“How y’all tonight? Whiskies and soda pop? What happened to that foot, cowboy?”
“Bitten by a riser.” Melchior reaches for tortillas.
“That so?” Cocking her head, grinning. “Got Plague then? Going to turn on us like a mad dog?”
“Any minute.”
“Like to see that.” She leans forward as if Sam and Ivy are chairs.
They think it’s funny, Ivy reflects. They think it a momentary problem that will move on rather than getting worse until it consumes them. She folds her hands in her lap and sits very upright, looking at red peppers, gleaming in candlelight from salty brine.
Marian goes to fetch their drinks without bothering to confirm the order. Sam looks around the place as she goes, frowning. The noise level is lower than usual. No games of darts or even poker. Only the faro table, which Ivy has never seen idle.
Sam glances up as the saloon girl returns with glasses, bottles, and a plate of hot quesadilla strips, gooey with melted cheese, crisp with dark grill marks.
She is still smiling at Melchior when Sam says, “Is the mood a bit subdued tonight, miss?”
Marian looks at him blankly, as if he speaks Russian. Then she shrugs and twirls a strand of auburn hair.
“Comes and goes, mister. Everyone’s been uptight since yesterday when the Brownlows came tearing into the city saying they’d been attacked. Been working on things today, I hear.”
“Working on what things?” Ivy asks.
Even Melchior looks up, sucking his fingertips, which he burned on cheese grease.
“I don’t rightly know.” Marian frowns, apparently baffled by this interest, glancing for the first time around at all three of them. “Mr. Brownlow says nothing’s being done right. He’s getting men together to build a ... wall or fence or something around the city to keep Plague out—so’s families can come to Santa Fé and be safe until the government sends troops to clear the sick folk, you know?”
“Are they?” Sam asks. “I saw Sheriff Thurman hours ago. He did not mention it.”
“He’s not doing it, is he? People doing it. Mr. Brownlow says that Scandeeenavian maker, Oliver, he’s going to help architect and Mr. Brownlow’s a fine builder and carpenter. Everybody in Santa Fé knows that. They say there’s a little girl in town what knows all about the sickness. Reckon she’ll know what to do.” Her eyes return to Melchior, along with her smile. “If you boys want to get involved, Mr. Shannon’s giving one free drink a day to every man on the volunteer labor party to build this fence.”
A tingling, rushing sensation spreads through Ivy’s fingers and toes to warm her with a light, giddy excitement.
Sam looks at her and lifts his glass. “To ‘little girls.’”
Twenty-Third
Fowl Rumors
The following morning, Ivy must bring herself to visit the maker’s workshop for news of the freighter.
She, Sam, and Melchior, who would have discarded his unmanly crutch if Sam did not stop him, find the front wall closed. After knocking, Ivy moves to the door. Before she can knock here, she spots the maker walking up the street toward them.
He wears a pair of his own sungoggles, a black bowler with only a handful of odd adornments, including a tiny spyglass and watch chains, and a blue shirt and chestnut waistcoat. A dozen chains hang around his neck, holding watches, whistles, bells, pens, a tiny screwdriver, and what looks like a lady’s bangle earring. The most peculiar aspects of his appearance center around his arms. One hand is bare, the other covered by a metal glove reaching to his shoulder and vibrating with accessories: a gauge and copper pipe with a sight like a pocket gun, knife, spoon, riveted-on pocket watch, brass opera glasses, and a pendulum swinging back and forth at his shoulder. Besides this contraption, the little man carries one white hen under each arm and two more by their feet, one in each hand.
Oliver is so caught up in his struggling chickens he does not see them.
“Good ... morning, Oliver,” Sam says at last.
Grinning, Melchior says, “Dandy birds.”
Oliver looks up through dark goggles. “A pleasant surprise!” he shouts after a second of taking them blankly in, as if he cannot recall who they are. “Good morning, good morning! Would you like a frying hen?”
“May we help you with those birds?” Sam asks, stepping away as white feathers fly around Oliver.
