At first I felt nothing, and I thought, He missed. He missed.
But then my tunic grew wet and I felt for the wound and the blood soaking into the fabric.
The pain came last, but it was searing.
James screamed, trying to press his faint, flickering hands against my wound.
I stared at the ceiling and watched my death approach. I had seen death often enough that I wasn’t frightened. I would be glad to leave these hills with their fallen timber and their gold and their ghosts, the manure stink and the slopping mud, the gambling and the piano music and the broken women who watched from upstairs windows.
A howl drew my attention.
James was shaking, violently. His fury had turned him into a storm, thrashing at the papers and files on the floor, twisting them like a tornado. He somehow managed to throw an inkwell across the room. It shattered — black ink dripping like blood down the wallpaper.
Rinehart, wide-eyed, was backed into the corner and waving the gun at nothing. James went for him but was only strong enough to pull at the watch chain that dangled from a pocket. At James’s touch, Rinehart squealed like a child and stumbled toward the door.
An icy wind burst in from the corridor, pushing him back. Rinehart crossed his arms over his face.
Blackness crowded my vision.
But I still saw them, the ghosts.
Some who had told me their sad stories in the months since I’d come to Deadwood. A few I had sneaked apples to when I could. Others I’d only seen drifting aimlessly through the streets.
There were mustached men with arrows like sewing pins in their bodies. Men who had died from bullet wounds and hangings. Women who had succumbed to laudanum or fever. Millie Ann was there too. She was vicious and beautiful, her hair streaming behind her as the battered spirits pushed Rinehart back. Back. His eyes spun around the room, not seeing, not understanding. Unable to get away from the vengeful spirits.
They threw him from the window.
I would remember only his scream, and then the cool, ghostly palm of James Hill settling against my cheek.
I had no use for wandering, no interest in vengeance or haunting. And still I came back.
James Hill sat cross-legged beside me when I opened my eyes. His smile was a rush of relief, his hands cupping both of mine as he bent over and pressed his lips against my thumb.
“I wasn’t sure if you would stay,” he said, lifting me from my body. “But I’m glad you did.”
My body was taken to Ingleside Cemetery, just above Whitewood Creek, a mere stone’s throw from the freshly dug graves where James and his father rested. My burial passed in silence. I had no children to say prayers for me or leave me gifts of rice and peaches, and yet I watched my burial with the calm certainty that my fate was not to become a hungry ghost. In spite of the violence of my death, I felt content. Having known the spirit world all my life, being a part of it now was almost like a homecoming. I imagined my body turning to dirt. I pictured the grass and wildflowers that would someday grow here, and how there would be gold at their roots.
A shovel crunched into the loose soil. Rocks and dirt scuttled across my coffin. My uncle, who had wept only in private, turned away.
I was surprised to see non-Chinese among those gathered. The scandal associated with my murder, followed by what was believed to be Rinehart’s guilt-induced suicide, was all anyone was talking about. With the impostor arrows as evidence, Rinehart’s actions had fast become suspect, and a hastily constructed jury had soon nullified all of his recently purchased deeds. James was confident his father’s secret would be revealed soon enough.
“What shall we do now?” said James.
“I don’t know.” I traced the open wound on my stomach where the bullet had entered. There was no pain now, only a reminder. “I never expected to die in these hills.”
James ran his thumbs along the inside of his suspenders, surprisingly jovial for one so recently dead. “And ghosts must haunt the place where they died?”
I hesitated. A part of my spirit would watch over my body for a while, then depart for the underworld. It already knew the way. But the rest of me, the restless me . . .
“I need to find my mother,” I whispered, meeting his gaze and suddenly sure, so sure, that this was why I had stayed. To find her. To honor her. To say good-bye — or not.
“And where is she?”
“California.”
“Ah. I see.” His gold-red lashes dipped in thought. “If I’m not mistaken, there’ll be a stagecoach heading west in the morning.”