“So, that’s what you’re up to? It’s not just money for the morphine or about doing something worthwhile before your time is up. You’re secretly hoping that one of them does you in and ends the misery.”
Ash wouldn’t look at Horace either. “That courage you just mentioned? If I truly had any I’d do the job myself.” He needed to get out of there, but Horace had a few parting words.
“Most of us are never in your shoes. We’re not put to the test you are. We live and we die, but most of the time it’s of old age and we pass on peacefully in our beds.”
“There’s nothing peaceful about dying.”
The night air was refreshing. Ash gratefully breathed deep, and shuddered. He hurried through the streets to Madam Maxine’s. Maxine herself admitted him. She was plump and jovial and always smelled of a perfume imported from France.
Smiling, she gave him a huge hug.
“Ash, darling! What a treat to have you visit us again!”
Ash saw the truth in her eyes but he played the game and smiled back. “I want Grace. I want her now and I want her for the entire night.” He fished out the money and then some. “Be quick about it.”
“But she’s with . . .” Maxine stopped and stared at him. “The need is on you, isn’t it? Most of the time it is a hunger, but sometimes it’s a need that can’t be denied.”
“Quit standing there jawing and fetch her.”
Maxine pulled her lacy robe about her and departed, her body jiggling like pudding.
Ash leaned his forehead against the wall and closed his eyes. “I hate you. I hate you for this. There is nothing you can do to make up for it. The hereafter can be all peace and joy and it still wouldn’t.”
The patter of feet brought Ash around. Maxine had Grace in tow. Grace, who was the youngest woman there and had eyes of pure innocence. Deceptive eyes, for she was anything but. Tonight Ash would grasp at the illusion as a drowning man grasped at a log.
“Here she is. Usually I wouldn’t take one of my girls from a customer to give to another, but you’re one of my favorites, Ash. Have I ever told you that?”
Ash took Grace’s hand. “Which room?”
“Up the stairs. The first door on the left. I’ll have a bottle of your usual brought up. Food too if you want.”
“I want to be left alone for two hours. Anyone opens the door, I’ll shoot them.”
Grace giggled. “You wouldn’t do that. You can’t go around killing people for no reason.”
“God does it all the time.”
Grace thought that was terribly funny.
Ash took the stairs two at a time. The room smelled of flowers. All of Maxine’s rooms did. She had fresh bouquets brought in daily. A ploy of hers, she once told him, to lure her customers back again and again. “When it smells good they like it more” was how she put it.
Ash opened the window and took the bouquet and threw it out.
Grace giggled again. “What did you that for? Those were roses. They cost Maxine money.”
“You’re costing me money. Get on the bed and spread your legs.”
“Whatever you want, sugar.” Grace shed her silken negligee. “But if you don’t mind my saying, something is eating at you tonight. Mind telling me what it is?”
Ash gave it to her straight. “I want you to help me forget.”
“Forget what?”
Ash gazed out the window at the street lights and the people and the twinkling stars. “Everything.”
Chapter 27
Ash had a lot to consider. It was a long ride from Denver to Durango. Over three hundred miles. He would have to cross half a dozen mountain ranges and the Continental Divide. The ride would take weeks and tax his weakened constitution. All to kill a man he had no quarrel with for the money he needed for the morphine that was keeping him from blowing his brains out.
“Hell,” Ash gloomily summed up his feelings late on a cloudy afternoon. He was walking the Street of a Thousand Sinners. He had nowhere to go. He was just restless. He couldn’t sleep much anymore. The pressure in his chest was unrelenting. The pain came and went. Worse, he had begun to show some of the symptoms Doc Peters had warned him about, symptoms that meant the end was nigh. His end.
“Eventually you’ll get so sick you can’t stand it,” the physician had warned. “You’ll be laid up in bed. The morphine will help ease the discomfort, but at the same time using it will kill you little by little until you lapse into a coma. Death will come soon after.”
