Sweetwater

by Lisa Henry

  “Shut up, Cody,” Dale said. “It ain’t funny. Crane’s a dangerous man.”

  “Goddamn,” Cody muttered under his breath and signaled the bartender for another drink.

  A few seats opened up at one of the tables.

  “Go on,” Grady said. “Me and Matt’ll go back to the hotel, I reckon, just as soon as we finish these.”

  Cody and Dale went and joined the men at the table.

  “One more?” Matt asked with a slight smile.

  “One more.”

  They tapped glasses.

  Grady’s fourth drink didn’t taste any better than the first three. It was foul, and it didn’t even make his head swim. Watered down, probably.

  “Cody doesn’t mean nothing,” Matt offered at last. “Just dumb as a rock.”

  Grady snorted. “I know.”

  From outside, there came a sudden burst of noise. Shouting and yelling. Matt craned his head to see out the door, but Grady didn’t bother. Friday night in the rough end of South Pass City, there was always someone starting shit.

  Matt set his glass down. “We going back to the hotel?”

  “Yeah.” Grady wanted to get washed up. Get the stench of the Nugget off him before he went and waited for Elijah at his cabin. He swallowed the last of the foul whiskey and jammed his hat back on his head.

  Matt went and spoke to Dale and Cody. Dale said something, his face serious. Grady guessed it was a reminder for Matt to keep him away from the Empire. He wondered what Dale was most worried about: his welfare or the ruination of their business arrangement with Crane. Then chided himself for his disloyalty. Dale wasn’t heartless, just sometimes a little blind to any point of view but his own. There were worse sins.

  Matt came back to him, and together they left the Nugget.

  “Hell,” Matt said. “What’s going on?”

  Men hurried down the street, shouting and calling to one another. Outside the Empire they became a crowd.

  “Murder!” someone shouted. “Murder at the Empire!”

  Grady’s blood turned to ice.

  Elijah.

  “Grady!” Matt tried to catch his sleeve, but Grady shook him off. He elbowed his way past gawkers and sightseers and pushed toward the front doors of the Empire.

  Fuck.

  Elijah groaned. His face throbbed, and where the hell was he? He squinted around the room. A bedroom. He was sitting on a bed in one of the bedrooms at the Empire, with one of the whores kneeling between his legs. The one with brassy-red hair and heavily kohled eyes. The one who’d been sweet on Dr. Carter and sympathetic to Elijah: Lila.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, holding a handkerchief up to his bleeding nose. “You’re a mess, ain’t you?”

  He could taste the blood sliding down the back of his throat. He swallowed, and even that small movement hurt. His head was killing him. He couldn’t even remember getting up the stairs.

  “Hold that there,” Lila said.

  He pressed the balled-up handkerchief to his nostrils.

  “I’ll get some whiskey to clean it with,” Lila said. She rose to her feet, her petticoats swaying.

  He wanted to protest that he didn’t want whiskey, that he had carbolic acid at home that would work better. He didn’t want to stay here, but she was being kind and sweet, and it felt nice to have someone fuss over him.

  “Did the whole—” He spat blood into the handkerchief. “Did the whole place hear?”

  Lila turned back from her dresser, her kohl-rimmed eyes wide with sympathy. She pursed her painted lips. “Oh, honey, I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

  He swallowed, cleared his throat, spat, and tried again. “Did the whole place hear?”

  Lila shrugged. “What does it matter what anyone heard?”

  He closed his eyes and dropped his head. Maybe it didn’t matter to Lila. The whole town already knew what she was, but he’d been trying to keep his stains hidden. He wondered how fast words, how fast sound traveled. Fast and clear as water maybe, tipped from a ewer, hollow and echoing and empty as a song. The whole town would know by morning. Dawson and Lovell would know. Mr. Spicer and Emily would know. Thaddeus Sherlock. And then all of Elijah’s reputation, every bit of it borrowed from Dr. Carter like a shirt that didn’t quite fit and never really had, would be stripped off him in rags.

  Because it was bad enough that they thought he was simple, that his affliction was only there to be derided or pitied. It would be worse tomorrow, when the whole of South Pass City knew what else he was. How sinful. How disgusting. And they would click their tongues and say that they always knew there was something not right about that boy, and they would thank God that Dr. Carter had died in ignorance.

