by Sharon Sala
He thought about it a moment, then nodded. “Yeah, I see what you mean.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Letty said. “You did good, and you made a whole lot of people happy. But unless you feel a real calling for the job, you don’t need to be doing it.”
“Yeah, okay. I just didn’t want you to be mad at me.”
Letty turned to look at him then, gazing her fill at the lean, brown lines of his face, and the hair in need of cutting and sighed.
“Eulis.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not the easiest person to be around and I know it. And I might get pissed off at you now and then, but not for anything real big. Truth is that I’m proud of you.”
A big lump tied itself into a knot in the back of Eulis’s throat.
“You are?”
“Yes.”
He glanced at her briefly then quickly looked away, afraid that she might see what he was feeling.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever said that to me before.”
Letty saw a muscle jerking at the side of his jaw. She thought about hugging him, and then decided he would get the wrong idea—or maybe the right one. Either way, it wouldn’t do either one of them any good. He knew too much about her past to ever look at her as anything other than a whore.
“The past is the past,” she said. “We got ourselves a second chance and, I don’t know about you, but I’m gonna make the most of it.”
Unaware of what was going through Letty’s mind, and still overwhelmed by the fact that she’d praised him, Eulis just nodded in agreement.
“We’re here,” he said, as he pulled the wagon up to the Inn.
“Yep, we sure are,” Letty said, and quickly got down as Eulis set the brake and tied off the reins. It remained to be seen exactly where “here” was, but she was glad to be standing on solid ground.
Eulis shouldered the rifle as they walked into the inn together.
It was a strange set-up for a hotel.
There was a small saloon set up near the door, with a bar barely as long as a man was tall, but the bottles on the shelf behind it, and the stack of clean glasses were proof of its purpose.
The room where travelers ate was one big space, with an odd assortment of chairs and tables scattered about. Letty could smell food cooking, but the kitchen was somewhere out of sight.
There was an even tinier general store in another part of the lobby with some folded clothing on a table, a side of smoked pork hanging from the ceiling, and some flour and coffee beans. Before she could look further, a tall, middle-aged woman appeared in a doorway, moving toward them with a no-nonsense stride.
“Welcome, travelers. I’m Mrs. Cocker. You here just to eat or do you want a bed, too?”
Eulis glanced at Letty, who was unusually quiet.
“Two beds, please, and a meal. And do you, by any chance, have a bath house?” He pointed to Letty. “Letty, here, favors a tub bath real highly.”
The woman nodded briskly while eyeing Letty’s manly style dress.
“Bath house out back. Got hot water on the stove. It’ll cost extra.”
“Lovely,” Letty said, and then pointed to the small dry goods store. “Got any shoes for sale?”
“Women’s shoes?” Mrs. Cocker asked.
“Actually, no. I need something sturdy. I’ve about walked the soles off of these things. Besides which, it’s coming on winter.”
The woman peered down at Letty’s feet then motioned for her to follow.
“Come with me. Maybe a small pair of men’s shoes will fit. Since you’re already wearing men’s pants, I don’t suppose you’ll mind.”
Letty heard the sarcasm. Once it would have hurt her feelings. Now it just pissed her off.
“Yeah, I’m wearing men’s pants because my last dress burned up when I fell into the campfire. And the rest of my business is none of yours. Do you want to sell shoes and rent us a bed, or do you want to criticize my fashion sense?”
The woman didn’t blink. “I’ll sell you anything you need,” she said. “Have a seat.”
The moment passed. Letty found a pair of shoes that fit, but they didn’t look new.
“These have been worn,” she said.
“Oh, yeah, those belonged to a kid named Pete McKay. Young Scots. Red hair, freckles, big smile.”
Letty stared down at the shoes on her feet.
“What happened to him?”
“Pneumonia. Died last spring. Broke his father’s heart. He packed up the family and headed for California. Doubt if they made it past that damned desert, though.”
Letty felt sick at standing in these shoes, as if she had transgressed on someone’s grave.
“There’s a desert between here and California?”
“That’s what I hear,” Mrs. Cocker said. “Never seen it myself. Don’t plan to, either.” She pointed at Letty’s feet. “You want the shoes or not?”
“Yes.”
“That’ll be four bits.”
“I’ll give you two, and that’s more than enough. They’re used.”
“Done,” Mrs. Cocker said. “So you want the beds or not?”
“All of it,” Letty said. “For one night, we want it all. Beds, bath and meals.”
Mrs. Cocker nodded, then eyed Letty one more time. “That kid… Pete McKay.”
“What about him?”
“I got some of his clothes, too. Throw in another two bits and you can have them, too.”
Letty thought of their dwindling cash, but winter was coming, and she couldn’t exist on Eulis’s cast-offs through ice and snow.
“All right.”
“I’ll gather them up later, but for now, follow me. I’ll show you to your beds and then get the hot water for your bath.”
“I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Letty murmured, more to herself than to Mrs. Cocker, but the woman heard her just the same.
“Honey, if you’re not careful, you could die here at that. It’s a hard place here, these gold fields. Men do bad things to good people for a little color, and you’d better beware. This place isn’t heaven. It’s closer to hell.”
