Orphan Moon (The Orphan Moon Trilogy Book 1) (39 page)

Hughes dragged the pair to the back porch of the Apothecary Shoppe, then took the belts from their pants and cinched the men together, their arms wrapped around each other and a cedar support post in a loving embrace.

Walking back to the front of the store, Hughes spotted a young boy in the street playing fetch the stick with his dog. He took a paper and pencil from his coat and scratched a note.

“Son, I’ll give you a dime to take this note to the sheriff.”

 
“A whole dime? For real? Just to run a note up the street?”

“Hurry. It’s important. Off you go.”

Leaving the sons of bitches to freeze to death in the dirt was what he’d really wanted to do, he thought, as he hurried back to the Salt Lake House. But, the sheriff would have fun deciphering the note about mail thieves and murderers who use Indians for scapegoats. In the late afternoon glow of the gas lamps, a hard snow fell in a sharp slant against the hotel’s window panes. The boot-prints he’d followed earlier were already obscured under the mounding drifts.

*****

Shaking the snow from his clothes and off his hat, Hughes took a long draw of whiskey from his flask, swishing it around, then swallowing, letting the warmth seep through his body as he made his way up the stairs. He banged on the door of the Pony Express riders’ room, shouting out his slurred words, teetering back and forth. He kicked the door with his booted foot, hoping to draw the attention of the man in the room across the hall.
 

“Hey, anybody wanna join me for a drink?” He turned the knob, eased the door open, and peered inside the empty room. “I don’t wanna drink alone. Anyone home?” He slammed the door and stood there a moment longer when he heard Archer’s door behind him click closed.
 

Smiling to himself, he turned to Archer’s door and banged with his fists. “Mister, wanna share a toast?”
 

No answer.
 

“Hey, mister?” He banged on the door again. “All right. I can take a hint. G’night.” Hughes made foot-stomping sounds as if he were walking away. In a moment, he heard shuffling on the other side of the door, then the click of a lock, then saw the doorknob turning slowly.

The door inched its way open. Hughes shoved his shoulder against the door, pushing his way into the room. Slamming the door shut behind him with his foot, he threw his weight forward, knocking a surprised Archer backward into a table, Archer and a ceramic lamp toppling to the floor.
 

Archer groped behind him and picked up the heavy lamp. He swung it as Hughes was bending over him, hitting Hughes in the forehead. Stunned, Hughes stumbled backward, tripping and falling to his knees.
 

Archer sprang to his feet and raced to the window, flinging it open. He threw himself out onto the snow-covered, sloping roof, sliding down, slipping over, and hanging onto the ledge by his fingers.

Climbing out of the window, Hughes eased himself down the sloping roof, balancing his weight against a gable. They were on the backside of the hotel, the alley below an enclosed pen for cattle in the summer, in the winter a depository for the ice and snow that shop owners shoveled off the walks from in front of their stores.

Archer looked over his shoulder at the jagged ice below, then back at Hughes. “The drunk from the bar.”
 

“Guess I handle my liquor better than you thought.” Hughes reached out a hand to Archer, trying to grab his coat sleeve. “I’ve got your two pals all bundled up for the sheriff. I’m taking you in, too.” He stretched out farther, then felt his boot slipping off the ice-covered wooden shingles on the gable. Sliding down, he braced both feet on the guttered ledge, stopping his fall.

“Pull me up,” begged Archer. “I can’t hold on.”

Leaning his weight back against the roof for leverage, Hughes looked at Archer’s fingers in a death grip on the roof’s ledge, and then at the fear in the man’s eyes. In one searing rush, Archer’s words from earlier, bragging that he would kill Barleigh before the night was over, rang loud in his ears. Hughes imagined Archer’s fingers in a death grip on Barleigh’s neck, or on a trigger, squeezing it, a bullet being released into Barleigh, that same look of fear in her eyes.
 

Hughes hesitated, his hesitation giving way to a simmering madness. He saw Archer’s mouth moving, but the sound of his plea for help didn’t register, the words falling silently like the snow. Hughes pulled his revolver from its holster, eased the hammer back, and took a steady look at the man on the other end of his gun. He felt—not hatred, not rage—but an unflinching assuredness that this person who wanted Barleigh dead didn’t deserve to live. He aimed the barrel between Archer’s frightened eyes.
 

