Sary's Gold

by Sharon Shipley

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for SARY’S GOLD

  Sary’s Gold

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Beginning

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  A word from the author…

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  The stage-halt proprietor, a fat man in a greasy apron and thick ginger sideburns, hawked her. “Can’t hardly doss ’em here, uh, lady!”

  She turned, raising her face, and shyly held out her hand. “It’s Sarabande, Sarabande Swinford, but—”

  “Don’t make no matter if’n you’re Queen Victoria—”

  He stopped, awkward. The face before him was blooming, fresh, young, her translucent green eyes cutting through the dust, even after the ravages of the trek up-mountain, and especially so for Big Bear, where womenfolk coarsened up quickly in the thin, sere air.

  “Yes, of course.” Sary carefully counted coin from a thin purse.

  Enigmatically shaking his head, he watched Sary drag their odd jumble of baggage across the dust to McAdams Hostelry, cheek by jowl with Delacorte’s Saloon. Behind her, the layabouts mugged, nudging each other as their attention trailed her.

  Praise for SARY’S GOLD

  “Sary and company are some unique, tough folks. I was intrigued by the complexity and consistency of the dialog and sense of place, much like Deadwood on HBO. The plot moves swiftly from scene to scene bringing fresh characters, language and oddities at every turn. This is a brilliant, thoughtful work and deserves to be seen. The action paragraphs are as colorful as the script, so there is no disconnect. Every line is in the archaic language of the era, or close enough. I’m supposed to find weaknesses…but any weaknesses in this script are strengths. It’s simply too good to pick apart at this point. Ahhh, there’s much more. This is written is the language of the day…the language takes on a character of its own….”

  ~from a recent script evaluation

  “Sary, despite persecution and rape in a gold town, beat a man’s obsession wanting her more than life. The script won a national award. SARY’S GOLD is one of the strongest protagonists I’ve ever met. A must read and an Oscar for any actress who can strut her stuff.”

  ~Alan A. Ross

  ~*~

  Contest Wins and Credits

  Sary’s Gold/Adult/Action: ScriptPimp Grand Prize

  Top 10 Contest Of Contests

  Top 25 Expo LA V.

  20/20 Grand Prize

  Sary’s Gold

  by

  Sharon Shipley

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Sary’s Gold

  COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Sharon Shipley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Cactus Rose Edition, 2015

  Print ISBN 978-1-62830-701-6

  Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-702-3

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To Loren G (Skip) Shipley,

  my Angel,

  for his grace and generosity.

  The Beginning

  This is my story, whether you like me or no…whether you approve of me or no, or of what I did—or had to do. Yet it happened this way…

  Think on a wood surrounding a cornfield. It was winter. 1897. Stark trees, a skeleton rattle of dry corn stalks, and snow dirtied with daubs of Indiana clay…

  Sebastian, a weakly handsome man, crouched behind a tree, sucking a flask, smirking out at men in hunting gear toting shotguns across the dried stubble. Blearily, Seb mumbled as he re-read his scrap of frayed newsprint dragged out with his flask:

  Holcombe Valley ♦ Big Bear ♦ Belleville!

  GOLD RUSH !

  1,000 Men follow the Gold!

  Seb peered out again, his smirk still in place as the hunters neared his hiding place. Grumbling, he stuffed the newsprint back in his pocket and grabbed his shotgun, tripping over the stock. Twin blasts disturbed a sky of winter crows winging away as one, like the grim reaper, cawing Death. Seb watched, befuddled, as one hunter—Jonathan—crumpled, firing his own gun. The startled men ran across the stubble to him as the handsome blue-jawed face dimmed in agony and brilliant red crept across his jacket and the snow beneath, and he bled his life away.

  Seb’s grin was like a guttering candle with a queer flicker behind his eyes as he trotted out, leaving his own telltale gun behind. The hunters eyed him but seemed to think Jonathan died by his own hand.

  ****

  The farmhouse was plain, wood, and very neat. Sary, a healthy girl in country dress, kneaded biscuit dough for supper, already thinking of a fat rabbit roasted on the spit and the canned runner beans and fried sweet potatoes she and Jonathan would share, and the sweet night ahead. Clear eyes the color and sparkle of pale green glass clouded as she squinted out the window; then she tore out, with her feet bare and her coppery gold hair coming all undone, a splash of color against the leaden day, to the hunters carting Jonathan’s body home. Weeping, she clasped his head in her arms, while Seb avoided looking at her.

  ****

  The church, plain as the house, was weathered, and if it ever had paint was innocent of it now. Tilted stones and gray wood crosses marked the raw earth that smelled of false spring. Sary started to pluck a lone jonquil struggling through the snow, but let it be. It was alive.

  A hole marred the snow where mourners lowered the coffin on ropes that slid through horny palms streaked with blood as the hunters eased it down.

  Sary tossed in the shotgun and stormed back alone to the line of waiting wagons.

  ****

  It was late afternoon that day, and still bleak outside. The farmhouse parlor, kerosene-lit and spare, the few ornaments lovingly displayed, held a fierce family argument as elders tried to convince Seb of something, with much finger stabbing and body English.

