Easy Pickings (3 page)

She choked back a cry, aware that there might be observers still, observers who would not be present to comfort a widow on the very night of her husband's death. She stared, amazed and afraid, the anger building in her.

And then she smelled smoke, and caught the flicker of flame. She stumbled down the trail, her heart in her throat, hoping to reach her burning cabin before it was too late.

 

Three

She rounded a bend in the flickering light and beheld her cabin engulfed in fierce flames. A wall of yellow barred the door. A wall of yellow barred the window. A roar echoed up the gulch. She raced toward the inferno, her heart hammering.

“Fourth,” she cried, and plunged toward the door, but the heat rebuffed her, threw her back, singed her hair and scorched her robe. She ran around the cabin, looking for some way in, but there was none. The cabin roared and seethed and spat tongues of blinding flame. She heard a cry, clear and plaintive, over the roar.

The smell of kerosene hung in the air. Light danced off the nearby forest. Smoke eddied down, after boiling upward. Thunderous flame blistered her, drove her back, and finally pushed her to the earth. Sparks shot high, and embers sailed into the night and fell about her.

She ached for her baby. She cried out to him. She itched to plunge through the flame, get inside, and snatch him out. Maybe the well would help. She raced to the pump handle and began cranking it, finally getting a little water, and then more. But she had no pail. She pulled off her robe and soaked it, and soaked herself, and put the wet robe on, and splashed water into her hair, and braved the heat, but the wet robe and wet hair were nothing, and the heat threw her back and murdered hope.

Then she lay on the sod, broken and numb, knowing all there was to know, and hoping that the infant was gone before flame licked his soft little body. But that was something she would never know.

She sat numbly while the cabin burnt to the ground and became a glowing orange heap throwing vicious heat at her. She thought of nothing, the mesmerizing fire blotting out everything. Smoke lowered, and so did the first chill, and she saw stars again, and knew she had to move, because the night was cold. She was a half hour from anywhere, in a damp robe and slippers, and had nothing else. Everything she had ever owned or known was gone.

She sat paralyzed until night stabbed at her, and she knew she must walk to Marysville, must get help, must tell someone that on this night vandals had come and taken everything from her. Her life was smoke.

The heat had mostly dried her robe. That was the sole comfort that March McPhee possessed. She did not know the time. She didn't know if she could make it to Marysville in her robe and slippers. But she started, not wanting to leave her baby, still hoping to hear his little cry in the middle of the ashes. But she walked, feeling sticks and stones push upon her slippers, walking down the steep trail that divided the gulch. She walked, and rested, and walked, and the stars moved in their nightly orbits, and she walked more, as the heavens whirled.

She felt out of her body. She could not connect herself to her own flesh, her own muscle. She seemed to float, disembodied, as the gulch twisted lower and finally opened on a dark flat, where Marysville lay silent, its lamps out. No light rose anywhere save the Drumlummon works on the far slope and the mill works below it, where getting gold from rock never ceased.

She looked for a lamp. She saw only dark frame buildings, black against the sky. She needed a lamp, a person, but the mining town slumbered. She hated the place. Those who had killed her baby were here. Those who had blown apart the mine to keep others out of it had come from this place.

It was very late. The saloons were done. The constable was in bed, wherever he lived.

She thought of Laidlow's Funeral Home, but something stayed her. The hooligans that had come from there were probably the hooligans who had just robbed her of her baby. She stood wearily, so worn she didn't know what to do. A quarter moon had risen.

“Well, missy, you seem to be in a fix,” a quiet voice said.

She whirled, and found a stout, balding, jowly man staring at her.

“I need help.”

“That's for sure, madam. Is there no one looking after you?”

“I lost everything. The fire…”

“A fire was it?”

“Far from here. Up our gulch.”

“If you're willing, come with me. I just closed my saloon. I had a gent stay on, talking of his woes, and he wouldn't quit, and that's what a saloon man is for, the listening. But I'll open up. Or, take you to wherever you're going.”

