Ghosts in the Gulch: An Evergreen Cemetery Mystery (Evergreen Cemetery Mysteries Book 1)

by S. L. Hawke

  The room was very much in the style of the Belly of the Whale. Flat tables and strange glass beakers and tubules lay strewn about, shattered by violence rather than the intense heat, but the gears, wheels with light spokes and even rubber hoses, were unharmed.

  “What exactly did your husband do for his livelihood?” I took the lamp and looked at the cabinets; the tools that were missing from their places on a large flat hook board left behind their ghostly shapes. A small kiln and a small smithy forge were also there, tossed over as if someone were enraged to find only these few things.

  “He invented things: machines, mostly. But McKenna and he were working on a type of explosive canister.” I turned and looked at her closely. My being played the fool, my sense of it intensified until I saw that Emma was looking off into the dark distance, her expression also pale and haunted. “I heard them arguing, McKenna and Liam. McKenna wanted Liam to mine with quicksilver, make the stream toxic to the Rodríguez cattle. Liam and Don Alejandro had found gold further up the gulch. Liam wanted to mine it carefully, splitting the proceeds, but McKenna wouldn’t have it.” Emma took off her hat and leaned across the table.

  “Tell me why. Why pretend to be a stable boy? Why not ask for help?” With my other hand I gestured to her clothes. “And that man, McKenna. Other than being in love with you, which is reason enough, what else does he really want from you?” I asked, but I feared I already did know.

  “No one noticed a stable boy when they had important conversations. No one noticed a boy when they visited a brothel.” Here she took a breath. “Ian McKenna wants my land. The only way he can get it is by marriage to me.”

  “So he tried to force you into marriage after your husband died?”

  “No, he KILLED my husband so he could force his hand. I saw him do it.”

  There were so many different thoughts that ran through my mind at once. Ian McKenna of the Knights of the Golden Circle had violence in him as natural as love in the rest of us. My gut twisted a bit at his challenging behavior, here in the heart of society. Clearly his love for Emma drove him to kill her husband, but her money was clearly driving him to take enormous risks. As much as I did not want to know how he killed Emma’s husband, the word came.

  “How?”

  “McKenna came to my husband’s workshop. They argued about using his special explosive formula to blast for gold on my father’s land,” Emma whispered. “I was in the barn, seeing to my new mare, a gift from Don Rodríguez that came with the parcel he gave to us. I heard their raised voices and went to look into the shop when I heard the gunshot.”

  “And then?”

  “McKenna was screaming obscenities and throwing things. Then he left in a hurry. I ran to the workshop and saw Liam was dead on the floor, a bullet between his eyebrows.” Here Emma shook. “I screamed then.” Emma carefully placed her arms across her bosom as if to hold herself as she looked down and away. “We laid him out, in the parlor.” Emma’s tone had changed, fact-like, dead. “All I could feel was hatred. Numbness.”

  “Like the world was shattered but you were still left in it,” I said these words, remembering Tomiko, kimono ripped, the blood, the fire behind me…The smell….like right here in this workshop.

  ”At first he tried to find me, but I…Faustino saw me first, and to save his home he acted as if he were there to do mischief. If he hadn’t, his family would have been killed. I am certain of that. Tino prevented McKenna from finding me so I could escape. The fire caused an explosion – I left Liam there…unburied…” She pointed towards the ruins behind us. “Instead, I fled the ranch we built. I LET MCKENNA DISHONOR LIAM’S BODY AND BURN OUR HOME!!!” She then whispered: “I am a coward.”

  Now she never looked more beautiful to me. This was simply a woman afraid for her own life, a victim of the forces of men’s nature. I had to come closer to her, ashamed that I had accused her of being ignorant of risk. We stood side by side now.

  She swallowed and wiped her face again. “I wanted to return to Hawai’i.” Emma continued, “My mother’s kin were there, and they had Royal connections – they would vow vengeance but only if I were harmed. They did not recognize Liam as my husband and here, all I was to men, all I continue to be to men, is a wealthy widow with a land grant and a gold deed that needs to be controlled by a white man.” Emma whispered this last part with bitterness.

