What Gold Buys Page 3

  “That’s because none of us could remember,” countered Percy.

  Inez waved a hand. “Off you go, gentlemen. I know you have your plans, and I do believe I see Sol—at last!—trying to squeeze between that nice cabriolet and the ore wagon. I hope he brought a large enough wagon to carry all our baggage.”

  The Lads headed off only to have Percy peel away from the group and circle back to Inez, rummaging through the inner pockets of his waistcoat. “Almost forgot.” He pulled a rabbit’s foot dangling from a silver chain from his waistcoat, saying as he always did, “Mind, you keep this locked up tighter than a State Street virgin. It’s the left hind foot of a rabbit killed in a country churchyard at midnight, during the dark of the moon, on Friday the thirteenth of the month, by a cross-eyed, left-handed, redheaded, bowlegged Negro riding a white horse.”

  Inez rolled her eyes. “Of course. And I’ll have it ready for you Saturday, should you deign to grace the Silver Queen’s poker table with your presence.”

  He grinned, always jolly. “Right-o! And one more thing…” He glanced at his companions. They were busy appreciating the anatomical attributes of a young matron, who was bending over to straighten her toddler’s skirts. From an innermost pocket of his jacket he pulled out a crumpled, sealed envelope and handed it to Inez. “Please slide this in your safe with the rest of the stuff. If I’m insensate when it’s time to leave, perhaps you could keep it for me for a while, if you don’t mind.”

  “Certainly.” Inez weighed the envelope, curious. “Not empty, is it? Feels that way.”

  Percy gave her a sneaky smile and mimed twirling his small, neatly trimmed black mustache, even though there wasn’t much to twirl. “Ah, that envelope holds a weighty matter. Inside, a fortune hangs in the balance. Wouldn’t want it to fall into the wrong hands. Now, please tuck it away and out of sight in that reticule of yours, dear lady, and let’s not mention it again.”

  He sneezed. “Oh dear. That’s either a sign of good fortune or bad luck ahead. Surely the former.”

  “Bless you,” Inez said, willing to encourage his superstitious optimism.

  He beamed. “Good fortune it is. Thank you, Mrs. Stannert.”

  “Percy!” bellowed Balcombe. “Shake a leg. We’re behind schedule. Mustn’t keep the lovelies of State Street waiting.”

  He shouted back, “When we get to State, you must save one for me. I’ll join you fellows after I have my fortune told.”

  Much grumbling from the others, and Epperley, the sleek blond impecunious otter, said, “Bother! Waste of money, Percy. Save it for better things.”

  With an approving nod and a parting wink to Inez, Percy sauntered away to join his brethren, saying, “Ah, but I just sneezed and was blessed by Mrs. Stannert. And don’t forget the penny I found on our way to the station in the Springs. Heads up means good luck. I need to consult an expert who can divine what this all portends. If Lady Fortune is smiling, I must attend to her come-hither looks.”

  Inez slid the envelope into her purse. The Lads paused as they piled into a hired hack to hoot encouragement at the Silver Queen’s barkeep-in-training, Solomon Issacs. Sol, straw hat askew, was attempting to maneuver a flatbed wagon toward the Stannerts and their luggage. It was only as he drew closer that Inez saw his face, red with exertion, held an uncharacteristically agitated expression.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Stannert,” he wheezed, sounding as if he’d pulled the wagon himself from the Silver Queen Saloon to the station. He jumped down, gave each Stannert a brief shake of the hand. “Welcome back, but…hurry!” He grabbed the nearest hatbox and looked around at the station and traffic, wild-eyed. “We’ve got to get back to the saloon and quickly!”

  Chapter Three

  Inez grabbed one of the hatbox strings before Sol could toss the box into the back of the wagon. “Stop! This isn’t mine. Our luggage is over there.” She gestured to the loaded cart behind them, and pried the hatbox from Sol’s white-knuckled hands. “Now, what’s wrong?”

  “It’s, it’s…” He removed his derby hat and ran a sleeve over his forehead. His red hair stuck out wildly in all directions, although Inez caught the faint track of a part on one side and the wet, shiny look that indicated he had used pomade earlier in the day to tame the unruly waves. “Sorry. Didn’t realize the traffic would be like this when I started out. Last night’s snow melted away during the day and now it’s tough going in the streets.”

