The Third Western Megapack

by Barker, S. Omar

  A crowd began to gather and as Caleb lay dying he heard the deputy address them.

  “The son of a bitch shot Mr. Wembly,” he said. “Damn good thing I showed up when I did.”

  Venus was sobbing as she held her torn dress against her bosom. “I was walking with my husband and he came from nowhere and just shot him. Then he,” she wailed, “he attacked me!”

  The crowd gasped in shock as Caleb Crosby breathed his last breath.

  BAD BLOOD AT DRY ROCK, by Arlette Lees

  Deep in Vulture Canyon, an old prospector found my husband’s remains beside his mule. Both had been shot once in the head, the saddle bags emptied, his six-shooter gone. The gun, with its crooked barrel and loose chamber, was useless. It would probably have blown up in Rolf’s face had it cleared the holster.

  Forgive me if I don’t wear black veils and widow’s weeds, but Rolf didn’t know I existed once he began his love affair with gold. Because I was stranded in a leaky tent on the banks of Lost Horse Creek at the tail end of summer, I dutifully cried a few tears and got on with the business at hand. Except for half an ounce of gold dust, a tired mule, a laying hen, and a handful of clothes and cooking utensils, I was flat busted.

  I’d never wanted to leave our homestead in the mid-west to strike it rich in the Wild West, but Rolf was a stubborn German, the kind who was always right.

  Now, he’s dead right.

  I packed up old Tom and headed for Dry Rock. It was just as dry and dusty as the name implies, but it was where we purchased supplies and made a few friends. Like most wives who were dragged west, only to be widowed or abandoned, I was left with three options. I could starve, sell my virtue for two bucks a pop or…well…I hadn’t figured out option number three. All I knew was that I wasn’t particularly crazy about choices one and two. I had a few things working in my favor. I was young, pretty, and determined to survive. If I was going to starve, I might as well have stayed in Ireland where I was born.

  Once I arrived in Dry Rock, I pitched tent in a vacant lot between the Last Chance Saloon and Quan Lee’s general store. Lee was a handsome young man who’d been born in San Francisco and spoke English more properly than most of the drifters and miners that walked through his door. Except for holidays when he wore red and gold embroidered silk, he wore traditional black pajamas with a shiny queue that fell to his waist. His store carried a little bit of everything, but he’d grown wealthy outfitting gold miners who were chasing their dreams.

  Lee was the closest thing Dry Rock had to a doctor. At the back of the store he kept bottles and jars of mysterious powders, potions, and elixirs labeled with Chinese characters. On occasion, a white person under the cover of darkness would leave through the back door with medication to cure his ills.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Krause,” said Lee, as I lay my purchases on the counter.

  “It’s just Susan Coyne, now that Rolf is gone.” With my long auburn hair and green eyes, the Germanic name never suited me any more than Rolf did.

  “Gone?” said Lee. “Gone how?”

  “Gone, like in shot dead for gold that was probably worth less than the bullet that killed him. He got more sand in his boots than gold in his pan.”

  “My deepest condolences, Miss Coyne. Perhaps he was born under an unfortunate placement of stars.”

  “Yes, he was not a lucky man.”

  Lee measured out a small sprinkling of gold dust and returned the remainder to me in its red velvet pouch.

  “I hope you don’t mind my setting up camp next door. I need a day or two to figure out my next move.”

  “A quiet neighbor would be nice for a change,” he said, gesturing toward the saloon. “There’s a rain barrel beside the store. You’re welcome to the water.”

  “Thank you, you’re very kind.”

  His eyes rested for a moment on my face, his expression unreadable. Perhaps he was wondering how long a woman with limited resources could last in a hell hole like this. I wondered the same.

  * * * *

  That evening, I watered Old Tom and placed Miss Penny in a box of straw in the tent. I bathed by lantern light, then lay awake listening to the rowdy uproar from the saloon, the shattering glass, the drunken laughter of bar girls, the scrape of boots as fights erupted onto the boardwalk out front. Sometime after midnight I drifted into restless sleep.

