When the earth shakes
» Wyoming, 1876
It was dusk and the sky ran clear with blood and the prairie swam in amber. He watched the sun clip beyond the range far to the west and shatter. Long shards of gold spilled across the dirt. He lowered his chin and dipped the brim of his hat into the light and held his face in shadow. Then he turned.
The girl was twenty paces behind. Her feet shuffled through the rock detritus of the path with steps small and heavy. Her dress was black at its ends and fraying and a long thread trailed behind her in the dirt like the ghost of some bridal train. Her face had strands of straw hair stuck to it with old sweat and grime and her features were set in a blank stare. She did not raise her eyes from the ground.
Come, called the man to the girl. Not long till dark.
The girl gave no response. Her mask remained unblemished by twitch or frown. Just empty eyes and cracked lips and slow shuffle.
The man turned back to the sun. A faded shadow hummed on the ridge of the mountains. A forest during spring but a graveyard now. He walked toward it along the long bright line the sun had left for him.
»
When they reached the edge of the trees it was dark and bats were darting above as skittish shadows half-seen. The man lead the girl through the dying foliage and every step cracked underfoot until they reached a small clearing. He threw down his pack and the girl slumped to the floor after it and came to rest and stared into the space between trees. She pulled her knees up to her chest and that was all.
The man regarded her for a moment then slumped off into the darkness in search of firewood. His hand moved to his Schofield easy. He didn’t need it. The wood snapped and came away in his hands like old bones and there was no sign of wildlife save the bats above. He was back in the clearing in moments and the girl had not moved.
He started a fire and it sent shadows dancing. The man drank long and well from his waterskin and offered it with one hand to the girl. Her eyes did not move.
If you don’t drink I’ll shoot you here where no soul or grave will find you.
The girl didn’t move.
And I’ll take the money and head back to town and give it back to the man who held you shackled.
At his mention her eyes flickered then moved finally in their sockets like they’d forgotten how. Empty threat, she said, a whisper as dry as the wood.
Second part was, he said. But I would shoot you. Save us both the time.
The girl took the skin and drank. Perhaps he imagined it or perhaps some colour trickled back into her face. She sat with the skin in her cracked hands and stared into the fire. Where are we going, she said. Her voice was stronger.
You know where we’re going.
We’re walking west. You shoulda turned north back at the crossing there.
He looked at her for a moment in surprise. Didn’t think you’d know the land.
But I do.
Well then you’ll know the road lies north. And we don’t want the road.
Why?
We are running from a man of means miss.
Somewhere in the trees an owl hooted and the sound hung in the air for a length that was almost unnatural until the wind picked up and carried it away.
You think he’d come after me, the girl said.
The man lay back and lowered his hat over his eyes. You don’t?
She paused before answering. Maybe I hoped his sense of justice would deter him from violence. It always has.
He is a man of money and so he will spend it. He’ll try buy you back, most likely. And I don’t fancy tangling with no bounty killers. So no roads.
He could find someone else.
He almost laughed. That ain’t how a man’s mind works, sweetheart.
So sick of hearin about men and their damn minds.
Now you’re speakin smart.
He closed his eyes and the light of the fire disappeared and the stars left little blurs inside his eyelids.
If we’re going west you plan to walk along the mountain’s edge, she said.
Yup.
We’ll find some water partway along. A little stream that flows down to join the river we crossed today.
The man sat back up slowly. How you know that?
Cos. Her voice grew stronger as she spoke and the fire seemed to respond as if rising in concert with her. Perhaps he imagined that too. I know the map of this state by heart. I know its topography and elevation and the depths of its lakes and which species of fish live in each.
The man stared. What the hell topography mean?
It means how the land is lain. It’s shape and such.
Huh. Any thought of sleep had gone from him. He fiddled with his pouch to roll some tobacco. Where you learn words like that? He lit his smoke on a smouldering ember.
Books, she said. He had lots of books.
You learn anything else or just the shape of Wyoming?
You care about your cargo now.
He shrugged. Call it a bedtime story.
She lowered her eyes from the fire to the floor. Yes. But I liked reading about the land the most. How mountains are born and how the sea moves through ages. Swallowing things whole and changing maps over a thousand lifetimes. You know in England there are scholars who think there are whole oceans of rock beneath us and the tides cause ripples and waves that smash into each other. And that’s why the earthquakes happen.
The man touched the dirty iron cross that hung on a thong around his neck. And here I was thinkin I’d rescued the princess from the tower.
The princess don’t usually pay to be rescued.
Well naw. But that’s the world.
