Celia Hayes – The Accidental Texan

(So, this is a snippet of one of the works in progress – Sunset and Steel Rails, set in 1885 through the end of the century, where a young woman sets out on a journey west. Previous chapters here, here, and here.)

Chapter 6 – The Escape

“That is … providential,” Sophia whispered, barely a breath as she leaned her head against the back of the tall bedroom chair. The exertion of dressing – then hurriedly undressing to put on a pretense of helpless invalidism in front of Richard – and the stress of maintaining that pretense had exhausted her almost completely. Likely she was not as well-recovered as she thought. When she was done with the breakfast tray, she would walk around the room for a bit – slipper-clad so as not to make any noise – and then lie down for a rest. “I must remember to thank your brother … and make some small reward to him. Any reward within my power to give him is likely to be too little.”

“Ohh, think nothing of it,” Agnes assured her. She regarded Sophia with anxious eyes. “You can eat a bit, Miss Sophia? I know… the bread is a bit burnt, but I scraped off the worst bits. And the eggs are done, right enough. Ye need your strength, ye do. Declan – he has a crochet about being locked in. He does no’ like it for any, after the fire when Dadda was away with the Army an’ Mam was working in the laundry at night … she had locked Declan an’ Siobhan into their room – Siobhan was only a baby, y’see, an’ Declan seven or eight. She wanted to keep them safe, y’see. Ohh, it were dreatful, to hear them tell it now! Declan, he can no’ bear a closed room – he must keep a window open, all but the coldest nights, or he can no’ sleep at a’.” She peered earnestly at Sophia; so worried about the plate prepared for her. Sophia felt obliged to take a bite, and then another, so as to reassure Agnes. It wouldn’t have passed muster at Delmonicos’ – or in the meanest boarding-house in the harbor district by any means – but Sophia found her own lingering sense of hunger, and so it tasted good enough.

“He must get out, y’see,” Agnes continued, speaking softly as she moved around the room, while Sophia ate her breakfast, deftly re-making the bed with clean sheets, and gathering up those few crumpled garments that might benefit from a trip to the laundry. “So – he said. He told me, I would have anither key, to keep w’ me always. He’ll give it to me before he is finished, so he will. An’ as soon as ye can,” Agnes fixed Sophia with a particularly earnest look. “An’ ye can – soon? When Mr. Richard goes out for a long while, an’ ye can walk to Miss Minerva’s house … oh, an’ if the house catches fire… I will so have ye’ out o’ this room …”

“Good,” Sophia took a last mouthful of scrambled egg – a little rubbery and weeping into the slices of toast, but she was indeed hungry, and it took the tasted of molasses thinned with water and vinegar out of her mouth. She did have an appetite, which is how she was certain she was on the mend, physically. “I can’t let my brother send me to Danvers, Agnes … I imagine that the only thing stopping him is that he must think I am still very ill and drugged with Dr. Cotton’s vile potion, although I suppose I could be carried away on a litter. The very first time that he leaves the house for a good length of time … that will be the best chance that I have.”

“Aye,” Agnes bobbed her head in perfect agreement. “An’ I will set aside some of your clothes an’ things – an’ hide them with the dirty things to go to the laundry, so that you will have a bit o’ luggage. I’ll bring it to Miss Vining’s, so that you need not exhaust yourself carrying it, or attract notice.”

“When does my brother next have an engagement away from the house?” Sophia considered the walk to Beacon Hill – not a long way, but through streets that might be busy during the day and dangerous for a woman alone at night.

“Tonight, I think,” Agnes replied. “Although he has not said so to me straight-out. He is thinking of meeting with a friend for supper, so he told me. He has gone out every evening to a chop-house for a meal, but he does no’ stay very long. Perhaps with a lock on your door, he may think he has time for a meal at leisure…”

“Tonight, then,” Sophia agreed. Fury and desperation might have to carry her when will and strength failed. She heard a distant heavy weight on the staircase below. “There he is, come to let you out, Agnes, let me have the pillowcase.” She set the tray aside, and going to her dressing table, tumbled some hastily-selected contents into it. “My little bits of jewelry … my good gloves. The rest are some shifts and petticoats and things. The lace-trimmed shirtwaist Emma gave me for my birthday. I might not think her so dear a friend now – but she does have the most refined taste. There … come and let me out directly that Richard has gone. I shall be ready.”

“Yes, Miss Sophia!” Agnes whispered. “Into the bed w’you, so he will think you are still weak!”

Sophia flung off her wrapper, and rolled herself between the fresh and crisp sheets even as Richard fumbled at the door. She closed her eyes, as if laying in a stupor, listening to Richard chiding Agnes for so neglecting the housekeeping. How hateful – when it was only poor Agnes working all alone, to bring in the coal and wood, and take away the ashes and the chamber-pots, and now to see to the sparse meals as well! Were she Agnes, she would hate Richard with a sullen and abiding hate. She supposed it was only Agnes’ sense of duty and personal fondness for herself which kept the downtrodden little maid-of-all-work in the house. Should Sophia effect her escape tonight, with Agnes’ help, she would encourage the girl to find work elsewhere … yes, certainly – and write up a recommendation for her.

The door to her room closed with a thump, and then a brief metallic rattle, as Richard padlocked it closed. Sophia listened to the voices and footsteps of her brother and Agnes fade, and considered what she must do next: choose and pack those few things which she couldn’t bear to leave behind … and rest. She was more exhausted from her efforts in this morning than she liked to admit, even to herself. She meant only to close her eyes and rest for a few hours, but when next she opened them, the pale golden sunshine of afternoon had painted the pattern of the window-frame on the worn Turkey rug at her bedside. A whisper at the door had roused her – Agnes’ voice.

“Miss Sophia? Are ye awake? I have the key in me hand. Mr. Richard … he will be away at about half-past five. Are ye awake – d’ye hear me, Miss Sophia?”

Sophia threw off the bedclothes laying over her, and scrambled to the door, her heart hammering with apprehension, lest they be overheard. “Yes, Agnes – I am awake. How long is it until then?”

“The clock has just struck the hour of four, Miss Sophia,” Agnes sounded immeasurably reassured. “Be ye dressed and ready … I will come and unlock the door as soon as I have seen Mr. Richard around the corner of Berkeley Street.”

“I will be so, Agnes …” Sophia whispered, almost limp with gratitude and relief. “…and bless you.”

“Och,” Agnes sounded almost embarrassed. “’Tis nothing. Ye’ve been good t’ me, an’ Declan, too … an’ Father Anselm says that one should never stand by an’ see injustice be done.”

“I am grateful – to you and to your Father Ans…” Sophia began, but Agnes cut her off.

“No mind to that, Miss – ‘e’s calling for me, awa’ downstairs. Be ready!”

