Leaden Skies (9 page)
Inez froze at the dreaded name.
Sure enough, The Hatchet stood just within their Harrison Avenue entrance, not six feet away. Rain dripped from his waterproof coat into the sawdust scattered in a futile effort to keep mud and wet to a minimum inside the saloon.
He looked at Bridgette, and his face creased into a polite smile.
Inez thought she must be having a delirium.
Then…
He removed his hat. “Mrs. O’Malley.”
Bridgette stood before the feared lawman, hands laced together under her chin like a starry-eyed schoolgirl, the orders scrunched into a papery fan. “I’ve got stew, Officer, just made, and some nice strong coffee.”
“Coffee sounds mighty good, if it’s not a bother. Do you have any cream?”
“Oh no bother, no bother at all. Cream, yes, yes, delivered fresh this morning. My lands, it’s a pleasure to see you. You and the others on the force work so hard. This weekend especially, with General Grant and his missus and all the folk like Lieutenant Governor Tabor and Governor Pitkin come to town.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” The Hatchet treated Bridgette’s discourse with gravity. “We’ve got our hands full right now. There’s some who aren’t happy about the general’s bein’ here. The force’s pulled thin. Pockets of trouble, here and there. The hard cases in town are determined to do harm, if they can.”
“And then, the fires. Why, and I heard that the city marshal’s house went up, poof! Just like that. Poor man. I wonder if he’ll stay in town or leave? Are you looking for the firebug?”
“Yes, Mrs. O’Malley, it’s a tragedy about the marshal. Not sure what his plans are, and that’s a fact. My coffee, ma’am? I’ve only got a minute here.”
“Right away!” Bridgette dashed into the kitchen.
The Hatchet approached Inez. Set his wet cap down in front of the prospector’s glass of beer. The prospector took the hint and removed himself and his beer to a position further down the bar.
The Hatchet leaned over the mahogany surface toward Inez. She instinctively stepped back.
“Didn’t know you and Flo were friendly,” he said.
“Friendly? I’d not say friendly. We both own businesses on State Street. We both pay our fees and fines, excuse me, ‘taxes,’ as required.”
“Then why’d she ask you to take care of that dead girl of hers?”
Before Inez could fabricate a reasonable lie, The Hatchet added, “I’ll say this. I’ll say this once. Stay away from Flo and her girls. It’s a bad business, Mrs. Stannert. Don’t get tangled up in it.”
“Officer Ryan, your coffee,” chirped Bridgette. She was hovering at his elbow, beaming and blushing.
“God bless you, Mrs. O’Malley. There’s got to be a special place in heaven for women like you.”
Bridgette looked as ecstatic as if blessed by the pope himself.
The Hatchet lifted his cup, the wet sleeve of his coat riding up his arm ever so slightly, pulling the jacket and shirt cuff with it. Inez blinked and bit back an exclamation of surprise. A mass of scarred flesh, long healed, showed at his wrist and disappeared below the cuffs.
Officer Kelly breezed in the State Street door. After a quick look around, he spotted The Hatchet and wove through the crowds to his side. “Sorry t’ trouble you, Ryan, but more trouble in Coon Row. Kate Armstead.”
The Hatchet nodded. He drained the scalding coffee without so much as a cough or twitch, pulled out an overly large handkerchief from his pocket, and dabbed at the mustache curving around his mouth. With a final cold glance at Inez, he replaced his police cap, smiled and touched his cap at Bridgette, and left with Officer Kelly.
Inez stared at the empty coffee cup before her as if it were poisoned or might burst into flame, then looked up at her cook. “You know The Hatch—um, Officer Ryan?”
She nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, ma’am. He’s a member of the parish. I see him at Mass and Rosary regularly.”
“Really.” The mental picture of The Hatchet on his knees, praying, was unnerving.
“Oh yes, ma’am. And he visits the church every week to light candles for his dear wife—she’s not well, you see, doesn’t live in Leadville—and his daughter, poor thing, died about age ten, I’ve been told, barely old enough to take Communion. At least she’s with Our Lord.”
“Really.” Even more mind-boggling was the realization that The Hatchet, one of the most feared men on State Street, was a family man. A husband. A father.
Maybe that’s why he’s so despicable. Far from home and hearth, some men lose direction, take on a different character, drink too much, become cruel.
“How do you know all this, Bridgette?”
“Well, ma’am, I keep my ears and eyes open. And between this and that, I put two and two together and get four.”
