Rain From Below, part 2

Lou Corby cursed himself the rest of the night. He was out of the game, and no one at the table was willing to accept the deed as collateral. On top of that, they said, it was bad form for anyone to let him gamble away more money. No one wanted to go broke or get rich at the Alt Saloon- any big losses or big wins might attract too much attention, and the law already kept a nice blind spot for other activities at the Saloon. Lou pulled out the crumpled deed from his breast pocket and read it over. That parcel of land had been his uncle’s and the man just died and gave it to him. What a pity. Lou had no real use for it as he was currently renting a room in kind from a local. He needed only to keep up a few house chores and occasionally prepare a meal to earn his keep, and he had enough time to labor around the town. He painted, mended, couriered, and hauled what he could for what people would pay, and while he wasn’t rich he had been putting away more than he expected. That made the deed of land from his uncle a double surprise- he had barely heard of the man, and he never expected anything bequeathed to him.

He saddled up to the bar and finished the last bit of beer in his glass. The bartender took the empty and returned with a half-full glass. “This one’s on the house, Lou. Sorry for that brush-up, but Afton was in the right.” Loud nodded and gave a shrug. There wasn’t much arguing about that sort of thing, and walking away with your life after a gambling spat was worth about as much as any pot you could win. He nursed the half-beer for another few minutes, listening to the conversation from around the bar where he could. Tuning in to various tables, catching snippets, some about the rain, some about plans for the coming winter, one man sharing rumors he’d heard about some conflict coming with the Indians. After a while, Lou pulled the deed from out of his pocket and the conversation turned into a low background hum as he studied it.

“Say, do you know where this address is?” Lou showed the bartender the deed. The bartender adjusted his wire-rimmed glasses and looked at it, lips silently moving as he read. “Why yes, that’s just… maybe a mile North and east of here. Still in the city. I don’t know the exact lot, but just follow the grid, it’s hard to get lost.” The bartender took the glass and began wiping it clean as he left to assist a patron who was loudly pounding on the bar for another drink. Lou fished in his pocket and found a couple of barber dimes. He laid them on the bar and stood up. The night was getting late but he had nothing else to do, so he tucked the deed back into his vest pocket and made his way into the streets of Salt Lake City.

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Afton Cleary sat on his bed, a small wooden frame with a mattress stuffed with hay. He worked off his boots and socks and replaced them with slippers. He retrieved his winnings for the night from his bag and made his way to the door of the bedroom. He turned to face the bedroom and counted the floorboards. Twelve floorboards in, one to the right. He knelt and pried it up, revealing a small space with a canvas and leather bag. Afton pulled it up and opened it, revealing a generous stash of coins and bills. He emptied his winnings into the bag and then began to return it to its hiding spot. He paused for a moment and then dumped the contents of the bag out onto the floor. He began counting.

“Five thousand, eight hundred and fifty dollars.” Afton couldn’t believe his luck. Years of playing poker at Alt’s Saloon and he was up to a small fortune. It had taken years, and he didn’t really feel bad about taking this money from the rest of them. If they couldn’t afford to lose it, they shouldn’t have gambled it away. He knew he was good at gambling, and if a man can’t get paid for what he’s good at, well then what was the point of life? He carefully placed the coins and bills back in the satchel and stored the satchel under the floorboard. He hung his coat up on a hook inside the door and laid down on the mattress. It never felt more comfortable than it did at that moment, and sleep soon took him.

The landscape before Afton was foggy. As he stepped forward he smelled a bitter, acrid scent and he wondered if the fog was in fact smoke. The second he thought that he saw a blaze of orange in the distance maybe a mile away. The distance was hard to gauge- there was no reference by which to judge it. He looked at his hands and suddenly he heard himself say “I am dreaming,” at which point he felt control over his body. This sensation was one he had felt before in his childhood- he was awake in his dream, and was in control. The orange blaze in the distance was so far away, but when he looked at it and thought “I am right next to it,” instantly there he was. No sooner was he there than he realized he had misjudged the fire- it was much larger than he had thought. This was no backyard bonfire, this was a mountain of flames, a front ablaze. It put off hardly any heat, but it was blindingly red-orange bright. Afton took a step back to try and judge the size of it all and realized that the fog around him was in fact smoke. A thick blanket of black vapor seeped out of the base of the fire, spreading through the whole dreamscape.

Suddenly, something within the mountain of fire shifted like a log collapsing. About seventy feet up he saw sparks shoot horizontally out the side. Afton watched as they showered down into the low-lying blanket of smoke. Suddenly the smoke began catching fire; embers spreading into tiny flames which grew and connected like a grid. Afton watched as the flames took shape and condensed into a complete form- a great fiery bear, on all fours. The flame beast shook itself like a dog coming in from the rain and opened its mouth, letting out a crackling inferno roar. It hadn’t yet noticed Afton, but he felt a great fear staring at the beast born from flames. It sniffed the air and sprinted away towards some unknown destination.

Afton woke up in a cold sweat.