The Night of the Mardi Gras

Chapter 1

Eleven Days and Counting

Artemus Gordon got down from his horse, sore in body and mind after the long, lonely ride to Beaumont. He had kept his mind focused on his mission for the past few days, but now weariness was overtaking him and he was finding it hard not to fall apart with the grief that was a permanent companion, waiting for an opportunity to ambush him when he was too tired to fight it. It had dogged his footsteps as he travelled across the country, from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, then Lafayette, and now Beaumont. He had travelled some of the way on the Wanderer and some on horseback. If only he could make sense of recent happenings, that's if there was any sense to it, which he was beginning to doubt. All he could do was continue his mission; to find out who had killed James West.

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Artie endured a disturbed night's sleep in the hotel. He had got used to waking up several times, unable to totally relax. There was no point in staying in bed so Artie got up and, after a cup of strong, black coffee, saddled up his horse and took a ride out to the local doctor's house. It was over a year since he had met Lieutenant Lance Kirby, when he and Jim had attended his marriage to Rebekah 'Sweetie' Sweetman. Six months ago, Kirby had left the army and started up in general practice on the outskirts of Beaumont. Artie was in need of a familiar face and some conversation. The men he was following were already a couple of days ahead of him and he felt that a short break would do no harm and would be of benefit to him. It wasn't as if there was any real urgency to his mission; nothing could bring Jim West back to life. It would also be good to catch up with Sweetie again and find out what catastrophes had befallen her since they had last met.

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When he arrived at the small neat house where the Kirbys lived, Artie could hear shouting coming from the back garden. He sped round there to find Sweetie fighting over a pair of pantaloons with a dog. For the first time, in a while, Artie found himself smiling.

Sweetie spotted him out of the corner of her eye. "Don't just stand there!" she yelled. "Do something to help me!"

Artie picked up the dog, which was quite a small one, doing so from behind, so as to avoid being bitten, and shook it until it dropped the leg of the undergarment.

"Thank you," Sweetie said, gathering the lace-trimmed article under her arm, out of reach of the dog, before she looked up to see who it was.

"Artie! What are you doing here? Come into the house," she added, taking him by the hand and dragging him through the back door.

Once inside, she shut the door and placed the pantaloons with some other clothes that were in a basket, standing on the kitchen table.

"Little beast," she said. "Came straight into the house and stole the thing from right under my nose. What would a dog want with my undergarments anyway?" she demanded.

Artie could think of no reasonable answer to that. "It's good to see you, Sweetie," he said.

Sweetie looked at him properly for the first time and noticed the change in him. He looked so tired and the light had gone out of his eyes. The fact that he was trying to dredge up a smile for her made her heart turn over with compassion.

"Artie, how are you? I'm sorry, that's a stupid question. You poor thing," she said hugging him, trying to give him some comfort. "You must be feeling awful, I know I do, and I didn't know Jim anywhere near as well as you did Is there anything I can do; tell me if there's something, anything?"

For some reason, Artie found Sweetie's flow of words, and the feeling of her arms around him, comforting. You could always rely on her to say exactly what she was thinking and the only other person who had not pussy-footed around his feelings was President Grant. But he was a long way away and no doubt mourning, in his own way, the death of a man who had been like a son to him.

"Thank you, Sweetie. It's good to see you again, even under the circumstances."

"How long is it now?" she asked.

"Eleven days," Artie said, his voice almost ready to break. He just couldn't pull himself together, no matter how hard he tried. He managed to dredge up a small smile for the woman in front of him, though. "How is Lance?" he asked.

"He's fine; he's out visiting a patient, you don't need to be worrying about him," she dismissed. "It's you we need to concentrate on. Come and sit down and tell me about it, if you can bear to, of course."

Artie shied away from her request for a second, the memory was still raw, but he looked into Sweetie's eyes and knew that he wanted to tell someone, and he felt able to tell her. He sat down in one of the armchairs in front of the range and steadied his emotions.