Letty glanced at Eulis, who was staring at the woman with a hard look on his face.
“Sorry to dispute your word, ma’am, but this ain’t hell. We already been there and come out the other side. Maybe this is somewhere in between, in which case, I feel comfortable in tellin’ you that me and Letty, here, are gonna be just fine.”
Letty’s heart swelled as she looked at Eulis with pride. If she hadn’t already told him she was proud of him, she would have said it now. As it was, all she could do was follow him and the innkeeper to the dormitory where the beds were set up side by side, to be had for nominal cost.
“Not much privacy here,” Letty said, as she gave them two beds near a window.
Mrs. Cocker turned around and looked at Letty.
“If you don’t mind my saying so, you might need to rethink your business here. In the gold fields, only the strong and the tough survive.”
Eulis looked at Letty, wondering what she was going to say, but then she caught his eye and to his surprise, she started to grin.
He grinned back.
She chuckled, and then looked away as she sat down on the bed, looked at him again and laughed out loud.
He was still grinning as he sat on his bed. He threw his hat on the floor, and then chuckled as he watched her laughing. She was doubled over on the bed and trying to take off her new boots. But the harder she tried, the funnier everything became.
“Only the strong… Lord have mercy.” She rolled off the bed onto the floor, pointed at Eulis, and then slapped her hands over her face as she was struck with a fresh wave of hysteria. “Stop… stop… don’t look at me,” she begged.
The innkeeper frowned. “I don’t know what I said that was so humorous. This is not Philadelphia.”
Letty took a deep breath and bit her lower lip, but it was no use. She looked at Eulis and then rolled over
on her belly, laid her forehead in the crook of one arm, and started slapping the floor with the flat of her other hand as she laughed until she cried.
Eulis sighed. It was to be expected that the relief of reaching their destination would come out in some fashion, but he would never have expected this.
Mrs. Cocker stared at the woman as if she’d lost her mind and then turned to Eulis.
“Is she all right… I mean… she’s not touched in the head or anything, is she? I don’t want no crazy woman sleeping under my roof.”
Eulis grinned. “No ma’am, she’s not crazy. She’s also no sissy, and the fact that you looked at her and thought that might be the case is what has tickled her funny bone.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t get the joke,” Mrs. Cocker said. “Stew’s on the stove when you’re ready to eat. Bath tubs are out back. I’ve got three, only one’s got a hole in it. Pay up front.”
“What’ll we owe you?” Eulis asked.
“A dollar apiece,” she said.
“A dollar?”
She put her hands on her hips and nodded again to accentuate her price.
“A dollar, and a cheap price at that. From here, it’s four miles to Denver and the gold fields. Things are a lot higher there.”
Eulis counted out the money, then sat down on the bed and waited for Letty to regain her senses as the innkeeper left the room.
“You ’bout finished,” he finally asked.
Letty gave up one last laugh, and then rolled over on her back, holding her belly.
“Oh… oh… I hurt. I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much. Can you believe she didn’t think we were tough enough to be here?”
Eulis grinned. “Yeah, well, she doesn’t know us, is all.”
Letty sat up, then looked at Eulis, thinking as she did that he seemed really tall from down here.
“No. She doesn’t know us.”
Eulis gave her a hand up.
“Come on, Sister Leticia. You need to go wash that mean off you before you hurt someone.”
She grinned. No matter what lay in wait for them, she was going to enjoy this night as it was meant to be enjoyed. No telling how long it would be again before she got to take a warm bath and sleep in a real bed—under a real roof.
FEVER—HOT AND GOLD
In deference to her sex, Mrs. Cocker had offered Letty separate sleeping quarters behind a curtained alcove beyond the main sleeping room, but Letty had refused. After coming this far with Eulis at her side, she wasn’t going to start separating herself from him now.
They had bathed, eaten a supper of stew and cornbread, and some of the best dried apple pie that Letty had ever tasted. After tending to their mules, they wearily crawled into bed.
There were at least two dozen beds in the room, and more than half of them were filled. Letty lay on her side with her face to the wall, listening to the sounds of the men settling down for the night.
Except for Mrs. Cocker, Letty was the only female on the place, but she didn’t feel threatened. The men who’d come to Cherry Creek had a fever all right, but not for women. They’d come for gold.
Eulis was unusually quiet. As Letty lay there, waiting for sleep to claim her, she realized that she was also listening to him. She heard the cot squeak as he settled himself into a comfortable spot, then felt the warmth of his breath against the back of her neck as he exhaled wearily. Somewhere off in the distance, she heard the faint echo of a gunshot and flinched. She’d heard of how wild a gold camp could be, but she’d been in rough places before. She consoled herself with the fact that at least this time, she wasn’t at the mercy of men, depending on their favors for her living. Here, she was an equal. She had just as good a chance at striking it rich as any man here. All it was going to take was hard work, perseverance, and possibly more luck than anyone had a right to expect.
Another gunshot sounded, but she smiled, closed her eyes, and slept dreaming of a stream bed lined with gold nuggets.