He looked up. The moon was full and a dreary off-yellow. He could see each of its blemishes and every puckered blotch upon its faraway face.
He said, d’you think the ground shakes like that on the moon?
Next to him, the girl lay on her back and he knew she was looking too.
Perhaps one day we’ll find out.
Yeah. Perhaps you’ll do it.
I’d like that.
He entered the saloon in the evening when the locals were hollering and glass was breaking and not a soul looked up to his coming. The crowd was motley and bearded and drunk and he passed through it to the bar with a few well-chosen elbows that went barely noticed.
He asked for a whisky and the bartender told him a price. I ain’t got all that, mister, he said. But I can work.
How about you fuck off, said the bartender, a man purpling beneath his handlebar moustache.
Ah cmon. I could sweep your floors or throw out the rowdy or wash your glasses. Don’t pass on skilled labour, sir, specially not for the price of just a bottle.
You can talk, said the purple man, I’ll concede that. What else you do?
What else you need?
Ain’t a question of what I need. Tell me who you are and what you do.
The man was a liar but he didn’t say that he was a liar. Instead he thought of his empty pockets and the nights he’d spent curled up in the corner of a barn and the long lonely road that no man should have to walk without a horse. Then he lied.
Been down in Mexico for half a year with a company that set out from Texas in the winter. I can shoot, work the land, anything physical or tough on the bones. Done some bounty killin too. Came back north through New Mexico but got caught by Indians on the road. Maybe they remembered me cos I killed enough of them in the south. But I was alone then and they got my horse and I got away by the skin of my teeth. Now I have nothin. I’m startin again in this town. Your town sir. So. What you need?
The bartender accepted his story and kissed his teeth. He put his hands on the bar and lowered his voice. I heard of some work could fit you. Quiet work if you catch my meanin.
Yessir. I can be quiet.
The bartender stiffened and pulled a filthy rag from his shoulder and wiped at a glass. Go upstairs, he said. Ask one of the girls for Maude. And only Maude mind you. I hear you touched the other ladies I’ll have both your hands.
The man wiggled all ten fingers. I’ll keep them to myself.
»
A girl was waiting on the mezzanine twirling auburn hair through her fingers. She eyed the man and smiled. Evenin darlin.
I got business with Maude.
What kinda business?
That’s for her to know.
Ain’t you the man of mystery. She smiled again and disappeared down a corridor and he heard a door creak and a murmur of conversation. Then the girl reappeared. This way.
From every door they passed he heard drunken grunts and whining wood.
Maude was sitting in an armchair with an open book on her lap. The bed in the room was well-kept and stately. It matched the woman. Her face was lined and haughty and she was red-haired and bespectacled and sat up very straight.
Ma’am.
Maude gave the girl a pointed look and she left and closed the door behind her.
Ma’am, I’m told you have some business needs takin care of.
Are you able?
Able for what now.
For the business.
Well, I can’t know without knowing the nature of the business isself —
Susie, she called at the girl who had just left.
The man slammed his hand against the door just as it opened and backed his weight into it. It shook and rattled against its hinges as the girl struggled. Now wait just a moment, said the man. Tell me what the work is and I’m damn sure I can do it.
Open the door. I’m looking for a professional.
Good job you found one.
Of a specific kind. Open the door.
I explained to your boss downstairs what kind of man I am and what kind of work I do. You think he’d let me up here if I wasn’t a specific kind? I know you need somethin doin that’s underhand. Whatever it is I done it before and I can do it again.
She took her eyes off the rattling door and looked at him.
He met her gaze. Renegades and apaches and thieves, he said. From Santa Cruz down to Mexico isself. All dead by my hand. If you need a bullet puttin in someone well I got plenty.
The woman breathed deep. It’s okay Susie, she called through the door. It stopped shaking. She looked down at her hands. If you weren’t the first man to walk through that door, she said, I wouldn’t contemplate to contract you for a second. But I do not have the luxury of time.
The man moved away from the door and sat on the corner of the bed. I give my word, he said, this job will be done and done proper.
She looked out the open window where the curtains fluttered in the evening breeze and framed a perfect picture of the long burnt grasslands that stretched into a slow rise and the beaten road that sloped with and over it and disappeared into the distance.
Violence need not come into this, she said. And entrusting her to a man like you makes me ill.
I meant only to say I’m a man of some ability. My word is my word.
She sighed. God forgive me. She turned to him. There is a girl. A child. She lives at the Sheriff’s house at the end of town, the big one. He has trapped her and betrothed her and she wishes to be free of him.
Free how?
