Jasper French jumped down from the high wagon seat and commenced watering his six sweaty mules. Longstreet stepped out of the saloon with some kind of document in his hand, and I moved closer to the boardwalk to get a better view of what was going on. Jasper examined the Bill of Lading, and soon the men were engaged in a heated conversation. Jasper, a crusty character not easily intimid-ated, held his ground, and Longstreet stomped back into the saloon.
A feisty black terrier began nipping at the heels of the mules. After a kick sent him rolling in the dust, he changed tactics and chased a cat up a pole. I picked up Miss Penny, placed her in her box inside the tent, and tied down the flap.
After Jasper finished watering the mules, he pulled the wagon in front of the general store. Lee waved me over, and the three of us went inside. We settled in chairs around the barrel, and Lee passed out bottles of sarsaparilla.
Jasper was as done in as his team. He took his hat off and rolled a cigarette. He was a tough sun-pickled mule skinner who delivered goods to the far-flung outposts of the west. He had been shot by bandits, porcupined with Apache arrows, but never lost a shipment, To the delight of local youngsters, he’d display his multitude of scars and let them feel the arrowhead still embedded somewhere north of his liver. Of course, a harrowing story went with every battle wound.
“So, what’s going on at the Last Chance?” said Jasper. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to turn Izzie’s piano over to Sheriff Longstreet. It’s been bought and paid for, and if it goes to anyone, I figure his son is next in line.”
Lee proceeded to tell the story that he heard Longstreet repeating all over town.
“That’s a crock,” said Jasper, scraping a match to life on the sole of his boot and firing up his cigarette. “The only place Izzie is headed is Boot Hill. I found him lying in a gully twenty miles east of town with two bullets at the base of his skull. Indian’s don’t kill folks that way. This was an assassination, plain and simple. His son Alvie and the undertaker are on their way out there now.”
“This comes as no surprise,” says Lee. “What was the paper Longstreet was waving in your face?”
“The Bill of Lading for the piano and the Bill of Sale to the saloon.”
“Did the Bill of Sale look genuine?” asked Lee, leaning forward in his chair.
“Yes and no,” said Jasper. “It was signed by Dunne all right, but instead of Isadore Markham Dunne, he signed it, I. M. Done.”
Lee and I look at one another in disbelief.
“That would never hold up in court,” I said. “Dunne was trying to tell us the document was coerced.”
“What court?” said Jasper. “The Circuit Judge won’t be back in Dry Rock for another six months.”
“Then we’ll need to come up with a plan of our own,” said Lee. “If you can get a hold of Alvie, we can meet back here tonight.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” says Jasper. “In the meantime, there’s a great big piano blocking access to your delivery.”
The piano came in a sturdy wooden crate, and I got out of the way while the men wrestled it into one of the two back rooms of the store. Jasper helped unload the wagon, and after he left to bed down the mules at the livery stable, I stayed to help stock the shelves with the new merchandise. There was coffee, flour, sugar, tobacco, whiskey, patent medicine, hard candy, bolts of calico, prospector’s tools, guns, ammunition, lanterns, tents, boots, slickers, and toys. It was all very exciting.
Lee opened the door, and customers piled inside. I soon found myself measuring cloth, bagging vegetables, and weighing gold dust. By the time we closed at the end of the day, I was in high spirits and wearily brushing dust from my sleeves.
“That was fun,” I said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear.
“Here comes your reward,” said Lee, opening the door for the boy from the Chinese restaurant who arrived with steaming bowls of vegetables, rice, noodles, and deliciously seasoned beef with mushrooms, all in cartons and packed in a woven basket. Lee paid the boy, and we feasted around the pickle barrel. Afterward, we settled back and finished the meal with green tea and fortune cookies.
“I couldn’t have managed without you today, Miss…”
“For heaven’s sake, Lee, we’re friends. Please, call me Susan.”
“Susan then. Did you know I was married when I was just a boy?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“It was a long time ago. We were only together a year when she died giving birth to a stillborn child.”
“How very sad. You must have been heartbroken.”
“I’ve long been resigned to one day dying an old bachelor. Then a pretty green-eyed girl came to town with an old mule and a pet chicken and I began to hope that in time…”
A shrill scream cut him off mid-sentence. It was a shocking, terrified scream, followed by the sound of feet clattering down the boardwalk. We dashed outside, expecting to see a child run down by a wagon or gunfighters squared off in the street. Instead, we found a crowd gathered in front of the vacant lot. Every eye was focused on the side wall of the Last Chance Saloon. A girl was hanging by the neck from the second story window.
I heard a man say: “It’s that Mexican whore used to be so popular. Look! Someone’s cut off all her long hair.”
“Oh my God, it’s Lupita,” I said. Lupita’s left foot twitched, and her shoe fell downward into the dust.
“Come inside,” said Lee. “There’s nothing we can do.”
I looked over at my tent. Something wasn’t right. The tent flap was wide open and some of my things were lying in the dust. I rushed over with Lee behind me.
