Dream Worker
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It was raining hard and the wind blew with it, which made walking difficult. A light mist clung to the ground like a blanket and dripped from leaves overhead. The air was so still that the branches of trees were barely moving, while their trunks looked as if they would break at any moment. Even the leaves had stopped falling—a sign that something serious was going on.
Weeds poked through the cracks in the road leading away from town; some even grew between stones along the path. As we walked farther up the trail, I tried to figure out what could cause such destruction.
A small group of settlers who’d lost everything in the recent fire huddled together under one of their tarps, while others searched through the rubble for something of use. A few wagons moved slowly by and we heard shouts coming from inside them.
I didn’t want to go into town because people there wouldn’t think twice about shooting at us. It was clear they’d suffered more than we had.
“I don’t know where else to look.” Ben leaned against a tree trunk and rubbed his hands over his face. “Do you have any idea what’s causing this?”
The rain poured down but my teeth chattered uncontrollably, the cold dampness penetrating every pore on my skin. If anyone saw me shivering, he’d think something terrible happened here before I got out. “I wish I knew.” I hugged myself closer and wiped my damp brow.
The sound of approaching horses came from behind us and Ben jumped forward. He reached into his coat and pulled out his Colt, which I hadn’t seen since the day I found it. I thought his pistol was long gone, but the sight of it reassured me that I could protect him if we met up with someone suspicious.
“I can handle myself, ma’am.” His voice was low so as not to attract unwanted attention. “I just want to get out of here.”
He held out his hand and helped me across the street and into a grove of trees that shielded us from the view of anyone traveling along the main road. I followed him deeper into the forest until our surroundings changed. The rain turned to sleet mixed with snow, making my eyes water. We had no choice but to keep going, knowing that if we stopped, we would freeze in less than an hour.
We were both soaked to the bone but Ben continued walking; he said it was easier to cover ground when it was raining or snowing because the mud was soft and the footing was good. I followed him at a distance so I didn’t lose sight of him.
“What is this place?” I whispered as I peered ahead and tried to imagine what could’ve caused such destruction. A thick blanket of fallen branches covered the area. Many trees had died and others looked as though they might collapse at any moment.
Their trunks and branches were so wet it was almost impossible to walk under them without getting stuck in the mud. “Didn’t the settlers get enough wood before they moved in? What about their crops?”
Ben walked for another ten minutes in silence and then stopped abruptly and pulled out his knife. It took only a few seconds for him to cut through the branches blocking our path. We made it out of the forest onto a muddy dirt trail that led away from town.
Ben went around to the rear of a barn that appeared to be the remains of the first structure the settlers built, while I headed toward an empty patch of land between three houses and a well. I knew there must’ve been a reason why Ben had gone straight past all the debris; we’d be better off searching in the forest since the road was so damaged it could give way at any time.
We circled around and reached the well just as Ben shouted, “I found something.” His voice carried farther than I thought it would and people began shouting, “Hey!”
I turned to see a man approaching us. He carried a gun that looked more like an ancient piece of artillery than anything you could use in a war zone. “Where’s the lady with the black hair and blue coat? Where are you going, sir?” The man had his hands on his hips as he pointed in our direction and raised his voice to talk over the din of the rain pouring down.
“That’s us!” Ben said.
The man frowned, which made me nervous because his frown told me that he didn’t recognize Ben, either. “You sure look different from what we saw in town,” he said. “Are you the same people? You know we’re short of men.”
Ben took a step toward the man who had dark features but I moved in front of him. “Please don’t hurt me. We’re leaving town now, that’s all you need to know.”
A few others approached, all men. Some were dirty, while others wore leather jackets, which seemed strange since it was raining so hard.
They all stopped in their tracks when they saw me. Most likely, this was the very woman I’d seen on the stagecoach last year, the one with the blue coat, who looked so young and attractive that every man on board stared at her, not knowing who she was or why they should bother with her.
It didn’t matter that I knew what happened in those days because people didn’t see past my exterior. “Who are you? I don’t believe you’re—” He looked confused when I pulled out my pistol and held it in front of me. “Don’t come near us.”
The man who carried the shotgun stepped forward and pointed the weapon at Ben as if trying to protect him instead of me. “We saw the lady on the stagecoach ride away, then another woman comes along.” A cold chill ran down my spine; I could almost feel their eyes burning through me. “I can’t believe she looks just like you,” one of them muttered.
The rest of the men followed suit as they crowded around and pointed at me, some making remarks about how young I looked. The man with the shotgun kept shouting for us to stay still until someone finally grabbed Ben by the shoulder. He turned and shouted at his friend and drew his gun back toward Ben and me.
“No! Don’t shoot!” I yelled, even though the other men had their guns trained on Ben. It took a few seconds for the shotgun owner to realize what I’d said. At least that meant he hadn’t shot.
“Let’s have a look at this lady.” One of them took his hand away from Ben and pulled my hood off my head, allowing the rain to wash over me.