“Ah.”
I must remember to be careful what I say when Bridgette’s ears and eyes are open and nearby.
“You know Officer Ryan, ma’am?” Bridgette looked expectant.
Perhaps looking to add two more and get six.
“Not well,” Inez hedged. “He spends a great deal of time on State Street in his capacity as city collector, of course. And in performing his duties as an officer of the law.”
“Oh, and aren’t we lucky to have him!” Bridgette gushed. “He’s a lovely, lovely man. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Why, if elections were held tomorrow for city marshal, he’d win, hands down. Now that Marshal Watson’s home is gone, well, I wonder if the marshal will stay or leave. And a firebug on the loose! I’m sure that Officer Ryan will find whoever’s responsible.”
“’Scuse me, Mrs. O’Malley.” It was a penitent, hat in hand, looking doleful. “Not t’ bother you or none, but I’ve been awaitin’ for my stew awhiles an’ I got to get back to the diggings.”
“Oh my, here I am chatting away when there’s work to be done.” Bridgette flashed a guilty smile at Inez and hurried to the kitchen, with a “Right away, young man!” directed to the fellow who was old enough to be her own father.
The Harrison Avenue door swung open on a gust of raucous laughter. A huddle of men in spotless frock coats and fashionable top hats, beards and mustaches gleaming, paused on the threshold.
“What then, Wesley?” said one. “Did the poor chap confess that he’d strangled the parlor lass in a fit of unrequited love?”
Inez squinted at the men, who were not only letting in the rain, blown by gusts outside, but also blocking all entrance and egress.
Wesley. Why does that name sound familiar?
All she could see of the fellow in the middle was a silk stovepipe hat.
“Gustav, recall that I mentioned the madam of the house was straddling him most indecently, skirts hitched up revealing garters of purest silver, the barrel of her pistol plunged into his mouth. Poor fellow couldn’t say a word. He was as much in danger of choking to death as to having his brains expelled. It was clearly up to me to bring order to the seamy scene.”
Then, Inez remembered.
Flo’s. This morning. That young impertinent son-of-a—
“So Wesley, how’d you handle it? Not the sort of thing that you see back in proper old Beantown.”
“Well, I couldn’t let the poor wretch get his brains blown out without hearing his story first. Frontier justice was about to take place, and it was not clear that he was guilty of anything other than being found at the scene of the crime.”
The men finally moved away from the door and toward the bar. Without so much as a by-your-leave, they claim-jumped prime real estate along the brass rail by simply crowding in and spreading out. Displaced patrons, jostled out of the way, turned to the newcomers, and Inez thought she saw more than one with murder in his eye. The storyteller was now fully visible, and Inez confirmed that, yes indeed, he was the “Mr. Wesley” of that very morning, he of the sharp elbows, slight mustache, fine gloves, and silver-headed umbrella.
Inez’s hand closed hard on the whiskey bottle she was preparing to put on the backbar. She contemplated whether it would make sense to order them out, give them the cold shoulder, or—
The cut of their cloth convinced her otherwise.
Their pockets were bound to be well-lined. As long as their tastes in liquor followed suit, and they ordered favorably and frequently, it couldn’t hurt to let them stay. Too, she was curious to see how far Wesley’s story would stray from the road of truth. He had already fairly departed from that particular thoroughfare and was busy forging a tall tale that straggled ever upward, above treeline, into exceedingly rocky and doubtful territory.
“Well, then, Marcus, I strolled up to them, tapped the lady of the house on her milk-white shoulder—the dressing gown having come nearly quite undone you see—and said, ‘May I offer some free legal advice, madam? You are standing, or shall I say squatting, before the foremost lawyer of the firm Lawton, Lawton, and Crouse, original of Boston, youngest partner thereof, and, God willing, your future Colorado senator. I have been sent to open a new office in Denver to bring sound and sober legal advice to your rough and uncivilized territory.’ She looked up at me, her demeanor changed, she batted blue eyes, no doubt made enormous by overuse of laudanum, and with the poor fellow thrashing around beneath her, said—”
“Welcome to Leadville and the Silver Queen Saloon, gentlemen,” Inez allowed her voice to slide into a friendly range. “As they say out here in our rough and uncivilized territory, ‘What’s your poison?’”
The group looked at her with delight mixed with some alarm. She detected no shred of recognition from Wesley.
