Authors: Ann Parker
"Mmmm-hmmm
.
"
What better way to gain Susan’s trust than send her customers.
"I know the reverend’s been out and about, meeting the parishioners. Has he been to see you yet?"
"He was here Tuesday." Susan’s normally frank brown gaze skittered sideways. She jumped up. "Would you like some tea?"
"Not now." Inez leaned forward. "Did you mention the situation with the Roses? The condition of Joe’s office?"
Susan looked trapped. "Well, yes. He’s concerned about Emma and Joey, and he
is
the head of our church. Until June, anyway."
"I’m not angry," Inez said gently. "But what exactly did you say? I spoke with him at Emma’s. He seems to have formed certain impressions about Joe and his situation. And he knew about Mark."
"Oh." She looked crestfallen. "He asked about you. I suppose I did mention Mark’s disappearance. I also told him how hard you and Abe work to keep the saloon going." She raised her eyes, her usual spirit returning. "I believe he thought you were a, ah, woman of loose character." Her cheeks pinked. "Because of your business, I mean."
"He wouldn’t be the first," Inez said dryly. "What did you say about Joe’s office?"
"Well, I described the mess and how you found the rat. He asked about Joe’s trips to
Denver
. I told him Nils knew more than I."
"At least it was before we discovered the missing ledger page," Inez said half to herself. "Although, he may have gotten wind of that by now."
Susan turned the teacup in her hands. "You don’t trust him, do you. I think he wants to help. He listens."
"Susan, consider this. What do you know about Reverend Sands?"
"He’s ministered in
California
."
"That was in the newspapers. What else?"
Susan rocked the teacup, watching the tea slosh.
"What about his family? His background? Heavens, his full name? ‘J.B.’ What kind of a name is that? Yet that’s how he appears on the church sign, in the newspapers. We really know very little about him. He’s so smooth at drawing out information. Yet he tells nothing in return."
Susan looked deflated.
Inez hastened to add, "Perhaps he’s exactly what he says, but it pays to be circumspect." She picked up the notebooks stacked by her chair. "I have something for you. But let’s keep it between us. Agreed?"
"Agreed." Susan peered over at the notebooks. "What are those?"
"They’re from Joe’s safe. I’m hazarding they’re his assay notes. We can’t ask Nils Hansen for help, so—" Inez plunked them into Susan’s lap. The topmost slid to the floor. "Can you look these over? It’s a lot of chemistry, which I know nothing about. Can you fit it in with your work and whatever you’re doing for Jed?"
Susan paused while picking up the fallen notebook and glowered. "Do you know what he wants me to do?"
"Do tell."
"Set type." Susan’s eyes snapped sparks. "I set type for my father’s newspaper when I was thirteen, and I’m not about to do it again, thank you very much." She banged the notebooks down on the table, where they emitted a puff of gritty dust.
"Jed is just a taste of what’s going to happen when the Eastern establishment moves in to ‘civilize’ Leadville," warned Inez. "Don’t be fooled into thinking the town will stay wide open forever. For anyone different, opportunities will come harder and at a higher price as time goes on. Mark my words."
"When that happens, I’m off. Maybe to
Wyoming
. At least women can vote there."
The little bell clinked as a woman shepherded in three small children.
"Oops. Next appointment. Inez, I’ll look through Joe’s notes in the next couple of days. And I won’t breathe a word to anyone."
"I know you won’t." Inez smiled warmly. "Next to Abe and Emma, I’d trust you with my life."
999
Inez leaned on the bar and closed her eyes, blocking out the smoky haze and the crowded saloon. She could not, however, block out "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," which was being rendered with great enthusiasm by the pianist she had hired on a whim that evening. The saloon’s piano, Inez noted, needed tuning. Again.
"Miz Stannert, don’t hug that bottle too tight." A man with rock dust etching the lines of his face tipped his empty glass.
Two bits changed hands for another dose of Taos Lightning. Inez checked her lapel watch:
.
Marshal Hollis ambled in. His reptilian eyes fastened on Useless at the far end.
Best give him a free drink so he doesn’t pester Useless for it.
"Marshal!" On tiptoe, Inez waved the distinctive turquoise-green bottle over the heads of the crowd.
The marshal elbowed his way to the bar, hands gripping the gun belts crossed on his narrow hips. The star of justice pinned on the dingy sheepskin vest showed dimmer from the splatters of a recent meal.
"On the house." Inez had to yell to be heard above the piano and the general din. She set a clean glass before him. "Opera over yet?"
"Just gettin’ out."
She poured. "How’s the law and order business tonight?"