She gave him a sharp look. She has been corresponding with an uncle in Montana. Writing letters. A rich man. A prospector building a town there with his peers. He has sworn to hide her and give her a new life. Protect her from the Sheriff’s retribution. Says he even knows some women from New York fighting for the suffrage.
You need me to take her.
She has stolen one thousand dollars. And says her uncle has more. The town is called Helena.
The man stroked his chin. The Sheriff will pursue us.
That is why I called for a professional.
The liar stood and pulled his slacks up by his belt and rested his hand on his Schofield. As I said ma’am. That is precisely what you have found.
When the man woke the girl was still asleep and he sat up and watched her by the light of the moon that had not yet faded and the sun that was slowly rising to take its place. The dull mask she had worn on the road had melted into the softness of her youth. A child. He looked at her a long while and tried to guess her age. Fifteen maybe but shit if he knew. A strand of hair had fallen across her nose and was whispering with her breath.
He stood and readied for the road. Then he woke her with a shake.
They walked through the dry forest and to the spine of the mountain range. The ground grew craggy and more treacherous and the rocks larger. The man stood on one at an odd angle and turned his ankle in his boot. He swore and wobbled.
The girl was soon beside him with light steps that made no sound. He felt her grip on his arm and he steadied himself. Alright, he said. I got it.
He walked off the pain and the girl followed him until the sun was high and beat down on the back of their necks.
After an hour under the midday heat the girl called out from behind him.
She was kneeling by a small group of rocks and smiling for the first time he had seen. It was girlish and joyous and pulled at his chest and he walked back as if drawn by an invisible noose.
She looked at him and grinned with her teeth. Then she leapt to her feet and sprang like a doe across the rocks and towards the mountain’s foot where the trees were sparse and large boulders sat lonely like discarded toys that had long forgotten the journey they’d taken to fall there. She slipped past one and disappeared behind it in a flash of white fabric.
He called out to her but she was gone and he jumbled after her, hopping and cursing his busted ankle.
He rounded the boulder and there she was. She was kneeling again and her dress pooled around her like a flower in bloom. She cupped her hands to the ground and raised them to her mouth and drank from the water she held.
He took off his hat and ran his hand through the grease of his hair and watched her as if he had never been witness to such a sight. There was a glassy hunger in his eyes. Like he longed to bottle the picture and drink it but not with malice nor ownership but a tenderness that no other had observed in him before and would not do so for six years hence. Not until the day his own daughter was born and swaddled in a thick white blanket and he held her for the first moments of her life and brushed his lips to her forehead and thought of the girl kneeling at the stream’s edge with her dress pooled around her like a flower and prayed that this moment would not end as the last had.
The girl laughed bright and loud and beckoned to him. Fresh water, she said. From the peak of the mountain.
He walked to her and sat on a rock and watched. How do you know?
She took another drink. Rainwater, she said. Or snow collects somewhere high up there. When it melts in summer it becomes clear water and flows all the way down the mountain and meets other streams like it. They draw on each other’s strength and become one greater stream. Then - she splashed him and laughed at his reaction.
The stream was shallow but perfectly clear. The smooth pebbles beneath it were in crystal clarity. The water was ice on his face and he touched where it had touched.
Or, she said, instead of snow or rain this water could come from a spring,which is a place where water from deep in the earth breaks free and shoots into the air.
I seen a spring before, he said. Many. But I’m yet to walk a mountaintop covered in snow.
Perhaps one day you will, she said, and knelt over the perfect water and washed her face. Beneath the grime he saw a fairness that in these woods seemed as unnatural as gunfire.
I’d like that, he said, and knelt to drink.
He stood where Maude had told him and waited. Deep in the night the town was silent save for the distant groaning of drunks at the far end of the street. He rested against a barrel in the alley and lit tobacco from a pouch he had lifted from a drunken man on his way from the saloon last night. Then he smoked and the amber glow played hard lines over his face.
Far away where the sound could hardly bother the town or its people the priest rang his final bell for the night. Midnight. The sound was warm even with the distance.
The man stamped out his smoke and turned and rounded the edge of the house and walked in a straight line behind the long row of houses. Some hid soft lamplight behind thin curtains but most were dark and silent. One by one they passed until the row ended and broke and there was fifty metres of space to the next. It was large and white in the dark and as he approached he heard a creak of wood above as a window was thrown open.
A knapsack struck the dust ahead of him. He jogged up to it and caught its owner as she hit the ground. He felt her thin limbs as she steadied herself. A white dress billowed around her.
