Territory (12 page)

It was both less real on paper, and more. Other people made page one, not her, and since this was page one news it obviously had nothing to do with her. But the story made everything around her actions real. She could imagine Dunbar and lawyer Harry Jones in the front office of the jail, huddled over the bill of sale for Luther King’s horse. “Under-sheriff Harry Woods” would be waiting for them to finish so he could take the document to his prisoner to sign. And all the time he would be listening for things he couldn’t hear on the other side of the wall.

She imagined Dunbar saying, “Damn, Harry, you’re jumpy as a bitch with one pup.” After that, the discovery of the empty cell and unbarred back door.

Dunbar seemed like a simple, straightforward man, who’d expect straightforwardness from others. But he was involved in county politics; he might not be as simple as that. When he saw the empty cell, did he remember Harry stepping into the hall with his typesetter and shutting the door?

Harry’s article concluded:

    A confederate on the outside had a horse in readiness for him. It was a well-planned job by outsiders to get him away. He was an important witness against Holliday.

Well, it was nice that Luther King was out of reach. Now the Earps and their friends could come after Harry.

She looked up from the copy and found Harry’s eyes on her.

“I don’t believe I’ve had a chance to thank you,” he said.

“I can’t very well say, ‘My pleasure,’ can I?”

“Maybe not now, but you’ll brag to your grandchildren.”

“Hush up and type.”

Poppoppop-pop-pop.
It came from outside, in the street. She stood frozen with the composing stick in her hand.

“Get down!” Harry screamed. He was already on the floor, but he reached up and grabbed her arm. Type scattered over the floorboards. She’d banged her elbow on something as she dropped, she realized.

She waited for the next sounds—more shots, the front windows breaking, shouting. All she heard was her own harsh breath.

Harry pushed himself half up, craned his neck to see through the door. “There’s nobody there. What the hell?” He stood up.

“Harry, no—” But he’d already snatched the Navy Colt from his desk drawer and opened the door. Mildred scrambled to her feet and followed him. If someone shot Harry, she might at least be able to identify the gunman.

She watched him check one end of the street, then the other. He stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, amused, and walked into the street.

He stopped dead.

Mildred flew out the door and across the sidewalk. “Harry, what’s the matter?” she asked his stiff back.

Harry turned and put his hands out, as if to hold her away. “Mildred, go back in the office.”

Too late for that. She saw, past him, what he’d seen: a short string of Chinese firecrackers, exploded. They were tied around the wrist of a severed arm.

A silly noise, more squeak than scream, came out of her mouth. She whirled, pressed her fingers to her lips, and closed her eyes. But the thing in the street stayed in the dark inside her eyelids. An arm with no body, in a coat sleeve with no coat. She pressed her lips painfully against her teeth to distract her from a tide of nausea and faintness.

“Go back inside, Mildred.”

“Why would anyone
do
that?” she gasped.

“I don’t know. I’ll fetch the marshal—”

She opened her eyes, and saw someone coming down the street. Jesse Fox, in a gray frock coat, squinting in the sun. He stopped a few yards short of her and Harry. “Mrs. Benjamin—”

Then he caught sight of the thing in the street. His face went white all at once, gray-white.

Harry ignored Fox. “The coroner may be able to tell whose … whose it is. Maybe someone died—”

“It’s Luther King’s,” said Fox, in a strangled voice.

Mildred looked again. The sleeve had once been part of a threadbare corduroy coat.

Harry began, “How do you—”

“He’s right,” Mildred told him.

It wasn’t a prank. It was a message, and the firecrackers were to make sure they found it. She looked into Harry’s face and saw him realize it, too. Was it for Harry, or for her? Or both?

Other people along Fourth Street were looking out of their offices and
shops. A few were coming toward them to see what the fuss was. Harry went to meet them.

Fox crouched beside the severed arm. To his credit, it seemed difficult for him to do. She could only look at it in glances, or at the corner of her vision. He reached toward the upturned hand with its curled fingers, as if to pluck something from it.

He jerked his hand back with a hiss and cradled it against his stomach. Then he pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and used that to take an object from the dead palm.

“What? What is it?”

“I’m not sure. If I find out, I’ll let you know.”

“You’re removing evidence!”

Fox looked up, his face closed and stiff. “Are you going to tell the marshal who this arm used to be attached to?”

Mildred opened her mouth to say “yes,” and remembered why she could do no such thing.

“Then let’s be model citizens together. I promise, if it turns out to be something the marshal can use, I’ll give it to him.” He stuffed the handkerchief and its contents back in his coat.

“Mr. Fox, what brought you here? At just the wrong time?”

He stood up and dusted his hands off. “If you’re asking, did I kill Luther King, hack his arm off, and leave it in the street, no, I didn’t.”

Mildred shook her head. “I saw your face when you first—” She found she couldn’t say it.

“And?”

“You may be an actor when you need to be, but Sarah Siddons couldn’t have looked like that. So what did bring you here?”

Fox’s shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. “I’ll tell you later. It’s turned into a bad moment for it. Good day, Mrs. Benjamin.”

She watched him walk away, his stride long and quick. Harry came up beside her and followed her gaze. “What do your instincts tell you today, Mildred?”

She couldn’t very well tell Harry that her instincts were being churned like butter and were no use to him, her, or anyone else. “They tell me to get in out of the sun.” She gathered her skirts and headed toward the
Nugget
office.

