A Tyranny of Petticoats

  We reached the last file, and James shook his head. “Accounting and travel papers. It’s not here.”

  Leaving the papers, I crossed the room and dropped to my knees beside the trunk, pressing up the latches, grateful to find it unlocked. Inside, a bundle of heavy cloth was rolled up and tied with twine, and tucked beneath it — more papers.

  James hunkered over them, attempting to decipher the tiny print on the top pages. His eyes brightened.

  “This is the deed to the Johnson claim, just upstream from ours.” He looked at me. “Albert Johnson was killed a little over a month ago, also by the Sioux. There’ve been lots of attacks lately, but things had gone quiet long enough that Pa and I thought . . .” His jaw tightened, but he shook the regret away. “I hadn’t realized Johnson was looking to sell his claim too. Rinehart must be buying up the whole valley.”

  “Does he know gold’s been found?”

  “Could be. If we found it on our land, it’s likely there’ll be more deposits all along the creek.”

  “He can’t be pleased that the Sioux have suddenly become so territorial over it too.” I frowned. “Have all the killings been done by arrow?”

  James shrugged. “Far as I know.”

  “Strange, isn’t it? They have guns. But it’s as though they want it to be known — we’re killing you. This is our land.”

  “You said yourself, it is sacred to them.” James dragged a finger along the lettering on the first page. “Can you pull out these papers? Maybe our deed is here too.”

  Nudging the bundle of fabric aside, I lifted the first stack and deposited it on the rug. The English alphabet swam across the page.

  When I looked up, I saw that James wasn’t studying the papers, though. He was still staring into the trunk. The bundle of fabric had fallen at an angle, revealing the feather-tipped shaft of an arrow.

  Painted red and blue.

  Reaching in, I untangled the twine and peeled back the fabric, revealing dozens of arrows painted in the Sioux’s warrior colors. I picked one up, holding it in the loop of my fingers. It appeared unused.

  I frowned at James, who seemed equally stunned.

  James, who still had a Sioux arrow lodged in his back.

  How many attacks had there been? How many had died? How many on the land George Rinehart wanted to purchase?

  The land that until recently had given up no gold at all.

  An enraged shout echoed from the street below — a battle cry from the gathered townsmen.

  “The Sioux aren’t doing this,” I said. “Are they?”

  Footsteps thundered in the hall.

  I dropped the arrow and scrambled to my feet just as the door opened. An unfamiliar man stood with a key in hand, confused that the door wasn’t locked. He was big in every way — big head, big shoulders, big hands. His gaze fell on me.

  I grabbed the stack of linens from the bed, holding them like a shield.

  “Laundry service,” I said. “Ri-nu-hart?”

  “That’s Charlie Smith,” said James. “Rinehart’s right-hand man.”

  I looked again at those big callused hands.

  “Who let you in here?” Charlie barked, taking in the open trunk, the scattered papers, the arrow.

  “Laundry?” I repeated, trying at innocence.

  With a snarl, Charlie lunged at me, and I ducked, tossing the linens into his face. He stopped just long enough to swat them away, giving me time to snatch the bundle of arrows from the trunk. I rushed forward, but the burly man sidestepped with me, reaching for my arms.

  I spun away and ran to the window instead, shoving the pane upward and launching myself toward the balcony. A hand seized my ankle. I kicked my heel into Charlie’s nose, and he reared back, taking one of my shoes with him. I pulled myself one-handed through the window and collapsed in a heap on the balcony.

  The sun had dropped behind the hills, and Main Street was lit by gas lamps and saloon windows. But the men were still there, separating into groups, deciding which direction each would go on their avenging party.

  Gripping the rail, I pulled myself up. “Help!” I screamed, glad when a dozen faces turned upward.

  A hand landed on my arm. I tried to shake it away, but another was on me just as fast, dragging me back toward the window. I screamed again and, with a grunt, tossed the arrows over the railing. Someone yelped, followed by the crash of wood and arrowheads.

