by Cora Brent
“Hassayampa River Valley flooding…conditions to worsen…residents in the low valley urged to seek high ground…”
“Shit,” Maddox swore, more loudly than he had intended. The face which turned sharply in his direction was not one he particularly cared for.
The man, Bryce Sanders, made his way over. Mad didn’t care for the arrogant appraisal in his eyes. He’d been an asshole in youth and was, by the haughty look of him, an asshole in adulthood. Mad refused to offer the first greeting as he watched Bryce approach.
“McLeod,” the mayor said, offering a dry handshake, his eyes darting around as if he regretted this necessary interruption to his day. “Jensen mentioned you were around. Sorry about your old man. Damn, you’re looking rough as ever. Listen, I’d love to stick around and catch up but I’ve got a mountain of shit to shovel with this storm and all.” Bryce headed for the door.
“Hey, Sanders,” Maddox called. He jerked his head toward the falling rain. “I’ve been out at the bridge. Water’s close to topping off. This seems bad.”
Bryce stopped. He scowled out the window at the slowly moving Contention Way traffic. “It is going to make a hell of a mess,” he muttered, and then hurried away.
The rest of the patrons didn’t take any notice of Maddox. They were too busy chattering like nervous chickens. That was fine with him. When he climbed on his bike again a small tidal wave from the wake of a truck hit him in the face. He cursed irritably and rubbed his eyes.
“Maddox!” It was Jensen’s voice. Mad looked up and it was his brother’s head hanging out of the window of the red pickup. He could see Miguel seated in the passenger seat. Another car honked as Jensen idled by the curb. “I’m around the corner. Follow me.” Jensen drove away without awaiting an answer. Maddox grumbled irritably but followed anyway.
Jensen lived in one of the old, expensive Victorian restorations on Poston Road. The eyelet curtains on the front window twitched and Casey’s sour face peered out at them. As Maddox pulled his bike right behind the pickup, Miguel jumped out and ran for him. The kid’s eyes were wide.
“Mad, they closed school for today. They don’t know if it’s going to be open tomorrow.” He bounced around in the rain with excited energy.
Jensen limped out of the truck and looked at the sky. “I bet Gaby’s still down there trying to sandbag. If Sanders had his shit together he would have already coordinated for a residential evacuation of those low lots.”
Mad’s unease grew. Priest’s house was on high enough ground and it would be unlikely to flood. But he was aware of the location of Gabriela’s house. He saw the concern in Jensen’s face and knew it was justified. “I’ll get her,” he said, pushing Miguel toward his father.
He started to climb on his bike again but Jensen stopped him, tossing his keys over. “Take my truck. I’ll keep the bike in the garage.”
Maddox hesitated. He didn’t feel like accepting a favor from Jensen but he knew it wasn’t for him. If the low valley had already flooded, it would be easier to get through the mud in a four wheel drive vehicle.
He drove as quickly as he dared. With each passing second he was more desperate to get to her.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Contention City, Arizona Territory
1890
“Will you be home for supper tonight?” Annika asked, already suspecting the answer.
James coughed and shook his head. He didn’t look at her.
Annika watched her husband drain the last of his coffee from the tin cup. He rose from the table, coughing again. “Where’s the tonic?” he gasped out.
If he noticed the scowl on Annika’s face he ignored it.
“Where is it?” he demanded again.
“I poured it into the sand,” she told him honestly.
James looked at her in disbelief. “Why the hell did you do that?”
“Because it’s worthless trash hawked by a con man.”
James’s face darkened with anger. “It helped with the cough you foolish woman.”
Annika picked up the tin cup and threw it savagely on the floor. It bounced on the wooden boards and then clattered to silence. The ‘tonic’ James was searching for had been purchased from a traveling peddler some weeks back. Annika was wise to these tricks. The peddler, a slimy tenderfoot in a rickety wagon, was one of the charlatans who traveled the Territory preying on desperate people with serious and incurable health afflictions. People like James. His brief career in the mines had done permanent damage to his lungs and he had aged considerably in the two years since their impulsive marriage. Annika knew her husband would not live to be an old man.
“It helped get you drunk,” she shouted. “Nothing more!”
James coughed again and Annika was suddenly sorry she had shouted. Sorry she had disposed of the thing which gave him hope, however false it was.
“James,” she said softly, reaching for him.
But he faced away, refusing to accept affection from her. Annika withdrew her hand. She and James had not shared a bed in nearly a year. He preferred to sleep sitting up on a pallet close to the hearth. She had tried, especially at first, to be a decent wife. However, as James’s health declined, the distance between them grew. He knew, without her saying a word, what stood between them, though Mercer hadn’t been seen in Contention City in the two years since her tumultuous wedding night. Perhaps, Annika mused, if she and James been able to conceive a child they could have been at least a little happy together.
Annika tried not to mind these things, just as she tried not to mind the whispers around town about James’s rumored visits to The Rose Room. She knew how often James gambled the night away with two men she loathed; Mr. Swilling and Mayor Townsend. Haughty, imperious and dishonest, Annika often considered how ill suite they were to the positions of power they had schemed their way into.
