Ben's side of the bed was empty. She called out for him, wincing against the redoubled throbbing in her temples, but there was no answer. Where had he disappeared to? Gathering her strength, she forced herself to peek out from beneath the sheets.
The room was empty, and the door was open. Ben must have left to get something to eat from the common room downstairs. Her stomach rumbled at the thought, and she hoped he remembered to bring her a plate or two. She pulled the sheet back over her head, closed her eyes, and waited.
Soon, footsteps in the hallway announced Ben's return. She opened one eye expectantly, but to her disappointment, his hands were empty when he came through the door.
"Where's my breakfast?" she demanded.
"Downstairs," he replied.
"Why didn't you bring anything up?"
"I wasn't sure if you'd be awake yet," he said, sounding irritable.
"Well, I am. Go get me some flapjacks or something." He ignored her, and dug through the small trunk he used to carry his books. She wanted to pester him more, but her head was still pounding. Grumbling in protest, she curled herself into a ball and shut her eyes.
Ben's boots thumped around again, followed by the scraping of a chair along the floor. She could hear the soft sound of turning pages as she tried to go back to sleep. The blood pounding in her ears began to ebb, taking the pain with it. A patch of warm sunlight fell across the bed, and she dozed off.
"What exactly did that creature look like?" Ben's voice cut through the haze of sleep. She whined in reply, but he persisted. "Come on. We need to figure out what it is if we're going to kill it."
"No, we don't," she said. "We just need to shoot it until it stops moving."
"You tried that already, didn't you?"
She didn't answer, hoping that he would give up and go back to his reading. After a few moments, she heard his boots thump on the floor again, and she smiled to herself.
The smile vanished when she felt the sheet disappear. She curled into a tighter ball, opening one eye just wide enough to glare at her husband. The sheet hung from his hand. "Get up, Cora," he said. "We need to work on this."
"I already told you. My plan is to shoot it until it stops moving."
"Worked like a gem yesterday, I hear."
"Sure as hell did," Cora said. "Drove that bastard back down his hole right quick."
"After how many shots?"
"Enough," she replied, rolling on to her other side.
"Cora, stop it." Ben seldom raised his voice, but he did now.
"Who shoved the sand up your craw?" She matched his tone and regretted it as her head throbbed in protest. Lifting a hand to her brow, she continued in a softer voice. "Why is you being so ornery about this?"
"Because it's our job to kill this thing, and we don't know how to do it."
"You still ain't said what's so wrong with my plan."
Ben sighed through his nose. "How many times did you shoot it yesterday?"
"A lot," Cora replied, giving in. There was no deterring him when he got like this. "Six rounds from my Colt and one from my Winchester."
"Where did you hit it?"
"In the head, mostly. Maybe one or two in the chest."
Ben nodded. "So we know this thing ain't an ordinary spook."
"Ain't one we've seen before, but that don't mean it's some kind of super spook."
"Well, I've never heard of anything that can take that many silver bullets to the head and not go home to the devil."
"There was something else, too," Cora said, her face clouding from more than just the hangover. "My sword didn't so much as scratch it. I was all set to chop off one of them spindly arms, but it was like taking a swing at a rock. Just bounced right off."
Ben frowned. "The blessing is still on the blade, ain't it?"
"Of course it is. Father Brown blessed it before we left Dodge, and I ain't killed a damn thing with it since."
"So it resisted a blessed blade?" Ben asked. Cora nodded. "And you still think it's just an ordinary monster?"
"Of course I don't," Cora said. "I just wanted you to shut up so I could get back to sleep."
Ben grinned at her. "You know better than that."
"Hey, a girl can hope, can't she?"
"Only if she's aiming to be disappointed."
"So I reckon it's too much to hope for that you'll go and get me breakfast."
"Yep," Ben replied. He dropped the sheet on the floor and sat back down at the table. He opened his book, crossed his legs, and proceeded to ignore her.
