Black Sun, The Battle of Summit Springs, 1869 Read Free Page B

wear.
    For some time he had looked forward to this moment with the tall-necked bottle. Promising himself all the way down that long trail from Osceola that he would sit here and drink the night through if he had to—until he decided where next to go and what next to do. Feeling adrift and lost, having no clue worth a tinker’s damn where he could find his second uncle, Liam’s brother, Ian O’Roarke—was Seamus cursed now to wander aimlessly, searching the California Territory where Liam had hinted Ian would be found?
    Yet that was the only thing left for him now that Jenny Wheatley had moved on after a year of waiting for a restless man.
    â€œMaybe ’tis better, after all,” he murmured, bringing the chipped glass to his lips beneath the shaggy mustache once more. “Better a woman like that has her a man who can work the land and stay in one place. I could never give her kind of woman something like that.”
    Over and over in his mind on that long ride south a scrap of Irish poetry had hung in his thoughts like a piece of dirty linen. John Boyle O’Reilley’s words reminded him most of her.
    The red rose whispers of passion,
    And the white rose breathes of love;
    Oh, the red rose is a falcon,
    And the white rose is a dove.
    But I send you a cream-white rosebud
    With a flush on its petal tips;
    For the love that is purest and sweetest
    Has a kiss of desire on the lips.
    Too much of an unquenched burning inside him yet. Unanswered yearnings. Better for everybody now that Jenny moved on without him. Seems she needed something more than he could give, and he sure as hell needed more right now than any one woman could find herself giving him in return.
    Slowly the whiskey reddened his gray eyes, appearing to soften the harsh edges on things, especially the noise of this dimly lit Hays City watering hole. Soldiers and wagon-bosses, teamsters and speculators, all shouldered against one another at the rough bar beneath a growing cloud of blue smoke. The smoky oil lamps cast dancing shadows on the murky canvas walls and muddy plank floor each time the door swung open to admit some newcomer along with a cold gust of October wind.
    He would need something to eat eventually … hell, it could wait until morning now.
    Perhaps if he wasn’t careful, he’d end up spending the night right here at this table near the corner where the stench of old vomit and dried urine could make a strong man lose his appetite for anything but whiskey. Perhaps if he punished the bottle until he passed out right here, Seamus would not need to fill the gnawing hole inside his soul with one of the pudgy chippies who worked the half-dozen cribs in the back of this place. Lilac-watered women all, come to ply their trade in the fleshpots that followed the army and the railroad west.
    â€œLookit this, will you? I wouldn’t’ve gambled a warm piss that I’d find Liam O’Roarke’s favorite nephew hugging up to a bottle of saddle varnish here in Hays City ever again!”
    Through the late afternoon light sneaking through the few smudged, smoky windowpanes, Seamus immediately recognized the war-lined face of Sharp Grover. Major Forsyth’s former chief of scouts strode across the crowded room, heading directly for Donegan’s table. Abner Grover—comrade in arms from the private hell that had been Beecher Island.
    â€œIf it ain’t Mother Grover’s ugliest son!” Seamus cheered, momentarily eyeing the younger man who came up close on Sharp’s heels. “Sit, gentlemen!”
    â€œYou’re in a better humor than when I found you here in the Shady Rest end of last winter,” Grover said, dragging a wobbly chair close.
    â€œAnd you a goddamned scout, Abner. You’re supposed to know where to find me.” Seamus held up his cup of amber whiskey to them both, then tossed it back.
    â€œYou’re drinking alone again?”
    â€œTill the two of