Chapter 33
Lula
The office is warmer than I expect.
Danger ought to be cold. Drafty. Ill-lit. The Hollister office is none of those things. A neat little stove glows in one corner, its iron belly ticking softly. Lamps sit ready on the desk and sideboard. Everett lights one, then another, and the room blooms gold.
Paper everywhere.
But they’re neat. Arranged.
Contracts in tidy stacks. Ledgers shelved by size.
Rolled maps in a brass stand. A wall map of the territory pinned flat behind the desk, its edges weighted with polished wood.
The room smells of ink, sealing wax, dry paper, tobacco, and the faint clean scent of freshly mopped floors. No blood. No mud. No screaming.
My heart skips a beat.
“Handsome office,” I say.
“Thank you.”
He removes his hat and sets it on the desk. His hair gleams silver at the temples in the lamplight. A very pretty devil, all told. If hell keeps a parlor, I imagine he would be asked to receive guests.
I step farther into the room, careful not to let my skirts brush the stove. The warmth settles over my shoulders, too pleasant for the tremor moving under my skin.
Everett crosses to the wall map and gestures with one hand. “Look.”
I do. The map is beautifully made. Rivers in blue. Timber tracts washed green. Roads in fine black lines. Claims marked in red ink, boundaries cut across the land. He moves to the desk and lifts a leather folio and opens it. “Photographs as well.”
Photos of men standing beside felled trees. My notebook seems to burn in memory.
Dated stumps. Damaged roots. Soil spoiled. Flora disturbed. Mary laughing over bee balm. Dr. Bowering’s stupid voice explaining the sky.
I keep my face empty, though my insides wrench from the pain of knowing their death warrants were probably signed in this very room and this monster held the pen.
Everett shifts the folio, a folder stacked underneath. He unties the string.
Inside are papers, a clipping, a list of names written in a clerk’s fine hand. I see Dr. Bowering before I can stop myself. The name strikes like a nail through my palm.
Professor Edwin Bowering.
Mary’s name too. Others. Bobby. Assistants. Dates. Fort Smith. Verdigris.
Then a description.
Female survivor presumed dead.
Herbal assistant. Widow. Petite. Blonde.
My mouth dries so completely my tongue sticks to my teeth.
Everett turns one page toward me.
LULA CLAY.
The letters sit there in black ink, plain and impossible.
For a moment, I am back in the wagon with a knife clutched in my hands, too frozen to use it. Back in the snow. Back beneath torn canvas, listening to men die outside and thinking of my mother too late.
I do not move.
Moving would tell him which part of me he struck.
Everett’s voice remains gentle. “You were difficult to trace.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Not impossible. Only difficult.”
My heart beats hard, each thud a foolish thing trying to escape.
“I do not know what you mean.”
“No?”
“No.”
He studies me a moment, almost kindly.
Then he reaches into the file and removes another paper. A small inventory, looks like. Items left at Fort Smith by the victims. Beside my name is the word trunk.
“Your belongings were still in Fort Smith,” he says. “Or most of them. A rooming housekeeper was very distressed to have a dead woman’s trunk taking up space. She was grateful for us to have retrieved it.”
He gets up, crouches behind a desk and sets my trunk on the surface with a dull thud. The sight of it after all this time, with all that’s happened since last laying eyes on it, turns my stomach. The floor seems to move under me. I steady one gloved hand against the back of a chair.
“The first assumption was that you died with the others,” he says. “Understandable. The storm did its work. The bodies were not all easy to account for by morning, what with wildlife and—”
“Stop.” The word comes out before I can dress it.
His expression softens in a way that makes me want to slap him. “I am sorry. Truly.”
“No, you are not.”
“Of course I am,” he says after a moment. “This is ugly business. But necessary, I’m afraid.”
There is the man. There, beneath the polish.
I lift my chin. “What do you want?”
“Only to speak plainly.”
I quiet, and he gives the smallest nod, as if thanking me for giving him the floor.
“One of my men saw you with the Aces. At first, I was told it was Goldie. Ridiculous, of course. Goldie does not skulk through town with hired killers. She only does that behind closed doors.” He taps the paper.
“Then you arrived. Goldie’s daughter. A widow from West Virginia.
The image of her mother. Small. Blonde. Alive. ”
My pulse pounds at my throat.
“Congratulations,” I say. “You have solved a parlor puzzle.”
“I have found the last credible living witness. I can assure you this carries much more weight at Hollister than you’d expect.”
I look toward the door. Not long. Long enough.
He sighs, as if I disappoint him. “Mrs. Clay—”
“Do not call me that.”
“Lula, then.”
My name in his mouth feels like a hand where it does not belong.
He knows it too.
“You are in a precarious position,” he says. “But not a hopeless one. In fact, I believe you may be the most fortunate survivor in the territory.”
I laugh once. It sounds mad.
“Fortunate?”
“Yes.”
“My friends are dead.”
“Yes, that is true. Sadly, lesser men mistook broad instruction for license,” he says dismissively. “But nothing you do will resurrect them.”
Cruelty, calmly said, is a colder thing than anger.
I stare at him. His face remains composed.
“But you,” he continues, “may yet profit from survival.”
“I am not for sale.”
“Everyone is. The only question is whether a buyer understands what the seller wants.”
“I want to leave.” I take a step toward the door and he grabs my wrist, yanking me back.
“No. You want the freedom to live as you please, and we offer the kind of wealth that will allow you to do just that,” he says, hand still firm around my arm.
The words land so hard my breath leaves me.
“Unhand me.”
He releases me, holding up his hands in apology.
