Come to Hedlund for a riveting good time. Arrive in style using your personal
steamcoach. Don’t forget to wear your
finest attire and top it all off with a shot of absinthe.
Hedlund is home to Clark Treasure, the rogue star of
TREASURE DARKLY, a young adult romance set in a steampunk Wild West world. Join him here in Hedlund while wearing your
best cowboy boots and goggles. For three
days only (July 1st, 2nd, and 3rd), TREASURE
DARKLY is on sale as an Amazon ebook for just 99 cents. That’s a quite a steal, and Clark knows a lot
about stealing, having swiped a bottle of what he thought was absinthe, but the
green liquid actually gave him the ability to save the already deceased.
TREASURE DARKLY picks up when Clark finds the father he
never knew – a millionaire rancher meeting his illegitimate son? Ut oh – but what happens while Clark is on
the run from the army and its captain who seeks to use him for his newfound power? Check out the following short story for an
adventure featuring Clark Treasure in all his bad boy glory.
###
A Treasure Tale
By Jordan Elizabeth
Clark
extended his hand for a shake, but the manager of Arvay Ranch shook his head. Not
a good sign, that. Clark pulled off his glove, the leather worn almost clear
through in the knuckles, and stretched out again, but the manager rocked back
on his boot heels.
“You’re
an honest looking kid. I like that about you.” The manager turned his head to
spit tobacco juice into the dirt. “We’re just mighty filled up here for the
time being.”
“I’m
willing to do any job, sir. I can wrangle and rope. Work the fields. I know my
way with a saw.” Brass glass, he’d be eager to muck out the outhouse if it came
to that. His pockets didn’t jingle with coins as loudly as they used to. He’d
had to leave his last job at a ranch further south –
a good position where he looked after horses,
when the army sniffed too close, and he hadn’t dared stop until now. “I can do
housework too. I’ve trained with butlers.” He’d seen them, in the fancy ranch
houses. That sort of work seemed to mean politeness and servitude, and not much
else.
The
manager jammed his hands into the pockets of his denim slacks and narrowed his gaze
at the Arvay Ranch. The Bromi woman who’d fetched him from the “Big House,” as
she’d called it, stood by a fence with her head bowed.
“Good
lookin’ ranch,” Clark said. “Smaller than some I’ve seen, but hearty. A fellow
can tell you folk love the land here.” Managers didn’t appreciate
sugar-coating. If a man told it like it was, he got further with those who
loved work, and Arvay Ranch shone with crisp paint and clean yards. “Place
looks run well. Looks like your crop is
peaches?”
The
manager nodded, tugging at the red bandana at his throat. “We are pretty booked
here. Don’t really hire a lot of outside folk. You know what, though. My
brother’s the doctor in town and I’m certain he could use help.”
The
image of a physician’s saw biting through a man’s gangrene-ridden leg pierced
Clark’s mind and he forced his lips to remain in a line. He’d done worse in
life. Brass glass, he’d helped the midwife back in Tangled Wire for spare
pennies. Maybe he’d be able to use his ability to save a few lives.
“I’d be
grateful, sir. I can’t stay forever, just passing through, but I’d appreciate
the job for the time being.”
“I’ll
write you a letter and some directions. Feel free to get yourself a drink at
the well.”
Clark
pulled his glove back on and headed toward the pump near the shed. Sunlight
beat against his neck, the skin bared by his ponytail, as he worked the brass
handle. Water flowed out in clear spurts into a bucket on the grass. He used
the hanging ladle to scoop out the liquid, frigid from the earth, and sighed. Nothing
beat fresh water from a pump, not canteens or streams. Streams were good, but
the water had a grittiness to it that stuck in his teeth.
When his
stomach felt thick with water, he sidled back toward his steamcycle, wiping the
back of his mouth on the sleeve of his leather jacket. The Bromi woman stared
at him while she plucked at the stained apron tied over her calico dress.
Clark
lifted his hand in a wave. If he spoke to her in her tongue and the manager
returned, he might not be so willing to get him the job.
“I know
who you are,” she said.
