Redemption

1

The black, biting wind was so strong and so fierce that Jason feared there was no more skin left on his upper face—the only part not covered by his hat or bandanna.

His nostrils were clogged with dust and snot, despite the precautionary bandanna, and his throat was growing thick with dust and grit. Whoever had decided to call these things dust storms had never been in one, he knew that for certain. Oh, they might start out with dust, but as they grew, they picked up everything, from pebbles to grit to bits of plants and sticks. He’d been told they could rip whole branches from trees and arms off cacti, and add them into the whirling, filthy mess, blasting small buildings and leaving nothing behind but splinters.

He hadn’t believed it then.

He did now.

He could barely see a foot in front of him, and just moving was dangerous—his britches had turned into sandpaper, and his shirt was no better.

At last he reached his office—or at least, he thought it was—and put his shoulder into the door. He hadn’t needed to. The wind took it, slamming both the door and Jason against the wall with a resounding thud that must have startled folks as far away as two doors up and down, even over the storm’s howling, unending roar.

It took him over five minutes to will both his body and the door into cooperating, but he finally got it closed. Slouching against it, he went into a coughing jag that he thought would never quit. He would rather have been cursing up a storm than coughing one up, but when it finally stopped, a good, long drink from the water bucket put the world right side up. Well, mostly. He still couldn’t breathe through his nose, but a good, long honk—well, six or seven—on his bandanna put that right again.

With the wind still howling like a banshee outside and flinging everything not tied down against his shutters and door, he thanked God for one thing: The storm was, at least, keeping everyone inside, which included Rafe Lynch—wanted for eight killings in California, across the river—and currently ensconced at Abigail Krimp’s bar and whorehouse, up the street.

He didn’t know much about Lynch, other than that he was clean in Fury, and for that matter in the whole of Arizona, and Jason was therefore constrained by law to keep his paws off Lynch, and his lead to himself. Actually, he felt relieved. He didn’t feel up to tangling with someone of Lynch’s reported ilk. Still, he was worried. What if Lynch tried to stir up some trouble? And what if he or Ward couldn’t handle it? Ward was a good deputy, but he wouldn’t want to put him up against Lynch in a card game, let alone a shoot-out.

He sighed raggedly, although he couldn’t hear himself. Outside the jailhouse walls, the storm pounded harder and harsher. Dust seeped in everywhere: around the door and the windows, even up through the plank floor. Jason knew damn well that the floor only had two inches—or less—of clearance above the dirt underneath, and this occurrence left him puzzled.

He’d managed to make his rounds, although a bit early. It was only three in the afternoon, despite the dust and crud-blackened sky. Everyone was inside, boarded up against the wind and wrapped in blankets against the storm’s detritus and the sudden chill that had accompanied it.

Couldn’t they have just gotten a nice rain? Jason shook his head, and two twigs and a long cactus thorn fell to the desk. He snorted. He must look a sight. At least, that’s what his sister, Jenny, would have said, had she been there to see him. But she was nestled up over at Kendall’s Boarding House with her best friend, Megan MacDonald, or she was at home, madly trying to sweep up the dust and grit that wouldn’t stop coming.

His thoughts again returned to Rafe Lynch. It gnawed on him that Lynch was even in town. In his town, dammit! Well, not actually his. The settlers had christened it Fury after his father, Jedediah Fury, a legendary wagon master who had been killed on the trail coming out from Kansas City. He supposed the place’s name was attractive to scofflaws, but they seemed (out of all proportion) drawn to the tiny, peaceful town in the Arizona Territory. Why couldn’t they ride on over to Mendacity or Rage or Suicide or Hanged Dog or Ravaged Nuns?

He shivered. Now, there was a town he didn’t want anything to do with!

His sand-gritted eyes were weary and so was he. He glanced up at the wall clock again. Three-thirty. No way that Ward was going to make it down here on time, if he came at all. It wouldn’t hurt him to get a little shut-eye, he figured, and so he put his head down on his dusty arms, which were folded on the desk.

Despite the battering storm outside, he was asleep in five minutes.

Roughly twenty-five miles to the west of Fury, a small train of Conestoga wagons fought their way through the dust storm. Riley Havens, the wagon master, had seen it coming: the sky growing darker to the east, the wind coming up, the way the livestock skittered on the ends of their tie ropes, and the occasional dust devils that swirled their way across the expanses on either side of them.

But now the edge of the darkness was upon them, and if Riley was correct, they were in for one whiptail monster of a dust storm. He reined in his horse and held up his hand, signaling for the wagons to halt.

