Clash of Mountains

by Chloe Garner

  “Mountains are hard work,” she observed as she loaded up Gremlin with the camp gear and watched over Toby loadin’ up his own horse. Kid didn’t complain, and Maxim kept himself to himself not just for the mornin’, but the full day. Pain had that effect on people. She took a wandering route out, in case anyone were watchin’ for ‘em in hopes of keepin’ ‘em from gettin’ back, but the shootin’ were done. They got to the Lawson house after dark, leavin’ the high hills in the dusk and navigatin’ the foothills by starlight. The stable boy came out to get the horses - he’d been expectin’ ‘em - and Sarah stood back, waitin’ at the back as Maxim and Toby went to the door. Rhoda opened it for ‘em and stepped aside.

  “You’re just in time,” she said warmly. Sarah shook her head.

  No tellin’ what kind of meal they were in for, between the chef tryin’ to show off and that there hadn’t been any tellin’ when they’d get there.

  Sarah followed the two of ‘em into the house, and Rhoda tipped her head.

  “Everything go okay?” she asked. Sarah shook her head.

  “Mountains are a mess,” she said. “Need to talk it out with Jimmy.”

  “If you can get any time with him,” Rhoda said. “He’s been in his office all day.”

  Sarah frowned, goin’ through the door to her right as Rhoda went toward the sound of voices in the dinin’ room.

  Jimmy sat at his desk, hands spread across pages as he read, a pen woven through his fingers.

  “How are you?” Sarah asked, closing the door behind her. He looked up, then closed his eyes and sighed.

  “How was the trek?”

  She shook her head.

  “Need to hear that you’re recovered before we talk about that.”

  He sat up, putting down his pen.

  “I’m fine.”

  She shook her head.

  “If you don’t tell me the truth, I’ll have to check you out before I talk to you.”

  He looked off to the side, annoyed.

  “Sarah, I…” He swallowed, the muscle in his jaw working, then he looked at her. “I’m seeing double and I have no appetite.”

  She looked at the empty tumbler on his desk, and he shrugged.

  “My head hurts and… everything hurts. But I have work to do.”

  “You come to see to your guests, and we’ll talk tonight.”

  He blinked, then rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, pinching his nose.

  “Inconvenient,” he said.

  “Being sick always is,” she said.

  “What happened up in the mountains?” he asked.

  “Maxim’s scout is dead. Died bad. They know where both of his claims are, no question.”

  “Who?” Jimmy asked. “Do you know?”

  “Four men and another one,” Sarah said. “I got a piece of the one I knew, but he got away. Like shooting a tree, for how hard it is to kill that man. Of the four, we killed three of them and one got away, but not with the guide. I’d put his chances of surviving at just over half.”

  Jimmy nodded, pinching his nose again.

  “All right.”

  She waited, and he stretched his eyes open at her.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Thought there would be more than that.”

  “There will be, once I’m thinking clearly again. Until then, I need to convince Maxim I’m still at full strength.”

  “How are you planning on doing that?” Sarah asked.

  “Go eat dinner,” he said.

  “You’re just going to throw it all back up, from the look of you,” Sarah said, and the corner of his mouth came up.

  “If you don’t think I’ve eaten raw sea bugs with a blackout hangover, you underestimate me.”

  “Upside of refusing to eat raw sea anything,” Sarah said. He stood, pausing and holding himself up on the desk, then nodded. She came around, putting her arm through his.

  “I don’t need help,” he said.

  “Damn well do,” she answered.

  He let his weight drift on and off of her arm as he struggled to balance, and she reached over to put her hand on his forehead. He was clammy, but not hot.

  “You aren’t contagious,” she said. “In case that ever crossed your mind. Another day and you’ll probably feel about normal, other than being weak. But you need sleep, tonight.”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re leaving in the morning. We have things we need to talk about, tonight.”

  She took her hat off as they got to the door to his office, hanging it on a coat rack there, then shrugging out of her jacket as he held himself up against the doorframe.

  “Should be in bed now,” she muttered, then put her arm through his again and opened the door back into the rest of the house. The voices at the table were boisterous as Maxim was in the middle of recountin’ the gun fight with Pythagoras’ hired men.