Eulis woke up once and leaned over Letty’s cot, pulled the cover back up over her shoulder, and then looked around the room, making sure that all was as it should be. All but a half dozen beds were now full, and it appeared that everyone was asleep. However, he wasn’t so green as to trust anyone except Letty in a place like this. So he rolled over on his other side with his back to Letty and his face to the room, felt again for the barrel of his rifle just beneath his bedroll, and closed his eyes. After tonight, everything was going to be a new experience for him and for Letty. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of expectancy. In a place like this, anything was possible—then he amended the thought with another less comforting. Yes, anything was possible—but having gained it, knew that it could be taken away as quickly as it had come. So he slept and dreamed, unaware that someone from their past was ten beds away on the other side of the room.
***
It was sometime after midnight when a commotion began in the hall outside the sleeping area. Eulis woke first and reached for his rifle as Letty rolled over and sat up on her cot.
“What’s happening?” she said.
“I don’t know. Sounds like a fight.”
Several other sleepers in the room were roused as the noise became louder. They could distinguish Mrs. Cocker’s voice, but the others were unrecognizable. Eulis took his rifle and started to get up when Letty grabbed him by the arm.
“Wait… you might get hurt.”
“I think Mrs. Cocker is in trouble.”
“Oh lord… okay… but I’m coming with you.”
“No,” Eulis said. “Stay here.”
He got up and started toward the door, but he wasn’t going alone. The other men in the room had also been awakened, and a couple of them appeared to have the same thought as Eulis. Letty watched as they got up with guns in hand and fell in behind Eulis.
Someone lit a lantern, and then someone else cursed and told them to blow it out before they became targets for whatever was happening beyond the door.
Letty grabbed her new boots and slipped them on, then quickly stuffed all of their belongings into their bags. If they had to run, she wanted to be ready. She crawled into the corner of the bed, pulled her knees up beneath her chin, and hoped for the best.
When Eulis opened the door, he was momentarily silhouetted by the light from the next room, then the other men blocked Letty’s view and she couldn’t see any more. She held her breath, and like everyone else in the room, waited anxiously to learn what was happening.
***
“Get out of my inn and be quick about it!” Mrs. Cocker yelled, and then reached beneath the counter and pulled out a rifle. With one smooth movement, she had it cocked and aimed.
“You heard the lady,” Eulis said, as he joined her with his rifle aimed.
The two other men who’d come out did the same, adding their presence and fire power to the men who had challenged the innkeeper’s demand. Unfortunately, the half-dozen men who’d come charging into Four Mile Inn had an agenda of their own, and they didn’t appear to be in the mood to listen. One of them—a shaggy mountain of a man who appeared to be their leader—stepped forward.
“Now look here, Mrs. Cocker. We done told you why we come and we ain’t goin’ nowhere ’til we see if Art Masters is here.”
“I don’t know Art Masters,” Cocker said, “but even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you a thing. But I know you, Will Hodges, and I know that you’re drunk. In fact, the whole lot of you are no better than a lynch mob.”
“What’s goin’ on?” Eulis asked.
The big man’s gaze swerved from the innkeeper’s face to Eulis. He frowned.
“What’s goin’ on is none of your business. That’s what’s goin’ on,” Hodges said.
“When you come into the place where I’m sleepin’ and raise enough hell to wake the dead, then it becomes my business… it becomes all our business,” he added, thereby reminding Will Hodges that there were now four guns aimed directly at their faces.
Hodges frow
ned, but acquiesced to the firepower.
“We don’t aim to cause trouble for none of you,” he said. “We’re just lookin’ for a back-stabbin’ claim jumper by the name of Art Masters. He jumped a claim, and shot the man it belonged to. That man was our friend and he lived long enough to tell us who did him in.”
Mrs. Cocker frowned. There was no law in this part of the country, and for the most part, there was also no justice. But claim-jumping was serious business, and if that was the case, she had no desire to shelter a back-shooting thief such as that.
“You sure you know who you’re looking for?” she asked.
Hodges nodded. “Ask any of these men. We was all present when our friend said the name, and we was all present when he died. So… is he here, or ain’t he?”
“I told you the truth when I said I didn’t know anyone by the name of Art Masters, but I also don’t know the name of any of my guests. However, I won’t be accused of sheltering a killer.” She turned to the men who’d come to her aid. “Gentlemen, I thank you for coming to my assistance. However, I am going to let these men into the sleeping area. Please stand aside.”
Eulis stepped back, but he didn’t stand aside. Instead, he went back into the room and headed for Letty. If something happened, he intended to be between her and the shooting.
Mrs. Cocker followed him, carrying a lit lamp into the room.
“Gentlemen, I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I must ask you to light the other lamps. There is a killer on the loose and these men are looking for him.”
There was a loud grumbling until she mentioned the fact that the killer was also a claim-jumper. At that point, a candle and two lamps were quickly lit. In the gold fields, a claim-jumper was the worst sort of a criminal, and one not to be tolerated.
“So, Mr. Hodges… do you see your man?”
The big man took the lamp from the woman’s hand and began moving up and down the rows of beds, holding the lamp close to each face as he passed.
Eulis stood between Hodges and the lamp with his gun drawn. Thinking that Eulis must have something to hide, Hodges headed that way first.