"It all happened so quickly," he began.

"We heard you were on a mission in Louisiana."

"Yes, we had just dealt with a plot to kill the governor. Jim had been injured slightly and we decided to head to New Orleans for some convalescence."

Sweetie could guess what form that 'convalescence' would have taken – wine, women and more wine, and then more women, was her guess. "What happened next?" she asked.

"We arrived on the Wanderer, in time for Mardi Gras, as planned. Jim and I had a great time," he said and it was obvious from his eyes that he was seeing Jim as he was then. "Jim was wearing a matador costume, the traje de luces, or suit of lights, with the distinctive montera on his head. It really suited him and he cut a real fine figure."

"I wish I'd seen it," Sweetie said. "What were you wearing?"

"I was dressed as a pirate," Artie said, coming back to the present. "I had the eye-patch, the earring and the tricorn hat, everything except the parrot, in fact." He smiled at that. "Anyway, Jim was just a magnet for the ladies, as usual, and one in particular caught his eye. Her name was Carla and she had long, ebony hair. She approached Jim and took him by the hand and he gave me a look that said, 'what else can I do?' and allowed her to lead him away."

"Just like that?"

"That is – I mean that was just like Jim. It was the last time I saw him, except at a distance. I went out onto the balcony of the building I was in and saw Jim and the girl board a pleasure boat. It had only gone a few hundred yards down the river when there was a massive explosion." Artie had to stop there. The memory of that night was overwhelming still. He swallowed hard.

Sweetie put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Oh Artie, it must have been terrible. I can't imagine what I would have done if that had been Lance on that boat. You don't have to go on if it's too painful."

Artie place his hand over hers. "I'm alright," he said. "There wasn't much to see in the darkness, but the next morning when they searched the river they found only unrecognisable fragments of bodies. The explosion had blown the passengers to pieces. I was there the whole time, hoping for a miracle, but when they handed me his black montera I knew that Jim was gone."

"What have you been doing since then?" Sweetie asked.

"I returned to Washington and made my report of his death. President Grant was pretty cut up, when he heard, and a memorial service was held. They had to bury an empty coffin."

"That's terrible."

"Yeah, it hurt a lot. Anyway, I was allowed free reign to return to New Orleans to investigate the explosion and find out who was responsible."

"So it wasn't an accident, then?"

"They found traces of a large bomb having been placed in the hold, enough to obliterate the boat and everyone on board."

"Do you think the woman was involved?"

"I don't think so; she was a victim as well. I don't even know who the real target was. There were only a handful of people on board. I went through a list of their names but none stuck out. I stayed in New Orleans, listening to rumours and infiltrating the criminal fraternity. I had to go around in disguise for several days."

"Not as a pirate, I hope."

Artie smiled. "No, it was something a little more subtle than that. Anyway, I picked up clues that led me to one town after another until I reached Beaumont, so I decided to come and see you and Lance."

"I'm so glad you did. You need to be with friends at a time like this. Goodness me, where are my manners?" Sweetie said. "What must you think of me? You stay there and I'll fetch you a cup of coffee."

Artie did as he was told. The kitchen was warm and welcoming and the chair was very comfortable. He soon had a cup of coffee in his hand and he took a sip. Sweetie sat in the chair opposite his.

"So where are you going from here?" she asked.

"I've had sightings of the men I'm after in several towns between here and New Orleans. In Lafayette they were overhead talking about heading to Laredo. I'm going to catch up with the Wanderer in Austin, a few days from now. Until then I'll be camping out."

"In that case you really must stay for lunch. It will probably be the last decent meal you eat for a while. You can't go without seeing Lance anyway."

"That's very kind of you," Artie said. "I'd like that."

"You won't mind if I carry on with the cooking, will you?" Sweetie said. "You just relax."

Artie strangely felt able to do that for the first time in ages and within minutes his head lolled to one side and he was fast asleep. Sweetie gently placed a cushion under his head and left him there, taking his almost full coffee mug with her.

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