in Central City
HORSES WERE THE MOST UNRELIABLE, most unfortunate creatures ever to walk the earth. And yet, Ricardo was immensely sad that his was gone. He and his pretty tamed Mustang mare, Bandita, had been back and forth across the West for six years, and now she’d taken a bad step—a hole, a sharp rock, he hadn’t been able to figure out which—fallen down a hillside, and broken not one but two legs.
Traveling on horseback through the Rockies at night, accidents happened. His own neck had snapped in the fall, twisting wrong when Bandita came down on top of him. He’d heard the crack. Half an hour of lying still and staring at treetops healed him well enough. But she was mortal. The whole time, he’d listened to Bandita groan in pain, working herself into a sweat as she struggled to stand and fell back again, her broken legs unable to support her. Once he was upright, he’d done the only kind thing he could and ended it for her with his .45. He lay next to her for a time, taking in her last warmth and working to remember her, because she deserved to be remembered. Coiled up a couple strands of hair from her tail because he wasn’t sure why. Just that he had a braided band made up of tail hairs from all the horses he’d cared about over the centuries.
He gathered what gear he could carry, saddlebags and blankets, left her to the scavengers and moved on. The sky was turning gray, dawn was close, and he desperately needed a place to bed down for the day. He was in the middle of forest, miles from the next town with no sign of shelter anywhere.
He did not panic. He’d lasted this long and been caught in more unlikely situations than this. He could always find some place out of the sun if he just took a moment and looked. Around here, plenty of mine shafts were dug into the rock, out of the light, if he could find one. The fall had turned him around a bit, but if he remembered right, there were plenty of small towns between here and Denver. Maybe not much more than miners?
?? cabins and a general store, but they’d do.
Finding high ground, he paused and took a deep breath, tasting every scent that came to him. Felt eddies in the air, sensed creatures that had passed this way, and knew what might be waiting for him over the next hill. He found prey, a concentration of warm human blood rising. More than blood, he smelled the smoke of wood and coal fires, masonry and painted wood. The collected smell of horses and livestock kept in corrals. There was a whole town nearby.
Central City. Had to be. If he could get there in time, he might even be able to spend the day in a bed instead of a dank mine shaft. He tasted another breath, checked the direction, murmured a quiet prayer to the gray sky—he still prayed, taking it on faith that He was listening—and ran.
Trees blurred; the air turned to wind around him. He drew on some other force, a demonish power that flowed into him from some unknown source. From the first he’d been suspicious of it—but he would use it when he had to. It meant he could run. A shadow in the night. If only it were night.
His last bit of borrowed blood turned sluggish in the growing light. He didn’t have long. He kept to shaded gulches and gullies—away from the hilltops that would get the first rays of morning sun.
He could smell the town, sense people waking up with the dawn. He might or might not make it. At this moment the only creature more unfortunate than his horse was very likely him.
Then, coming around the next gulch, down the next slope, he found a road. Not much of one—dirt packed down by wagon wheels and dozens of horses. Not a main route, this probably went up to mining claims in the hills. But the way opened up. Just a few more minutes, a few more yards of speed—
And there it was. The mining boomtown of Central City, tucked in the mountains above Denver and looking to Ricardo’s eyes like a beacon of civilization. Two main streets intersected each other; another dozen side streets ran off from them. Solid rows of buildings three and four stories tall lined up. Maybe not pretty, not sturdy—the town had grown from nothing in just a few years after all—but it made a good showing.
One storefront had light shining through the windows, faint with the dawn but still visible. The sign said “SALOON” and “ROOMS TO LET.” There, he’d go there.
The edges of the peaks sheltering the town lit with golden sun. Ricardo didn’t look, he just moved, drawing the very last bit of life in him, very nearly flying down the main street to the saloon door, stumbling inside and slamming it behind him, as the light outside grew.
Inside seemed darker than it should, the lanterns weak and the furniture brown and stained. The mirror behind the bar was dusty. But there were people here, a few who’d stayed up all night drinking and playing cards. They might continue through the day. Three men at a faro table, another at the bar. One behind the bar who might have been the proprietor, and at the back door a matronly looking woman who seemed to be just getting started for the day. For the most part, despite their tired eyes and roughshod appearances, they smelled good. Full of warm blood, and he was hungry.
Except—the man behind the faro table smelled ill.
They all glanced up at him and stared. Ricardo imagined he looked a mess. At the best of times he presented a handsome, aristocratic figure, with dark hair, a firm jaw and fine nose. But now he was dusty, grimy, and probably had a panicked gleam in his eyes. He noticed a spatter of blood on his beige shirt from shooting Bandita, and his dark pants were torn. He looked like a man in trouble.
He reminded himself to breathe, so as to appear normal. Straightening, he settled his saddlebags firmly over his shoulder and convinced himself—and the rest of the room, he hoped—that he knew what he was doing.
Stepping up to the bar, he told the man, “I’d like a room. One without windows if you have it. Or a corner of the cellar if you don’t.” He set coins on the polished surface of the bar.
The barman stared at him. Swallowed visibly and stammered. “We . . . I mean . . . what do you mean . . . no windows?”
“I mean I’m sensitive to the light. No windows.”
“I—I’m sorry. We’re all full up.”
“You are not all full up, Frank. Sell the man a room, why don’t you.” The faro dealer spoke with an accent—light, lilting, southern.
The barman really couldn’t seem to decide what to do. He glanced back and forth between Ricardo and the dealer like one of them was holding a gun to his head, but he didn’t know which. Ricardo didn’t have time for this—he couldn’t look that terrible, could he? Surely a town like this had seen worse.
Fine. They couldn’t do this politely, Ricardo would manage in his own way. He leaned in; Frank gripped the edge of the wood, almost as if he knew what was coming. He watched Ricardo, which made it very easy for Ricardo to catch his gaze. Catch his gaze and fall into it, grabbing hold of a corner of the man’s will and twisting.
“You’d like to give me a room with no windows. You have something for me, don’t you? My money’s good here. You’re happy to help out.” He spoke low, persuasively, and his words filled the man, whose gaze softened. He nodded with understanding.
“We’ve got . . . something. Not much of a room. More like a closet. But it ain’t got windows.”
“That’d be fine. I’ll take it, and I want to be left alone.”
“Right. Sure. Upstairs. Second door on the left.”