 

Heedful of the danger that Richard might still choose to climb the two flights of stairs to assure himself once again of her helpless condition, Sophia put off dressing herself in her best street costume, and instead sorted out what she might take with her, either in her reticule, or in whatever bag that Agnes might bring for the rest of her possessions. She sat on the edge of the bed in her wrapper, regarding the room that she had as her own, the room she had slept in since a child – every object and furnishing dear and familiar; no, she could not take any of the larger things, and in any case they belonged to Richard. She gathered up her ivory and silver hairbrush, the dressing set that it was a part of, several of her favorite books – to include a battered edition of Vanity Fair and a collection of Tennyson poems. No, no more – too many books would make the bag too heavy for Agnes, or for herself. She added a single silver-framed daguerreotype of her parents at the time of their wedding, the best and newest of her dresses … that would have to do. Underneath the wrapper, she had on her cleanest shift, drawers, stockings and petticoat, her corset as tightly-laced as she could draw the strings. The minutes crawled past, as slowly as a crippled beggar working his way down the street with his crutch and tin cup, measured out every fifteen minutes by the chimes of the tall-case clock two floors below. With the windows open to the mild late-spring afternoon, Sophia could hear them clearly.

She used those minutes to think on what she must do, once she achieved the sanctuary of Great-Aunt Minnie’s house. There she would be safe from any effort of Richard’s to pry her out; Great-Aunt Minnie would see to that, with her many friends – some of them in high places indeed. The old lady had campaigned fearlessly for abolition, and for the rights of women – and if there was a cause she would champion to her last breath, the freedom and well-being of her dear brother’s grandchild would be chief among them. Until Minnie brought her legal weaponry to bear, Sophia might yet be as much a prisoner in the old Vining mansion as she was in her brother’s.

“I won’t mind in the least,” Sophia said aloud, more to hear a voice in the room. She had always been fond of Great-Aunt Minnie’s tall old-fashioned house, with the narrow garden and the stables – presently disused for anything save dusty piles of crates and trunks, for the Vinings had never thrown or given away anything. When she was a child, she had loved exploring the old house and listening to Great-Aunt Minnie’s stories of the family. Her own mother had been born in the sunniest and best-fitted of the upstairs rooms – the same that her Grandfather Horace had died in, for he was a consumptive and came back to his childhood home at the last. “There is so much that I would ask of her,” Sophia said again, aloud. “Of my father. He was very brave, so Mama always said. And of Grandfather – he traveled, so Mama told me. Traveled far, because of his bad health; Mama barely knew him at all, when she was a child or near to grown. Aunt Minnie would know of his adventures – he was her brother, after all …”

Agreeably lost in these considerations – which passed the time, no doubt about it – Sophia was brought abruptly out of them by a quiet knock on her door, and the sound of someone fumbling with the padlock upon it.

“Miss Sophia?” Agnes called. “Are ye awake? Mr. Richard has gone from the house, and is away down the street – he will be away to his supper. Are ye ready no’?”

“I am,” Sophia replied. She stood up as Agnes came through the door, with a limp and empty carpet bag in hand. “Let me put on my dress, my hat and mantel – oh, take this, Agnes! Three minutes, and I will be!”

Or … a half a chapter, from the novel that I am writing which includes an account of the adventures of an early Harvey Girl – working title being Sunset and Steel Rails. Earlier chapters posted here, here, and here. But for now …

Chapter 4 – A Prisoner’s Escape

Sophia returned by fits and starts to the painful and pain-filled world of the living. She had no notion of how long it had been since Richard beat her senseless, or even where she lay … although it seemed to be in a comfortable bed. The first time she was even slightly aware, her head swam with pain, to the point where she was afraid she would vomit, if she did not hold very, very still. Somewhere over her head, she heard Great-Aunt Minnie’s voice – she was certain that she did – and someone held her hand.
I must have escaped after all, Sophia thought, and with so deep a relief at such a miraculous deliverance that she gratefully fell back into the black darkness of not-knowing. She was safe with Great-Aunt Minnie … and that was all she cared to know. The next time she came up from the dark, she heard Great-Aunt Minnie and Phelpsie, too … but at a somewhat of a distance, murmuring together. Still, she was reassured yet again … wait, yet – was that Agnes? What was she doing at Great-Aunt Minnie’s? Could Agnes have assisted, conveyed her somehow to safety in the old Vining mansion on Beacon Hill? That must be so indeed, and Sophia took grateful refuge in darkness once again.
In the next essay into communication with the living world, Sophia was actually able to open her eyes. It took some effort, for she was still wracked with pain, in her head and the rest of her body. But she felt somewhat less inclined to vomit, even if her throat was dry and sore, and her mouth tasted if she had bit into something particularly vile. She struggled to interpret where she was, a room lost in the dimness, since it was lit by a single spirit-lamp. It was also a familiar room, familiar in an awful way – for it was her own bedroom in the Brewer mansion; Sophia could have wept in frustration and terror, but that she was so tired. She must have made some slight sound, for someone came rustling around the foot of the bed in which she lay; Great-Aunt Minnie. This Sophia knew from the faint odor of asafetida and lavender which she had associated from earliest childhood with Great-Aunt Minnie.
“Auntie?” she croaked, hardly knowing if she had formed the words aright … but yes, that was Great-Aunt Minnie bending over her, taking her own slack hand in hers. “Auntie … where am I?”
“In your own bed, my dear,” Aunt Minnie replied. Moved from a spirit of deep emotion which Sophia had never associated with her great-aunt, Minnie grasped her own hand and gently stroked her forehead. “Sophia, my dearest child … why ever did you do it? What dreadful impulse moved you to commit such an awful act?”
“Do what?” Still fogged, under whatever potion had been administered to her, Sophia regarded her dear great-aunt. “What did I do?”
“You took a full draught of opium, and flung yourself down the staircase,” Great-aunt Sophie answered. “Suicide is a sin, child – a dreadful, mortal sin. We knew that you were in despair over Mr. Armitage, no matter how bravely and how often you denied it…”
“I didn’t!” Sophia protested in utter horror and indignation – that someone would think so of her! “I cared nothing for Mr. Armitage, save as a friend of old…I would never …” She regarded her aunt – that sensible, practical Aunt Minnie would credit this! But the old woman was already shaking her head.
“Dear child, we came into the house just as Richard found you, lying at the foot of the stairs. We heard a dreadful sort of thumping noise, and Richard shouting your name – Phelpsie and I let ourselves in, and there you were, all crumpled at the foot of the stairs. Your little Agnes found the bottle halfway up the second floor stairs … an empty bottle of syrup of opium – I suppose it had been prescribed for dear Annabelle in her final days… Dr. Cotton knew at once that he must wash out your stomach in order to save your life … it was horrific, Sophia. I have not observed a scene of such dreadful gore since I volunteered as a hospital nurse in the late War!”
“But I didn’t drink anything of the sort, Auntie!” Sophia protested. The waves of darkness threatened to overtake her again. She must make it plain to Aunt Minnie, she must. “Not willingly … he forced it down my throat …” Those words had no effect on Aunt Minnie, who patted her hand, and smoothed the covers over her. “You are over-tired, child, and you are not yourself…”
“Richard forced me to drink it,” Sophia whispered, with the last of her strength and conscious thought, but Great-Aunt Minnie had already gone from the bedside, leaving the faint and soothing scent of asafetida and lavender. With the last awareness in her, she thought she heard Minnie open the door and say, “Agnes – she was just awake, very briefly … mind you go tell Richard.”
There was a disputatious exchange of whispers at the door, which she could not quite hear, until Great-Aunt Minnie’s was raised in indignation.
“… that is a vile accusation, my girl! And one without any foundation! He is her brother!”
No, Sophia was still in Hell. And everyone she loved and trusted was conspiring to put and keep her there. Best for her to be unaware, blissfully drink the potion and be out of this world of cruelties, until she was stronger, and could think of a means of escape. The grief of betrayal, by all whom she had thought to love her, or at least hold her in affection was more than she could endure for the moment. Richard, Great-aunt Minnie, Lucius Armitage, Emma Chase … everyone. But she would escape. A single tiny flame of defiance; Sophia took that with her into the dark of unknowing.