  Mark gripped his arm, steadying him. “Hold on. Let the experts toss the bags and such while you tell us what’s got you runnin’ like a pack of wolves is at your heels.” He caught the attention of one of the station’s baggage handlers loitering against the batten walls of the station and waved him over.

  As the handler obligingly loaded the flatbed of the small wagon, Sol stuttered into speech. “M-m-Mr. Jackson took off a couple hours ago for home. Mrs. Jackson, you know.” He flushed even more. “Well, he thought he’d just be peeking in, not taking very long. But, he hasn’t come back. And I knew you’d be waiting. I decided, well, actually, Bridgette came out of the kitchen and ordered me to come get you. She’s holding the fort until we get back. It wasn’t too busy when I left, so seemed a reasonable thing to do, only I hadn’t counted on the jammed streets…”

  Inez interrupted. “You could have sent a runner to tell us, and we would have just hired a hack, but no matter. We should get going.” The wagon was loaded, Mark had tipped the handler.

  Mark handed Inez up into the front bench and spoke to Sol, who had taken the driver’s post, reins at the ready. “Sol, you take Mrs. Stannert and the luggage to the saloon, and I’ll walk.” He glanced down Poplar, calculating. “Shouldn’t take me more’n fifteen minutes. I should get there quicker ’n you can in this traffic.” Then, addressing them both, “I’d not worry too much about the Silver Queen. Bridgette’s capable of pourin’ a shot and chaser if someone’s dyin’ of thirst.” With an encouraging nod at Sol and a tip of his hat to Inez, Mark set off at a brisk pace, his gold-handled cane swinging, his limp barely detectable.

  For some reason, the fact that his limp—evidence of the broken leg that had set him flat on his back in Denver with the actress Josephine Young—had nearly vanished over the past two months now annoyed Inez almost beyond measure. That, added to the ease with which Mark took control of the spiraling situation, poured oil on the troubled waters of Sol’s panic, popped her into the wagon and set off, not even consulting her as to her preferences or opinions, made her seethe. He walks so carefree now, setting everything to rights with a snap of his fingers. And yet, he couldn’t figure out a way last summer to send me a message that he was alive, couldn’t figure out a way to get to Leadville until a year-and-a-half had passed?

  Sol clucked at the horse in harness. It pricked its ears and obediently moved forward a few steps, only to stop as a carriage swerved in front of them, its door swinging open before the apparatus had creaked to a stop, and disgorged a man—a traveling drummer, by the look of his wear-ever checked sack jacket, weathered brown bowler, and the small multitude of exhibit trunks and cases that tumbled out after him. He commandeered the empty cart the Stannerts had left behind, and began slinging carpetbags and small trunks into it with the help of the carriage driver. The train whistled a warning, and Inez heard the inevitable announcement, “All aboard that’s going aboard!”

  “Damn it!” shouted the drummer, throwing his hat to the ground.

  Inez heard the inexorable chug-chug-chug of the train locomotive and the screech of metal on metal as the great wheels slowly gained purchase and momentum on the steel rails.

  The hatless drummer clutched his hair in both hands, looking the picture of defeat and frustration. He said, “Devil take the infernal street traffic in this confounded town! The roads! The roads! The dang-nabbit roads!” It was hard to tell whether he spoke to the hired driver, who stood by shaking his head, or to the few still on the platform, or to
the universe at large.

  With the drummer’s curses ringing in her ears, Inez stared at Mark’s retreating figure. He’d crossed the track and was nearly down to Eleventh Street. It wouldn’t be long before he’d cross over to Harrison Avenue, the main business street in town. From there, it was a straight shot to the saloon on the corner of Harrison Avenue and Second Street, which was still referred to as State Street, its original appellation before the city fathers had tinkered with the street names earlier that year. Center of the red-light and entertainment district of Leadville, West Second was still called State Street by all who had any acquaintance with its infamous commerce.