The sound of his pulse beating loud in his ears and echoing in his head, the cold sweat trickling down his forehead, the shaking of his gun in his hand, the unsettled feel of shallow, fast breaths—clouded his thinking. A vision of Barleigh watching, waiting to see if he’d choose whether to cross that fine line that separates humanity from the dark side tugged at him, hovered over him.
 

He’d crossed that line before. He understood the cost it exacted.
 

For Hughes, not killing Quanah Parker when he’d had the chance had been an easy decision. That had been a matter of survival, of self-preservation. Not killing Archer went much deeper. This was a matter of preserving his own soul.

Hughes eased the hammer down and holstered his gun. He reached out his hand, grabbing for Archer’s coat sleeve.

“Oh—oh, no—you ain’t taking me in.” George Archer yanked away, releasing his fingertip grip on the roof, kicking off the wall and flinging himself backward. He landed with a thud on the frozen ground below.

“You crazy son of a bitch.” Hughes peered over the ledge at Archer lying on the rough ice, a bright red halo pooling around his head, and snow falling silently on his motionless body. He looked up at the open window and the steep slope of the icy roof, then across the roofline at the gutter running down the side of the building. He inched his way across the ledge, crawling down the gutter, then lowering himself to the ground.

Walking over to where Archer lay sprawled in the snow, his blood a contrasting stain against the icy whiteness beneath him, Hughes bent down and inspected the body. A sharp section of jagged ice was embedded at the base of his skull, the formation protruding from the snow like an iceberg peeking out of the sea.
 

Hughes wrote a note for the sheriff and left it with the body.

*****

A whiteout obscured the sunset. Snow blew sideways. The deserted streets of Salt Lake City were choked with a foot of snow, more coming down nonstop since it began just after Stoney’s funeral. Hughes stood at the window, watching for Barleigh. Pacing the room. Going back to the window again, and again.

Why aren’t you back? I hope you’ve holed up somewhere safe
.
 

Somewhere safe. Less unsafe
.
 

He spun away from the window. Grabbing his coat, hat, and saddlebags, rolling up an extra blanket, he made a quick stop in the kitchen, stuffing the pouches full before heading for the barn. He was covered in snow when he walked into his mare’s stall. “Sorry to do this to you, Rose, but someone needs our help.”

Feeding the horse an extra helping of oats while he curried and saddled her, he put several extra portions into a bag and tied it inside his bedroll. He looked around to see what else he might need. An extra rope. Matches. Water canteens. Coffee.

Mario came in from his quarters off the west side of the barn, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Mr. Lévesque, I thought I heard something. Sure was hoping I’d see Bar standing here. What’d you do to your forehead? You got a goose egg on it.”

“I ran into a lamp. No, it’s just me, but I’m certain I know where she is from the direction she rode after—” Hughes caught himself. He closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest. “Damn it. And I told her I was the best keeper of secrets she’d ever need.”

Mario paused in the doorway, staring at Hughes for a long moment. “Bring her back safe and sound. Good riders are hard to come by.” He gave a quick wink, and went back to bed.

Snow drifted hock deep in places, with most of the trail covered in a solid pack. The whiteout had diminished to a steady, heavy snowfall with the wind gusting in surprise attacks, laying low one moment, the next ripping through the valley with a hateful force.

The normal hour’s ride to the secret cave where the hot springs bath soothed weary Pony Express riders took twice as long. By the time Hughes descended the steep slope into the level glade where he and Barleigh had last picnicked, his mare was blowing hard through her nostrils from exertion, her coat clumped with ice and snow.

Hughes dismounted, trying to quell a rising panic. There were no footprints or hoof prints in the snow. No evidence or trace of human or equine activity. He turned around, listening, trying to get a feel for what he was hearing. There was something. There it was again. A sound. His mare whinnied, her alert ears pricked forward.

He kneeled on the ground, waiting, listening. Again. There. A strange echo. A clopping. Hooves striking on solid rock. Smiling, he led his mare down the narrow passage and into the cave.

