“Two of your coffin varnish!” Cora slid the silver dollar across the bartop toward the bartender.
“I didn’t want a drink, Miss LaRouche,” Kate said, stepping up to the bar beside Cora.
From the piano came the introductory notes of a tune which reaped the laughter of the saloon’s patrons, as the bartender took the coin and made change, returning Cora a half dollar.
“Miss LaRouche,” Kate said. “Thank you and all, but…”
“Here,” Cora turned and tossed the silver coin to the pipe-smoking man standing only a couple of feet behind them.
“When should I expect the rest?” He asked, biting the coin, then pocketing it in his vest.
“Within the hour,” she pivoted back to the bar, as the pipe-smoking man returned to his game, sitting down at the table near the entrance of the Amador saloon.
The bartender flipped two shot glasses onto the bar. “Did I hear you correctly, Miss LaRouche? You want the homebrew?”
“That I do, Felix. Gunpowder and all.”
Kate’s nostrils flared as Felix brought out a brown bottle and uncorked it. Proceeding the pop, the aroma of pure alcohol infected the air. Subtle at first, yet quickly conquered all other smells till it alone reigned. Kate’s nose wrinkled, but a smile lit up Cora’s angelic face. Kate rolled her eyes as Felix poured the two shots. The liquid itself was clear, but a cloud of gray detritus floated in it like the snow in a snowglobe. Cora took a glass and nudged the other toward Kate.
“I’m assuming you know something about Bart Hazeleton,” Kate said, mesmerized by the particles beginning to settle at the bottom of the shot glass.
Cora smirked, tapping her cigar. The ash crumbled into the spitoon that Stick had missed. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen,” Kate said, pointing towards the pipe smoking man sitting at his card table. “That man fetched you…”
“You look far… more mature.” Cora said, feigning a smile. “But I think there are some measures you could take. Maybe some powder for the nose. To lighten the shadows. Creating an optical illusion, so to speak, hiding its true size. And, I don’t know,” she drew on the cigar, blowing the smoke off to the side. “Have you tried a corset? I imagine that could aid that curve of your spine. Even help define yourself a feminine figure.”
Kate blinked. “I thank you for helping me with that rapscallion, Stick. But, as of this moment, I do not care for such frivolous things. I simply want to hear what you know about Mr. Hazeleton. For surely, you know something.”
“I was only giving some advice.” Cora pinched the shot glass and rotated in quarter turns as it still rested on the bar.
Kate’s nostrils flared. “That man smoking the pipe fetched you after I inquired of Mr. Hazeleton. A man under your employ it seems. I’d like to…”
“How are you so confident that you’re nineteen?” Cora asked. “Weren’t you an amnesiac? Found feral and naked? I’m sure that is something of an embarrassment.”
“Mr. Hazeleton told you that, did he?”
Cora grinned, but it was as mean looking and hard as a hammer claw. “Share a drink with me.”
Kate eyed the shot glass in front of her. From the settled pile of gray detritus at the bottom of the glass, rose little wispy hairs of black, darkening the clear liquid as they curled up to the surface. Cora’s mean grin spread into a smile as she propped her elbow on the bartop and leaned her head on her fist.
The piano finished a song. There was clapping. A chair scraped along the floor as a man stood up. He groaned and stretched and walked across the floor, between the tables, and out of the saloon. The batwings waddled on the hinges. A woman giggled as she led another fellow up the saloon stairs to a room. The piano took a swing of beer and started playing a Nocturne.
Kate said, “You’ll tell me what you know?”
“Not much of a drinker?” Cora asked.
“It robs men of their senses.”
“Only those who can’t handle it. I’m sure you can.”
“Is that really gunpowder in here?”
“It’s the Amador’s special. A little more kick,” Cora said, tapping her cigar. “No shame in being nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” Kate said, grabbing the shot glass. “I’m not keen on drinking poison.”
Cora smirked then, holding her glass. “Together then.”
