Heaven and Hell (44 page)

Ashton hired men to reopen the mine, which at first looked highly promising. The silver-bearing ore reduced to the equivalent of one hundred three thousand dollars before the vein ran out. She quietly withdrew the money from her bank account and late one night while Ezra Learning snored, she decamped on the stage with Will Fenway, who had been hiding out in a cheap room, impatiently sketching pianos.

Oh, yes, a complex, labyrinthine path to Chicago, all right. With many confusions and irritations. She posed as Mrs. Fenway but was still Mrs. Learning. She dared not show her beauty to posterity by means of a photograph. Will was adamant about that. When he first mentioned it, a day after they arrived in the city, Ashton threw a shoe at him. Next morning, to get back at him, she marched to Field, Leitner and Co., a fine department store on State Street. There, with money from their bank account--money reserved for the piano company--she bought the scarlet outfit, including the bustle.

Will was furious. He cursed her as she'd never heard him curse before. Ashton realized then that she'd met a man whose strength matched hers. Old and stooped and red-eyed as he was from all the worry and night work, he was neither intimidated by her beauty and haughty airs r

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nor upset when she retaliated for his cursing with screams, saying she'd leave him.

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Pushed past his limit, he slapped her. Just once, but hard enough to tumble her onto their mussed bed. Then he showed her his fist.

"You go ahead. I've put my whole soul and all your money into this scheme. If you don't care any more, if you don't want to go back to South Carolina the way you're always saying, you just walk out that door. I'll bank all the money we make, and then I'll find myself another woman."

Ashton was thunderstruck. She pleaded, begged, cried, humbled herself until he agreed to make up. She had not crossed him or defied him since.

This was the reason for her haste as she turned west on Van Buren to the wooden bridge over the south branch of the Chicago River. When strangers eyed the tight red silk on her bodice and the provocative bounce of her bustle, she tossed her head and glared. Her heart belonged to Will and what he was about to reveal today. Her heart was wrapped up in him, and so was her money, not to mention her unshakable determination to return to Mont Royal someday and make them pay--Madeline, Little Miss Goody Brett, Charles--every damn one of them.

West of the river, Chicago became an unlovely near-slum crowded with saloons, lumberyards, woodworking mills, boat jetties on the water, and the bleak, cheap residences of a lot of Irish and Swedes and Bohemians.

Here, on Canal Street, a dark stairway led up past a crude depiction of a hand pointing to fenway's piano company.

She dashed up, breathless, and into the loft, which was piled with iron frames, spools of different grades of piano wire, unassembled cases from Schoenbaum's in New Jersey, crates of actions from Seaverns's in Massachusetts. Nothing in the piano was Will Fenway's creation except the design.

"Will, do forgive me--" She rushed to him, contrite. The four young men in leather aprons and portly, pie-faced Norvil Watless, the salesman, smiled and offered greetings as she flung her arms around

"ill's neck and kissed him. "There was all sorts of wagon traffic on foe bridge. I couldn't cross for ten whole minutes."

"Well, I waited," he said, sounding edgy as he tapped fingers on e sheeted object that was the center of attention. "Guess we're all here. Let's take a look."

She noticed the tremor of his hand as he grasped the sheet. She So n°ticed the red rims at the bottom of his eyes; he needed spectacles

d wouldn't buy them. But his shoulders squared as he paused for

^fect, then whipped off the sheet.

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The workmen clapped. "Godamighty, what a beauty," Norvil Watless wheezed. Even Ashton gasped.

The piano was an upright, a style made popular in France because it fit nicely in those small, new-style Parisian dwellings, appartements, that were all the rage. The case was a lustrous blackish wood with broad streaks in the grain the color of rust. Centered above the keyboard in a gold-leaf wreath, Fenway appeared in Old English script.

"That's a gorgeous rosewood case--" Watless began.

"Brazilian jacaranda," Will corrected. "Cheaper. But call it rosewood anyway."

He stroked the sleek, shiny top, his tiredness seeming to fall away as he explained to Ashton, "I can't build a better one for the money.

She's got a full iron frame, overstrung scale--"

"French action," Watless exclaimed. Ashton had learned that a Paris-made upright action was synonymous with fine quality.