“Hello, Hughes. I’m beyond the pool, up against the far wall.”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Your mare nickered in the glade. I recognized Rose’s nicker. She sounds more like a stallion. It reminds me of Deal, my horse back home.”

“Maybe I’ll get to meet him sometime. May we come in?”

“Please.”

“I’m sliding you a box of matches. Keep one burning until I get this horse unsaddled and dried off and we get our bearings.”

“Of course.”

Hughes fumbled around in the saddlebags, located the box of matches, and slid them toward Barleigh. “Coming to you.”

“Got ’em.” She struck a match, the smell of sulfur filling the air, and for an instant Barleigh saw the Man Who Sees With Wolf Eyes staring back at her.
 

The horses ate oats side by side off the damp floor of the cave while Hughes built a small fire, using as starter the extra cotton rope he’d brought along. He’d gathered an armload of old fallen branches from the pine tree in the glade, using some, setting some aside.

“I couldn’t leave her out in the storm,” said Barleigh, gesturing toward her horse. “She would have frozen to death.”
 

“A blizzard’s no place for a horse or a woman. I’d hoped you’d be here.”

The soft glow of the fire cast liquid shadows on the wall. Hughes sat next to Barleigh and reached for her hand, but she pulled back.
 

“Hughes, when I left Stoney’s funeral, I wanted to clear my mind. I needed to rethink everything I thought I knew about my family history. The enormous, sudden detachment from my past—it’s beyond confounding.”

“I understand,” he said. He knew what it was like to feel detached from one’s family—at least from one’s father.

“And poor Stoney—I just ache inside—the guilt is suffocating me. I’m drowning in sadness for him, for me, for my mother, but I’m afraid if I let go of it, if I give voice to it, it’ll live on forever in the air, somewhere out there, and will come circling back to haunt me, ’round and ’round the globe, like a nasty wind.”
 

Barleigh stood up and paced around the fire, walking over to where the horses stood munching their oats. “I want to scream till my throat’s raw, to tear my hair out, my heart out, anything to feel a worse pain than I’m feeling inside.”
 

“You can shout it all out and it’ll go no further than this cave. Get rid of it. Leave it in this cavern.”

“How? How is that possible?” Barleigh began to shake, the emotions of the last two days and the lack of sleep overwhelming her.
 

Hughes stood, removed his boots and gun belt, slid out of his trousers, took his vest and shirt off, and piled everything next to his saddlebags. In his long johns and bare feet, he walked to where Barleigh stood with the horses, holding out his hand for her.
 

“What are you doing?”
 

“I’m going to show you how to get rid of your sadness, how to leave it here in the cave.”

“Hughes, I’m not—” she stammered, shrinking away from him.

“Don’t be silly. It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s purely innocent. Take my hand. Trust me.” He held out his hand, waiting.

She hesitated a moment, then took it. He helped her remove her clothes down to her long johns, then led her to the pool, and together they slipped into the warm water of the hot springs.
 

The water came up to the level of his chest but was over Barleigh’s head; she clung to the ledge. “Let go,” he said. “Trust me.”

She let go of the ledge.

With a hand on either side of her waist, holding her at arm’s length, Hughes motioned for her to hold her breath and follow him. They ducked below the surface. The intensity of the heat on her face shocked her. She resurfaced, clinging to his neck, gasping for air.
 

“Next time, you’ll be used to it. When you go under, scream. Let it all out. Scream. Shout. Curse. Release all the anguish you have inside. Get rid of all that’s hurting you.”

Barleigh nodded her understanding.

“Water will hold the sound—your words, your pain—and not let loose of it. Everything you give to the water, it’ll hold forever.” He held his breath, and she did, too.

He held onto her, and together they slipped below the surface. Barleigh screamed, cursed, yelled, tightfisted and kicking, Hughes’s hands around her waist keeping her steady. When she could hold her breath no more, she pushed off of him, rising and gulping air into her lungs. Then, she dove below, and again he held her steady, letting her shout out her grief, releasing it into the water.
 

She dove below, again and again, until she was spent physically and emotionally, having nothing more to release, nothing more to give to the water. The last time, instead of pushing off of him for more air, she collapsed in his arms.