Walk With Me In Hell

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Chapter One

Helen Mosely stepped out of the stagecoach and onto the hard-packed dirt of the streets of Haventown. She wore a wide-brimmed straw hat, but still used her hand to shield her eyes from the yellow glare of the sun as she got her first look at the town. Behind her, the three other passengers in the coach – a traveling preacher named Garrety, a salesman named Willis, and a young man named Farnham – got out and waited as the coach gunman climbed up top to unload their luggage.

Haventown was one of dozens of mining boom towns that had popped up across this stretch of the Arizona Territory in the past year. The buildings that lined the busy street showed evidence of their quick construction. Helen was no carpenter, but she could see the misaligned boards, gaps in the walls, uneven or missing windows, and other telltale signs of shoddy workmanship. These buildings had probably been put up in a matter of days to fill the needs of the rapidly growing town, but they were nothing but ramshackle shells, and Helen wondered if they wouldn’t fall over in a stiff breeze.

The residents of Haventown didn’t look much better. Helen’s eyes accustomed to the glare, and she lowered her hand and rested it on her hip. The main street was crowded with people, almost more people than Helen had ever seen in one place before. There was a vast collection of miners, laborers, and other itinerant workers. They wore dirty, ragged clothes and slouched when they walked. Scrawny horses pulled wagons and carts loaded with tools and equipment, their hooves kicking up thick yellow dust that gave the entire town a hazy, sickly look.

Among the workers were all types of traveling businessmen and entrepreneurs, jostling and mingling in the crowd, or calling out to passersby in their attempts to make a sale. Snake-oil salesmen, Helen’s father called them. They wore nice suits and rode wagons advertising all sorts of powders, ointments, salves, and drinks that promised to cure all that ailed you. Some of them were more legitimate types, advertising their services as doctors or dentists or faith healers, although Helen doubted that many of the miners in town relied on faith to heal them.

Scattered among the surging crowd were all kinds of other people running to and fro. Delivery men, servants, errand boys, managers and supervisors, armed police, cowboys, drivers and more stagecoach workers. Very few women, Helen noticed, although she wasn’t surprised. Mining towns like this attracted mostly men seeking their fortune. Most of the women in town would be working in the saloons and taverns, of which Helen assumed there were many.

“Ma’am?” the driver called down to her.

She turned and looked up at him. He reached down and handed her one of her bags, which she hung over her shoulder.

“How many bags, ma’am?”

“One other, a brown one. And my rifle.”

The driver nodded and fumbled with some of the other cases and bags. The preacher, Garrety, came up beside her and folded his hands in front of him. “Well,” he said conversationally, “I’ve been here all of two minutes, and already I can tell that this town has dire need of my services.”

“Yes,” Helen agreed, glancing once more across the crowded street. She could almost feel the desperation and misery wafting off it like a cloud. “I suppose places like this always attract those in need, whether it’s money or salvation they’re in need of.”

“Well spoken,” Garrety said. “Although I would speculate that those who think they are in need of the former are most in need of the latter.”

The driver knelt down and handed Helen a long object tightly wrapped in a gray blanket tied with black string. Her father’s rifle. He had insisted she take it with her. At first, Helen had not wanted it, but now that she had arrived in town, she felt safer with it in her hands. Some of the stories filtering out of the Territory told of the dangers plaguing these mining towns, and she had heard a few wild rumors during the trip that seemed like the tales of madmen.

It seemed like a good idea to have a weapon, just in case there was trouble. And she was a good shot with it too, better than both of her brothers, in fact. She carried the bundle under her arm and waited for the driver to get her other bag.

“You take care of yourself, Miss,” Garrety said. “This town is not a place for the innocent.”

“I will, thank you.”

Garrety walked off, a brown satchel hanging off his shoulder and a large black suitcase in his hand. As the rest of the bags were unloaded, most of them belonging to Willis and Farnham, the driver finally located Helen’s other bag and handed it down to her. She carried it in her free hand and checked to make sure she had everything. Then she realized she was just stalling, so she took a breath and walked away from the stagecoach platform.

Her first order of business was to find lodging. She didn’t expect to be in town for very long, at least she didn’t hope so. There were plenty of cheap hotels to choose from, so she picked the first one she saw. The sign above the doors said Haventown Hotel. They had rooms available, but the prices were a bit higher than she was willing to pay. So she lugged her bags farther down the street, dodging other pedestrians and ignoring the salesmen and street vendors, and looked for a place with cheaper rooms.

Along the way, she passed more laborers and miners, some of them with drawn, haunted looks in their eyes. As she tried not to make eye contact with any of them, she passed by a man standing on the wooden sidewalk. He wore a faded blue jacket and gray trousers, and had long black hair with a red scarf wrapped around his head like a headband. He stood like a statue, his arms crossed over his chest as he surveyed the street.

Helen realized with a start that the the man was Indian. It surprised her that an Indian would be here in Haventown, since the last she knew, the government was still in conflict with them in Arizona. Personally, she didn’t have much experience with Indians, as she didn’t encounter many back at her family’s ranch in Texas. She nodded politely and stepped around him, making her way farther down the main street.

She found a room at a small, cramped hotel called the Johnson and Sons Inn. She paid for two nights up front and carried her bags to her room. The walls were thin as paper, and the steps bowed and creaked as she went up to the stairs. She considered asking for her money back, but it was likely that all of the other cheaper hotels would be just like this one.

She dumped her luggage onto the bed and took a seat on a rickety wooden chair. It was swelteringly hot inside, so she took off her hat and began to fan herself. She thought about taking a short rest, but the bed didn’t look very comfortable. Nothing in this town seemed to be comfortable. The entire place looked as harsh and unforgiving as the rocky desert that surrounded it on all sides.

Vaguely, Helen thought about what the preacher Garrety had said. This town was not a place for the innocent. Now, Helen didn’t consider herself to be an innocent, at least not in the way that Garrety had implied, but here she was. But unlike all of those other people outside, Helen wasn’t there in search of money or fortune or salvation.

Her younger brother Henry had come to Haventown six weeks ago. He had succumbed to the rumors of wealth flowing out of Arizona, and been lured here to Haventown in search of his own tiny piece of it. Helen and the rest of the family had tried to dissuade him, but he was young and reckless, and came anyway, full of big plans and ambitions. For the first month, he sent the family telegrams every few days, keeping them informed about his progress. But then, two weeks ago, the telegrams dried up. They had not heard from Henry since.

Helen’s parents tried to contact the authorities, but they received no help. So many people were coming in and out of the region that it was impossible to keep track of them all. Towns were popping up almost overnight, and lots of people moved around frequently. The local authorities had their hands full just keeping order. They didn’t have time or the manpower to investigate every single person who might have gone missing.

So Helen came herself. She didn’t know what she was going to find. Maybe her brother had moved on to some other town. Maybe he failed to find the fortune he sought, and left his family behind out of shame. Maybe he was dead. Helen didn’t know, but she was here to find out.

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