It was a question.

She had never been in a saloon. But she nodded.

He led her a half a block to a dark building with locked double doors.

“Or we can wake up the constable,” he said.

“Let me talk.”

He unlocked, pushed open the door, and she entered into a dark world, rank with strange odors: cigars, whiskey, sweat.

“I am Tipperary Leary,” he said. “I've heard a lot of stories in my day.”

She didn't want to say her name.

He struck a match and lit a kerosene lamp, and now she saw she was in a long, narrow place, with a bar running along most of the right wall. There were some tables and chairs dimly visible at the rear. In the dull light she saw horse art on the walls, fancy nags drawing carriages.

He eyed her quietly. “Have a seat, madam, and I'll get you some water. Unless you need something else.”

“Water,” she said.

He handed her a glass filled with cool water, and waited.

“I'm listening,” he said. “That is, if you've a story. Maybe it's not one to be told to a stranger.”

In truth, she was trying to sort out what to say. She didn't know this man. He could be one of them, one of the ones who … She caught herself. “It's not a long story, sir.”

He found a bowl of pretzels and placed it before her, and drew some beer from a tap and then sat across a scarred table from her.

She was right. It didn't take much telling. He sat quietly, sipping, listening, not missing anything, saying anything.

And then she was done.

“You've lost more this day than most lose in a lifetime, madam,” he said. “It's a wonder you're here and telling it.”

She was aware that she had yet to speak her name.

“And here you are, in a robe, and needing help, and I'm not the man to put you in proper clothing, having none, and I have but a small room in a boarding house. But I can make a few things happen. First, though, have you the need to report it? We have a constable.”

“I don't know what I want. Tell someone, I guess.”

He eyed her quietly. “I'd not want anything, either. I'd want to crawl into a bed and stay there. And ache for those I lost.”

She didn't respond.

“I'll be doing some things for you, then,” he said. “First, if you'd like a little bite, there's hard-boiled eggs in that jar, and pickles, there, and pretzels. A little something for the stomach. And anything else here…”

She nodded.

“Now I'm going to be leaving you for a bit. I know where to get you some clothing. You haven't a thing but what's on your back. You'll not want to know how I'll get it, but it's all that can be done at this hour. I'll want your slipper, for size, and I'll want you to tell me the rest, for fitting.”

“Medium and … oh, say I'm stocky. And not gaudy. I can't pay.…”

“I'm owed for some favors, and don't you worry about a thing.”

He vanished into the depths of night. She sat, desolately, and then fancied a pretzel, and nibbled on it absently. She needed to make some decisions—but was too numb to think, and finally slumped in her chair, quietly, growing aware that time was slipping away.

She knew there were a couple of public women in town. Mining towns were like that. She had given them absolutely no thought, nor did she really know what drove men to them. Was it the same as what drove Kermit to her?

She wanted only to sleep and not wake up. The saloon was cold, but her robe shielded her from the worst of it. She lost track of time, and then she heard him again. He had some things neatly folded, and he nodded to her.

“There's a closet,” he said, carrying the lamp to a rear door.

Minutes later she emerged wearing a plain and shapeless blue dress and soft doeskin slippers.

“Mr. Leary,” she said. “You've been good to me.”

“Thank Molly,” he replied. “'Twas nothing. She didn't mind helping.”

“I can manage now.”

“And where would that be taking you?”

She didn't know. Back into the night.

“I've been thinking a bit, Mrs.— Did you say a name?”

“McPhee. March McPhee. My husband was Kermit.”

“You know, sometimes dark deeds start a man thinking, and I've been doing that, running about Marysville in the wee hours. I think you might be hasty, making your troubles known entire. You've got some gold-fevered rotters stealing your mine and killing you and your child, men who might strike again if they knew you were alive. And I don't see that the constable could help you any, with nothing to go on. He's fine old gent, with gray whiskers and a nightstick, and he's very good at boxing the ears of little boys when they torment dogs. I imagine he even knows which end of a revolver is the muzzle.