  Seb vehemently shook his head—“No!”—while his elders thrust Sary at him, indicating she was now h
is responsibility.

  He stared at his sister as if seeing her for the first time. Her face…waist…hips…bosom…

  Chapter 1

  Big Bear, California. It was spring in that rough mountain mining outpost when the crude stage, little more than a buckboard with canvas flaps, rattled into a clutter of stables, mercantiles and saloons.

  One saloon, Delacorte’s, seemed rather grand.

  As Seb and Sary—her dusty black mourning gown and black straw bonnet could never hide her stellar face and figure—stepped stiffly down, layabouts kept them in their sites, while proprietors, like predators, and at least one pair of hardened female eyes belonging to Handi McAdams, followed them from the dens of their establishments. Sary slowly surveyed the bleak mountain mining town.

  ****

  From the halt, Seb, shivering in the thin mountain air, belligerently assessed the raw straggle of Big Bear, too. He gripped Sary’s arm and, loud enough for all to hear, ordered her, “A room! One night, now, mind!” Striding to Delacorte’s saloon, he spun when halfway there. “And don’t let ’em gyp ya none!” he bellowed. Seb checked for onlookers. “Got business! ’Portant business.”

  Sary gazed after him, stoic, cheeks flaming as she watched Seb halt by the swing doors.

  Seb sneered at a yellow poster depicting a flamboyant but handsome man in tights and the proclamation:

  “Sleight of Hand! Jugglers. Fire Eaters!

  Feats of Strength!

  Rousing Recreations of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet!

  Starring Headliners of All Europe!

  Seen by Royalty!”

  Blotches of yellow poster seemed to be everywhere. Seb eyed them and spat on the grimy plank walkway. “Painted-up Molly!”

  At the halt, Sary turned wearily from Seb—never mind what he’s doing; it won’t be to our good—to a tatty gaggle of baggage, and once again helplessly assessed the drear strip of Big Bear.

  The stage-halt proprietor, a fat man in a greasy apron and thick ginger sideburns, hawked her. “Can’t hardly doss ’em here, uh, lady!”

  She turned, raising her face, and shyly held out her hand. “It’s Sarabande, Sarabande Swinford, but—”

  “Don’t make no matter if’n you’re Queen Victoria—”

  He stopped, awkward. The face before him was blooming, fresh, young, her translucent green eyes cutting through the dust, even after the ravages of the trek up-mountain, and especially so for Big Bear, where womenfolk coarsened up quickly in the thin, sere air.

  “Yes, of course.” Sary carefully counted coin from a thin purse.

  Enigmatically shaking his head, he watched Sary drag their odd jumble of baggage across the dust to McAdams Hostelry, cheek by jowl with Delacorte’s Saloon. Behind her, the layabouts mugged, nudging each other as their attention trailed her.

  ****

  Seb thrust through swing gates, posed, and sauntered big to the long, polished slab of plank where Ratchet, a rangy hatchet-faced man of forty—a chilling presence—lounged, elbows on the bar. He turned, lazily sized up Seb, and included everyone when he snorted, “You just keep pouring in like rain, locusts, and bad liquor”—he nudged Seb—“don’t you, you ignorant plowboys?”

  Seb pinked up. “Bad corn’s got more kick—but prob’ly the likes of you wouldn’t know.” He rapped the bar. “Barkeep!” The barkeep shot a knowing glance at Ratchet.

  Across the room, Julian Delacorte, an elegant but dissipated ruin of a man, presided over a gaming table with two buffalo-shouldered men—Orvis O’Malley and Aaron Doheny, chinless, with a beak of a nose anchoring thick glasses through which he worried his cards—and a fourth, a mountain of a man, who was more tolerated than a part of the group, for Ev’ret played his own game, arranging a messy pile of chips in pretty colors and patterns.

  Julian Delacorte, coughing subterranean mines of phlegm—Seb neither knew nor cared whether from consumption or syphilis—spared Seb a look, instantly forgetting him as Ratchet slugged back Seb’s drink, flipped the shot glass over his shoulder, and grinned.

  “I mean to say…you keep the stagecoach company in bizness. They just keep findin’ the same blame nugget over and over in you.” Ratchet leaned and thunked Seb’s arm as Seb lifted his new pour, sloshing out the precious whiskey.

  Seb beeted up again, white-knuckling his shot glass.

  Ratchet jabbed a thumb at the meek man. “Aary there, he runs the mercantile. That’s where gold’s at. We just seed that same old nugget so some sod-bustin’, mule-humpin’, inbred country manure picker can stumble on it all over again.” Ratchet had pulled the room in with him and shoved Seb again.

  The room waited for Seb’s reaction and then eyed him dismissively.

  Seb, flaming by then, hunched over his fresh pour. Even the few soiled doves trailing down so early in the day, the doxies—looking no better than they should, still, reasonably clean—openly grinned past yawns.