When she came up from it once again – she still was unmistakably lying in her own bed. There was a light beyond her eyelids, which she kept closed as long as possible. There was someone moving about the room … by the rustle of skirts, another woman.
“Can ye hear me, Miss?” Agnes’s voice in a surreptitious whisper. “Open your eyes, if ye can … I’ve something t’say to ye.”
“Don’t upbraid me, Agnes. I can’t bear it…” Sophia’s eyes leaked tears … oh, that she was crying like a child! Such humiliation was unbearable. Now Agnes would tell her that suicide was sinful, too – and that she was damned to the fires of Hell.
“Why should I?” Agnes forgot to whisper. “I know that the Master, he was putting summat in that tonic of yours. I saw him … the very day that the doctor’s boy delivered those bottles the second time. I am certain he did so, ever since it was first sent for ye. But if he makes ye drink it again … do not fear to do so, since I have poured out ivery drop in ivery bottle, and filled them again w’ molasses and water, to look like what that Dr. Cotton sent.” Agnes’ voice lowered. She settled herself into the chair at Sophia’s bedside, and took her hand in her own tiny, work-worn one. “Ye not fear to drink it. Make a pretense. Miss Sophia … lest he lock you in the strong-room again. I knew he did it to ye – the whole household knew – me, and Mrs. Garrett, an’ Declan, too – for I told him. That’s why Miss Phoebe an’ the lads went to stay with her mither. She did not care to know what was happenin’ to ye.”
“She did not care to prevent it,” Sophia replied. Yes, she thought Fee was a desperately silly woman – but for all these years she had been Fee’s sister-in-law, her housekeeper and governess to her children. No, now she owed no more loyalty to Fee than Fee did – by this showing – to her.
“I have to get away, Agnes,” Sophia’s eyes overflowed again, running back into her hair and dampening the pillow which lay underneath her head. “I did not throw myself down the stairs, either. My brother beat me, most savagely … and then he forced me to drink that dose. But no one believes me, not even my great-aunt. My brother has been telling her …”
“I know what he has been telling poor Miss Vining,” Agnes’ voice dropped again. “Poor lady – she an’ Miss Phelps, they were there, y’see. Miss Phelps nearly swooned on th’ doorstep, an’ Miss Vining, she turned as white as a linen sheet. She thought ye were dyin’ ye see, if not dead already. Mrs. Garrett an’ meself, we came from the kitchen when we heard the shoutin’ … Mr. Richard carried you upstairs, and then – he went himself for Dr. Cotton; M’self an’ Mrs. Garrett an’ Miss Vining, we took off your things … Oh, Miss Sophia, you are all covered w’ blood and bruises. Black and blue fr’ head to toe … it must hurt dreadful … and Mrs. Garrett said …” Agnes hesitated, her pleasant childish face contorted with puzzlement.
“It does,” Sophia replied in a whisper. She did hurt, all over – even in places where she had never thought that one could feel pain. Her heart within her suddenly chilled – that was Richard’s voice at some distance in the house – on the stairs by the sound of it, with Great-aunt Minnie, sounding like a furious bird, chirping at a marauding cat. “Agnes … I must escape from here. You are the only one in the household who believes me, or has witnessed what my brother has tried to do…”
“Aye, ye must,” Agnes bobbed her head in solemn acknowledgement. “There was a muddle o’ blood left on the carpet in the study, for a’ that Mr. Richard tried to sponge it away hisself … but it is he who pays m’ wages, Miss Sophia. An’ I do fear him, for he …” and poor terrified Agnes hurriedly crossed herself in the Papist fashion. The Irish in her voice became ever more marked, as Richard’s heavy tread on the stair and landing became unmistakable. “He has an evil spirit within him, ma’am. ‘Tis plain to see, for those that have eyes; for a’ his foine clothes an’ manner, the de’il has possessed him… if he could hurt ye in the way he has, what could he ha’ done to me…”
“Then you must leave, if you think yourself in danger from my brother,” Sophia whispered, although knowing that this would leave her alone in the house. Agnes was little more than a child, a servant girl of the lowest class in Boston. She was altogether right to fear Richard Brewer, with his friends among the rich and powerful. But Agnes was already shaking her head,
“Nay – for how could I live w’ meself, knowing you were alone …”
The door to Sophia’s room opened. Sophia hastily closed her eyes, as Agnes rose from the chair, letting Sophia’s had fall from hers as if lifeless; that was Richard’s irritable voice, speaking over his shoulder – again to Aunt Minnie.
“… Cotton says that she is on the mend. The girl can look after her, better than you and that fussy old spinster companion of yours. Get back to your own household and cease disrupting mine.”
“Mrs. Garrett has given her notice!” That was Great-Aunt Minnie, distant but no less indignant, and Sophia’s blood ran suddenly cold. “Who will do the cooking, prepare the meals, then, if Phelpsie and I leave?” Now she wished that she were still so ill that she could sink down into that blissful dark unknowing again. She closed her eyes and made a pretense, all the same, willing her muscles to go limp and and without response. Mrs. Garrett, gone from the Brewer household? She had only been their cook for the last few years, a slatternly widow and not a very good cook, but cheerful, willing and agreeable to working very hard for a relatively parsimonious wage, for which Sophia had often thought that the Brewer household should consider extremely themselves fortunate.
“The agency has sent around a list of likely candidates,” Richard’s voice was bored, dismissive. “In the mean time, Agnes will cook such invalid fare as required – you will, Agnes, won’t you? For myself, I’ll dine at the nearest chophouse. Mrs. Brewer shall conduct interviews with them, upon her return. You presume too much on my good-will, Aunt Minnie. I insist on being allowed to conduct the affairs of my own household as I see fit … and that includes the welfare of my little sister. Your presence is no longer required, or welcomed … yours and that abominably moronic leech of a companion.” The door thudded closed. With her eyes closed, Sophia guessed that Great Aunt Minnie was on the other side of it.
Her brother was within the room – and the thought of his maniacal countenance in her last moments of consciousness rendered her paralyzed with horror. Desperately, she wished that the darkness take her down into unknowingness again.