"Waall, one fella sliced up over a fancy woman at the Red Garter. ’Nother lost an ear over a misplaced ace. A lotta drunks freezin’ upright and flat out on the walks. Jeeeee-sus, it’s cold out there."
He let loose with a stream of tobacco juice, ignoring the spittoons placed every few yards. After knocking back the shot, he cleared his throat. "Ah-hem. Word has it you’re still chasin’ after Rose’s ghost."
Inez’s grip tightened on the bottle. "And?"
"’Taint ’zactly a healthy thing. Furthermore…" He waggled the empty glass at her. His mustache was thawing. She hated to think about the composition of the dripping liquid.
"All right. One more. But you better have something interesting to tell me. I’m not in business to give it away."
Hollis sniggered. "Just what Cat DuBois’d say."
Her polite intentions dissolved. "Keep your insinuations to yourself. You’re a sorry excuse for a lawman."
Marshal Hollis downed his drink. "You’re lucky you’re a woman. If you were a man…" His eyes looked like pebbles at the bottom of a frozen stream. "You want somethin’ interestin’? How about this? You keep ridin’ down the road after Joe, you just might join him." He slammed the glass on the bar.
Inez jammed the cork back in the bottle.
Every time I talk with this man, I feel the need to take a bath.
Abe pulled the bottle from her grasp. "You’re lookin’ a tad ferocious, Mrs. Stannert." He glanced from her to Marshal Hollis. Hollis glared back, mustache dripping.
Useless came hard on Abe’s heels. "Bourbon’s gone and the opera crowd’s here."
"I say, Mrs. Stannert!" Nigel Hollingsworth, adrift in a sea of silk top hats and cutaway coats, tried to move closer to the bar but was stopped by a solid wall of bodies.
"Mrs. Stannert," he bellowed. "Regarding Rose’s loan. I’ve discovered," he glanced around the milling crowd, "some interesting connections." Jostling elbows threw him off balance. "Meet me Sunday morning. Say, nine. At the bank."
Inez waved to show she’d heard. He turned and fought his way out.
Abe turned to Useless. "Get a case of
Kentucky
from the back."
Useless grabbed the storeroom keys and fairly flew the length of the bar.
Inez heard a someone say, "Crowd’s too rich for my blood." The knot of miners shoved through the opera fans, creating a vacuum that was quickly filled. The pianist swung into "Oh Dem Golden Slippers."
Marshal Hollis looked at Inez with the hooded eyes of a viper. He shoved the empty glass at her and stalked out the front door into the night.
"We are gathered in the eyes of the Lord.…"
The wind whipped through
Evergreen
Cemetery
and snatched Reverend Sands’ words away, snarling uphill toward the town, the mines, and
Mosquito
Range
. The mourners huddled together, as much for warmth as for mutual comfort. The brass band that had trumpeted down
Chestnut Avenue
before the casket-bearing carriage stood in a frozen cluster. It seemed that much of Leadville had braved the weather to see Joe Rose on his last journey through town.
Inez, standing by Emma and Joey, focused on Joe Rose’s grave blasted out of the snow and unforgiving ground. At the bottom, Joe’s coffin waited for the first shovel of icy dirt. Inez gripped Joey’s shoulder tighter. Joey peered up at her, blue eyes barely visible above his wool muffler and below his knit hat. A gust tugged at her cloak and wrapped it tighter around her black button boots.
Seemingly oblivious to the cold, Reverend Sands stood, head bowed, gloved hands clasped before him as he measured out Joe’s eulogy. From time to time he scanned the crowd as if weighing the strength of his words against the growing storm. "We say good-by to a father, a husband, a citizen of unparalleled reputation in this worthy city."
The mourners stood motionless, bundled in copious winter outerwear.
"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…."
Inez saw Nils Hansen, standing with two assayers from Jay G. Kelley’s and looking miserable, whether from cold or emotion, it was impossible to tell. She also spotted Nigel from the bank, Doc, and the foreman from the Denver City Mine. Behind them, she detected what could only be Chet Donnelly’s stove-in hat.
No Harry.
"Amen."
The wind moaned into the silence. Snow peppered the bowed heads of the crowd. Reverend Sands nodded to Abe, who shoveled the first clot of ice into the open pit and passed the shovel to the next pallbearer.
Inez’s heart contracted with each thump of dirt. She remembered Joe. Building a snow fort with Joey, lecturing on assaying for silver in carbonate of lead, holding Emma’s hand. And Joe with Mark. Arguing politics, discussing the finer points of poker, debating the merits of the latest silver strike. All those common memories now lay at the bottom of that dark hole. Joe was gone. Another link to Mark, broken.