Blood of Mystery (17 page)

19.

Lirith returned to her faro table, and Durge headed out the saloon’s swinging doors—probably to make sure no lawless little girls set the town ablaze with firecrackers. Travis left Niles Barrett to his brandy and went back to pouring drinks. However, as the day wore on, it was hard to concentrate on his work, and often a man had to ask him twice for a glass of beer or whiskey. More than once he found himself gazing at the faded Wanted poster at the back of the saloon.

The saloon grew more crowded by the hour. Travis learned there was to be a parade along Elk Street at sunset, culminating in a fireworks display on the edge of town. This wasn’t just a national holiday; it had been exactly seven years since the state of Colorado was admitted to the Union.

Despite the fact that nearly all of the saloon’s regulars had shown up for the festivities, Travis never caught sight of Ezekial Frost. The old mountain man usually came in long before nightfall to get his shot of Old Towse. Where was he?

He’s probably avoiding the crowds, Travis. Ezekial is pretty
much a hermit, and I’m sure he knew today was a holiday.

Besides, there was too much on Travis’s mind for him to worry about Ezekial Frost. He couldn’t stop thinking about Barrett’s earlier words. All day, the Englishman sat at the end of the bar, slowly nursing several brandies in a row, clearly mourning the loss of his printing press. At one point it occurred to Travis that the Englishman might know Jack Graystone, but when he asked, Barrett shook his head.

As afternoon edged into evening, the frequency of the explosions outside increased. Every time he heard the sound of a firecracker, Travis had to clench his jaw and force himself not to jump. The noise was as loud and rapid as gunfire. He couldn’t stop thinking about Durge, and he hoped the knight wasn’t getting into any trouble out there.

By the time sunset was imminent, the atmosphere in the saloon was sharp with the scent of gunpowder. To Travis, it smelled like fear. The constant din of explosions and talk had set his nerves on edge, and he could hardly hold the whiskey bottle steady as he poured. Often he reached into his pocket to grip the smooth orb of Sinfathisar, and that calmed him somewhat. However, he would be grateful when the night was over—when Durge showed up at the saloon whole and unhurt, and they could return with Lirith to the Bluebell.

Travis was just glad Sareth was safe at the boardinghouse. Judging by the amount of liquor that was flowing, it wasn’t a good time for the Mournish man to be seen in town. The fireworks hadn’t even started, and already men staggered into the saloon, drunk before they even bought a drink. Tempers would be flaring before all was said and done. When he was able to sneak a moment, Travis made sure the shotgun behind the bar was loaded. Manypenny noticed his action and gave him an approving nod.

At last the parade began. Travis saw movement outside the saloon’s windows. A wagon rolled past, decorated with red, white, and blue buntings. All the employees of the First Bank of Castle City sat in the wagon, grinning and waving, along with the owner of the bank, Aaron Locke. Locke was a bookish but handsome man in his forties, and everyone agreed he was the richest fellow in Castle City, now that Mr. Simon Castle had returned back East following the death of his wife. However, it was also said the fortune of Mortimer Hale, publisher of the
Castle City Clarion
, ran a close second to Aaron Locke’s. While it was Simon Castle who had begun the newspaper, it was under Hale’s ownership that the paper’s circulation and influence had soared.

More wagons passed by, and coaches, and men on horses, all decorated for the occasion. Firecrackers exploded in flashes like lightning. Most of the saloon’s patrons headed out the door, drinks in hand, to stand on the boardwalk and whoop and holler as the parade rattled by. Travis leaned on the bar, taking in a deep breath as he enjoyed the sudden calm inside the saloon.

“One sarsaparilla please.”

He looked up into Lirith’s warm brown eyes and smiled. “Coming right up, ma’am.”

Travis poured a glass of the dark, sweet liquid and pushed it toward Lirith; she and Durge seemed to adore the stuff, although Travis couldn’t drink it without gagging.

“Aren’t you going to watch the parade?” he said.

“I’d rather stay in here,” she said with a sigh.

Travis understood. As long as the men were out watching the parade, she could take a break.

“Do you want to go watch the fireworks later?” he asked. “I imagine the saloon will clear out for that. If it does, I bet Manypenny would let us go.”

“No, thank you. I wish to go see a play.”

Travis gave her a curious look. She set down her drink and pulled a folded piece of paper from her dress.

