Power in the Blood (88 page)

“Wh … what’s your name?”

“Cassie. What’s yours?”

“Bryce.”

“Am I taking you out of your way, Mr. Bryce?”

“No, that’s my first name. Bryce Aspinall. No, I wasn’t going anywhere special.”

“Just in a footloose mood.”

“… Yes.”

“I feel that way myself sometimes, but now you might say my silly old foot’s really come loose.”

She laughed, and Bryce laughed with her. She was charming and lively and had a merry wit. He was instantly smitten, recognized it, and was not inclined to resist the feeling. It could be that Cassie was a lonely soul, much as he was, and if so, they might make a life together, if only he could spin their accidental nearness into something more substantial. With any luck, she would invite him inside her house for a cup of coffee as a reward for his gallantry. He hoped she wouldn’t be repulsed by his hands when she saw them. He would keep the mittens on until she had learned by spending time with him, talking with him, that he was a kindly, sensitive type of fellow, not the usual braggart or drinker a nice girl like Cassie would cross the street to avoid. She would see the man inside the man, and become aware of his potential as a husband, despite his infirmity. He would tell her the money that came each month was an inheritance or some such. If Leo Brannan didn’t provide enough for two to live on, Bryce would have harsh words to say on that subject.

An opportunity to make his life over again had been presented out of the blue, and he would do his damnedest to ensure that it did not escape him. Bryce acknowledged that he was contemplating the very thing Zoe had done in marrying again without divorcing first, but he told himself it couldn’t be any kind of sin, not when two people as pleasant and misunderstood as himself and Cassie were the parties concerned. He was in love with her, and they had barely exchanged a few dozen words. He could feel no pain at all in his hands, and his heart was light. There was a future for him after all.

“Mr. Aspinall, would you mind taking me all the way to my door? It really isn’t far at all, and my ankle does hurt so. Would you mind?”

“I don’t mind. You shouldn’t walk on a bad ankle.”

“You’re a gentleman.”

“Call me Bryce, why don’t you.”

“Well, I shall, if it pleases you, and you must call me Cassie. I know this will sound very silly, Bryce, but I almost feel as if we’d known each other for some time already. Does it sound silly? You must tell me if it does.”

“It doesn’t sound silly at all. That’s what happens sometimes, they say, when two people that don’t know each other kind of … bump into each other. It happens that way sometimes.”

“Do you suppose it has happened this time, Mr. Bryce Aspinall?”

She was looking deeply into his eyes, smiling at him, but the effect was of friendliness, not flirtation, and he descended several notches deeper into infatuation.

“I … don’t know. I had the same feeling myself just now … about you.”

“You did? Oh, my, but that must mean something, mustn’t it? Would you say it means something … something nice?”

“I guess it would … I mean, I guess it does.”

“Down here, Mr. Aspinall. It isn’t far now.”

They turned into an alleyway, and a cat darted between Bryce’s feet, causing him to execute a clumsy dance of avoidance.

“Oh, goodness, don’t you go turning your ankle too.”

“I won’t. You could call me Bryce if you want.”

“I will, I really will. I’m just a little nervous. Will you take China tea with myself and my mama, Bryce? She doesn’t have much company apart from me. I know she’d like to meet a nice gentleman like yourself. Will you?”

“All right.”

“Almost there. Drat this ankle. Wait just a moment while I fix something.”

She disengaged herself from his arm and reached beneath her skirts. Bryce was mildly shocked, but supposed Cassie was having trouble with her stocking hose.

“Do excuse me.” She smiled, and Bryce smiled in return to allay any embarrassment she might be feeling. “Oh, dear, would you mind turning away for just the teensiest moment, Bryce? I have a little difficulty here.”

He turned his back to her. She had invited him into her house. He would meet with Cassie’s mother and drink tea with them both. He had better prepare a story to explain his presence in Glory Hole, so when he asked to come back again and visit he would be welcome. A new life, that’s what the sweet girl behind him represented, and Bryce found himself brimming with anticipation. When the stiletto blade entered beneath his shoulder blade he barely felt it, and when its full length was rammed through sheets of muscle and into his heart he could not understand the sudden discomfort he felt, a sensation that blossomed into horrible pain. He staggered for several steps, then sank abruptly to his knees, clawing behind himself for the unknown thing that had entered him and caused the pain that kept him from breathing. He hoped Cassie had not been hit by whatever it was that had done this to him, and concern for her enabled him to gasp her name.

