27

Claire Hamilton’s Case Notes

Friday, August 24, 1877
Denver, Colorado

I am in over my head.

In the last forty-eight hours, I’ve seen five people shot and had a few stray buckshot pellets picked out of my arm. Tomorrow I’m leaving with Hattie and Ruby to hopefully meet up with Stella, Joan, and Luke Rhodes to try to break Jehu out of jail.

How did I get here? More importantly, how do I survive?

I hardly know where to start. I’ll skip over Margaret’s account of how she ended up in Black Hawk, incomplete as the story was. If things go as planned, the journal I transcribed her story into will be in my possession. ‘If things go as planned.’ What plan?

This is not the time to be despondent.

At Lana’s boardinghouse, Hattie was in the kitchen, being held under a gun by two Pinkerton thugs and Salter. Ruby and I had taken Callum to see Margaret on her deathbed. He settled down to wait for her passing and sent me downstairs to make him a sandwich. I readily agreed, and Ruby went with me. When the door was closed behind us, I said we had to find Alida. Ruby crossed her arms and refused to move.

“What was that in the kitchen?”

“Me, buying us some time.”

“Are you a Pinkerton?”

“I was, but I’m not anymore. I mean, I’m a detective, but not right now.”

“You’re either the law or you aren’t.”

I could tell from her stance that she had no good opinion of the law. “I was, and I hope to be again. But right now, I’m trying to save our lives. I know Salter, and he would make sure our end was miserable.”

She uncrossed her arms. “I know. What’s your plan?”

I grabbed her hand and pulled her toward Alida’s room. “It’s so crazy, I’ll talk myself out of it if I tell it twice.”

Alida agreed with me. “You want me to give hawthorn to my patient, who is recovering from a major surgery? I’m dreaming, aren’t I? Because that’s an insane idea.” She clasped her robe together at her breast. We’d woken her from a deep sleep.

“I know it’s used for rapid heartbeats, yes?”

“Yes. To slow them down to normal, not to mimic death. Who would even think of that?”

I placed my hands in front of my lips in a prayer pose. “You’ve been asleep, so you are unaware that there are three Pinkertons in the kitchen with guns trained on Hattie, and Callum Connolly is in Garet’s room, waiting for her to die.”

“Callum Connolly!”

“Do you know him?”

“I’ve been called to treat some women who have been on the receiving end of his …”

“We get the picture,” Ruby said.

“We need him to believe she is dead. The hawthorn is in case he wants to listen to her heartbeat. Hopefully a mirror test will do. What we really need is for you to put your name on the death certificate.”

She reared back at the idea. “Claire, you’re asking too much.”

“I promise, if you have to sign one, the death certificate will never make it into the official record,” Ruby said. “We need you to convince Connolly she’s dead. That’s all.”

“And give her hawthorn.”

“Can we put it in broth?”

“Yes, or tea or whisky. It’s a tincture.”

“Put it in laudanum, then,” I said.

“Do you want to kill her? Yes, right. You do.” She pulled two bottles from her doctor’s bag, a pint of whisky and a smaller brown bottle. She mixed them together in a glass and handed it to Ruby. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“I’ve got to go make that bastard a sandwich.”

The scene in the kitchen was much as I’d left it, except Salter was sitting at the table, carving up a block of cheese and eating it off his knife. Hattie was bound and had been beaten. She leaned against the wall, keeping a wary eye on the two other Pinkertons. She glared at me when I walked in, and I had a moment of doubt about my plan. But she was playing her part, just as I was.

“There’s the detective,” she sneered.

I asked where Lana and Frank were.

“Haven’t seen them,” Salter said.

“Callum wants a sandwich.”

“Make him one,” Salter said.

“See there, Grace. Or should I call you Claire? No matter what you do, they won’t treat you like an equal,” Hattie said.

“Shut up, Hattie.”

“Truth hurts, don’t it?”

I saw the guards look at each other and snicker.

“I’m going to find Lana.”

“Here I am,” she said, and by God she walked into the kitchen holding a Peacemaker in front of her with both hands. Salter didn’t move, but the two henchmen swung their guns around.

“Put it down, lady,” one of the men said.

“Where’s my son? Where’s Zeke?”

“Was that his name?” Salter said. He put another hunk of cheese in his mouth.

“What did you do to him?”

“I didn’t do anything. George back there is the one who shot him. I’ve never been good at distance shooting. I’m more of a ten-paces-and-turn kind of man, or hiding behind a corner and shooting from safety. You live longer that way.”