“A man at my table gave me this. He called it a playbill, and it says a play is to be performed tonight at the Diamond Theater on Aspen Street.”

“A play, you say?” said Niles Barrett from the end of the bar. The Englishman’s eyes were slightly blurred, but his voice was as crisp as ever. “That’s bloody good news. We could use a deal more culture in this town. Do you know that Oscar Wilde recently visited Leadville? If that collection of hovels can get the likes of Oscar Wilde to come give a lecture, I don’t see why we can’t in Castle City. I hear from those who saw him that he’s a fascinating man.”

The miner standing next to Barrett snorted. “And I hear he was more lady than man.”

Barrett scowled at the miner, but before he could respond, the next man down the bar spoke—another miner, given his stained hands.

“I was there in Leadville,” the man said. “And I saw this Oscar Wilde fellow. He was dressed all in velvet and lace, and he carried a lily everywhere he went. When he visited one of the mines, they served him up whiskey, harsh as snake venom, thinking to make an easy fool of him. But you know what? He outdrank every single one of them miners, for all that he was standing there in white stockings and knickers.”

That won a grunt of respect from the first miner.

Barrett rolled his eyes. “I see. So it’s for Lord Wilde’s drinking prowess that we should admire him, not the subtle skill of his pen.”

The two men stared at him.

“Never mind,” Barrett said with a pained look. He turned his back to the men and regarded Lirith. “What is the play to be, Miss Lily? Is it Shakespeare? Please let it be Shakespeare. Or better yet, Marlowe. Poor Kit, stabbed in the eye in his prime.”

Lirith smiled eagerly. “The man said he thought I’d especially like this play.”

She unfolded the playbill and pressed it flat on the bar. Travis’s heart sank.

Barrett sniffed. “Ah. American melodrama. What utter rubbish.” He turned his attention back to his brandy.

Lirith smoothed the playbill. “Look, Travis. They’re like me.” She touched the two figures—a man and a woman— drawn on the playbill. Their faces were shaded as darkly as Lirith’s own. Above the grotesquely rendered drawing was the play’s title.

UNCLE TOM’S CABIN OR, LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY A MELODRAMA IN FIVE ACTS

“Lirith...” Travis fought for words. How could he explain it to her? “You don’t want to see this play.”

Her brow wrinkled. “Why not?”

Travis didn’t know where to begin, so he took a deep breath and started by telling Lirith about slavery. He talked about what he remembered from college history, about the slave trade that brought people from Africa to the Americas against their will, about the abolitionists, and the Civil War, and President Lincoln, and how he was assassinated. All the while Lirith listened, her face without expression.

At last Travis ran out of things to say. Lirith was silent for a moment, then she touched the playbill.

“So this Independence Day they are celebrating,” she said. “It didn’t mean independence for everyone, did it?”

Travis took her hand in hers. “It does now, Lirith. Or at least, someday it will.”

She pulled her hand away and picked up the playbill. “If the woman who wrote this was one of these abolitionists, as you called them, then I would still like to see the play. I think it would be good for me to know what it was like for them.”

Travis swallowed. He had to make Lirith understand. Yes, Harriet Beecher Stowe had been opposed to slavery, and her novel
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
had helped fuel the cause of the abolitionists. However, he also knew that by the time the book became popular as a play, it had more to do with slapstick comedy than commentary against slavery. Lirith wanted to see people who looked like her. But Travis was certain the actors would be as white as he was beneath their thick coating of blackface. However, before he could say these things, a familiar figure stepped through the swinging doors of the saloon and approached the bar, peg leg drumming against the wooden floor.

Travis froze, but Lirith smiled as she looked up. “Sareth. What are you doing here? I thought you were going to help Maudie put up decorations.”

The Mournish man scratched his pointed beard. “What do you mean,
beshala
? I came here as fast as I could.”

Travis struggled to find his tongue. Something was wrong with this. “Why exactly did you come here, Sareth?”

“In answer to your message,” Sareth said, a scowl darkening his coppery visage. “The boy you sent came to the boardinghouse. He said you needed to see me at the saloon right away.” He glanced from Travis to Lirith, evidently seeing the puzzlement on their faces. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Travis said. “I—” Confusion gave way to understanding, and dread surged through Travis’s chest like a cold gully washer. “Gentry,” he said, and the others stared at him.

It had to be. Who else would trick Sareth into leaving the Bluebell? Certainly not Tanner, and no one else in town even knew him. But why do it all?