My clothes were scattered around inside the tent. Miss Penny lay motionless in her box. I knelt down beside her nest. Someone had broken her neck and a shattered egg lay in the straw. A bolt of fear shot through my body.
“Old Tom!” I cried, gathering Miss Penny in my arms and running from the tent. When I saw the mule nibbling nonchalantly on a clump of sage at the back of the lot, I let out a cry of relief. I started to cry and my knees began to tremble.
Lee waved over three Chinese boys who had gathered at the edge of the crowd. He barked something in Mandarin and handed each boy a coin with a square hole in the center. Then he reached out for Miss Penny. I didn’t want to let her go and wiped my tears on her feathers. She was soft and warm, and I held her for a moment longer. He handed her to the smallest of the boys, who ran off in the direction of Dry Creek.
The second boy led Old Tom down the street to the livery stable. The third boy found a wheelbarrow behind the store and moved my possessions into one of the back rooms. In front of the Last Chance, Longstreet stood shoulder to shoulder with Squareface. They were watching me, smiling and whispering conspiratorially behind their cigarettes. Longstreet pointed a finger at me as if he were siting a deer in a rifle scope.
Squarehead grabbed his own throat, tilted his head toward his shoulder and let his tongue dangle from his mouth. A man on the second floor of the saloon appeared at the window. He pulled out a knife and began sawing at the rope that suspended Lupita in mid-air. The rope gave way and her body landed with a thud on the ground. I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach.
“Don’t let them spook you, Susan. Be brave. They want to see you crumble,” said Lee. “Come inside.” He put his hand at my waist and guided me toward the store. I stood straight with my shoulders back, but I thought my knees would collapse at any moment.
Once inside, Lee caught me as I fell and carried me into the back room where the piano was stored. There was a large safe against the wall and several boxes of merchandise. He laid me on a cot at the foot of the safe, smoothed my hair back from my face, and covered me with a light quilt.
Lee left but soon returned with a small bottle of emerald green liquid from his apothecary.
“Here, drink this.”
“If you help me, he’ll get back at you. He’ll kill you or burn down the store.”
“I don’t think so. If the store goes, the whole town goes. There’s not enough water in this town to tame a glass of whiskey, let alone put out a fire. Longstreet is crazy, but not that crazy. Now, drink this,” he said, holding up the sparkling green liquid.
“What is it? It looks like absinthe.”
“It has a long Chinese name. It translates to, Sleep Like Death.”
“You must be joking.”
“Why don’t I put it on top of the safe. It’s effective but harmless. They give it to children”
I was so exhausted I couldn’t raise my head. As I dozed off, I heard footsteps coming from the living quarters above my head. Lee might not have a wife, but he certainly had a secret that he kept in the rooms above the store.
* * * *
It was dark beyond the window when I woke to the murmur of voices. Lee, Jasper, and Alvie entered the room.
“Feeling better?’ asked Lee, coming to my side.
“Much better, thank you,” I said, sitting on the edge of the bed and smoothing my skirt. “Hello Alvie. I’m sorry to hear about your father.”
“Thank you, ma’am. At least we got him back home where he belongs.”
Alvie was only twenty-three and not the biggest pup in the litter, but he had a good head for business and grew up in the saloon at his father’s elbow.
The men began ripping into the piano crate with claw hammers and crowbars until the lid was off and the piano was out.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to move it when it’s in the box?” I asked.
“There’s method to our madness,” said Jasper. “The trick is getting Longstreet over here.”
“You mean to the store?” I said.
“Yup, that’s the idea. Once he’s here, we’re going to jump him.”
I considered that for a moment. “I can get him here.”
“You?” said Lee. “I don’t want you in the middle of this mess.”
I rose from the cot and neatened my hair. I hadn’t come all the way from Ireland and across the Great Plains to be defeated at the end of my journey.
“I’ve been in the middle since the beginning, Lee. I’ve earned the right to be part of this. Now, air out the smoke and blow out the lanterns. We’ll never get him here unless he thinks I’m alone.”
* * * *
I carried my lantern through the windy, moonless night. The first chill of autumn was in the air. When I entered the saloon, every man who wasn’t too drunk to find his head, removed his hat, not unusual in a town where there was one woman to every two hundred men. The saloon was uncharacteristically still, men slumped over their drinks, the Mexicans and half-breeds subdued and red-eyed. Lum Tan’s girls, some with bruises and black eyes, were huddled together near the stairs.
Longstreet pushed back from the poker table and strode toward me, spurs jangling, eyes cold as stone, with an expectant glint of lust in their depths. I spoke before he had a chance to open his mouth.
“Awfully quiet for a Saturday night,” I said. “Funny, how a murdered whore can put a damper on things, not to mention the bullets you pumped into Izzie Dunne and my husband Rolf.”
He glanced at his customers, who were suddenly coming out of their stupors to listen.
“She’s over-emotional,” he said. “Turn around and enjoy your drinks.”
No one turned around. No one was enjoying their drinks. They were all looking at me.
“You’d better watch your mouth in my establishment,” he said, muscles flexing dangerously in his jaw.