They faced each other, both slowly raising their glasses. Kate’s nose wrinkled reflexively from the stinging odor. “Can I sip it?”
“It’s a shot, Ms. Kate.”
“One gulp.”
Cora nodded, the shot glass poised at her lips. Kate lifted her glass, eyeing Cora for a sign. Once she tilted her shot, Kate drank hers.
The liquid was warm. The particulates tripped and fell over the bumps of her tongue, skidding like wet sand, as the alcohol itself rolled down her throat like a flaming ball of tar, triggering her gag reflex. Half of the shot that was already down, that had tickled the entrance to the stomach and its hold of bile, returned, erupting back up from the esophagus. Acidic bile, grainy gunpowder, and alcohol collided with the latter half of the liquor that she had yet to consume, ballooning her cheeks with the vile concoction as the chemical fumes burned her nasal passages clean.
Cora held her empty glass up between them. A shiver took her and once it had left she followed it with a smile. “Smooth, don’t you think?” She set the glass upside down on the bar.
Kate forced the liquor down. A little swallow at a time, each time pounding her fist into her thigh, till at last it was all down. She gagged and burped, closing her eyes and opening them in hopes of easing her dizziness.
“You may want to wipe your nose before we go see Bart.” Cora said, as a couple breaths of a giggle escaped her lips.
Kate still gasped from the burn of the liquor, but she quickly wiped the string of snot dangling from her nostrils. The saloon seemed to spin, slowly turning like a carousel.
“It was one drink,” Cora said.
“Where’s Bart?” Kate asked.
Cora smoked her cigar. “I’ll take you to him.”
“Just tell me which room he is in.”
Cora blew smoke from the corner of her smile. “The room’s about a three day’s ride from here.” She moved from the bar, making her way toward the front doors of the Amador Saloon.
Over the piano music, the pipe smoking man hollered, “Miss LaRouche.”
Cora paused, a hand on the batwings. “You’ll get your money.” She pushed through the doors and Kate staggered after her.
“What do you mean: ‘three day’s ride’?” Kate asked.
Cora walked fast along the boardwalk, her red curls bobbing, her heels tapping. “I mean I’ve got him held up far outside of town.”
Kate was caught between gaits, walking or jogging, as she followed. “Whatever for?”
“To protect my interests.”
“And what if my interests conflict with yours?” Kate asked. “In other words, why are you helping me?”
“You are a most distrustful girl,” Cora said.
“I-” Kate tripped over a loose board, but kept her balance. “I do not believe you are doing this solely out of the kindness of your heart.”
Cora suddenly stopped and turned around to face Kate. “No. You’re right. I know what you want and I’m playing that to my advantage.”
Kate stood there speechless as Cora’s heels knocked on the creaking planks of the boardwalk. Kate needed to talk to Magnus, no, Bart. Whoever he was. But was he worth it? Were his abilities real? Did he really have an augural skill? Could he really commune with the dead? Was he worth following this egomaniacal woman?
No, he wasn’t.
But, to know if she was correct in her line of thinking, to know that if she truly had a brother, that would be plenty of reward. Especially if she was able to converse with her dead brother and learn of a life that she once held. And maybe it would be possible to return to that life, and escape the non-life that she had now.
Kate trotted after Cora, ignoring the nasty grin when Cora glanced back at her. Both women continued in leery silence all the way to the livery. Neither spoke until it came time for the purchase of two ponies and a mule, which Cora facilitated. A sturdy black pony with white socks for eighteen dollars and a gray, flea-bitten, swayback mare (that the livery owner described as “crow bait”) for ten dollars. She procured a pack mule as well.
Kate already assumed the swayback mare was for her ride, but Cora made the distinction anyhow.
“I will pay the debt,” Kate said.
“I have no doubt you will,” Cora said.
