Devlin's Curse Read Online Free PDF Page A

mister!” The man with the red face sneered.
    “I am making it my business,” Devlin countered.
    “He’s jus a filthy injun, a murderin’ Paiute.”
    Devlin lifted his pistol. In a flash he fired at the miner’s feet.
    “Sheet-it!” They shouted jumping away.
    “Run, you rabid dogs. The next one will put a period to your miserable existence.” The miners scuttled backwards and disappeared.
    Devlin knelt down and held out his hand.
    “Walking Ghost? You’re a sorry mess, my friend.” 
    Walking Ghost blinked. “I saw you die.”
    Devlin smiled. “I live again.”
    “But how?”
    Devlin laughed. “That is quite a tale. One that would be best told over breakfast. Come; let’s get you out of here”
     
    It was midnight and Esmeralda, a dark cloak covering her head and Jamie with his cap pulled low, walked north down the boardwalk. The gas streetlamps illuminated their journey past the open doors of the saloons and the stares of drunken patrons who lounged in the doorways. At the corner of Union and C Street they turned right down the hill towards Chinatown. The night was clear. A large lemon yellow moon hung over a town that came alive at night and rang with the frantic sounds of excess. Sounds, like the whine of the hurdy gurdies, the player pianos and the raucous revelers that by day conveyed an aura of fun, bonhomie and mischief. By night those same sounds changed into bacchanalian babble, full of anger and desperation.
    They walked past places where at any given night fortunes were won and lost at the faro and card tables. By 1877 one hundred and fifty saloons had sprouted like poisonous mushrooms from C Street and beyond. The evil twin of its predecessor, the Barbary Coast of San Francisco, Virginia City’s own Barbary Coast district surpassed it in pure unadulterated wickedness fueled by rotgut whiskey, gold dust and opium. Located on the southernmost stretch of C Street it was lined with red light districts and bawdy houses, a place where fancy women could be seen by daylight so inebriated they literally crawled through the alleyways between C and D Street.
    Esmeralda and Jamie continued down the boardwalk. Beyond this on the streets of G and H lay their destination - the Chinese shops and shanties of Chinatown. They picked their way down the crooked streets. Streets, which became narrower and darker, as they neared the Herbalist Shop of Grandfather Woo. A vast beehive of rough-hewn shacks and shanties spread out lit by colorful lanterns and kerosene lamps. Esmeralda picked up the scent of smoke from wood fires, and the aroma of tempting exotic foods hung in the air. Through open doorways and tents she could see busy Chinese faces still bent to their tasks or at rest lounging about smoking pipes. She felt hesitation from Jamie but ignored it and pressed on until they came upon a bare wood shanty painted in red Chinese characters and hung with paper lanterns .
    A bell tinkled as Esmeralda opened the door.  Inside the Herbalist Shop were shelves full of jars and bundles of dried herbs, sweet incense floated in the air. At the very end of the tiny shop a counter, made up of a plank of wood over two barrels, stood.
    A dim light glowed behind a beaded curtain.
    Through this curtain came an ancient Chinese man with a long, gray beard and ponytail. He squinted at them while smoking a clay pipe.  “What you do here, Missy?” he said.
    Esmeralda stepped forward. “I am looking for the herbalist Grandfather Woo.” 
    “I am he. What you want? This place no good for white woman.”
    Esmeralda reached into her reticule and pulled out the purple flask and handed it to him. “This tincture, I must have more of it.” Grandfather Woo removed the stopper and sniffed the contents. His dark gaze pierced hers. “You sick, you go away. Grandfather Woo cannot help you.”
    Esmeralda took out a roll of thick bills and put them on the counter. There were only a few drops left in the flask a few drops of the tincture