Talking
in her tongue might not be so devastating then. Some ranches treated their
Bromi with humanity. “I’m looking for work—”
“Those
who die live again for you.”
She
meant it in that way then. Ice crept over Clark’s skin and he folded his arms
to appear nonchalant as he glanced at the ranch house. A dog barked in the
distant fields. “That’s something that’s not talked about.”
“A new
Bromi is here. He knew you from the desert. He spoke of you to us. You saved his
father from the dark sleep.”
Clark
kept his facial muscles slack to avoid looking suspicious. “Glad I could help
him, but there are people who don’t like that part of me.”
She
nodded so hard her bonnet slipped down her broad forehead. “We never harm our
own and you are one of us now. Be careful with Mr. Parker’s brother.”
“How’s
that?” Clark leaned his back against the fence beside her, drooping his arms
over the top and hooking one of his boot heels into the wood. If anyone looked
over, the individual might not realize they carried on a conversation.
“Manager
Parker has a brother who’s crazy. Doctor is crazy.” The woman wiggled her
fingers in a jagged pattern in front of her face, the Bromi sign for mentally
unsafe.
“What’s
he do?” The doctors could be cruel to Bromis; not many would treat the natives.
“You
smell it on him,” she hissed.
The
Bromi relied on spirits and herbs; the woman might be uncomfortable around
modern medicine. “Thank you for the warning.”
“Not
even you, who befriends the dead, can protect against crazy.”
The
brick house’s side door slammed and the manager swaggered across the lawn with
a paper in his hand. “You can read, can’t you, kid? You seem like a bright
one.”
“Yes,
sir.”
“If you
know your sums, point that out too.” Mr. Parker slapped the note into Clark’s
palm and at last shook his hand.
#
Clark
parked his steamcycle along the dirt road through town. The doctor’s house, a
three-story white clapboard with a veranda and four chimneys, had to be the
nicest place for miles, at least the nicest place he’d seen all day. Trimmed
bushes lined the porch and walkway, and a wrought-iron gate blocked off the
property. The doctors Clark had known in the past kept shacks; they didn’t have
time to build up a fancy life.
He slung
his leg off the ride and hung his helmet off the handlebars. A buggy rattled by
in the road and two little boys stood across the street outside the general
store. When he looked at them, they darted behind a rain barrel. He’d been like
that once, Clark and Mabel, pretending the world was out to get them and hiding
in near plain sight would save them.
The
world was after them and hiding didn’t help a lost soul.
Clark
tested the gate and it swung open – halleluiah for that, he wouldn’t have to try
to call for attention from the road – so he shut it behind him and headed to
the front door. A brass plaque read: Doctor of Ailments, Lionel Parker. Clark
whistled; what other kind of doctor existed?
He
lifted the brass knocker shaped like a lion’s head – how fitting with the name
Lionel – and let it smack the mahogany door. Clark stepped back and wiped his
hands on his denim pants.
No
gloves. He pulled them off and stuck them into his jacket pockets. His hair
would have to do with a quick brushing of his fingers through the
shoulder-length yellow strands.
The
little boys laughed from the rain barrel. A cowboy on a horse clopped past.
Clark
knocked again. Brass glass, the doctor might not be home. How long would he
stay around before he headed out to find the next ranch? Ranches were safe. Drifters
wandered through on a regular basis, but workers in stores tended to stick
around. People asked questions about folk they saw every day. Hired ranch hands
stuck to themselves in the fields or barns. For sure, Mr. Parker wouldn’t have
sent him if he’d known the doctor was out, but living miles apart,
communication might be sparse between them.
The door
opened to an elderly Bromi woman in a black dress. “You need Doc Parker, suh?”
“Um,
yes. Thanks.” Clark cleared his throat. “His brother sent me.”
Her dark
eyes widened before she nodded. “Come, please. I get him for you.”
Clark
stepped into a hallway of red walls and polished wood. No pictures or mirrors
offered decoration. She opened a left-hand door and slid aside for him to
enter. He wondered how she could move so soundlessly until he looked down,
noticing her bare feet beneath her skirt.
