Hop Alley (18 page)

“Do you want me to fetch you some soup?” she asked when she came in.

I took a whiff and nearly told her no, famished though I was. “Not to be indelicate, but when are the undertakers coming?”

“For Hiram? They came and got him yesterday. He’s planted like he belongs.” I must have looked dubious, because she added, “That’s a smell that’s going to linger for a time. You’ll have to be leaving anyhow.”

She handed me a
Rocky Mountain News
from a stack that had been growing at my bedside and pointed at an article on the front page:

BETRAYED BY THIRST

ANOTHER ESCAPE FROM THE CITY JAIL

The Mayor Has No Explanation.

          
Four of Ten Evaders Caught in a State of Inebriation, Four Chinese and Two White Inmates Still At Large. One is Accomplice of Banbury’s Murderess.

This was not the lead article, however. My old chum Banbury claimed the top of the page:

EDITOR’S ASSASSIN CALLED “MADWOMAN”

District Attorney Vows:
“SHE SHALL HANG.”

Oft-Wedded Medusa’s Motives in Killing

Beloved Editor Are No Doubt Political.

“Where’s my grip?” I swung my legs off of the bed.

“Packed,” Mrs. Fenster said. She went to fetch me a pitcher and a bowl for washing up. It wasn’t as bad a job as I’d have expected after a jailbreak and several days abed; the widow Cowan had sponge-bathed me while I slept, having detected at close quarters an offensive odor distinct from the cadaver’s.

Once I had washed, shaved, and dressed I took a survey of the studio and gallery. There was no possibility of hauling the inventory or equipment, nor of having them shipped, and once
again I was faced with the prospect of running out of a place I had adopted as my own; at least this time I had the opportunity to pack a few articles of clothing. I told Mrs. Fenster and Lem they could have it all in lieu of severance pay.

“Rent’s paid here until the end of the month, so get it out before then. Or perhaps you could come to an agreement with Mrs. Banbury and stay.”

She snorted. “And who’d make the pictures? I can’t. The boy’s barely got the smarts to pour that stuff onto the plates and dip ’em into the chemicals, he doesn’t know how to have people sit, or what to make a picture of.”

This was hard to dispute, and the boy nodded, unoffended at his auntie’s assessment of his capacities. I began to scratch out a list of photographers and dealers in photographic goods, and a rough approximation of what I thought my gear might bring.

She balked when she saw the amounts on the page. “That’s too much for severance, Mr. Sadlaw. How’s about I send you half the proceeds?”

“Don’t know where I’ll go and if I sent word when I got there, it might be intercepted.”

She nodded. “I might keep some of the chairs and the sofa for myself. And the pianoforte,” she said.

“I didn’t realize you played.”

She seemed almost wistful as she gazed upon it. “I don’t but they’re nice to have in a parlor.”

I hied to my bedroom where I lifted a floorboard and took
from its hiding place a roll of bills. Eighty dollars; not a princely sum but more than I’d had when I fled Cottonwood, and this time I left behind me no loved ones, only a business and some objects of monetary value. In a decade hardly anyone would remember I’d been through, much less regret my absence.

TEN

E
XEUNT
, P
URSUED BY A
B
EAR

I
considered heading eastward, but between my Ohio upbringing and my experiences in the war the region held few happy associations; besides, I’d never seen the Pacific and had heard that it was bluer and colder than the Atlantic, and that seemed sufficient motivation for a westerly trajectory. For thirty dollars I purchased an old roan mare, since I didn’t want to board the train in Denver, and rode her to Cheyenne, in Wyoming, passing along the way the Greeley Colony. Its pious and shiftless founder had lately died an ignominious death in the western half of the state at the hands of the Utes, the finest horsemen in
the West and possibly the world, whom he had stupidly tried to turn into dirt farmers. I didn’t stop to inquire as to the current prosperity of the colony’s residents.

Arriving in Laramie I sold the mare at only a five-dollar loss, which I counted as a bargain. I hadn’t bothered to name her and she seemed unruffled by our parting. The next day I boarded a train on the Union Pacific bound for California, and as it hurtled westward I pondered whether I ought to adopt yet another new name or keep Sadlaw for a while. As William Ogden of Kansas I was wanted for murder, a crime for which there exists no statute of limitations and for which I was liable to be extradited and hanged if found out; but as William Sadlaw I was wanted, as far as I knew, only by the city of Denver, and only as an accessory. It takes time and effort to acclimate oneself to a new name, and as Sadlaw had been my maternal grandmother’s maiden name, and as I had been fond of her as in my childhood, I felt inclined to keep it.

B
EFORE WE’D CROSSED
out of Wyoming I caught the attention of a pair of children, a brother and sister about six and eight years of age respectively. They climbed over the banquette in front of me and began to stare at me, for want of any more compelling diversion. Their mother sat a few rows ahead of me, apparently asleep, and they took my silence and failure to acknowledge their presence as a sign that I wanted to be friends.

“We’re going to Stockton in California,” the girl said. “It’s where our papa’s family live.”

“He’s dead,” said the boy.

“Throwed out of a window,” said the girl, eyes wide with wonder.

“By a man he did business with. He ruined him, the man said.”

“That’s a shame,” I said.

“Just as well. Our uncle says Papa would have gone to prison anyway if he hadn’t been killed.”

The girl’s eyes widened further. “The policeman who came to our house to tell us said he broke every single bone in his body, including his skull and all his fingers and toes.”

Her curls were all done up in pink ribbons, and both she and the boy wore clean and well-made clothing, suggesting a social station that would have sustained irreparable damage from a felony conviction.

“Where are you coming from?” I asked.

“Chicago,” said the boy.

“Our papa worked at the Board of Trade. It’s an awful lot of money he’s supposed to have stolen.”

“Might as well hang for a pound as a penny,” I said.

Their mother, having roused herself and found her babes gone from her side, arose and made her way back to us.

“I’m sorry, sir, for my children. Come back and sit,” she ordered them.

“Not at all, madam. I enjoyed our interview.”

She favored me with a weary smile tinged with sadness and affection for her tots. “They’re without much to do on a long ride like this.” She had a round, pretty face with a sore on her lip that I hoped hadn’t arisen from another of her late husband’s vices. She was flushed and slightly sweaty from her nap; four stray tendrils of wet hair stuck to her forehead, which bore the imprint of a railway pillow’s braided ornament.

“Lovely children,” I said, feeling an unwanted twinge of pity for her.

“That is true,” she said without joy or enthusiasm, and she took each child by the hand and trudged back up to their own banquette and took her seat again with an unconscious sigh.

A
FTER A ROUGH
night’s sleep I awoke to find the train slowing on approach to the promisingly named town of Ogden, Utah, and the mangy conductor limped through the car announcing a stop of one hour.