“I only ask that you hear our offer.” He reaches into the file again and removes a folded letter.
My own handwriting. I recognize it with a sickness so deep it nearly doubles me.
My application. A long letter from before the expedition, into which I remember pouring my every dream in hopes of convincing Dr. Bowering to include me on his journey.
Lula’s Apothecary.
There it is. My foolish little future, stolen from a page and placed on his desk like bait.
“How did you get that?”
“Your application was very sweet. Lies, mostly, as far as your training goes, but sweet nevertheless.” His voice is not unkind.
That makes it worse. “Hollister can give you enough to open your shop anywhere you like. Fort Smith. St. Louis. Memphis, if you prefer the river. New Orleans, though I would advise against the climate. Maybe even right here in Three Forks.”
I cannot seem to look away from my own handwriting.
A sign over a door. Shelves of tinctures. A room no one enters unless I permit it.
My hands curl inside my gloves.
“All you need do,” Everett says, “is confirm what everyone in this camp already knows to be true. The Aces are responsible for the massacre.”
“They saved my life.”
“They are wanted men.”
“Because of your lies, but they are better men than you.”
The words leave me, clean and sharp. Everett goes still.
For the first time all evening, I see irritation. Not much. Just enough to know there is blood under the varnish. The stove pops. Outside, a wagon passes, wheels sucking through mud. The world is close. Too close not to hear me if I scream. Too far to save me before he stops it.
“Be that as it may,” Everett begins as he gathers the papers back into the file, aligning the edges carefully, “here is what I need from you. A statement. Written, signed, witnessed. Boone Maddox and Okee Collins massacred the expedition, abducted you, and forced your silence. You escaped to your mother in fear for your life. That is all.”
“That is not all. They’ll be killed. Law or no law, the people here will have them drawn and quartered.”
He nods, as if it is a sad but unavoidable reality. “Yes, it is a conclusion already reached by most, I’m afraid.”
“Then why do you need me?”
“As it turns out, mobs are a bit like a wildfire. The scrub could be dry as dust, the air hot as a brand, and yet without a spark, there is no fire.”
I taste bile.
He says it like a man discussing laundry.
“If you sign,” he continues, “you will have more money than you’ve ever known.
Protection. Not just a future, but the future you have always dreamed of.
And all you must do is tell a convenient lie.
I know you’re capable. Professor Abernathy of Women’s Appalachian University?
That letter of recommendation was quite inventive, if I must say.
Even offered in a distinct hand. I was quite impressed. ”
“And if I do not?”
The room seems to lean toward him.
“Well, that would be foolish. You, a vivacious spirit with ambition enough to venture west into dangerous land for a dream. Why would a woman like that abandon her own dreams for a pair of drifters she hardly knows with a silly name?”
“I asked you a question.”
Everett rests one hand on the file. He thinks for a pause, then says, “I see no profit now in comforting you with lies.” He stalks to his desk and opens a drawer, reaches inside, then lays a gleaming pistol on the table, polished enough it may just have arrived from the gunsmith.
“Lula, you’re a clever girl. I think you know that whether you agree or disagree, some solutions were proposed that required no conversation at all. ”
He takes the gun in his grip, not pointing it, but making his hand familiar with it. My knees nearly buckle.
“You’re quite lovely. And despite your mother’s dishonesty, I find it difficult to fault her.
She’s been an excellent partner for many years.
There’s no need for this ugly business to burn bridges.
That is to say, Lula, that I am quite fond of you.
And your mother. It’s why I’m presenting you a choice of prosperity instead of…
” He trails off, waving the gun in his hand and letting it finish his point.
Well, how lucky for me. My life was spared for my charm. For my mother’s. A sound comes out of me that might be a laugh if laughter had its throat cut.
“You want me to accuse the men who saved my life?”
“They did not save your life. They only delayed the inevitable, and they certainly cannot offer you the life you deserve. These are not misunderstood farm boys, Lula. They are efficient killers. They were famous for it before Hollister ever hired them. Brutal soldiers in a brutal war,” he says, holstering his pistol.
I look at the file. My name. The dead. The life I wanted. The lie he offers as a doorway.
My own safety bought with two nooses.
No.
No.
No.
I smooth my glove, as if the offer tempts me.
Mother said do not show teeth unless I mean to bite. I am not sure yet where to put them.
“May I have some time to consider?”
Everett’s expression eases. Not triumph. He is too careful for that. But a little satisfaction slips through.
“Of course.” He watches me with a new expression. Amusement, perhaps, as he ambles to a door and knocks twice. “But I am sure you understand why I cannot allow you to return to the Gemini.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, we’ve established the Aces are there, hiding under a faro table or a mattress or wherever they have made themselves scarce. Sending you back to that place would be foolish.”
“Where will I go?”
He smiles. “I have arranged for transport to your temporary accommodations.”
“You’re kidnapping me?”
The door opens. Behind it is a man in a suit with a star pinned to his lapel.
“Good gracious, no,” he bellows out with a laugh, holding up his hands in defense. “I am seeing to your protective custody as the last surviving witness of a terrible crime. Lula Clay, this is Deputy Hepburn. He’ll be accompanying us there.”
Deputy Hepburn removes his hat.
He is younger than I expect. Thin as a rail, with a sharp Adam’s apple and pale hair plastered neatly to his skull. The star on his lapel looks too large for him, as if it has been pinned to a boy playing at law.
He does not meet my eyes. That tells me a great deal.
“Ma’am,” he says.
“Deputy.” My voice comes out calm. Distant. As though the matter concerns some other woman entirely.