  The next morning I woke with an idea. Miss Penny wasn’t exactly the goose that laid the golden egg, but chickens and eggs were a rare commodity in frontier towns, and by noon I’d sold two lovely brown eggs for two dollars each to a lady who wanted to bake a cake for her daughter’s wedding. That left me with two eggs in my basket. Perhaps it was premature, but it gave me a guarded sense of optimism.

  Sheriff Longstreet stepped out of the saloon and strode my way. Despite the heat, he dressed in a black suit with a vest and tie. Silver spurs with Spanish rowels jangled with every stride, and he displayed a gun at his hip. My mother would have labeled him a real “show-offy” person, the kind you don’t want to get too close to.

  Longstreet had blown into Dry Rock the previous year, running unopposed for the position that had cost the last two sheriff’s their lives. When asked about his background, his story changed with every telling, but he got the job anyway because no one else would take it. When he purchased a high quality horse, whose price far exceeded that of a sheriff’s lowly salary, people started to buzz with speculation.

  I shaded my eyes from the sun that bounced off the silver conchos on his hat.

  “I heard about Rolf,” he said. “Tough break.”

  “News certainly travels fast.”

  “He was an idiot to leave Wisconsin with all that water and nice green grass. He was out of his element here.”

  “It’s a little late to impart that gem of wisdom, Sheriff.”

  Longstreet had dark eyes, but no matter how hard you looked, you could never tell if they were brown or deep blue. A trill of anxiety ran up my spine as he took me in from head to toe like a butcher trying to decide which cut was the juiciest.

  Lee was setting out crates of vegetables in front of the store, and when he glanced up and saw my distress, he dropped what he was doing and walked over.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Coyne. Sheriff.”

  Longstreet gave a stiff nod. “You’re just the person I want to see,” he said. “I’m looking for a girl called White Jade. I thought you might know her whereabouts.”

  “I haven’t seen her,” said Lee. “I don’t frequent that side of town.”

  “How noble of you. I’ve heard Woo Dock has been trying to buy out her contract.”

  “My brother does not traffic in human flash,” said Lee.

  “Certainly you’ve heard rumors. People talk.”

  “I’m a businessman with no time for idle gossip.”

  Faced with Lee’s impenetrable wall of non-information, Longstreet’s demeanor shifted. A bead of sweat ran from beneath his hat band and down his forehead. I could almost smell the bad blood between them. If the sheriff had been a bull, he’d have been pawing the ground and snorting fire.

  “You know,” said Longstreet, “there’s talk of moving all of you Chinamen to the far side of Dry Creek, in which case I might be willing to take the store off of your hands if, of course, the price is right.”

  Lee gave him a hard look. “That’s not going to happen, Mr. Longstreet. How about you stick to your side of the street and I’ll stick to mine.”

  “Now that we’ve had our little chat, I hope you’ll be so kind as to excuse us. I have a matter of importance to discuss with Mrs. Krause,” said Longstreet, dismissively.

  “I’d like Lee to stay,” I said. “And it’s Miss Coyne now that Rolf has been murdered.”

  “Murdered? It was more likely an accident. He was a bad aim with a ba
d gun.”

  “That may be true, but how he managed to shoot his mule after he was dead is something you might care to contemplate.”

  “Well, you got me there. The point is, I can’t see how you can make it on your own now that he’s gone.”

  “You presume a great deal for someone who barely knows me.”

  Longstreet snapped a match to life with his thumbnail and touched it to the end of his charoot, the smoke collecting beneath the brim of his hat.

  “You might not feel so cocky when your tent is three feet deep in snow. I’ve simply come to offer you employment at the Last Chance, Miss Coyne. Sooner or later you’ll have to do something to keep the wolf from the door. The saloon is nice and warm in winter, and you can sleep late in the mornings. Right now I’m saddled with half a dozen leather-skinned half-breeds. A year or two above stairs and you might say they’ve lost their bloom.” It was the first time I’d seen him smile, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. He looked at me expectantly, the charoot clamped tightly between his teeth.

  I was close enough to Lee that I could feel the angry heat rising off his skin.