When my hood fell, everyone froze. My hair was soaked and the rain continued to pour down my face. I looked up at the sky. Was that thunder? The sound came again. I shivered involuntarily. I had no idea how long it would take to find another town where we could hide for the night but there was no way we’d make it home in time before the storm hit.
If this man decided to rob us and leave us in the middle of nowhere, our chances of surviving were slim. We could easily die of exposure. I felt trapped as if we were caught in an endless nightmare that never ended.
I couldn’t think of any reason why anyone would want to rob us or shoot us for that matter; after all, I’d been traveling alone for weeks and Ben was nothing more than a hired man who helped me carry my bags.
They might be right about us being the same people as the ones in town since neither Ben nor I knew anything about what happened, but there were others who had witnessed me getting on and off the stagecoach last year, so the only explanation was that someone else wanted to make sure we stayed away from town.
The rain seemed to slow as if God Himself were pouring water over us to keep us alive, which made me believe He was listening. “That’s enough,” I heard the shotgun owner say. “I want to see this woman who looks like you.”
I stepped back and let him push me toward one of the men standing closer. His hand reached up and felt my hair as he pulled my hair through the front clasp that held it in place. When he realized I wasn’t wearing anything under it, he yanked off the clip. “Who are you?”
“You don’t know me,” I said.
He looked confused when I pulled out my pistol and pointed it at the other man. “Stay back, or she’ll shoot!”
The other man moved in front of his friend and put the gun away. “What is your name?”
I shook my head. “My name isn’t important, just please, no one should shoot me or hurt me. Please…”
The man took off his coat, folded it, and wrapped it around me. “We’ve got a fire in the house but we can’t risk it, especially in this rain. We don’t want to lose all our wood.” He motioned to the building across from us and led the way to the covered porch where we stepped inside, along with everyone else.
He walked into the main room of the house to retrieve some kind of lanterns. The other men followed behind, except for Ben who remained on the porch, watching over us. It reminded me of how we’d been separated in an orphanage many years ago.
Ben looked pale and weak; the rain must have made him feel worse. But he kept glancing over his shoulder while the men talked about the rain as if we were nothing more than animals and he had to watch his back at all times. He probably didn’t trust them either because we’d never been left alone until now.
After the men left, the only thing I could think about was getting warm so I took off my wet dress and wrapped myself in the blanket the man brought. When I turned around again, the others were gone and the sound of thunder came once more, much closer.
Ben was sitting at a small table in the corner and looked like he hadn’t eaten in days. He glanced up and smiled at me, but his face soon went slack as he fell back against the chair.
“How long has that fever been there?” someone asked, sounding concerned.
“Maybe two or three days,” another answered. “He’s sick.”
I ran out the door to get to him before one of them tried to help him but they blocked my way with guns aimed at me.
“We’ll let you live to tell our boss about this,” one said, making sure the rest agreed. He then turned to the house owner who still sat in front of us. “You’re going to pay us well for taking care of this woman.”
The man stood and took me by the arm. We walked through the rain until we reached their buggy where the driver helped us aboard. As soon as we started riding away from the house, Ben woke up with a start. For some reason, I found it comforting when he put his arms around me. “Did anyone else come out?” Ben whispered.
“No,” I lied. “Why would they?”
“Someone might have seen us getting in a buggy with strangers…”
“There are no others who will be coming this way in the near future,” I told him as I pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. The other men were gone, just as I’d expected; they would take me all the way to San Francisco and then they would disappear, leaving me with my own kind for the first time in years.
***
“Where’s the girl?” the woman with the long black hair asked. “I thought she was the one they wanted dead.”
“It doesn’t matter who’s dead,” said another. “This one is too pretty to waste on that little thing in town.”
I glanced toward the man I’d thought had been named Tom, wondering if it really did matter which of us had the fever. I wasn’t so sure we were being chased for revenge anymore since it would make more sense to rob a bank or a train than kill two people whose only crime was looking like the woman I once had been.
The woman walked out of the barn to see that the horses weren’t being worked. They seemed healthy, as well as the mules. She pointed at one horse and ordered, “Get those horses in here.”
While the men led the animals inside, I looked over their gear to see what they planned to do with us. The woman went into the barn and closed the door behind her. It was probably to keep out the rain. But the second we stepped out, we were surrounded by guns aimed at us. “Put your hands above your heads!” someone ordered.
“What’s going on here?” I shouted. “You don’t need to be pointing weapons at us. I just want to get to San Francisco and I won’t try to run away from you!”
“You’re right, we wouldn’t want any trouble,” said another man, “but we have to protect our business.” He motioned to his companion. “Let’s tie her up, too.”
They didn’t even ask who I was and why anyone would think we were the same person. They just assumed and that was dangerous enough. A few men took me by each arm while others brought ropes across their shoulders and began to bind my hands tightly, leaving me unable to touch them or even defend myself from being attacked.
“Stop! I don’t want any of this!” I yelled. “You’ve done nothing but take advantage of us since the moment we met!”
