Bittersweet (29 page)

Somewhat recovered from his terror, the Easterner began to splutter in a vain attempt to recover his dignity. “I ought…I ought…” he flustered at David.

“You ought to shut up before I shove you down the hole myself,” David warned.

Mac watched the man stomping back to the house, his sense of injury stiffening his spine. “Can’t say as I blame him entirely,” Mac said. “The girls ought to mark that dog of theirs so’s folks know he’s a pet.”

Moss Face had suffered only a crease along his jaw. His scratch was cleaned and he lay by the fire near Karl. Sarah and Imogene had stayed up later than usual to visit with David. Sarah, perched on a footstool with her back to the fire, read him the latest letter from home.

“ ‘Your Pa’s no better’—Pa’s taken to coughing since the accident at the mine,” Sarah explained. “Where was I…‘and Walter has gone down into the mine—Sam couldn’t afford to keep him on anymore. This fall, Sam got a disease in amongst that dairy herd. Those milk cows come out in blisters all over their underhooves and teats. It got so bad Sam had to put them down and burn the lot. Couldn’t even be saved for beef. He and a few of the men got together a pile of dead trees and such and burnt the poor things. When a wind came up, the fire took part of the house, but that old stone barn stood fine.

“ ‘Matthew’s growing like a weed and Lizbeth’s almost grown up. She’s going to be the prettiest of all my girls. Gracie’s young
man’s gone out West.’ Mam wrote that Gracie’d got a beau,” Sarah interjected. “That was the first I’d heard it was more’n a flirtation. I thought Gracie was too sweet on Sam to pay attention to the boys.”

“Sare!” David sounded slightly shocked.

“Well, it’s so.” Sarah ran her finger down the lines and continued, “ ‘Gracie’s young man will send for her as soon as he’s settled. Give David my love.’ ”

She handed David the letter, and the two of them sat quietly for a while, watching the fire and thinking of home.

Karl was asleep in his chair, his head back, his wide mouth agape, snoring gently. Moss Face lay between his feet, resting his chin on his paws.

Imogene had moved away from the circle of light, leaving brother and sister alone, and busied herself at a table near a window that looked out over the alkali flats to the south. By the steady light of a kerosene lamp, she glued the fragments of a china bowl together. She raised her eyes from the painstaking task and rubbed them. Far to the northeast, along the road to Deep Hole, a plume of silver smudged the roadway. There was no wind and the dust hung undisturbed for miles in the cold, dry air, catching the light of the moon.

“Riders coming,” she remarked. “Maybe a freightwagon.”

“It’s late,” David said. “People come in this time of night?”

“Sometimes. A wagon will break down or a horse throw a shoe.”

She watched the cloud creep along the white track. It moved faster than a laden wagon and threw up too much dust for the plodding hooves of draft animals on a windless night.

“It doesn’t appear to be a wagon,” she said after a while.

It was nearly midnight when the night visitors rode into the compound: twelve men in the uniform of the United States Cavalry and, riding handcuffed between the two columns of six, a prisoner. All were death’s-head gray with dust and moonlight. The leader of the troop called a halt, and with a creaking of saddle leather the soldiers reined in. One of the horses reared and turned for the spring. There was a brief flurry of hooves and curses before its rider had whipped it into line.

Imogene, wrapped in a thick woolen shawl, stepped out onto the porch to greet them, Karl and David behind her. The captain barked orders to dismount and the soldiers slid gratefully to the ground, only the man in manacles remaining mounted. Imogene saw his face clearly and stopped breathing. She shrank back into
the shadow of the porch and laid her hand on Karl’s arm. “See to them for me, would you? I’ll be inside. That man”—she pointed to the prisoner—“needn’t come inside. He can be put in the icehouse.” Her voice was so low that Karl had to lean close, like a fellow conspirator, to hear. “The icehouse is warmer than the barn this time of year, and he can be locked in. See that he’s given blankets.” With that, she went back into the house.