  Sol tried to steer the horse around the hired carriage, even as the driver, apparently not wanting to be left behind with the cursing salesman, was back in his seat, urging his own team back into the sluggish flow. All was for naught, as the equine-powered traffic struggled at cross-purposes: some vehicles fought their way uphill to the mining district while the rest, Inez and Sol’s wagon included, attempted to move downhill and into town.

  The whole situation—the shouting, the carriage, the traffic, and seeing Mark recede, so carefree, moving forward without a backward glance—it was more than Inez could bear.

  “Give me the reins!” she snapped at Sol. She snatched them from his astonished hands, and with an unladylike “Gee up!” gave the horse a stern slap. The animal, no doubt astonished itself, lurched to the left, angling past the carriage with inches to spare.

  “We are not going to be left behind,” she said through gritted teeth. “Did you come up Harrison to get us?”

  “Well, sure, it’s the straightest route here, ma’am.” Sol clutched the front rail of the wagon.

  “Straightest, but not the fastest. I’d think you’d know that by now. Side streets, downhill from the mines.” She encouraged the horse, which increased to a trot, veering further to the left to round the outside of an empty ore cart, heading in the opposite direction. The wagon lumbered around a corner onto sparsely populated Fourteenth Street. “He’s not going to get there first,” she said, almost to herself. “Once he reaches Harrison, he will slow down, palaver, shoot the breeze. He’s not in a hurry.”

  “Who?” Sol sounded confused. “Mrs. Stannert, do you want me to drive and you just tell me where to go?”

  A warm destination in the afterworld popped to mind as a response, but Inez bit it back. Obviously Sol hadn’t considered the ramifications of leaving the saloon with no one but Bridgette to tend to things. It was not really his fault. Sol just did what he was told.

  With a more or less open road before them, the horse was happy to increase its pace to a trot at a flick of the reins.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I thought of maybe sending for Mr. Jackson, but Bridgette, she said we shouldn’t, that without knowing how things were going with Mrs. Jackson.” He gulped back any further words as the horse, ever obedient to her hand, jerked around the corner onto Harrison. A wagon wheel bumped sharply over a rock. The trunks and boxes jumped on the flatbed with a thud and rattle. Inez scanned the road ahead. “It’s not bad right here.” She transferred the reins to one hand so she could adjust her askew hat. “Where did things clog up?”

  “Well, it was bad all the way to the station, but the worst was around Seventh.”

  “Of course, a major route up to the mines.” Inez directed the wagon to the left, passing several meandering souls on horse and mule. “We’ll turn on Ninth and take Pine or Spruce.”

  She relaxed a bit. She knew now they would arrive first. That way, she could take measure of the situation before Mark arrived. She could talk to Bridgette and perhaps obtain a picture, untinged by Mark’s asides and interruptions, of how business had been the past two months. Inez suffered a sudden pang of guilt for having extended her stay in the Springs so blithely. Until now, she had not spared much thought as to what the extended time away from the business might mean to Abe, Bridgette, and Sol. When she arrived, she could see if their usual customers were in their usual places for this time of day. Find out who had been by recently.

  “Has Reverend Sands been by?” The casualness she injected into the loaded question sounded forced to her ears. A sideways glance at Sol told her she wasn’t fooling even him. His face revealed consternation, and maybe a touch of terror. He shifted on the wooden seat, then grabbed it tight as they hit one of many ubiquitous potholes that graced the city’s streets.

  “Well?” She didn’t mean that single word to sound as sharp as it did.

  Clamping down on her own nervousness, Inez added a soothing note to her words. “I expect he’s been back, oh, a month or so, maybe more. I also expect that he would have been by the Silver Queen to find out about our arrival.” She took a deep breath. “He certainly knows Mr. Stannert has returned. I left him a letter.”

  Apparently her matter-of-factness did the trick and Sol’s tongue was loosened—at least, in part. “Yes, ma’am. He has been by. A few times at least, mostly to talk to Mr. Jackson and Bridgette, uh, Mrs. O’Malley. He didn’t stick around.”

  No, he wouldn’t.

