The Spirit is Willing (An Ophelia Wylde Paranormal Mystery) (11 page)

Eureka Smith and I pushed our way through the phalanx of reporters and the crowd behind, all shouting questions. We raced out of the courtroom, down the hall, and took the flight of stone steps two at a time that led to the street.

“Really, I must have a bite to eat,” I said.

Smith led me to Larimer Street, across the Cherry Creek Bridge, and into a neighborhood that seemed to be teeming with restaurants and hotels. He pulled me into a restaurant that advertised “ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTERS
AND OTHER
REFRESHMENTS.” After we were seated, I told him that I hoped he didn’t expect me to eat the oysters.

“You don’t like seafood?” he asked.

“We call them calf fries in Dodge City,” I said. “I assure you they’ve never seen the ocean. I don’t eat them there, and I won’t eat them here.”

“Steak?”

“In Kansas they serve steak at breakfast, noon, and dinner.”

“Ah,” he said. “Then you are free to order what you like.”

“What are you having?”

“I only eat fowl, of course.”

Smith was a strange and awkward man.

“Of course,” I said, not really wanting to know why.

The waiter came and took our order. Smith ordered a squab pie and a whiskey sour, and I had the pork roast and potatoes with a cup of tea.

“Thank you,” Smith said. “I am in your debt.”

“You are, at least for my expenses,” I said. “Including this meal.”

He nodded.

“Where did you get your unusual name?”

“Smith?” he asked.

“The other one.”

“Like everyone else in Colorado at one time or another, I did some prospecting. Gold panning, mostly, shoveling bucket after bucket of dirt from the banks of the river near Fairplay. Panning it all out in a big metal pan and looking for color in the black sand that was left. After countless disappointing days of finding nothing, I discovered a shining golden object in one of the buckets and, holding the precious thing aloft, cried, ‘Eureka!’”

He paused.

“Iron pyrite.”

“Fool’s gold.”

“Yes,” he said. “I should have known better. It was an octahedral pyrite cluster, the color of polished copper. My companions did not allow me to live it down. From that moment on, I have been Eureka Smith. But I have grown into the name, it seems.”

“When did you take up the camera?”

“Shortly after the mining debacle,” he said. “I proved somewhat more adept at turning a profit in silver than I ever had at gold.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Photography is based on the light-sensitive properties of silver,” he said. “All modern processes use some silver, typically in the form of silver nitrate or silver halide, to create the image.”

“It must be difficult to learn.”

“One can acquire the rudiments in a fortnight,” he said. “To master it requires a lifetime.”

“Have you?”

“I am still serving my apprenticeship,” he said.

Silence welled between us.

“What does the name Angus Wright mean to you?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “But the threat of revealing the name seemed to have a surprising effect on the prosecution. District Attorney Decker is a friend of Andrew Jackson Miles, so my guess is that the name has some connection to Miles.”

“Why would it?”

Smith smiled.

“It is Councilman Miles, the mining baron and gubernatorial candidate, who is sitting in the photo you identified as genuine,” Smith said.

“But what’s the story?” I asked.

Smith shrugged.

“Miles commissioned a likeness so an engraving could be made for the newspapers,” he said. “I have—or at least I had—some reputation here as a portrait artist of the first class. Privately, for a few friends and select clients, I had been experimenting with spirit photography, with unsatisfying results. This Miles portrait was not intended as an exercise in that pursuit, but merely as a tool for his campaign. When the results were not as he intended, he demanded the negative, and I refused, and told him I intended to display the image as a successful spirit photograph. He cried fraud and persuaded his friend, W. S. Decker, to file charges against me.”

“There was no extortion involved?”

“He offered me a thousand dollars for the negative, but I was disinterested in selling. I offered him as many prints as he would like, at my usual fee, but he wanted the original destroyed.”

“It is difficult to see how that resulted in a fraud case.”

“Once he knew I was intent on exhibiting the photograph, his aim was to discredit me.”

“And why did you represent yourself instead of hiring a lawyer?” I asked.

