Silver & Bone (American Alchemy - Wild West Book 1)

by Oliver Altair

  Tiberius halted. A shadow stood in front of the cross under the pine tree. He ran, but the shadow had seen him coming and was already on the move.

  “Stop!” Tiberius shouted.

  They raced across the empty graveyard, the distance between the two narrowing as they ran up the cemetery’s hill. The running shadow circled a lonely oak, passed by the miners’ gravestones, then ran through the archway of the unfinished mausoleum. He hastened down the opposite slope, darting erratically downhill as Tiberius pushed his legs to their limit.

  Tiberius tackled the intruder like a furious bear. They rolled together down the steep slope, the man fighting Tiberius’ grasp and bellowing like an injured boar. They picked up speed as they tumbled downhill, a blurry knot of arms and legs, before they landed in a puddle of mud. The icy water splashed Tiberius’ face.

  Tiberius stood and cursed. He shook his head to clear it, then tapped his holster, exhaling in relief when he felt the smooth touch of the mahogany grip of his Smith & Wesson. He drew, cocked the gun, and pointed it the man laying at his feet. The barrel of his gun gleamed under the bright, gentle moon.

  “Don’t move.” Tiberius untied his bandana and used it to quickly dry his face.

  “It’s me. Don’t shoot, Sheriff.”

  Tiberius recognized the toneless voice. “Whitlock. I should’ve known.”

  Obadiah Whitlock stood and dusted off his pants. “I don’t think pointing guns is necessary.”

  “I beg to differ. Why did you make me chase you all around the goddamned place?”

  “I… I thought you were someone else.”

  “Who?”

  Obadiah glanced around and said nothing.

  Tiberius took a step forward without lowering his gun. Dry twigs snapped and pebbles skittered under his feet. “Why the heck did you come back, Whitlock? I thought you’d be at least on the other side of the mountains by now.”

  “I have unfinished business.”

  “I bet you do.”

  “And I couldn’t leave without giving Lucy a last goodbye.”

  Tiberius clenched his jaw. Her name sounded tainted on Whitlock’s lips. He grabbed Obadiah’s arm and twisted it behind his back. Obadiah whined.

  “Move it, Whitlock. We have plenty to talk about, you and I.”

  Obadiah didn’t struggle. He marched in front of Tiberius in silence, and peeked over his shoulders every few steps.

  When they walked down Main Street, the horizon was changing to the purples and bright oranges of the break of dawn. The wind swept the dust from the road onto the empty porches. Tiberius shook inside his sheepskin coat. His shirt was damp, and his pants were torn around his scratched, bloody knees.

  Tiberius guided Obadiah to his office, pushed him inside, and locked the door. Only then did he let the man go. Obadiah sat on a rickety chair in front of Tiberius’ desk.

  “Don’t get too comfortable.” Tiberius said, as he detached an iron key from his belt. Then he opened the creaky door of the musty cell in the corner, opposite his desk.

  Tiberius waved his gun towards the cell. “What are you waiting for?”

  Obadiah walked inside. “May I ask why I deserve to be locked up?”

  Tiberius chuckled as he turned the key in its rusty padlock. “Unbelievable. Murder, for starters.”

  “I see.”

  Obadiah paced around his prison, hands clasped behind his back. He glanced at the mold growing on the walls, the dirty bucket in the corner, and the tiny cot under the narrow, barred window. Somehow, he seemed more at ease inside that cell than he’d been the whole way back from the graveyard.

  Tiberius lit the small fireplace behind his desk. He sat on a chair by the flames, took his boots off, and stretched his legs

  “It’s freezing in here, Sheriff” Obadiah said calmly.

  “Shut your mouth, would you?”

  Tiberius closed his eyes and let the fire warm his toes. He ignored his prisoner for a few minutes longer, then put his boots back on, crossed the room and grabbed a dusty sarape from a hook on the wall. He threw it to Obadiah between the bars then he pulled a stool closer to the cell and sat down. The mighty silver mogul looked so meek and helpless under the sarape, as if the colorful cloth had sucked the life out of him.

  “Where have you been, Whitlock?” Tiberius asked.

  No reply.

