Welcome To Red Cloud

Chapter Eight - The Other Elias

My hands were covered in red before I even knew I was bleeding. I figured I'd caught my hand on one of the loose nails in the boards that I was ripping apart with the back of my hammer, and now my blood was making marks on the wood that I wanted to salvage. It wouldn't do to have dirty stains on the walls of my business. I took off the last board I was working on and collapsed back onto the ruined porch, huffing out a hard breath.

Sure enough, there was a nail-tear above my left index knuckle. It was pumping like a dark geyser, the crimson flow almost black by the light of the moon overhead. I clambered over on the porch to find my pocketwatch and a handkerchief. As I rolled up the cloth over my bleeding hand and knotted it securely, the ticking timepiece told me it was around two in the morning. Mercy had been right about it being cooler to work at night, though there was still a thick river of sweat between my damp shirt-back and my aching muscles.

I hadn't asked Eula to come and help. By the time I'd dined at the Dew and mustered the courage to return to our room, she was fast asleep in the big bed and had left me the clunky little cot that Jules Barrett had promised to install. I wasn't sure whether it was from exhaustion or a fear of being found out, but I'd been relieved to see Eula had fallen asleep in her Ryan get-up, her long red curls still tucked under a cap. I'd crept around quiet-like, picking up some tools and a lantern, and headed back out into the night.

She'd hidden the briefcase with the money, and her words from the Emerald played in my head all the while as I set about dismantling the first of Mercy's plots. I'd taken the one nearest my own property on the east road out for the sake of an easier task, and I had a fair few piles of good boards that I could take over to begin the frame. But without some funds from Eula, I had no chance of new strong nails or a sanding plane to really make progress. As I sat alone in the moonlight, I pondered what kind of story I could possibly tell her to get her off the scent of Blair, without coming off sounding like a pervert or a madman.

"Woo, you hard at work sucka. You gonna need launder. You filthy."

The voice was softer at night than it had been against the steam clouds and bustle of the day, but Snake Chu still caught me for a start. I realised that I hadn't seen her coming because the young woman was dressed all in black, and it was only when she moved into my lantern light that I recognised her grin and her wide cheeks. Her clothes were old but well fitted, a set of trouser-legs peeking out from under a mid-length skirt. She wore a satchel at her hip, one hand resting on it with a letter in her grasp.

"When I've run through a few work shirts, you'll be my port of call, Miss Chu." I nodded my head to her. "I do promise you that."

Snake cocked her head, her sleek black hair falling to and fro in a slack bun. "Your baby-face helper man no with you, Alston?"

I blinked. It was hard not to chuckle despite my aches and the sleep crusting the corners of my eyes. "Jesus, Snake. You know about Ryan already? He arrived today. How is it you know everything?"

She flapped the paper she was holding, then nodded at her satchel. "Launder in the day, deliver message and do errand at night. You white folk think I stupid because my English little broken, but I can read and listen fine, sucka. I read and listen many languages."

It was more than I could say myself, and though I did find her parlance odd, Snake Chu's bright eyes held the truth as plain as her words. I rubbed some sweat from my chin, pleased to find a little stubble growing there after a few days in the town.

"So, people are talking about me?"

Snake nodded. "Everyone new get talked about, Alston. You landowner. You New York dude. You almost die in East Lake. You friend of Mr Martin, very powerful friend."