Potpourri scented the room to a degree that
made his throat clench. Like the hallway, naught adorned the room, apart from
the smelly balls hanging from brass hooks in the ceiling. Two velveteen sofas
faced each other.
He
wasn’t a patient or someone sent to fetch the doctor. Clark had no spare money
for medicine, if he’d needed any. He hovered near the window, with its crimson
curtains, to avoid touching anything he could dirty with filth from the road.
What did
the potpourri serve to hide?
The door
opened to a tall, thin man in a black suit…and a ghost with a missing leg. Clark
bit back a groan. He should have known a doctor’s office would be riddled with
the kind of dead who didn’t want to pass on.
“My
brother sent you?” A smooth accent toyed with his words.
Clark
held out his hand, but the doctor made no move to shake it. Not a shaking
family, the two men. Clark dropped his arm down to his side. “I was looking for
work out at the ranch and Manager Parker sent me here. He said you might have
something for me to do. I know my words and sums.” He removed the letter from
his jacket and held it out; the doctor did accept that. “I don’t plan on
staying long, a month at the most.”
The
doctor flared his nostrils in his long nose as he read the note. “My brother
enjoys the richness of life and the joys of people. I, unfortunately, do not
share his feelings. I have seen too many men harm their brethren.”
Clark
licked his lips. Doctors had to want to help people. Why else would they invest
in learning cures? “Sorry to waste your time, sir. I’ll get off.” On to the
next town then. He might find a farm that would give him food for a few hours
of work.
Doctor
Parker breathed through his lips. “Have you ever helped a physician? Do you
know how to measure vials and sterilize instruments?”
Hope
lodged in Clark’s throat. “I can sterilize, sure, and if you show me with the
vials, I can do that too.”
“Those
vials,” the ghost hooted from the doorway. “They’re tainted. Don’t get near
those vials.”
Clark
caught himself before he could frown. Ghosts tended to struggle with truths.
“I’ll
keep you for a day or two,” said Doctor Parker. “I can pay you two cents an
hour for odd jobs. If you work out, we can extend that period. I do
amputations, son. I need strong hands to hold down the patient.”
It would
be lost limbs then. Clark forced himself to nod. “Is there a place I can hunker
down? I normally stick to ranches, and they offer food and a roof.”
The
doctor snorted, crumpling the paper into his pocket. “I can’t offer you any
rooms in here. I keep them for patients to stay in. You know what a hospital
is, son?”
“He
thinks this place is a hospital,” the ghost hollered.
“I’ve
heard of army hospitals.” Clark nodded. Those places he avoided. Besides, he
wasn’t salaried by the government. Only soldiers could go there.
“The
east has one in each main city. I want to bring the safety of the east out
here. That’s where I’m from.”
The
ghost drew a line across his throat. “He came out here to torture us
stragglers.”
Whatever
operation the doctor had done must have failed. Clark had seen it before, men
who lost limbs in hopes of saving their lives, but passing on anyway. It had
happened to a Tarnished Silver who had worked with his mother. She’d cut her
hand on a razor, the wound had festered, and even though the doctor had removed
it, she’d grown sicker and left the world in a week.
“I can
stay in a barn.” If Clark had to find lodging elsewhere, it would eat up his
money like a brushfire.
Doctor
Parker touched his goatee, drawing the graying hairs into a tighter point. “My
Bromi girl can get you some bedding. Stay in the stable if you want. I have
scraps in the kitchen; eat that if you like, but if not, you’re buying your
own.”
“Thank
you.” He’d lived on worse than scraps.
“If it
comes to you being my assistant, you’ll have to wear black. Hides the blood. I
see you’re mostly in that now. If we get anyone staying here, I have a no shoes
policy. Keeps things quiet for them.”
“Yes,
sir.”
“Come on
with me to the back room where I mix my medicines. I’ll get you to that and
we’ll see how it goes.”
#
The
ghost of a woman with no arms joined the one-legged ghost in the backroom. Clark
bent over a table using eyedroppers and glass beakers to fill vials. Doctor
Parker had scribbled the recipe on the back of his brother’s note, wrinkles and
all.