  “You are no coward,” I murmured, trying to be comforting. After all, this was the friend Margaret had written to me about, who indeed needed a firm hand.

  2

  My mind shuttled back and forth with reasons why Lorenzana helped Emma. Trying to regain the original land back, from even Emma’s family, would be one of them. Fergus’ words about trusting Lorenzana echoed in the background of all these thoughts. Lorenzana too loved Emma.

  “Tino had crossed McKenna once long ago. But a white woman intervened and convinced them Tino could help them hide. She also wanted Tino to steal for her. Your sisters and I found out that it was Sally Towne. Tino also knows but will not give up her part in the thieves just yet. He knows the value of secrecy more than many. He has been betrayed often.” There was love for Faustino Lorenzana in Emma’s voice. My fists clenched.

  Here Emma paused, as if pondering herself her own action. “I suppose I just wanted to keep an eye on Ian, on folk abused by him. The prostitutes in town know everything. It was the only way I could hear and see for myself the extent of McKenna’s hand in all of this town. He seems protected. When I called upon the Sheriff for help, when I tried to tell them who did it, it was as if I were lying.” The tears fell in a constant stream from her eyes now. “They told me Liam was killed in an accident!”

  I shook my head. So everyone in this town was bought. The link between John and Ian was clear.

  “Do you want to choose your own path to justice?” I asked. It made sense. It would be what I would do. Emma nodded but I could see that she did not find comfort in my words.

  “You must think me foolish,” Emma said with a hard swallow, “and witless.”

  Here I touched her cheek. “No. But whoever is taking these risks is doing so because they believe there is a lot at stake.”

  Emma nodded her agreement. “The land is being lost from those around me, the Spanish holders. I knew the Mexican war was some of the reason, but many had filed with the new government, legally. They were cooperating with the United States. It was their land.” Emma watched me carefully. “Until Faustino told me about the quicksilver mine, and what began to happen when minerals and water were found on Rancho lands–”

  “You mean they seized them, claiming rights of wartime,” I concurred. Underhanded, and the true larger scheme of Towne’s agenda was clear. After all, we served a writ of seizure on the mines and its adjoining lands because the President needed money to fund the war. Why stop there? My mood darkened.

  She went silent for a moment. We both did. I was thinking about all of this and how we didn’t know about her father. There was a brief mention, but the estate was foreign soil. Finally I put this all together and spoke out loud to make sense of it.

  “So your father’s land grant came from the King of Spain,” I said mostly to myself. Emma looked up at me, her face pained, yet she seemed relieved to tell me more. I needed and wanted to hear more.

  “My father’s land grant was the only one that was clearly inviolate from the United States Government, because my father never gave up his ties to Russia. Russia never paid Spain gold for the land. The Czar instead lay claim to it. Later he paid the United States Government by handing over the fur trade. Not only did we own the land legally in agreement with the United States, my father had in his possession and at the capitol in Monterey and later in this new state’s capitol, proof that the United States held my father’s estate in good faith, a diplomatic gesture between Mother Russia and America. They even declared it a ‘Russian Consulate’.” Emma’s chest fell as if some great burden had fallen off her.

  “I wanted to send
a telegram to the capitol for help, but your sister said a war had started and the Government was barely able to hold itself together.” Emma watched me now as she spoke. “I could not go to the local sheriff because I feared he might be under McKenna’s influence.” Not McKenna’s but the Knights’.

  “Not McKenna’s but Towne’s.” The words fell from my mouth like vomit. That was what it meant to be ‘business associates’. My sister was used to giving John respectability.

  The image of the whore in the graveyard returned to me. My sister would lose everything if we arrested John Towne. Beth would become the focus of John’s perversions. I hit the table and walked to the end of the workshop and back.

  “Where is your father now?” I tried to calm myself but felt sick inside.

  “My father died shortly before Liam was killed. The land became mine no matter whom I would marry. McKenna had tried to force himself into marriage before I wed Liam.” She took a breath. “Faustino was the one who uncovered the Russian claim. He wrote to my aunt, under the royal seal his grandpapa had for his land grant, and asked for the Czar’s help.”

