Lightfall Two: Fox, Flight, Fire (Lightfall, Book 2)

by Jordan Taylor

  How could anyone let their children run about in this place? She wonders as more dash past. Sam walks fast, Ivy almost jogging to keep up—past musicians, hawkers, a wrestling ring in which two men face one another with upraised fists, a chained black bear wearing a massive, spiked muzzle. A commotion erupts around a cooking fire, a woman screaming, dogs barking. A revolver blasts not twenty feet away. Ivy jumps against Sam, who in turn bumps a grass basket that topples over, sending the wooden topper rolling away. A snake glides out, the buzz from its tail inaudible above the din. Sam seizes his revolver, but the snake vanishes below another long table lined with pies.

  He grabs the nearest man by the arm and points to the table, shouting to be heard, “A rattlesnake is loose!”

  “Only one?” The miner laughs, slapping Sam so hard on the shoulder he is knocked sideways, then waves, grinning as he spots a familiar face across the crowd.

  Ivy is almost sure she hears Sam employ words she has never heard from him before—though she can scarcely hear—as he goes on, nearly running to the hotel in the center of town, dragging her along.

  He shakes as he shoves back a batwing door to the hotel saloon for them. A man in dusty brown hat and jingling spurs steps out, almost walking into them.

  “Thought you was finding a place to stay?” Melchior steps back, grinning. “And got scooped in all the same. Out enjoying the show?” The grin fades as he moves onto the porch with them. “All right?” This to Sam, though they both breathe hard.

  “Melchior, do you believe it would be possible to get ourselves cleaned up, then camp outside town?” Sam wipes his brow with his handkerchief.

  Melchior frowns. “Got to stop over. Meet that odd stick Kiedrid after supper.”

  “We could return for that.”

  “Saying you’re aiming to sleep out? Wanting to sleep out?” Melchior cocks his head, glancing from Sam to Ivy.

  Ivy, who has been chewing her dusty, bloody lip, says, “There are people dying in this ‘show,’ Melchior.”

  “What’d you expect?” He appears, not upset or sarcastic, but genuinely baffled.

  She glances at Sam.

  “Why should a town sanction a celebration in which it loses several of its citizens?” Sam asks.

  “Now, really.” Melchior shakes his head. “Several? Two or three bronc busters get done in at these shindies, Sam. Not their whole families. That’s the risk. Why’d you ride the bull if there’s no risk?”

  “Torture it, you mean,” Ivy says. “There’s a pen on the west side of town and that animal is dripping blood and—”

  “Not women’s spot.” Now he looks irritated, glancing at Sam. “What’d you take her over there for?”

  “We were looking for a place to stay,” Ivy says. “Can we leave town and come back to meet Kiedrid?”

  “Don’t be like that. Stopping a good few days.” Melchior pushes the doors back. “Come in for a meal. Sam and I’ll find digs.” He shakes his head as he gestures them to a vacant table far from the noisy bar and even more raucous faro table.

  Ivy sits reluctantly, hands together in her lap, not looking at anyone. She does not want a meal. She does not care about lodging. Dirt has been working just fine. All she needs is a bath. Even a single lemon to clean her face would be a miracle. Although not being killed in the street would also be agreeable.

  Tight-lipped, sitting as stiffly as she feels, Sam also looks at the table without a word while Melchior trots off to get them drinks and alert the saloon girl to their presence.

  “Why is he so cheerful?” Ivy says to the pine tabletop.

  “Dropped on his head as an infant?” Sam says, still glaring.

  Ivy looks up.

  Sam flushes. “I beg pardon. That did not—I should not have—”

  Ivy laughs. “What else might you say if you shared what you really think?”

  Sam shudders and looks away. He pulls off his hat to push a dirt-encrusted hand through his hair. “We are not made for this, you and I.” He looks at her, smiling, though his gray eyes seem sad. “Some people, I suppose, are.” His gaze follows Melchior back to their table.

  Melchior pushes a warm lemon soda bottle across the table to Ivy, another beside Sam, then two shots as he sits, spinning his chair so he can lean his crossed arms on its back to face them.

  “More races this evening. Give Chucklehead a dodge till then.” He throws back one of the shots. “Cards and shooting before. Want to partner on a range? Grip sneaked. Haven’t seen him since livery.”