“It wasn’t a matter of money, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Then, what?”

“The legal community here knew Jackson Miles was connected to the case,” he said. “Because he is likely to be the next governor of the state of Colorado, nobody was available for hire.”

“The judge must not have been for hire.”

“Judge Stone?” Smith asked. “Why no, he’s a political agnostic.”

“You must have believed rather fervently in your work, to go to all this trouble on principle.”

“I take it earnestly,” he said.

“You said your other attempts at spirit photography were unsuccessful,” I said. “Did you do anything differently in producing this portrait?”

“Well, it was my first time photographing Jackson Miles,” he said. “But I was experimenting with a mixture of gun cotton and magnesium powder, which produces a brilliant bluish white flash.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“Not when handled correctly,” he said. “But Miles acted as if the flash had somehow stung him. There was no evidence, however, that he was touched by a stray spark.”

Our food came and I ate like a farmhand. Smith went about his squab pie methodically, as if he were calculating the volume of each bite. I drank my tea while I considered whether I could trust finding safe lodging in Denver. Then I remembered the book in my valise.

I took
Syrinx of the Seven Worlds
from its flour sack and asked Smith if he was familiar with it. He shook his head.

“It came from a library here in Denver,” I said, opening the cover so he could see the stamp of
The Denver City and Auraria Reading Room and Library Association.
“It is some years overdue, and it’s important that I return it—for a case I’m working on.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” he said. “But there is a library association and reading room near here, at about Fourth and Larimer streets. Perhaps they could direct you.”

When Smith was finished, he settled the bill from a thick roll of greenbacks he carried in his pocket. Then he asked me what my expenses were.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “It was nine dollars and four bits for a one-way ticket to Denver. There will be lodging, and meals, and, of course, the return trip.”

Smith counted off three twenty-dollar notes.

“For expenses.”

I heard Jack Calder’s voice in my head.

“And then there’s the matter of my fee,” I said. “Twenty dollars.”

“A day?”

“Per week,” I said. “By the time I get back to Dodge, I will have lost the better part of a week.”

Smith peeled off another note.

“You said on the stand that you have trouble charging people.”

“You might have gotten off easy,” I said, “if I had been asked first and not subpoenaed.”

I took a room at the Centennial Hotel on the corner of Eighteenth and Black, just a couple of blocks from where we had dined on Larimer Street. It wasn’t the fanciest hotel in Denver—that would be the Grand Central, I was told—but it was suitable for my need because it seemed safe and featured a bed.

I threw myself on the mattress and closed my eyes.

At least it was cooler in Denver, or at least it felt that way.

Denver was at the base of the Rocky Mountains and about 3,000 feet higher in elevation than Dodge City, making it a full mile above sea level. Not only was the temperature fifteen or twenty degrees cooler than Dodge, but the air was drier.

The sounds of the city came to me from the street below: the
clip-clop
of horses drawing wagons of beer and produce, the chatter of people on the sidewalk, the hum of the street trams, and the chug of locomotives and the booming of coupling cars from the half-dozen railway depots scattered about downtown.

I had forgotten how comforting those metropolitan sounds could be. With the city lullaby in my ears, soon I was fast asleep.

I am wandering from car to car, having succumbed to a kind of mindless boredom after exhausting all the possibilities for looking for the lost ticket. I find myself in the coffin car, and the widdershins are hauling a new box down the aisle.

They clumsily let it fall to the floor.

It hits with a crash and the wooden lid pops off. Out clatters dozens of Martini and Henry rifles. What are the rifles doing here, I ask? The widdershins giggle and taunt me with demonic grins, then begin packing the rifles back in the box. There’s something about the Martini and Henry rifles that tugs at my memory, something I should know. Water witching. Yes, dowsing. I could dowse for the lost ticket. But where do I find a willow branch here?

“Best move along, miss,” the white-gloved conductor says.

“Where?” I ask.

“Somewhere else,” he says. “You can’t stay here. You’re distracting the widdershins.”

“Why are they hauling rifles into the car?”

