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

by S. L. Hawke

  “Well I suppose we have to have one last thing to make this perfect,” Shaw-Jones rumbled, taking the egg. He placed it within Virofsky’s magical handkerchief and it too disappeared. From it came a white dove, which to the shouts of awe and delight, he placed on the crown of the tree. Showing immense relief, he wiped his sooty face with the pristine handkerchief.

  “Who is going to clean up that mess of a good kerchief now, sir?” Mrs. Potter loudly exclaimed.

  Shaw-Jones was unfazed. He looked puzzled at her question. “Well requested. I shall attend, my dear lady,” he said as he balled up the soiled hanky and wrung it. Water came from it! And then he shook it out to reveal (and he showed BOTH sides!) a very clean white handkerchief which he then returned to an annoyed Virofsky.

  “Thank you kind ladies, for your patience. If you will please regard the table at the back of the room, my assistant, Mr. Quimby will show you some other delights of the eye.” And to the audience’s amazement, a young, dark–haired, bespectacled man stood behind a table filled with what Emma recognized as a stereograph, but with amazing photo plates of circus performers and natural wonders.

  When she turned around, Shaw-Jones had disappeared. Emma went to her servant’s door and exited the room.

  The passageway was dark and smelled of bread and smoke.

  Emma was grabbed.

  7

  Consulate Estate, Santa Cruz Mountains

  She smelled like food. And I smelled like fire.

  “God! You scared me. Ugh...” Emma took my dirty face in her small hands. “Oh my God. You’re bleeding!”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay…” I started to slide sideways when Lam’s strong arms held me up and we traveled the remaining length of the servants’ hall to the bath house.

  Emma remained with me, and then when I returned to our shared bed, she climbed in beside me. Death had ballooned towards me a few hours ago, a black solid mass of fire. I gave Emma very little time to feel aroused. All I wanted was her around me.

  She held me with her legs, then her arms, with our mouths and our tongues entwining, until I buried my aching head into her neck and emptied myself as deeply as possible inside of her. I collapsed on top of her, unable to roll myself off. She held me in her arms. I would have slept that way, but with soreness and difficulty, I rolled off of her and simply passed out, happy holding Emma’s hand on my chest, feeling her forehead against my shoulder.

  I woke suddenly in the middle of the night. The guard was changing. I could hear the faint speaking of Russian. Emma had rolled away from me and was sleeping deeply. I got up and looked out the window to see a clear night. The guard was on alert it would seem, but often Konstantin would have “drills” for his soldiers that feigned a night attack. Stretching my sore back, I returned to the bed and fell back into an uneasy sleep. The dreams came on like sickness.

  The gulch was filled with tall oaks and brambles. The sound of rushing water and horns, strange horns, seemed to radiate around me. I was standing on a stone floor with a wall that faced a towering oak clad in a curtain of dark green ivy. I looked up at a strange adobe with glass windows containing many large panes, and a small painted balcony with a stairwell. I wanted to go up the stairwell, but I had no legs. Suddenly a dog ran down from the balcony, a happy black dog with a thick tail and big, lolling tongue.

  Emma came out but she looked very young, had lighter skin, and wore strange boys’ clothes of bright colors. Her hair was incredibly long and in many braids. She did not know me, but I cried to her: “Home! I’m home!”

  She shook her head. I felt her voice in my head. “I’m not her.”

  I was heartbroken and paced around the adobe house while she lay inside with another man. Then I ran away, feeling lost until I came to the Evergreen Cemetery. I stood near a large tree with two broken marble headstones. I began to dig down into the grave itself, digging and digging, until I hit stone. My heart was pounding. I felt weak. I brushed the light dirt away from the stone, using a small trowel. I kept digging until I came to some words. The more I brushed off the dirt, the clearer they became. Then I saw that it was the top of the broken headstone in front of me. I felt like crying but there were other men there, so I did not. I wore gloves. I took a final brush of my fingers, which seemed too small to be my own, to reveal the headstone’s name: A.J. Sloan.