  “Thanks for the offer, Sheriff, but I’d like to hang on to my bloom a while longer,” I said.

  “I can pay you twice what I pay those…”

  Lee advanced on him a step or two. “She’s already given you her answer. Isn’t Isadore Dunne capable of doing his own pimping these days?”

  “I’m afraid you’re behind the times. Old Izzie is on his way to San Jose. The Last Chance is under new ownership…mine. And in case that son of his decides to raise a stink, I have documentation to back up my claim.”

  “That’s news to me,” said Lee. “He told me just last week that he has a new piano arriving by wagon freight. That doesn’t sound like a man who’s about to sell out.”

  “Let’s just say he drew a bad hand of poker and leave it at that.” He turned his attention back to me. “You’d be wise to consider my offer while it’s still on the table.” The sheriff reached out and ran a lock of my hair through his fingers. “Gold silk,” he moaned.

  I jerked away from him, and Lee pulled me behind him, acting as a protective shield. When I saw him clench his fist, I touched his arm in a cautionary gesture. There’s nothing Longstreet would like better than to gun Lee down in the street and steal his store.

  The sheriff flicked his charoot into the dirt. “Looks like you’d rather take up with a dirty Chinaman,” he said. “Too bad his days in Dry Rock are numbered.” He looked as if he was about to walk away, then turned back and picked an egg out of my basket. He rolled it thoughtfully in his hand, then let it drop to the ground with a splat. “Ooops!” he said. “Delicate little things, aren’t they? You know, Susan, the only thing that stands between you and the crib above the saloon is a scrawny chicken and two…make that one…lonely egg.”

  He walked away, spurs jangling, sun flashing from the conchos on his hat.

  “The man’s a menace,” said Lee. “Are you all right?”

  “I will be in a minute. I doubt we’ve seen the last of him, though.”

  “He’s the only man I’ve ever known who can strut standing still.”

  We shared a good laugh. “You have a fine sense of humor, Mr. Lee.”

  “I need a cup of tea. How about you?”

  “Yes, that would be lovely.”

  “By the way, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re being watched.”

  I turned to see a woman in the second story window of the saloon. Lupita Gomez. I was shocked at her appearance. She’d lost a great deal of weight since Rolf and I left for Lost Horse Creek. The once-beautiful girl pressed her palm against the pane as if to impart a message, then dropped the curtain.

  * * * *

  Lee put the Out To Lunch sign on the door and pulled the shades against the brutal angle of the sun, casting the room in a soft amber glow. Using the pickle barrel as a table top, we drank jasmine tea and ate almond cookies. Red lanterns with gold tassels hung from the ceiling, and the aroma of exotic spices and perfumed soap and fresh onions hung in the air. We shared a comfortable closeness, made even more meaningful by the introduction of a common adversary.

  I admired Lee’s strength of character and calm self-assurance. For the first time since I arrived on the frontier I didn’t feel lonely, abandoned, hungry or cold. The only shadow over my head was Longstreet, but it was a big scary one.

  “Lee,” I said. “What do you think really happened to Izzie?”

  “The same thing that happened to Lum Tan.”

  “Lum Tan? I’m not familiar with the name.”

  “Of course, you’re not. He ran the cribs of Chinese girls on the other side of Dry Creek until someone put a bullet in his ear. White Jade was his youngest and most beautiful girl, a painted doll with tiny bound feet, reserved for special clients at a high price. When Lum was murdered, she ran away. She was a girl from a rich family. It was never the life she chose for herself.”

  “What happened?”

  “The same thing that happens to many girls. They are kidnapped from China, like White Jade was. Others are sold into slavery by poor parents. Most, however, indenture themselves in exchange for passage to America, the place they call Gold Mountain.”

  “Indenture themselves for how long?”

  “Eight years would not be uncommon, although most of them never see freedom. One sick day adds two weeks of servitude to their contract, a pregnancy a year. If they run away and are captured, they are bound for life, a life which is cut short by disease and mistreatment.”