“How will I know when I’ve reached that point?” Ash had asked.
“You’ll have stomach spasms, pain so bad it will bend you in half. You won’t be able to keep food down. You’ll have a weak pulse and be drowsy a lot of the time, and toward the very end you’ll have bouts where you can’t catch your breath.”
“God,” Ash had said.
“I’m sorry for you. Truly sorry. It’s not the sort of death I would wish on anyone. At the very last your heart will give out or your lungs will quit working or maybe your whole body will just shut down.”
Ash remembered each and every symptom. He was having a lot of pain in his gut. He was having severe bouts of drowsiness. He didn’t need to feel his pulse to know it was weak. Twice now he’d experienced short spells where he had to suck in air to breathe. He might not even make it to Durango.
The next morning Ash bought a packhorse instead of renting one as he had before. He bought supplies. He bought ammunition. He bought more morphine, a lot more. He paid his landlady for two months in advance and told her that if he wasn’t back by the end of that time she could rent his room to someone else.
That night Ash didn’t go out. He cleaned and reloaded the Remington revolver and the Remington pocket pistol and his Winchester. He gathered up all that he owned in the world: an extra shirt and extra pants, his shaving kit, which he hadn’t used in days, spare socks, his blankets.
Sunrise found Ash in the saddle, leading the pack-horses down the dusty dung-dotted street. A dog yipped at him. A hog rooted in the dirt. A milkman smiled and nodded and Ash nodded back.
To the west reared the ramparts men called the Rockies. Peak after imposing peak, several crowned ivory with snow. That was something else Ash had to think about: the snow. It was autumn. The trees had started to turn and the mornings were brisk. He was taking a risk trying to reach Durango before the heavy snows fell. But what did he have to lose except his life? And he had already lost that.
The serpentine windings of the rutted road meandered over hill and through dale. Meadows rich with grass and wildflowers were hemmed by slopes rich with timber. Always the road led higher until he was out of the foothills and in the high country proper. Here the valleys were few and far between. Forest reigned, evergreens in all their variety, along with stands of colorful aspens, their leaves shimmering in the wind.
It was his eighth day out when Ash drew rein at noon. Climbing down, he stretched and gazed out over the country he had put behind him. Wooded slopes spread out as far as the eye could see. Bathed in sunlight, they presented a picturesque beauty impossible to deny.
“You can do this,” Ash said with a nod at the natural wonderland, and then he touched his chest. “And yet you do this?”
Ash tried to stay alert as he rode but the drowsiness made it hard. He had a lot to watch out for. The Utes, for starters. This had been their land before it became white land and they resented the white intrusion. Then there were grizzlies. Most of the big bears had been wiped out lower down but up here many still roamed. Wolves and cougars and other meat eaters were abundant. So were rattlesnakes.
Fate favored Ash. He made it over the front range without mishap. At Salida he had a decision to make. He could swing west to Monarch Pass and press on through the mountains to Durango or he could go south over Poncha Pass into the San Luis Valley and follow the valley to Del Norte and then head west. The valley would be easier. The valley would take less time. The valley had a lot more people too.
Ash w
ent west to Monarch Pass and on into the mountains. Usually he had the road to himself. He liked it that way. He avoided travelers other than to acknowledge a few friendly waves or greetings. He never stopped to talk. He didn’t want to get to know any of them. To know them might be to like them and leaving the world would be hard enough.
The nights were bad. He tossed and turned and sweated and hurt. The stomach cramps came and went. The pain in his chest was always there.
To try to get to sleep he started using more morphine. All that did was make him drowsier during the day. So drowsy he couldn’t keep his eyes open. Yet at night when he closed them he couldn’t drift off.
“It makes no damn sense,” he fumed at the heavens.
Two days later he came on a grizzly. He was winding along a creek and around a bend and there it was, as gigantic as anything, its muzzle wet from drinking. It grunted and rose onto its hind legs. Eleven feet, Ash reckoned. He put his hand on his revolver but he didn’t draw. It would be like spitting wads of paper.
