by Brenda, Lady
Esmeralda sighed. “Thank you Annie, as usual you can see right through me.”
Annie disappeared like a wisp of smoke and she was left alone to contemplate her dilemma. Warning Devlin would be a colossal waste of time. Warnings often fell on deaf ears especially those stubbornly focused on revenge. What use was it to have the gift of precognition? After all it had failed to save her own mother’s life.
Her mother and father had come by wagon train to California travelling the Oregon Trail through the treacherous desert to reach Red Bluff. From their own sweat they had carved out a decent hundred-acre farm. She remembered her mother as a beautiful woman with delicate features, a voice like an angel, and a backbone of steel. Her father was the runaway scion of a tobacco planter who had spent his days during the war as a riverboat gambler. As a result Esmeralda, when she was just a young child, had learned every card game known to man.
The day her mother died she had begged her not to go to town. The night before she had had a dream in which the wagon her mother drove was overturned. She had cried and pleaded and told her mother about her dream but to no avail. Her mother had called her dream ‘stuff and nonsense’. The next time she saw her alive was when two farmhands carried her mother’s body into the house. The doctor from town was called and when he arrived he took one look and shook his head. Her mother’s spine had been broken when the wagon had overturned on top of her. There was no hope for survival. Her father held her close with tears streaming down his face as she struggled to breathe.
When the doctor left it was Annie who came down from Witch Creek and that gave her mother a posset that calmed her, taking the pain away so that she slept and in sleeping, slipped away.
From that day on her father withdrew from her and the world working from dawn to dusk behind the plow developing a cough that eventually was diagnosed as consumption.
It was Annie again who took her hand then raised her to womanhood teaching her to develop and use her gifts.
Teacher and protector, from the other side, it was Annie with her bent figure and ever- present corncob pipe that met Devlin when later that night he materialized on Esmeralda’s balcony. She stood there leaning on her cane in front of Esmeralda’s door.
He paused when he saw her. “Step aside old woman.”
“Haven’t you done enough to the poor gal? Mark my words, ain’t nothin’ but heartbreak if’n you go down this road.”
“Don’t you think we should let Esmeralda be the judge of that?”
Annie drew a bead on him with her eyes “ I don’t suppose I could convince ya ta abandon this here quest of yorn?”
Devlin hesitated he knew the old witch was right, it would be the gentlemanly thing to do; to turn around and refuse to involve Esmeralda in more of his sordid business. He knew he was acting like a selfish prick, but he could not seem to control the desire he had for his Angel. Whatever shred of decency he still possessed told him he should turn around and go back into the endless night. However, before he could contemplate agreeing to Annie’s request, a chill wind blew through the lace curtains and Annie was gone.
The door to the balcony was flung open. Esmeralda stood before him, naked in the moonlight. She did not smile.
“Devlin, I heard voices,” she said.
She did not invite him in. Her body, slim and lush, taunted him like the very devil.
“Let me in,” he demanded. All thoughts of chivalry vanished, blown to high heaven.
Esmeralda looked up for a moment and they stared into each other’s eyes. “No Devlin, not this night or any other night to come.”
Her words stunned him. “Don’t do this, Angel,” he pleaded. “Please let me in.”
“Leave, Devlin, please leave.”
“Do you think you can stop me from seeing you? I can and I will walk into your salon in broad daylight as I please,” he said.
Esmeralda looked away. “I cannot prevent you from visiting my salon. I would ask though that you respect my wishes and not press me for more.” Without another word she pulled the door shut leaving Devlin alone on the balcony.
He stood there with a fire blazing in his chest. He’d been tempted to smash the door from it hinges grab her by her witchy red hair and pull her out to him. Ravish her from top to bottom, and inside out. But he could not. Not with her. By some strange, damned, curse what she felt mattered to him.
As he walked down the street in the moonlight, he wondered what her wicked game was. Her rejection had stung him but it had also jarred him into reality. There was more at stake here than his carnal desires. He realized now that his impulsive nature had not changed over these few hundred years. The same impulsiveness that had placed the love of his life in the path of danger before had swept him away in the arms of Esmeralda. He had psychic powers of his own, and he knew full well the danger that stalked him in this town. He had welcomed it and the confrontation that was sure to come.
