HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado (40 page)

The coal boss let the fresh water flow, but Nic didn’t bother to wash off most of the harsh soap sticking to his skin and scalp. He only wanted to be away from Manuel. To escape. He quickly rubbed his eyes and cheeks, then let the water rinse them before moving over to his shirt, which hung on a peg beside the entrance to the steam room even as the last drops ran over his head.

“Dominic, ever since the fall, man has known numerous woes. We no longer live with the perfections of Eden.”

Nic laughed, sardonically. “Don’t I know it.” And with that, he left the coal boss’s side, buttoning his shirt as he walked, his back tense with the urge to go back and pound Manuel until he stopped smiling as if he knew something everyone else did not.

It was unfortunate that as he was striding away, Alejandro passed by on his way to take his own shift in the steam room. He whispered an epithet in Spanish. Nic turned and roared. He tackled the wide-eyed man, who clearly never expected the attack. He went down, hard, with Nic on top of him, his face scraping along the deck’s planks. Nic sat up and pounded at his face from behind, reaching around to hit each cheek, as the man tried to throw him off.

He didn’t succeed, but a strong man lifted Nic away before his fury was fully spent. He writhed, almost freeing his right arm, but the man stubbornly clung to him. Manuel came over and assisted Alejandro to his feet, then helped him over to a bucket of salt water to clean the cut on his left cheek. Manuel’s eyes, full of dread now, ran over Nic. The captain approached and Nic tried his best to calm himself.

The captain, about his father’s age had he been alive, stood eye to eye with him. He stood there for a full minute, glaring at Nic. Nic wanted to glare back in defiance, but he knew that they had not even reached Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. He needed to stay on this ship. A crowd gathered. He glared at them instead.

“You remember our agreement?” the captain said.

Nic remembered it. A paper that stated he would not drink or brawl while aboard ship. On shore was his choice. He dared to look the captain in the eye and nod.

“You signed your name, showing you have some education. A smart man,” the captain said. “Not like most of these who signed their names with an X,” he added, waving about them. He stepped forward and tapped Nic on the chest. The men who held him gripped tighter. “For a smart man, you are very stupid.”

Manuel arrived at the captain’s side and whispered for a moment in his ear. Nic could not bear the humiliation of what the man might be saying, that he might be trying to aid him. He wanted to owe the man nothing.

Manuel moved away, disappearing behind the wall of sailors. The captain stared at Nic for a moment longer and then looked over the starboard edge of the ship “We are too far from the coast to throw you overboard. It would be more humane to put a gun to your head. So instead, you will receive thirty lashes. Five from Alejandro, whom you attacked.”

“Wait a minute. That man—”

“Ten from Alejandro,” amended the captain evenly. “And once it is done, you shall remain tied to the mast until daybreak.”

Nic clamped his mouth shut.

The captain edged closer again. “You are about to learn a painful lesson, Dominic St. Clair. You should have remembered your contract.” He turned to the men who held him. “Strip his shirt and tie him to the mast. You,” he said, lifting his chin toward another, “fetch my whip from the cabin.”

The men did so, and Dominic did not resist. There would be some relief in the pain, the punishment. He thought about Manuel’s words, about the anger within him that had driven so many away … How many had he failed? How many promises had he broken? He’d told his own mother countless times he would never fight again. His sisters. He had promised his father to look after his sisters, and he no longer even knew where they were, what they were doing, if they were alive.

The first whip strike made him feel as if he had been punched in the gut. He fought for breath, his mind trying to absorb the pain, make sense of it. The crew around him was silent. Only Alejandro laughed as he cast the whip toward Nic again. Nic gasped for breath at last, ashamed at the sudden tears in his eyes. But he could not help it—a third tendril sliced his back. He imagined he could hear the skin splitting, felt the warm rush of blood down his back. He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming and clung to the mast as if it were a lifeline, digging his fingernails in with each strike, concentrating on the feel of the damp, pulpy wood. He pushed his forehead against the mast, not wanting to give Alejandro the satisfaction of seeing him pull his head back in agony.

At last Alejandro finished his ten lashes. There was a brief pause as the whip changed hands. Nic felt distant, knowing he was losing consciousness. The next lashes came quickly, one after another, as if whoever struck him now only wished it quickly over. Probably the first mate. He lost count, wondering if this torture would ever end. And with the next strike, a wall of black rose up and claimed him.

He came to and screamed when two of the crew dumped a bucket of salt water over him. The other sailors dispersed, but Alejandro stood to one side, arms crossed, smiling as Nic focused on him. He tried to clamp his lips shut, cease his humiliating show of weakness, but his jaw seemed locked open—the stinging, raw pain in his back was simply too intense to do anything else.

Alejandro stepped forward. “Next time you will remember to fight me face-to-face as a man,” he whispered. “And if you are as smart as the captain says, on shore.”

“Get away from him, go,” Manuel said.

Nic closed his eyes and leaned his forehead back against the mast, trying to rise above the pain enough to think.

“The salt water is harsh,” Manuel said sorrowfully. “But it will help your wounds to heal and not get infected. Here, I have some water for you.” Nic turned miserably toward the coal boss and accepted the drink from the tin cup. Never had he felt so weak, so helpless.

“I will be back to tend to you.”

“Don’t bother,” Nic rasped. He only wanted to be alone.

“It is no bother.”

Manuel returned around midnight, as a sliver moon climbed higher in the sky off the starboard edge, and off to port, the brightest stars battled for their share of the light. In spite of himself, Nic was glad for his return because he was desperate for a drink. All the other sailors, by captain’s orders, stayed away from him. But Manuel apparently had permission.