The soldiers were glad of the warmth and welcome. Imogene and Sarah brought out cold venison, bread, and a pitcher of hot coffee. An enlisted man was dispatched to the icehouse with a plate for the prisoner. After they’d eaten, Imogene sent Sarah to the kitchen for a fresh pot of coffee, and as soon as the door swung shut behind the younger woman, she asked who the prisoner was.

“Man named Fox. Danny Fox,” the captain replied. He was a ruddy-faced man with a ginger mustache waxed into splendid handlebars. His voice was deep and rich. “Deserter. Up near Fort Roop, there in the Honey Lake Valley just west of here. Some years back, before I was stationed there, he and four others were on patrol. Fox deserted during his watch, and the other four were killed in their sleep. Massacred. We think it was some of Chief Winnemucca’s people. We found Fox in New Orleans.”

“Dan Fox?” Imogene said half to herself. “Did somebody recognize him?”

“Indirectly. The widow of one of the men who was killed went back to New Orleans after it happened. Guess she fell on bad times. She was…well, she’d…”

“Go on,” Imogene insisted.

“Well, she’s a widow woman without any means, which don’t excuse it, but she’d taken to the street. She all but admitted her dealings with Fox were of a…
professional
nature. Ferguson. That was it—Cora Ferguson.” He snapped his fingers. “She was going through his pockets—he was out drunk—and took his wallet. There was papers in it saying he was this Danny Fox. She’d remembered the name and the description Fort Roop had put out after her husband was killed—said it was burned into her brain, was how she put it. Darned if she didn’t tie him up with a black stocking and go to the police. They turned Fox over to us.”

“What will happen to him?”

“Court-martial. It’s been a while, like I say, and there’s nobody at Fort Roop much remembers him; most never even saw him. Fox
had been at the post less’n a week when he deserted, and I guess he kept to himself.”

“The aay-ledged Fox,” one of the soldiers interjected and the others laughed.

“Alleged?” Imogene repeated.

“When Fox was brought in, the officer in charge said they’d got his wallet from the whore—the widow,” the captain corrected himself, “and asked was he Dan Fox. He swore to Christ he was, then turned around and swore to Christ he wasn’t as soon as they clapped him in jail for deserting. They kept him there in New Orleans for a while, but nobody came forward to identify him as being anybody else.”

“What will happen to him?” Imogene asked again.

“Firing squad,” another soldier answered.

“That’s enough, Jack,” the captain said quietly. “He’ll be tried, ma’am.”

Long after everyone had bedded down for the night, Imogene lay staring into the darkness. Finally she heaved an exasperated sigh and sat up. Dark hair, shot with gray, tumbled around her shoulders, and she caught it back away from her face and stuffed it down the neck of her nightgown. Beside her, Sarah still slept soundly.

The head of the bed was pushed against the outside wall under the room’s one window; she pulled aside the curtains. The night was perfectly still and cold, and her breath fogged the glass in an instant.

Sliding her feet into slippers, she pulled on her wrapper. Soundlessly she padded through the bar area and let herself out the front door. Across the coach road, beyond the pond, the icehouse stood stolid and dark. Railroad ties mortared together with sod and iron spikes formed a blunt, rectangular building. Tufts of grass grew out of the roof like the eyebrows of an old man. Half of the building was below ground; ice was stored there in summer, and goods that couldn’t endure freezing were kept safe below the frost in winter.

Imogene crossed the packed dirt of the yard and skirted the spring. Shrunken to a silver disk the size of a dime, the moon was sinking toward the horizon. Its light fell on Imogene, picking out the white streaks at her temples and leaching the color from her face and robe. Immobile as a statue, she stood in the cold, staring at the black, square window of the icehouse. There was a stirring inside; the prisoner was awake. A face appeared in the window, a pale mask in the darkness of the icehouse. Shadows marked the
sunken cheeks and hollow eyes of a haggard, frightened man. He gasped and let out a little groan of fear as his eyes lit on the apparition, and he shrank back into the shadow.