"No. I bought the action in the U.S.," Will said. "But the selling sheet says it's French-style, so be sure you get across the idea that it's from Paris. After all, you won't be calling on the most honest customers in the world."

Ashton wanted to say something to please him. "You should be proud, Will."

"I may be proud and bankrupt, too, if she doesn't sell. By the way, it is a she--I named this model the Ashton."

She squealed in surprise, then actually felt touched. She hugged him again, and was aware of the weary sag of his body momentarily resting against hers. He waved. "Try her out, Norvil."

The salesman pulled up a stool, flexed his fingers, then launched a tentative "Camptown Races."

"Louder, Norvil," Will said.

Norvil played louder.

"Faster." Norvil picked up the tempo. The music seemed to push out through the piano's closed front with a clangorous, slightly metallic sound. Norvil segued into "Marching Through Georgia." You could practically hear the bugles and tramping feet.

One of the workmen did a little jig. "By damn, that's an upright!'

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"That's right," Will agreed. "You don't give a damn about sweet, mellow tones in a sporting house. You want noise. Noise, Norvil!''

Norvil obligingly gave them Verdi's "Anvil Chorus." Ashton clapped her little red gloves together, delighted. Will gave her a strange grave, sideways look, then said, "I can make as many as you sellNorvil, but if you don't sell any, you can visit me at the poor farm.

provided the suppliers haven't beat me to death. Well, guess we'd better open the bottle of sour mash, hadn't we?"

I

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Ashton had never seen a celebration announced with such a lack of zest. It made her a little grave too, reminding her of what would happen if the Ashton upright piano failed.

When Norvil and the workmen finished the bottle, Will closed up the loft, giving them the rest of the day free. He dropped the empty bottle in a trash barrel. "The cards are all dealt, Ashton. We might as well spend our last dollar on a venison steak at the cafe on the corner.''

She agreed. Neither said much until they were seated amid pots of wilting ferns, layers of cigar smoke, and an otherwise all-male clientele, most of whom goggled at her spectacular looks.

Her red-gloved hand clasped his. "Will, what's giving you the glooms?"

He avoided her eye. "You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do." She pouted prettily. "Yes!"

His weary red-rimmed eyes fastened on her. "I've never said this to you, because I was never sure we'd get this far. It eats on me, Ashton."

"What?"

Now her pretty pout looked forced, nervous. "What?"

"Santa Fe."

"I beg your pardon?"

"What keeps bothering me is Santa Fe. That man Luis you shot when you needn't have." Anger reddened her face. He gripped her wrist, and she felt the strength hidden in his dilapidated old body. "Let
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me finish. I have nightmares about that man. Bad ones. God knows I'm no pillar of virtue. And I like you, I really do. I like your pertness, your looks, your grit, the ambition you don't cover up with a lot of mealy mouthed lies. But there's a certain streak in you that your daddy should have whipped out of you with a willow wand. A mean streak. It made you shoot down a defenseless man. Whether Fenway pianos are a disaster or the mother lode, either way--" The next came after a rush of breath, as if a burden were lifting. "I've resolved that if you ever do something that low again, we're quits. No, don't argue. No excuses.

You murdered him." His voice was quiet, so no one could eavesdrop. °ut she heard it like a roaring wind, cold as January.

He extricated his hand. "Do anything like that again, we're quits, understand?"

Her immediate reaction was renewed rage. Once, Huntoon had said something similar, and she'd jeered, then tongue-lashed him. Now she opened her moist red mouth to do it to Will--and couldn't.

She shivered. Hastily, she examined her choices. She bowed her head.

'I understand."

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1

He smiled. Tiredly, but he smiled. He patted her hand. "All right. " I feel better. Let's order up.

In fact, let's ruin the whole blasted day

and get drunk. It's either all over or just starting. I gave it everything.

So did you."

Their eyes met in a strange, tranquil moment of understanding.

Why did she admire this frail old man? Because he had pure steel in him? Because he could deliver an edict and make her take it? Unexpectedly, her eyes misted.

"Yes, we did. Let's drink like lords and then let's go to bed."