  Jimmy walked upright into the dinin’ room and Sarah let him go at his chair, goin’ to her own seat and sittin’ as one of the kitchen women brought in a plate.

  Steak.

  Boiled roots.

  Gremlin bread.

  Sarah nodded.

  At least that had gone right.

  She picked up her knife and fork and dug into the steak, not payin’ special attention to the conversation around the table so long as Jimmy weren’t a part of it and Maxim were tellin’ the romanticized version of what’d happened. Eventually, she’d give Jimmy the details what he needed, but probably not ‘till after she got back from Intec. Pressed for time on all sides.

  “They tortured him?” Rhoda asked, and Sarah lifted her head.

  “I’m not a doctor, but that’s what it looked like to us,” Maxim said, noddin’ to Toby. Jimmy’s eyes were on Sarah and she met ‘em.

  “They tortured him,” she said. “I had no call to see it myself. Just know there weren’t no point to burnin’ him ‘less it were for the knowledge in his head. Told you he died bad.”

  Jimmy nodded.

  “But not that they burned him.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “That tell you somethin’ it don’t me?”

  She sliced the root into discs and ate ‘em with her fingers, watchin’ Jimmy go through it.

  “There was a man in Intec who fed his victims into a fire by inches. Kind of a signature for him.”

  “He didn’t have any feet left,” Toby said, pushin’ his plate away. Hadn’t eaten much of whatever were on it, and Sarah pursed her lips. No way he stuck in Lawrence.

  Jimmy nodded, eyes distant.

  “That’s something I can work with.”

  “Like as not, I shot him,” Sarah said.

  “Or I did,” Maxim added. She shrugged.

  “Anything about him I’d recognize?”

  Jimmy gave her a brief description, but weren’t no tellin’ if it were or weren’t one of the three dead.

  “I still owe you a couple,” Maxim said. “You need another gun out here, you just let me know.”

  “You haven’t introduced the kid,” Jimmy said. Sarah could see the tremor at the corner of his eye, how hard he was havin’ to work to focus, but she didn’t reckon anyone else picked it up.

  “This is my nephew,” Maxim said. “Toby.”

  Jimmy turned hard eyes to the kid.

  “What does Sarah think of you?” he asked. Sarah thought that were mostly a twisted way to ask the question, but she didn’t bail the kid out. Toby looked morosely at his plate.

  “That I don’t belong out here and I’m either going to leave or get myself killed.”

  “And what’s the truth?” Jimmy asked.

  Toby turned to look at him, blinking once. Sarah set her knife ‘cross her plate and watched him.

  “I’ve been thinking about it for the last day,” Toby said. “If you’d have asked me yesterday, I would have told you that I just want to leave and go back to my life in Preston. I’m happy in Preston.”

  “And what about no
w?” Jimmy asked.

  Toby’s eyes flickered over to Sarah like he were afraid she’d catch him lookin’, then he looked at his plate again.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere more real in my life,” he said. “And maybe it will kill me, but it feels like Preston is some dream that… that I just woke up from. It was good. It was nice. But… This is real. And I’ve spent the whole day wondering if I want nice or if I want real, even if real is going to kill me, and…” He looked over at Jimmy. “I hate my uncle, sir. He’s mean to me and he’s rude to everyone, and he thinks he can push me around because he has all the money. I don’t want to work for him. I want to work for you.”

  Sir.

  Kid’d called Jimmy Lawson ‘sir’. Sarah twisted her mouth and went back to her steak, knowin’ Jimmy were lookin’ to her for counsel.

  He was gonna do it.

  He was gonna do it ‘cause the kid looked like him.

  And dammit if Sarah hadn’t known it the minute she’d laid eyes on him.

  He had the soft face, the posture. He didn’t have Jimmy’s hard upbringin’ with Peter, but with an edge, he’d be Jimmy’s spittin’ image.

  And Sarah’d be the one keepin’ him alive.

  “There are a lot of young men here who would love an opportunity to take a wage from me,” Jimmy said. “And it isn’t easy work. You’d need to be willing to do hard labor, and you’d have to learn how to shoot a man dead, if you had to.”