  Tiberius placed his hands on his stomach. “Alright then. Next topic: Lucy Mills.”

  “I had nothing to do with Lucy’s death.”

  “She died of sickness.”

  Obadiah smirked. “We both know that’s not true. Was the cover-up your idea or the good doctor’s?”

  Tiberius tapped the floorboards with the tip of his boot. “Where’s that golden watch of yours? The one you made me go fetch.”

  Obadiah raised an eyebrow. “What’s that have to do with anything?”

  Tiberius leaned in. “Answer the question.”

  “I don’t have it. Someone must’ve taken it.”

  Tiberius smiled. “That thing changes hands more often than a nickel.”

  Obadiah crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. “If you have something to say to me, just say it.”

  “I have plenty to say to you, don’t worry. But first things first. Are you still working the silver mine?”

  Obadiah kept silent, but his face turned pale. He shivered slightly and Tiberius noticed a quick, betraying twitch in his eye.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ You’re a greedy loon, Whitlock. Do you want to bury the whole town under the snow or what?”

  “I’d never put more people at risk. Never. But—"

  “But?”

  Silence.

  Tiberius stood up and his stool tumbled to the floor , his patience evaporating through his pores.

  “Jesus, Whitlock. You’re not making this any easier. And the craziest part is, for some reason, I almost believe you had nothing to do with Lucy’s murder. Almost. If I was sure you were behind it, I would’ve shot you between the eyes back in the graveyard and left you there to rot. I was very fond of the girl.”

  “So was I.”

  “Oh, I’m aware. Listen, your neck’s this close—" Tiberius pinched the air. "—to the end of a rope. So, you better start sharing. Go.”

  Obadiah held Tiberius’ gaze and kept quiet.

  “If you’re somehow sending new miners to that rat trap of a mine, so help me god—"

  Obadiah scoffed.

  Tiberius frowned. “Did I say something funny?”

  Obadiah shook his head, slowly. “I wouldn’t even know where to start. I would’ve never—”

  A thundering echo stopped Obadiah mid-sentence. He backed to the corner of his cell, alarmed. “That was a—"

  “Gunshot,” Tiberius finished as he hurried to the street.

  XIX

  Tiberius ran through the streets, following the sound of a shriek. He met a terrorized young woman at the end of a narrow alleyway. She stood by the back door of Souls Well’s bakery and held an empty tray, hot buns scattered on the ground around her. She pointed to the end of the alley. Between the dirty wooden walls of the buildings, a man lay in a puddle of blood.

  “Go inside,” Tiberius told the woman, who promptly entered the bakery, leaving the smoking bread behind.

  When Tiberius ventured into the shadowed alley, he saw the suffering man was no other than young Clinton Eadds. Clinton had a bullet hole in his shirt. He held a smoking gun in his right hand, and his satchel lay open, bloody letters and small packages strewn around it. He twitched and screamed in pain..

  “What have you done?” Tiberius whispered as he helped him sit up.

  Clinton replied with an agonizing scream. “I… I couldn’t be a cripple again, Sheriff. After having my legs back…”

  Tiberius took the gun from him. Its barrel was still hot.

  Clinton coughed and blood poured from his lips. “I walked again. Danced again. I felt like a man again.” Tears ran down his cheeks. His
looked frantically around him, then screamed, quivered, and finally lost consciousness.

  Tiberius lifted Clinton with one fast, strong move. “You were never less of a man, you fool.”

  Clinton’s warm blood drenched his shirt and vest as he rushed to Doc Tucker’s practice and kicked the doctor’s door open. .

  Doc Tucker came in from his bedroom, startled, his thinning hair disheveled, shirt untucked, and suspenders loose around his hips.

  “Clinton got cozy with a peacemaker,” Tiberius said.

  Doc Tucker’s sleepy eyes shot wide open. He found his spectacles in the pocket of his shirt and pointed to his examining table. “You shouldn’t have moved him.”

  “I couldn’t leave him in the middle of the street bleeding to death.” Tiberius placed the unconscious Clinton on the examining table and backed away.

  Doc Tucker tore Clinton’s shirt away, revealing a sea of red pouring from an ugly circle of charred skin. “He aimed for his heart but missed.”

