Silver Lies (55 page)

In the emptiness of her tired mind, an impression uncurled and nudged her. Then nudged again, like a rise of octaves. She slowly unstacked the items, lined them up on the newspaper, and pulled the gas lamp chain to brighten the flame.

Joey’s voice broke into her concentration. "I want to go home."

She examined the items, one by one, looking for what had captured her wandering attention. "We’ll be home tomorrow night."

Before Brown comes back. Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t.

Her eyes followed the border on a twenty-dollar counterfeit bill, then switched to the border of Joe’s assay certificate. She sucked in her breath.

Like close cousins.

She took Angel’s note, torn from a piece of paper. There, on the back, was an empty shield reclining in a bed of engraved flourishes. Inez covered the shield with her thumb. Her mind instantly provided the missing element: A two, followed by a zero, lying on a diagonal band across the shield.

In a fever, Inez unwrapped the counterfeit plates. On the top one, Alexander Hamilton’s profile faced Victory advancing. Above Victory’s head: the same flourishes and shield. Slanting across the shield: 20.

"Auntie? Will you read to me?"

"In a moment. I must finish packing our things." As she rewrapped and restacked everything but the counterfeit bills, she remembered what Mattie had said about Cat’s
inamorato
. An artist. Someone small. Dandified.

Llewellyn.

Inez remembered his workshop. The table. The items that had caught her eye. Half-etched copper plates. Double-Xs, one pair plain, one rococo: Roman numerals for a twenty-dollar bill.

Llewellyn is engraving counterfeit plates! And, if he’s Cat’s man, I’ll bet she’s square in the middle. Cat and Joe, tied to counterfeiting and the Lady Luck. Angel gave me the note on one of Llewellyn’s scraps. She must know about Joe and the bogus money.

Inez wrapped the package in the newspaper and stuffed it inside Joey’s well-worn long johns for good measure. The bogus bills went under the false bottom of her carpetbag, the ball of fabric on top.

She opened
Paradise Lost
at the satin ribbon and told Joey, "It’s late. I’m just going to read a bit where Satan is reviewing his troops of fallen angels."

As she read, Joey’s eyelids lowered, his breathing slowed. Inez closed the book and moved to the gas light, whispering Satan’s last words to his troops: "Peace is despair’d,/For who can think Submission? War then, War/Open or understood, must be resolv’d."

She extinguished the light.

999

All of Denver seemed to be crammed into the depot at four in the morning on the second day of the new decade. Inez squeezed through the crowds, gripping Joey’s hand and her carpetbag. She bought two seats on the early morning Colorado and Central to Georgetown and two sandwiches for later: tough beef and too much mustard. But Inez figured that in a few hours, she and Joey would be so hungry that it wouldn’t matter.

999

Five hours later, still feeling every bump and jostle from Denver to Georgetown, Inez argued with the ticket seller of the coach line to Leadville. "I absolutely must get to Leadville tonight."

He shook his head sympathetically. "The sleigh-coaches are full up, today and tomorrow. You’d best buy tickets for day after next, get a room, and come back in the morning. Maybe something will open up."

Inez clenched the handle of the carpetbag tighter. She felt trapped, the high canyon walls of Georgetown squeezing her like a pair of hands. The claustrophobia intensified her sense of urgency.

The man behind her harrumphed impatiently. She ignored him and addressed the dispatcher again. "How much for two seats on the first available run?"

"Ten-spot apiece."

"I’ll take them."

No sooner had he handed her the tickets than she turned to address the room at large. "Gentlemen." She held the tickets high.

The rumble of voices dwindled and died. Inez continued, "Most of you are probably heading to Leadville hoping to make your fortunes. Well, a couple lucky souls can start right now. I need two seats on today’s coach. I will trade these tickets, good for the day after tomorrow, and throw in fifteen dollars apiece to make your prolonged stay in Georgetown more enjoyable."

There was silence while the men in the room absorbed her proposal. The first man to jump to his feet pulled two tickets out of his coat pocket, saying, "These are for my partner and me, but heck, ma’am, for thirty and a ride out later, we’ll stick around."

"Done!" Elated, Inez extracted thirty dollars, being careful to hide the money roll from prying eyes. The narrow canyon walls of Georgetown eased back; she could almost see the wide open vistas of Colorado’s high country. She told Joey, "We’ll be home by midnight."

999

It was nearly one in the morning when the sleigh-coach from Georgetown hissed to a stop on Leadville’s Chestnut Avenue. As the driver climbed down from the box, Inez took a deep breath of sharp mountain air, tinged by the sulfur of the smelters. Snow blew in through the coach window and landed on her coat sleeve. Lights from late-night businesses twinkled through the falling snow, highlighting figures on the crowded boardwalks and the passing traffic.