  “And then Napoleon came along–”

  The tears were dry. She had no more left, it would seem. But Emma did not look at me. In fact, it was clear to me now that her feelings were true, because she cared not if I were moved by them.

  I closed the distance between us and touched her shoulder. She simply crumpled within herself, then straightened and walked away from me. The vehemence in her voice startled me.

  “You ask for proof of Faustino’s loyalty to me?!” She placed her hand on her hips, trying to look fierce. I had a hard time not smiling because she was so tiny, so beautiful. “Well, he warned me that they would come. Told me to be prepared. We made a plan together and because of his quick thinking, because of my trust in him, I am alive. Maybe I should have given myself up.” Here she threw up her hands and paced around. “But it was Faustino who wrote to my aunt to come here, it was Faustino who braved the Knights, got tortured at their hands, so that he could know and protect the rest of us NON WHITES from their TERROR!” Emma was yelling and crying at the same time.

  “WE HAVE TO STOP THEM!!!” She stood there, shaking, yelling at me, eyes wild. “HELP ME…GOD HELP ME…HELP ME FIGHT BACK AND KILL THAT SON OF A BITCH.”

  She turned away from me after that, the sobs and wrenching grief erupting from her in a flood no human being should ever have to hold inside.

  I approached her carefully, like she was a spooked mare. “You are very brave. Emma…” Now both my hands went back to her shoulders.

  I tried to hold her and she mock fought me, so I held her tighter. One attempt to wipe the tears from her cheeks became a deep kiss. To hell with consequences, in fact I welcomed them.

  Somehow we managed to find a place in the workshop to lie down. An old straw mattress, unexposed to elements or vermin, covered by my long coat, became a place for me to crawl on top of her.

  She wore no corset, her breasts free and loose beneath the shirt. Somehow I managed to remove my boots in a way that did not impede our need to be with each other. I tore her shirt apart to free what I had been imagining these last days.

  Then I looked at her breasts, small warm rounds with chocolate nipples that stood up and begged my attention.

  As soon as my lips encased the nipple, Emma arched and let out a small cry that made me lose all control. Pressing against her breech-covered nethers, I’d had enough of obstacles between us.

  Her breasts, bare and cream-colored, gave way under the shirt to expose her navel. I undid the breeches and pulled, no, yanked the offending male trousers down in three sharp moves. Emma helped by pulling up one of her tan legs. My lips found the inside of that leg’s thigh, bringing cries from her. The smell from her cleft dissolved all morality from my mind.

  I undid my own breeches, feeling the relief of allowing myself to be free. Then I moved to her neck and latched on.

  I found her sex easily, as if I’d known her before. My own release threatened to erupt as soon as I pushed into her. There was no covering, no partition, nothing to keep me from being completely part of her. A groan escaped my own mouth. She squeezed me with her upraised hips. We held onto each other as if falling from a great distance. Emma was crying out now, in time with my movements, until she reached her crescendo and I could no longer hold back. She whimpered it seemed, crying into my shoulder, clinging to me as I collapsed on top of her. We remained mated until I completely deflated, each of us not wanting to truly part from the other. I did not care if a child came from this. It would give me cause to stay near her.

  Now was not the time to tell her about the cemetery, what we found there. Emma knew the whore was killed and perhaps she did know what I saw. Seeing her here, in this place, so close to death made up my mind. Sleep hit us like laudanum to the unsuspecting and soothed all our wounds.

  With the morning light came the sounds of horses and men.

  *******

  Faustino had seen Emma return, as she sometimes did, to sleep at the wreckage of her old farm. They had arranged earlier to meet up, as he had food, but she was terribly late. He waited, and worried. He’d come from the fandango, wearing his embroidered jacket, but his heart felt heavy. He feared for her. Earlier at the fandango his cousin Jose had regaled them with an amazing story.

  “Jose! You are looking fat and happy!” Faustino hugged his large, tall cousin. As he embraced him, Faustino saw a cut on the side of his neck. “Oy!” He called attention to this mark. “Are you fucking pumas now?”