In the semi-dark she looked up into his face and he saw pale terror on hers. He picked up the knapsack and pushed it on her. Run, he said, and they did.
They ran from the house and up the slow rise of the hill that surrounded the town and over it as two faint shadows breathing hard and fast. They ran until they were sure anyone watching from the town would no longer know what the two blurs in the night were people and then they ran some more. They ran until there was no longer light to catch on her dress. They crested the hill and came over it and stopped grateful in the shelter of its foot.
He turned to observe her. She doubled over and clutched at her ribs. We can’t stop, he said. Not here.
Wait, she said, and her voice shook and he realised she was crying. Please wait.
One minute, he said.
She gasped down air and tried to find her breath. The recent rainfall had been the last paltry offering of the season and she’d stopped at the edge of a small puddle. Its edges were cracked and dry and it made her think of fighting what is inevitable. But on its surface she saw the yellow orb of the moon. She looked up and there it was. Hanging proud and alone in a sea of stars.
She took a deep breath through her nose and straightened and wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve. Okay, she said. Let’s go.
They rested by the stream for almost a full hour. He ached to stay longer and the thought of breaking the moment pained him deep and dull. But another thought nagged at him too and in the end it prevailed. The thought of the job at hand and what awaited him at its end. Helena. That city that promised gold. Dollars. More than enough. Finally.
He called out for her to rise. She sulked for a moment and he almost expected her to refuse. But like him she seemed to remember their purpose and the promise of the city in Montana.
They walked in silence for a long time after that. Neither knew but their thoughts echoed. Thoughts of snow on the mountainside and of walking on the moon and of a perfect freedom.
As evening approached the trees were beginning to thin and the man knew they would soon walk the plains. They would again be visible for miles like ants against the silhouette of a giant. He felt the pistol at his side and an alien feeling fluttered in his chest. It became tight and he itched at it beneath his shirt.
He distracted himself with thoughts of Helena. He tried to imagine what its streets might be like. He wondered how it felt to live there and wake every day with the hope of gold. Not that he would need that hope. He had a thousand dollars on his person now and he planned to leverage the scene of jubilance and gratitude that would follow the reunification of his cargo and her uncle into another thousand. So two thousand dollars. With that he could buy honesty. Find somewhere to call his own and some livestock to make his purpose. Live finally within the walls of the world he had for so long pushed against.
He breathed deep of that world as the trees ended and he stepped once more into the dying sun.
Six horses were screaming across the plain towards them.
He spun and grabbed the girl. Run, he said, and they ran harder than they did that night from the house and let the trees swallow them.
Hooves smashed through the dead wood and the voices of the riders echoed like ghosts from behind. Gold streaked through the foliage in thin beams and the man picked one and followed it without a thought to where it might lead. He held the girl’s hand and dragged her along. The hooves grew louder and the cries more intense and they were not just behind them now but around and ahead and the man knew they were caught.
A grey stallion broke from the thicket and reared and snorted like a warhorse of myth and its rider called out for them to stop for it was over. The man’s heart beat so loud he feared it might burst and he stopped and held the girl in her white dress behind him.
Don’t go for that pistol, said the rider. He was thickset with grey hair and a short beard. His shoulders were strong and he sat up straight and regal in his saddle. Don’t twitch now. There’s boys all around you. Be calm. You got nothing to fear from me.
Against his back the girl shook. A tremble escaped her lips. A quiet terror sound.
You have my bride there, said the rider with grey hair. My lady.
The liar looked up at him. Held his gaze with a strength he had rarely felt before. Try as he might he could not turn that strength to words. Then under the man’s proud eyes the strength failed and he looked away.
Sweetheart why don’t you come here and let me take you home.
The girl only tightened her grip on the liar’s arm and shook with more violence.
The grey-haired man sighed and shifted in his saddle and the sun caught the sheriff’s star pinned to his lapel.
Listen friend. He addressed the liar now directly. I am a man of justice as I’m sure you know. Now if I believed you had stolen from me I’d tie you up and drag you behind a horse back to town and see you stand trial. Stealing from me you’d surely hang in the square. But I don’t believe that. I believe you’re a victim here same as me.
He threw his leg over the saddle and dismounted. He took three steps towards the liar holding his gaze on the level ground. I got comfortable there for moment, he said, but I do keep my books clean and careful. I reviewed them on my bride’s disappearance so I know I am missing one thousand dollars.