Weirdly, I am being inspired by the newest idea for a book – the story of the Fred Harvey hospitality empire, which came about in those years when the Wild West was passing from the real world into legend. I’m posting about half a chapter here, as I write them. As soon as I get a little farther on some other book projects, I’ll write and post some more of The Golden Road. But for now – I’m bubbling over with ideas for character and plot. I’ve always done best, working on two books at a time… Previously posted half-chapters to Sunset and Steel Rails are here, and here…

Chapter 3 – Potions and Portents

It was not – as she half-feared it would be – Richard who came to her room door, and tapped on it, hesitantly requesting admittance. It was Phoebe, tearful and apologetic. Sophia wondered, somewhat cynically, how much of that was due to Phoebe having to take charge of her sons herself, and to bear the brunt of Richard’s cold displeasure at the workings of the household not going quite as smoothly as he had become accustomed in the last few years.
“Richard is quite unhappy,” Fee announced, as she closed the door behind her. She shuffled into the room, the weight of the child within her body rendering her ungainly. She settled her awkward self into the bedside chair, and reached for Sophia’s hand. “He … he is so very fond of you, dear. We all are … and so worried about your condition.” Sophia bit back her initial waspish response – I had no condition until everyone began insisting that I had one! Instead, she answered,
“Fee, I am perfectly fit. It is only that everyone insists that I am not, which puts me out of all good temper. I was fond of Lucius Armitage – I do not think I really loved him to any great degree, although I believe I might have come to love him, in time. Just as you came to love Richard …”
Now, that was a startling thing, the fleeting expression in Fee’s eyes and countenance – was that … could it be stark terror? Again, that cold trickle of fear ran down Sophia’s spine. She looked at Fee – this time with cold analysis. Sophia had been a girl of ten years when Richard married his bride; all white dress and misty veil, on her father’s arm, advancing in stately tread down the aisle of the ancient Christ Church. Sophia had been one of her attendants, and not particularly happy about it, because this was Richard! Fee was, as the ten-year-old Sophia saw it – an interloper: A silly and unwelcome trespasser on a happy family; Mama, Richard and herself, living a contented life in the Brewer mansion. A ten-year-old’s impatience, and a touch of jealousy had given away to … well, still impatience, mixed with exasperation, and to this present day, with a heavier helping of exasperation and even a degree of contempt. Recalling how Richard seemed most cold and even horrible just now, Sophia wondered if she had misjudged Fee all these years. What would Fee have seen, be subjected to, in the privacy of a marital relationship? And what was Richard? Loving husband and brother, responsible head of a family and fortune … or something else? Sophia shook off the thought, although the question continued to haunt.
“Of course – he is a most loving husband and brother,” Fee insisted, breathlessly. “How could I not? Richard, my dear husband, he is unwearied in his care and concern for us all …”
“As he was from the day that Papa fell,” Sophia said. Truly, she wished that she could recall Papa – see him in flesh and life. Instead, all she had was an image from the daguerreotype that was always at Mama’s bedside; a handsome man in a dark Union uniform, one hand thrust into the front of his coat, the other resting on the sword at his side. Fee continued, “I know that you are being brave and very stoic about … Mr. Armitage and everything … but we cannot help but see that you are unhappy, and short of temper. And we think that you might benefit from a period of quiet and rest … in the countryside, under Dr. Cotton’s care…”
“I do not care for Dr. Cotton,” Sophia answered, with an edge in her voice that she didn’t bother to hide. “Nor his potions, or his advice, nor any else of his recommendations. I was perfectly content – a little disappointed in Lucius, for I thought he might have had enough character and spine in him to defy his father … this is the 19th century, Fee – what business do fathers have in absolutely forbidding a marriage when everything to do with those promised to each other has otherwise met with approval? Lucius’ father now finds me an abhorrent connection to his family merely because of those losses sustained in the failure of the Marine Bank! Tell me, Fee – does money now rule all? Over character, affection and long-established connection?”
Phoebe regarded Sophia with bafflement in her eyes – large, cow-like eyes, Sophia thought, viciously – and every bit as stupid as a cow which her sister-in-law resembled. “I suppose it does,” Phoebe admitted, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and Sophia could not conceal her contempt.
“You had a generous dowry settled upon you when you married Richard … a very enormous dowry, indeed. Was it the dowry which appealed most to my brother, or the charms of your own person and intellect?”
Phoebe colored as red as if she had been slapped, and tears started in her eyes. She sprang up from the chair, crying, “So what if there was! Richard does so love me, and we were happily wed – and you have always been cruel and sarcastic – anything but a true sister, for all that I have tried to be kind and affectionate …”
“Fee, I didn’t mean …” Sophia levered herself from the bed by her elbow, but was struck with a sudden fit of dizziness as she did so, and by the time she had pulled the right words of apology out of her mind, Phoebe had turned around at the doorway and launched her parting remark.
“Lucius Armitage has decided to marry after all – to your friend, Miss Chase! I imagine generous dowries do have some recommendation, after all!” Then Fee slammed the door behind her and it was too late. Sophia lay back down on the coverlet, staring up at the ceiling of her room. This had the effect of a bodily blow – that Lucius would have chosen Emma Chase, and within weeks of breaking their engagement. Truth to tell, she was more disappointed in Emma than she was in Lucius Armitage. Lucius was only a poor silly boy-man, still commanded by his irascible father … but Emma was her bosom-friend. She had not expected anything such as this. Was Emma so desperate for suitors, so eager for marriage at any cost? It appeared so.
The following afternoon was Pheobe’s ‘at home’ – the day when she and Sophia put on their afternoon best and received calls from friends and acquaintances. Sophia had always rather looked forward to their ‘at home’ afternoons; a few brief hours not exhaustingly engaged in housekeeping and errands, when she could sit in the parlor with her needlework and converse with those friends and kin whose company she enjoyed.
Aunt Minnie and Phelpsie appeared almost at once, shown into the parlor by Agnes.
“My dear child – have you heard? Lucius Armitage …”
“I have,” Sophia answered, curt and cold. “Fee told me last night.” She darted a sideways look at her sister-in-law, who appeared to have completely forgotten how bitter their exchange the previous evening had been. “It matters only a little to me, Aunt Minnie. They are both my friends and I wish them well …”
Great-aunt Minnie patted Sophia’s hands, visibly relieved. “None the less … water under the bridge, my dear, water under the bridge. You have been spared what I would say is a disappointment inevitable, given his weak and easily-influenced character. And our holiday in Newport … that will be a welcome change of scenery, my dear. Would you not agree?”
“I would … and with my whole heart,” Sophia answered. “Auntie … would you take it amiss … would it inconvenience you, if I were to come and stay with you and Phelpsie awhile? Even before then? My birthday is in two weeks … and I think that I would like to make some decisions for myself, as I will then be of age.”
“But … what would we do without you?” Fee interjected. “This is your home, Sophie, why would you …”
“No, this house is yours,” Sophia returned, not without a little malice. “And it should be your duty and pleasure to have the ordering and management of it, as my brothers’ wife. Being of age, and a confirmed spinster – why should I not set the direction of my own life and pleasures?”
“But that is … unseemly!” Fee bleated, and Great-Aunt Minnie snorted.
“Unseemly fiddlesticks, my girl. I am not keeping a low boarding-house, and there comes a time when a woman might be expected to know her own mind and desires. Sophia shall come and live with me as she pleases, being of age and there’s an end to all discussion.”
“Richard won’t like that,” Phoebe’s voice quavered. “He will be angry.”
“The venting of splenetic energy will be good for him,” Great-Aunt Minnie retorted, crisply. Sophia marveled at how little the thought of Richard’s anger dismayed Great-Aunt Minnie, even as it cowed Fee. Well, she thought, as she bent to her embroidery – Richard’s anger wouldn’t cow her either. She would go and live in the old Vining mansion, cramped and dark and old-fashioned as it was, and now in a neighborhood definitely decayed, and help Phelpsie look after Minnie, and listen to her great-aunt’s reminiscences about the old days, about Minnie’s brothers, and the various dramatic or mundane adventures of the various ancestors … which surely would prove more amusing than everyone groaning on at her about how badly she must feel about her broken engagement.
These pleasant thoughts were interrupted by Agnes, in the doorway with the silver card tray in her hand.
“Oh, Marm,” she said, her voice barely above a tremulous whisper. “’Tis Mrs. and Miss Chase presenting their cards …”
“The nerve!” Great-Aunt Minnie snapped and Sophia set her embroidery aside.
“I don’t care for what the rest of you do, but I am not at home for Miss Chase at this moment. Tell her,” and Sophie took a little enjoyment in saying so, since it was only what everyone had been telling her for weeks, “That I am indisposed. I shall be upstairs in my room … Agnes, if Mrs. Brewer decides to receive their cards, wait a little, until I have gone up the stairs, before you admit the Chase ladies.”
“Yes, Marm,” Agnes breathed. Sophia had no doubt that Agnes would be vociferously in sympathy with her, when next the two of them were folding laundry. As she reached the second landing, she heard the front door open and close, and Emma’s familiar voice exclaiming,
“Oh, what a shame! We had sworn to be bridesmaids to each other, for the first to marry…”
Sophia bit her tongue and hurried up the next flight of stairs to the refuge of her own room. How long would these humiliations be delivered upon her, as long as she lived in her brother’s household?