The old witch, Annie, had seen through him before and he reluctantly admitted that he could use her counsel now. His myopic view of the situation had been focused solely on vengeance with no regard of the lives that may be burned in its wake. If he believed in Karma like the Hindus, he would have to admit that the events around him all had a purpose. A philosophy thought Devlin that did not lay easy with someone born under the sign of the Ram such as he.
Chapter Fourteen
The Shaft
It was not true that Boots was down and out. He had a donkey, the claim to a mine and a crock of moonshine. He and his donkey, Daisy, prowled the streets of Virginia City. Everyone human, and otherwise, knew Boots. They knew he was more than just a raggedy old sourdough. His mine, the Lily Ann, had been one of the first to produce and one of the first to play out. His faded blue eyes had seen fortunes won and lost and the boom and bust of the town many times over. He wore a tattered coat of an indeterminate color but once it had been the proud gray coat of a southern soldier. Boots loved to spin tall tales to anyone who would listen, and the few pennies people tossed his way, were spent in Chinatown on a big steaming bowl of beef chow mien. Well, he thought it was beef, but didn’t really care. Today he had some thinking to do and he always thought better on a full stomach.
He and Daisy picked their way down the narrow streets to his favorite noodle house, Chin’s Egg Flower Noodles. He tethered her securely to a post and went inside. The noodle house was full of chatter as a group of pigtailed Chinese men were served bowls of chow mien. They all sat down with their bowls at a long communal table. Boots brought his own tin plate up to the large cauldron. The cook filled it to overflowing. Boots handed him a coin and then sat down at the table and dug in.
He felt a strange kinship with the Chinese folk. They were a quiet lot that kept to themselves never shied away from hard work and never judged a man that was down on his luck and long in the tooth. Fact was, they respected their elders and paid them special care. Not like some he knew up on C Street and above that kicked him like a stray dog. Take that carpetbagger, Leonard White; he was crow’s bait and that he knew for sure. He’d seen many a man disappear after they crossed a Bloodsucker. And that little Cajun gal, well she belonged to their chief. Boots was no dummy he knew what was underground and knew that his shaft could reach it. That was why he carried sticks of dynamite in Daisy’s pack.
When he had eaten his fill he gathered up Daisy’s lead rope and walked out into the hills. After a few minutes he came to the narrow mouth of a mineshaft. He lifted his lantern high to illuminate the way and then they both disappeared into the side of the mountain. After traversing about 100 feet they came out into a fairly large opening. A clearing that Boots called home. Inside of it he had a pallet on the ground, some pots and pans, bundles of old clothes and blankets and a small wood slat stall filled with fodder for Daisy. He bedded her down for the night and then sat down on an upturned bucket and lit his pipe. He took a white napkin out of his pocket and spread it on the ground. In the center of the napkin he put a twist of tobacco, a bi
scuit and a coin. When he finished with his pipe he took a last swig from his jug then flopped down on his pallet and fell fast asleep.
As he snored away, dead to the world, little green, gnome like men, bearded and no taller than twelve inches came out of the shadows. They were the Tommyknockers the spirits of the mines. They snatched up the biscuit and tobacco as they whispered amongst themselves. Two of them tilted up the moonshine jug and poured some of the liquid into a clay cup. They passed it round and swayed and jigged to invisible music then chuckling, they disappeared into the shadows again.
Outside of the mineshaft Miguel Cruz shivered in the faint moonlight. He had followed Boots and his donkey from Chinatown. The old goat had refused to sell his mining share to that son of de la chingada Leonard White. Now White was nowhere to be found. Slunk away like a dog with his tail between his legs and he, Cruz, had to clean up the mess. Well, he had a plan of his own and it involved a gallon jug of kerosene and a match. He did not have time to wheedle the claim out of Boots nor did he need too. Big Jim had created a forged claim with Boots name on it. All that was needed was for the old man to disappear.