  “Wake up!” a man’s voice cried. I was choking on a scream. Lorenzana was inches from my face. I shoved him away and quickly looked for Emma who I thought was lying next to me, but she was not there. “She is in the bath house. She is not…” Here Lorenzana seemed to blush. “She is getting ready for her day,” he said quickly.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I growled. Lorenzana gave me a mildly irritated face.

  “You are supposed to be at the camp in Corralitos in seven days. It takes two to get there, IF we do not have problems with the supplies, water, and horses. There is always one problem. Always.” Lorenzana folded his arms across his chest. He was very clean and seemed bright-eyed, despite the force of the blast. My head ached, and I felt a sore spot on a part of my head. I touched it and winced. “Eh – be careful. You protected me from the debris that came flying at us. I am grateful, cabron.”

  Now I remembered the whole incident. I also remember meeting up with a smoking, singed Shaw-Jones as well. But little else after that.

  “There is much we have to plan, Sloan.” And here Lorenzana was speaking in Castellano. I nodded. “You must–”

  “Beat the shit out of you again, in front of the thieves.”

  “Maybe a little more than that.”

  “Well, we will have to see how it goes. Let’s pack up those shells, then start out two days from now. We will go until we can travel no further, then see how far we get.”

  Lorenzana frowned at me but held his opinions to himself. He simply nodded and then left me gratefully to find the bathhouse and breakfast.

  *******

  This was not the pace Faustino expected Sloan to keep after injuring his head. They must have done at least fifteen hard miles, in and out of deep gulches and hilltops. How he managed to find the thieves’ encampment place without a map, wading and scrambling through the deep brush and forests of Corralitos, made Faustino feel some pride at knowing him. Faustino often took a different route, more direct, flat, and visible, which Sloan did not want to do.

  “They’ll be watching that way, not just the thieves, but the Army. I can’t risk losing these.” He pointed to the packhorse’s contents from Shaw-Jones.

  Finally, A.J. crouched down when he saw the smoke haze of campfires near a gulch a half a league away. The wind shifted. On it was the smell of horses and latrines. Faustino was able to spot eight perimeter lookouts in the dells between them and the camp.

  He led A.J. to their location and then watched with some amazement as A.J. tapped them on the shoulder and hit them in two places, the center of their chests, and their jaw. This worked for two. The next two A.J. struggled with a bit, disarming the man before his rifle fired and using the butt of the rifle after separating it from its stock and knocking him out. The next one simply dropped his rifle and lay down on the ground.

  The other two, Faustino helped catch with a lasso. Sloan held a knife to their throats and they swallowed and said no more. But the last two, Faustino simply held a pistol to the back of their head. One was relieving himself at the time, and the other was doing a different sort of relief with his penis. Both allowed themselves to be bound.

  Then Faustino and A.J. wandered into the camp, tired, but intact, pushing the sentry guards they had caught and tied together, marching in front of them like wayward donkeys. The rest of the camp had come to greet them, armed and ready to kill. A.J. stood, without fear, in front of several men pointing rifles at him, some with the hammer lock pulled back and the trigger slightly pressed.

  “Shoot them first.” A.J. pointed to the hog-tied sentry guards. “Just think what would have happened if an army had been follow
ing me.”

  McKenna had come quickly out of the supply tents, followed by Poole and another man Faustino had recognized immediately, Captain Rufus Ingram. McKenna growled at the armed brigade, and greeted A.J. with an apology and a firm handshake, scattering the armed mob as if they were annoying insects. Ingram narrowed his eyes and looked intimidated. Poole simply grinned.

  “Looks like you understood my directions,” McKenna said with a rare smile, introducing Poole to him as if he were a long lost cousin. Ingram gave Sloan a handshake. Faustino was surprised they had already met. There was a sudden coldness around Faustino.

  “Actually your man–” Sloan pointed to Faustino with one large gloved hand, holding the reins with the other, his long dark duster tight across his arms and chest, making him look like a powerful black jaguar. “Left a lot of trail markers for us to follow without too much effort.” McKenna began to reach for his pistol.

  “Liar! I told him nothing, Senor McKenna! He made me mark the way here!” Faustino yelled back, pretending to feel suddenly deeply betrayed and foolish. McKenna strode quickly over to Faustino, drew his pistol and, flipping it to its butt end, hit Faustino across the face.