Almost immediately, Ferris Bond, his ramrod for the journey, rode up on him and shouted, “What the devil is that thing, Riley? Looks like we’re ridin’ direct into the mouth a’hell!”

“We are,” Riley replied grimly. “Get the wagons circled in. Tight.”

“What about Sampson Davis? He rode off south ‘bout an hour ago.”

Riley didn’t think twice. “Screw him,” he said, and turned to help get the settlers, with their wagons and livestock, in a circle.

Down southeast of town, the storm wasn’t as much sand and grit as twigs and branches, and Wash Keogh, who’d been working the same chunk of land for the past few years, was huddled in a shallow cave, along with his horse and all his worldly possessions. Well, the ones that the wind hadn’t already taken, that was.

But despite the storm, Wash was a wildly happy man, because he held in his hand a hunk of gold the size of a turkey egg. It wasn’t pure—there was quartz veining—but it sure enough weighed a ton and he was pretty sure that the mother lode was just upstream—up the dry creek bed, that was—just a little ways. If this damned wind would only stop blowing, well, hell! He might just turn out to be the richest man in the whole danged territory!

That thought sure put a smile on his weathered old face, but he ended up spitting out a mouthful of mud. The grit leaked in no matter how many bandannas he tied over his raggedy old face. Well, he could smile later. The main thing now was just to last out the storm.

Like him, his horse waited out the wind with his back to it and his head down. Smart critters, horses. He should have paid more attention when the gelding started acting prancy and agitated. But how could a man have paid attention to anything else when that big ol’ doorstop of gold was sitting right there in his hand. He’d bet he would have missed out on the second coming if it had happened right there in front of him! And, blast it, he didn’t figure Jesus would be mad at him, either! ’Course, he’d probably “suggest” that ten percent of it go to the Reverend Milcher or some other Bible thumper.

Fat chance of that!

He hunkered down against the howl of the storm to wait it out. But he was happy.

Very happy.

Back inside the stockaded walls of Fury—walls which had used up every tree lining the creek for five miles in either direction and used up most of the wagons, too—the wind was still whistling and whining through the cracks between the timbers. Solomon Cohen, who had been known as Saul until he changed it back to Solomon during a crisis of faith several months back, was huddled in the mercantile with Rachael, his wife, and the boys: David, Jacob, and Abraham. The back room of the mercantile was fairly tight, and so they had planted themselves there for the duration.

Solomon’s crisis had come after a long time, a long time with no other Jews in town, no one else who spoke Yiddish, no one with an ancestry in common with himself or Rachael. Oh, there was her, of course, but it wasn’t like having another Jewish man around to share things with, to complain with, to laugh with, and to spend the Sabbath with. How he wished for a rabbi!

And now Rachael was with child once again. He feared that they would lose this one, as they had the last two, and each night his prayers were filled with the unborn child, wishing it to be well and prosper. He didn’t care whether God would give him a boy or a girl, he just heartily prayed that Jehovah would give him a child who breathed, who would grow up straight and tall, and who would be a good Jew.

Still, he wished for another Jewish presence in Fury. A man, a woman . . . a family at best! His children had no prospects of marriage in this town filled with goyim.

If they were to marry, they would likely have to go away to California, to one of the big cities, like San Francisco. It was a prospect he dreaded, and he knew Rachael did, too. They had talked of it many times. They had even spoken of it long before the children’s births, when they first met in New York City, and Solomon spoke of his dreams of the West and the fortunes that could be made if a man was smart and handy and careful with his money.

It had taken him over ten years (plus his marriage to Rachel and three babies, all sons) to talk her into it, but at last she relented. Although he always remembered that she had cautioned him that they didn’t know if the West held any other Jews that their children could marry—or even, for that matter, would want to!

As always, she had been right, his Rachael.

He looked at her, resting fitfully on the old daybed they kept down here, her belly so swollen with child that she looked as if she might pop at any second, and he felt again a pang of love for her, for the baby. She was so beautiful, his wife. He was lucky to have her, blessed that she’d had him.

The wind hadn’t yet shown any signs of lessening, and so he slouched down farther in his rocker and carefully stuck his legs out between David and Abraham, who were sound asleep on the floor. Glancing over at Jacob to make sure he was all right, too, Solomon said yet another silent prayer, then closed his eyes.

Almost instantaneously, he was asleep.

The Reverend Milcher angrily paced the center aisle between the rows of pews. Not that they had ever needed them. Not that they’d ever been filled. Not that anybody in town appeared to give a good damn.

Even though he hadn’t spoken aloud, he stopped immediately and clapped his hand over his mouth. From a front pew, Lavinia, his long-suffering wife, looked up from her dusty knitting and stared at him. “Did you have an impure thought, Louis?” she asked him.