  “Murderer!” I screamed. My head collided with the window frame. I flinched but kept yelling. “George Rinehart ordered those men to be killed”— I yanked my hand away from Charlie’s grip, leaving scratches where his nails had dug in — “and he’s blaming the Sioux for it! He murdered them! He —” A hand clamped over my mouth, and I was pulled back through the window and tossed to the carpet. Air fled from my lungs.

  Charlie slammed my head against the floor, straddling my stomach. A string of vile insults dripped from his mouth, but stars were creeping into my vision and I barely heard him. My hands scrambled across the floor, searching for a weapon, anything —

  I heard a strained noise from James, then something was shoved into my hand. My fingers clamped around the shaft of the last arrow, the one I’d dropped before.

  As my vision gave way to darkness, I swung my arm up, jamming the arrowhead into Charlie’s throat. Something hot splattered across my forearm.

  Release.

  Air.

  Charlie collapsed onto his side, blood already seeping into his shirt. He gripped the arrow but gave up easily. I think he saw his death coming.

  I hoped his spirit would not come back to haunt me.

  “Fei-Yen!” James dropped beside me, eyes wide. The edges of his body were blurred and flickering from moving the arrow, but I still felt the tender brush of fingers on my face. “Are you all right?”

  I sat up slowly, groaning. I could tell James wanted to help, but he was too weak. “Thank you, James,” I gasped, my voice roughened from the fight.

  Was I back in his debt now? I’d lost track.

  A click echoed through the room, and my attention snapped upward.

  I recognized George Rinehart from the newspaper clipping. He was framed in the doorway, a pistol in his hand and fury playing across his brow.

  “Who,” he drawled, “is James?”

  My lungs tightened. I searched for an answer. Something truthful and threatening. James is the boy you killed, the ghost who is haunting you even now —

  But it seemed Rinehart didn’t care who James was after all. Before I found my voice, he pulled the trigger.

  It was the noise that startled me the most, throwing me back onto the floor. The shot was so loud it could have come from inside my head.

  At first I felt nothing, and I thought, He missed. He missed.

  But then my tunic grew wet and I felt for the wound and the blood soaking into the fabric.

  The pain came last, but it was searing.

  James screamed, trying to press his faint, flickering hands against my wound.

  I stared at the ceiling and watched my death approach. I had seen death often enough that I wasn’t frightened. I would be glad to leave these hills with their fallen timber and their gold and their ghosts, the manure stink and the slopping mud, the gambling and the piano music and the broken women who watched from upstairs windows.

  A howl drew my attention.

  James was shaking, violently. His fury had turned him into a storm, thrashing at the papers and files on the floor, twisting them like a tornado. He somehow managed to throw an inkwell across the room. It shattered — black ink dripping like blood down the wallpaper.

  Rinehart, wide-eyed, was backed into the corner and waving the gun at nothing. James went for him but was only strong enough to pull at the watch chain that dangled from a pocket. At James’s touch, Rinehart squealed like a child and stumbled toward the door.

  An icy wind burst in from the corridor, pushing him back. Rinehart crossed his arms over his face.

  Blackne
ss crowded my vision.

  But I still saw them, the ghosts.

  Some who had told me their sad stories in the months since I’d come to Deadwood. A few I had sneaked apples to when I could. Others I’d only seen drifting aimlessly through the streets.

  There were mustached men with arrows like sewing pins in their bodies. Men who had died from bullet wounds and hangings. Women who had succumbed to laudanum or fever. Millie Ann was there too. She was vicious and beautiful, her hair streaming behind her as the battered spirits pushed Rinehart back. Back. His eyes spun around the room, not seeing, not understanding. Unable to get away from the vengeful spirits.

  They threw him from the window.

  I would remember only his scream, and then the cool, ghostly palm of James Hill settling against my cheek.

  I had no use for wandering, no interest in vengeance or haunting. And still I came back.

  James Hill sat cross-legged beside me when I opened my eyes. His smile was a rush of relief, his hands cupping both of mine as he bent over and pressed his lips against my thumb.

  “I wasn’t sure if you would stay,” he said, lifting me from my body. “But I’m glad you did.”