You saw the way he looked at Sareth that day. Gentry hates
him. There’s no reason for it, but a man like that doesn’t need a
reason. Sareth looks di ferent, and that’s enough.

But why today? It had been over a month since their encounter with Gentry and his cronies. Why wait until now to do something? Before Travis could think of an answer, the saloon’s doors swung open, and three men stepped through, confirming his fears.

“Speak of the Devil,” Barrett muttered, gripping his brandy. The saloon had fallen quiet, and despite his soft tone the Englishman’s voice echoed loudly.

Lionel Gentry turned his blue eyes toward Barrett. “You don’t want to be here, Niles,” he said in his easy drawl. “Why don’t you go on over to China Alley and buy yourself one of them pigtail boys we all know you like. Wasn’t that what they kicked you out of England for? You might as well have yourself a good time. Judgment Day is coming soon for the likes of you. But it’s him we’ve come for tonight.” He nodded toward Sareth.

Gentry’s words were like a blow to the Englishman. His face blanched, and he backed into a corner, still clutching his drink. Outside, a volley of firecrackers crackled like buckshot against sheet metal. The dozen men left in the saloon all cringed on reflex. Travis forced himself not to glance down at the shotgun beneath the bar. His hands, resting on the polished wood, were only inches from it. He wished Manypenny was there, but the saloonkeeper had stepped outside to watch the parade.

Lirith stepped forward, interposing herself between the men and Sareth.

“You have no claim to him,” the witch said.

The long-faced one, Eugene Ellis, took a draw on his thin cigar. “So the stories are true,” he said in an exhalation of rank smoke. “Manypenny did hire her. Only I can’t quite tell if she’s a Negress or a mulatto.”

“It don’t matter,” Calvin Murray said. His downy red beard made him appear more boyish rather than less. “No kind of woman should be dealing cards. It ain’t proper.”

Ellis let out a sardonic laugh and smoothed his waxed mustache. “Don’t be beguiled by her beauty, Mr. Murray. I tell you, without doubt, she’s not a proper lady. That’s a harlot’s dress she wears.”

Color darkened Lirith’s cheeks, and she turned away. Sareth tried to catch her eyes, but she wouldn’t look at him.

Ellis let his gaze flicker up and down the witch’s slender figure. “I wonder that hiring her kind for such a public position is even legal.”

“Maybe it is,” Gentry said, taking a step forward, spurs jingling. “And then again, maybe it shouldn’t be. Maybe the law in this town ain’t doing what it should. But that’s all right. Because there are men who’ll do what the law won’t.” He fixed his cold blue gaze on Travis. “You’re friends with that new deputy, aren’t you? Mr. Dirk, I believe his name is?”

Travis swallowed but didn’t say anything.

“I heard Dirk’s a man-killer out of Abilene,” Murray said, his voice high-pitched with emotion. “And I don’t doubt it. Not from the look of him. That’d be just like Tanner, to go and deputize an outlaw.”

“You’re right, Mr. Murray.” Gentry kept his focus on Travis. “And there’s something shifty about this one, too. Though I can’t quite put my finger on it. He doesn’t wear a gun, but he’s dangerous all the same. I’d keep my eyes on his hands, if I were you.”

Outside, a rocket screamed like a mountain lion. Travis let go of the bar. The moist outlines of his splayed fingers lingered on the wood, then evaporated.

“What do you want with Sareth?” Travis said, although he knew the magic of the coin fragment made the name come out
Samson
.

Gentry took another step forward. “We have it on good account that your friend Mr. Samson robbed McKay’s General Store earlier today.”

Both Lirith and Travis shot astonished glances at Sareth. The Mournish man shook his head in confusion.

“It can’t be,” Lirith said.

“I talked to one of Mr. McKay’s clerks myself,” Ellis said, tossing his cigar butt on the floor. “Mr. Samson stole a box from the loading dock. The clerk said it contained a set of silverware intended for young Miss McKay’s wedding gift, and that it was worth more than fifty dollars. I suppose this here thief has already melted it down and sold it.”

“Is that so, Mr. Ellis?” said a deep, calm voice.

Travis looked up to see two figures standing in the doorway of the saloon. One was slight, with a sandy mustache, the other no taller, but broad and solid. Sheriff Tanner and Durge. Travis felt a surge of relief.