“Bad man,”
the female shrieked. “Look at what he did to me arms!”
Clark
glanced toward the door. Doctor Parker had shut it, saying, “If a patient
comes, you’re to stay out of sight.”
“Sometimes operations are necessary,” Clark
said. The green and blue liquids created a murky purple shade.
“Not
this one! Me husband called me an adulteress and off went me arms.”
Clark
looked up. “That can’t be the reason.”
“Doc
Parker’s known for taking the man’s side. Ask him.” She glared at the other
ghost.
The male
scowled. “Sure, you got a problem and you pay enough, Doc Parker will help.”
Clark
clenched his hand around the glass vial. That couldn’t be true. Anyone in the
west knew some doctors wanted money for medicine, then didn’t deliver more than
dyed water or sugar cubes, but he’d never heard tell of one amputating limbs
for perversion.
“Doc’s crazy,” the female ghost continued. “He
has his own daughter locked up. Real bright girl. Sad state.”
Clark pictured a shed with a girl pounding
against a padlocked door, and his skin crawled. “What do you mean?”
“The room upstairs, end of the hall,” she
exclaimed. “He won’t let her out. He’ll probably experiment on her next. See if
she grows back a tongue.”
#
Clark crouched outside the room
indicated by the one-legged ghost. He held his breath as he worked his tools
into the lock. If anyone came, the ghosts had better warn him. If it weren’t
for their nagging, he wouldn’t have bothered skulking around the house. A girl
locked in a shed was one thing; a girl locked in a room was another. She might
have a disease. Clark chuckled under his breath; his abilities had better keep
him from catching it.
The lock clicked and he slid the
toolkit back into his jacket pocket. Easing the door open enough to peer
through, he studied a white wall and plain table with a single chair. Not
really girl friendly, from what he’d seen. Sure, he knew more about men on the
run, but the soiled doves who’d worked with his mother had treasured
knick-knacks. His mother would have had a table cloth, a candlestick, maybe a
cushion on that chair. He’d drawn a picture for her once with a hunk of
charcoal and a meat paper. She’d stuck it to her wall on an old nail and never
taken it down, even though neither of them could remember after a few years
what the blob was meant to be.
Clark pushed the door open a bit
more, and froze. Against the opposite wall, a young girl sat on a cot beside a
window, paper taped over the glass as if to obscure the image. Lank brown hair
hung down her back, oily and matted, and she wore a shapeless gray shift.
He glanced back into the hallway
before he darted inside and shut the door, in case the Bromi slave or doctor
wandered by. “Um, hullo.” He cleared his throat and shifted his stance. “Are
you… the doctor’s daughter?”
She nodded. “I’m Brenda. Father
didn’t send you, did he?” Dark circles lined her eyes a shade grayer than her
linen shift.
“A fella your pa worked on told me
to find you here.” She didn’t need to know the fella was dead, or that he’d
only discovered her after haunting the halls. “I can help you leave. We can go
now.” So much for having a good job for a day or two.
“No, I can’t.” An Eastern accent
tinged her voice. “I’m sorry, but I can’t, sir.”
The “sir” title didn’t really fit
with him, made his skin crawl.
“Are you sick?” He fought to keep
from wrinkling his nose.
“I’m not sick. Father said if I
tried to leave, he’d never let me find my sister. As long as he’s got me, he’ll
keep her safe.”
Clark almost growled. Doctor Parker
was the monster the ghosts had hinted at. “We’ll go find your sister then. I
can’t leave you locked in here.”
She stood and wobbled; the arms and
legs poking from her clothes showed skin and bones, as malnourished as some of
the thieves he’d run across in the desert. “If he finds me gone, he’ll hurt
her. I know he will.” Her lower lip trembled. She couldn’t be more than
fourteen-years-old at the most.
“Brass glass,” Clark swore. Brenda
had a point in that. “I’ll find out where your sister is. We’ll get both of you
away.”
“He’ll lock you up, too,” she said.
“The man’s crazy. I’m safer in here. It’s better to be safe.”