Yes, in between Christmas shopping, Thanksgiving and various other events, I have finally pounded out another chapter of The Golden Road – the adventures of wide-eyed young Fredi Steinmetz in the California gold fields. Only he and his slippery Irish comrade, Polidore Aloysius O’Malley have been delayed for some months working in the only saloon in the dusty frontier town of San Bernardino – run by the Bean brothers; the upright Col. Joshua Bean and his scapegrace, card-playing horn-dog of a younger brother Fauntleroy. Enjoy. And yes, Fauntleroy Bean was also known as Phantly Roy, and long decades later as just plain Roy, the only justice of the peace and upholder of the law west of the Pecos…

Chapter 9 – El Camino Real

            “They think it was one of Murrieta’s old gang,” O’Malley explained, with a somber face. “The Colonel had words with a Mexican last night, threw him out of the place. This morning, they had words again when the man came to complain …. The man went away, but waited and shot him down like a dog not half an hour ago in the street – he escaped, although those who saw it raised the hue and cry. They were looking all over for the pair of ye – where have ye been, all this time?”

“I had an errand, and asked Freddy to come with me,” Fauntleroy answered, on the instant, as if he did not even pause to consider a lie. “Where is my brother now?”

“In his own room, sor,” O’Malley looked so very grave and sympathetic. “I fear that it will not be long now for your brother. But he is not suffering.”

“That’s good,” Fauntleroy answered. He seemed dazed, uncomprehending; likely for the second time in a single day. Fredi wondered who would run the Headquarters now … Fauntleroy enjoyed looking like a big man, behind the bar, but had no relish for the work involved – and that had been obvious within days, even to Fredi. “I suppose that we shall open tonight – just for friends of Josh’s. No piano – we’ll keep it quiet from respect.”

 

“It’s all happened so sudden-like,” Fredi said, later that afternoon to O’Malley. They sat on a bench in the veranda of the Headquarters, with Nipper at their feet. The late afternoon sunshine blazed on the plastered walls of the mud-brick, a welcome counter to the cool breeze wandering from the east, seemingly chilled by the snow lingering on the tallest mountain peaks.  “No warning – and in the space of an hour, everything is turned upside down.”

“It’s like that, Fredi-boyo,” O’Malley meditated on the smoke from his pipe, rising into the air. Fredi had already told him of the mornings’ escapade with the duel, Dona Inés and the almost-hanging. “Sometimes ye can see the bad fortune coming – see it for miles – and then sometimes not. I think should leave here soon, as we had planned. The doctor does not think that the Colonel will last the night. Young Fauntly attracts misfortune to him, and I do not like the thought of standing next to him when the next parcel of it arrives.”

“For loyalty to the Colonel, should we not stay a while?” Fredi asked, for the Colonel had been quite decent to them both, if sometimes blunt-speaking.

O’Malley shook his head. “’Til he has been put into the ground and the words read by the priest; not a moment longer, boyo. We take the pay that is owed and we go north.”

 

Colonel Josh Bean died very quietly, just before dawn the next morning. Fauntleroy, very pale, and with his shirt collar buttoned high and cravat tied likewise to hide the marks on his neck told a small handful of friends the next morning.

