The Black Blade: A Huckster Novel

by Jeff Chapman

  The barman grunted, glancing my way in the mirror. “Sarsaparilla?”

  I didn’t understand why everyone thought I needed or wanted sarsaparilla? Before I could argue the point, a flurry of red and black fabric swooped in beside me.

  “You look like a drowned puppy who’s lost its momma.” Her rouged cheeks rose with her grin. She smelled pretty too, like a summer flower garden in full bloom, a mighty welcome change from sweat and horse.

  “I’ve been travelin’ all night if I look a bit worn out.” I yawned. Explaining my haggard appearance seemed to remind my body that it was in desperate need of a little shuteye.

  “Aw, poor thing.” She placed a hand on my shoulder, rubbing it in a circle, easing an ache I’d forgotten.

  The barman placed a mug of syrupy darkness before me. I dug in my coin purse and tossed him three pennies. The woman leaned forward to peer into my coin stash. Showing my coins to that woman was a mistake I might not have made if I’d been less tired.

  “You prefer sarsaparilla?”

  “Honestly, no. I’ve a hankerin’ for some beer, but this is what everybody pushes at me.”

  “How awful. Joe,” she called to the barman, “get this boy a lager. Charge it to me.”

  Joe raised his eyebrows.

  “Just do it,” she said, all the juicy sweetness squeezed out of her voice like an orange in a vice.

  “That’s mighty kind, ma’am, but I can pay for my own.”

  “Don’t you worry nothin’ ’bout it.” She edged closer to rub my back from one shoulder to the other. “You can call me Evaline if you please.”

  “My friends call me Jimmy.”

  Joe slid a mug of yellow, frothy goodness in front of me.

  “Say,” I said to the barman, “you got a niece named Isobel.”

  Joe grunted and shook his head. “Ain’t my niece. You’re lookin’ for Zachery.”

  “What do you want with that little...” Evaline hesitated, “girl?”

  “My business is with her pa, the gravedigger, but I don’t know his name.”

  “Gravedigger?” She tilted her head back. Her bosom jiggled with laughter. A red ribbon secured with a turquoise brooch wrapped her neck. “You’re much too young to need a gravedigger, honey. Unless you’re takin’ up gun fightin’ or horse thievin’. But you look like the gentle, innocent type.”

  Joe chuckled. “Babe plucked from the cradle.”

  “Ain’t you got somethin’ to do?” Evaline hissed. “I can see from here one of them glasses is dirty.”

  Joe frowned and snapped his towel as he turned away.

  “Where can I find this Zachery?”

  “You just wait right here with me, sweetie. He’ll be round soon enough.”

  “Kinda urgent I talk to Isobel’s pa. You don’t happen to know where the Stantons live...”

  Evaline shook her head, her lips pressed in a smile like a cat with bloody feathers stuck in its whiskers.

  “Drink up, honey,” said Evaline. “I thought you were thirsty.”

  I took a long swig of my beer. Maybe the saloon wasn’t the best place to look for Zachery. “It’s not for me but for my friend, Orville. He’s in a heap of trouble.” I didn’t think I should explain anymore and I didn’t reckon it would make any sense if I tried.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, darlin’. I do want to help, truly I do.” Evaline leaned in until her whiskey-scented breath warmed my face. “I’ll pass the word round to the other girls, and they’ll come tell us as soon as Zach arrives. In the meantime, why not come up to my room and have a bath? I’ve got hot water and plenty of soap, and it’ll only cost you two bits.”

  She leaned closer, squeezing my shoulder with one hand and my thigh with the other. Her breath tickled my ear as she whispered, “Part with one of them silver dollars and I’ll get in the tub with you. Help you scrub.”

  Heat colored my face red as all sorts of impure thoughts crowded my head. If Evaline had her way, I’d be a lot more than a dollar and two bits poorer when I escaped.

  “I think I’ll just wait here.”

  “What’s the matter, honey? Ain’t I pretty enough for you?”

  “Oh, no. You’re...you’re mighty pretty.”

  As I leaned back, Evaline followed. A few more inches and I’d tip over, pulling Evaline on top of me.

  “How about that bath for free?”