The bear would rip him to ribbons.
The grizzly sniffed and took a lumbering step nearer.
The packhorse whinnied and pulled on the lead rope and would have galloped off if Ash hadn’t tightened his hold. It distracted him for a few seconds.
When he looked back at the grizzly it was climbing the opposite bank.
A last stare and another grunt and it was gone.
“Thank you,” Ash said.
Later that day he struck Indian sign. Half a dozen unshod horses had crossed the trail the day before. A Ute hunting party, he figured. Or maybe a war party. For the next several days he rode with his Winchester across his saddle.
Then came a cool evening high on a sawtooth spine. A campfire glowed in a clearing ahead. It might be the only spot to stop for miles. The horses and Ash were tuckered out, so with reluctance he reined off the trail into the clearing and stopped.
The people ringing the fire looked up. A family of five. Father, mother, two girls and a boy. Past them sat a covered wagon, not a Conestoga but its smaller cousin. The team of mules was tied for the night.
“How do you do, stranger?” the father said. He had a rifle propped against his leg, a Spencer. He had a beard too, only his was trimmed short. “You’re welcome to share our fire if you’d like.”
Ash dismounted. He was so tired and weak he could barely stand. He shuffled over, squatted and held his hands to the flames for the warmth. “I’m obliged.”
The smallest girl—she had to be eight or nine—clutched her mother’s wrist and said in fright, “Ma! His face!”
“Hush, child. The man is sick is all.”
“What ails you, stranger?” the father asked. “It’s not anything my family will catch, is it?”
“No,” Ash answered.
“You’re sure? They mean the world to me.”
“It’s morphine sickness.”
“Oh,” the father said, and then again, “Oh. I won’t pry into why. It’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s not.”
The smallest girl still appeared to be terrified. “What’s morphine, Pa? Why does it make him look like that?”
Ash turned to her. “Like what? How do I look to you?”
“Easy, now,” the father said. “She’s too young to understand. Don’t take it as an insult.”
“That’s right.” The mother clasped the small one to her. “Sally doesn’t know any better.”
Ash hadn’t taken his eyes off the girl. “I’d really like to know, little miss. What do you see when you look at me? Be honest.”
Sally glanced at her mother and then at her father and the father nodded. “I see a dead man, Mister. You can talk and walk but you look as if you should be dead.”
“Sally Jane!” the mother exclaimed.
“He asked me, Ma. He wanted to know.”
“That I did,” Ash confirmed. An awkward silence fell. The family was on edge and apprehensive. He sought to soothe them by saying, “If you’ll excuse me, I have horses to strip and my bedroll to spread out.”
The father motioned at a coffeepot. “Where are my manners? You’re welcome to sit with us if you’d like. My Martha makes about the best coffee anywhere.”
“Oh, pshaw,” Martha said.
“Maybe later.” Ash had no intention of joining them. Not after scaring the little girl to death. He made his own camp across the clearing and got a small fire going and picketed his animals. He got out his own coffeepot and his water skin and was about to fill the pot when the father called out to him.
“Stranger, I meant what I said about you joining us. We’d be grateful for the company.”
Ash hesitated. He couldn’t decide if they were being kind out of sympathy or whether they were kind at heart.
“Please,” Martha prompted. “We feel bad about how Sally acted. Show us there are no hard feelings.”
Certain he was making a mistake, Ash went back over. He accepted a tin cup brimming with coffee. Holding it in both hands he sipped and waited for one of them to say something.
“I’m Tom Minter, by the way. We’re from Pittsburgh. We’re on our way to Durango to find work.”
“That’s a far piece to travel for a job.”
“The coal mine I was working at in Pennsylvania closed. The coal vein petered out.” Tom paused. “I read they are always looking for men to work the mines in Durango. I read they pay good money and don’t make a man work more than twelve hours a day.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“It was in the newspaper so it must be true.”