“Transfer of grave goods,” he says. “They’ll be unloaded at the next stop, or the one after.” He glances at his watch. “So many wars coming, it’s hard to keep up with the demand.”

I shiver.

“Do you know where I might find a willow branch?”

The conductor shakes his head.

“This ain’t the botanical gardens. Watch your shins.”

Another crate of rifles comes down the aisle, then careens toward me, and I step back to avoid being mangled. The widdershins laugh.

“They’re beastly,” I say.

“They do enjoy their work. Now, move along.”

I step from the coffin car into one of the coaches. Except for a seat next to an old man, the car is full. I’m exhausted, so I sit. The old man stirs, obviously annoyed at having a seatmate.

“What year is it?” he asks.

“Pardon?”

“The year,” he snaps. “Do you know the year?”

“Of course. It’s 1878.”

He shakes his head.

“Can’t be,” he says. “Impossible.”

I cover my mouth as I yawn.

“I’m sorry, I’m just so tired.”

“Tired?” he asks. “What do you know about tired?”

“A little.”

“Very little. Just wait until you’re my age.”

“And what age is that?”

“Old.”

“How old is old?”

“Forty years from now, that’s old.”

I lean forward and rest my head on my folded arms and drift off to wake wondering if I would feel old when I was seventy—or if I would live long enough to find out.

The sun was well up by the time I shook off my crazy dreams and crawled out of bed at the Centennial Hotel. I dressed and packed my things, not wanting to have the expense of another night in a hotel in a strange city.

On the street, the air was cool and crisp, and looming in the west I could see the snow-capped Rockies. I had never been in the mountains, anywhere, and these seemed strange and forbidding, a wall of rock whose scale I could not imagine.

I made my way the few blocks to the corner of Fourth and Larimer, looking for a sign that would indicate a library association nearby. Finding nothing, I crossed to the other corner, and scanned again. The result was the same—the buildings remained mute.

Finding myself standing in front of a tobacconist, I went inside and addressed the girl behind the counter. She was perhaps seventeen, with torrents of black hair and luminous brown eyes. Of course, nearly all of her customers were male.

“Sorry to trouble you,” I said, “but do you know of a library located nearby?”

“Wouldn’t you like a cigar?” she asked, leaning on the counter and smiling.

“No, thank you, I don’t smoke. I understand there is a library association located in one of the buildings near this corner.”

“This”—she said, picking up a fat cigar from a paste-paper box—“is a Brothers Upmann, rolled on the thighs of a beautiful
torcedora
in Havana.” She placed the cigar beneath her nose and inhaled. “Umm,” she said. “Delightful. Only twenty-five cents.”

“Again, I don’t smoke.”

“Certainly there is a gentleman in your life who would enjoy this fine product,” she said, holding it to the corner of her mouth as if she were puffing on it. “I’ve been here on this corner for two years, and I have become the confidant of many regular customers, some of whom actually read books instead of using them for doorstops. You could be among my circle of friends.”

“Very well,” I said. “You’re extorting from me five times the price of a normal cigar, but I’ll take it.”

“Your gentleman will be grateful for your generosity,” she said.

“I have no gentleman,” I said.

“Pity,” the girl said. “Soon, machines will take over the manufacture of smoking products and the magic will be gone—as well as the lovely cigar girls.”

She rolled the cigar in a strip of wax paper, making a little tube. Then she twisted the ends and deftly tied them off with red ribbons.

“There,” she said. “You will just have to make it a present to yourself.”

I put my two bits on the counter.

“Thank you,” she said, giving me her best smile.

“Is this the best cigar store in Denver?”

“It has the best clientele, if that’s what you mean.”

“Exactly. Are you familiar with a politician by the name of Jackson Miles?”

“Jacks,” she said, and gave a wistful smile. “Very familiar.”

“Jacks?”

“That’s what his friends call him,” she said. “His name on the ballot is always Andrew Jackson Miles—he added the Andrew because it draws more votes. He was born Jackson Miles, and his nickname forever is Jacks.”

“And what do you think of this Jacks?”