Unmoving, Imogene watched.

“You real?” he called at last, in a high voice.

She said nothing.

“Oh God, oh God,” he moaned. Too frightened not to look, he returned to the window. “Get away from me!” he whispered, thrusting his face forward as far as the small opening would permit. “Get away, banshee.”

“I’m not a ghost, Mr. Aiken.”

Openmouthed, he stared at her, recognition dawning slowly. “Imogene Grelznik.”

“Imogene Grelznik.”

“Oh, thank God!” he laughed a little hysterically. “Imogene Grelznik.” He laughed again and put an arm out through the window. There wasn’t enough space for his arm and his face, and he quickly withdrew it. “Christ, am I glad to see you. Imogene Grelznik. It’s me, Darrel Aiken, you know me. They were going to have me killed. I ain’t no Dan Fox or anybody else. Jesus Christ, they’d’ve had me shot. Them boys let me know pretty clear what kind of trial I’d be getting. Everybody what knew Fox is dead or mustered out. Jesus Christ!” he said again. “Im-o-gene Grelznik.”

There was a long pause and the laughter drained from his face. “You’re going to tell them who I am, ain’t you?”

“How did you come to have Dan Fox’s wallet?”

“I found it. Swear to Christ.”

Imogene turned and started to walk away.

“Wait! We were playing poker, I was losing bad. I put a knockout in his drink, and when he went under, I took his wallet.”

Imogene stopped and looked back.

“You’re going to tell them who I am, ain’t you?” he pleaded, his breath clouding the frosty air. “They’re set on killing me.”

She turned from him and hurried back to the house.

“You gotta tell them!” The cry followed her.

From high in the foothills behind the house, screened from sight by the twisted arms of the bitterbrush, Imogene watched Round Hole come to life. Men and horses looked like toy figures below. Trails of smoke from the chimneys streaked the sky a shade just
darker than the dawn. Tiny figures, erect in military blue, poured out of the house, and horses, spouting steam like teakettles, were brought from the stable and saddled. Two men broke away from the group and went to the icehouse at a trot.

Imogene tensed, her shoulders hunched and her hands clasped tight in front of her. The soldiers emerged from behind the blocklike building in a few minutes, marching their prisoner between them. He was agitated, talking and moving his hands animatedly. One of the men in blue called out, and a third soldier, the captain, came to join them. There was a long exchange, then the captain reentered the house. Moments later, Sarah Mary emerged, and the two of them began calling Imogene’s name. All that carried up the hill was sound without definition. At length they gave up and the captain shouted an order to his men.

There was a brief struggle as the prisoner refused to mount. Pulling free, he tried to run. The soldiers subdued him with blows and forced him into the saddle. Again, the captain issued a command. The horsemen formed two columns, one on either side of the chained man, and, like pall bearers escorting a coffin, they rode out toward Standish, Susanville, and Fort Roop.

A wild wracking sob tore from Imogene and she pounded her fists against the frozen ground. “God, forgive me!” she cried.

“
WHERE IN THE HELL IS MAC AND NOISY
?”
A GNARLED, BEARDED
man called down from the seat of the mudwagon. Several of his front teeth were missing, and the gap made a neat channel for spitting tobacco juice. He aimed a black stream cleanly over his swamper’s knees on the side away from Imogene.

“No Reno stage yet,” Imogene replied; she’d come down from the porch to greet the coach. “They must have broken down somewhere along the line.” It was a clear, cold January day, and Imogene had to shade her eyes against the glare of the winter sun.

As she spoke, the door of the coach opened and a young man stinking of hair oil and rum jumped down. The ground stopped him cold and he nearly fell. Instinctively, Imogene’s hand shot out to steady him, but his bumbling entrance embarrassed him and he waved her away impatiently.