  Sarah kept her eyes on her food.

  He was gonna do it.

  Sid and Toby and Kayla. Bright young minds with stars and ideas, and the lot of ‘em relyin’ on Sarah Todd to keep the bad away.

  Weren’t like with the homesteaders. They knew what they was in for ‘cause it were the same their folks had been in for. They’d been raised the way Jimmy’d been raised. The way Sarah’d been raised, more or less. She kept ‘em in the game against bigger numbers, but they knew what it was to lose someone to a bullet.

  Man like Toby? There weren’t no tellin’ how he’d do, the first time the man beside him fell. Neither how he’d do, in that moment, nor in the weeks after. Man who got broke by losin’ the guy next to him weren’t reliable in any fight, and puttin’ ‘em around in spots where Jimmy needed ‘em was just askin’ for holes.

  Finally she looked up at Jimmy, makin’ sure he saw in her face what she thought.

  “We will have lodging available for you in a few weeks,” Jimmy said. “I would recommend you go back to Preston with Maxim and get your affairs in order. This is a dangerous life, and if there is anyone you need to say goodbye to, now is the time.”

  Sarah’s gaze didn’t move.

  Had Jimmy said goodbye to his contacts up and down the coast when he’d come back out here? Not hardly. Just another day for him. Even bringin’ in someone what needed an opportunity like that were bad business.

  “This is my nephew,” Maxim said. “I get a say in this.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t,” Jimmy said. “I assume he’s an adult, premature Perpeto or not, and it’s his decision.”

  “He’s supposed to be overseeing my mines,” Maxim said.

  “From where I sit, that’s not a job with many responsibilities, just now,” Jimmy answered, finally turning his face from Sarah to Maxim.

  Sarah didn’t budge.

  “But I want family doing it,” Maxim said. “If anything, this trip has shown me just how much trust is going to go into this.”

  “Then let him oversee your mines,” Jimmy said. “Pay him what he’s worth, a cut of the profits, I assume, and let him work for me.”

  “That’s a divided loyalty,” Maxim said.

  “I don’t see that you have another offer to make,” Jimmy said. “He wants to work for me, and I’ve offered him a position doing so, with unspecified responsibilities. I’m willing to permit him to work for you as well, but you don’t have the right to tell him what he may not do.”

  Sarah weren’t no fan of Maxim, but she didn’t see the sense in cuttin’ off Maxim to gain Toby. One were able to pull his weight in a fight, with capital to boot, and the other were afraid of his own knees.

  She looked over at Maxim and Toby, seein’ no sense of bluff in Jimmy, and Maxim nodded slowly.

  “This is about me hitting on your wife while we were out, isn’t it?”

  “You didn’t need to tell me that you did it for me to know,” Jimmy said. “And you had to know I would react.”

  “Hell no,” Sarah muttered, then stood. “Hell. No.”

  Jimmy looked over at her with raised eyebrows. She could see the slight sheen of sweat at his temple where he were only just keepin’ it together, and she had a moment of pity that extinguished like a candle in sand under the rage that he would again treat her like a prize to be sparred over.

  “Is there a problem?” he asked.

  “I ain’t gonna let the two of you talk about me like I ain’t here and like I ain’t carryin’ more guns than the two of you combined. I got a problem, I will shoot the man what causes it. Don’t need nor want anyone else involved, damn it.”

  She looked around the table: Rhoda, Thomas, Rich, Jimmy, Maxim, and Toby. The rest of the family hadn’t been waitin’ around up here for Sarah to tote Maxim home.

  “This isn’t about you,” Jimmy said as she were lookin’ away. She stopped, not froze, but let her eyes go lax, feelin’ the need to take out her bullwhip and show him she weren’t afraid to use it, didn’t matter how poorly he was doin’.

  “That’s not how I just heard it,” Rhoda said. Sarah didn’t need Rhoda fightin’ her battles, either, but at least they had aligned interests.

  “Maxim understands,” Jimmy said. “He made a play for my family.”

  “So you wouldn’t let me work for you just because I want to,” Toby said. Sarah turned her head to look at Jimmy again.

