A Tyranny of Petticoats (23 page)

Painted red and blue.

Reaching in, I untangled the twine and peeled back the fabric, revealing dozens of arrows painted in the Sioux’s warrior colors. I picked one up, holding it in the loop of my fingers. It appeared unused.

I frowned at James, who seemed equally stunned.

James, who still had a Sioux arrow lodged in his back.

How many attacks had there been? How many had died? How many on the land George Rinehart wanted to purchase?

The land that until recently had given up no gold at all.

An enraged shout echoed from the street below — a battle cry from the gathered townsmen.

“The Sioux aren’t doing this,” I said. “Are they?”

Footsteps thundered in the hall.

I dropped the arrow and scrambled to my feet just as the door opened. An unfamiliar man stood with a key in hand, confused that the door wasn’t locked. He was big in every way — big head, big shoulders, big hands. His gaze fell on me.

I grabbed the stack of linens from the bed, holding them like a shield.

“Laundry service,” I said. “Ri-nu-hart?”

“That’s Charlie Smith,” said James. “Rinehart’s right-hand man.”

I looked again at those big callused hands.

“Who let you in here?” Charlie barked, taking in the open trunk, the scattered papers, the arrow.

“Laundry?” I repeated, trying at innocence.

With a snarl, Charlie lunged at me, and I ducked, tossing the linens into his face. He stopped just long enough to swat them away, giving me time to snatch the bundle of arrows from the trunk. I rushed forward, but the burly man sidestepped with me, reaching for my arms.

I spun away and ran to the window instead, shoving the pane upward and launching myself toward the balcony. A hand seized my ankle. I kicked my heel into Charlie’s nose, and he reared back, taking one of my shoes with him. I pulled myself one-handed through the window and collapsed in a heap on the balcony.

The sun had dropped behind the hills, and Main Street was lit by gas lamps and saloon windows. But the men were still there, separating into groups, deciding which direction each would go on their avenging party.

Gripping the rail, I pulled myself up.
“Help!”
I screamed, glad when a dozen faces turned upward.

A hand landed on my arm. I tried to shake it away, but another was on me just as fast, dragging me back toward the window. I screamed again and, with a grunt, tossed the arrows over the railing. Someone yelped, followed by the crash of wood and arrowheads.

“Murderer!”
I screamed. My head collided with the window frame. I flinched but kept yelling. “George Rinehart ordered those men to be killed”— I yanked my hand away from Charlie’s grip, leaving scratches where his nails had dug in — “and he’s blaming the Sioux for it! He murdered them! He —” A hand clamped over my mouth, and I was pulled back through the window and tossed to the carpet. Air fled from my lungs.

Charlie slammed my head against the floor, straddling my stomach. A string of vile insults dripped from his mouth, but stars were creeping into my vision and I barely heard him. My hands scrambled across the floor, searching for a weapon, anything —

I heard a strained noise from James, then something was shoved into my hand. My fingers clamped around the shaft of the last arrow, the one I’d dropped before.

As my vision gave way to darkness, I swung my arm up, jamming the arrowhead into Charlie’s throat. Something hot splattered across my forearm.

Release.

Air.

Charlie collapsed onto his side, blood already seeping into his shirt. He gripped the arrow but gave up easily. I think he saw his death coming.

I hoped his spirit would not come back to haunt me.

“Fei-Yen!” James dropped beside me, eyes wide. The edges of his body were blurred and flickering from moving the arrow, but I still felt the tender brush of fingers on my face. “Are you all right?”

I sat up slowly, groaning. I could tell James wanted to help, but he was too weak. “Thank you, James,” I gasped, my voice roughened from the fight.

Was I back in his debt now? I’d lost track.

A click echoed through the room, and my attention snapped upward.

I recognized George Rinehart from the newspaper clipping. He was framed in the doorway, a pistol in his hand and fury playing across his brow.

“Who,” he drawled, “is
James
?”

My lungs tightened. I searched for an answer. Something truthful and threatening.
James is the boy you killed, the ghost who is haunting you even now —

But it seemed Rinehart didn’t care who James was after all. Before I found my voice, he pulled the trigger.

It was the noise that startled me the most, throwing me back onto the floor. The shot was so loud it could have come from inside my head.

At first I felt nothing, and I thought,
He missed. He missed.

But then my tunic grew wet and I felt for the wound and the blood soaking into the fabric.

The pain came last, but it was searing.

James screamed, trying to press his faint, flickering hands against my wound.