“Would you?” Oliver thrusts two into Sam’s chest, allowing a third to escape and pouncing on it before it can flap and squawk its way down the road. “Would you—dear lady—door—me—not locked!” he yells as he struggles with hens, feathers flying into his mouth.
Sam, in apparent fear lest he fail at the job, clutches chickens to his chest, looking like a man gripping two exploding feather pillows.
Ivy hurries to push open the door as Oliver rushes it, a screaming hen in each hand. He throws the birds into the house, Sam dashing behind, lips compressed and eyes squinted against the feather assault. Ivy snatches a bird by the neck and throws it in. Oliver grabs the other, then slams the door, panting and brushing pinfeathers from his face.
“I do sincerely thank you, lady and sir. I was not sure how I would get them in without dropping the lot.”
Sam coughs, turning away, trying to cover his mouth as he chokes on feathers with Melchior—still grinning as he leans on his crutch—brushing at those covering his black frock coat.
“No trouble at all,” Ivy says, trying to cover her own face with a handkerchief.
“Did you just chunk four chickens into your house?” Melchior asks.
“Ah, well, it’s chancy to rest them anywhere else. They will retire from their coop, you see. I’ve been hunting hens for two hours this morning. That’s the last of them ... I think. Glendaleen keeps birds and I quite agree, especially in a time when supplies are short and growing shorter. However, I am not man enough to invent a contraption which will keep the dratted beasts confined.”
“So ... that’s how come you’re roosting them in your own digs?” Melchior asks.
“Heavens no, young man. Glendaleen will collect them directly and place them back in confinement—until they weasel another way out.”
“Never knew fowl could be so ... crafty.” While Sam continues to cough and wheeze, Melchior seems hardly able to suppress laughter.
“Nor I!” As Oliver shakes his fist, it crosses Ivy’s mind that he hasn’t any idea he is being made fun of. She would feel sorry for him, but there is something almost touching about the naïveté of a genius. “Those accursed birds may be the ruin of me before it’s all over. I shall not rest until I have managed a construction which will trap all where my darling wife might daily gather eggs without having to scour the city to claim birds responsible for them.”
“Making omelets less aggravating,” Melchior says.
“My dear Mr. Samuelson, are you quite well? Would you care for a drink?”
“Still have ice?” Melchior asks, eyes lighting up.
“Indeed, indeed. Allow me to pop inside, open the panel door for you, and I shall return with refreshments. I would invite you in, however, I suspect that may render proceedings awkward as there are at least a dozen hens in the parlor by now.”
“Please, don’t put yourself out,” Ivy says. “Your workshop is more than sufficient. We only need a word.”
“Capital.” Oliver faces the front door, takes a deep breath, then eases it open and inches inside, kicking and waving away chickens as he goes.
“Sam, are you all right?” Ivy turns to him.
His face is red, eyes watering. He pulls a second white handkerchief from his breast pocket. “I beg pardon. Rather sensitive to such things. I have never been able to sleep on a feather mattress as they trouble my breathing. Ever since I was a boy.”
“Not a difficulty you’ll meet out here,” Melchior says.
“I have noticed. Ropes and wool suit well enough.”
“That man just say he cannot contain one of the stupidest critters in creation
with a pen of his own invention?” Melchior asks. “Same fellow charged with planning a barricade to defend this city against a sickness swallowing the nation?”
“I think it is best....” Ivy pauses. “To avoid contemplating the matter.”
“Swell. Don’t think on it so it’ll go away?”
The front wall of the maker’s workshop rumbles open on its crank enough for them to duck inside.
Oliver is already dashing away. “Make yourselves comfortable!” He vanishes through the house door.
Melchior examines the gears which operate the wall panel while Sam and Ivy look for chairs not already occupied with mounds of scrap metal, pressure gauges, tools, or sungoggles and bits of leather and canvas.
“You need a pair of these.” Ivy holds goggles out to Sam.
“Keep feathers from your eyes,” Melchior says, wandering about the workshop.
“I suppose so.” Sam takes the goggles from her with a weak smile.