"I'll probably do nothin' but fall asleep."

"That's all right. I'll keep you warm."

It perked him up, and he actually showed some jocularity as he snapped his fingers for the waiter. "Well, why not? It's all up to Norvil now. Norvil and the whorehouse owners of these great United States."

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Someone touched his foot.

Awake- instantly, Charles flipped his black hat off his face while his right hand jumped to his Colt. The revolver cleared leather and he recognized Corporal Magee, his dark face patterned by sun falling through parched cottonwood leaves.

Charles's hammering heart slowed. "When I'm asleep, yell, don't grab me. Else you're liable to get a bullet."

"Sorry, sir. We got some smoke."

He pointed away southwest where the Smoky Hill River blazed in the noonday like a cutout of tin. A thin black pillar stood in the white sky. Charles scrambled up and ran to find his tracker.

He and his ten-man detachment were patrolling out of Fort Harker along a twenty-five-mile stretch of the stage line south and west of the post. Here the Smoky Hill branch of the Kaw diverged from the surveyed right-of-way of the Union Pacific, Eastern Division. The soldiers had sought relief from the July heat among the river-bottom trees. They didn't find much. The red bandanna around Charles's throat felt like a wet rag. His bare chest shone with sweat.

He'found the tracker seated on the ground and rummaging among the bits of root, flints, arrowheads, spent bullets from his medicine bundle, a small drawstring bag traditionally holding a personal collection

°i articles selected to promote strength, ward off sickness and enemies,

^d remind the possessor of important aspects of his religion.

The tracker was a Kiowa named Big Arm, assigned to Charles by ne old man. He was a handsome Indian, and an expert horseman, but fly. Barnes said he came from a Kiowa band down in north Texas,

~nt' had committed the ultimate mistake on a buffalo hunt some years t ck- He'd gotten impatient, rushed in ahead of the other hunters, and 285

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stampeded the herd. No one got so much as one kill. Big Arm's possessions were taken and broken to pieces and he was shunned. He withstood two winters of that, then spitefully deserted to the service of the whites--in this case a bunch of brunettes, or buffalo soldiers as the Plains Indians called them, reminded of the buffalo's coat by the woolly hair of the black men. The troopers tended to like the term buffalo soldier, because the buffalo was revered.

"What do you make of that?" Charles said to Big Arm, in a tone unconsciously goading. He genuinely disliked the Kiowa, who refused to talk with Charles or his men except when necessary.

Big Arm answered with one of his laconic shrugs, then pulled a bright brass telescope from his belt. He started to snap it open. Charles knocked it down.

"How many times do I have to tell you? That thing shines like a mirror. What's burning? The next stage station?"

Big Arm shook his head, sullen. "Too close for stage. Must be new farm. Not here last time I rode the river." For him, that was practically an oration.

Alarmed, Charles yelled, "Wallis. Boots and saddles."

Having served out his sentence in the guardhouse, Shem Wallis had returned to duty and revealed some talent as a trumpeter. He blew the call with sharp, urgent notes. The black troopers heaved to their feet, complaining; it hadn't taken them long to learn that little Army tradition. Charles detailed two to guard the supply wagon and raced for his picketed piebald.

Despite the intense heat he lit a cigar. Nerves. Sweat poured down his chest and back as he trotted from the trees at the head of eight men in column of twos.

The sod house was still standing. It was the shell of a farm wagon producing the smoke. Charles ordered his men into line, and they approached with rifles and pistols ready. The brim of Charles's black hat threw a sharp shadow diagonally across his face. His eyes darted. Suddenly he smelled something foul. "What in hell's that?"

Evidently Big Arm knew. "Bad," he said.

The line halted at the edge of the trampled dooryard. From horseback, Charles read sign there and in the beaten-down grass at the edge
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of the homesteader's small, dying vegetable patch. "I count eight ponies, maybe one more." Big Arm's grunt agreed.

"How's he know that?" one of his men muttered behind him Charles preferred to keep them in awe of his plains craft; he never explained that Wooden Foot Jackson had taught him everything, and that hardly a day passed when he didn't remember and use one lesson or Banditti 287