He waited for a couple of hours then with a lantern to light his way he crept slowly into the tunnel of the mine. It wasn’t long before he heard loud snoring resonating through the mine. He continued on until he reached the small cavern where Boots lay asleep on his pallet. A lone lantern hung on the wall casting a shadowy light on the meager living quarters of the old miner.
A startled snort came from the corner. Cruz lifted his lantern. The green iridescent orbs of Daisy the donkey stared out at him.
Shit, he thought, that old Cabron! Why did he have to bring the donkey in here?
Cruz had a weakness for donkeys. This one had a nice apple shaped rump just like the one he and the other boys in the dirt patch village back in Mexico had lost their virginity to. He set down his lantern and walked over to her stall. Daisy shifted nervously, her eyes rolled and she turned her butt to him. Cruz could feel himself getting excited. Daisy fired out with both of her back feet, kicking him square in the crotch and sending him across the small space like a sack of grain.
Cruz doubled over on the dirt floor dazed with pain and gasping for breath. Just when he thought he was able to take air into his lungs a noose slipped over his head, a noose that was made from his very own rawhide whip. It tightened slowly and crushed his windpipe. He felt himself being dragged away, evil whisperings stung his ears and through blurry, bulging eyes he saw little green wizened faces hovering above him.
Dios, Dios… he thought as the life was squeezed out of him.
Chapter Fifteen
Mercenary
Dahlia, dressed in a frilly lemon yellow gown with a bustle bow, swished into the Carson City Depot. She sat down on a bench and waited for the train. She did not have long to wait, presently with a great gust of steam it rolled into the station. She idly twirled her parasol as she watched the passengers get off the train one by one. She paused and sat up straight at the sight of one of them. He was a large behemoth of a man in a buffalo hide coat. His hat was pulled low and the collar of his mangy coat was pulled up to his ears. As if scenting her interest he swiveled around and looked straight at her.
Mon Dieu! she thought.
His muddy brown eyes were those of a stone cold killer and something else she could not quite put her finger on. Her fears were confirmed when a group of gunslingers got off the train and joined him. Lean, hollow men with their guns slung low and murder on their minds.
She shivered inside.
They were headed to Virginia City and she could guess why. She had heard that canaille Leonard White and his boss bragging about the new guns he had hired to ‘finish the gambler off’.
She pushed aside her promise to Devlin to leave Virginia City. Her Lord might need her and that horrible man and his crew was pure evil. She would not leave town yet, not now when he might be in danger. She would buy a ticket back to Virginia City, stay in the shadows and be ready when her Lord needed her. She had some tricks of her own, she did. Devlin and his gold nuggets had given her a new sheen, that and a brand new pearl handled derringer.
Lance Peabody was the name of the man in the filthy buffalo hide coat. The rotten teeth in his pockmarked face were as rotten as his soul. No one really knew where he was from or where he was spawned from for that matter. A hired killer, his weapon of choice was a Sharps buffalo gun. Long ago he had come out of the wilderness of the Yellowstone Mountains and there was no job too dirty for Lance. He had hunted men, women and children for their scalps. He’d robbed those fallen on the battlefield and raped their widows. His ugly face graced wanted posters in five states but no lawman had the guts to take him in. The men with him were all hand picked killers and just as nasty. They had come to bring Hell to Virginia City, an idea that brought delight to Lance’s twisted mind even more than whisky or humping a whore.
He had heard all about Virginia City. Now here was a place for a man of appetites. The town was like a fat buffalo cow ready for slaughter and Lance intended to gorge himself.
Lance Peabody and the man who had hired him went way back. In some ways they were like brothers. He had no loyalty to Big Jim but there was something owed between them. Big Jim had played both sides in the war peddling guns and treachery for gold. Before he had become what he was now, Peabody had been a deserter, rapist and a plunderer who would have hanged had not Big Jim intervened. Not because of any shred of sentiment but because he needed Lance to sell stolen army guns to the Indians. The rest and what had happened in the wild dark mountains afterwards, was just a flickering dull memory in his bestial brain.