  Faustino fell, the pain of it nothing new, but the throbbing would not let him get up.

  “Put him down, boss!” came shouts from the others in camp. Faustino felt he was going to die, like an unwanted puppy. Suddenly all he could see was a pair of large feet in good boots and he could smell the familiar, strong body odor of a man on the road.

  “Hang on,” A.J. said above Faustino, who had rolled over and looked up at the two men facing each other. “What I meant to say is that this boy pissed way too much.”

  “He should be killed – for betraying us.” McKenna rolled his pistol into his palm and pointed the nose of it right at Faustino’s face.

  “Let me rephrase again.” Sloan’s voice was stronger now, and Faustino felt like the voice itself seemed to control the air. “I need this boy to unpack a few things. The horse is skittish and he understands the importance of being careful. His touch is slight, small, and clean. The merchandise requires it,” Sloan said in a quiet conspiratorial manner. “I’ve got those shells you ordered. “

  Slowly McKenna holstered his pistol.

  “Their kind should all be killed. He will steal from you with those careful little hands, so keep your bags with you,” Ingram added, looking at Faustino with amusement. Faustino’s fingers ached.

  “I intend to,” Sloan answered. Ingram grabbed Faustino’s face and pulled it close to his. His flat grey eyes studied his face with an unexpected scrutiny. He even sniffed him.

  “Something wrong?” A.J. asked Ingram.

  “He reminds me of the Guild’s driver.” Here Ingram suddenly got lighthearted. “And the perils of a bordello, drink, and making a fool of oneself in front of the town’s Moral Masthead.” He let go of Faustino with amazing force.

  Then A.J.’s gloved hand grabbed Faustino’s arm and pulled him up as if he weighed nothing. He mock laughed and asked where he should unload his shipment. Ingram pointed to a shaded area nearest the stream. When they were clear of most ears, Sloan spoke low and in Castellano: “Act like a valet. Watch, wait, listen, and be quick. You have those traits in abundance,” A.J. reminded him with his sideways smile. “Should be an easy task.”

  It was McKenna who seemed most impressed by Sloan’s manner. He listened intently whenever Sloan spoke and nodded in agreement with much of Sloan’s perceptions of range, power, and effectiveness of the new compact shell design Sloan had brought to the camp. Faustino feared for A.J. now. The Ice Eyed Gringo was dangerous and unpredictable. Everyone who was not white had suffered at his hand. If McKenna ever found out Sloan claimed and held what McKenna held so dear, there would be no stopping the violence that would ensue.

  “Are you certain our powder and rifle stocks will be able to travel on this ‘secret route’ in time for the departing tide?” Poole seemed to deflate in Sloan’s presence. Captain Ingram, however, was undeterred. Captain Ingram was the most dangerous man in this group, Faustino could see. Faustino felt the shudder of death around Ingram and saw that Ingram only played a fool or played the rich man. Faustino decided that Sloan should be kept away from him. Fortunately, Sloan was too busy setting up the shells to discuss much with the Captain.

  “There are a series of natural caves north of here, near the whaling harbor. Even if you miss the evening tide, you can still row boats out to the ships without being seen.” Ingram gestured to A.J. to unroll a shipping chart onto the redwood sideboards that made up their makeshift work table. The canvas roof of the work tent was crawling with worms from yesterday, some creating their chrysalis houses on the edges of the broad, dirty canvas.

  The sunset was two hours away, but already more caterpillars began their journey on a strand of silk as they came down from the old oaks above. Faustino trembled, as this seemed the sign of El Diablo himself. The coldness, the worms, the darkness of the forests of this terrible place.

  Faustino finished putting up Sloan’s tent. He wanted to unpack his saddle bags but A.J. shook his head and kept the bags near him, even now. Faustino watched McKenna, Sloan, Ingram, and Poole discuss the various routes to ensure safety of the ground transport of powder, rifle barrels and stock from the lime kilns to the caves.