  And maybe that was another sin they would heap on Elijah. Maybe it wouldn’t take long for them to wonder if that strange, afflicted, unnatural cuckoo in the nest had repaid the decent man who loved him with a bullet in the head.

  He couldn’t stay, but where else was there to go?

  He thought of Grady again and wondered if it really was that simple.

  Lila tilted his head back and pressed a stinging cloth to his nose. “Let’s get you cleaned up, hmm?”

  He flinched at the sting of the whiskey and tried to push her hand away. “I gotta go.”

  She held his head in place. “Harlan told me to see to you, so that’s what I’m doing. I might not be no doctor like your daddy was, but I’ve cleaned up just as much blood as I bet he ever saw.” She sighed. “He was a good man. Least I can do is make sure somebody looks out for you.”

  The whiskey-soaked cloth had nothing to do with the sudden sting in Elijah’s eyes.

  Lila took the fabric away at last, then dabbed carefully around Elijah’s nose. “There, that’s not so bad. Walt’s got a real mean pair of fists on him when he wants, but you’ll be fine.”

  Elijah nodded slowly. He licked the taste of whiskey and blood off his lips. “He mean with you too?”

  Lila shrugged. “He gets jealous.” She smiled. “But then afterwards he gets real sweet. He’s not so bad.”

  He couldn’t imagine Walt ever being sweet. He’d been nothing but an asshole to Elijah since the first time he’d walked into the Empire. Just another fucking bully. But if Lila wanted to think otherwise, he didn’t much care.

  Her eyes shone. “He used to get jealous on account of how I was sweet on your daddy. I always told him the doc was nothing but a gentleman, but it still got him real riled up. But he makes it up to me.”

  He twisted the bloody handkerchief in his fingers. He wanted to go home. Go back to the cabin and pretend tonight had never happened. Then, in the morning . . . Well, the morning would be worse. Maybe he should just stay here after all, let Crane do whatever the fuck he wanted, and drink as much whiskey as he could. Fall into the hole he’d made, and never crawl out again.

  Once, the thought of belonging to Crane had been exciting. Crane, who knew all Elijah’s hidden secrets just by looking at him. Crane, who knew he wasn’t simple and who didn’t give a damn what the rest of the town thought. Crane, who had more money than any respectable man in South Pass City and wasn’t ashamed of how he made it. Elijah had heard the words from the hymn in his head and thought they were dangerous and good all at once:

  His only, His forever thou shalt be, and thou art.

  But they were just dangerous.

  Too bad he hadn’t really known it until it was too late.

  Lila moved to the dresser again, fiddling with something there. She spoke, but her back was turned, and he didn’t hear her.

  “I’m sorry?” he asked.

  She turned, smiling, her arm held out. “I said, Walt ain’t so bad. See?”

  There was a bracelet around her skinny, bruised wrist. A bracelet made of blue glass beads.

  His heart stopped.

  “She had eyes the color of a summer sky,” Dr. Carter had told Elijah a hundred times, his voice soft with melancholy, his face worn with care. The shadow of that love st
ill curving his lips into a rueful smile. “Well, I wanted to buy her sapphires, but could only afford blue glass. She married me anyway.”

  “Ain’t it pretty?” Lila smiled, turning the beads on her wrist.

  He stared at them blankly, not moving. Not moving, but at the same time buffeted by the sudden roar in his skull, as loud as any thunderstorm that had ever swept over the Wind River Range and crashed down over South Pass City.

  Lila’s smiled faded into concern. “Elijah?”

  His guts churned. “Walt gave you that?”

  “See? He’s a sweetheart, really.”

  He pushed himself off the bed. He wanted to be sick. No, he wanted to kill a man. “I gotta go.”

  Lila reached for his wrist.

  He shook her off. “I gotta go.”

  He stumbled out of her room, letting the door slam behind him.

  Elijah stood in the hallway at the top of the stairs, his heart racing. Walt would be there, on the door. Had been right there, this whole time.