  My body was taken to Ingleside Cemetery, just above Whitewood Creek, a mere stone’s throw from the freshly dug graves where James and his father rested. My burial passed in silence. I had no children to say prayers for me or leave me gifts of rice and peaches, and yet I watched my burial with the calm certainty that my fate was not to become a hungry ghost. In spite of the violence of my death, I felt content. Having known the spirit world all my life, being a part of it now was almost like a homecoming. I imagined my body turning to dirt. I pictured the grass and wildflowers that would someday grow here, and how there would be gold at their roots.

  A shovel crunched into the loose soil. Rocks and dirt scuttled across my coffin. My uncle, who had wept only in private, turned away.

  I was surprised to see non-Chinese among those gathered. The scandal associated with my murder, followed by what was believed to be Rinehart’s guilt-induced suicide, was all anyone was talking about. With the impostor arrows as evidence, Rinehart’s actions had fast become suspect, and a hastily constructed jury had soon nullified all of his recently purchased deeds. James was confident his father’s secret would be revealed soon enough.

  “What shall we do now?” said James.

  “I don’t know.” I traced the open wound on my stomach where the bullet had entered. There was no pain now, only a reminder. “I never expected to die in these hills.”

  James ran his thumbs along the inside of his suspenders, surprisingly jovial for one so recently dead. “And ghosts must haunt the place where they died?”

  I hesitated. A part of my spirit would watch over my body for a while, then depart for the underworld. It already knew the way. But the rest of me, the restless me . . .

  “I need to find my mother,” I whispered, meeting his gaze and suddenly sure, so sure, that this was why I had stayed. To find her. To honor her. To say good-bye — or not.

  “And where is she?”

  “California.”

  “Ah. I see.” His gold-red lashes dipped in thought. “If I’m not mistaken, there’ll be a stagecoach heading west in the morning.”

  I tried to picture the calendar in my thoughts, though days and nights had begun to blur. “You’re right.” Finding it painful to look at him, I began picking my way through the cemetery. “I suppose this will be good-bye, then.”

  “Good-bye?” He stayed at my side, so close I could feel the tickle of his arm hairs on mine. “Miss Fei-Yen, you did me and my family a great service, and got yourself killed for it. By my estimation, I’ll be in your debt for some time. Ages, even. It’d be difficult to pay off my dues if I’m half a continent away.”

  My feet stalled. I looked up.

  James was right. He was in my debt. And yet he didn’t seem at all upset to find himself beholden to the will of a wandering ghost.

  He smiled the same smile that I remembered from last fall and tipped his invisible hat. I felt the pull of him, drawing me closer.

  This time, when he held out his hand, I took it.

  My husband and I go on a lot of road trips together, but one of our most memorable was the drive from Minnesota to our home in the Pacific Northwest that took us through Deadwood, South Dakota, for the first time. After all the prairies and cornfields, entering the ominous Black Hills and driving into Deadwood Gulch felt like going back in time — at that moment, riding in a horse-drawn carriage would have felt more appropriate than my VW Bug. I became fascinated with the city that prides itself on its reputation as the last great Wild West town. Sure, the slot machines are now electronic and prostitution has been outlawed for over half a century (though the last brothel didn’t officially close until 1980), but you can still sense the area’s rich, often-savage history around every corner. It’s in the imposing hills that creep right up to the edges of town. It’s in the Victorian architecture rebuilt in brick and stone after a fire claimed the original timber structures. It’s in the shady graveyard that marks the final resting places of gunslingers like Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane.

  Conducting research for this story was a joy — one of those times when it was difficult to stop researching and start writing. The characters and the story are entirely fictional, and some liberties have been taken, but I’ve done my best to write a story that would fit in with the history texts (supernatural elements notwithstanding). Though the Black Hills gold rush lasted only a few years, it left Deadwood with an abundance of tales full of real-life bandits, brawls, and all those assorted vices that usually follow in the wake of man’s greatest weakness: gold.

  They now say there are more liars to the square inch in Alaska than any place in the world.

  — Seattle Daily Times, August 17, 1897

  WHEN THE STRANGER WHIPS OUT A pistol, everyone hits the floor.