Nic noisily gulped the water down, and Manuel went to fetch more. After Nic finished the second cup, Manuel held up a pail of what looked like thick grease—sailor’s balm. “I’ll put it on your cuts. It will heal faster.”

“Leave me be.”

“I must. Captain’s orders,” Manuel said with a shrug. He disappeared around Nic’s back. Nic shifted his weight to his left foot—or what he thought was his left foot, since his feet had fallen asleep an hour or so ago—and braced for Manuel’s touch. He thought it would be almost as painful as the lashes, but it was surprisingly painless. In a minute or so, Manuel had covered half his back.

“The Christ suffered wounds such as this,” he said.

“I do not wish to hear it,” Nic said tiredly.

“He bore this, and worse, for you. So that you might be free.”

“Manuel—”

“Our God understands our pain, reaches out to us through it. Whether it be a whipping or a loss—”

“Enough!”

“Yes,” Manuel said, finishing covering the wounds on his shoulder and purposefully twisting his words. “It was
enough
. Enough for all. Enough for any.
Buenas noches, hermano
.”

Good night, brother.
Why call him brother? He was no kin to him. Why wouldn’t the man just leave him alone?

Chapter 25

Odessa had just settled Samuel into his crib for his afternoon nap, when Cassie—a neighbor girl who walked over on occasion to help—came running upstairs.

“Miz M, sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but there’s somethin’ goin’ on with the boys. You better’d come quick.”

Odessa peeked over her shoulder at the baby, who was turning over and whimpering in his sleep as she closed the door behind her. With luck, he’d go back to sleep, even if he cried for a few minutes. “Keep an ear out for him, will you, Cassie?”

“Sure ’nough, ma’am.”

Odessa hurried down the stairs and out onto the porch. She looked to the stables, where it appeared all the men were gathering, facing Bryce. She muttered a brief prayer for protection and then groaned within. They’d just gotten Robert off and returned home. Couldn’t they have a time of peace? Was there something wrong with the horses he’d brought in? Heavens, she hoped not.

She gathered her skirts and went down the stairs, then over the trail that led to the stables. She slowed her pace as she neared, not wanting to appear as if she intended to interfere, only support. She couldn’t see Bryce anymore, just the circled heads of the men, all in varying heights. When a couple of men noticed she was coming, they turned back to the circle and whispered, and all of them turned to watch her approach. She paused, seeing for the first time the horror and sorrow on their faces. Slowly, she made her way inside their group, watching as Bryce rose, grim-faced.

On the ground were the broken bodies of Leander and Owen, two men who had been with the Circle M for more than two years. She gasped and brought a hand to her mouth. “Wh-what happened?” she cried, rushing to the men, kneeling beside them. Both were clearly beyond help, hours dead. She fought the urge to touch them, make sure there wasn’t some horrible mistake—

“Looks like they encountered an accident in the Little Horn Valley,” Bryce said, laying a comforting hand on her shoulders. “We think they got too close to the edge of the trail and some rocks gave way. They were found at the bottom of that bluff.”

“That’s a two-hundred-foot drop,” Odessa whispered. She touched one man’s shoulder and then the other, tears dripping down her face. They’d sat at her table, laughing and eating, just yesterday! Set out yesterday afternoon. “Why would they both fall?” she said.

“Maybe a cougar spooked the horses,” Doc said.

Bryce pushed back his hair in agitation and placed his hat atop his head again. “Never seen a horse scared enough to do that. Cougar or not.”

Bryce looked down at the men. “Whatever happened, we’ll never know. Please,” he said, gesturing to four men on the end. “Take them into the stables. To the far end, where it’s empty, so the stench won’t upset the horses. You, Dietrich, head to town and fetch the undertaker. He’ll see to the rest. We’ll bury them on the hill.”

Some of the men turned with Odessa to glance at Cemetery Hill, the spot Bryce referred to, a half mile away. There, perhaps twenty men and women and children had been buried over the years, victims of illness or accident or age. That was where Leander and Owen would be laid to rest. Forever.

Odessa moved away, crying now in earnest. Bryce fell into step beside her, again lacing his arm around her shoulders. “It’ll be okay, Dess. Accidents happen. On a ranch this size—”

“Wh-what happened to the horses?”

“The men left them at the bottom of that valley. They’re too heavy to move. We’ll leave them to let nature take its course.”

She nodded her agreement, then glanced back toward the bodies. “Family. We need to inform their families. I know Leander had a sister in Santa Fe. Did Owen have anyone?”

“Parents,” Bryce said, his tone grim. “In Denver. I have information on all of them, in the study. I’ve always made a point of keeping a record on employees’ next of kin, in case the time came …”

“In case they died,” she whispered. She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “In four years, we’ve never lost a man, Bryce. Never. Not since Nels.”

He paused and looked her in the eye. “Have we heard from the detective lately, up in Leadville?”

She knew what he was thinking. In losing Leander and Owen, and after sending the three others to Spain, they were five men down. She shook her head to stave off a shiver of fear. “Neighbors dropped off a telegram this morning. Reid is apparently the model citizen up in Leadville.”

Bryce shook his head, as if he, too, were shaking off the eerie thoughts that Reid was behind this latest heartache, and they continued their walk to the house. “It’s just a tragic accident, I guess.” He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself. “We’ve been fortunate, this spate of years, not to lose a man. Other operations this size … Well, I’d say we’ve been blessed, in comparison.”