“But as I am saying, I'm not good with words, you don't know who the devils might be, and a gold mine is a prize big enough to forget their ordinary decency, and do whatever needs doing to grab the mine away. I'm thinking for your safety, you might want to take a little different road, and if you should, you can count on my help. I'd take it as an honor.”

“I don't know. I want to bury Kermit. I want to bury my baby. I want to send them to heaven—if there is any. I struggle with those things. But I don't struggle with doing what's right and proper. A place of rest, a prayer over his grave. A farewell to one I made my own. Some respect. Just a little respect.”

“There will be good time for that; it doesn't matter if this is tomorrow or a week or a month. And the grieving won't change.”

“I can't make these decisions, Mr. Leary. I can hardly remember my name, or Kermit's name, or the baby's name.”

“Whatever you wish, it's my honor to help you get there. I'd say you've got several candidates wanting your mine. One is the assayer, Wittgenstein. Another is those two brutes who studied you and the mine and offered a new widow no help. Another is the young woman at the funeral home who sent them. Another is Laidlow himself, though you didn't meet him there. She might have told him plenty. Who knows who else, eh? Some or several of them want the mine, and would strike again.”

“Not the assayer. A gentleman if ever there was. My husband dealt with him month after month, and Kermit had only good to say of him.”

“Forgive me, Mrs. McPhee, but he's a man who knew more about that mine, and the ore that kept getting better and better, than anyone else.”

“It's not in him, Mr. Leary. He it was who helped me carry Kermit down from the mine.”

Leary shrugged. “I am at your service, whatever you choose. And if you lack a shelter, there's the billiard table, got in here just a fortnight ago from St. Louis, and it'll make you a proper bed for the rest of the night.”

He stood quietly, awaiting her decision.

“Mr. Leary, what you say makes sense, but I am tired and sick at heart and need a little nap. Could I wait until morning?”

He nodded. Somehow he produced a heavy coat for a pillow, and a carriage robe for a blanket.

“I'll be by when it's well into daylight, and I'll be thinking of the two whose souls have started their long walk across the skies,” he said.

She watched him lumber toward the front door. Moments later, she snuffed the lamp and crawled onto the hardest bed she had ever known.

 

Four

March thought she hadn't slept. She was aware only of lying on a cruel surface, aching for her baby. But after a moment's confusion, she remembered she was in a saloon, and a kind man had given her shelter.

She sat up suddenly. Daylight puddled below a grimy window. Then she saw him, unmoving behind the bar.

He noticed.

“I thought to be watching over you,” he said.

He looked different in daylight, a little younger perhaps.

She realized he had quietly spent the rest of that terrible night there, behind his bar. A great tenderness coiled up in her. “I feel safe,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I'll be stepping out while you look after your needs,” he said. “Then we'll see what the day brings.”

He left his stool and headed through the door, blinding her with momentary sunlight in that shadowed place.

After she had wearily washed her face and looked after herself, she headed for the street door and nodded him in.

“I'm all yours to command,” he said. “Have you given matters some thought?”

She hadn't, and yet she knew what she would do.

“I want to arrange a service for my husband and baby. I want to bury them. So yes, I want to go to Laidlow's and talk to the man.”

“Then we'll do it,” he said. But then paused. “If you want me along.”

“I do,” she said.

“There may be those at that place who would not welcome the sight of a witness, an heir to the mine, and a survivor of an attempt to kill her.”

“I have a husband, and I have a little boy, and they need to be laid to rest, sir.”

“Then I'll be helping you do it, if you want the help.”

“I'd be thankful. I can barely make myself think. Some day, I'll repay you.”

“Repay me? Surely you don't think it's owed.”

She owed him. She would repay someday. But she wouldn't argue it with him. He poured some tea, and added some crumpets he had gotten somewhere in Marysville.