“My boy is dead?”

The pleading in her voice broke my heart. Hattie nudged my arm. I moved close to her. “Get ready to duck,” she said in a low voice.

“I imagine he is by now. We left him a canteen of water, but the way his leg wound was seeping, he probably didn’t last for long.”

“What kind of man leaves a boy to die alone?” Frank Chambers asked. He stood a little behind his wife.

“He wasn’t a boy, and he made his choices. Now, you have a choice, too, Mrs. Chambers. Put the gun down.”

Lana’s arms were shaking with the effort to hold the gun aloft. They dipped, and everyone relaxed enough that she had a split-second advantage. But it wasn’t enough. She’d barely got the hammer back before a Pinkerton shot her. Frank produced a sawed-off shotgun from somewhere and got a shot off at the same time as the other Pinkerton shot him. Within a space of a few seconds, three people dropped to the floor, dead or dying. My ears were ringing, and I felt like the house was tilting. The thick scent of blood made me gag, and I covered my mouth. Hattie said my name, although I couldn’t hear her. Why couldn’t I hear her? Behind her, Lana’s hand twitched, and a thick pool of blood ran along the wooden floor and drained down through the cracks. I couldn’t hold it back any longer, and I lunged for the sink.

I stared at my sick and swallowed, trying to keep the rest down. With shaking arms I worked the handle of the water pump and rinsed my mouth out. When I’d regained my composure, I surveyed the room. Hattie was back where she’d been before everything happened, Callum stood in the door with a thunderstruck expression on his face and a gun down to his side, and Salter sat at the table still, eating cheese.

“What in the hell happened?”

Salter pointed at Lana with his knife. “That’s the cowboy’s mom.”

“We knew that.”

“She didn’t know her son was dead.”

“You told her? Are you a goddamn idiot?” Callum said.

Salter stabbed the table with the knife. He leaned his chair back on two legs and said, “No, but I’ve killed a few in my life.”

Connolly laughed. “If you want us to take each other’s measure later, fine by me. But finish this job, the job you were paid handsomely to do. Start by cleaning this up.”

His eyes settled on me. “You. Where’s my sandwich?”

Alida and Ruby came into the kitchen. Alida covered her mouth and said, “Oh, good heavens,” but moved forward to check the victims.

Ruby came to me. “Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“I’m fine, too,” Hattie said.

“They’re past your help,” Callum said to Alida. “You’re needed upstairs.”

He left the kitchen. Alida finished checking the victims for signs of life and rose slowly, her face a mask of grief. Salter told her to go on, and she went upstairs reluctantly, tiptoeing her way over the blood-splattered floor.

“Go fetch the sheriff, Detective,” Salter said.

“You do it. This is your mess, not mine. I’m taking my prisoner upstairs so she can sit by her friend’s deathbed. Do you have a problem with that?”

“Nope.”

We went up the stairs, and George the Pinkerton followed. Last I saw, Salter sat at the table still, his blade flashing in the lightning.

I’m exhausted and don’t have much time if I want to get any sleep before we leave for Cheyenne in the morning.

Salter paid the sheriff to write the deaths off as self-defense, caused by Lana shooting first. Alida pronounced Garet dead at four in the morning. Callum and Salter had a private conversation on the front porch, and Callum rode off at dawn. We never had time for me, Ruby, and Hattie to be alone to talk through our plan, it was mostly made through silent gestures, occasional whispers, significant looks, and the fact that George was distracted from not eating a real meal in two days. Salter sent me down the street for some bacon and biscuits and allowed Ruby and Hattie to put Garet’s body in the coffin. When I returned, Hattie and George were putting the coffin in a wagon.

“We’re leaving now?”

“Yep,” Salter said.

“Other way,” said Hattie.

“It don’t matter.”

“I want her facing east, like she’s supposed to.”

“That’s just for burying.”

“No. All the time. You didn’t know that dead bodies are laid out in state facing east? In case the Lord comes back before they’re planted in the ground. It’s the least I could do for Garet, her being so religious.”

“Just fucking put the coffin in,” Salter said.

Hattie got her way and didn’t even resist when George slapped irons on her wrists.

It became clear that Salter had no intention of bringing us to Denver alive. I’d just about decided we should all start taking stock of our lives when I heard a knock from the coffin. She was alive. I should have never doubted it, nor should I have doubted that she would know exactly what to do when the time came. What I never expected, though, was the expression on her face when she shot those two men in the back. It’s not something I’ll soon forget.