Sighing, Cora tossed her feet over the edge of the bed and sat up. Her eyes closed on their own as her head started pounding with renewed vigor. Her muscles ached now, too, but that's what she got for passing out with her clothes on. Ben had pulled her boots off for her, giving her the trouble of putting them back on. Her fingers fumbled with the leather, refusing to cooperate. She'd have to remember to tell Boots that his rotgut had given her more trouble than she was used to. Knowing him, he would take it as a compliment, and she supposed it was. Most whiskey wouldn't have given her more than a small ache behind the eyes, but Boots's suppliers knew how to distill their liquor.
After a few minutes, she won the battle with her boots. Bracing herself, she rose to her feet, then leaned against the wall as her head punished her. She waited out the worst of the storm before picking up her coat and moving to the door.
"They got eggs down there?"
Ben grunted.
"Think I'll have me a prairie oyster with breakfast, then. Might do me some good."
Ben grunted again, but she had already left the room. Her shaky legs carried her through the hallway and down the stairs. A hearty breakfast greeted her when she stepped into the Northern Hotel's big common room: fresh sowbelly, long strips of crackling bacon, steaming sourdough biscuits, and several large tins of coffee. The hotel's early risers hovered around the fare like flies buzzing around a week-old carcass. Several others sat at nearby tables, wolfing down their first meal of the day.
The sight was enough to make her sick.
She worked her way past the crowd of hungry guests and grabbed a nearby bellhop.
"You got any fresh eggs?"
"Of course," he replied, prying her fingers from his shirt. "How many would you like?"
"Just one, with some whiskey and pepper in a glass."
"Fried?"
"Raw."
Confusion flickered across the little man's face for a moment before his head bobbed and he disappeared into the kitchen. Cora made her way to an empty table and collapsed. She folded her arms on the rough wood, rested her forehead on them, and waited. Her shoulders muffled the sounds in the room enough to allow her to doze for a few minutes before she heard a voice at her elbow.
"Your egg, ma'am."
Picking her head up, she stared at the concoction he had brought. Dark flecks of pepper dotted the egg yolk as it floated in the whiskey. Taking a deep breath, she picked up the glass. Her other hand pinched her nose shut, and she downed the mixture in one gulp. She could feel the egg slide down her throat and drop into her stomach like a lump of mud. She smacked her lips a few times, set the glass down, laid her head back down on her arms, and waited.
After a short while, Cora felt well enough to join the other guests. Taking the empty glass with her, she walked over to the big table. She grabbed a couple of sourdough biscuits, stuffed them in the glass, then picked up a handful of sowbelly. Satisfied, she made her way back to her table and set to.
The sowbelly, heavily salted, was the first to go. The biscuits followed, one after the other. They were warm, not steaming like they had been when she first walked in, but they were good. Halfway through the second, her thirst caught up with her. Picking up her glass, she looked around for a pitcher of fresh water. There was plenty of coffee, but the tiny bellhop seemed to have forgotten any other drinks. Not wanting to bother with him again, she threw her coat around her shoulders and stood up. She made her way through a small side door and found herself in an alley. The snow was still fresh and undisturbed, so she sank to her knees and began to shovel handfuls into her mouth. The cold numbed her throat, but it was water.
Cora wiped her mouth and rose to her feet. Stepping out from the alley into the street, she squinted in the sunlight and cursed her hat for being back in the room. She considered going up to fetch it, but that might mean another talk with Ben. Another talk meant another argument, and she didn't want to sit around doing nothing while he read through his books. He hadn't been there to see that monster bleed and hear it squeal as she unloaded on it, so he didn't know it could feel pain. Sure, it was tough, but so was she.
Her breath curled around her face as she looked down at her boots. He was right, though. Nothing they'd fought in the past had taken that many silver bullets to the head and kept coming. Knowing it was still up in that mineshaft made her uneasy, but what could she do about it?
Get some advice, she answered herself. She wasn't sure if Leadville had a proper priest, but maybe Father Baez was still in Denver. They could get some information from him before charging headlong back into the woods.