  Doc Tucker gently turned Clinton to his side. “No exit wound. The bullet’s still inside.”

  “Can you save him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Doc Tucker grabbed a piece of Clinton’s torn shirt and pressed it again his chest. “Put pressure on the wound, Tiberius. Quick!”

  Tiberius relieved Doc Tucker. The doctor opened the black leather bag on top of his desk and chose a pair of forceps , and a roll of linen gauze. Then he grabbed his whiskey bottle from the window sill and soaked the surgical instrument in alcohol. The smells of malted rye and fresh blood floated in the air.

  “You can let go, but stay close,” Doc Tucker said.

  He removed the piece of cloth from Clinton’s chest and set it aside. It was soaked in blood. Doc Tucker adjusted his spectacles, used his fingers to widen the wound and carefully inserted his bullet extractor into the bloody hole.

  The room filled with the ghosts of the past. The man on the table wasn’t Clinton Eadds, but Jonathan Tucker. Tiberius had stood in the corner as Doc Tucker fought to save his son’s life. Tiberius had felt as helpless then as he did now.

  Doc Tucker kept a steady pace and worked fast. After minutes that stretched like hours, Doc Tucker pulled his forceps out, a crimson bullet caught in their tip. He dropped it on a tin plate with a soft clink.

  “He’s still bleeding a lot. I need to close the wound.” Doc Tucker ripped a piece of clean gauze and handed it to Tiberius. “Keep pressure on the wound.”

  Doc Tucker looked through the drawers of his medicine cabinet and came back to the examining table holding a candle, a needle, and some black thread. He lit the candle.

  “Hold this.” He gave the candle to Tiberius.

  Doc Tucker poured alcohol on a fresh piece of gauze and used it to clean the needle, then placed the needle in the candle’s flame. It sparkled with a quick blue fire. Doc Tucker scraped the coagulated blood and charred skin around the bullet hole with the gauze, threaded the needle, took a deep breath, and started sewing. Tiberius watched the precise in-and-out movements of the doctor’s needle until he finished.

  Doc Tucker swept the sweat off his forehead with his hand, leaving a thin trace of blood on his skin. “Keep an eye on him.”

  Tiberius dragged a chair over and sat down by Clinton. Doc Tucker poured some water into a small pot, placed it on top of the black stove that warmed his practice, and stirred the fire. When the water boiled, he poured it into a cracked, porcelain basin.

  The doctor opened his medicine cabinet, and read the tags of his alphabetically ordered jars. He picked up one labeled “chamomile.” He dropped some of the dry, yellow flowers into the hot water, and soaked a fresh piece of gauze in the sweet-scented infusion. He cleaned the stitches on Clinton’s chest until all the blood was gone and the wound looked like a thin, jagged line covered in small, black crosses.

  Doc Tucker covered Clinton with a clean sheet. He grabbed his whiskey bottle, took a long gulp, and dropped himself into an armchair at the back of the room. Tiberius leaned against the wall besides him.

  Tiberius stared at Clinton’s chest as it moved up and down under the sheet. “Is he out of danger?”

  “Maybe.”

  “I caught Whitlock. He’s in a cell.”

  “Good.”

  Doc Tucker drank again.

  “You did good, Doc. We were in luck. I was afraid you—"

  Doc Tucker set the bottle on the floor so harshly the whiskey splashed around it. Then he stood up to face Tiberius. “What? I’d be too drunk to save a life?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Doc Tucker crossed the room and grabbed Clinton’s cold hand. “I’ve known Clinton Eadds since he was a child. He used to follow Jonathan around like a lost duckling.” He closed his eyes. “If only I’d known they’d both die in the same exact spot. Under my very eyes.”

  Tiberius joined the doctor at the examining table. Clinton was so pale that his skin seemed no different than the white sheet covering his body. His breath was but a faint wheeze.

  “The bullet had pierced his lung. I did the best I could, Tiberius. As I did for Jonathan. It’s never enough.”