“That stage is over two hours late,” he snapped, pulling out a cheap, showy watch and fob. “Two hours late coming in from Reno, and I’ll know the reason why.”

Ross spat again. “Dizable & Denning’s latest. Maydley, meet Miss Grelznik. She runs Round Hole.”

“Mr. Maydley and I have met,” Imogene said dryly. “Mr. Maydley used to carry my packages for me.” Ross inhaled some
tobacco juice, and he was submitted to a thorough pounding by Imogene before he’d recovered.

“I’m an inspector now,” Harland retorted. “I inspect all the stops. Make sure they’re up to snuff.” The January wind made his nose run. He sniffed and pinched it. His acne-scarred cheeks were a dull purple with cold.

“If he ain’t here, he ain’t here,” Ross reasoned, ignoring the new inspector. “Let’s cover these brutes and get in out of the wind.”

Harland hurried indoors.

In the kitchen, Sarah heard the door bang and called out, “How many for lunch, Imogene?”

Harland stopped at the sound of her voice and followed it. The kitchen door was propped open with a stone. Inside, Sarah bent over the table, pounding a lump of dough. Strands of blond hair escaped their pins, falling in tendrils over her temples, a rosy glow flushed her cheeks, and the warm, homey smell of baking bread filled the kitchen. Harland leaned in the doorway, assumed a rakish air, and waited to be noticed. After a few moments, when his piercing stare failed to rouse her, he cleared his throat.

She looked up and started at seeing him so near. For a moment she stared at him without recognition. He took it as a compliment, smoothing back his oiled hair and running his palms down his waistcoat.

“Harland Maydley, inspector for Dizable & Denning,” he said, and waited for the significance of his announcement to come home to her.

“Oh. The boy at the Wells Fargo office.” She looked around the kitchen and, finding no new exits, fastened her eyes on the dough in front of her.

“I’m an inspector now. Dizable & Denning. I’m the one checks the stops, sees that things are running smooth. We just came down from Fort Bidwell way.”

“Um.” Sarah fumbled with the dough.

“I’d say this place is looking pretty good.” He rolled his eye around the kitchen in a proprietary manner. “Just the three of you running the place?”

Sarah nodded.

“Your mister coming in for dinner and catching you talking to another man got you in a fluster?”

“No…I don’t know…” Sarah murmured.

“Your husband, he keep you running?”

Sarah favored him with a blank look. “You mean Karl? Karl’s not my husband, he’s the hired man. Karl Saunders.”

“Just the three of you? No Mr. Ebbitt?” A crimped smile hardened Harland’s face. Sarah realized what she had done, and her hand flew to her mouth. The flour on her fingers left two white marks, like cat’s whiskers, on her cheeks.

“Sarah, has Karl come in?” Imogene called from the other room.

“Excuse me.” Sarah scurried past Harland. Imogene was tying her white bar apron over her dress. “He ain’t…” Sarah stammered, “He isn’t…hasn’t come in. He wasn’t feeling well and went out to the barn to lie down. He said his stomach’s been hurting him.”

“What has you in such a fluster?” Imogene looked past her to Harland Maydley, who was just emerging from the kitchen. “Pay no attention to him, Sarah,” she whispered, then went on in a normal voice, “Wednesday’s coach might have brought in a touch of something. I feel a little under the weather myself. Why don’t you go check on him? I doubt he’s even built himself a fire. Try and get him to come inside.” Sarah waited a moment. “All right,” Imogene sighed. “Tell him Moss Face can sleep with him upstairs.”

By sundown the Reno stage still had not arrived. Ross and Leroy, the swamper, not sorry to be by a crackling fireplace with good whiskey to drink, had unharnessed the team and stabled them for the night. Karl insisted on staying in the tackroom, so Sarah built a fire in the little woodstove and laid in a pile of wood.