  “I’ve never heard such a terrible story. They wanted the Last Chance and Izzie disappeared. Now, he wants your store. God knows what he’ll do next.”

  Lee put down his cup and took both of my hands in his. “I don’t want you to worry about me. I can take care of myself, and I can take care of you too.”

  * * * *

  When I returned to the tent, I kicked off my shoes, let Miss Penny out to forage, and collapsed exhausted on my nest of quilts, the stress of the day having overtaken me. I felt something hard against my hip and tossed back the covers. It was Rolf’s gun…the same crooked barrel…the same loose chamber.

  I stepped outside, the hard-packed earth hot on the soles of my feet. I saw nothing unusual…children playing…dogs sleeping in the shade…riders trotting down the street. I glanced up, and Lupita was looking down at me from the second story of the saloon like she had earlier. The petite Mexican girl with the snapping dark eyes was now old and used up before her time, like a once-golden peach sapped of its vital juice.

  I lay my hand over my heart to convey friendship, and she returned the gesture, a plaintive smile on her lips. She leaned over the sill and etched the shape of a star in the air. It took a moment to grasp her meaning. The sheriff, the man who wears the star, had killed Rolf and taken the gun that Lupita placed in my tent. I nodded my head. She knew I understood.

  Sheriff Longstreet had plenty of gold, although I suppose people like him never have enough. My husband, however, didn’t have enough of anything to warrant a thief making the rugged ride to Lost Horse Creek. What Longstreet wanted was Rolf’s wife, not his gold. The problem is, I’m not the easy pickings he counted on

  I was born to stubborn stock who figured they’d already been pushed around enough. Longstreet had always been fascinated by the red-gold color of my hair and my light green eyes, characteristics that are unremarkable among the Irish, but at a premium here in the southwest. Longstreet could charge men twice what he’d get for the average poke, at least until I was as used up as Lupita was.

  A dark form appeared behind Lupita. She’s pulled back into the room. The window slammed shut.

  I had a lot of suspicions about a lot of things, but I couldn’t take them to the sheriff. Longstreet was the sheriff. Th
at evening I conspired with Lee, and we decided to place the gun in the safe at the assay office. Between the gun and a statement from Lupita, we’d have the beginning of a case.

  * * * *

  Deep in the night, I woke to the sound of weeping. I pushed the tent flap aside and stepped into a heavy mist that had settled over the town. A large, blurry moon floated over the rooftops, and for once the saloon was quiet, the patrons either passed out or gone home.

  A green lantern flickered uncertainly in the access alley behind the Last Chance. A man with a big square head and a nose the size of a ship’s rudder was unloading seven or eight trembling Chinese girls from a barred cage on the back of a horse-drawn cart. When the smallest girl among them began to wail, Squarehead backhanded her in the face and the others went silent. He rushed them up the back stairs to the cribs, and the night once again went quiet. I wondered if White Jade was among them.

  As I turned back toward the tent, a wavering candle flame appeared in Lee’s upstairs window. A shadow moved across the shade, then two shadows met in an embrace. I dropped my gaze, a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  I realized with a jolt that Lee had come to mean more to me than just the man who ran the general store. I had sensed a connection between us, a subtle visceral tug…at least I thought I had. I took a deep, centering breath. I’d been indulging myself in a fantasy born of loneliness and misdirected longing. It wasn’t Lee’s fault. He’d made me a cup of tea, not a promise, and I’d been foolish to read more into it than was intended. A chill gust of wind lifted the hair from my shoulders and ruffled the hem of my nightgown. I slipped quietly back into the tent.

  * * * *

  The next morning, I tucked my feelings away, unwilling to admit that a heart can be as fragile as one of Miss Penny’s eggs. I put on a smile, my blue calico dress, and arranged my hair in one long braid down my back. There was a big brown egg in the straw beneath Miss Penny, and I sold the last two in my basket to the preacher’s wife. She and the preacher had a rough row to hoe if they thought they were going to Christianize the heathens in this town. As she walked away, the eagerly awaited freight wagon pulled in front of the saloon. For the inhabitants of Dry Rock, it was better than the circus coming to town.