  A bath did sound mighty refreshing and healthy.

  “Jimmy?”

  I turned to the voice. “Isobel.” I sat up, smacking my forehead against Evaline’s.

  “Ow,” she moaned, rubbing her head. “What are you doin’ here, you little runt.”

  “Same as always,” said Isobel. “Mama made meat and fruit pies.” Joe was chuckling, watching us in the mirror.

  “Thank you kindly for the beer and the bath offer.” I slid off the stool. “Maybe another time,” I added, hoping to smooth any ruffled feathers.

  “You need a bath? Mama just made soap yesterday,” said Isobel. “We got plenty.”

  I shrugged as I looked back at Evaline. A tight-lipped scowl had replaced her smile, and her eyes narrowed with fury. A pack of wolves would have run from her anger with their tails between their legs. Time for me to skedaddle too.

  “Oh, you need a bath alright,” Evaline said. Before I could bolt for the door, she grabbed both my drinks and flung the contents at me. The beer soaked my shirt. My pants took the sarsaparilla. Evaline slammed the mugs on the bar and screamed fit to burst the laces on her corset.

  A small hand grasped mine. Isobel dragged me toward the door, weaving between the card tables. We passed the swinging doors at a run, Evaline’s scream and the card player’s laughter ringing in my ears.

  Chapter Ten

  “That Evaline. She don’t like me. Not one tiny bit.” Isobel held up her hand with thumb and forefinger pressed tightly together. “And I ain’t never done nothin’ to her. I suspects she hates me ’cause I’m already more of a proper lady than she’ll ever be.”

  Barefoot in a homespun dress and thin and straight as a rail, Isobel looked anything but a proper lady in the making. “Daresay Evaline don’t fancy me no more neither.”

  “My mama’s soap’ll get you cleaned up right quick. She makes the best and sweetest smellin’ soap for miles around.”

  A man wearing a smart-cut suit and boasting a well-trimmed mustache nodded to us. His gaze traveled down and up my wet shirt and pants, which clung to my skin with a sticky grip that wouldn’t let go. He turned his head to politely conceal his chuckling. I suspect we made quite a spectacle.

  “Evaline don’t like nobody worth knowin’. Probably a sign of yer high character. Speakin’ of such, where’s Mr. Orville?”

  “That’s why I need to speak to yer pa. Orville’s in a heap of trouble.”

  Isobel whipped round. The necklaces that Orville had given her months ago clacked together as they flew out and then caught up with her. “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story. I’d rather tell you and your pa at once.” I followed her through a dark, narrow gap between two buildings.

  “Gonna have to wait a couple days to tell my pa. They’re hangin’ the Malloy gang over in Dead Willow, all thirteen of ’em. Pa got called over to help with the diggin’.”

  The worst news I’d heard since Marzby dealt us his twisted bargain. I was gonna be on my own. No guide, no one to help, and Wilbur skulking in the shadows with his shotgun. A gambler might bet on three straight flushes in a row before he’d wager on my hopes. We sidestepped a pile of stable muck alive with flies and maggots-to-be.

  “Maggie,” I exclaimed. “She’s tied up outside the saloon.”

  “Well why didn’t you say you had yer horse?”

  “I gots too many troubles.” I rubbed my forehead, pushing up my hat, but Isobel ignored my plea for sympathy.

  She did an about-face that would make any sergeant proud. We retraced our steps, and I endured another round of snickers from anyone who noticed my
wet clothes.

  We mounted Maggie with Isobel sitting in front to work the reins since she knew where we were going. Nothing like the sway of a walking horse to stimulate the mind. I’d been thinking of Isobel as nothing more than a path to her father, but she likely knew more than a thing or two about her pa’s business.

  “I reckon your pa knows more about Skull Hill than anyone alive,” I said.

  “He’s dug a lot of holes in it.”

  “But I bet you’ve spent a fair amount of time there too.”

  “That I have. It’s a marvelous place to go explorin’.”

  “So why is it called Skull Hill? Don’t look much like a skull.”

  “Got nothin’ to do with its shape, but what you dig up. My pa says there ain’t nary a grave that don’t bring forth a skull or two.”

  “Where do the skulls come from?”