  Doc Tucker grabbed the whiskey bottle by its neck and locked himself in his bedroom, leaving Tiberius alone with Clinton. Clinton’s breath grew fainter and fainter, until it altogether stopped. Tiberius punched the table and lowered his head. Clinton’s body trembled and something fell from the left pocket of his pants. It was an envelope that read Miss Lucy Mills.

  Minutes later, Tiberius dragged himself out of Doc Tucker’s practice and walked numbly along the streets of Souls Well, a bloody, crumpled letter in his hand.

  My Dearest,

  There’s been a change of plans. Wait at the Silver Moon and don’t go anywhere until I send for you. Don’t try to contact me and don’t come to me just yet. Trust this is for the best.

  The letter had no signature or date.

  The world had, once again, irreversibly darkened.

  XX

  When Tiberius got back to his station, he found his door wide open, and a woman crouched by the bars of the cell, talking to Obadiah Whitlock in whispers.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Tiberius demanded from the threshold.

  Mountain Iris turned and her red lips curved in a smile. She combed her dark hair away from her face. “Hello again, Sheriff.”

  “Wasn’t I clear enough yesterday?” Tiberius replied coldly.

  “I was just leaving.”

  Mountain Iris nodded to Obadiah then crossed the sheriff’s office unhurriedly, sweeping the edge of his old pinewood desk with her finger. She glanced at the messy piles of paper on the table.

  Tiberius stayed in front of the door, blocking her way out. “What was that about?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  Tiberius twisted his face into a deep frown. “I’m not having a good day. Don’t try my patience, Miss.”

  Mountain Iris batted her long lashes. “I wanted to ask Mister Whitlock about his wife’s health.”

  “That so? Are your worried about the side effects of those tinctures you sold her?

  She wrapped her bright, yellow shawl around her shoulders. “Of course not.”

  Tiberius stretched his neck towards the cell. “So, how is she, Whitlock?”

  No answer.

  “Funny. He seemed so chatty a minute ago, and now the cat’s got his tongue. You only speak to pretty ladies now, huh?”

  Mountain Iris tried to sneak past Tiberius, but he put both arms on the doorframe. “Not so fast. How did you know Whitlock was here?”

  “This is a small town. How long did you think it’d take for people to find out you put Souls Well’s most powerful man behind bars?”

  Tiberius bobbed his head to a chair. “Sit down.”

  “I thought you wanted me to leave.”

  “Change of heart.”

  Mountain Iris crossed her arms under her shawl. “I want to leave.”

&
nbsp; “I’m giving you two options. Either you sit on that chair or inside that cell to keep your friend company.”

  Mountain Iris obeyed and sat down in front of Tiberius’ desk. She crossed her legs under her long purple skirt, and placed her hands on her lap.

  “This woman’s no friend of mine,” Obadiah shouted from his cell.

  “No kidding.” Tiberius sat on the edge of his desk and faced Mountain Iris. He tapped the front leg of the dusty piece of furniture with the heel of his boot. “Why did you come to Souls Well?”

  Mountain Iris’ face was serene, but Tiberius noticed her chest rising and falling rapidly. “I’m part of a traveling medicine show.”

  “Fair enough, but something tells me there’s more to it than that.”

  Mountain Iris looked away and stared at the small flames dancing in the fireplace. “This town has a lot of people in need.”

  Tiberius grind his teeth. “Always preying on the weak. You quacks disgust me.”

  Mountain Iris stood up and darted toward the door, but not before Tiberius grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. “We’re not done. Sit. Down.”

  She did.

  “What the hell did you give Mrs. Whitlock?” Tiberius asked.

  “Beauty tonics.”

  “What about Clinton Eadds?”

  “That was one of Maxwell’s concoctions, not mine.”

  “I see. Where’s your pretty partner by the way?”

  Mountain Iris’ sparkling green gaze turned grim and harsh. “We’re not partners anymore.”

  “Really? Well, that’s too bad. You looked perfect for each other. Ain’t that right, Whitlock?”

  Obadiah grumbled. Tiberius circled Mountain Iris’ chair, then put his hands on the back and tilted her backward. “What about Lucy Mills?” he whispered in her ear.

  “Who?”

  Tiberius grabbed the armrests with both hands and spun the chair so violently its legs scratched the floorboards with a loud, unpleasant creak.