  Everyone except John and me, that is. He goes perfectly still, one thin brown hand flat on the table. The gun is pointing straight at him, yet his dark eyes are calm. Me, I just feel exasperated. It’s been such a long day, and it’s only midnight. “Put that down,” I say in my sharpest tone. I touch my hip and feel the reassuring handle of my bullwhip, looped to my belt.

  The newcomer’s gaze bobs around the dimly lit tavern and finally locates me beside the bar. “You trying to tell me what to do, little girl?” He gives me a once-over that might be insulting, except he can’t focus properly. Still, the gun droops in his hand.

  “I’m not trying; I’m giving you an order.” I point to the handwritten sign tacked above the bar:

  His gaze slides over the sign, and a faint frown appears between his eyebrows. Good grief. Too pie-eyed to read.

  “I’ll save you the time,” I snap. “Put the gun away.”

  He glares at John. “I can’t drink with that dirty Indian in the room.”

  My pulse rockets. “Then get the hell out of my saloon!”

  “This here is your saloon? Thought it was called . . .” He scratches his head with his free hand.

  Leave it to a drunk to focus on petty details. “Garrett’s Saloon. And I am Miss Lily Garrett. Proprietress.” As I speak, I uncoil my bullwhip. It’ll be downright satisfying to use it on this pustule of a human being.

  “Co-proprietress,” corrects a sweet, husky voice. My sister swishes into the building on a gust of frozen air and takes the stranger’s arm as though they’re off for a stroll through Central Park. “Allow me to introduce myself: Miss Clara Garrett, co-proprietress. You must be new to Alaska, Mr. . . . ?”

  He gapes for a full minute at her glorious red-gold hair, her startling violet eyes. He wobbles visibly — a common response to Clara — and actually attempts a bow. “F-Fenton, miss. Stanmore Fenton. It’s a real honor to meet you, miss.”

  Clara smiles, reaches over, and plucks the pistol from his limp fingers. “It’s a pleasure to welcome you to our humble town, Mr. Fento
n. I know our ways are different from those Outside, but let’s start with this: the Indian gentleman in the corner is a member of the Tlingit tribe and a respected trader in town. He’s also a friend of ours. Why don’t you sit down and refresh yourself? I suggest you stand John a drink, to show there are no hard feelings. We have scotch, bourbon, gin, brandy, and beer. And champagne, of course.”

  Her smile stays frozen in place until she gets to the bar, where only I can see her expression. “Come on, Lil,” she says in a fierce whisper. “You catch —”

  “I know, I know. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

  She whips off fur-lined mittens and sheds her Indian-style parka. “If you know it so well, why can’t you act on it?”

  “I stopped him from pointing the pistol at John,” I mutter. It’s pathetic, a classic kid-sister kind of protest, but she isn’t giving me any credit at all.

  “Yes, but it took me to confiscate the gun and sell him another round of drinks.”

  “Well. Want me to mix him a vinegar cocktail?”

  Clara snorts, a sound of amusement. Her ire never lasts. Unlike mine. She checks the gun — unloaded, which only confirms Fenton’s stupidity, to my mind — and drops it into a box under the bar, where it clanks against a motley array of other weapons. That’s another of Garrett’s rules: all firearms must be unloaded. Even our hunting rifle, which hangs discreetly along the side of the bar.

  Our mother, Lucinda Garrett, made the rules. She raised Clara and me single-handed while running taverns from San Diego to Seattle. She taught us everything we know. When Lu died last year of influenza, we couldn’t bear to stand in her place behind the bar. Still, we wanted to keep up the Garrett tradition. We sold everything, took a steamer north, and were among the first to wade ashore along the mudflats of Skaguay.

  Clara pours a tray of double scotches — that’s one shot of cheap whiskey, the same again of melted snow — and delivers it to Fenton’s table. John’s expression is serious, but he accepts his drink and takes a sip before slipping out the door with a brief nod of farewell. Fenton orders another round for his table. I slide a pair of logs into our wood-burning stove. Life in a gold rush town roars on.