“I’m here, Bryce,” she said, and stepped around in front of him. Bryce was appalled to see that she carried the front of her skirts at waist height, like a saloon dancer. A scabbard or sheath of some kind was attached to a garter around her lovely thigh, and he could see the whitely billowing froth of her undergarments too. Why was she doing this, and why was she unaware of his pain? Had he been struck by a heart attack? The pain was worsening, and still he could not breathe. “Cassie …,” he gasped again, and in response she yanked down her pantaloons to reveal a penis. Bryce felt the life ebbing from him, and collapsed onto the ground, still unable to understand what had happened. The pain became excruciating as the stiletto’s long triangular blade was extracted from his back and wiped clean on his new jacket, and then Bryce died.

Tatum looked around to ensure that there was no one in sight, then lifted his skirts and squatted to piss in Bryce’s face. Finished, he stood and arranged himself, making sure that the weapon was tightly encased in its hideaway, then walked swiftly to the street again, and became part of the human stream flowing there.

The murder was not a great sensation, even in Glory Hole; news of another attack by Slade in southern Colorado eclipsed press interest in the stabbing of an unknown man. Slade had dissected his latest victims, a woman and a boy, in a particularly repulsive fashion before opening their skulls, as if searching for something there. Leo decided that if there was another killing by the cannibal (reportedly he had eaten no part of his victims since escaping from Glory Hole), he would increase the reward even further. He spent more time reading about Slade than he did about Aspinall, and when Rowland Price entered the room, neither man mentioned the business that had been so swiftly taken care of.

At Imogen’s house that evening, Leo found himself unable to perform even the simplest act of love, and when asked if there was something troubling him, replied only that production figures at both the Flatiron and the Sinbad mines had dipped slightly. Imogen patted his hand and told him things would surely improve, and Leo appreciated her concern. Zoe would have glared at him and said, “You mean you’ll make a thousand dollars less today than yesterday? How awful for you.” Imogen was a superior class of woman in many ways, a thoughtful person, never sarcastic. It would be a wrenching moment when he was obliged to remove her from his life prior to Zoe’s homecoming, but no woman, even a sweet and considerate creature such as Imogen Starr, was worth losing Brannan Mining over. Leo had decided to adopt Rowland’s plan for a remarriage to Zoe, a reconsecration of their vows to reawaken the love that had dimmed between them. Leo could not help but imagine Zoe’s reply to such an offer: “You wish us to repeat our original mistake? What kind of businessman invests good money on top of bad?” It galled him to recall the tone her voice had taken since the accident. Zoe was an embittered and cheerless woman, but he would have to persuade her that the ceremony was necessary, without arousing in her any suspicion of an ulterior motive. It should not prove so difficult, he told himself, since Zoe was genuinely uninterested in every aspect of the mines. Her ignorance was his best weapon, in fact his only one, unless he decided to arrange for Zoe what Price had arranged for Aspinall. He thrust the thought from him, ashamed to have allowed it into his mind even for a second. His head began to throb. Leo had not felt well all day.

“Is there nothing I can do, my dear?” asked Imogen.

“Nothing, no. I believe I’ll return home. I am not the best company tonight, I regret.”

“There’s no need for that. I shall make a bed for myself in the spare room.”

“Please don’t trouble yourself. Good night, Imogen.”

Lovey Doll escorted him to the door and blew a kiss at his departing back. Alone, she allowed her expression to drop and harden to its habitual look of glacial contempt. The worm was out of sorts tonight, all because of some stupid list of numbers, a feeble excuse for misery, in Lovey Doll’s opinion. She took herself into the living room and poured for herself a generous measure of brandy. She knew she should not drink, since it coarsened the skin and expanded the waistline, but sometimes Leo Brannan and his whining was enough to make her overcome caution.