“Between light and dust, they are a tremendous help,” Ivy says. “You don’t suppose he has a mask? In Boston, the makers devised long face masks with canisters below the mouth so one could breathe clean air even in smoke and the worst places for risers.”
“You might mention it to him,” Sam says, removing his hat to try on the goggles.
“Still has that fire-shooter,” Melchior says, picking up a chunky, thick sort of gun from a table. “Ace-high, this device—no lick and promise work he folds into containing birds. Another chance at the faro table and we’ll get it.”
“We need that money, Melchior.” Ivy sits stiffly, watching him. Melchior tried to buy the device, which, though she has never seen it used, apparently sprays a jet of fire from the barrel, but Oliver wanted fifty dollars for it.
“Mean you need it for your steamcoach,” Melchior says.
They glance to the long, hardly framed form of steel beams and axles lying across one clear side of the workshop. It has progressed little since Ivy last saw it, there being few materials with which to build.
The door opens and Oliver, sungoggles gone and spectacles in place, watches clinking, chains swinging, many white feathers still flying off blue sleeves, comes through with a tray of drinks. He slides this precariously onto a crowded table, then hurries past to crank down the door. Sunlight streams in from a single large window to the side and electric lightbulbs hang overhead, which Ivy had never noticed in the bright light from the open wall.
“Where is Isaiah?” Ivy asks as the maker runs about at tasks generally taken on by his assistant. “He was most hospitable about offering us a trunk for storage before we last ventured from the city.”
“In a meeting with Eugene Brownlow and several other concerned citizens. It seems something is to be done about this Plague trouble. Please, help yourselves.”
“Will you thank him for us? My cousin called yesterday to raid the trunk we left here. It’s a help to be able to leave one’s town clothes in town.”
“Of course, not at all.” He picks his way back around the table to sit on a wheeled chair which swivels as he shifts and provides propulsion with his feet on the floor. With a series of straps, he begins to remove the false metal arm running to his left shoulder.
“Now, now, now....” Tenderly, as if cradling an infant, Oliver rests the metal on the table beside him, then vigorously shakes and massages his freed arm. “Touch heavy still....”
Ivy glances uneasily from him to the closed wall and back to the maker. “Oliver, we wanted to find out about—”
“About the freighter.” He looks up.
“Yes.” Seeing the look in his eyes, Ivy’s heart sinks.
“It ... is not coming.”
Mouth dry, Ivy can hardly whisper, “What?”
“They got a telegram through.” Oliver fiddles with watch chains, not meeting her eyes. “Stopped three hundred miles away. A black market industry right now, Miss Jerinson.”
“Military blocked them from crossing state lines? When they should be focused on stopping risers?” Ivy clutches her cold glass.
Oliver shakes his head, biting his lip. “They were attacked by a band for supplies and profit. Robbers. The driver and only one of his men got away with their lives and telegraphed Santa Fé.”
Anger fades as fresh regret and hopelessness moves in. At least the telegram came in. She must make another attempt to get one to Boston.
“Now the city wishes a wall.” Ivy directs herself to her glass. “If anything does come in, it must go to the people’s protection. Yet bringing in anything at all may cost more lives.”
“It is ... a bad time,” Oliver says softly, fidgeting with a watch fob. “An unsafe time. Yet materials are moved every day, Miss Jerinson. I should not give up all idea of the thing yet. Past risers, past robbers, some freight must travel....”
He falls silent and, most unusually, still. Sitting motionless, fingers on a watch chain, gazing blankly at the table where the empty tray rests.
Ivy is about to thank him for his efforts so far when he goes on, looking up at them as if remembering they are in the room.
“Do you know Raton Pass?”
“The nearest railhead,” Ivy says. “I came from there more than a year back, then by stage.”