“Yes, dear,” he replied, after wiping more sand from his mouth. “I thought a sinful word.”

“I hope you apologized to the Lord.”

“Yes, dear. I did.”

He began to pace again. They were running out of food, and he needed to fill the church with folks who would donate to hear the word of the Lord. That, or bring a chicken. He had tried and tried, but nothing he did seemed to bring in the people he needed to keep his church running. And now, this infernal dust storm! Was the Lord trying to punish him? What could he have possibly done to bring down the Lord’s wrath upon not only himself, but the town and everything and everyone around it?

Again, he stopped stock-still, but this time his hand went to the side of his head instead of his mouth. That was it! The dust storm! Oh, the Lord had sent him a sign as sure as anything!

“Louis?”

“What?” he replied, distracted.

“You stopped walking again.”

He pulled himself up straight. “I have had a revelation, Lavinia.” Before she could ask about it, he added, “I need some time to think it through. Good night, dear.” Soberly, he went to the side of the altar, opened the door, and started up the stairs.

Lavinia stood up and began to smack the dust out of the garment she’d been knitting, banging it over and over against the back of a church pew. She kept on whacking at it as if she were beating back Fury, beating back her marriage and this awful storm, beating back all the bad things in her life.

At last, she wearily stilled her hand and started upstairs.

When Jason woke, he still found himself alone, surrounded by unfettered wind whipping at the walls. And it was, according to the clock, ten forty-five. And there was no Ward in evidence.

He let out a long sigh, unfortunately accompanied by a long sandy drizzle of snot, which he quickly wiped on his shirtsleeve. Well, he should have expected it. He gave himself credit in foretelling that Ward wouldn’t brave the storm in order to come down to the office. Jason just hoped he’d found himself a nice, secure place to hole up in.

Jason reminded himself to hike up to the mercantile and see if they had any caulking. That was, when the storm let up. If it ever did. He was going to make this place airtight if it killed him. There was still dust coming in around the windows and the front door, and right up through the floor. He didn’t want to see what was happening around the back door, but he knew it’d be bad. It wasn’t nearly as tight as the front one.

Just then, a loud bang issued from the back room, and he shot to his feet, accompanied by the soft clatter of thousands of grains of sand falling from his body and hitting the floor.

Whispering, “Dammit!” he went to the door to the back room and threw it wide. He had expected to be met by the full force of the storm and the outer door hanging off its hinges, but instead he found Ward, struggling to close the back door.

He fought back the urge to laugh, and instead helped Ward. The two men succeeded in closing and latching the door, and Ward leaned his back against it, his head drooping, his hair hanging in his eyes. Jason grinned. “You look like you been rode hard and put up wet, man.”

“Feel worse,” Ward replied after a moment. Then he looked Jason up and down. “You don’t much look like a go-to-town slicker yourself, either, boss.”

Jason smiled, then led him into the main part of the office. “There’s clean water in the bucket. You want coffee, you’re gonna hafta make it yourself.”

Ward went to the bucket and had himself two dippers of water, then splashed another on the back of his neck. “You ever seen a storm like this?”

Jason said, “I never even heard a’one.” He hadn’t, either, not one like this!

“Well, I heard about ’em, but this one’s sure a ripsnorter. Don’t believe I ever heard tell’a one lastin’ so long or goin’ so hard. Oh—what I come to tell you. One’a the Milcher kids is missin’. Found the reverend out lookin’ for him, but you know him—he’s like buttered beef in a crisis. Made him go on home.”

Jason nodded. “When’d he go missing?”

“Sometime between seven and nine-thirty. The reverend thinks he’s out lookin’ for the cat. She’s missin’, too.” During the passing years, the Milcher’s original cat, Chuckles, had been replaced several times. The latest one was . . . well, he couldn’t remember the name at the moment. But it was either a grandkitten or a great-grandkitten of Chuckles.

“Shit.” Jason put his hands flat on the desk, then pushed himself up. “I reckon now’s as good a time as any.” He shook out his bandanna and tied it over his nose and mouth. “You rest up. Come out when you’re ready.”

But Ward was on his feet, his clothes dribbling sand on the floor. “Naw. I’ll go with you. Four eyes are better’n two. Or so they tell me.”

Jason nodded. “Appreciate it. Pull your hat brim low.”

He opened the front door. He had a firm hold on the latch, but the sudden influx of wind shoved Ward off his feet and into the filing cabinets.

“You wanna warn a fella afore you do that?” he groused.

Jason didn’t blame him. “Sorry, Ward.”

Muttering something that Jason was glad he couldn’t hear, Ward slowly got back to his feet, using his feet and hands and back for traction. He made it to the desk, and finally to the door.

