Leaden Skies Read Online Free PDF Page A

other, with Elliston leading the pack. The parade marshal headed them off, accompanied by the private guard. An apparent order to quit the premises ignored, the bodyguard collared Elliston and threw the newsman from the stand. Elliston disappeared, arms milling, into the crowd awash with the red light of the colored fires.
    A commotion in the other direction, barely overriding the sounds from Harrison, caught Inez’s attention. She turned her back on the proceedings to look west, toward Colorado’s highest peaks, now invisible behind the night, the low-lying clouds, and, closer in, a strange glowing light.
    Inez crossed the rooftop, curiosity shadowed by a growing foreboding. At the far end of the roof, she could no longer fool herself about the origin of the flickering glow and the attendant smell.
    She stared down at the evolving chaos in Leadville’s red-light district, figures like small, black cutouts dashing hither and thither in the unnatural light. It felt as if a hand closed over her throat.
    “Mrs. Stannert.” Abe had followed and now stood beside her. “Is that—?”
    His voice unfroze her mind and her stance. She turned to Abe, hardly able to see him, his dark skin and eyes blending into the night. “A fire. On State Street. And the fire companies are trapped in the procession!”

Chapter Five
    The light drizzle kissing her face was no match for the intensity of a conflagration, Inez knew. It was impossible to tell how far down the block the fire was, but that hardly mattered. Five buildings, ten, they would all be consumed if the fire could not be brought under control. And quickly.
    Without the fire companies able to reach us, we’re on our own.
    A knife of fear slid beneath her breastbone and pricked her heart. For just a moment, she imagined a scene in her mind’s eye, as clear as if it were spread out before her: The entire north side of State Street, licked in flames. Her saloon, the roof beneath her feet, the mahogany bar, plank floors, imported carpets, her personal papers and clothes, everything consumed. Nothing left but ashes and glowing embers. The insatiable fire marching up Harrison, the screaming crowds, unable to escape, crushed by their own weight.
    She was already moving, without even thinking, toward the trapdoor in the roof. Reverend Sands caught up with her before she’d taken half a dozen steps.
    “Inez!” His words overrode the roar on Harrison, now punctuated by with alarmed shouts on State. “You’d best head home.”
    Abe and Sol hurried past her, heading down the steep trapdoor stairs in such quick succession that Sol nearly stepped on Abe’s hat.
    Inez turned to the reverend. “We’ve no time to argue about this.”
    She started down the stairs just in time to hear Abe shout, “Mrs. Stannert! We’re headed up the alley, just so’s you know. We’re takin’ the stew kettle and wash-up pails.”
    At the bottom of the stairs, she turned and addressed the reverend’s descending shoes.
    “I can help as much as Abe. The Silver Queen is mine as well.”
    She flew down the second story stairs to the saloon’s ground floor and darted into the kitchen, ignoring the reverend’s shouts for her to stop.
    Grabbing an empty dishpan, Inez hurtled through the back door and into the alley, pulling out her pocket revolver as she did so.
    Usually, the alley was a dark, foreboding place. A place where murder, robbery, and garroting plagued those who moved too slowly and without a firearm or lantern.
    Tonight was different.
    It was a strange, inverted world. Dark, where light lay in the daytime. Murky, full of smoke where the shadows usually curled. The alley was a bedlam, figures running in all directions, carrying pails, buckets, dishpans, anything that would hold water.
    And the mud.
    It sucked at her worn riding boots, threatening to pull them right off her feet. She curled her toes to hold the boots on, and slogged forward, anxious to move faster. The crowd grew thicker the