But the unusual assignment caused considerable discussion in the bunkhouse that night.
“It’s one thang to work for an outfit what skirts the law here and thar,” one of the cowboys pronounced with a Texas drawl. “Searin’ off a few cowpunchers over water rights or grazin’ rights, brandin’ new calves wanderin’ out on the prairies—hell, everyone does that there or you don’t work for an outfit.”
The ranchers subscribed to the principle of “customary range.” The use of government lands for private purposes was a long-standing tradition on the Plains, and it required an occasional gunfight to maintain control of those public grazing lands.
“Amen to that,” another man said, rolling his cigarette deftly with one hand. “But no one done ever asked me to kidnap a woman afore, specially Hazard Black’s daughter. It makes no never mind to the Absarokee whether she’s born in or out of marriage. For them, a kid is a kid and that’s it. And if you mess with Hazard Black’s kid, you mess with him—no question there.”
“Jus’ as well, Smithy sent out those new guys,” a young man remarked. “If’n they do what they supposed to do, it ain’t gonna be my hide Hazard comes alookin’ for. And he’ll come lookin’ sure nuf.”
There was a moment of silence in the shadowed bunk-house, the kerosene lamps offering only small halos of light, the woodstove snapping and crackling, taking the chill out of the cool spring night.
“Anyone ever hear of Hazard losin’ a battle?”
Another hovering silence fell.
“Or Flynn. You heard Smithy say Hazard’s daughter come from Flynn’s place.”
“Shit,” someone said softly.
“It gets a man thinkin’, don’t it,” an old timer murmured. “’Bout stayin’ alive.”
This time the silence almost pulsated with apprehension.
Chapter 24
Jo reached Helena in the wee hours of the morning and rather than rouse Blaze, she slept at Flynn’s house. Despite the late hour, she was warmly welcomed by a servant. “Right this way, Miss Attenborough,” he said, as though he’d been expecting her and he led her to Flynn’s bedroom as though she belonged there. “The boss left you a note.” He pointed to an envelope propped on the mantle and closed the door.
The message was hastily written and succinct. But then he’d left in a hurry that day, she recalled.
“There’s some gowns in the armoire. Pleasant dreams . . .”
And he’d signed his name in Japanese characters, the fluid pen strokes bold and sure.
Opening the armoire, she found a dozen gowns hanging inside and she smiled, even while she knew she shouldn’t be tempted by such largesse. It wasn’t right accepting so much, she thought with an integrity she’d not inherited from her mother. But she reached out to touch them, tantalized by their beauty, charmed by the gift and the giver.
Perhaps she could accept one, she decided, and pay him for the rest. Or maybe she could try them all on for him when he returned, she mused, a rush of heated pleasure coursing through her body at the thought. And blissful images of such enchanting play filled her dreams that night.
But with morning, the mundane responsibilities of the world intruded. She had apologies to make promptly. With one clean blouse remaining in her saddle bags, she took advantage of her new wardrobe—that she would buy, she told herself—selecting a spring gown of black India silk strewn with pink and yellow blossoms. She bathed, dressed, quickly ate some of the breakfast ready for her in the breakfast room and set our for the Braddock-Black house.
Rather than an upbraiding, she was welcomed by Blaze with genuine warmth. “Next time, leave a note,” she said. “And we’ll know where to go looking for you.”
“I’m sorry, truly I am, but since I was given express orders not to go to Flynn’s”—her voice trailed off.
“I understand. But just for our peace of mind, tell us regardless of your delinquency,” Blaze noted with a smile. “And your father is probably at Flynn’s by now.”
“I know,” Jo replied, with a rueful smile.
Blaze laughed. “So you’ve already been chastised. Come, have breakfast with me or tea if you’ve already eaten, and tell me what your father said.”
Daisy soon joined them at the table for Blaze had sent a servant to her with news of Jo’s return and Jo regaled them with the details of her journey north, her return and her decision to sleep at Flynn’s last night.
“Nonsense, you could have wakened us,” Blaze said. “But I’m sure Flynn won’t mind you staying there. And I’m pleased you understand the seriousness of the conflict in that area.” Blaze surveyed her with a searching gaze. “You do, don’t you?”