  A man staggered past Elijah, still fastening his trousers, but Elijah hardly noticed. He felt like an Arapaho scout or something now: fixed on his target. Imagined himself kneeling over Walt, holding his head up by his hair as he scalped him. Elijah’s right hand curled into a loose fist. A knife. He needed a knife. And then he needed to get close enough to Walt to use it.

  A touch on his shoulder.

  Elijah jumped and turned.

  Crane frowned at him. “You feeling better now, boy? Because I got a few ideas on how you can apologize for throwing that punch.”

  Elijah smiled slightly. “I ain’t gonna apologize to you.”

  Crane narrowed his eyes and tilted his head a little. “You ought to mind your attitude, Elijah.”

  Elijah stared back at him and saw a sudden flicker in those dark eyes. Uncertainty. Whatever Crane was seeing in Elijah now, he hadn’t seen it there before. Elijah wasn’t even sure what it was himself, except he wasn’t rolling over to show his belly anymore. He was less afraid now than he had been on the ride out to Adavale. He was sure of himself this time. This time, he really did have nothing left to lose.

  “Get in my room,” Crane said.

  Elijah thought about refusing but didn’t. Instead, he remembered the ivory-handled razor that Crane kept on his washstand. He ached to hold it in his hand. He followed Crane into his room.

  The doors were open onto the balcony. The dry, dusty wind rustled the curtains. Outside, there was yelling in the street, too muffled and distorted for Elijah to make out. He tugged at the top button of his shirt, releasing it. Rubbed a hand along his crotch and saw Crane’s gaze drawn there.

  “Slut,” Crane said, smiling darkly. He unbuttoned his pants and sat on his sagging bed. “Get on your knees.”

  Elijah’s rage was cold now. Hard as ice. Unmovable.

  He watched Crane lift himself to shove his trousers down. They tangled around his hairy ankles. He tugged open his drawers and pulled his cock out. “Get here.”

  Elijah rolled his shoulders. He crossed to Crane’s washstand. Picked up the hair oil there, and slid the razor into the cuff of his left sleeve. Turned back to face Crane.

  “How do you want it, sir?”

  There had been a time when Elijah’s world had tipped in this room. Not tonight. Tonight Elijah wasn’t going to fall. Tonight he was strong.

  Crane reached for the whiskey on his nightstand. “Get on your knees.”

  “Did you know?” Elijah asked.

  Crane frowned at him. “What are you talking about now? Fuck, you’re here to suck my cock, Elijah, nothing else.”

  He drew a deep breath. Fought to keep himself from mumbling. “Did you know that Walt killed Dr. Carter? Or did you just sit here with your limp dick out this whole time?”

  Rage twisted Crane’s face. Rage and disbelief. “You mouthy little cunt! What the fuck are you talking about?” He tried to stand, hobbled by his tangled pants.

  Elijah dropped the hair oil and ran.

  “Elijah! Elijah!”

  Loud enough to shake the room, loud enough to make it even to Elijah’s ears, but he was already gone. Down the stairs, his heart pounding, the razor folded into his palm.

  He pushed his way through the barroom.

  Whores. Drinkers. Gamblers.

  He saw none of them.

  The doors swung open as he reached them, and Walt appeared. He grinned at Elijah through his scraggly beard, lips moving. Laughing. Said something Elijah didn’t catch. Didn’t care, either.

  In all Elijah’s dreams of revenge, there had been a moment of gravity, of meaning. Maybe even a moment to savor his triumph.

  But there was none of that.

  Elijah darted forward. Walt didn’t even have time to react before the blade met his throat, and then it was too late for him. He pushed his beefy arms up, but Elijah had already made the cut. Hard and fast, just like Lovell had taught him.

  Hot blood sprayed him as Walt reared back.

  There was commotion behind him. Screams and shouts, chairs crashing.

  Elijah dropped the razor on the floor, panting for breath. He raised his hand to his face and wiped blood from his eyes. Watched Walt jerk on the floor as the last of his life bled out of him, no different than any other animal that Elijah had ever killed, except Elijah had never hated them.

  No difference between life and death but a single heartbeat, a single action, and a single moment in time. Nothing weighty at all.