After supper, Imogene brought him a plate of hot food, and a bowl of pan scrapings for Moss Face. She declined any supper for herself; the smell, she said, made her feel faint. Her color was bad and her broad face was covered with a sheen of sweat. Sarah urged her to go to bed, and as soon as the supper things had been cleared away, she succumbed to the younger woman’s entreaties and let herself be led off to bed.

Her long, narrow feet were white against the floorboards and her arms angled out sharply from her wide shoulders as she stood in her shift before the washstand. Sarah hovered by, the towel over her arm. “You oughtn’t to be washing. It’s winter and you’re coming down with something,” she warned.

Imogene laved her face and neck. “You’ve even heated the water. What harm can come to me, with you looking after me?”

“I’m serious, Imogene.”

“So am I.” A wave of dizziness overcame her and she leaned forward, braced against the stand, her head hanging over the basin. Water, dripping from her nose and chin, steamed in the cold room.

Sarah took her around the waist, nudging her head under Imogene’s arm, and said, “You’re clean enough.” Imogene let Sarah take her to bed. The younger woman tucked her in and patted her face and hands dry.

“You’ll be all right?” Imogene asked.

“I should. There’s only three. No freighters or anything. And Ross and Leroy are going to sleep out in the barn. In January.” Sarah grimaced.

“Those men live moment to moment. They were paid the first of the month, and everyone but Mac is broke already. And Noisy, but he’s saving up for his ranch.”

“They’re never too broke to drink.”

“Maybe it keeps them warm.” Imogene lay back and closed her eyes.

“Maybe. What were you and Mr. Maydley arguing about? I heard you in the hall when I was cleaning up.”

Imogene snorted. “He expected to sleep and eat here for nothing as a representative of Dizable & Denning.”

“You said no?”

“I said no.”

Sarah smiled and tucked the hand she’d been holding under the blankets. “You’re not scared of anybody.”

“I am, but I just never let them know.”

“I’m scared for Mac and Noisy.”

“Don’t be. They probably broke down and stopped somewhere for the night.”

Sarah kissed her and blew out the lamp. “I’m going to leave the door open so some heat gets in. If you need anything, call me, okay?”

“I will. Good night, Florence Nightingale. Don’t be afraid to wake me if you need to.”

Sarah looked in on the men. They were clustered near the fire; Ross had brought a bottle of whiskey from the bar, and he and the swamper sat sprawled, their feet to the fire, drinking and talking quietly. Harland seemed to be the only one on whom the whiskey had an effect. He lounged against the mantel, his eyes wet with heat
and bourbon and his legs spread wide to counteract his instability. Ross saw Sarah and waved a hand. Harland fixed her with a knowing look and swung out his hip, affecting a devil-may-care stance. The effect was spoiled when Ross let loose with a stream of tobacco juice aimed into the fire, and Harland had to dodge to save his trousers.

“We’re doing fine,” Ross assured her. “We can wait on ourselves. You go on about your business, Mrs. Ebbitt.”

“Thank you, Ross. Good night.” Sarah ducked out of sight and he and Leroy laughed good-naturedly at her shy disappearance. Harland joined in, too late and too loud.

The dishes were done and preparations made for the morning meal. Sarah dusted the last of the crumbs from the table and hung her dishrag over a chairback to dry. The scraping of chairs announced that the men were turning in for the night. She listened until the outer door closed behind Ross and Leroy and she heard the shambling tread of Harland Maydley making his way unsteadily up the stairs, then she slipped into the main room to blow out the lamps and check the fire.

There was a sound on the stair behind her, and she turned. Harland Maydley stood in the doorway, swaying slightly. He’d taken off his jacket and vest and greeted her in his shirtsleeves.

“You’re up late all by yourself. Maybe waiting for somebody?”

“I was just going to bed, Mr. Maydley.” She started for the hall door, but he moved to stop her.

“Since we’re up, there’s no sense going to bed without having a drink and some talk. No harm in talking, is there?” he wheedled.

“No, Mr. Maydley.”

