Yea Though I Walk Read online

  “Must have thrown you when I ended up alive.”

  He chuckles. “No, that much was a welcome turn of events. I’m no thief, Mister Odell, but I could very much use your help in bringing these plates into town. You lend me the use of your animal, and I’ll bring you to your business with Holcomb. How does that arrangement sound to you?”

  I give Folger a good, long look, then reach out to shake his hand. “Call me Lin.”

  e have Ripper hitched up and walking east within the hour. The house disappears behind us as the slope from the hills drops slowly beneath us. I turn back and rub my thigh.

  “Your wife going to be safe on her own?”

  Folger snickers. “Oh, she’s more than capable of defending herself. Her homeland was a violent place in her youth, and she’s probably better in a fight than I am.”

  “Where’s she from?”

  “Europe. Hungary, to be precise. Met her in Chicago, where I ran out of train to travel by. She found herself in a similar predicament, and we helped each other as best we could.”

  I steady my leg, sucking in at the pain, as the wheels hit some rocks. “Must’ve been a trick, moving west with a condition like hers.”

  “It was challenging, to be sure. But we’re reasonably resourceful people, and traveling by night during the hot months carries its own kind of reward.” We roll for a while in silence before he begins giving me sidelong looks. “This business with Smith Holcomb.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Please forgive my presumption, Mister Odell, but you have the bearing of a lawless man.”

  “I have what, now?”

  “You don’t strike me as a man afraid of death. And I found you alone in the mine hills. Men don’t travel alone through those hills without needing to avoid notice. Just isn’t safe.”

  “So I’ve discovered.”

  Folger sniffles. “Your business with Holcomb wouldn’t bring any danger to his person, would it?”

  I think the question over for a space, hoping to find a good answer before I look like I’m hedging.

  “I ain’t here to cause trouble.”

  “That’s good to hear. Gold Vein isn’t a good town for trouble.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Before long, we round a hillock to find a farmhouse set between two oak trees. Folger points at the beaten dirt path leading up to the property.

  “Take us on up to the Hitchenses. The lane will lead right into town.”

  We take several minutes of approach before I see a man and a woman bustling about a wagon, tying furniture up with rope. When the woman spots Folger waving at her, she stands stiff and reaches for the man’s sleeve. The man turns and steps between our cart and her.

  Folger sighs and grunts something under his breath.

  I pull our cart alongside theirs, and Folger twists down to face them.

  “Jack? Mary? Everything fine with you today?”

  They stand motionless.

  Folger nods to their wagon. “Looks like you’re packing it up again.”

  The woman turns a little, and the man squeezes her hand as his chin drops. “Uh, yeah. Looks that way.”

  Folger runs a finger under his nose and shakes his head. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “We, uh―”

  “You haven’t signed any papers, have you?”

  The woman turns to the house. I spy a third figure lingering by the front door. He’s mostly in shadow, but I can tell it’s a young man. Maybe their son. He’s got what looks like a Winchester at his side. I’m suddenly aware of my lack of arms, my pistol still secured in Folger’s house with his common-law strigger wife.

  Hitchens shakes his head slowly.

  Folger bounces in his seat as he blurts, “You’re letting him win, you know that? You’re letting him take it all.”

  Hitchens sucks in a breath to answer, but the woman steps around him.

  “We just can’t do this anymore, Denton. This craziness with the two of you. It’s going to get us killed, and we can’t let you do that to us.” She turns to the house.

  The son has stepped on out into the sunlight. I was right. Winchester.

  Folger leans back, stung by her words. “I… don’t know what to tell you.”

  Hitchens gathers his wife behind him. “We would have liked to have talked this over with you first. But we never knew how.”

  “You know where I live, Jack.”

  “He’s always watching, Denton. We can’t know if he’s not listening, too. It’s just easier if we git.”

  Folger runs hands over his face. “I have a plan, Jack. I got new press plates. I’m getting the paper back up. If I can get a few copies as far as Cheyenne, or in the government’s hands, he won’t be able to push you out. Think about Christopher,” he adds, nodding to their son up by the house.