  Mama brought food, tamales, empanadas, chorizo sizzling with peppers, sweet churros with nopales, and lots of beer. Always lots of wine too.

  “No, I was about to pounce on these rich gringos, coming the wrong way down into the canyon when one of them bewitched me!” Jose could always tell a good story, Faustino knew, but this time, with the mark of a blade on his cousin’s neck, he let his cousin tell a great tale of an invisible cloaked demon with a gringo’s hat, telling him he would die another day, tying him up and ¡ola! Left him gold! And here, Jose brought out old gold coins, molded far away, before the Independence war from Mexico, gold coins minted in Philadelphia.

  Everyone looked at the shiny coins on the table. They caressed them and ooohed and ahhhhed. Then Jose’s wife begged him to dance. When he could no longer jiggle his large frame, he dropped down at the table outside and wiped his sweat from his jowls.

  “Now tell me the real story, cabron.” Faustino poured his cousin more beer. Jose leaned forward, smelling of onions and garlic and chili astride a horse.

  “I shot at them. But they hid. Then one was behind me. He spoke old Castellano, told me–”

  “Yah yah, you would not die this day, but then what, a knife to your throat? And how? That is a strange knife to cut so precisely.”

  Here Jose took a breath. “Tell No ONE! NO ONE!” He looked scared.

  Faustino nodded enthusiastically and gestured to Jose to continue.

  “It was a sword, like the old days. He was very quiet, like a fox. He hit me hard on the head. Then when I woke up, right in front of me was the Corpse of Old Jim. His hand held out the gold to me. A note on his shirt said: ‘No more banditry’. Jose looked close to tears. Faustino tried hard not to show any mirth at all.

  “You keep this note?” he asked instead. Jose nodded and reached inside his vest. The paper, sweat-stained and travel–stained, unfolded with difficulty. The words were written in English. Jose snatched it back. Faustino could only think of one person who would do such a prank.

  Sloan had come to the rancho and demanded he play cards, the old fashioned way of demanding a duel or at least a face to face meeting.

  Faustino had imagined how he would have to face Sloan after the young army officer had died in front of them, in Sloan’s arms. The image of Sloan holding the young officer like a lover made Faustino deeply sad. Sloan would try to kill him, this he knew with all of his heart, and imagining this comfort
ed him. The burden of having to help Sloan deal with Ingram frightened Faustino. Ingram was a true killer, delighted in torture, and would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Sally had told him so. Now Faustino was in debt to El Diablo, or the man who claimed to be him, who would see to it that all would pay if Faustino did not honor his pledge.

  The moon had risen. It was past midnight. He wanted to go to Old Juan’s but then he saw that Emma was on her way and she was not alone. Sloan was with her. Faustino hid, to make sure this was Sloan, though in his heart he knew it had to be. He would know that hat and shoulders in any light. He stayed close to the workshop but panicked as they seemed to argue and come this way.

  He knows who she is, Faustino thought, stunned and yet not surprised. Of course, he was very smart. But Faustino did not like what had followed. Emma defended Faustino angrily but did it convince Sloan? We would see, Faustino thought. Then something unexpected happened.

  Emma and Sloan began to make love.

  Faustino had not expected a royal princess to take such a risk. Emma had been so careful. But this is Sloan, and his spell, Faustino thought with some understanding, could not be denied.

  Memories of Vasquez and his nights with women and the times Faustino waited outside in the darkness as Vasquez satisfied himself, intruded upon what sounded like Sloan but Emma too reaching the culmination of a good loving. Sloan’s breathing, his groans, made Faustino cry with heartbreak. He wanted it to be him in there, but knew it absolutely could not be.

  He was about to leave when in the distance he saw horses coming up the main road to the MacAree Ranch. Faustino immediately ran into the fields and deliberately into their path. He crossed them.

  “Stupid silly gringos!!!” he taunted, then ran as fast as he could, glad he was on foot, because they would never be able to catch him on horseback. Running now in a scattered pattern across the great meadow just below the old burnt out section of the house, he saw the horses run around him and make a circle.

  Faustino was forced to stop and put his hands up as he could see the glint of steel in each rider’s hand.