The Six-Gun Tarot (22 page)

Moore looked to Deerfield and slapped a meaty hand across his own face. “This is ridiculous! Is everyone with a badge in this dammed town crazy?”

“It helps,” Highfather said.

“Look, Sheriff, Oscar and I were on the coach from Virginia City last night. We have four other passengers who can vouch for our whereabouts for the last day or so. Your own deputy, that shifty little half-breed of yours, practically pulled us off the stage at the station himself, and dragged us here. We didn’t kill Arthur and our transaction with him was fair and square!”

“You won the deed to the Bick family silver mine in a game of poker,” Highfather said. “Fair and square. Right.”

“We didn’t march him into the Virginia City magistrate’s office with a gun pointed at his head,” Deerfield said. “Everything was transferred legally. Arthur said one of his business partners, this Mr. Bick, had signed the property and several others in and around Golgotha over to him years ago.”

Harry and Highfather exchanged glances.

“Why?” Harry asked.

“Well, since you can’t ask Arthur, why not ask Mr. Bick?” Deerfield said. “I honestly don’t know and care even less.”

“You know,” Moore said, “come to think of it, he did mention something about it once, just in passing—”

“Are we done?” Deerfield interrupted. “We have a mine to get open and you gentlemen have already delayed us long enough.”

“Do you honestly think you’re going to pull any more silver out of that hole?” Highfather said. “That mine went bust years ago.”

“That’s not what we’ve been told,” Moore said as he slid a small pouch out of his pocket. He opened it and several blacked, shiny pieces dropped into his wide palm. “It’s pure. Some of the purest silver the assayer in Virginia City has ever seen! Seems old Bick gave up on the place too soon!”

Deerfield gave his partner a withering look and Moore sheepishly returned the silver ingots to their pouch and into his pocket.

“Are we done, then?” Deerfield said again.

“Good day to you, gentlemen, and good prospecting,” Harry said with a smile. The two businessmen left quickly and quietly.

“I smell a hidden partner,” Harry said when the door closed. “Someone is helping them out; they didn’t just blunder into all this. Maybe Malachi has a business competitor, trying to move in on him.”

“I can’t believe as sly as Bick is, he’d overlook any silver veins in the Argent Mine,” Highfather said. “I’ll talk to him again, but I already know I won’t get a straight answer.”

“We still have an unsolved murder, Sheriff.”

“I’ll tell Mutt to take Stapleton’s body over to Clay’s place. He has nearly as many medical books as Tumblety, and I think he actually reads them.”

“Tell Mr. Turlough to be quick in his examinations, Jon. I promised the widow I’d have the body to her for a proper burial by tomorrow.”

“Will do, Mr. Mayor.”

Highfather paused at the door. “Harry, are you all right? You look a little worried.”

“Jon, sit down, please.”

The sheriff returned to his chair.

“Did you notice anything strange last night, Jon? Feel anything—like the ground shaking?”

Highfather shook his head and frowned.

“Do you think it might be wise to cancel the social? Have a curfew until we find out more about who killed Arthur and why?”

“You know something I don’t, Harry?”

The mayor was silent.

Highfather leaned toward his desk. “Folks in this town have to give up a lot due to the nature of this place sometimes. I know of some young couples who are supposed to announce engagements at the social. Few new babies born this winter haven’t been shown off enough. Those things are good for people, Harry, especially our people. Like sunshine cleaning out a wound. Unless you think it’s a danger to the public in general for some reason you want to inform me of…”

Harry shrugged. “It’s nothing, Jon. Keep me informed about what you find. You’re right. People here have too much death and fear and darkness. Let’s give them some sunlight.”

“Yessir.”

The door closed and Harry was alone. He looked out his window and saw his father’s house up on Rose Hill. He thought about Holly up there alone, sad and drunk. Blaming herself for not being woman enough, hating him for being who he was. Holly wasn’t like his other wife, Sarah. Holly had really wanted to make a life, a family, with him. Sarah had been content to live with the Pratt name and the Pratt money and leave him the hell alone. Holly—poor, infuriating, hellcat Holly—she had been willing to fight for him, to hang on and never let go. She had only realized recently it was a fight she could never win and it was killing her. He was killing her.