  As the Right Reverend Justice B. Sands had told her, he’d given up guns, gambling, and liquor when he found God. Or maybe when God found him. She was not entirely clear who found whom, but it was apparently a mutual discovery of the spiritual sort. Inez had heard Reverend Sands preach forgiveness, tolerance, temperance, and understanding from the pulpit more times than she could count since he’d arrived in town almost a year ago. Yet, she still wasn’t entirely sure what manner of God would countenance one of His chosen sharing a bed with a married woman—much less a married woman who ran a saloon, liked a “little something” in her coffee in the morning and a glass of decent brandy before retiring, ran a regular high-stakes card game with some of the wealthiest men in town, carried a gun, and didn’t hesitate to use it.

  But then, her own conversations with God tended to be of the “Where is the fairness? Where is the justice? Why does good get punished and evil rewarded, the innocent suffer and the sinners prosper? Where is the rightness in the world?” variety. Well, not discussions, really, they were more one-way rants on her part—often liberally sprinkled with the kind of language that was more associated with hell and damnation than heaven and salvation—because God never deigned to answer her back, at least in any way that she could ascertain.

  It was a point of tense theological debate between her and Sands, but one that had not lessened the passion and fierce tenderness and longing they shared between the sheets.

  “…and Mr. Jackson has brought in musicians during the week in the evenings, to draw in more of a weeknight crowd.”

  Inez realized that Sol had been rattling on while thoughts had swirled through her head darkening her mind like storm clouds over the sun.

  “Musicians?” She turned onto Pine, encouraged to see that traffic was light.

  “Mr. Jackson has been trying to find a good brass band for hire. One that isn’t already working one of the other saloons and such.”

  Inez winced, imagining hour after hour of trying to hear and make herself heard over the energetic squawks, trumpetings, and oompah-pahs of the typical State Street brass ensemble.

  State Street was just ahead. And, she knew from experience, that it would be as crowded as Harrison…its crooked boardwalks and streets pulsing with pedestrians and four-wheeled conveyances, men looking to celebrate or to forget by spending on liquor, cards, or women, while others schemed to increase their pockets and purses by supplying the same. With a sudden decision, she stopped the wagon, just short of Pine and State Street, threw the reins at Sol, and climbed down from the seat.

  “I’ll walk from here,” she announced. “Sol, please bring the wagon and my bags to the saloon. Mr. Stannert’s luggage can then be delivered to wherever his lodgings may be.”

  She snapped her parasol open to ward off the late fall afternoon sunlight and
set off with a firm step toward the saloon.

  Chapter Four

  Turning the corner to head up State Street, Inez passed Frisco Flo’s brick “pleasure palace.” It sat, quiet and serene, waiting for longer shadows and later hours. Another saloon or two followed, then a couple of more-or-less respectable boardinghouses, and a gaming establishment with questionable “lodging rooms” above. The Silver Queen Saloon, splendid in her two-story glory on the corner of State and Harrison, was just visible over the false fronts of the neighboring buildings.

  Inez decided to bypass the entrance that fronted the red-light district on State and enter by the Harrison Street door instead, to give her arrival a little extra gravitas.

  She turned the corner just in time to see Mark slowing to a stop by the door on Harrison. He spotted her at the same time, smiled, and waited.

  “Took the long way around, Mrs. Stannert?” he asked, reaching to open the door for her. “Where’s Sol and our luggage?”

  Before she could answer, a swirl of newsboys banged out the saloon door and converged on them. Mark grabbed for Inez’s arm instead, to keep her from being knocked over. “Whoa boys, what’s your hurry? You could mow someone down, travelin’ at speeds like that, and lose a payin’ customer.”

  “Mrs. O’Malley threw us out,” grumbled the tallest, pushing his oversized bowler back on his head and clutching his stack of newsprint to his checkered jacket with a skinny arm. “Said we was makin’ too much noise. Too much noise in a spit-and-sawdust? How we supposed to sell papers, just with a please-sir and a thank you? It ain’t natural!”

  “Carbonate Chronicle! Get your news from us!” chanted two other boys, each attempting to thrust a copy into Mark’s hands.

  Another urchin, wearing a straw boater several sizes too large, a little ragged around the rim, and dented in the crown, wiggled between them with “The Herald! Latest news from around the world and Cincinnati!”