#
Clark spread the new leather cover
over the medical text and glanced at Doctor Parker from the corners of his
eyes. The doctor scribbled into a notebook, a gaslamp illuminating his work.
Clark set the tome back on the
bookshelf. “Have you been in the west long, sir?”
The doctor hesitated, his stylus
hovering above the paper. “Long enough. I am needed here. People need
medicine.”
People who wanted their enemies to suffer.
“Thanks for doing the good deeds.” The words swelled in Clark’s throat as if to
choke him.
Doctor Parker nodded as he returned
to his notebook.
Clark pulled down another tome to
cover it in the new binding. “Before I got here, I heard you had a daughter. I
haven’t seen her around. A little girl,” he added, in case the doctor thought
he liked to sniff around pretty skirts.
Doctor Parker set down his stylus,
the movements slow and deliberate, his gaze on the office’s only window. “I
have no children.” Liar. “That’s enough work for today. It’s getting late and
I’ve already sent the slave off for the night.” He turned in his chair to face
Clark. “Don’t ask questions here, boy, or this arrangement won’t work out.”
#
Something shook Clark awake; he clamped his
hands down on the offender and he shoved. Maybe he should have opted for the
shed, but he’d taken the doctor up on his offer of a pallet in the kitchen. A
female gasped; a single candle sent a yellow glow around her shape.
“Brenda?” Clark reached for the pistol he’d
left on his belt. When he’d first started sleeping with it out in the desert,
it had jammed into his side each time he’d moved, but he’d grown used to
slumber in one position.
“I did it, sir. I snuck out. The lock on my
door’s faulty and Father never fixed it. Did you know she’s here? My sister’s
here.” Brenda’s eyes seemed to glow in the dark of the kitchen. “He’s got her
locked in too and he told her the same thing, about behaving so nothing happens
to me.” Her voice rose with each word and Clark cringed.
“Hush!” If she didn’t keep quiet—
The door to the kitchen smacked into the wall
and Doctor Parker stormed inside, his robe flapping around his legs.
Brenda screamed and yanked at Clark’s hands as
though to pull him up, but her father caught her around the waist and shoved
her back against him, slapping a cloth over her mouth. She screamed against the
rag, slashing at him with her fingernails and kicking with her bare heels.
The doctor muttered as he dragged her into the
hallway, her shrieks growing quieter.
Clark gripped the pallet of old linens, his
heart pounding. He’d seen something he shouldn’t have. Doctor Parker would have
to explain it away and send Clark off before he witnessed more.
“You.” Brenda
Parker appeared beside the stove with hollow, black eyes, and marks around her
mouth and neck.
“You’re
dead.” Clark stood, kicking off a blanket, before Doctor Parker could return.
She
touched her lips. “Chloroform can do that, you know.” Brenda lowered her hand
to her belly. “Go get my sister. My father’s crazy. Don’t let him hurt Maura,
please.”
Clark’s
muscles tightened; Doctor Parker knew what he was about. Brenda wouldn’t have
been an accident. The doctor would return to deal with Clark.
“That’s
how you found out about me. Ghosts told you.” She floated higher before sinking
back to the kitchen floor. “Send Maura east. Our grandparents are there and
Mother.”
How calm
she acted for a ghost. Usually the newly dead screamed at him until they
realized he worked better when he understood. “I’ll get Maura.” She’d been
alive in front of him, but he hadn’t managed to save her. “You can be with your
Mother now.”
Brenda
recoiled. “Mother’s not dead. Father made her work as his assistant and she
threatened to tell on him for what he did to his patients. He put her up in
Wade Asylum and whisked the two of us out here.”
“Does
your uncle over at the ranch know about all this?”
“They’re
grave diggers together. My uncle used to send parts to my father when we lived
in the east.”
Bile
rose in Clark’s throat. Sure, that earned a few dollars and he’d seen people
decimating graves for an eyeball or brain, but he had enough of the dead on a
daily basis without dealing with them in the dirt at night.
The
kitchen door swung again – that thing was going to tear off its hinges if the
doctor wasn’t careful. Lionel Parker barreled through with his hands clenched
into fists. “Get out. You’re not needed.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket, the
item thrown on over a thin nightshirt, and threw coins at Clark’s feet.