  Hitchens’s face hardens. “I am thinking about him, Denton. Please. You have to let us go.”

  Folger stares at his shoes for a moment, then wilts. He reaches down with an open hand. “All right, Jack. I’m sorry. I feel like I’ve failed you, somehow.”

  Hitchens shakes his hand with a stiff grip. “We make it to Nebraska, we’ll be fine.”

  The two step away from our cart, and with a nod from Folger, I goad Ripper forward. I give the Hitchens another look as we make it to the dirt lane.

  “I suppose you’re wondering what that was about?” Folger mumbles.

  “Ain’t my business, less you make it such. Don’t take that as an urging, either.”

  “No, that’s fine. Might help prepare you for what you’ll find in town.”

  My gut sinks at the mention of that. I don’t need anything more complicated than getting bullets pressed.

  “What’s the matter with the town?”

  “In a word? Richterman.” Folger rolls his head over his shoulders with a sigh. “Lars Richterman, my personal Devil here in Gold Vein.”

  “Sounds like the two of you have bad blood.”

  “I simply can’t abide parasites like him. But if a man is to be judged by the pith of his character, then he must commit to the fight given him. He can’t shrink from it out of fear or expediency.”

  My stomach twists into a knot, and I set my jaw. This man had obviously never seen real fighting with real cannon shot and lead in the air.

  He shakes his head and gives me a weak grin. “But that’s my private agony, Mister Odell. No need to haul you through it.”

  He’s right. I have a very simple task set in front of me. Get the silver pressed into slugs, then get back to Gil. That’s all I have to do in Gold Vein. There’s a hundred-some towns between the Rockies and the Mississippi with some sumbitch or another causing more misery than not. Sticking my foot in this particular door is likely to get it blown off.

  Before long the low gables of Gold Vein rise from the road. One arrow-straight lane of wood buildings lies surrounded by a mishmash sprawl of half-built houses, some with the builder’s lumber still stacked in the mud. We pass one lone carpenter hammering slow on a rafter.

  “Good day, Cheevey,” Folger barks.

  Cheevey pauses only long enough to give Folger a salute and a grin before worrying over his nails again. His features are pudgy, and his eyes droop a touch. I sense he’s simple, but he’s knocking together a house straight enough.

  Ripper pulls us around a tall feed store and onto the straight lane. There’s no one on the street. No one sitting on a porch or at a window. All the construction surrounding the main street gives Gold Vein the look of a boomtown, but the whole place stinks of gloom. Nothing drives the dreariness home more than the burned-out church at the head of the street, resting in its ruins of charred planks, ash, and a toppled steeple-cross sitting upside down against the last standing wall.

  I suppose God lit out long before the Hitchenses.

  Folger points at a glass-front shop nestled between the general store, as evidenced by large red-written letters, and a white clapboard of no obv
ious purpose. I pull Ripper to a halt as Folger hops out. We uncover the wagon to let him inspect the load, which managed the trip without too much shifting.

  “Well, Mister Odell. Welcome to Gold Vein.”

  I look up and down the street. “Pretty quiet.”

  “Usually is. Not a lot of excitement and that suits everyone fairly well.” He steps to the storefront and pulls a key from his pocket to unlock the door. I follow him inside, waving dust from my nose. Seems Folger hasn’t been here for a while.

  I spot a series of wood bins lining a desk near the window, each holding lines of tiny metal squares.

  “Dies,” Folger offers, as he pulls a length of canvas from a large contraption consuming the space of the room. “Movable type. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but I’m not running a lot of copies through here.”

  I wander to the far wall as Folger huffs and blows dust from his press. A few old pages line an angled table at the back of the store. The first page reports some kind of mine accident in large letters. The second announces the arrival of a new Justice of the Peace. The third and following few seem to slip into a long string of complaints and bellyaching over the new Justice, accusing him of everything from corruption to threats of violence in the name of what amounts to a land grab.