  “He must have known what these events were like,” Ivy says under her breath.

  Sam slides the second shot toward Melchior.

  “For you.”

  “It is the middle of the day, old man. And we may have to negotiate later.”

  “Look like you need it.”

  “Thank you.” Sam closes his eyes and rubs his temples.

  Sipping her soda, Ivy must silently agree. The two men had enough water to shave this morning, knowing they would reach Silver City before nightfall, but Sam appears more haggard and exhausted than she has yet seen him on the trail.

  “I ... dislike this ... celebration,” Sam says delicately after a drink of his own soda. He does not look at Melchior.

  Melchior smirks. “Not supposed to. Not a good holiday for you, is it?”

  “This hotel is full—”

  “We’ll find something.” Melchior waves a hand. “Fixing to shoot?”

  “No, thank you. Do the individual competition if you have no partner.”

  Melchior pushes the shot back toward him.

  A harassed-looking saloon girl, easily past forty, drops a clay bowl of chili con carne with crisp tortillas on their table. Melchior asks her for steak quesadillas before she dashes away.

  “Don’t keep ordering more that we have to pay for,” Ivy says, watching her go. Or, in a hotel saloon, must they pay for everything? “We need that money.”

  “Didn’t I say I’d double before sunset?” Melchior rolls his eyes.

  “By cheating at cards?” Sam gazes at the chili bowl expressionlessly.

  “Sard—way you two take on, feel I’m in church. Sitting beside my mother.” Melchior throws back the second shot. “Will at least need you to bet on us at the race, Sam. Winnings two ways then.”

  Ivy tries the chili, wondering if anyone in the shooting, ax throwing, and other weaponed games has not been drinking whiskey before starting. Perhaps only beer for some.

  They remain mostly silent as they eat, only Melchior talking about how much the town has grown since he visited as a boy when his father came to Silver City selling horses.

  Ivy does feel better with the food after all. Perhaps they can find somewhere in town with a rope and corn husk bed and not be on dirt tonight.

  Melchior wolfs down a quesadilla, then leaps from his chair, saying he must get to the first target competitions.

  “Do not....” Sam looks up, eyes worried.

  “Don’t what?” Melchior raises an eyebrow.

  “Get killed out there.”

  Melchior laughs and slaps his shoulder. “Just down on all. Find us a room and I’ll meet you back here directly.”

  “I thought he said he would help secure a place,” Ivy says, watching him go.

  With their plates cleared, Sam gazes around to the bar. “Ivy—”

  “I’m not walking around out there again.”

  His shoulders relax. “Yes. I was going to suggest as much. I know this is little better, but do you mind remaining here while I make more inquiries? Whether I do or do not find a roof and bath I shall return within the hour. We can either make our way to the place or ... step out.”

  Ivy has no desire to remain alone in a smoky hotel bar in this deadly town, but she nods. She can think of no better solution.

  With Sam gone, she moves to spectators around the faro table, nearly empty bottle in her sweaty hand. By appearing to be part of an observing group, which does include a few women, she is no
t harried. She cannot follow the game, knowing nothing about how it is played. The hot press of people in the dim building, smoking and arguing, makes her head spin. Finally, she retreats to an empty spot at the bar. Not ideal, but she would rather be near the saloon girls than alone at an otherwise empty table.

  A jovial silver miner tries to buy her a drink but she says she is waiting for someone and he staggers down the bar to join friends. She fumbles in her abused handbag for her last few coins and buys a second lemon soda when she can get the saloon girl’s attention. Raucous laughter, shouts and obscenities grate while she stares fixedly at the new bottle, picking at the white painted label.

  She has just started her hundredth letter to Kitty in her mind when a tall figure steps up beside her. Ivy looks up, thinking for a moment it’s Grip, a smile starting on her lips. Only a wiry cowhand coated in dust over wooly angora chaps, waistcoat, and sweaty hat as if he just blew in off a drive. Her smile slips.

  “Now, now, now. What’s a comely little thing doing in a place like Silver City? And can an honest fellow buy you a drink?”

  Ivy’s back stiffens. She returns her gaze to the bottle. “No, thank you. I am waiting for someone.”