He considered riding up there and having lunch with her, like he used to do when they were first married, back before they had accumulated the scar tissue of countless recriminations. Back when they were new and soft. The potential outcome of the lunchtime scenario played out in his mind and he put the notion away. It was too late. Too late for them both.

It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t his fault. It was just the way things played out. God’s will.

He went back to work, taking solace in the press of the mundane and banal.

The Empress

“Another one of these, my good man,” Holly Pratt said, laughing. She handed the empty shot glass to the man behind the bar with the unruly whiskers and the one eye that was as milky as a fish’s belly. “In fact, one for everyone!”

A cheer went up through the Mother Lode. The squatters and lowlifes who made up the shanty-bar’s clientele circled the drunken well-dressed lady from the town below like sharks smelling blood.

Holly dumped a wad of crumpled bills onto the rough wooden bar. Milk-Eye reached for them, but Holly refused to release them.

“All the filthy rotgut you have. All of it, all night long. For me and my new friends. Understand?”

The bartender did the crude math in less than a second and placed a full bottle of the homemade mash on the bar with a thud. Holly relinquished the cash and held the bottle aloft like a conquering hero. The drunks and the destitute cheered again for their new champion.

She knew it was night, but she had lost track of the time long ago. She had drunk every drop of alcohol in the mansion and had the servants hook up the carriage. Descending Rose Hill, she had seen the lights of the squatters up on Argent and it had been like a beacon to her. Up there was warmth and life and stink and dirt. People who didn’t give a damn who you were or what you did. Up there was freedom, and no self-respecting lady, let alone the mayor’s wife, would ever go up there. So she did. She found the bar easy enough and started drinking; pretty soon she had plenty of company.

“Hey, ain’t you one a that sumbitch Pratt’s wives?” an old man who smelled of rotten eggs and whiskey had muttered to her not long after she had arrived at the Lode.

Holly raised a glass to the old man. “I am indeed one of that son of a bitch’s three wives!” She tossed back the mash and it clawed its way down her throat and caught fire in her belly. “One of us plays the piano real sweet too! Care for a drink on Mayor Son of a Bitch, old-timer?”

The time had become elastic. Slurred conversations with a kaleidoscope of bleary-eyed companions seemed to be the focus of the universe—all time stopped. Then some external event—an entrance, a departure—would give her insight into how long she had actually been here, been drinking, and time suddenly seemed to be galloping like a frightened mare toward dawn or oblivion. She didn’t care which one she reached first.

Harry would be worried by now. The servants would be telling him she had left in the shay, how much she had drank. How she had carelessly thrown on a half-buttoned silk blouse and traveling skirt, which barely concealed her inexpressibles. Her hair, which began the day in a high, tight, proper bun, had continued to fall loose in golden strands as the night wore on, until now it lighted upon her shoulders in a most wanton and familiar manner.

Harry would be worried; Harry would be furious; Harry would be jealous. Harry would come for her.

A rough hand pawed her shoulder and upper arm. She turned her head to regard her molester. A black-toothed reprobate who was covered in thick, bristly black hair and had a mask of caked-on dirt around his eyes, like a raccoon, was stroking her shoulder.

“You’re a right randy adventuress, ain’t ’che?” he muttered around his alcohol-thickened tongue. “Why don’cha come on back in the piss alley wif’ me and we’ll—”

Blacktooth never got to finish. A powerful hand grabbed his collarbone and squeezed. The drunk screamed as Holly heard the bone crunch. The hand belonged to a tall, stocky man with bright green eyes and hair and clothes the color of coal. He lifted the drunk by his broken bone and hurled him casually over his shoulder, across the room. He didn’t bother to take his eyes off of Holly to see where Blacktooth landed with a loud crash and many shouts and curses.

“Are you all right?” the man in black asked as he sat next to Holly. His arms and neck were the size of small trees. His chest was easily as broad as half a wooden barrel. There was not an ounce of fat on his frame or face, which had clean, sharp, handsome features. He wore his hair like a soldier, short on the sides and swept back from his brow. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“No,” she said softly. The sheer size of this man, his presence, made her feel very small. There was something about him, about those eyes, green like sunlight falling through emerald glass, like cold green fire. “I’m, I’m fine. Thank you. Please, have a drink.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Oh, well—”

The click of a pistol being cocked interrupted her. A man stood behind her savior with a gun to his head. The gunman’s lip was bleeding.