Ash laughed and they regarded him as if he were peculiar. “You can’t take things you read as gospel,” he said, and saw worry blossom on Tom Minter’s face. “But yes, I’ve heard there’s plenty of work to be had for those who don’t mind calluses on their hands.”
“That would be me. I do a good day’s work for a good day’s wage.”
“That he does,” Martha confirmed. “I married a good provider and I’m not shy about saying so.”
“That works both ways,” Tom responded. “You’re the best wife and mother any man could want.”
Ash had to turn away. It tore at his insides to look at them. They were so much in love and so very proud of one another. At that moment he envied Minter more than he ever envied anyone.
“I was about to put stew on,” Martha said. “Would you care to join us? We have plenty to spare.”
Ash wasn’t hungry, but he said he would be glad to.
Martha went to the wagon and returned with a pot. She filled it with water and chopped up a handful of carrots and two potatoes. To that she added half a cup of flour and stirred.
“We don’t have any meat,” Tom apologized. “I shot at a buck today but I am not much of a hunter.”
Ash excused himself. He went through his supplies and brought back more flour and sugar and six cans. “I should contribute my fair share,” he said, and set it all next to the pot.
“We couldn’t,” Martha declared, although her stomach was growling.
“Not that much, no,” Tom said.
“It would just go to waste,” Ash told them. “Please. Feel free to help yourselves.”
They looked at one another and at him and at the bounty of food, and Tom said, “I reckon we will, then.”
Martha fetched pans and the children hovered like half-starved wolves while she prepared the meal. She hummed as she worked, smiling happily, and her mood was contagious. Before long the whole family was grinning and talking and eager to eat. And eat they did. The stew, the beans, the peaches—they ate until they were fit to burst.
The looks they gave Ash made him uncomfortable. He plucked a blade of grass and stuck it between his teeth and tried not to inhale the aroma of the food so he wouldn’t vomit.
“We can’t thank you enough, Mister,” Tom Minter said.
“It’s nothing.”
“Oh, it’s more than that,” Martha disagreed. “W
e’ve always told our children that the milk of human kindness never runs dry and you have proven our point.”
“I can’t eat anyway.”
“Yes, sir,” Tom said. “Here we were, about out of food. We were praying for help and the good Lord sent you.”
Ash opened his mouth to tell him how wrong he was, but didn’t.
Little Sally had gotten over her fear and was bubbling with glee. “Thank you, Mister. Thank you a whole lot. My folks say that God rewards us when we’re good so I bet he rewards you.”
“It would be a nice change,” Ash said.
Chapter 28
Mining towns had a reputation for being no place for the weak or timid. Durango was no exception. It bustled with life, vigor and violence.
Hemmed by the majestic San Juan Mountains, Durango was the beating heart of the Animas River Valley. It sat at the junction of the Spanish Trail, which came up from the south out of Mexico, and important trails that led west to California and to the northeast toward Denver. The River of Lost Souls, as it was called, ran through the middle of town.
Not that long ago gold had been discovered in the San Juans. Since the area was at the heart of Ute territory and the Utes were not thrilled at the prospect of having a horde of whites swarm into the region after the precious ore, the government saw fit to round them up and put them on a reservation so it was safe for the gold seekers.
And swarm in they did. Gold strikes always lured the adventurous and the greedy and those who preyed on them. Shootings and knifings were as common as teeth, to where no one paid much attention to them unless they involved someone of note.
Miners were a lusty bunch. Durango boasted almost as many saloons and brothels as Denver. It could only boast one church, though.
Ash arrived on a rainy afternoon with the wind whipping out of the northwest. It had taken longer than he thought it would, but he made it over the passes before the first heavy snows. It took him longer because he traveled for part of the way with the Minters. Tom Minter had expressed worry about running into renegade Utes so Ash offered to ride with them until they were down out of the high country and safe.
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