Cora left for the Amador to gather her belongings, while Kate lingered at the livery and watched the smith shod the ponies. About an hour later, Cora returned. Behind her, a fellow (that Kate hadn’t met before) carried two bundles each wrapped in a slicker and another stranger pushed a wheelbarrow of gear. They tied the gear to the pack mule. After the livery smith saddled the black pony, the two fellows hitched her bundle to the back of it. Cora dismissed the two men, giving each a quarter, before Kate’s borrowed bundle was secure. Kate went to fasten her bundle on the back of the gray mare. She attempted the diamond hitch with her one arm. She did not know it, because the smith and Cora stood behind her, but Cora had distracted the smith with coquettish talk as Kate struggled to knot the rope. After several minutes and after the bundle had fallen off the horse a couple of times, Cora finally asked the smith to aid Kate. At around four, they were mounted and riding out of Goodenough, heading south toward the Dugout.
They rode straight south. It was all flat, not a rock or a bit of vegetation taller than a chicken as far as Kate could see. The miles of sagebrush passed slowly around the clopping hooves of her mare. Eventually, she heard the sounds of a creek, the water tripping and falling over red and orange stones. Cora veered southeast so they could ride along its shallow banks.
Another mile and Kate noticed something out on the horizon. It was nothing more than a bump along the endless straight line of sagebrush. She pulled the brown brim of her felt hat down and squinted, but still could not decipher what laid ahead of them. The sun began to set, burning the sky. They stopped and made camp. Cora set up a small one person tent. Beneath the silver gaze of the moon, their little fire crackled as they ate cans of sardines. Cora smoked her cigar, sitting across from Kate, who stared into the dancing flames. Kate thought of her brother. Or at least thought of the idea of a brother, because she still didn’t know if it was real or only the product of the fever. It couldn’t be a hallucination though. It had to be real, for the emotions welled from deep within, stinging and pouring out with no thought or effort, oozing hot like blood from a cut. That had to make it real, yes?
“Kate,” Cora said.
Kate blinked, lifting her gaze from the fire to Cora’s face. Red curls dangled on either side of her green, scrutinizing eyes. “You going loopy?” Cora asked.
Kate glanced at her and then picked up the bedroll there at her side.
Cora drew on her cigar. “You thinking about something?”
“I’d rather not talk about it,” Kate stretched out her bedroll.
“You thinking about Jake?”
“Jake?”
“My mistake, I meant Bart,” she exhaled smoke. “Mr. Hazeleton.”
Kate was there on her knees beside the bedroll, picking rocks out from under it. “I wasn’t.”
“But, you’re so determined to see him. Determined enough to ride out here with a stranger.”
“He is merely a means.”
“A mite curt.”
Kate laid down on her roll. “I am tired. Good night.”
Cora kicked Kate’s feet.
“Coffee?”
After breakfast, they packed up camp and saddled their horses. Cora, finishing first, lit a cigar and watched Kate struggle. She didn’t offer to help till she grew bored, yawning as she nudged Kate aside to loop the bridle on the mare. Kate, knowing she needed the help, could only ball up her fist.
They rode along the edge of the creek, toward that lump in the horizon. When they broke for lunch, she realized that the lump was a massive boulder. Where it had come from, how it had come to settle in the midst of miles upon miles of flat, level land, she could not figure, and any questions asked of Cora only reaped more ignorance. By the sun’s setting, they had camped at the bass of the gargantuan boulder. Cora was already asleep in her tent, but Kate sat upright on her bedroll, gazing up at the boulder. A boulder as large as the two story Hotel back in Esau.
It was its bigness, Kate finally decided, that uneased her. Its size unmasked her perception of her own stature. It drew her gaze to the endless, vast ocean of the night sky, to the uncountable stars that populated the fathomless depths above her. How they floated. How they sparkled. Yet she sat on the dirt. Among the sagebrushes. Beside a dying fire.
Kate caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of her eye, but there was only the dark, still night. The darker shadows of the sagebrush stretching on toward the blue black horizon. Again, the subtle ruffle in her periphery, and as she turned toward the movement, there came a warm breeze, as soft and gentle as father’s kiss upon the forehead, the tossed sand in the air scratching her forehead same as the father’s stubble. The sagebrush shook.