“Well, well,” interjected one of his companions, who sported a fiercely groomed red mustache of gleaming proportions. “A female mixologist? Something else sadly lacking in Boston and Washington! So, are you one of those infamous pretty waiter-girls we’ve heard so much about?” He leered, stroking his mustache with the head of his walking stick.
Inez smiled her sweetest smile and said, “Gentlemen. I am the owner of the Silver Queen, the drinking establishment in which you now stand. As such, I’m at your service, ready to fulfill your every desire for liquid libations. But that is the only desire we quench here. Unless you have a hankering for dinner, in which case we serve the best stew and biscuits in town, along with the usual hard-boiled eggs, pickles, etcetera, etcetera. And I assure you, we have such quality spirits that will make you feel at home. We have Spanish wine. French champagne. A choice selection of beers from Milwaukee, Golden, our own fair city, and more. We have bourbon—”
“Have you,” Wesley set gloves on the bar, “lemonade, milady?”
The fellow with the red mustache smirked. Another companion coughed into his gloved fist, choking back a laugh.
“Lemonade.” Inez crossed her arms and studied Wesley for a hint as to the joke. He was gazing over Inez’s shoulder in the backbar mirror at his and his companions’ reflections.
“Exactly, my dear gentlewoman,” he said. “Braced with some of that fine
spirits frumenti
you mentioned. And crackers and a spoon. If you please.”
Deciding to play along, Inez retrieved a tall glass, shoveled shaved ice into it, poured in a quantity of fresh-squeezed lemon juice, and added powdered sugar and water. She tipped in a shot of whiskey and, interpreting the rise of his eyebrows to mean “more,” added another. Dipping down to peer beneath the counter, she located a dishpan full of used cups, bowls, and spoons. Inez surreptitiously wiped a spoon clean on her apron, and used it to briskly whisk the now potent lemonade. After placing glass and spoon before Wesley, she retrieved a small plate of crackers for him.
He paid, removed a glove, crumbled the crackers into the glass, and, stirred, creating an intoxicating cracker-mush. Wesley smirked at himself and his companions in the mirror, and said, “I promised the old girl that I’d not drink, on my honor.”
“God forbid you sully your honor, Wesley” interjected one of his companions.
Wesley spooned up the concoction with evident delight.
“He’ll not fool her,” said a voice.
Inez turned to find Wesley’s minder from earlier that morning, elbow on the countertop. He gazed at Wesley with an exasperation that Inez associated with mothers of out-of-control children.
“‘Her’ being whom?” Inez pulled a clean shot glass from under the bar. “And, before you answer, I’m assuming that you are looking for something to clear the morning from your throat, Mister…?” She allowed her voice to lift in a question.
“Pardon.” He removed his hat. “Kavanagh. James Kavanagh. At your service, ma’am. ‘Her’ being Mrs. Wesley, mother of—” he pointed with his chin toward the young man eating his spiked lemonade— “that young jackass.”
“Mr. Kavanagh. A pleasure. I’m Mrs. Stannert, owner of this, the Silver Queen.” She granted him a professional smile. “Am I correct that you are looking for something a little more straightforward than lemonade you can eat with a spoon?” She nudged the shot glass toward him, bottle ready to pour.
He nudged the glass away. “Tempting, but drinking on the job would get me fired for sure.”
“Then you’ll have to come back later when you’re off duty. And your job would be?” She wasn’t sure why she persisted in asking questions when there were plenty of other potential customers, ready to pay, tapping coins impatiently on the mahogany to get her attention.
Kavanagh grinned, displaying a noticeable and not unattractive gap between his upper front teeth. “I have the unenviable task of keeping his nibs, young John Quincy Adams Wesley, out of trouble.”
“Out of trouble? That’s a tall order. Most young men of his stripe come to Leadville, State Street in particular, looking for trouble of various sorts. I am not at all sure you’ll be able to keep him from it.” She eyed Wesley again, critically. “John Quincy Adams, is it? Named after ‘Old Man Eloquent.’ Has his father such high aspirations for him, then, as to become president?”
“Not father, but mother.” Kavanagh said. “Being primed for a future in politics. I believe I’ve heard terms like ‘future senator’ and ‘someday governor’ bandied about. Wouldn’t be surprised if ‘president’ wasn’t far behind.”
“Is that so?” She looked at Kavanagh anew. Of medium height and build, he seemed a man who could take care of himself. Obviously cut a notch or two above the riffraff, yet not high and mighty like the out-of-town gentlemen encircling young Wesley.