  “Some say it’s an old Indian buryin’ ground, but my pa don’t hold with such notions, and I’m inclined to agree. The Indians round here leave their dead to lie on stilts, and you only find skulls in the hill, no other bones.”

  With such a name, I’d been speculating there might be an entrance at the mouth or eyes. Another notion shot to dust.

  “So what do you believe?” I asked.

  “I say it was the Popish Spaniards, beheadin’ their enemies and pilin’ the heads on the hill as a reminder not to cross ’em. Must have stunk somethin’ awful, but maybe that contributed to the deterrent. Pastor Carl says that back in the old country they used to hang criminals at crossroads and leave ’em to rot.”

  I recalled the tall trees atop the hill’s crest, the ones Orville claimed they hanged grave robbers from. If there was any truth to Isobel’s speculation, the executions happened long ago and someone spread a lot of dirt over those heads.

  Finding Isobel had kept me alert, but now my head felt stuffed with wool. Maggie’s rocking and my exhaustion colluded. My eyelids grew heavy, and I saw less and less of the trail, losing the struggle to hold my eyes open.

  A jab to my ribs knocked me oughta my slumber. “Wake up, Jimmy. We’re here. You been snorin’ in my ear for the last mile and a half.”

  The Stanton homestead was a ramshackle cabin and a barn. Smoke rose idly from a stone chimney. Must have been a chicken coop somewhere because there were five hens scattered over the yard, scratching for worms in the dirt. There was a fenced garden beside the house and a field planted with oats behind it.

  Isobel slid off Maggie, and I followed.

  “I’ll get one of my brothers to water her while you bath.” Isobel tethered Maggie in the shade of an oak tree.

  A crow cawed from the cabin’s ridgepole. As we watched, another crow joined the first.

  “I swear those two followed us all the way from town,” remarked Isobel.

  I felt the birdman tile in my shirt pocket. Maybe now was the time to ditch it, crush it to dust beneath my heel. My fingers had snaked into my pocket when a scream blew oughta every chink and crack in the cabin.

  “Mama?!” Isobel burst through the cabin door with me a step behind.

  Laid out on a table before a black, iron stove were all the makings of meat pies: onions, potatoes, carrots, and chopped sausage. A rolling pin lay abandoned in the middle of a floured crust. An open door across from me led to a back room. The screaming came from my left, and as I passed the edge of the door, I saw Isobel’s mother standing on a bed with Isobel beside her, their collective gaze directed at the floor.

  I jumped backward. Fear and instinct counseled me to slam the door shut and give the cabin a wide berth, but the women on the bed stilled my flight. A rattler coiled on the floor, its body as thick as a whiskey bottle. Its tail shook a warning. Its head weaved from side to side with the movement of the women, who’d backed to the far edge of the bed, probably out of its range. If it slid under the bed, there’d be no good shot at it, and it could take them unawares from any direction. The scales glistened, giving the diamond pattern a wet look. An image of Marzby’s rattlesnake boots came to mind. Could it be? Snakes and birds? Mulling over my suspicions would have to wait.

  As in most frontier homes, a gun hung loaded above the door. Without taking my eyes off the snake, I reached overhead and found a Winchester. I’ve never been a marksman or had much use for guns, but anyone with an eye and a finger could hit a writhing mass of venom at two yards.

  The Winchester kicked my shoulder as lead tore open the snake’s back, exposing white meat. The snake jerked, twisting off the floor. Writhing belly up, the last couple feet of the snake’s tail stuck out at an odd angle, nearly perpendicular, and the rattle no longer shook its death knell. I cocked the rifle to fire again, but there was no need.

  “Die, you God-forsaken viper!” Isobel wielded a long-handled bed warmer like a club and swung it down on the snake’s head with a monstrous thwack, crushing the viper’s skull and snapping the wooden handle off the warmer.

  Isobel hopped from the bed. She cocked the jagged-end handle over her shoulder. “Is it dead yet?”

  I chuckled as I lowered the rifle. “I reckon it is.”

  The bed warmer lay beside the beast’s head, which looked twice as wide as before.