I stared at the ceiling and watched my death approach. I had seen death often enough that I wasn’t frightened. I would be glad to leave these hills with their fallen timber and their gold and their ghosts, the manure stink and the slopping mud, the gambling and the piano music and the broken women who watched from upstairs windows.

A howl drew my attention.

James was shaking, violently. His fury had turned him into a storm, thrashing at the papers and files on the floor, twisting them like a tornado. He somehow managed to throw an inkwell across the room. It shattered — black ink dripping like blood down the wallpaper.

Rinehart, wide-eyed, was backed into the corner and waving the gun at nothing. James went for him but was only strong enough to pull at the watch chain that dangled from a pocket. At James’s touch, Rinehart squealed like a child and stumbled toward the door.

An icy wind burst in from the corridor, pushing him back. Rinehart crossed his arms over his face.

Blackness crowded my vision.

But I still saw them, the ghosts.

Some who had told me their sad stories in the months since I’d come to Deadwood. A few I had sneaked apples to when I could. Others I’d only seen drifting aimlessly through the streets.

There were mustached men with arrows like sewing pins in their bodies. Men who had died from bullet wounds and hangings. Women who had succumbed to laudanum or fever. Millie Ann was there too. She was vicious and beautiful, her hair streaming behind her as the battered spirits pushed Rinehart back. Back. His eyes spun around the room, not seeing, not understanding. Unable to get away from the vengeful spirits.

They threw him from the window.

I would remember only his scream, and then the cool, ghostly palm of James Hill settling against my cheek.

I had no use for wandering, no interest in vengeance or haunting. And still I came back.

James Hill sat cross-legged beside me when I opened my eyes. His smile was a rush of relief, his hands cupping both of mine as he bent over and pressed his lips against my thumb.

“I wasn’t sure if you would stay,” he said, lifting me from my body. “But I’m glad you did.”

My body was taken to Ingleside Cemetery, just above Whitewood Creek, a mere stone’s throw from the freshly dug graves where James and his father rested. My burial passed in silence. I had no children to say prayers for me or leave me gifts of rice and peaches, and yet I watched my burial with the calm certainty that my fate was not to become a hungry ghost. In spite of the violence of my death, I felt content. Having known the spirit world all my life, being a part of it now was almost like a homecoming. I imagined my body turning to dirt. I pictured the grass and wildflowers that would someday grow here, and how there would be gold at their roots.

A shovel crunched into the loose soil. Rocks and dirt scuttled across my coffin. My uncle, who had wept only in private, turned away.

I was surprised to see non-Chinese among those gathered. The scandal associated with my murder, followed by what was believed to be Rinehart’s guilt-induced suicide, was all anyone was talking about. With the impostor arrows as evidence, Rinehart’s actions had fast become suspect, and a hastily constructed jury had soon nullified all of his recently purchased deeds. James was confident his father’s secret would be revealed soon enough.

“What shall we do now?” said James.

“I don’t know.” I traced the open wound on my stomach where the bullet had entered. There was no pain now, only a reminder. “I never expected to die in these hills.”

James ran his thumbs along the inside of his suspenders, surprisingly jovial for one so recently dead. “And ghosts must haunt the place where they died?”

I hesitated. A part of my spirit would watch over my body for a while, then depart for the underworld. It already knew the way. But the rest of me, the
restless
me . . .

“I need to find my mother,” I whispered, meeting his gaze and suddenly sure, so sure, that this was why I had stayed. To find her. To honor her. To say good-bye — or not.

“And where is she?”

“California.”

“Ah. I see.” His gold-red lashes dipped in thought. “If I’m not mistaken, there’ll be a stagecoach heading west in the morning.”

I tried to picture the calendar in my thoughts, though days and nights had begun to blur. “You’re right.” Finding it painful to look at him, I began picking my way through the cemetery. “I suppose this will be good-bye, then.”

“Good-bye?”
He stayed at my side, so close I could feel the tickle of his arm hairs on mine. “Miss Fei-Yen, you did me and my family a great service, and got yourself killed for it. By my estimation, I’ll be in your debt for some time.
Ages,
even. It’d be difficult to pay off my dues if I’m half a continent away.”

My feet stalled. I looked up.

James was right. He
was
in my debt. And yet he didn’t seem at all upset to find himself beholden to the will of a wandering ghost.

He smiled the same smile that I remembered from last fall and tipped his invisible hat. I felt the pull of him, drawing me closer.

This time, when he held out his hand, I took it.

WHEN THE STRANGER WHIPS OUT A pistol, everyone hits the floor.