“He’s a city councilman,” she said. “A powerful man, and certain to be our next governor. Quite fond of his cigars—and his cigar girls as well.”

“I’ve seen a photo of him with one in hand.”

“A girl?”

“A cigar,” I said. “What can you tell me about his background and reputation?”

“You can find all of what you want in the columns of any of the leading city newspapers.”

“I’m looking for information of a different sort,” I said. “The kind that doesn’t make it into the news columns of the leading papers.”

She nodded and furrowed her brow in concentration.

“Now, here is what the baron prefers,” she said, bringing out a fat cigar with a gold band from a cedar box behind the counter. “This is truly a cigar for a leader, made of only the best tobacco, and fermented as one would ferment the best wine. And it is a bargain, for only a dollar.”

“A dollar? That would feed a family for a week.”

“Not in Denver,” the girl said.

“All right,” I said, fishing a dollar note out of my pocket. “Here’s a dollar. Keep the mile-high stogie. What do you know?”

“He’s married, of course—”

“—of course—”

“—with three children, but he sometimes prefers the company of a certain dark-haired cigar girl. He talks often about his youthful adventures here in Denver, when he was a regular at the Elephant Corral, and later when he crossed the Mosquito Range to mine gold at California Gulch.”

“In California?”

“No, it was the original mining camp near Leadville, a hundred miles over the mountains from here. They struck gold in Leadville in the sixties but really hit it big with silver a year ago. Baron Miles did plenty good for himself in gold, that’s for sure. The silver boom has just made him richer.”

“Has he made any opponents?”

“You mean like Fred Pitkin? They’re both fighting for the Republican nomination, so naturally they’re opponents. Whoever gets the nomination will be governor, because Colorado will elect a Republican. But Miles is so much more popular, Pitkin doesn’t stand a chance.”

“You seem to know a lot about politics.”

“I only have to
act
dumb,” she said.

“Does Miles have enemies that would do him bodily harm?”

“All rich and ambitious men have enemies.”

“From his early days,” I said.

“He had a partner at California Gulch,” she said.

“What happened to him?”

“Miles said there was some kind of disagreement, and then the partner disappeared, so he guessed he just walked out. Found things too tough. It was pretty wooly in the early days, and still is, I guess.”

“Do you remember this partner’s name?”

“No,” she said. “Something common, I think.”

“I’m not buying another cigar.”

“You don’t need to because I really don’t remember.”

“Earlier you mentioned something about an elephant pen?”

“The Elephant Corral,” she said. “It was famous during the gold boom. It stretched from Blake to Wazee streets, near the Cherry Creek Bridge, and it was a huge canvas-roofed hotel with a dirt floor. Sheets separated the rooms. It was a notorious spot for gamblers and thieves, and Miles has said it was the most exciting place he could imagine. He was twenty-one and had come from a small town in Ohio and fell in with a bad lot, and was forced to hurt a lot of people but never killed anyone. From there, he set out to make his fortune at California Gulch.”

“A real Ragged Dick,” I said.

“Pardon?

“Horatio Alger,” I said. “Ragged Dick is one of the characters in his novels. You know, hard work pays off? I was making a joke.”

“Oh,” the cigar girl said. “I just read the newspapers.”

“Anybody around the Elephant Corral now that might remember Miles?”

“It burned down in 1863,” she said. “And most people were just passing through, anyway, on their way to the gold fields.”

“That’s unfortunate,” I said. “Did he say anything to you about the spirit photograph case?”

She shook her head.

“I read about it, but he didn’t discuss it with me.”

“Thanks for your time,” I said.

I picked up the Brothers Upmann cigar and stuck it in my breast pocket.

“Don’t you want to know about the library?”

I had completely forgotten why I had stopped in the first place.

“Yes, of course.”

“Over on the opposite corner, 405 Larimer. Second floor, above the hardware store.”

“I don’t know how I missed it.”

“They took down the sign,” she said, “because they are closing down.”

“What on earth for?”

“Guess cigars are more popular in Denver than books.”