That’s not what I saw.
What she glimpsed hung down from the stars themselves, all the way to the ground, like the weak flirting of a curtain in a breeze.
But, it had to be what she saw. It had to have been the wind running along the sagebrush. What else could have it been?
The giant boulder stood silent. The stars sparkled millions of miles above her head. She decided it was time to go to sleep.
Morning came and Cora helped Kate soon as she was finished with her own chores. As they set out, trees stood in the distance. About midday, Kate saw that they were pines. Cora led the journey, but suddenly slowed her horse, which Kate did as well, thinking there was some reason for it, but Kate motioned for her to ride alongside her. For a time, they rode side by side in silence, Kate not yet knowing Cora’s purpose, and the redheaded woman’s answer was only a smile. Such a kind smile. Lovely even. And for a moment, Kate thought that there may be friendliness behind it. Indeed, that aura of kindness, of warmth, of cordiality, of goodwill, it should beam from such an angelic face as hers. A face so beautiful, so pleasing to the eye, so delightful to gaze upon, so bewitching, like an exquisite work of art, whether be a poem, painting, song, or sculpture, alludes to the nobility of its creator. Surely, there was only virtue at the heart of such an alluring woman.
“You met Jake in Esau, correct?” Cora asked.
“He was Cornelius Magnus then,” Kate said. “Bart Hazeleton now.”
“And Jake performed séances… in Esau?”
Kate glanced over at Cora. “Yes.”
“I assume they were all hocus pocus. All lies.”
“I thought the same.”
“You believe they were real?”
“I witnessed a woman I respect believe one of them was real.”
“And that changed your mind?” Cora asked.
Kate remained silent.
“He would not conduct a séance for me,” Cora said. The horses’ hooves swished the prickly limbs of the brush.
“Why not?” Kate asked.
Cora’s eyes did not match her smile. They were like the green waves of the ocean, ebbing and flowing, one moment still with serene melancholy and then the next churning with foaming wrath. Kate, realizing that somehow she was the reason for Mr. Hazeleton’s refusal, turned her face away from Cora. They continued on in silence, their leather saddles creaking as they followed the creek. By late afternoon, they saw smoke rising above the towering pines, and they rode on even as the sun set and night took over. The Dugout was a little cabin there by the creek, tucked along the edge of the pines. There was a small amount of light in the window, a bit of orange trying to survive in the darkness. The women dismounted.
The door was stuck, dragging across the dirt floor, only opening enough for them to slip inside one at a time. It reeked of smoke. The fire in the rustic hearth cast a frail light that did little to mitigate the darkness. In the center of the tiny room, Bart Hazeleton sat at a homely table, opposite the fire. The red glow of the flames flickered on his gaunt face, causing the wax of his mustache to shimmer.
“Kate?” He stood, needing to duck his head to avoid hitting the rafters. Something, flat, broken, glistened on the table.
“She’s here,” Cora said, stepping between them. “Mr. Hazeleton, I believe it is time.” She took a seat on the bench there at the table, across from the hearth.
“Of course.” He sat down beside her, and, noticing Kate still standing at the door, motioned for her to join them.
As Kate approached, she studied the shards on the table. Pottery. Its edges shined orange, reflecting the fire’s glow. Several shards. Arranged as if there was a thought to glue it all together.
She sat at the end of the table, the faint crackling of the flames coming from her right, still studying the fragments of pottery on the table, noting the painting of a raven (though shattered) formed by all the pieces. “So, those deputies fumbled it in the end.”
“No,” Bart said. “God rest their souls. It was not their clumsy hands that let it fall, but Mr. Doolin’s.”
“God rest his soul,” Kate said, clearing her throat. “Did you ever give him his séance?”
A grin tilted his mustache. “A mite of affection.”
Kate watched the fire. “Do not make an effort to understand me. I’m here merely on professional terms.”