Jason shouted, “We’re gonna hafta get outside, then pull like crazy, okay?”

Ward nodded, and they did, each bracing a boot on either side of the doorframe. It took them nearly five minutes just until Jason lost sight of the wall clock, but eventually the door was closed and latched.

“Which kid was it?” he asked Ward over the howling wind.

“Milcher!”

“Which Milcher kid?” There were a bunch of them.

“Peter. The five-year-old!”

Great, just great. A five-year-old kid lost in this storm! A storm a grown man could barely keep his footing in, and that seemed intent on staying around until the end of time. Maybe it was the end of time.

But Peter was a tough little kid. If he had survived the trip out West in his mother’s belly, he could survive anything. At least, that’s what Jason hoped.

He tried to think like a five-year-old following a cat. . . .

“Follow me!” he said to Ward, and set off, staggering against the buffeting wind, toward the stables.

Up at the stable, they found several cattle and a couple of saddle horses standing out in the corral, all with their heads down and their butts into the wind. Jason wondered if they could get them inside once they found the Milcher boy.

It didn’t take them long at all. Once they pulled the barn door closed after them and called out his name a couple of times, they heard soft sobbing coming from the rear of the barn. Well, it would have been loud wailing, if not for the roar of the storm. Ward heard it first, and Jason followed him back to a rear stall, where Jason uncovered the boy, hiding beneath a saddle blanket.

“Peter?” he asked.

“My daddy’s gonna kill me!” came the answer. When the boy looked up, his face was streaked by the trails of tears through the crust of dust and grit on his face. “But I had to find Louise! She’s gonna have kittens, and she’s having them right now!” He pointed down next to him in the straw, and there was the Milcher’s cat, with a third or fourth kitten just emerging.

“Get a crate, Ward,” Jason said, and put an arm around the boy. “Don’t worry, Peter. Your daddy’s not gonna kill you. In fact, he was out looking for you, he was so worried.”

Ward handed him an apple crate, in which he’d already placed a fresh saddle blanket.

“H-he was?” Peter asked.

“He was indeed. Now let’s see what we’ve got, here. . . .”

Jason gently lifted the mother cat while Ward stooped over him, carefully bringing the still-attached kitten along, and they placed them in the apple crate. “Good,” Jason said. “Now let’s see who else is here.”

He found not three, but four other kittens. Three were tabby and white, and one was all white. By the time the men got them all back with their mother, she had finished giving birth to the fifth kitten, had cut the cord, and was busy licking it clean. “Good kitty,” Jason murmured, “good Mama.” The kitten was tabby and white, too, although with more white than the others.

Jason and Ward stood up, and Jason held his hand down to the boy. “Guess we’d best get the lot of you back home!” Ward shifted through the stack of saddle blankets and dug out a relatively fresh one, covering the box snugly.

“But the baby cats can’t go back!” Peter said as he grabbed Jason’s hand and pulled himself to his feet. “Daddy doesn’t like them. He says he doesn’t like the smell of birth.”

“Reckon he’s just gonna have to get over it,” Jason said, trying to hide a scowl. He didn’t much like the smell of Milcher, either. And if Milcher objected to those kittens in his damned house, then Milcher was going to find himself in jail. For something or other.

Jason lifted Peter up into his arms, then threw a blanket over him. “You all snugged up in there?” he asked.

A muffled, “Yessir,” came from beneath the blanket, and with Ward carrying the box of kittens and their mama, the men pushed their way out into the storm again.

The wind hit Jason like a slap in the face, but behind him, he heard Ward say, “Believe it’s lettin’ up some!”

Jason didn’t reply. He just forged ahead, toward the Milchers’ place. Thankfully, it wasn’t far, and when he rapped on the church door, Mrs. Milcher threw it wide, then burst into tears. “Is he all right?” she cried, pulling at the boy in Jason’s arms. “Is he—”

“I’m fine, Mama,” Peter said after he wiggled out of the blanket. And then he broke out in a grit-encrusted grin. “Louise had her babies!”

Ward set the box down and lifted the cover. A purring Louise looked up with loving green eyes, and mewed softly.

Mrs. Milcher cupped her boy’s face in her hands. “Is that why you went out, honey? To find Louise?”

“Yes’m. And I did, too! She was in the stables.”

Mrs. Milcher looked up at Jason. “She always wants to hide when she feels her time is here. What a night to pick!”

“Mrs. Milcher, ma’am? I know you’ve given away kittens before, and I was wonderin’ if—”

“Certainly, Marshal! Any one you want!”

Jason smiled. “I kind of fancy the little white one. Got a name for him already and everything.”