Clark pulled the pistol from his holster and
aimed it at Lionel’s chest. “You killed your daughter.”
The doctor swore as he patted his body, as if
searching for a weapon. “I would never do that. Get out of here, you and your
lies!”
Clark pulled the trigger and a hole blossomed
with blood in the center of his chest. The doctor gulped as she stumbled
backwards into the wall and slumped.
“You killed him,” Brenda said.
“Yup.” Maybe his ghost would appear for the
other spirits to tear into him.
Clark glanced at the door leading to the
backyard, but no shouts came from outside. Someone would find the doctor and
Clark didn’t want to be arrested for murder, no matter how warranted. If the
men in town liked the doctor to take care of their troubles, including upset
wives, then they wouldn’t care about a deceased daughter.
Clark fastened his pistol into his holster.
“We’ll free the Bromi so she can get a head start, and then we’ll nab your
sister.”
#
“This
one.” Brenda slapped her hand against the door, but it slid through and she
grimaced. “Did you see my body down there on the parlor table? What do you
suppose he wanted to do with me?”
Clark
shrugged; his tongue seemed to have thickened past speech. He worked his
picking kit into the lock and waited until it clicked to turn the knob.
“She
should be in here,” Brenda said. “I called to her through the door and she
answered. She was crying. That’s when I got you.”
That
would also be when Lionel Parker overheard Brenda’s escape.
Clark
stood, his gas lamp in hand, and entered the bedroom that reeked of mothballs. A
little girl huddled on a cot similar to Brenda’s.
“That’s
her!” Brenda soared over to the child, whose black hair hung loose.
“Maura?”
Clark lifted the lamp higher so she could see him. “We need to leave, Maura.”
The
little girl rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. “Where’s Brenda?”
“I’m
right here, sweetie!”
Clark
licked his dry lips. The child had lived through imprisonment; she couldn’t be
reduced to lies. “Brenda’s gone. Your father got her.” If she were Mabel, he
would have hugged her and she would have wept, made up some statements about
feeling strong. Maura was a stranger, though.
She
pressed a pillow against her face and her shoulders trembled.
“Brenda
gave me directions to your grandparents in the east,” Clark said. “I’ll send
you to them. They’ll take care of you.”
“Mama?” She
lifted her face, tears on her cheeks.
“Right. She’ll
be there too.”
“But not
Brenda.”
“Not
Brenda.” The poor chit had to be only seven or eight.
“I’ll be
with her the whole way,” Brenda interjected.
“She’ll
be with you in spirit.” Clark eased the pillow away from her. “Do you have
anything to take with you?”
Maura
shook her head, lips parted. Like Brenda, she wore a sack dress, minus the
corset.
“We’ll
find your father’s money,” Clark said. “Then we can get you a train ticket and
something warm to wear. Some food. I’ll wire ahead if we can find the address
for your grandparents.”
“I
remember the address.” Brenda floated in front of him. “I want you to take some
of the money by way of thanks.
It would be the first time a ghost paid him for
help. Usually they screamed and vanished. Brass glass, maybe it would be the
last time he had to help a ghost. Clark laughed. Nah, his curse wouldn’t let
him go that easily.
###
What’s a festival without games and prizes? You can win this awesome spyglass necklace
and be able to see across the desert, in case a rival gang is hot on your
trail.
Check out my website for contests related to my books, and
you can read the first three chapters of TREASURE DARKLY: http://www.jordanelizabethmierek.com/
Craving more steampunk?
The clockwork adventures continue with GEARS OF BRASS, a steampunk
anthology featuring TREASURE DARKLY’s own Amethyst Treasure.
The Summer Steampunk Festival might end soon, but you can
return to Hedlund in September for the release of BORN OF TREASURE, the sequel
to TREASURE DARKLY. Twice the romance,
thrice the ghosts, and a heap of clockwork inventions.
As a special addition to the summer steampunk festival,
TREASURE DARKLY is on sale for 99 cents this week only!
Check out
Amazon
for the deal.
