Either way, it don’t matter much anymore. Most of Chinatown’s burnt down.”
Looking over to the glow of flames in the distance, Nick muttered, “That’ll learn ’em.”
“That’ll drive ’em the hell out of town is what it’ll do,” she said angrily. “And it’ll show the mining companies that we won’t sit back and let good folks get run out of their jobs just so a few cents can be saved on hiring workers that don’t belong around here no how.”
“I heard shooting,” Nick said. “My guess is that the mining companies are letting you know what they think about your little statement.”
“Ain’t my statement. I’m just sitting here watching how things turn out. The statement you’re hearing would be Francis Hale’s.”
“Who’s he?”
“Used to be the foreman of some organized miners or something like that. Now, he’s the fellow that’s putting up ten dollars of his own money for every dead Chinese that’s brought to him.”
“Jesus,” Nick said.
The old woman shook her head and scratched her chin. “Jesus ain’t anywhere near Rock Springs, mister. Not for right now, anyway.”
Gritting his teeth, Nick asked, “What about the railroad tracks?”
“What about ’em?”
“They’re being blocked. Why’s that?”
She shrugged. “I just sit here and watch.” The old woman laughed until she hacked a mess up in the back of her throat. After spitting onto the ground, she said again, “You want my opinion, you should’a stayed on that train. What the hell would possess you to stay here?”
Before Nick could come up with an answer, the old woman stared down at his mangled hands and grinned. Nodding, she said, “Ah, I see you been through your share of hell already. Once you been tossed into the fire, it ain’t easy to live outside of it.”
As much as Nick wanted to refute what she was saying, he simply couldn’t. Her words struck like a set of fangs that sank into him and only drove in deeper the more he tried to be rid of them.
“You’ll probably want to see Mister Hale,” she said. “Most of the men who got the sand to keep walking these bloody streets want to see him. He’s at the Central Mining Office, down the street. Just head that way and make a right. You can’t miss it, seeing as how it’s one of the only damned things on that street that ain’t burned down yet.”
Something within the old woman’s scratchy voice struck him like a kick in the backside. It was the tone used by any mother or grandmother to shoo her little ones out of the kitchen, only this time it was being used to move someone toward a riot. Before Nick could take more than a few steps away, he stopped and turned back around to face her.
“Have there been others coming through here looking for this kind of work?” he asked.
“What kind? Mining or shooting Chinese?”
“The second one,” Nick replied with a distasteful snarl.
“More’n I care to admit.” When she spoke those last few words, the old woman showed the first traces of genuine sorrow. At that moment, the fire seemed to cast her face in a deeper glow and the twitches in the corners of her eyes were perfectly timed to the gunshots being fired in the distance.
Finding a stable for Kazys wasn’t as difficult as Nick had expected. All he needed to do was head away from the noise and flames, find a spot that wasn’t under attack and look for a livery with horses inside of it. As long as other folks had a vested interest in the place, Nick figured that was as safe as he was apt to get. Since the stable he’d found wasn’t anywhere near Chinatown, Nick hoped it would be suitable for a just a little while.
Of course, he knew he could always keep the saddle on Kazys’s back and put Rock Springs far behind him. In fact, that’s exactly what nearly every piece of good sense in his head was screaming at him to do. Under other circumstances, he might have followed that advice to the letter. But Nick had already been shot at, chased down and nearly killed by the lunatics of Rock Springs. None of that sat too well with him and the notion of letting those assholes get away with what they were doing sat like a rock in the bottom of his gut.
As much as he would have liked to preach the loftier motives, Nick knew there was one thing in particular that kept him from leaving Rock Springs. That town had a major railroad line rolling right through it. Without that railroad line, it could be months before Nick found his way back home again. Riding back to California wasn’t impossible, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be ideal, and it could very well be the last ride of Kazys’s life.
Keeping those things in mind, Nick patted the horse’s nose as he shut the gate on the stall Kazys was forced to share with another stallion. The Arabian in there with Kazys was a fine animal and wouldn’t have been left there unless his owner had some confidence in the facility. He didn’t seem to mind Kazys being in there with him, so that’s where Nick left him.
Nick stuck his head outside to make certain nobody had seen him enter the stable, just in case there were some looters who weren’t interested in Chinatown. As far as he could tell, the streets were empty.
Retracing his steps so he could follow the directions the old lady had given him, Nick moved from one street to another. He could feel the heat from the raging fires on his skin. The sound of the flames was a constant roar that reminded him of how the sea had sounded from within the battered hull of a ship. For the moment, the screams had faded away. The gunshots, however, erupted every so often like a pack of firecrackers that had been tossed into the street.
Nick’s eyes narrowed to try and focus on some shapes that were moving within a darkened building across the street. Turning on the balls of his feet, he crouched down and slapped his hand against the grip of his modified Schofield. As much as he tried to see more, all Nick could make out was a pair of figures crawling toward the front. Nick moved cautiously toward them.
“Don’t kill us!” one of the men said. “Please. We will leave. Just don’t shoot again.”
“I never shot the first time,” Nick said. “What happened to you?”
The man fought to move forward another few steps, reached out with one hand and then fell face-first onto the boardwalk just outside the door.
Nick could hear repressed sobbing coming from behind the unmoving figure. He stepped forward and only had to look at the face of the person lying on the ground to know there was nothing he could do to help him. He’d seen plenty of Chinamen in his day, but Nick Graves had seen even more dead men. The figure lying in the doorway was both.
Kneeling over the body, Nick looked further into the shadows and spotted the second figure huddled against a wall. “What happened?” Nick demanded. “Who did this?”
“You know who did it!” the woman shouted as she snapped her head forward just far enough for her to be seen. “You come here to take his body for money! Just take it and take me, too, if that’s what you want.”
Nick found himself backing away from the dead man.
“Take him!” she screamed.
Suddenly, from deeper within the building, there came the sound of wood cracking and splintering under what sounded like the blow of a large hammer. Heavy steps thudded through the room, causing the woman to sob and scramble on all fours away from the sound.
Stepping over the dead body, Nick found himself inside a modestly decorated home. There were a few pieces of furniture here and there, as well as a couple of exotic statues and small paintings. Nick recognized the style of the decorations as Chinese, but didn’t know much more about them than that. He didn’t have to know a thing about the Chinese woman cowering on the floor to know she was scared out of her mind.
Her mouth was moving but no words came out. Her eyes were clenched shut and she was curled up in a ball as if every single one of her muscles had seized up.
“There you are,” said a man who walked into the room from somewhere in the back of the house. “I knew you wouldn’t leave this place all by yourself.”
The man who spoke had a face full of stubble and a thick, untrimmed mustache hanging down over his lip. His voice filled the room like swamp gas and was tainted by a thick Louisiana accent. “Who might you be?” he asked Nick.
“I’m new in town,” Nick said.
“Heard the commotion, did ya?”
“Sure did. My train was stuck here and I needed to make sure it keeps moving along.”