That drew the attention of the men. They stood around in silence for a while trying to decide what to do with me, but after the other woman came out of the barn and walked past us, it became clear they weren’t going to do anything more than tie me up and leave us there until morning.
She glanced at us but didn’t say anything, so I knew she must not be part of the group that tried to kill me; maybe the owner wasn’t either. The men with guns then walked off through the tall grass and disappeared.
The other woman left her horse where it was in the barn and went to a wooden building near the house where she pulled out her purse to count money. When she reached for a cigar, one of the men grabbed it from her hand before he could light it. Then all six of the men walked back into the barn with us where they tied the other woman’s arms to a pole near a wall.
I stared at them as they untied me and walked toward their buggy. One man took a long look at me as he got in, probably to see how much longer my hair would grow and if there were any more gray hairs on my head. “We’ll let you ride along with us until we’re close enough to San Francisco for the boss to make sure you’re his,” the leader said. “Then the rest is up to you.”
***
After a day on the trail, it didn’t take very long to get to the coast. We stopped in the afternoon when we saw a sign saying Welcome to Monterey. The road followed a small creek for miles that flowed between the tall redwoods and pine trees.
The horses seemed content to eat, drink and munch on grass, while I sat on my mount and watched the world go by. It had been more than two years since I’d been anywhere near an ocean. Even though we’d traveled only about sixty miles, the scenery was completely different from what I remembered.
But it still reminded me of the days before I met Tom and found myself trapped in the nightmare I now escaped.
“What happened here?” I asked, trying to picture what a town would have looked like in Monterey during the Gold Rush. “Were there hundreds of people who came looking for gold?”
One of the men laughed. “Not really,” he replied. “There were more than enough people here, but most left after a few months. They thought it was too dangerous to stay, especially for women.”
My stomach dropped. “You mean the reason they abandoned this town was because people died?” I glanced around me again, searching for signs that someone had recently passed away.
“No,” he explained. “That was the only reason the other townsfolk stayed and kept it going for so many years. That and the fact that they couldn’t get away. The gold rush ended after just a few years, and those who were still here found themselves trapped here with no hope of running away.
And as far as people dying, there wasn’t much anyone could do about it.” He shook his head. “They didn’t care. They all just wanted to make their fortunes. If that meant risking their lives, well, they were willing to do anything for gold.”
I remembered the stories about the miners who got into fights over who got first pick at the gold mine or even who should dig deeper in an effort to find more. Some fought because of the rumors that they heard from other miners that certain spots might hold more gold; others did it out of jealousy because the other miner seemed to have luck finding it.
One thing that everyone agreed on was that if a person found it once, there was a good chance they could find it again.
I glanced at him, then asked, “Did your family ever tell you why they wanted to leave Montana?”
The man shrugged. “Not much. It seems like everyone in the whole state just wants to get as far away from where they’re born as possible. My father said there weren’t any good jobs here and nothing but outlaws in the hills when he grew up.
I suppose his family thought it would be better to try something different than to keep struggling. They all moved here when my dad was young, and he didn’t have a lot of money, so it wasn’t easy to find work.”
I looked back toward Monterey. “How did they meet? Did your mother come here to marry someone?”
“It wasn’t quite like that.” He smiled. “They met when his brother married one of my mother’s friends. She was a nice girl, and she made him feel welcome in her home, and he felt right at home there. They started dating after about four months. That’s all the time they had to spend together since he had to go back to Montana.”
We traveled for another hour before we reached the outskirts of Monterey and rode past a number of buildings. “Does everyone in town know what happened here?” I asked. “I mean, are you supposed to tell them how the men died and what kind of men they were?”
One of the men laughed and slapped his knee. “That’s part of why this town is still standing,” he replied. “If you don’t tell anyone what really happened, most people think that’s exactly how they died.” He gave me a strange look. “And that’s probably best for all of us.”
We passed by the saloon and saw men playing dice, cards, and other games, while others sat around on bar stools having drinks, smoking and talking about things that were none of my business. There were no women, which surprised me until I realized it must be because some of those men might be criminals or worse.
The streets were wide with plenty of room for cars to pass without blocking each other. It didn’t take long to spot a small church that was built near a large cemetery where tombstones were covered with moss-covered flowers.
I looked at him, not saying anything, but he seemed to understand. It was too hard for me to picture the men who were buried there as outlaws. I remembered the way their deaths affected me—first that I could die just like them; second, that the people responsible were punished; and lastly, that my father’s murder might be avenged.
He nodded and guided his horse off the main street into an alleyway. I followed and glanced around me at the narrow dirt road before stopping. He pointed out the building he was referring to and said, “That’s what we used to call the boardinghouse.”
The wooden sign above the door read, The Painted Lady. “Why is it called that?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“Because that’s what the old owners painted the outside of it to make it stand out when they first moved in.” He paused a moment before saying, “They thought it would help bring in more customers.”
I frowned and glanced at his profile. It was a strange way to lure in business.
The End