It was high time she broached the subject of divorce from his one-armed shrew. Imogen Starr deserved to take Zoe’s place, Lovey Doll would hint, and after a few extra touches to the performances and acts she knew pleased him, Leo would begin accepting her suggestions as worth his consideration. Soon he would no more think of taking the shrew back into his home and bed than he would a side of beef. The man was stubborn, in a childish way, peevish and irritable more often than not of late, but Lovey Doll was confident her influence was increasing with every visit Leo Brannan made to her door.

38

Even before the
Acropolis
reached Bermuda there was concern among the passengers over the appearance of a man on the forward deck at night, a tall man in a long dark coat, his skull-like face half hidden by a wide hat. The truly disturbing aspect of the entity, who matched the description of no one aboard, were the holes in his cheeks. When she heard of the tall man, Zoe went to her cabin, where Omie lay on her bunk, still as a corpse.

“What can you tell me of the man everyone has seen?”

“I don’t know what man you mean.”

“Yes you do. You described him to me once, back home. Why is he here?”

“I don’t know,” said Omie, rolling her face and body away from her mother’s eyes.

“You do know. You have brought him here; don’t tell me you haven’t. Now look at me and explain yourself. Look at me when I say!”

Omie reluctantly faced her, and admitted she knew the man was there, even if she had not actually laid eyes on him herself, being in her bunk asleep at the time of his visitations. She could not say with any certainty why it was that he had chosen to visit with her again after so long an absence from her dreams, and Omie tearfully exonerated herself from any scheme intended deliberately to frighten or alarm the other passengers.

“He just does what he wants, Mama; I can’t stop him. He doesn’t even know himself why he’s here. He looks lost and lonely when I see him, and sometimes he can’t see me at all. I think … I think he’s drunk, Mama.”

“Drunk? A dream man drunk? How could that be?”

“I don’t know. The night before last he saw me, and I told him to go away and behave himself, but he only laughed and said who did I think I was to give him orders. Then he asked me who I was, and where we both were. He said he never saw the ocean before. I think he was scared of it, being so big and wide the way it is. He’s a very sad man, Mama, only he won’t tell me why.”

“Can’t you make him go away?”

“I told him to, but he won’t. He said no one else would have him.”

“What on earth does that mean?”

Omie shrugged, her blotched face miserable. Zoe felt a pang of love, and put her arm around her daughter. “I know you’ve done nothing wrong. If the man comes wherever you are, that’s not a bad thing. He must be lonely, as you say, and sad people must be helped, if possible. Say nothing to anyone about him, though.”

“Well, of course not, Mama; they’d throw me over the side, and you too.”

“Captain Crandall is a very nice gentleman, and would permit no such thing.”

“They’d commit mutiny, all the crew and the other passengers, and make us walk the plank.”

“Indeed they would not. Now cease and desist with such nonsense, before I become angry with you and the dark man both.”

She released Omie and stood up, supporting herself against the vessel’s leisurely pitch and roll by grasping the bunk post.

“There’s a storm coming, Mama.”

“Will it be terrible and frightening?”

“No, but Doolin will get killed.”

Doolin was a crew member much admired by the passengers for his ability to perform acrobatics for their amusement in the rigging, against the mock protests of Captain Crandall, who knew better than to stop anything that put his guests, as he referred to the passenger list, in a playful mood. Doolin was the ship’s monkey, Crandall said several times at the dinner table, and could only understand human English once in a long while, so everyone was stuck with his careless caperings against the shrouds and the sky.

“How will it happen?” asked Zoe.

“He’ll fall.”

“Is there no way to prevent this from happening?”

“No, Mama, but he’ll be happy after he dies.”

“How can you know that?”

“I just do.”

Zoe recalled Omie’s description of the life led by their housekeeper, Mrs. Scoville, after she died and had gone to hell. “She deserved to,” stated Omie. “She was horrible.”

“Were you peeking into my mind just now?”

“I didn’t mean to. I can do that again without even trying. I couldn’t do it for ever so long, not since I was sick with the fever, but I can now, Mama, a little bit, and see things that are going to happen, like the storm coming and Doolin falling. Does it mean I’m getting better after all this time?”

“I don’t know what it means, but you mustn’t discuss it with anyone but me.”