  Isobel’s mother held her hands to her chest. Her breaths came in heavy, wheezing gasps. Except for the eyes—hers were sky blue and Isobel’s chocolate—Isobel was a younger version of her mother. The woman’s gaze lifted from the snake to me.

  “I don’t mean to be rude. We are indebted to you for your kind and timely assistance, but who are you?” A Southern twang salted her speech.

  “That’s Jimmy,” said Isobel before I could form a word. “Mr. Orville’s apprentice.”

  “Ah. Isobel has spoken well of you and your master.”

  I didn’t appreciate folks calling Orville my master. Since becoming his apprentice, I hadn’t noticed a lick of change in my duties, so I thought of Orville more as a business partner, but once folks got an idea lodged in their head, you would have as much success dissuading them as talking walnuts out of a pig’s gullet.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Jimmy,” said Isobel’s mother. “You may call me Hetty.”

  Isobel lifted the viper by the end of the broken handle. “I always thought Eve a clod head for listenin’ to a snake. You wouldn’t catch me takin’ advice from one.” Isobel passed me as she took the snake outside.

  Her mother smiled, maybe begging indulgence for Isobel’s opinions.

  “Where’d it come from?” Now was the time to satisfy my suspicions, though what Marzby hoped to accomplish with a snake I had not the first idea. And why didn’t it attack me? I’d already put the snake down to coincidence when she answered.

  “From under the table, as I rolled the crust. Oh, to think how close it twined to my ankles.” She stepped from the bed. Her voice trembled. The excitement had faded, and I figured latent fear was flooding her heart like a desert gulley in a flash flood. “My husband away and my sons driving steers to market. What might have been. Chills me to think.”

  “We’re fools to fear what might have been and not thank the good Lord for what has come to pass.”

  Her voice caught in her throat, her mouth agape. Perhaps she thought I’d called her a fool. Not the first time I’d tasted my own shoe leather.

  I pulled a chair from the table. “Have a seat, ma’am. You’ve had a frightful shock. I’m afraid I’m apt to repeat what my grandma used to say. She thought we’re all fools, I believe, and me among the best of ’em.”

  She sat in the proffered chair and fanned her flushed face with her hand. “I daresay your grandmother is a wise woman and you likewise for heeding her counsel.”

  “I strive to make her proud.”

  “You will stay for dinner? Our hospitality may be meager, but it is genuine and from the heart.”

  “That’s most generous, but I need to be off soon. An urgent errand to help a friend. I’d hoped to get some help from
your husband.”

  “He’s gone. A couple days at least.”

  I nodded, fingering the rim of my hat, which I held at my waist in the welling silence.

  “Where is that child?” She craned her neck toward the door. “She’s growing up wild in this savage country. I tell my husband she would be more at home in a cave with a she panther. I daresay my grandmother would not be so proud of me.”

  “She’s a good heart, ma’am. Shall I fetch her?”

  “No, no. Don’t trouble yourself. She’ll be along soon.” Her gaze swept over my damp, stained clothes, which reeked to high heaven of beer. An eyebrow twitched, but true to her good manners, she said nothing.

  “Well, I best get on with that pie or we’ll have not the first thing for dinner.” She rose, smoothed her white apron and resumed rolling the crust. “Sit yourself.”

  Apparently my staying for dinner was a foregone conclusion. From my experience, when a woman decided to feed you, there wasn’t no gettin’ out of it.

  “Do you expect your sons back soon?”

  “Oh yes. They will be back well before supper.”

  Like a bird bursting with song, Isobel entered the cabin, speaking before her shadow darkened the doorway. “I spread the snake carcass across a boulder in the south pasture. A hawk’s bound to see it and put the devil’s spawn to some good use.”

  “Isobel! Child, I do wonder where you acquire your ideas.”

  “At the revival.” Turning to me, Isobel said, “I’ll see to yer horse while you bath.”

  “Bath?” said Hetty.

  Isobel explained my messy encounter with Evaline, portraying me as the innocent victim of a vindictive vixen. I wouldn’t go so far as to say Isobel rescued me, but I let the assertion stand out of courtesy.

  “We can discuss Mister Orville’s predicament while we eat, but you need a bath first. You smell worse than Uncle’s saloon.”