Territory (49 page)

Mildred wanted to ask Jesse what that meant, but he had disappeared behind his eyes again. She tucked the towel back into the gap under the door.

Nobody would take that child for a girl, not in that hodgepodge of Western and Chinese clothes, with that vocabulary. But Mildred had spotted the truth; why hadn’t Jesse? She ought to tell him, now, while Chu was gone. Chu would be furious. And given Jesse’s condition, there was an even chance he wouldn’t remember.

She drew a chair close to the bed and sat. Jesse’s chest moved up and down in a quick, not-quite-regular rhythm. His arms lay still, red and black and clotted with Chu’s ointment, like artificial things fastened to his shoulders. His face was grayish pale. His eyes had closed, and his lips were parted.

Suddenly he made a noise, a cut-off whimper like a dog dreaming. His eyes opened wide. “I said don’t let me sleep.”

That stung. “Why not? Sleep is good for healing.”

“I’ll lose the pieces.”

“None of this makes sense to me, you know. Pieces of what?”

He was silent for so long that she thought he’d decided to ignore her. Then between breaths, he said, “Sometimes I can feel how things fit together. As if they’re my body. I turned that around—to see my body as something else …. So I can find what’s wrong and—and fix it.”

Once when she was small she’d had a toothache, and Eli had told her about the holy men in India who could walk through fire and lie on beds of nails and
not feel a thing. She pretended she was a great yogi who could ignore the ache. It had partly worked, but the dentist still had to pull the tooth. Could Jesse really heal himself, or was he just controlling the pain?

There was a faint cough from the bed that might have been laughter. “Wish you’d seen your face. What were you thinking?”

“I’ll tell you if it’s any of your business.” She was still out of temper. What was wrong with her? “Do you know the man who started the fire?”

“Not well.”

“Who is he?”

“John Ringo.”

“The rustler?” Given Mr. Austerberg’s feelings on the matter, it was no wonder he’d been rude. “How do you know him?”

Jesse’s face shone with sweat. “Complicated relationship. Played cards with him once.” Then his eyes squeezed tight shut. “Oh, God.”

“What?”

“He’s another one.”

Mildred stared at him, baffled. Oh, of course: another one like Jesse. “No, really? I would never have guessed.”

“I think—I think he killed Luther King.”

Any impulse toward sarcasm was instantly driven out of her. “How do you know?”

“There was a … token in King’s hand. It stung me when I touched it. Lung said another like me would feel it, too. Ringo didn’t. Thought that meant he wasn’t one. But it wouldn’t have hurt the man who made it. Ringo could have killed King, or had him killed, and left the token for me to find.”

Mildred sorted that out in her head. “But why would Ringo kill him? If King might have tattled on the Earps—”

“No love lost, I know.”

“Might he … might he have murdered your friend?”

He sighed. “Wonder where he was that night. Don’t think anyone in Hoptown saw him.” He opened his eyes. “When you found us by the river. It was the night after.”

The night after Tom McLaury had been angry at Jesse. Until riding back, they’d met—”Did anyone see a white man, a stranger?”

“Plenty,” he grumbled.

“A light-haired man with a round red face, who laughed too much.”

Jesse’s eyes were suddenly sharp on hers. “Who?”

“Jim Crane, the stage robber. Tom and I met him on the road back to town. Then Crane rode toward the river.”

He drew breath through his teeth and shook his head.

“What is it?”

“Something I’d forgotten. Thank you.”

He was an unpromising color, and the muscles stood out in his jaw. “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I shouldn’t distract you.”

“It hurts, is all. But I think it’s working.”

Mildred’s eyes flew to his ravaged arms. The backs of his hands were red and pink, instead of black and red. The black seemed to have flaked and fallen away onto the towel. Where it had been was exposed new skin, shiny and vulnerable-looking.

“It’s working,” she assured him. Her voice shook.

The doorknob rattled, and her heart leaped into her throat. But it was Chu, with a basket in one hand. “Dollar get plenty food, Hoptown,” she announced smugly. “I get for everybody.” She gave Mildred a wicked look. “You no like, I eat for you.”

“Don’t sass Mrs. Benjamin,” Jesse murmured.

Chu winked at her and lifted a covered lacquer bowl from the basket. “Soup.”

Mildred lifted the cover and coughed. “Good heavens. You’re certain it’s not linament?”

Chu glared. “Good soup! Hot, salt, sour, all
yang
! I find special!”

“I’m sorry. I’m sure you know best.” She gave Jesse a hopeful look. He nodded. She sat down beside him to hold the bowl to his lips, as she’d held the cup.

The edge of the mattress gave a little under her, and she reached out a hand for balance. It landed on Jesse’s shoulder.

There was a chill in the room after all, though Jesse’s skin was warm where she’d cut his sleeve off. He drew in a swift breath, like a gasp. She snatched her hand away.

“I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”

Jesse shook his head. A set of curious expressions flew across his face: confusion, wonder, fear. Then they were gone. Or rather, he had shuttered them away.

“You’d better go,” he said. “Chu can look after me.”

She was mildly offended. He was right, of course. Still, what had happened? Did he not like to be touched? She’d laid the same hand on his same shoulder when they danced. Admittedly, there’d been three layers of cloth between them. Was he shy? Ridiculous. She must have hurt him—but he needn’t send her packing for it.

She could tell him his stableboy was a girl; that would be a sort of revenge. But it would leave Chu to deal with the aftermath, which didn’t seem fair.