“I suppose since I am his brother and he owned the Headquarters free and clear in his name, that it is mine now, to order and run as I see fit,” he added, in closing. The various friends looked sideways at each other; their opinions of Fauntleroy Bean likely being similar to O’Malley and Fredi’s – but it was the only saloon in San Bernardino.

“I daresay ye will close the Headquarters until the burying,” O’Malley suggested in a gentle voice. “‘T would be suitable.”

But Fauntleroy shook his head. “My brother had many friends and much respect among the citizens of this place – if they come to pay their respects, I may as well open the bar.”

There was an uneasy silence, in which Fredi cleared his throat. “We are owed our wages for this last week, Fauntly – for working in the back, and O’Malley with the piano.”

“How can you bring up money, at a time like this?” Fauntleroy had every appearance of being in grief and wounded to the quick. “I’ll … look at my brothers’ account books, and see what I can do for you boys.”

“I’d be grateful, Fauntly.” Fredi was reassured on that score – but only for a day. Fauntleroy emerged from the office at mid-morning with an opened account book in his hand, just as Fredi went past with a tray of clean glasses and tankards, saying, “I’ve been going over Josh’s accounts – and there’s nothing to pay you boys with, what with the costs of burying Josh, and the loss of business on account of closing to the general public over the last five days …”

Fredi regarded Fauntleroy with stone-faced disgust; the Headquarters Saloon – never mind who was in charge of it now – owed O’Malley for a week of pounding the piano keys, and himself for the same week, running errands, sweeping up the floor and washing tankards and cups. This was no better than being treated as a Negro slave – and Fauntleroy owed his freedom and his life twice over to O’Malley and Fredi. This was galling – and all the more galling, since there was damn little they could do about it now, dependent upon Fauntleroy’s willow-the-wisp good will. At that moment, Fredi realized that he had enough of this kind of smiling-faced treachery. He and O’Malley were cheated of their wages, and that was an end to it. He dropped the tray onto the tile floor, hearing the tray hit with a clatter and the glassware with a satisfactory smash.  “We’re gone north to the gold mines, then. Look to some other poor fool to clean that up for you – or do it yourself. ” He turned on his heel, and walked away, leaving Fauntleroy no doubt staring at the mess in dismay. For himself, Fredi no longer cared; he went to the tiny room in the back of the place where he and O’Malley had been quartered. O’Malley was there, sitting by the small window where the light was best, mending the hem of his overcoat with needle and thread. Fredi rolled up the pallet and blankets that he had slept on and under since leaving Texas.

“We’re going, O’Malley,” he said, over his shoulder. “Fauntly says that he cannot pay us our due – so I have quit, and told him we are for the gold mines.”

“Indade,” O’Malley observed – sounding not all that distressed about it, or even very much surprised. “The open road calls to us, then. And we have many hours of daylight left to us if we leave at once.” He made a knot in the thread and snapped it short, shaking out the overcoat as if to admire his own handiwork. “A pity about the piano, though …‘Tis a bonny and tuneful thing, abandoned in this place!”

“If at all possible,” Fredi said through his teeth, as he bundled the last of his meagre possessions into a carpet-bag and shrugged his own jacket over his shoulders, “We’ll find work for you – playing another. Gather your own trash and traps, O’Malley – let us be done with this place at once.”

“Before Fauntly gathers his wits and cozens us to remain, pleading with sweet words and promises?” O’Malley nodded agreement. He whistled to Nipper, who came awake in an instant, and bounded from where he had been curled up in a tight brindle ball at the foot of O’Malley’s pallet, resting his paws on O’Malley’s knees.

“’Tis on the road we are, little fellow!” O’Malley said to his dog. Nipper seemed agreeable enough, and much more philosophical about it than Fredi felt. They gathered their small baggage and went out to harness the mules. Nipper bounding ahead of them all the way, looking over his flank at them, and hopping up to assume his usual seat in the wagon as O’Malley whistled to the mules in the small corral at the back of the Headquarters. The corral and the stableyard were deep in trampled mud after a week of on and off rain, and also the droppings of many animals, and the pans of dirty dishwater thrown out from the back steps of the Headquarters.  O’Malley threw his many-caped overcoat into the wagon-bed, and Nipper burrowed into it at once, for the morning again was chill and the promise of more rain, if the grey clouds gathered like a cloak about the peaks of the mountains were any indication..

They set to the business of harnessing the mules, two and two, to the wagon, a task at which they – and the mules – were so accustomed that it was accomplished in relative silence and a few minutes by time. When they were nearly done, Fauntleroy Bean appeared in the kitchen doorway, his cravat already undone and shirt collar unbuttoned, revealing the livid marks about his neck still remaining from his near-hanging. O’Malley was already in the wagon, the reins in his hands.

“Fellows … Fred, Aloysius, you should reconsider …” he began, his countenance set in an earnest and tragic expression. “It’s just that there isn’t any money for wages at present, after the expenses are considered …My word on it. The Headquarters is in a bad way, with my brother dead – and a worse, if you are gone…”

“Not our concern, “Fredi snapped, still furious almost to the point of reverting into his first language. He felt again that unreasoning red mist of anger about to descend on him, that mindless and heedless fury that had led him into pounding Zeke Satterwaite into a bloody pulp. If Fauntleroy Bean laid a hand on him, Fredi knew without a doubt – that particular battle-fury, as O’Malley had called it – would descend again. He was that angry over the lost wages, over the way that Fauntleroy seemed determined to treat them both as he did his various lovers. “Your word … it is a worthless thing. Not like your brother. He was honest and fair to us. We are on our way. You cannot cozen us into remaining…” He turned away from Fauntleroy, who started forward, looking as if he was about to stay them with a hand outreached, even as Fredi mounted up onto the wagon-seat.

“Freddy … Aloysius,” Fauntleroy pleaded – as if he was an honest man unfairly reproved – which infuriated Fredi even more. He kicked out, his contempt unrivaled – and his toe caught Fauntleroy Bean fair in the chest, with sufficient force to topple the man backwards with a satisfactory splash, down into the pool of muddy dishwater and accumulated cow, mule and horse-pats at the bottom of the step into the kitchen.

“Well-done, Freddy-boyo,” O’Malley observed with satisfaction, slapping the reins over the backs of the mules.  Fauntleroy, stunned for once into speechlessness, levered himself with one elbow into a sitting position, mouth open with shock as the wagon rolled out of the yard and into the street.

“We tell everyone we meet what you have done,” Fredi shouted, over his shoulder as they rounded the corner, not caring that he was shouting in an incoherent mixture of German and English. “That you are a cheat, a liar and a fornicator … see how many customers come to the Headquarters now, eh!”