  “Look at her, Dim. Pretty as a speckled pup, ain’t she?”

  Another man has stepped up behind him, squinting past to get a good look at Ivy.

  The first rests a boot on the low bar rail beside her. “And not from around here, I’ll wager. ’Spect she’s from the States, way she talks.”

  “Where you from, miss? Can we buy you something?” the smaller, stockier man—red bandana almost black with dirt, sandy shirt dark with sweat—weasels up beside the tall one. “On the trail so much we plumb forget what a nice lady looks like.”

  “And smells like.” The tall one takes a deep breath. “Don’t she smell sweet?”

  “Like my Candice’s clothes trunk where she’d keep her cedar and mint.” The stocky man, dust packed into the lines of his tired face, teeth the color of weak coffee, smiles nostalgically.

  “This lady don’t want to hear about your Candice and her trunks, Dim.”

  “Never had a moth problem, did she, Frank? Not ever.” A fervent shake of the head.

  “Dim—”

  “Reckon you don’t either, miss, does you?”

  “Dim, you there?”

  “Why, I recall her saying, ‘Jim’—she calls me Jim, see, only my trail buddies calls me Dim—you know—Dim Jim. Anyhow, she says, ‘Jim, you pack around fresh cedar chips in your pockets, won’t have no trouble with moths or even fleas.’”

  “Hogwash.” Tall Frank leans back, scowling at his fellow. “You’ve got to have it fresh all the time. Plastered all over you besides to do a lick’a good. Better with a lye bath every month and be done.”

  Frank turns again to Ivy, touching his sun-bleached hat. “Now, miss, excuse the eccentricities of my partner and let us stand you a drink. Or could we get you a proper supper? Getting on in the day and you won’t mind me saying, miss, you look narrow as a cowhand on a trail three days after grub’s run out.”

  “I’ll get her, Frank. You’re plumb broke.” Dim slides around to her off side and Ivy feels tension mounting through her legs and back. “Don’t listen to him, miss. Don’t know who he’s fooling. And they calls me Dim.”

  “Lay off, Dim. I seen her first.”

  “I’ve got ten dollars in dust and two good greenbacks so’s I reckon it don’t hardly matter who was tied to the wagon.”

  “No such article as a ‘good greenback,’ Dim.”

  Ivy turns. “You may keep your money. Excuse me.”

  Frank reaches to catch her still bruised right elbow. “Now, miss, don’t take nothing hard on us. We’s funning. Only funning. Truth be, we is terrible sore to see a pretty lady. Would never mean to take offense with you.”

  “Then I recommend you release my arm, sir.”

  He is just letting go, reluctantly, when Sam appears beside Ivy. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?”

  “Great day in the morning.” Frank steps back, stumbling against the foot rail.

  Dim’s eyes widen to plates in his haggard face. “Strike me blind.”

  “Conrad Sam,” Frank whispers. “Thought you’d been hanged. Dim says you’d stole Carter’s horse.”

  “You were both mistaken. Excuse us.”

  He backs from Frank, Ivy trying to slip around Dim, but Dim blocks her.

  “Why you rushing away, Sam?” Frank asks, grinning now, showing two missing teeth.

  For some reason, Ivy feels more unnerved by that grin at Sam than she did when the two men approached her.

  “What do you want with the young lady? You’ve got no use for her.” Frank steps closer, pinning Sam and Ivy in a corner between the bar and Dim. “And here was me and Dim going to buy her a right good supper and show her there’s real men out West.”

  “I believe the lady can make decisions for herself, Sidlow.” Sam’s voice remains quiet in the loud room, though tense as a stretched wire. “I am also certain she announced her intent to make her departure. Please excuse us.”

  Resting his hand lightly across Ivy’s back, as if to take her onto a dance floor, Sam tries to ease them both between the two leering men.

  Frank shifts again. “Why so slippery, Sammy? A fellow’d think you didn’t like seeing old trail partners. What about all those fond memories?”

  “Shin out, Sidlow.”

  Sam and Ivy look up. Frank and Dim turn.

  Melchior is at Frank’s shoulder. “Got something to say to us, I recommend you step outside. Know all about your pal Carter framing us in Albuquerque, I’ll warrant?”