She stood up and handed the bowl to Chu. “If you need anything …”

“I come, okay,” Chu assured her.

“If he gets worse, go for a doctor, whatever he says.”

“If I’m that much worse,” Jesse growled, “I won’t be able to say anything.”

She bent to pick up her umbrella from the floor by the bed. As she did, she shot another glance at Jesse’s arms. The charring and blisters were almost gone.

She went to the door. “Good-bye, then, and good luck.”

His face looked hollowed and bleak. “Good-bye, Mildred.”

As she walked down the hall to the back stairs, she thought,
I’m staying out of hotel rooms in future. They’re bad for my peace of mind.

 20 

Jesse stood at the open door of the
Nugget
office, watching Mildred Benjamin.

She frowned at the sheet of newsprint in her hands. Light shone through it, showing printing on the other side, though the side toward him was blank. A printer’s proof? He knew nothing about newspapers, not the way she did.

He hadn’t seen her since she’d left his hotel room. Ladies didn’t visit single men in their lodgings, even to inquire about their health. But she’d seemed pretty thick with Chu; she might have gotten a report from that quarter. He’d no business asking Chu if she had. Besides, Chu had taken to watching him in a grave, evaluating way that made it hard to ask him anything.

Mildred’s red-brown hair was pulled fiercely back from her face at the temples, but a few strands had got away and curled around her ears. Little silver drops caught the light at her earlobes. Her lips were crimped together—probably at whatever made her frown—which produced a shallow dimple beside her mouth. Her figure was straight-backed and slender in a gray-green twill dress. He remembered her in her ball gown on Fourth of July, her rounded arms and pale bosom. Slender, but not meager.

She looked up, and he felt his face flush. He hoped the light wasn’t on him. But of course, her eyes went to his gloved hands first.

“They’re fine,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I need some information.”

She searched his face. “That’s what we do here,” she said at last, holding up the sheet in her hand. “I warn you, Harry will be back any moment, and I’m guessing you don’t want what you’re asking about to make the next edition.”

“Not really.”

She frowned again. “Wait here.” She disappeared into the back room for a minute, then returned. “Ask away.”

“Where can I find a good description of Jim Crane?”

Mildred turned to a chest of long, flat drawers, read the label on one, and
opened it. She took out a sheet of paper and handed it to him. “We keep copies of all the job printing.”

It was the wanted poster for the Benson stage robbers. He found the second name. “C-R-A-I-N?”

She smiled for the first time since he’d arrived. “It’s not my fault Bob Paul can’t spell.”

American; about 27 years old; about 5 feet, 11 inches high; weight, 175 or 180 lbs.; light complexion; light, sandy hair; light eyes; has worn light mustache; full, round face, and florid, healthy appearance; talks and laughs at same time; talks slow and hesitating; illiterate; cattle driver or cow-boy.
Jesse nodded and handed the sheet back to Mildred.

“Here’s what I know,” he said briskly. “Crane sounds like the man who kidnapped a Chinese girl, and may have murdered her down by the river. One of the girls she worked with described him pretty well.”

“When I met you at the river—”

“Lung and I were looking into it. It was … She was killed as part of a, a sort of binding.”

“The sort of thing you do.”

He felt a flash of anger. “Since I don’t practice blood sacrifice, no.”

“I’m sorry. I only meant—” She thumped down on a wooden stool and flourished her hands, as if they were full of words and it would help to throw them. “Couldn’t you be something ordinary, like a scholar of ancient Etruscan or a camel breeder? It would be so much easier to
talk
about!”

The tension that had stood like a sheet of glass between them dissolved, and he laughed. “I’ve been trying to find words for months. You’re the writer; I was counting on you.”

“I suppose I’m the wrong sort of writer,” she said, then blushed and looked away.

“I’m sorry, did I say—”

“No, no. What else do you know?”

“You said you saw Crane heading toward the San Pedro after you left Lung and me there. He may have come to see who was lurking around the river after …” How much should he explain? And how to do it? He looked desperately at Mildred, but this time she didn’t have enough of the sentence to leap over the hard part for him. “Well, Lung and I … dismantled something. Or blew it up, really. Not a physical thing, a—”

Mildred giggled. “You should see your face.”

“Teach me to expect sympathy from you.”

“Was that the thing you had to do without your shirt? Oh, now you really
should
see your face.”

Jesse covered it with one hand. “That wasn’t fair.”

“You’re right. Ungentlemanly of me. So you … demolished something. Do you think that got Crane’s attention?”

“His, or someone he was working for. Lung said rich strikes like Tombstone’s attract people who can … feel what’s in the earth. They don’t always know what they’re doing. But if Wyatt Earp is one, and John Ringo another, Crane could be one, too. Or he could be fetching and carrying for one.”

Her smile fell away. “Do you think Jim Crane killed your friend?”

“Someone who looked like Crane was seen in Hoptown the night Lung was murdered.”

A monumental clatter sounded from the back room, and a man’s voice: “God damn it to hell, someone tell that bastard Heintz to put the new bars on the folder or store ’em somewhere safe!”

Unlike Jesse, Mildred hadn’t flinched at the noise. “Harry?” she called without looking ’round. “Are you all right?”

“Fine!” Harry Woods shouted. Then he muttered, “God damn it.”

“I need to step out for a few minutes, Harry.” Mildred snatched up the hat and purse lying on a table and jerked her head toward the front door. Jesse left by it and waited out of sight of the windows.

Mildred joined him moments later. “Sorry. I think we’ll be private enough if we keep walking.”