  I grumble, “Richterman’s the Justice in this town?”

  Folger winces. “Speaking the word Justice and his name in the same sentence feels profane.”

  “You’re picking a fight with the Justice?” I repeat.

  “You see all those houses framed up off the main street? That’s Richterman’s doing. Swept in here after the mine collapse. Everyone was in grief and needing some leadership to sort through the aftermath. They were happy at first, but he kept taking more and more liberties. Started buying up land around the town. The first few families were ready to move anyhow, so they did nothing but feed his hunger for land. Then came the first resistance. They negotiated and negotiated, until they had themselves a nice barn fire. Lost their horses and all but one of their milk cows.”

  “Richterman burned them out?”

  “They sold. Then he moved to the next parcel.”

  I help Folger fold up the tarp as he works his jaw back and forth. “That family, the Hitchenses?”

  “His latest.”

  “What’s he need with everyone’s property?”

  “His master plan,” Folger declares in a deep voice and a wave of his hand. “He thinks there’s going to be another gold rush to the Dakotas. He sees Gold Vein as some city on a hill. A metropolis. That means less ranch land, more houses. More commerce. And fewer people who aren’t interested in living hip-deep in prospectors and prostitutes.”

  I nod as I move to the door.

  Folger sees me shuffling and sighs. “I suppose I keep making this your damned business, don’t I? I do apologize for that.” He sets down the folded canvas and runs a hand over the length of the press. “We had a deal, and I intend to honor it.”

  He motions for the door and leads me out into the daylight.

  “Holcomb keeps his stall at the end of the street.” He points down the opposite end of the lane from the wrecked church. “He should be there now, probably napping or finding some reason not to work.” He nods to the cart. “If you’ll give me a few hours to unload, we can haul my cart back to the homestead and you can be done with us.”

  I shake his hand. “Thanks.”

  I leave Folger to his ministrations and move down the street. I catch a face peeping out from behind lace curtains, gaze solid on me as I move. No nod, wave, or how-do-you-do. Just eyes. Suits me.

  Holcomb’s stall’s an old ramshackle piece of work… half stable, half smithy. Old, weathered planks barely keep a loft intact overtop a furnace and a few slabs of iron. Several sets of horseshoes hang on nails along the near wall overtop hoofing instruments. There’s a coal glowing in the furnace, barely.

  Holcomb sits slumped on a stool in a corner, arms crossed over his chest, his thick neck blubbering a whale of a snore through his lips.

  I clear my throat.

  He snaps awake and lunges forward, nearly falling off his stool. Half a curse slips from his mouth before his gaze meets mine. His attitude takes an immediate turn for the civil, and not, I hope, because of the bag of silver in my fist.

  “Uh, sir?” he mutters.

  “You Holcomb?”

  His eyes narrow as he nods.

  I sling the silver over my palm to keep his attention. “Name’s Odell. I run with Gil McQuarrie.” I wait for a response, but all I get is one hell of screwed-in-half eyebrow. “You familiar with Gil McQuarrie?”

  Holcomb blinks a few dozen times. “I don’t follow.”

  “Gil McQuarrie,” I reply, patience wearing thin on my voice. “You ran with the Godpistols ten years or so back. Least that’s what Gil tells me. He sent me here to find you.”

  He straightens up and cocks his head. “You’re who, now?”

  “Odell. Linthicum Odell. You wouldn’t know me. I just joined up with Gil a couple years ago. He sent me here for some ammunition.” I flip the bag in my hand again with as much jingle as I could muster. “Special ammunition, if you take my meaning.”

  Holcomb backs away a step and shakes his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

  With a chuckle, I retort, “Yeah. He said you’d be hard to convince.” I fish a hand into my pocket. “He sent me with credential. Here. Said you’d recognize…” My pocket feels a might emptier than when I left it a couple nights ago.

  Shit.

  Gil’s old badge. Must have fallen out during my tussle with the Parson and the striggers up in the forest. Either that or Folger’s wife got light fingers when she folded my clothes.