James still wouldn’t look at her. In a moment he would leave and then she likely wouldn’t see him again until tomorrow. Maybe not even then. Despite their marital woes, she always hated when things were sour between them.
“I’m going to see Lizzie today,” she said softly. At that, he turned around. Lizzie Post, the woman who had assumed the care of the orphaned Dolan boys many years ago, was dying. The doctor from Phoenix had said it was tumor and that it nearly filled her abdomen. It had reached frightening proportions, giving her slight frame a distended appearance.
James’s expression had softened at the mention of Lizzie. “Tell her I’ll be by tomorrow,” he said. He picked up his hat from the rack by the door. “Annika,” he said, pausing as if he had something of significance to say. Then he sighed and shook his head.
She wished she knew how to talk to him. She did love him, in a way. But Annika feared that no matter how many years passed or how long she was faithfully wedded, there would always be Mercer.
Her husband said nothing more as he closed the door behind him and left her alone. The name of his brother was never spoken between them. Annika would hungrily scour the newspapers for mention of The Dane Gang. Occasionally, names would jump out at her, names which she knew had once been associated with Mercer and might yet be. The Tanner Brothers. Cutter Dane. But of Mercer there was nothing.
Annika quickly readied herself for the visit to Lizzie Post’s tiny ranch on the outskirts of town. It was Saturday, a day with no school and no church. She had, of course, lost her position in the Contention City schoolhouse upon her marriage. The current teacher was a fresh-faced English girl named Violet Hardwick. However, for reasons political and otherwise, the children of Contention City who were of Mexican descent were not permitted to attend the main schoolhouse. These were Annika’s children now. She taught them five days a week in an old shack down by the banks of the Hassayampa. She would not accept any pay for this work and, to his credit, James had never objected.
The small barn James had built housed their two horses, a cow and two goats. Annika spoke soothingly to the sweet bay named Misty. Once she fixed the saddle on t
he gentle mare, Annika was eager to be on her way.
She took the horse on a slow walk around the perimeter of Contention City. As she crossed the Scorpion Road she heard the whistle of the mine. There was meaning behind the whistles, she knew. Shift changes, injuries. Each sound had its own definition. She shuddered, glad she did not know what that whistle signified. There was too much evil there, greed. It twisted men’s hearts and moved them to violence.
Carlos de Campo was driving his wagon back to the mining camp. She could see the water barrels in the wide bed, lashed together to keep them from jostling. When Desi de Campo’s head popped up in the back Annika smiled, waving. The boy had a quick mind and was a leader in the curious world of children. He was her favorite student.
“Good morning, Mrs. Dolan,” he called. “I finished The Count of Monte Cristo.”
“Wonderful,” she answered. She often lent her beloved books to the young man. He finished them quickly and treated them with supreme care. “Would you be willing to summarize for the class on Monday morning?”
“Sure,” Desi shrugged, looking down, but Annika could tell he was pleased.
Annika nodded to Carlos. “James tells me the rail line is nearly here.”
Carlos de Campo nodded with a frown. “Yes,” he said. He and James were once quite friendly. However, Annika could tell by the way Carlos shifted his eyes at the mention of her husband’s name that this was no longer the case. She uneasily wondered if the reason was the Rodriguez man. Six months earlier Emilio Rodriguez, a small time rancher, had turned to the mines to feed his family when a drought caused the loss of most of his flock. When he was accused and arrested for gold theft, a lynch mob removed him from the jail under James’s watch. The mob, rumored to be composed of Contention’s most prominent citizens, hung him from a cottonwood tree on Contention Way. Annika knew there were those who were displeased that the city marshal had not done more to protect his prisoner. They blamed him. Annika herself had been horrified. She could not fault Emilio’s friends for their outrage.
Carlos de Campo tipped his wide-brimmed hat. “Good day, Mrs. Dolan.”
“Good day, Mr. de Campo. Desi, I will see you Monday morning.”
Annika watched at the wagon proceeded down the dusty road to town. She sighed and urged the horse forward. She would continue along this road to the bridge juncture and then cut through the brush to Lizzie’s place. A lone miner passed her on foot. He was unkempt and filthy with a harsh cough which reminded her of James. The sudden rage which bubbled in her breast was not unfamiliar and it was directed towards the mine. Sending men into the bowels of the earth was unnatural. The conditions were nothing short of horrendous as they labored relentlessly underground amid the choking dust with only a pair of small tallow candles for company. Many suffered vision loss as a result of being abruptly thrust into the harsh desert sun after so many hours in the dark. Even more of them would see their lives shortened by the damage to their lungs.
As she paused on the bridge she looked down at where the shallow river intersected. Following the river east would lead to the lower valley and eventually to the shack were she taught school. The few families who lived in the area were farmers who sought the fertile soil. The Hassayampa was scarcely a trickle at this time. Rain was sorely needed. The Orange Grove dam, eight miles upriver, held back a significant wall of water in good times. Once she had heard James irritably comment on the lack of care taken to tend the dam. If the rain swelled the river and the dam broke it would flood the lower valley entirely, taking property and lives in its fury. After he’d spoken he had noticed her look of alarm and quickly assured her there was no danger to worry over.