The man that hired Lance Peabody sat down for breakfast in his fine, well-appointed parlor. The huge plate of food that had been set before him on delicate china plates tasted like sawdust. He barked at his Chinese manservant to bring him more coffee. Through eyes reddened from late nights and the opium pipe he opened the pages of The Territorial Enterprise. He scanned over the other pages passing over, ‘Another prostitute found strangled’, until he came to a small article.
Mysterious corpse found under boardwalk.
The body of an unidentified man was found under the boardwalk of the Union Saloon, condition of most a curious nature and looks to be drained of all blood… patrons of the Union Saloon say the man found could be that of one Leonard White who keeps a room on C Street…
He frowned. “God dammit! Maybe I should have listened to the little shit. It looks like he met up with his Nosferatu after all.”
He drained his coffee cup and called for his hat and coat. He was expecting some very special visitors at the train station today; the kind that would not be deterred by a friggin’ undead gambler.
Esmeralda tossed and turned beneath the curtains of her four poster bed. Sleep eluded her and Devlin haunted her dreams. Awake and alone in her bed she could feel him inside her very skin; hear his voice in her head like a brain fever. These past few days she had thrown herself into her work to try to keep her anxiety at bay. She had asked for Annie’s advice again but was met by silence. She even tried to read the cards for herself but when she laid them out they made no sense and came across gibberish. She put them aside, dressed and then called for her breakfast. Instead of the maid, Jamie burst through her doorway.
“Jamie whatever is wrong?”
Jamie hopped from one foot to another. “You best come down, Miss Esmeralda. We got us a ruckus outside.”
“What kind of ruckus Jamie?”
“It’s them Temperance Ladies, you know the ones that walk the boardwalk. Well, they come with their hatchets they have.”
“Go get Kuong. I‘ll be right down. Be ready you might have to go for the sheriff.” She paused then smiled “No, wait, I have a better idea, go get a few bottles of my finest champagne.”
Esmeralda smoothed her robe over her nightdress, checked her pistol and then stowed it in her pocket.
What a fine way to start the day she t
hought.
When she entered the parlor the customers were milling around pushing aside the curtains to look outside. Jamie stood at her side as she opened her front door to meet the pinched face and hateful stare of Sara Fenn.
Miss Fenn, along with a dozen or so black garbed frumps, were marching back and forth in front of her salon with their signs held high.
With such inflammatory slogans as; Lips That Touch Liquor Shall Never Touch Mine, Demon Drink, Beer is Good For Cancer and Gambling is in League with the Devil.
“Step away from my door, Miss Fenn. You and your followers are not welcome unless you want a spin at the roulette wheel or a shot of whiskey.”
Sara Fenn snorted rudely. The black plume on her bonnet appeared to tremble with ire. “Your Salon is a festering wound of Satan bound on corrupting good citizens!”
Esmeralda laughed. “Well then, what does that make me, Miss Fenn? The Devil’s Jade? Satan’s Whore? I’ve heard it all before and I would ask you to leave peaceably.”
Sara Fenn took a step back, “I knowed it from the moment I laid eyes on you on the stage and here you are a vile corrupter of men promoting drunkenness and gambling and keeping company with the Devil himself!”
She raised her axe.
“Sisters, follow me! Let us smash the doors of this den of iniquity.”
She surged forward. Esmeralda stepped aside.
“Ready boys?” Then she called out the suffragette. “Well, Miss Fenn, if you won’t drink my whiskey maybe you might like my champagne.”
Kuong helped by Jamie, popped the cork off a couple of champagne bottles and sprayed Sara Fenn and her mob. A good healthy dose filled her mouth and drenched her clothes. She skidded to a halt sputtering and spitting. Esmeralda and her salon patrons laughed and hooted at the sight of the drenched suffragettes.
At a loss for words, Sara Fenn whirled and fled taking her soggy entourage with her. Esmeralda watched them go them and then went back upstairs to her rooms where she closed the door and leaned against it. She could feel a pressure building all around. She felt she desperately needed to be able see into things clearly. This silly incident with Sara Fenn and her reformers and the visit from Big Jim was just the beginning.