A customer gave Longstreet a venomous stare and walked out. Two more men abandoned their unfinished drinks and followed suit.
“You come here to start trouble?” he said, or to fill the recent vacancy. My generous offer still stands.”
“We’ll see what happens when winter comes,” I said, dangling the carrot. “Right now I’m not that desperate. In the meantime, I have a message from Alvie Dunne.”
“He might as well get it through his head that he has no ownership in the Last Chance.”
“He realizes that, and he’s ready to give up the piano. Every classy saloon this side of the Mississippi has a piano. You can pick it up tonight from the back of Lee’s store.”
“What’s the catch?”
“You need to pick it up before Lee returns from Dry Creek. You have thirty seconds to decide, then I’m leaving.”
“I want the Bill of Lading.”
I removed it from my pocket, unfolded it, and handed it over. Longstreet motioned to Squarehead, who was watching us from the bar. He sat his drink down and lumbered over.
“Let’s go, Greig,” said Longstreet. “We have a piano to move.”
* * * *
The wind was moaning around the corner of the building when we entered through the back of the store, and I could feel the first cold breath of winter in the air.
“There’s the piano,” I said. “The crate stays.”
“Looks like she’s shacking up with the Chinaman,” said Greig, looking at the cot.
Longstreet laughed. “I’ve never stood in line behind a Chinaman before.”
I stuck to our plan, refused to let him get under my skin.
“There’s a dolly in the storage room. Out the back door to your left. I expect it back here first thing in the morning.”
“Get it,” said Longstreet to his lacky. He smiled to himself. “Take your time.”
Greig left the room with a smirk on his face. Longstreet drew a bead on the safe and noticed the emerald liquid on top of it. Golden lights from my lantern danced along the rim of the glass.
“Open the safe,” he said.
I set the lantern down on a stack of boxes.
“I don’t have the combination.”
“Don’t play innocent with me, Susan. It’s obvious you’re playing the Chinaman for a fool.” He kept eying the emerald sleeping potion. “Where the hell does Lee get absinthe? I can’t even get a bottle for my private stock.”
“It’s not what you think it is.”
There was a thud and a few sputtered expletives from the adjacent storeroom. Greig wasn’t going down without a struggle.
“You clumsy ox!” I called out. “You break something, your boss pays for it.”
Longstreet wasn’t paying attention. He was transfixed by the enticing green potion…so like liquid emeralds…so like rare absinthe…a man of indulgence, unable to resist temptation. He picked up the sparkling crystal glass and downed the contents in a single swallow. The taste wasn’t what he expected, and he grimaced. My nerves were beginning to fray. Why were the men taking so long? How long before the green stuff kicked in?
“Now you can tell me what you did with Rolf’s gun.”
“What does it matter? You’re through in this town. Your customers liked Izzie. They liked Lupita more than they like you. They finally know you for what you are.”
“I might be through, but I’m not through with you.”
Longstreet reached out and grabbed my hair close to the scalp. I gave a yelp of pain. He forced a bitter-tasting kiss on my lips and started ripping at the buttons of my dress. I jerked my head to the side and bit him sharply on the cheek. He let go of my hair and cocked a fist. I closed my eyes and flinched, but nothing happened.
I looked into his face. The angry light in his eyes had lost focus. Strength wilted from his fist, then his arm, then his entire frame.
“What’s in that…?” he said.
“It’s called Sleep Like Death,” I said.
His tongue thickened. He struggled to catch his breath, but failed. He was allergic to the medication and it w
as putting him into anaphylactic shock. His eyes rolled back into his head until only the whites were visible. He folded at the knee, hitting his head on the safe as he went down.
Lee burst into the room. He looked at Longstreet lying in a heap on the floor.
“What happened?”
“Sleep Like Death,” I said. “He drank it.”
“What do you mean? It’s only a sedative. Are you okay?”
“I am now.”
Jasper and Alvie dragged Greig’s bloody corpse into the room.
“He put up one hell of a struggle. Even after we got him down, he took a long time to die.”
The men scooped Greig off the floor and struggled him into the piano crate.
“The bastard must have swallowed an anvil,” says Alvie. “I heard something pop in my back.”
He moved aside while Lee and Jasper dumped Longstreet on top of his henchman. A moan was heard as they nailed the lid down tight and loaded the crate beneath the canopy of Jasper’s freight wagon. Alvie jumped on the seat next to Jasper and Lee, and I watched them disappear into the darkness.
Back inside the store, Lee picked up a broom and tapped on the ceiling with the handle. I heard a door open at the top of the interior staircase. Light footfalls descended the stairs. Before my eyes was the most exquisite little creature I’d ever seen, her eyes demurely downcast, long black hair tumbling over her shoulders. She was dressed in white, silk brocade, tiny beaded slippers on her bound feet.
“Susan, I’d like you to meet my thirteen year old niece, White Jade. She was kidnapped from the house of my elder brother in Shantou, China and will be living in the household of Woo Dock and his wife.
The Third Western Megapack Page 8