  “Like, maybe, someone like you.” Ratchet smirked at the room and kept on, straight-fingering Seb’s shoulder.

  Seb slammed the glass down. His hand shook. He half-raised it gripped tight like a rock, ready to throw at his tormenter. “You telling me I can’t cut tobacca? I earned these!” With flaming eyes, Seb showed how huge his stringy muscles were.

  Ratchet’s snigger sounded like rats crawling a drain.

  “How? Being your own mule? Field hand?”

  “If gold’s in this heap of manure you call a town, ’at’s as good as mine!” Seb yelled, flashing a thin roll tied with dirty string. “Whiskey! Whiskey for every man-jack ’cept him and that tarted-up dandy over yonder who don’t seem to have no manners to welcome a stranger!”

  Julian Delacorte cut Seb a glance.

  Giving the great man one more look, Seb faltered, slapped a third of his wad on the bar, tossed back a fresh pour the bartender had provided, and strutted out, a man on a mission.

  ****

  Sary, puffing, yanked the last bundles beneath the McAdam’s Hostelry sign and into the lobby. Blinking in the cool dimness, she approached a desk, leaning the better to see the lurid yellow poster on the wall nearby, a twin to the one Seb had been so intrigued by. She blushed. It depicted a raffishly handsome man, if a bit flamboyant. Rather embarrassing tights clothed the lower half of his shapely body, illustrating he was very much a male. She peeked again, with a shy secret grin, and didn’t see Hannah McAdams watching from a half-open door beyond the desk until the ravaged woman imperiously cupped her hand. “Come!”

  Sary tore her eyes away from the poster.

  Trying for elegance, Handi missed, by the depth of her cleavage and the amount of her makeup. Age-ripened to rot, Handi owned a vein of common lead running through her matronly silver exterior, or so Sary might have guessed.

  “Beg pardon? I am looking for rooms. Isn’t this—” Sary sized Handi up. “Perhaps I’m in the wrong place. This…is much…too grand!” she finished awkwardly.

  “Got the only place. Come!” Handi jerked her head to the room behind her, opening the door enticingly. Her lips were a glittering red invitation, and so Sary entered a room of European grandeur, missing nothing. Her gaze discreetly flicked over gaudy paintings: “Pompeii,” “The Rape of Europa,” “A Venetian Bridge,” and one, where a lady casting smoldering glances was apparently clad only in wet gauze.

  Sary looked away. Certainly it wasn’t biblical, or even Æsop’s Fables.

  Through other doors, she saw glimpses of a rather mannish office and an over-lavish boudoir, yet she could not leave the exotic paintings, glittering with oily richness, jewel color, and promises of unknowable worlds.

  Sary stroked one. “Are these…real? I mean, the places? Not fanciful like…like fairy tales?”

  Handi snorted.

  Sary turned in time to see Handi watching her, peeling Sary’s clothes off with her eyes, before she indicated the room. “Want ’em to be?” she barked in a rather coarse voice. “Sit! Last long enough, might discover this is Big Bear’s rarest priv
ilege. Sit! Call me Handi. Hannah McAdams,” she ordered in the brusque way that was apparently her manner.

  Sary looked anxiously to the lobby. Seb would be waiting. She murmured vaguely, “Sarabande. Folks call me—”

  Handi waved her off. “Call yourself anything you like. In a few months you won’t be the same anyways.” Enthroning herself, she poured something amber and painfully propped a puffy ankle on a tufted stool while stuffing a long, slim pipe.

  “Only whiskey cuts the dust in your veins or your—” Handi poked Sary through her black dress, at the V of her thighs, with the stem of her pipe. She raised the decanter. “Want a tot?”

  Sary jumped back at the poke of Handi’s pipe. The woman laughed harshly and drank deep. “Suit yourself. Spell since I’ve had a lady here.”

  Sary’s look swept the room. “You’re here.”

  “Hunh! No lady! Ladies have blue milk running through their veins and vinegar in their…” She started to poke Sary again, snorted a laugh, poured herself another drink, and rang a small ornate bell. A slattern, an oddly wanton-looking old woman appeared, in a low, loose-necked dress despite her age, glumly toting in tea and cakes and another of the long slim ivory pipes. Handi winced at her appearance. “Belle? You wash your funsies and your fancies today?” Belle snorted. Slamming the tray down, the woman threw Sary a knowing leer and shuffled out.

  Sary looked in puzzlement after the elderly servant in the alarmingly low bodice from which her withered dugs threatened to spill out; however, Sary inhaled the tea like life-giving nectar, watching over her cup in alarm as Handi vigorously clawed an ankle.

  Still clawing, Handi made a face. “Gift from a French gentleman. Won’t kill me. Till I want it to,” she amended and licked the knife. Slicing fruitcake, she placed it with her bare fingers on Sary’s plate. When Sary demurred, Handi shrugged and ate it herself.

  Sary half rose. She looked with some panic to the door. “My brother,” she stammered. “We—we need a room.”

  Handi stared into the distance and puffed her pipe with a bemused look Sary couldn’t interpret.