Cora struck a match and lit her cigar. “The lady has spoken.”
“You seek a séance, as well?” He asked.
“Be honest, is it all a fabrication?” Kate asked.
Bart met Kate’s eyes, then glanced down at the shards of the broken bowl. “It is real,” he said.
“Swear it,” Kate said. “You took my money. You went against your word.”
“I saved your life.”
“Swear it,” Kate said. “Swear it on your immortal soul that it’s real.”
Cora puffed her cigar as she leaned close to Bart. “And you thought I held a grudge?”
“I do not need any help from you,” Kate said.
“Of course you do, sweetheart,” Cora blew a smoke ring. “You’re pitiful.”
“Cora,” Bart said.
She pulled out her little pistol. “You don’t have to swear on your immortal soul. Just on your beating heart.”
“That seems a bit much,” Kate said.
“He’s merely a means,” Cora said. “Ain’t that what you told me?”
Bart didn’t once look at the pistol, his eyes remained fixed on the fire. “In both of your eyes, I am a man lacking. In some way, in some fashion, in your perception I have failed you. Well, I believe you both to be blind. Blind to your despotic wills.”
Will? She thought. How dare the man! How dare the man claim I am domineering! It was him! His choices, his actions, his despotic will that affected my life, that sent it reeling and avalanching, that destroyed it!
But, to erupt now… to fight the claim would only confirm it, would only show that her only recourse to any pushback, any critique, any question of her behavior, was to assert her will. No. She could hold her tongue. She could wait. Unlike Cora, whose face reddened, even beyond the influence of the hearth’s glow.
And a smug worm burrowed in Kate’s heart, as she watched Cora blow smoke into Bart’s face. And Kate was ready, ready to gloat within herself whenever Cora would begin shouting and disputing Bart’s words, but Cora never did. She only asked, “And your point?”
Bart stared right into Kate’s eyes. Even in the flickering shadows, his was a handsome face. The trimmed mustache. The sharp nose. The jaw as defined as the head of a spade. His brow furrowed in determination, in stoic focus. Yet his eyes were not cold, they were warm, and reflection of the hearth fire danced in the pools of inviting darkness. And as she tried to meet his stare, she realized that within and behind those eyes stood a mind, a heart, and a soul. A being of emotions. Of desires. Of a will. Of a presence all his own. She glanced toward the fragments of pottery on the table, realizing that he was a man. And with that came another, more awful realization, that perhaps he was right, she had been blind. For if she had only now realized that he had a soul, that he bled and cried the same as her, just now, the scales over her eyes were only beginning to fall.
Of course, though, all of this happened in a matter of blinks, in a few heartbeats. And when Kate turned her sight from him, he looked to Cora.
“I am not performing this séance for either one of you,” he said.
“Excuse me?” Cora asked.
Kate remained silent, hoping for the oracular moment, but not having the heart to say one way or the other. Surely, her memory of her dead brother was all a dream. George’s song, the tale of Old Coyote, that was all a crazy hope. Nothing more. At least these were the things that she told herself, tried to tell herself. Yet deep in her belly, she knew it was all a part of who she was. Even Old Coyote’s pride.
“My Spirit Guide, Cracked Beak, said your name, Kate, at the end of the séance we performed for Mr. Doolin. For years now, I have aided Cracked Beak on his quest for a missing woman. He never did explain the reason for his search, but only emphasized the necessity it bore on his morals. Something of which I finally understand. Kate, I believe he’s been looking for you and so, it is for Cracked Beak that I engage in this occult art.”
Cora pounded the table, rattling the pottery shards. “The Wells Fargo coach!”
“He may help you.” Bart reached into his suit jacket.
Cigar pinched between her teeth, Cora snatched the pistol up from the table, cocked the hammer, and aimed it at Bart’s face. He froze. His hand hidden in the jacket. “My pistol is on my hip.”
“Easy. Slow.”
It was a flask. “You’re still aiming that pistol at me,” Bart said.
“Because he better help me,” Cora said.