  Frank looks Melchior up and down, eyes hooded, smile curling the corners of his mouth into points. “Well....” he drawls. “Howdy, Melchior. How’s the missus?”

  Melchior punches him.

  Ivy drops instinctively to her knees, shielding her head with one arm, knocking her hat off, as Frank flies sideways and Dim springs at Sam. Glasses are sent spinning from the bar, whiskey and beer splashing, men shouting, fists and boots lashing out. In about two seconds the whole room is involved.

  Ivy slides against the bar, inching toward the door, her soft corset allowing her to double up and flatten against the wood front.

  Melchior knocks Dim to pools of broken glass and whiskey before Frank catches Melchior across the head and shoulder with a spindly chair that smashes apart in his hands, sending Melchior crashing into the crowd. Sam catches Frank’s arms, fighting to twist away the splintered ends of wood. Another man, who an instant before had nothing to do with the encounter, is thrown across a table and nearly lands on top of Melchior as Melchior catches Frank’s ankle with his spur, then rips Frank’s feet out from under him.

  A revolver blast explodes from near the back, more shouts and cursing, more broken glass, a scream from a saloon girl.

  Ivy inches down the bar, slips into an opening, and is ten feet from the door when something like a rhinoceros strikes her back. Shouting, she feels herself smashed to the earth floor, crying out with pain when flesh is scraped off her palms and skirts tear across her knees. The massive man who hit her, apparently punched her way by his neighbor, catches his balance on a round table he topples over, then surges back at his assailant. Gasping, Ivy struggles to her feet, so dazed she staggers, supporting herself on the back of a chair.

  Before her, the saloon door swings open and a man in black frock coat, black hat, black boots, and black trousers steps into the room. He stands still, watching, a ten-gauge shotgun in his hands and a six-shooter at his belt. A silver badge gleams on his waistcoat.

  To Ivy’s amazement, the room quickly hushes, those still inclined to fight or not having seen the new arrival being pulled off their victims by others. A human barricade of half a dozen men separates Melchior with Sam against the bar and Frank with Dim in the middle of the room.

  Sam, nose bleeding, pulls Melchior to his feet. A gash across Melchior’s temple from the ch
air leaves a crimson trail flowing down to his jaw to drip off his chin. Dim sinks onto a chair, bent over. Coughing, Frank wipes blood from his mouth.

  As Ivy backs against the wall near the door, bloody hands pressing into a window ledge behind her for support, all eyes turn toward the man in the doorway.

  His gaze continues roaming the crowd. “Seems to be the problem, gents?”

  Several voices speak at once. The badged man holds up a hand. Again, silence falls. He eases the shotgun to his shoulder and carefully lights a cigarette before speaking once more. “First move?”

  Many gazes shift onto Melchior.

  The man in the doorway blows out smoke. “What’s your name, son?”

  “L’Heureux.”

  Now raised eyebrows and mutters accompany stares.

  “Am I to assume, Mr. L’Heureux, that you two parties”—glancing up and down Melchior and Sam—“and these two parties”—at Frank and Dim—“are in dispute?”

  “Yes, sir,” Melchior says. But instead of looking at the speaker, he is staring through the figures before him to see Frank looking back, a cold sneer on his face. Melchior’s face is set, bitterly angry, and ... scared?

  Beside him, Sam looks ill, as if someone drained half the blood in his body.

  “Rest of your names?”

  He is answered with Samuelson, Sidlow, and Buckleby.

  “The four of you will be responsible for compensating the proprietor for all damages, including those you were not directly responsible for. Then you will remove yourselves from my town or spend the night in my jail. Perhaps several, who knows? Up to you.”

  His gaze sweeps the glassy floor and broken furniture as he replaces the cigarette in his mouth. “And clean up this mess.” He walks out.

  “Hold up, sheriff,” Frank Sidlow calls, worming through men and toppled tables after him. “Sheriff! Don’t a man deserve a fair trial?”

  Melchior starts forward. Men from the dividing barricade block his path.

  The sheriff pauses and pushes the swing door back to face him. “Mr. Sidlow, if we held a trial for every brawl in this town, when would we get honest work done?”