  “So help me,” she said. He gave her a cold smile.

  “It’s just business.”

  “Ain’t no such thing,” she said. “It’s men bein’ little boys instead of bein’ men.”

  “How do we keep ending up here?” he asked, and she gave him an exaggerated shrug.

  “You stop draggin’ us back down a road of who done slept with who, we won’t end up there anymore.”

  “Maxim is attracted to you,” Jimmy said.

  “What of it?” Sarah asked. “Half the town’s made a pass at me, some level of drunkenness or another.”

  “Do they hand out brass balls at the bar or what?” Maxim asked. She ignored him.

  “You miss my point,” Jimmy said. “He thinks he is in competition with me.”

  She put her hands on the back of her chair, leanin’ on it just a touch, thinkin’ that one through. Weren’t like it changed much, but that he’d fight over her like that, in light of how she felt every time Lise were in the room… Just worth thinkin’ on.

  “I ain’t a prize,” Sarah said. “Not to be won, not to be competed for. I am fully capable of makin’ my own decisions. If this were about trust, your problem’d be with me, but it ain’t. It’s about peein’ to mark out what’s yours and what ain’t, and I ain’t the type to take bein’ pissed on like it’s just how things are.”

  “Did he or did he not make an invitation for you to leave with him?” Jimmy asked.

  “Way he put it, if I’d believed he meant it, he wouldn’t be breathin’,” Sarah said. “And it ain’t your problem to deal with.”

  “Hey,” Maxim said. “I don’t like you two calling me a problem.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Rhoda said. “This is the point in the conversation when everyone else just ducks and hopes they don’t get shot.”

  “Worth takin’ your own advice,” Sarah said low, and she heard Rhoda grin. That woman.

  “You deserve better than this,” Maxim said. “I don’t know who told you that you belong out here, but you don’t.”

  Sarah blinked at Jimmy. He blinked back.

  He had a gun. Under th
e table. And a dead aim. Sarah could hit somethin’ further off than he could, but at short range with a handgun, not lookin’ down his arm at a target, he had a better eye for a shot than anyone else she’d ever met.

  She could see it in his eye, and she shook her head.

  “You’re a fool with a hot head,” she said. “He ain’t insultin’ me and he ain’t challengin’ you. He’s pushin’ to see how much push back there is.”

  Jimmy blinked again.

  Hot head, Jimmy. Hear it. He was lettin’ the fever think for him.

  Maxim laughed.

  “Sure I’m challenging him. You only married him because he was the only man you met in your life with that kind of power.”

  Jimmy’s expression changed. Weren’t a big change, but it went from dead, cold intent to surprise.

  That.

  That had been a mistake.

  Sarah looked over at Maxim, lettin’ her head roll slow off to the side.

  “You ain’t a bad backup,” she said. “I trust you well enough not to shoot me in the back. Means a lot in an ally. But when Jimmy and I go up against a group of men like what we saw day before yesterday, you know the difference between you and Jimmy?” She tipped her head forward. “He walks in front of me.” She saw the instinct for argument, still playful, and she shook her head. “You’re an old man without the ability to feel that anyone around you is human like you are, and you’re a good ally, but you ain’t family and you ain’t ever gonna be good family. I done right by me, and you insult my judgment, sayin’ otherwise.”

  “You two are far too serious,” Maxim said. Need to get out more. Have more fun.”

  “I’m staying,” Toby said. “I don’t care if you hire me or not. I’m not going back to Preston with him.”

  “We had fun,” Maxim said. “You remember what that was like, Jimmy?”

  “We did,” Jimmy said. The gun was gone. It just wasn’t there in his face anymore. “We had a lot of fun. But then I grew up and I outgrew Preston and then Tyrew and Boon and the rest. I outgrew Intec. And when I outgrew Intec, I came here.”

  Maxim nodded slowly.

  “You two suit each other. I didn’t see it before.”

  “Go home,” Sarah said. “Let the woman out of the room with the dog bed. Find someone to survey your claims and figure out how you’re gonna keep ‘em gun-tight. We’re gonna make you the richest man in Preston, and we’re all gonna be happy with it.”