  Holcomb’s eyes are pulled up tight. He’s having trouble with this, and I wasn’t expecting this much call for convincing. “If you need cartridges, you’ll find them at the general store.”

  Releasing a breath, I step over to a workbench by his iron and open up the bag, spilling the twenty-four silver coins onto the wood. His eyes light up a touch. I finally have his attention.

  “That’s silver. Not sure how pure it is, but it’s been blessed.”

  Holcomb’s head swivels slowly to me.

  I nod. “I think you know what we’re shooting at, and they don’t cotton to silver.”

  “You want me to press you bullets? Out of silver?”

  I get an uneasy feeling. How many smithies by the name of Holcomb are there in Gold Vein? “Why don’t you tell me what you think I mean.”

  He straightens up and puts hands on his hips. “I figure you aim to kill some Strigoi.”

  “That about puts a handle on it.”

  He shakes his head. “You sure that’s what you want?”

  “Not used to leaving them standing, if that’s your point.”

  “What’s your name, again?”

  “Odell.”

  He pulls in a heavy breath, then moves to inspect the coins. “Can’t just press any stranger’s silver straight into a slug. Alloyed too hard, and I can’t press it. Too soft, and she’ll fly apart in your barrel, wreckin’ your gun. Pure silver’s hard enough, but… well. Alloy it with lead and you got yourself a slug. Alloys don’t work on the striggers as good as pure silver, but you get to fire it from a distance. And distance… well, it helps.”

  “That’s a fact.”

  He gives me a sly eye. “If this is one of Richterman’s games, I’m not at all interested in playing along. Do you understand me? Too many people been hurt already.”

  “Hmm. I heard about him. Never had the pleasure of his acquaintance, though. So you don’t have to worry.”

  He shakes his head with a grin. “You stick around long enough, Mister Odell, and I’m sure you’ll find him soon enough. Or he’ll find you.”

  “Well, that depends on how quick you can get this silver pressed. I’m meeting up with Gil in a few days, and I don’t have any appetite for this town’s huma
n problems. Though I reckon you got more than just human problems here. Don’t you?”

  His smile melts. “I reckon that’s so.”

  I lean in and whisper, “You used to be a Godpistol, Holcomb. When were you going to deal with whatever is in those hills?”

  He blanches. “You been in the hills, huh?”

  “You got a name for what those man-eating sons of bitches are?”

  Holcomb takes a coin and walks away slowly, flipping it between fingers. “You survived a run-in with those things? You’re a lucky man. You get bit?”

  I lay a hand on my leg. “Snakebite.”

  “What about the cannibals?”

  “No. Least I don’t think so.”

  “You’d know. You’d feel the hunger. That’s what happened to the others.”

  “Like that Parson?” I ask, thinking on the ruined church at the end of town.

  Holcomb spins around, his face long. “You seen Uriah up there?” He runs a hand over his eyes. “Shit. I’d hoped he’d been eaten. Would have been a mercy.”

  “From what I saw, he had hisself a flunky. Fat bastard, kept trying to eat my leg.”

  Holcomb nods. “That would have been Cooter. He rode up into the hills for them things not long after they hit the church. Rode with…”

  I give him a moment as his skin blanches.

  “With who?”

  “How’d you escape?”

  “Striggers.”

  “Moved in a pack?”

  I nod.

  Holcomb snickers. “Any of them survive?”

  “Don’t know. I lit out the second I could, but not before one of the Parson’s pets set venom into me, and their Master showed up to tilt the odds.” I pat my leg and regret it instantly.

  Holcomb squints at my wound. “I suppose Folger’s wife saw to that.”

  “Now, what brings you to say that?”

  He sighs. “Nothing.”

  “Got any reason I should worry about that woman in particular?”

  “I figure you know what she is now, Odell. Listen. Folger has trouble hearing things he don’t believe in. And he’s the literal type. Book minded. I figure there’s a part of him that knows the truth. He’s just keeping it locked away inside that brain of his. And maybe that’s how it ought to be.”