 7 

The knocker on Lung’s front door was a wooden Chinese dragon’s head with a ball in its mouth. The carving was smoothed and the gilding worn by many hands, as if it was older than the door. Jesse didn’t remember it from San Francisco.

It hadn’t seemed like it at the time, but everything had been simpler in San Francisco.

The door swung inward to frame Lung, one eyebrow raised. “This cannot be good.”

“What gave it away? That I knocked at the front door?”

A snort of disgust from Lung. “You know exactly how I knew. I will not assist you in the maintenance of your self-deceit.”

Most times, the whole of Chinatown knew everything that happened to anyone, Chinese or not, in the interest of community safety. A less self-deceptive man, Jesse thought, would have learned to expect it.

But he
must
have expected Lung to know everything: he hadn’t envisioned standing here trying to explain himself. “Lung, I think I just got a man killed.”

Lung shot a look over Jesse’s shoulder.

“No, I’m not on the run.”

“Should you be?”

He hadn’t considered the possibility. But no—King was dead, and Jesse needed to know if it was his fault. And his fault that a horrible
memento mori
had been delivered to the doorstep of the
Daily Nugget.

“Jesse,” Lung said sharply, and Jesse yanked his attention back to Lung’s inquiring frown. “I said this could not be good. Can you tell me how not good it is?”

“Not yet. I … want your help. In your professional capacity.”

“As a physician?”

“No.” A deep breath. “The other thing.”

“When you cannot even bring yourself to say the word?” Lung looked exasperated. “Very well. But only because I feel responsible for you.” He stepped back and held the door open.

The room was unchanged from the last time Jesse’d seen it, except for the smell. There was something underneath the medicinal-herb fragrance, neither cinnamon nor alcohol but kin to both. It stirred his memory, but not enough to bring an image to the surface.

He laid the handkerchief bundle on the table. “What can you tell me about this?”

Lung eyed the handkerchief dubiously. Then he turned back the white linen folds. Jesse looked down at the braid of heavy-gauge silver wire, a single shining inch long.

Lung looked up at Jesse. “And hardly a week in town.”

“I settle in pretty quickly,” Jesse replied, trying not to sound alarmed. “What is it?”

“This is a warning sent from one knowledgeable man to another, to stay out of the sender’s business.”

“ ‘Knowledgeable?’ ”

“A sorcerer.”

Lung was speaking metaphorically. If Jesse persevered, they’d get past metaphor to something real and useful. That was why he’d come. “It looks like jewelry. A watch fob, maybe.”

“These are often made of the disputed materials. Bone or leather, if the quarrel is over a living creature. Wood, if a dwelling is at issue. In this case—”

“Silver,” Jesse finished. “The local wealth. It can’t be a warning for me. I’m not filing any claims.”

Lung picked up the corners of the handkerchief and turned its burden into the light, until it looked as if there were a star burning in the cloth. Lung added, “They are customarily unpleasant to touch, in some way.”

Jesse held out his right hand. “Nice to know it was just custom.” The blisters on his thumb and forefinger were white and sore. Some kind of electrical charge, or a corrosive coating.

Lung eyed the blisters appreciatively. “I can give you an ointment for those.”

Jesse shoved his hand in his pocket. “Quit having so God-damned much fun. If I believed this thing is what you say it is—”

Lung flipped the corners of the handkerchief back over the twisted wire and thrust the little bundle at Jesse. “If you do not, take it and go.” His face was hard.

“Lung—”

“No! You know what this is, or you would not have brought it here. Do you think you are safe if you know nothing? You are like a child who breaks a bowl and denies it, and thinks that protects him from punishment.”

“I take responsibility for what I do. For what someone else
says
I do—” Jesse clenched his teeth. “To hell with that.”

“You mean, to hell with me.”

“If you keep on with this, yes.”

“Then take this and go.” Lung still held out the handkerchief. His hand shook a little.

“Is this the way you doctor people?” Jesse said, too loud. “Superstition? Hocus-pocus? It won’t work if I don’t believe in it.”

“What do you believe in, then?”

“Reality. Science. You know that.”

Lung held out the handkerchief.

“This has nothing to do with me!” The blood thumped in Jesse’s ears. He stood in the middle of the room, but he was in a corner all the same, with walls he didn’t want to look at.

“You cannot stay in this camp unless you know the nature of what you have engaged. If you do not, you may as well load your revolver, put it
to your head, and pull the trigger.”

“Fine. I’ll be off to the border, then.” He could ride away—from the memory of Luther King’s white, sweating face. Of Mrs. Benjamin trying not to look at the grisly thing in the street, her quick, tapering fingers hiding her mouth. (But not her eyes; too late for that. He’d wanted to wind time backward like a watch.)

He could go, and this would follow him. It would join the trail of things already behind him that he couldn’t explain or excuse.

This explained so much. It couldn’t be true, but it explained so much.

“Jesse.”

Jesse sank down in the rocking chair. His mouth was dry. It took two tries before he said, “There could be something in what you say. Maybe.”

Lung did nothing to break the silence. Possibly he expected more. If so, his expectations could go hang. When Jesse felt something like calm, he looked up from his hands.

Lung dropped the handkerchief back on the table. It unfolded as if offering its contents in an open hand. “This is no less a science because you have not studied it. A certain quantity of salt will dissolve completely in a certain volume of water. Science declares it is true. It remains true in the east or the
west, for a wise man or a foolish one. There is more to weigh in this”—he nodded toward the handkerchief—”than a measure of salt and water. But it is as real as speaking or raising your arm.”