  Then Elijah was tackled, and someone went running for the deputy.

  Crane would kill him, Elijah knew. He shuffled backward on his ass, his boots slipping in Walt’s blood and his gaze fixed on Crane. The man was shouting at him, spittle flying from his twisted lips. Elijah couldn’t pick Crane’s words from the rest of the roar around him now, but he could read them on his lips: “What’d you do, Elijah? What’d the fuck you do?”

  Elijah caught the leg of a table and pulled himself toward it.

  Crane reached down and grabbed him by the collar. “What’d you do, Elijah?”

  Elijah spat. His mouth tasted like blood. He didn’t know if it was his or Walt’s. He wiped his chin with his hand and didn’t answer.

  Crane shook him, then threw him back onto the floor.

  Elijah stared through the table legs. Men were standing, moving, coming forward for a look or stepping away from the blood. A wide trail of it, dragged by Elijah’s boots through the sawdust on the floor, led from where Walt lay dead.

  Footsteps pounded up and down the stairs. Ruffled skirts swept into view—Lila—then vanished again, lost somewhere in the forest of trousers and chair legs. Elijah heard her wailing cry, though, even through everything. His blood ran cold at the sound of it, her despair given a howling voice that lodged in his pounding head. The noise was the same one Elijah’s heart had made the evening he’d found Dr. Carter dead at the table. It joined that voice. Echoed it, and swelled with it, and lodged somewhere in his bones.

  Anguish hit a raw pitch that words rarely did and music never could.

  Then there was someone looming over him, and Elijah drew his arms up to protect his face. A hand shook him by the shoulder, and he saw that it wasn’t Crane at all, come to kill him. It was Grady.

  “Elijah,” Grady said. “Oh, Elijah.” His patient, sorrowful tone was so much like Dr. Carter’s that Elijah almost sobbed.

  “Was gonna follow you,” he said, breath hitching, voice slurred. He didn’t know if Grady understood. “Was gonna.”

  Grady drew him up, and Elijah threw his arms around him. Sat there on the floor, his face buried in Grady’s chest, taking his comfort while he could. Grady smelled of sweat and horses, and of blood now. He rubbed Elijah’s back, murmuring things that might have been words or might have just been soothing sounds. At last Elijah became aware that the loudest sound in the world was his heartbeat, along with Grady’s. The shouting had stopped. He lifted his head and peered over the top of the table.

  The s
aloon was empty. The only men still standing around were Crane’s.

  Crane was sitting at the table. He raised his hand and threw something.

  The blue-glass bracelet. It landed in the sawdust, and Elijah reached out a trembling hand and took it. He turned it over in his hands. It was stained with blood.

  Someone had dragged Walt away.

  The bartender was cleaning glasses.

  A girl scrubbed the bloody floor. The muscles corded in her thin forearms as she dragged the brush over and over the same spot, and Elijah thought of the table in the cabin. Maybe this stain would never come out, either, even once it was invisible.

  Outside, shadows passed back and forth in front of the doors. More of Crane’s men, Elijah figured. Or maybe just the morbidly curious. He supposed Cleaver and Morris, the rival newspapermen, were jostling for the best position.

  “It was Dr. Carter’s,” he said.

  “Should have come to me,” Grady said, and his eyes were full of pity.

  They could both see it, clear as anything.

  A rope.

  Oh, Elijah.

  Elijah hid the bracelet in his fist. He bowed his head and let the tears come. All those times he’d thought he was beneath forgiveness . . . Would he still ask for it anyway, when he felt the noose around his neck? He would, he figured. He’d ask, and he’d mean it with every fiber of his being, because maybe there really was a Heaven. And maybe, if those doors weren’t already locked to him, it would mean he’d see Dr. Carter again.

  Brief life is here our portion, brief sorrow, short-lived care;

  The life that knows no ending, the tearless life, is there.

  If there was no comfort left for him in this world, at least he could hope for it in the next. Except for his sins, he could hope. Sins that had multiplied as fast as maggots in rotten meat, squirming and writhing into buzzing flies. Sins that had taken wing.

  He slid the bracelet into his pocket.

  “Elijah!”