She'd met the Denver priest only once, nearly ten years before. She and Ben had been hunting a vampire nest in the area and needed information on its whereabouts. Father Baez had been eager to help, telling them several times that the occurrences had centered around an estate northwest of Denver. The little priest had even offered to consecrate their weapons before they set out. They hadn't needed the blessings renewed, but he had so wanted to give them more than just information that they couldn't bear to disappoint him. He had spoken the prayers in his quiet voice, beseeching Saint Anthony to shield the hunters as they sought to silence the servants of the devil. His prayers were answered a few days later when they found and burned out the vampire lair.
The sound of raised voices pulled Cora out of her reverie. Looking down the street, she could see a group of men milling about near the center of town. They were fingering picks and guns at their belts and pacing as if waiting for some action. Maybe fifty strong, most of them miners, the group tracked over the snow-packed streets like cattle waiting to board a train. More men trickled out from the surrounding saloons, adding to the herd until it filled the square.
Cora made her way down the wooden sidewalk toward the angry mob. As she approached, they began calling in whiskey-slurred voices for somebody named Elkins. She couldn't make out what this Elkins had done to rile such a crowd, but now she was curious. She crawled up on an overturned rain barrel outside a brothel, folded her arms, and settled in to watch.
The grumbling and hollering of the men soon shed some light on what had stirred them up. From what she could make out, two miners named Elkins and Hines had turned violent while settling a card game the night before. Elkins had knifed up Hines pretty good before running out. Duggan's deputies had picked him up just outside of town and locked him up, but that wasn't good enough for Hines's mining buddies. They'd spent the rest of the night drinking themselves into a frenzy, and now they were demanding justice at the end of a rope. She heard the words "darkie" and "nigger" being tossed around, so she figured that Elkins was a black man, which slimmed his chances.
Despite her Southern birth, Cora had never held much against black men. Her family had never been rich enough to afford slaves, but they'd lived close enough to the Yankee states that freed slaves weren't all that unusual in town. Her parents told her to stay well away from them, and she had obeyed out of fear. Since coming west, though, she and Ben had met a good number of black men. They seemed like regular folk to her, saints and sinners just like anyone else, and she couldn't figure out why her parents had been so scared for her. Still, she knew a black man wouldn't have much hope of justice at the hands of a white mob, and Cora found herself hoping that this Elkins was on good terms with his maker.
A voice rose above the crowd. Looking up, Cora saw a heavyset miner with a full beard and thick arms. He waved those arms at the crowd, moving his hands in exaggerated motions.
"Are we going to sit by and let that blackie go unpunished for what he done?"
"No!" the crowd roared.
"Old Hines is laid up in a doctor's bed with a cut that might end him any minute. If we don't string that nigger up for it, he'll ride out of here tomorrow without facing his music. We can't trust the marshal to do justice, so if we want it done, we got to do it our own selves."
The crowd roared again, swirling along after the big miner as he started marching toward the marshal's station. Shutters winked open at the noise, then pulled shut again as the miners passed. Trailing behind the mob, Cora saw the shutters creak open again, and she smirked. The onlookers didn't want to get involved, but they sure weren't going to miss anything, either.
As the mob approached the marshal's station, Cora could make out the solid shape of Mart Duggan standing in the doorway. She could picture his blue eyes watching them, fingers hooked through his belt loops. The mob stopped in front of the station, still chanting their victim's name.
After a few moments, the big miner stepped forward. "Marshal, you let that black boy out so we can do him proper justice." Behind him, the miners yelled and hollered their agreement, fists and bottles waving.
Duggan watched them carry on, his face calm. After they had quieted a little, he took two steps forward. The brim of his hat hid his face in shadow, but his beard glowed red in the sunlight. The marshal pulled twin peacemakers from his belt and pointed them at the crowd. In the following silence, Cora heard two distinct clicks as Duggan pulled the hammers back.