference room dominated by a long and well-worn table. Serviceable chairs, most of them matching, lined the sides, and a double-hung window provided a view down both Lawrence and Fifteenth Streets. Beyond the clutter of buildings, she could see past the uplands where the distant mountains, still snowy, seemed to huddle beneath a bank of clouds.

  The men in the room stood: Big Ed Chase, his tall body dressed in a fine charcoal-gray suit, his partner Francis Heatley, and Pat O’Reilly. Bela Hughes, Denver’s most prominent lawyer, stood at the head of the table, his back to the window.

  Hughes was already in his fifties, with a thick white mustache, his gray hair combed over his receding forehead. He now studied Sarah through baggy brown eyes, his full body filling his suit.

  “Gentlemen,” Sarah greeted them, “good of you to meet me. Mr. Hughes, I don’t think you’ve met my brother, Philip.”

  “How do you do?” Hughes shook Philip’s hand.

  “How do you do?” Philip responded.

  “Can I get you anything?” Hughes asked.

  “Coffee, if it wouldn’t be a bother,” Sarah said, and was pleased when Big Ed held her chair while she was seated.

  Hughes nodded to the clerk who closed the door behind him.

  Philip, still looking uncertain, seated himself beside her.

  “Looks like rain’s coming,” Heatley said as he glanced out the window. “Heard the Smoky Hill Trail’s already been raided.”

  “At least our noble red brothers haven’t figured out how to raid a train!” Hughes remarked. “Thank God for the iron horse. Those bastards in charge of the Union Pacific might be a bunch of lying skunks when it comes to getting a spur line to Denver, but at least we can get supplies to Cheyenne these days.”

  “Kansas Pacific will get here eventually. Then the damn Indians can have Kansas.” Big Ed leaned back, his hard blue eyes thoughtful as they studied Sarah.

  The clerk entered, handing Sarah a cup of coffee, black
and steaming. “Thank you,” she told him.

  After the clerk left, Hughes leaned back in his chair. “Now, Mrs. Anderson, shall we get down to business?”

  She glanced back and forth among them. “Pat, thank you for coming today.”

  “Aye, lass.” O’Reilly gave her a smile. “Ye’ve got me curiosity up.”

  Sarah reached into her purse, removing the quit-claim deed that O’Reilly had signed over to her. “Pat, I really only need you to verify your signature on the deed to the Angel’s Lair. To vouch that I own it outright.”

  He glanced at the paper, nodding. “’Tis indeed the deed.”

  Sarah, folded it, returning it to her purse. “Mr. Chase, I’ve—”

  “God, Sarah,” he said with a smile, “call me Ed. I get enough pomposity at the council meetings.”

  “All right, Ed. You and Francis are in the process of starting two houses with…” She frowned. “Shall we call it carnal theater?”

  “As good a name as any,” Heatley replied with a shrug. “If you’re thinking of stopping us, Sarah, I don’t think you’ve got a legal leg to stand on.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Well, why else would you call us to Bela’s?”

  She gave Heatley an amused smirk. “Oh, Francis, you are a dear sometimes. I’ve no interest in stopping you. Quite the contrary, I’ve heard of the troubles you’re having finding talent and putting the houses together. If I’m right, you’re still months out from an opening.”

  Heatley and Chase glanced knowingly at each other.

  Sarah set her ledger on the table. This she slid across to Big Ed. “Those are the figures for Angel’s Lair. If you need confirmation, we can stroll down the street and have a little chat with Luther Kountze. I stopped by the bank on the way here. He’ll be in all afternoon.”

  “Sarah?” Philip asked, “What are you…”

  She silenced him with a gesture.

  Chase and Heatley were bent over the ledger. O’Reilly leaned back, having withdrawn a flask from his coat to take a sip. He grinned at her, gave her a wink—cunning co-conspirator that he was.