Home.

The passengers gathered hats and bags, lit pipes, and prepared to disembark. Joey remained in the deep sleep of the young.

"May I offer you a lift to your destination?" The Easterner who had introduced himself as Isaac Eisemer settled an expensive beaver hat on his head and buttoned his fur-lined coat.

She shook Joey awake and gathered her single bag. "That’s not necessary, Mr. Eisemer, but thank you. Enjoy your stay in Leadville. I hope it proves profitable." Inez hailed one livery rig among the many that hovered nearby hoping to catch fares from the late-arriving coach. She gave the driver directions to Bridgette’s.

"I wanna go home!" Joey was now fully awake.

"Joey, I can’t take you home until we know how your mother is. And we can’t go to my house tonight." She thought of the smashed rocking horse in the parlor.

"But I wanna go home!" He began to cry. Thick snot oozed from his nose, traveling down to his upper lip.

Distressed and exasperated, Inez pulled out her linen handkerchief and tried to sop up the liquid leaking from his eyes and nose. "It’s only for tonight, Joey. Now stop. This is going to freeze on your face."

Inez was relieved to see a dim light in Bridgette’s front window. She paid the driver. "Could you wait? We may need to go to a hotel, I’ll know in one minute." She and Joey pushed through the blowing snow.

After some insistent pounding on the door, it cracked open revealing Bridgette’s eldest son, Michael. He lowered the shotgun. "Mrs. Stannert. You’re back."

"Heaven’s above!" Bridgette pushed Michael aside, flung her arms around Inez, and then did the same to Joey. "Come in, come in."

The frantic look she threw Inez belied her mother-hen tone as she clucked and pushed Joey inside. "Michael, take Joey to the stove and find some dry clothes for him."

Bridgette grabbed a shawl off a peg inside and stepped outside, head wrapped like a nun. "Oh, ma’am, such terrible things have happened!"

Inez’s heart began to race. "Emma."

"No, no, the poor woman is holding on. Oh, if she’d only come around and say who did this to her."

"Have they found him yet?"

"It’s not to be believed." She gripped the shawl tighter around her face, agony drawing lines deeper around her eyes.

"What?" Inez glanced at the still-waiting sleigh and driver, then turned back to Bridgette. "What’s happened?"

Inez felt as if the ground had cracked open leaving a gaping

crevasse at her feet.

"That’s preposterous!" she said fiercely.

"The marshal says he’s got proof." Bridgette wiped an eye with the shawl’s fringed edge. "He doesn’t need much when it comes to jailing the colored. Still fighting the War he is. And he never liked our Mr. Jackson."

Inez put a hand against the cabin wall to steady herself. "When did this happen?"

"New Year’s Eve. The marshal and his men burst into the saloon, accused Mr. Jackson before the multitudes, and took him away. The marshal closed the place down."

Her thoughts turned black. "The
snake!
"

"He asked me where you were. I told him I didn’t know." Bridgette twisted the shawl between her fists. "Oh ma’am, what are you going to do? You can’t stay in town."

"Where’s Useless?"

"I haven’t seen nor heard of him these two days past."

Inez sank her face into her hands, thinking. "What’s the town’s mood, Bridgette?"

"Hung over and surly. There’s talk of the committee, ma’am."

"Keep Joey tonight. I’ve got to see Abe. And the marshal."

"No!" Bridgette grabbed her sleeve.

Inez shook off her hand. "I want to see his evidence. What is he going to do? Arrest me as an accomplice? I refuse to run, hide, leave Abe to be strung up by know-nothings who can’t accept that the South lost fifteen years ago. Did McMillan bring back my shotgun? Good. I’ll take it. If I’m not back by morning, tell Reverend Sands—no, get word to Harry Gallagher—that what he’s looking for is in the Silver Queen’s safe."

999

The driver dropped Inez, her carpetbag, and shotgun in front of the city jail. Built of brick in a town mostly slapped together with green planks, the jail looked sturdy enough to hold the most determined desperado. Yet, only a month earlier, forty-odd masked men had forced entrance and departed with two prisoners: a footpad and a lot jumper. The next morning found the two unfortunates dangling from a half-constructed building. An accompanying note warned all "lot thieves, bunko steerers, footpads, and thieves" that the vigilante committee would not tolerate further misbehaviors.

Inez took a deep breath, ordering herself into calm. At her knock Curly Dan opened the iron-reinforced door. The deputy marshal’s well-worn face betrayed his reaction on seeing Inez.

She offered him the shotgun. "Hello Curly. I’m here to see Abe."

"Mrs. Stannert." Curly Dan looked back over his shoulder. "I don’t think it’s a good idea, you being here."