  “Lorenzana!” A.J.’s voice called to him. Faustino came to the open flap of the work tent. “Get us some water, or tea.” The rest of the men seemed impressed by A.J.’s commanding tone. Sloan told Faustino to bring the wine as well, causing the men to return to their study of the map in hopes of finishing up early and enjoying a rare comfort. As Faustino brought the wine first, he watched them discuss times for departure. When Faustino left the tent, he overheard McKenna talking about ‘greasers’ being untrustworthy. Poole laughed heartily about how, under the very nose of the Don, here they were, hoping to create a New European Nation and those Mexicans would be sent back to the border as the Government’s first act, if they knew what was good for them. Ingram made a comment about the return of slavery, using the Spanish race. The men, all except Sloan, laughed. Sloan instead turned away and met Faustino’s eye, asking where his tea had got to.

  After the planning of the smuggling operation, Sloan and McKenna, with Faustino’s help, went out into a field and prepared to explode one of the hand shells. Ingram spent the afternoon plotting a route on the sea map and loading up his mule train for a trek to the secret port.

  “Are you certain these are effective?” McKenna slung his rifle over his left shoulder. A.J. held the small, palm–sized, gunpowder-filled can with a string out of the top. He lit it and then suddenly threw the can into the field.

  BANG!

  Faustino fell over from the force of the blast. A.J. had wisely plugged his ears and knelt. McKenna had copied A.J. but did not plug his ears. He was still shaking his head.

  Faustino looked at where Sloan had thrown the can and a small, smoking black pit lay there instead. Visions of the flesh that had fallen from the skies around them at the Powder Works rose up, making Faustino stagger over to the bushes and retch.

  Dinner at the camp was simple for Faustino, beans and stale tortillas. The camp was scattered beneath oaks and the caterpillars infesting them were increasing their silk string descent onto the camp, causing exclamations of disgust as they made their way into food, down shirt collars, and smearing across pants. Faustino threw away his food to the emaciated camp dog and went back to the tent.

  As he rounded the latrine, he saw Sloan was under the canvas, shirtless, washing himself.

  Faustino froze for a moment. A huge scar ran down the side of Sloan’s ribcage. A knife might have done that, but the curve, the length and evenness of the cut could only mean one type of weapon. Faustino then realized that it was a sword that had created such a scar. How would such a man as Sloan have known to fight with a sword? Gringos used guns.

  Then he remembered his cousin’s tale of the gringos he tried
to rob. They’d tied him up and left him gold. Faustino found himself grinning at his first hunch, and at this confirmation that A.J. had done such a strange thing.

  A.J. scowled at Faustino’s grinning, but Faustino also noticed that he was blushing as he wiped himself with a flour sack cloth.

  “I need a clean shirt.”

  “Of course.” Faustino looked away, not ashamed that he was caught staring at A.J. Humming, he turned up the lamp and hung it from the center of the large tent. Then he reached inside the saddlebags and gave A.J. a clean undershirt.

  “What do you think of all this?” Sloan said in Castellano. Faustino removed the fairly clean water and tossed it outside the tent. Sloan suddenly bent over slightly and groaned, leaning against the table they were given.

  “Ay J–Senor?” Faustino watched A.J. intently, wondering why he had this sudden attack of pain.

  “Fuckin’ food,” Sloan said in English, then putting his shirt on, walked out and over to the latrine. He was gone a good long while.

  They slept side by side with A.J.’s saddle between them. Faustino went in and out of sleep. A.J. tossed and turned. Finally Faustino sat up in the darkness and peered over the saddle.

  “Listen,” Sloan said in English.

  “What is it? I don’t hear anything.” Faustino rested his chin on the saddle seat, enjoying the rough smell of well ridden leather. A.J. was staring straight up, wriggling his thumbs with agitation.

  “Listen. Just LISTEN!” A.J. whispered angrily. Faustino closed his eyes and listened. There was a slight crunching noise. “I hear chewing!” A.J. grumbled. “Thousands of thousands of caterpillars chewing. All at once.”

  Faustino opened his eyes and looked at A.J., sitting rigid on his bedroll, sweating, eyes wide.

  “They are chewing everything up and won’t stop until dawn.”

  “They are hungry, like everyone else here,” Faustino whispered, trying to sound comforting.

  “Make it stop.”

  “Why? You let him hit me with a gun butt.”