“You wrecked my table and broke my bottle, you bastard,” he said.

“Yes, I did,” the big man in black said, and turned to face the gun. “Do you know me?”

The gunman furrowed his brow; awareness burned through the haze of the bad whiskey.

“You’re that deacon fellow, ain’t you? Come with that preacher that’s been staying up at the old Reid house.”

“I am. I don’t want any trouble. The reverend has drink that he gives to those who are in need. Go up to the house and your libation will be replaced.”

“Maybe I don’t want to walk all the way over yonder to get back what I rightfully had.”

The deacon leaned forward, until the gun’s barrel was crushed against his chest.

“You don’t want any trouble.” The deacon rose and suddenly the gun in the injured man’s hand seemed like a toy. “Do you … friend?”

“Uh, no. No sir. Bad luck to scrap with a servant of the Lord.”

“Yes, it is. Go in the peace of our Lord, my friend. The reverend will be expecting you. Our doors are always open to those in need. He may have a spot of supper for you as well.”

“I’m … I’m much obliged, sir. Please accept my apology.”

The man lowered the gun and slipped out the front door, his head lowered. The deacon sat down again and regarded Holly.

“You scared him,” she said as she tossed back another three fingers of whiskey. The deacon said nothing. The chaos of the saloon returned, but everyone gave Holly a wide berth now that she was under the watchful eye of the hulking man in black.

“Where is he?” the deacon finally said many drinks later.

“Who?”

“Your husband.”

“What makes you think I got one?”

“The ring. Other things. You’re smart, well educated. You speak well, even as inebriated as you are. Your clothes are expensive and you have obviously bathed often and recently. You’re no camp whore. You’re a woman of means and out here that usually means a husband of means as well.”

Holly stopped pouring another drink and turned to regard the deacon. He was a handsome man, powerfully built, with broad shoulders. She liked having the attention and the interest of a man like this. He was just the kind of man she’d want Harry to see her with when he came barging in here to drag her home. He was perfect. She leaned forward and let her small, pale hand rest on his immutable stone chest.

“He’s off with his Nancy-boy, most likely. Why do you ask?”

“He’s a sodomite?”

She ran her hand across his chest, reaching his upper arm. She stroked it—it was like caressing a telegraph pole and she felt a very real, visceral thrill race through her body. This man was like a god and he was interested in her, intent on her. His unwavering, almost cruel emerald stare was for her, and her alone. He wanted her.

“Oh yes. When he’s not busy being mayor.”

“Interesting.”

“I never thought I’d hear a man of the cloth call sodomy anything but a sin that sent you straight to Hell.”

“Reverend Ambrose has a slightly different view on sin. It’s one of the reasons I joined him.”

“Where you from … I’m sorry I don’t know your name.”

“Phillips. My name is Phillips.”

“Where are you from, Phillips?”

“Lots of places. I travel with the reverend.”

“You sound southern.”

He said nothing.

“Why did you ask about my husband?”

“Because I wanted to know if I was going to get shot when I take you out of here with me.”

“Pretty sure of yourself,” she said, and emptied her half-full glass. She began to fill it again. “Why would I go anywhere with you, sir?”

“He’s not coming,” he said. “If he gave a damn about you, he’d already be here, or he would never have let you come to some place like this in the first place.”

Holly stopped drinking. She lowered the glass and her eyes focused, hot and clear, on the splintery wood of the bar in front of her.

“But I see you, really see you,” he went on. “I see a beautiful woman, I see her in pain, see her screaming, and I see no one listening. This is not how your life is supposed to be, is it? You’re right, it isn’t. He goes off and screws some piano player’s ass, while you, Holly, you feel yourself wear away each day like sandstone in the wind. Why me? Because I see a woman who is desirable and deserving of love and affection. I see you, all of you, and I want what I see. And best of all, it will hurt him so much—it will make him feel what you have felt, make him feel the flush of shame, the sting of self-doubt, the wash of self-loathing, of not being enough. It will make him feel your pain.”