“Mr. Strudwick, Glendaleen’s father, who runs our local journal, informs us a short train will arrive at Raton Pass in a few days’ time. From there, a freighter will set out to bring goods to Santa Fé and Albuquerque. This will be of no help to you as the goods they bring are sanctioned and mundane. Salt, linen, hemp, medicines, dry goods and canned goods, the like. The train will be guarded and no passengers taken. Again, of no use to you. However, the freighter itself will have a week’s journey at least to get here, traveling in Santa Fé Trail style, circling at night. You may not profit by the train or the goods, yet you may ... find a use for yourselves should you reach Raton Pass by three days from now. You see, it has come to my attention, perhaps the whole city’s, that you have been hunting bounties and rewards since our first meeting.”
Ivy glances again at the closed wall behind, then the maker.
“If you go,” he adds, looking over his spectacles at Ivy, “I pray you to recall two things: first, no one must know of this freighter—it is a terribly close secret. Second, the fact that you do know, by your own sharp wits, implies others might as well. And, if others know, of course, others could have nefarious plans. If they do, one should always drive with a few guards.”
The three look at each other. Ivy finishes her sweet, cold drink, sets the glass back on the tray, then lifts her handbag into her lap.
“Five dollars for another pair of sungoggles, Oliver?”
“Thank you.”
“And fifty for the fire-shooter?”
“Be careful with that. I have fuel, should you require more.”
“And another hundred toward the steamcoach with the hope that you may be able to utilize any opportunity which might arrive in our absence.”
“I shall do my best, young lady.” The maker steps around to the wall crank to let them out as Ivy sets the leather pouch of coins on the drink tray. She hands Sam back the goggles that he looked at earlier.
Melchior snatches the fire-shooter off the table.
“Return for fowl whenever you have need. They won’t run forever,” Oliver says as he stops the crank. Then he turns to Ivy with an anxious expression. “You won’t repeat what I’ve said?”
“Said what?”
“Good girl.” He pats her shoulder.
Melchior and Sam tip their hats and they slip out into sunlight, all three starting toward the farrier’s without a word.
Twenty-Fourth
Eleven Guards
Ivy fears delay while they hunt for Grip, feeling a surge of relief to find him sitting on a crate beside his horse’s stall, mending a hole in a saddle bag with rawhide cord. Not doing too badly either, considering he uses only one hand.
At the near side of the stable, Rosalía faces a wa
ll of headstalls and reins of all descriptions, from carriage bridles to hackamores. She wears a white circle skirt and fluttery rebozo, working away with a damp cloth, either cleaning or oiling leather.
She is talking as they come around the corner:
“You cannot expect to see him for un largo tiempo. You’re absurd about this—and I’m supposed to be the niña de la familia.”
Grip says nothing, shifting his right forearm against leather as he works a stitching awl through with his left hand.
“Good morning!” Rosalía spots them. “How are you?” she asks Ivy. “You look a heap better than when last we met.”
“I feel a heap better. Thank you for everything you did yesterday.”
Rosalía waves a damp rein airily. “Not at all. I hear timber is being cut for a fence of some sort around the city. Your word is getting out.”
“Not a moment too soon.” Ivy walks toward Grip, who does not look up. “Would you like another job, or have you had enough of us?”
“Can’t a man be of both minds?”
“I ... suppose. We are going to escort needed supplies into town. There has been trouble on the roads, of course. Getting worse.”
“Security?”
“Yes.”
“I cannot get on with security outfits.”
“Very well. We thought we would ask.” Ivy turns.
“What are they paying? How long?”
She faces him. “We must negotiate. Length is confidential at this point. We’re not to discuss it in town.”
For the first time, he looks at her. “Another of your lot’s infallible schemes. When are you leaving?”
“At once. We are late already.”
“Of course you are.” He goes back to stitching. “Your horses need rest. That one”—he jerks his head at Melchior—“is crippled and has no horse at all. Taking it along?”
“I can ride better with one leg than anyone here with two,” Melchior snaps.
“Certainly,” Grip says to his stitching awl. “Already proved it.”
Melchior hops forward. Sam grabs his shoulder.
“We can hire him a horse,” Ivy says. “We’ll be fine.”
Lightfall Two: Fox, Flight, Fire (Lightfall, Book 2) Page 5