O’Malley chirruped to the mules, and grinned at Fredi. “Well, boyo – so now ye see? There’s many of his like in the world, I’m afraid, and Fauntleroy Bean is far and away not the worst of them.”

“I’ll take very good care not to take wages from any of them!” Fredi’s anger still burned hot, and O’Malley looked at the road unrolling ahead of them, the dusty road which led north, towards Los Angeles.

“’Tis a luxury, having such a choice, boyo.” The Irishman sounded as if he were admonishing. “But aye, I am thinking that no’ so many will work for a promise of wages now. In good time, Fauntleroy Bean will have the reputation which he deserves. We still have a foine stake for setting up a claim. It’s only a week or so that he cheated us of – no so much, considered against what we have already.  As for us now … the snows still lock the high mountains in winter for another few months. ‘Tis too early to commence our journey to the diggings; what say you to San Francisco, and searching for work there? The biggest city in the land likely will offer us any number of opportunities.”

“Even for playing the piano?” Fredi, good humor restored by the thought of as large a city as any that he had ever seen in this country – bigger than Galveston even – was not above teasing his business partner a little, and O’Malley laughed. The freshening breeze tugged at their caps, and at the overlapping capes of O’Malley’s overcoat.

“Aye, boyo –and it pays well!  When the diggings open, we can load up the wagon and haul supplies into whatever mine-camp seems to be most promising. They say that rich strikes are happening every week, from Mont-Ophir in the south to Rich Bar in the north – but that the men getting richest of all are those who mine the miners – selling supplies, whores and the mail from home.”

“But why shouldn’t we be among those striking it rich?” Fredi ruminated over all the stories he had heard – pebbles of pure gold, the size of a man’s thumbnail, scattered among the gravel at the river’s edge. That was a picture more alluring than laboring away, hauling freight and driving cattle – or washing glasses and bottles in a saloon. He could hardly wait – and relished once again and imagining of returning to Texas, richer than one of the Firsts, and repaying his brother-in-law every penny of the money lost to robbery on the road to Indianola.

That seemed now to have happened a long time ago, although in truth it was barely eight months. Fredi thought smugly that he had become very wise in that time; he and O’Malley’s stake was secreted in several places; a small portion carried on his own person and on O’Malley’s, but the largest part in a small sack concealed in a cask of cornmeal in the back of the wagon. No one would think to look for money in the meal cask, O’Malley had said, quite early on, and Fredi agreed.

 

They had gotten to a point halfway between San Bernardino and Los Angeles when disaster struck. It was a particularly deserted stretch of road, not a lonely house or a tiny settlement in sight. The sun, sliding down the western sky was still gilding the hilltops, and tinting the snow on the distant mountaintops in hues of rose and gold, but the valley bottoms were already abandoned to shadow. Fredi had already suggested that they make a wilderness camp of it for the night, picket the mules to graze, and sleep under the wagon, but O’Malley hankered to spend the night under a roof, and held out for traveling another mile or so, in hopes of encountering a dwelling-place, a town … anything. Shadows filled the valley, deep and darkening, even as O’Malley looked wistfully ahead for a lantern-lit window. Just as Fredi was about to say that there was no such thing in sight, and they should make camp while they still had light enough to unharness the mules and ensure that they were not bedding down on top of an ant-hill or a nest of rattlesnakes, a male voice called to them in Spanish, from the deeper shadow beside thicket of bare sage.

“Hola, my friends … it’s late to be on the road – may I ask where you are going?”

“To Los Angeles,” Fredi answered, having no suspicion in the least – until the metallic click of a pistol cocking alerted him – too late. Even as O’Malley made as if to send the mules hurtling forward, another man-shaped shadow emerged, deftly catching the lead mule’s headstall. Fredi – too late alarmed – leaned down, reaching for the shot-gun which O’Malley kept within reach, under the wagon seat. The man with the pistol stepped out of the shadows, the last of the twilight etching a pale line down the barrel. That pistol pointed straight at Fredi’s stomach, from hardly an arm-length away, and there was another pistol aimed at O’Malley; at least three men that Fredi could see, and at least two more that he could not, but sensed their presence anyway.

“Not tonight, I think,” said the first man, suave and confident. Now Fredi could see that he had a dark kerchief over his face, and his heart sank. This did not look good. There had been many a tale of Murietta and his bandit gang told in the Headquarters Saloon; not everyone in San Bernardino was convinced that Murietta and his chief henchman, Three-Finger Jack Garcia, had been killed by Captain Love’s Ranger company a year or two before although many had said they recognized the bandits’ pickled head when it was shown around the gold camps afterwards.  “Alas, we are poor men and you are rich – and is it not said that those who have must share with the poor and hungry?”

“And we are very hungry,” commented the man holding the mule’s headstall. The wagon rocked slightly on its springs, as if someone were climbing over the tail-gate. Nipper growled, from his nest at their feet in O’Malley’s folded overcoat, and O’Malley twisted around to look back into the wagon bed, bidding Nipper to be still. Fredi could hear O’Malley whispering to himself, very low in English which sounded like prayers.

“We’re being held up by road-agents,” Fredi said, keeping his voice level with an effort. Everything they owned between them was in the wagon – the cargo it carried, the mules which pulled it, and most especially – their stake in coins and notes, secreted in the cornmeal. “We are not rich,” he protested. “But honest and hard-working men! We are heading for the gold mines – not away from them; why should you steal what we have from us?”

“You have more than we,” the bandit leader replied, in an irritatingly reasonable manner. “And we have nothing – so you are rich indeed, by comparison. Come down from the wagon, my friends – slowly and keep your hands clear where we may see them.”

“He’s telling us to get down,” Fredi translated for O’Malley. “And to be slow and careful – there are at least three guns trained on us.”

“I’ll not die like a dog in the road,” O’Malley said through his teeth. “Give them what they ask for, boyo – do just as they say. Nip – to me. Tell them I’m wrapping Nipper in my coat. He’s just a poor little doggie, but he is loyal above all.”

“Your valuables, my friends,” ordered the bandit leader, once they had obeyed. “Go on – keep nothing back, not a single centavo, for Jesu Cristo rewards in heaven those who are generous to the poor.” Fredi and O’Malley stood with their backs to the wagon-wheel, Fredi with his hands raised, and O’Malley holding Nipper, tightly wrapped in his overcoat under his arm. Inside the wagon they could hear one of the bandits ransacking what it held, while Nipper whined in distress, but O’Malley held him fast, swathed in the overcoat’s folds. With one hand the bandit leader held out a coarse sack which might once have held sugar or salt – brandishing in the other an old-fashioned dragoon pistol. It only held a single shot, but at that range, a man couldn’t miss – and close as they were, Fredi could see the hilts of three or four more, tucked into the leader’s belt and the front of his short Mexican jacket. Another bandit, similarly masked and armed, stood by and holding a small pierced-tin lantern aloft, so that there was light enough to see by it, as darkness closed down over the valley like a pot-lid. Who knew how many other guns were trained on them, held steadily by how many bandits? He thought that he could hear horses close by, whickering to each other, and their bridle-bits jingling. There was no advantage to himself and O’Malley in this, Fredi acknowledged bleakly. Not even Carl Becker could have overcome this many … and in any case, his wood-wise brother-in-law likely would not have fallen into an ambush like this in the first place.