Now I know that one thousand dollars is on your person somewhere friend. I know I could take it from you now or from your corpse should you give me reason to do so. I could take it and leave you alive but alone and destitute. But that doesn’t seem fair and I am a man of fairness. You have broken no law far as I am concerned. In fact I spoke to the barkeep back in town and he told me what kind of man you are. Honest and hardworking and a patriot too. You’ve brought men and savages to justice in this land and lands afar. You fight in the war?
The liar nodded.
Which side?
North.
See I knew it. Now who would I be to accuse a man like that of stealing property he had not. What’s worse to deny him of hard earned dollars. Honest work keeps this country in order don’t you think.
The sheriff sucked his teeth and thought for a moment or pretended to think. No. I am a man of justice as I said and principles too. So I offer you may keep the payment you already have as a thanks for keeping my lady safe in these wilds. And then - Charles?
A chestnut horse trotted up on the liar’s right and a dark-haired youth was its rider. He had bags under his eyes. He handed a leather case to the sheriff who opened it to reveal stacks more of bills.
Two thousand more dollars, said the sheriff. For her safe return to me. I see that as a fair exchange of labour for capital as written in the laws of our land.
He placed the case on the earth among broken twigs and dry leaves and held out one hand over it.
Let her go and come and shake my hand for it and let us leave this whole sorry business behind us. Let us part as men of the liberty we have bled for. Each content with the deal this fair country made possible today and for all days evermore.
» South Dakota, 1885
The man leaned against the frame of his front door and looked out over his porch and to the land he kept. It was noon in the height of summer and all around was gold. Butterflies twisted above long grass and up against the long bright slate of the sky. In the field afar his animals rested in neat pens. Two of his cows nodded their snouts against each other as their calves hid in the sheltered shadows of their mother’s bellies. The man stood and watched. He was a dark silhouette in the doorway.
A voice came from behind him. Will you take her out, his wife called. She wants fresh air I think.
He turned and the shadow he cast inside the house thinned. Yes, he said. We’ll go out on Barnaby. He could use a run.
I thought her favourite was Hamlin.
He smiled and adjusted his slacks. He was last week, he said. She has a thing for old Barnie now. The girl’s as fickle as the weather.
»
An hour later he was riding out along the edge of his land with the tiny girl pressed into his lap. He let her wrap one small hand around the horse’s rein so she felt like she was riding. He held the leather with one hand and held her tight with the other.
His daughter pointed at things and laughed as they passed. She loved the butterflies especially and tried to catch them whenever they dared fly close around the horses’ head. She wanted to ride in the shade of the trees and they did. When she wanted to feel the sun on the prairie he obliged. They were going nowhere in particular. They simply revelled in the beauty of what they owned and the closeness of each other.
He stopped in the crest of a small hill where a spring had formed. He dismounted with the girl in his arms and lead the horse to drink the perfect water. Then he dropped into the grass and let the girl potter around and practice her steps with somewhere soft to fall. He watched her against the backdrop of a faraway mountain range with peaks tipped in white.
His mind wandered. When his wife told him of her pregnancy he had left her in the care of women she trusted and taken to the road. For once he was not running away. He travelled to Helena.
He walked the city’s streets. Each one pockmarked with piles of wooden planks and nails and sweaty labour and gentlemen in top hats who stood around smoking as their houses were built around them. There was a cathedral and he went there to pray for the first time he could remember or at least the first time without death knocking loud at his door and fear obliterating the formation of recollection. He prayed amongst those in Helena who bothered to pray. Dark-eyed miners and widows most. He stayed at an inn for three nights. On the first he met a group of young men who told him they’d travelled from far away to work the mines. They’d been drawn by stories of beggars who entered those fetid holes and emerged with power and property. They’d heard tell some of the city’s richest had started with nothing. The man asked if the miners had heard of one such rich man looking for his niece. Yes, they said. A tale from years ago that was still passed around as myth. A prospector had put a bounty on the safe return of a missing girl from Wyoming. But then a railroad magnate had come to town and asked for investors so the prospector withdrew the bounty and used it to build a hotel over a natural spring. A pool for swimming and bathing was drawn from that spring and sat within the hotel’s walls and today you could use it for a price. They said such wonders made it obvious to all. Helena is the future of the world.
The man left after three days and never returned.
The girl trotted over to him and yawned and fell into his lap. She rested her head against his chest and he lowered his chin to her forehead.
The earth began to shake beneath them. The mountains with their white tips blurred. The girl began to cry. He wrapped his body around her and held her tight. It’s okay sweet girl, he said. It will pass. The earth is angry with me still. But it will pass.
Dead Skies is a collection of stories and thoughts on craft from me, Tom, a writer in London. If you liked this, it’d mean the world if you could share and subscribe.