Annika kept a keen ear out for rattlers as Misty picked her way through the brush. She had been in the desert long enough to be aware of its dangers. It was a forbidding, often misunderstood, place. She loved it anyway. She had tried many times to capture its wild essence in the words she wrote to her family in Wisconsin. But the desert was not easily branded.
When Annika reached Lizzie Post’s property the first thing she noticed were the goats ranging in the far pasture. She tied Misty up in front of the tiny house, believing Lizzie must have found a hired man to help with the chores since she was feeling so poorly.
Annika smiled over the thought of Lizzie. Tiny Lizzie Post, indomitable as any man, she was a successful lone woman when such a thing was rarely accomplished. Lizzie had never issued a word of censure in Annika’s direction over her union with James, though the wise old woman had been very aware of her feelings for Mercer. Sometimes Annika wondered how much Lizzie blamed her for the permanent rift between the Dolan brothers. More fervently, she wanted to know if Lizzie had received word from Mercer. She dared not ask.
Lizzie’s voice sounded bright and eager when she answered Annika’s knock.
“Come on in,” she called.
Annika opened the door and saw Lizzie seated in a hard-backed chair in the center of the main room. A lap blanket covered her though the October day was quite warm. Annika took care not to wince over the sight of the woman’s skeletal appearance. She was visibly weaker. She could not live long.
Yet her face was alight with genuine pleasure as she beckoned impatiently to Annika. When Annika stepped inside the room she saw why.
Mercer Dolan stood in the corner, watching silently. He did not react to Annika’s gasp.
“Hello, Mrs. Dolan,” he said mildly.
“Mercer,” she choked out. “What are you doing here?
“Boy came back to see an old woman one more time,” Lizzie said, reaching a painfully thin hand towards him. She looked at Annika meaningfully. “And to make peace with his brother.”
“How is my brother?” Mercer asked with an innocent smile.
Annika felt as she might sink into the floor. Being this close to Mercer once again felt unreal. She had to suppress the urge to rush into his arms. “James is well,” she lied, clasping her hands behind her back so they would not shake.
“Aw hell,” said Lizzie, motioning that Annika ought to come forward. “I aim to die in peace knowing that my boys got each other again.”
“How does that sit with you, Anni?” Mercer asked. He was mocking her, she knew it. “I took a job down at the Scorpion so I’ll be in Contention for a spell.”
She was shocked. “You’re going to work as a miner?” For the life of her, Annika could not picture the mighty outlaw Mercer Dolan crawling into a deep shaft and dutifully hacking away with a pickax. She felt obliged to remind him of something, narrowing her eyes. “They hang thieves, you know.”
Mercer nodded, as if he were carefully mulling this piece of information. “It’s a good thing I’m not a thief,” he said, flashing that devastating grin at her again. “Nor do I run with any.”
Annika glared at him, vividly remembering just how untrue that statement was. Lizzie did not seem to notice the tension in the room. She chattered excitedly, relating various memories of James and Mercer as boys. Then, quite abruptly, she slumped over, exhausted. Mercer carried her small body over to the tidy bed and placed her on it gently, smoothing her white hair back from her forehead.
Annika stared at him. The last two years seemed to have cost him nothing. He had not shaved closely and his clothing hung in badly wrinkled fashion on his strong frame. But he still possessed that casual air of magnetism which made her tremble. If anything, he was more tempting than ever. She hated him for it.
Mercer withdrew a silver flask and took a long swallow as he watched her, allowing his eyes to travel purposely up and down her body in a vulgar manner. “You’re looking healthy, Mrs. Dolan,” he said with false sincerity.
Annika glared at him again. “Stop it, Mercer. This is difficult enough.”
“For who, Mrs. Dolan?”
Annika was silent. She would not be played with like this. Many times in the past two years she’d had to push away the guilt which came with her longings for Mercer. It was made worse by the knowledge that she
had injured him. For that she was sorry. She realized she had never told him so.
“Mercer,” she said, biting her lip. “I do apologize.”
He leaned his head back into the adobe wall and closed his eyes. “What do you apologize for, Anni?” It was not a sincere question. He already knew the answer. He just wanted to hear her say it.
“Not for marrying James,” she said quickly. “But for what it did to you, yes. I am sorry, Mercer. And as for James, it plagues him.”
Mercer laughed sharply. “Does it?”
The universe had a keen sense of timing, Annika thought. The sting of Mercer’s words had scarcely faded when she heard a rider approaching. She knew, instinctively, that it was James.
She heard him dismount in haste and when he burst through the door his face was wild. He must have caught wind of the fact that Mercer was in town and headed directly to the place he would most likely be.
“Howdy, brother,” Mercer called casually.
James glared at Mercer and then searched the room, looking relieved when he spotted Annika standing quietly nearby.
Mercer sipped from his flask as James broke into a coughing fit.
“Mercer,” he finally gasped. “What the hell are you doing back in Contention?”
“Having a drink and admiring your pretty bride.” Mercer took another sip and frowned. “You look wretched awful, James. Either the shocking sight of me has woefully impaired your health or else your time spent underground has cost you some vitality.”