With an insouciance remarkable to Fredi, O’Malley surrendered his pocket-watch; a cheap and battered thing of tin, and twisted off the tiny jet signet ring from his finger. With a sigh, he added his purse, containing his small share of their stake, which he carried for such small expenses as they had, in order that the avaricious might not observe the larger store of money. Fredi, the bag and the dragoon pistol put before him, added his own small share, and the patent Colt revolver which he had bought from Gil Fabreaux’s brother, all these months ago.

The two bandits regarded them in reproach in the speckled lantern-light, obviously disappointed over the meagre takings.

Stung, Fredi protested, “I told you that we were plain working men – who other than such would be on the road at this time and season?”

At his side, O’Malley groaned faintly. “Boyo, have a care. We give them what they want, that we may go in peace…” he crossed himself in the way of Catholics in the old church with his free hand, murmuring, “…pray for us now, and in the hour of our death…”

Seeing an advantage or sorts – did this bandit understand English after all? – Fredi said, “He is one of your old church, as devout as a man can be said to be in this wilderness. We have given to you what we can…”

“Not all!” the bandit leader sounded as if he leered triumphantly under the kerchief over his face, as one of his gang came over the wagon seat, with a dusty sack in his hand. Fredi’s heart sank, all the way into his boots. Their stake! All the money they had in the world, their wages from six hard months on the cattle trail, and what they had earned since! The sale of Paint lay in that bag, that and the price of his and O’Malley’s long hours of work, pounding piano keys and laboring over the wash-pan in Colonel Bean’s saloon.

The man with the corn-meal dusty bag emptied it into the larger one, the coins and notes jingling and rustling as they fell. Fredi and O’Malley watched, helpless and impotent – and to add insult to injury on top of robbery, the bandit chief looked at them both in reproach.

“My friends – you are certainly very poor rich men, if this is all you have! Little notes, small coins of less value…”

“We were cheated of our wages,” Fredi replied, indignant, as that particular injustice still stung. “We worked for Colonel Bean, at the saloon in San Bernardino; all these weeks … and his brother did not pay us, saying there was nothing from the profits…”

“Los Frijoles?” the other bandit murmured – not wholly sympathetic, but appearing to flirt with the notion. O’Malley’s gaze went back and forth between Fredi and the two outlaws, but the Irishman sensibly appeared to think better of speaking. Fredi wondered briefly again, if the bandit understood English. Bundled in the overcoat, Nipper whined again, distressed – but not as much as he hand been, when the bandit first began searching the wagon.

“Yes – the Beans. We worked without pause or rest for … many weeks. And at the end of it, Senor Leroy refused us our wages.”

“And what did you do … for los Frijoles?” the bandit leader asked again, seeming interested.

“I washed in the kitchen,” Fredi answered. “And we hauled a piano from Los Angeles. Senor O’Malley played upon it nightly for many hours, which brought many customers into los Frijoles’ establishment and enriched them mightily. We were promised a generous wage of five dollars for each night that he played – but that bastard Senor Leroy cheated us in the end. So we left.”

“Aye-yi-yi,” the bandit leader whistled in sympathy, as an interested murmur of Spanish rippled among the others of his gang. “You were cheated … such is not an unknown occurrence, but usually not inflicted upon those of their own kind. But I am a gentleman and a merciful one – unlike those gringos …” he reached into the large bag which held everything that his men had looted from O’Malley and Fredi, and scattered a random handful of coins at their feet. “Thus, I return to you a portion. Alas, we are poor men ourselves, and cheated of our rights on every hand, or else I would return even more. We will leave you with your wagon and the mules. Count yourself fortunate, my friends, that we have no use for them. But we do languish for music and amusement …”

“Oh?” Fredi regarded the bandit chief with wary courtesy. “We don’t have a piano – or anything but a penny-whistle. What would you have us do?”

“If your Senor O’Malley would come with us, for a few hours,” the bandit leader replied. “There is a rancho … some little distance from here, where there is a piano, but no one there alive to play it.”

“They want you to come with them, to play the piano,” Fredi relayed to O’Malley, who nodded briskly, and seemed to fear no peril. Fredi wondered exactly how often O’Malley had been in tight, dangerous situations; he certainly seemed cool enough.

He handed the bundled overcoat with Nipper in it over to Fredi, saying, “Keep the little doggie safe with you – for he may try to run after me and become lost.” He looked as if he were about to say more, but thought better of it.

“Fetch him a mule,” the bandit leader jerked a thumb at the nearest of his men. In a few moments they had unharnessed the four mules, scattering three of them into the darkness with shouts. O’Malley mounted the fourth, while Nipper whined in Fredi’s grip.

“Mind the wagon,” he said only. “The mules won’t go far – but take care of Nipper,” he added over his shoulder, as the bandits let him away.

Gone out of sight in an instant, out of hearing in another, muffled hoof-beats falling soft on the dust of the road – and Fredi was alone, save for Nipper. At least the dog was not struggling to get free any more, but burrowed deeper into O’Malley’s coat. Fredi put him back into the wagon, and getting down on his hands and knees, felt in the darkness near to the wagon wheel for the coins scattered at their feet by the bandit leader.

He much regretted the loss of his revolver – but at least the bandits missed the shotgun under the wagon seat. Fredi sat back on his heels, struck by a little niggling thought, a sense of something not quite right. He could have sworn that there had been more in the bag containing their stake. The bandit leader had been disappointed with what was found in the wagon … surely there had been gold coins in their stake. Yes, he was certain of that; he had the price for Paint in gold eagles, and O’Malley was paid the same for his piano-playing. He reviewed the brief moment when the dusty bag was emptied into the larger; had he seen anything like the bright glint of gold? And when the bandit leader threw down a fistful of money at random, surely there would have been at least one gold half or quarter-eagle among them…

But there was not – only copper pennies, with a few silver three-cent pieces and half-dimes. Fredi retrieved a tin lantern from the wagon, lit the candle within and searched the ground on hands and knees for any coins he might have missed. Nothing … and he wondered just what  O’Malley had been about to say to him, before the bandits vanished into the night with him.