She cocked her head. “But you don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl! Do you?”

“No, ma’am. Wasn’t time to check. But I figured to call it Dusty. Name works either way, I reckon, and I’ll never forget when he was born.”

Mrs. Milcher smiled back at him. “No, I don’t suppose you will! Thank you, Marshal, thank you for everything. My husband would thank you as well, I’m sure, but he has retired for the night.”

Jason lifted a brow but said, “I see. Well, take care of young Peter, here, and watch over my kitten until it’s ready to leave its mama.” He and Ward both tipped their hats, and both stepped through the doors at once. But instead of the whip of wind that Jason was expecting, they stepped out into cool, clear, still air.

“What happened?” Ward said, looking around him.

“I guess it quit.”

“Guess so. You wanna go up and get a drink?”

“Nope. Wanna go home and wash up.”

Ward nodded. “Reckon that sounds good, too. Well, you go on ahead, Jason. I’ll have a drink for both of us.”

Jason laughed. “Just one, Ward. You’re on duty, y’know.”

Jason turned around and started the walk back to his house. The air felt humid, as if rain was coming. He hoped it was. Nothing would feel better right now than to just strip off his clothes and stand out in his front yard, naked. He chuckled to himself. Yeah, there’d be hell to pay if Mrs. Clancy saw him, but on the other hand, she wasn’t likely to be awake at eleven at night, was she?

Jenny’d skin him, though. It was a terrible thing, he thought, to be ruled by women. Then he pictured Megan MacDonald. Well, there were exceptions to every rule, he thought, and grinned.

It did rain, and while Jason was outside, beaming and standing stark naked in his front yard with a bar of soap in his hand, miles away the wagon train was getting the worst of the dust storm. The wagons had been tightly circled and all the livestock had been unhitched and brought to the center, but the wind screeched through the wagons like a banshee intent on revenge.

Young Bill Crachit thought that maybe God was mad at them for giving up on the dream of California, and he huddled inside his old, used wagon, praying.

The Saulk family, two wagons down, held their children close, hoping it would just stop. Well, Eliza Saulk did. Her husband, Frank, had the thankless job of trying to hold the wagon’s canopy in place: The train had lost three already to the torrent of grit and dirt and cactus thorns. He was around the far side when, out of nowhere, an arm of a saguaro hit him in the back like a bag of nail-filled bricks. He went down with a thud, but was helped to his feet a moment later by Riley Havens, who yanked the cactus, stuck to Frank by its two-inch spines, free.

Blood ran down Frank’s back in a hundred little drizzles, soaking his shirt, and Riley helped him back up inside the wagon. “Saguaro!” he shouted to Eliza. “Get those thorns out!”

Never letting go of the children, she moved back to her husband, gasped, “Oh, Frank!” and immediately began to ease him out of his shirt.

Riley left her to take care of her man and struggled next door, to the Grimms’ wagon. Their canopy had blown off earlier. It had taken four men to chase it down and get it tied back in place. And that had been before the wind came up so damned hard. He doubted they could repeat their performance.

All was well with the Grimms, except that their dog wouldn’t shut up. He was a cross between a redbone hound and a Louisiana black-mouthed cur, and the wind had brought out the hound side of him, in spades. While he yodeled uncontrollably, the Grimms had covered their heads with blankets and quilts, trying to hold off the noise of him and the storm. Riley hollered, “Shut up!” at him a few times, but it made no difference, and so he moved on to the next wagon and left the howling beast behind.

The raw wind still raked at his ears, even though he’d tied his hat down with one scarf, then covered his nose and mouth with a second one. But the crud still got through somehow, worked its insidious way up his nose and into his mouth. His eyes were crusted with it, and even his ears were stuffed. I must look like hell, he thought, then surprised himself by smiling beneath the layers. The whole world looked like hell tonight. He wasn’t the only one.

The wind picked up—although how it managed, he had no idea—and one of the horses reared. He felt it more than saw it, because the horses were circled twenty feet away, in the center of the ring of wagons, but he knew what had happened. Somebody’s gelding or mare had fallen prey to another of those thorny chunks of cactus that the wind seemed intent on throwing at them.

He made his way through the roar, falling twice in the process, but at last reached the distressed animal. Lodged on its croup was a fist-sized chunk of jumping cholla, which, in this case, might have jumped all the way from Tucson, as far as Riley knew.

He pulled it free, then pulled out what spines he could see. It was all he could do, but the horse seemed grateful.

Slowly staggering, he made his way to a new wagon to check in and give what reassurances he could. Which weren’t many. He swore, this was the last train he was going to ferry out or back.

He was done.