He stepped to the bar and poured the last of a bottle into two glasses. “We can’t talk here so good. Let’s get comfortable where it’s warm.” Reluctantly, Sarah crossed to the fireplace and perched on the edge of a chair. Harland seemed to enjoy her discomfiture. “Boo!” he said, and laughed when she jumped. “Don’t sit so far away. I can’t hardly see you. That ain’t very good business, making a customer feel he ain’t welcome.”

“I have to go now.” Sarah rose hurriedly but he caught her arm.

“What’s your hurry? You ain’t even finished your drink.” He picked up the untouched whiskey he’d brought for her, and held it out.

“I don’t drink,” she managed.

He pulled her face close to his. “There’s a lot you don’t, I’m finding out. Like you don’t have no Mr. Ebbitt, do you? Or leastways not here, you don’t. You ain’t no blushing schoolgirl, neither. Ebbitt must’ve taken care of that before he let you get away. Or Weldrick. You got nothing to hide from me, I’m just one of the boys. You got a taste for it? All alone in bed nights? Or does Karl do more’n water the horses?” He spoke in a rapid monotone, his voice low and his breath laden with whiskey. Sarah tried to pull away but he held her fast, his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her arm. “How about a kiss?”

Before she could react, he toppled her into his lap with a jerk and covered her small mouth with a wet kiss. Sarah cried, the sound choking deep in her throat, and tried to twist her face away. Grunting, Harland clamped his mouth viciously over hers, his tongue probing between her lips, prying at her clenched teeth. He held her on her back across his knees, one arm twisted behind her back. Her legs dangling over the arm of the chair, not touching the floor. With surprising strength, Sarah wrenched her face free of his, but before she could cry out he slammed his hand over her mouth and pushed her to the floor, her buttocks between his feet, her legs flung out in front of her. He pulled her head back against his crotch and wrapped his legs over her arms, pinioning them to the chair. “Got a little fight in you, don’t you?” Panting from his exertions, he bent his face over hers and, watching her eyes, slowly slid a hand down and over her breast, kneading through the fabric of her dress. Sarah shrank against the chair.

“You like that,” he whispered. The sparse hairs that sprouted through the acne glistened in the light. “You like that.” Half a dozen buttons popped off her shirtwaist and clattered across the floor as he shoved his hand down inside her chemise and grabbed at her. “Oh my God,” he groaned. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, and Sarah thrashed with all her might, her heels drumming on the wood, muted cries sounding in her throat. She flailed her imprisoned arms and tried to bite the hand he held over her mouth. The violence made Harland’s eyes shine and he tightened his hold until the flesh showed white where his fingers dug into her cheeks. A flash of pale skin caught his attention; she had kicked her skirt up over her knees. He ripped his hand free of her bodice and pulled the petticoats up above her waist. Bending double, his chest pressed down on her face, he tore away her pantalets and screwed his fingers
into the wiry blond hair between her thighs, his eyes wide, devouring her naked belly and legs. With a cry that was almost of pain, he loosed her mouth to fumble in the warm thatch where her legs came together.

Freed, Sarah screamed, a short, high-pitched stab of sound. It was cut off almost immediately as Harland’s palm smashed down on her mouth again.

“Shut up, you bitch,” he whispered hoarsely. “You’re loving it. You’re loving it.” He wasn’t talking to her but whispering for his own ears. He swung free of the chair. Her arms fell helpless at her sides, the feeling gone from lack of blood. Harland slung her to the floor. He smashed his doubled fist into her temple and she crumpled, senseless.

Pawing like a dog after a gopher, he clawed her skirts aside and unbuckled his belt. Too impatient to unfasten all the buttons on his trousers, he pulled them down half-buttoned. His penis popped out and bobbed in the light of the fire. Grabbing one of Sarah’s breasts in each hand, he supported the whole of his weight on her narrow chest and lifted himself, stabbing ineffectively between her legs. Muttering his impatience, he grabbed his penis to guide himself into her.