“Yes, very much. I count myself fortunate my guide was competent or I may have run into trouble on my ride to Flynn’s.” “I wonder whether Howard Nagel might have suspected who you were?” Blaze murmured.
“How could he have possibly known?”
Daisy snorted. “The question is rather how could he not? Gossip travels as fast as the telegraph.”
“Howard may not attend to gossip,” Blaze remarked, “but in any event, you were very fortunate to have Howard for a guide. He’s the very best in the territory . . . with the exception of your father’s clan, of course.”
“So you’re returned to the safety of town,” Daisy said with a smile.
“That everyone is so ready for combat is rather alarming to tell the truth,” Jo maintained. “Are all cattle companies so contentious with their neighbors?”
Daisy grimaced faintly. “Grazing rights have always been contentious and the bigger the company, the more aggressive they are.”
“Fortunately, Flynn and our family can meet any challenge with the resources at our command,” Blaze declared. “The smaller owners aren’t so fortunate.”
“In time, all the range will be fenced,” Daisy explained. “Whether that helps control or escalate the violence remains to be seen.”
“With cattle prices down, some of the foreign investors are having second thoughts. Who knows, in time, the Empire may fold up their tents and go home. But regardless of the unsettled times, you’re back safe and sound.” Blaze smiled. “For which we’re pleased. You must let your mother know you’re back. I had a message sent to her when you arrived, but I’m sure she’ll be pleased to see you.”
“Not before noon, she won’t,” Jo replied with a grin. “But thank you, I will visit her directly I leave here.”
“I don’t have to ask if you enjoyed your visit with Flynn,” Daisy remarked. “You seem in excellent spirits.”
“He’s much too charming. I’m trying to keep him in proper perspective.”
“That may be wise, dear,” Blaze murmured. “He does have a reputation with the ladies and I wouldn’t want to see you hurt.”
“Never fear. I have both feet planted firmly on the ground.” But she surreptitiously crossed her fingers in her lap because she was walking on air after being welcomed so kindly by Flynn’s servants who no doubt acted on his instructions.
❧
Shortly after noon, Jo went to see her mother, who was having her breakfast in bed. She’d no more than entered the bedroom than she was rebuked for her conduct. “Fortunately, your absence wasn’t noticed,” Lucy went on in a pettish tone, taking a bite of her buttered toast, proceeding to eat and talk, “but think what people would say if they knew you hied yourself north like some little tramp to see that horrible man.”
“Mother, for heaven’s sake, will you stop. I just returned. It wouldn’t be amiss for you to be pleased that I’m back unharmed.”
“Well, of course, I am, dear. What kind of mother do you think I am. I’m just concerned for your reputation in a tiny, little town like this. Come, sit with me.” She patted the bed. “And have some coddled eggs and chocolate.”
“I don’t like coddled eggs, Mother, but thank you.”
“Since when haven’t you liked coddled eggs?” Lucy inquired with such wide-eyed innocence, Jo didn’t have th
e heart to tell her since always.
“Well, you look as though you’ve eaten quite enough anyway, darling,” she declared, raking Jo with a glance. “It doesn’t pay to be too plump. Men like slender women I’ve found. And that brilliant print fabric rather accents that little extra weight you must really do something about, sweetheart.”
“I’ll change, Mother, as soon as I leave you,” Jo said, to curtail any further discussion of her weight. “I just wanted to let you know I was back.”
“What a sweet child, you are.” Lucy beamed at her daughter as though she were ten. “But I never worried for a moment, even though Hazard’s horrible wife broke in here in a fury wanting me to tell her where you were. But you’ve always been so resourceful and clever, I just knew you were perfectly fine wherever you were. Although, I chose not to tell that annoying woman a thing because it was really none of her business. And she wouldn’t allow me to speak to Hazard just like every petty, jealous little wife I’ve ever met. She told me he was out of town,” Lucy sniffed. “As if I were born yesterday. But never you mind, darling, Hazard adores you and so do I and we’ll all manage just swimmingly together. Do take a little peek at my new gown in the armoire, dear. I need a fresh eye. Do you think I’m too old for pink muslin?”
“No, Mother, of course not,” Jo automatically said, knowing her opinion was incidental to her mother’s taste that bordered on the ostentatious. But far be it from her to apprise her mother of the fact. “You’ll look very nice in pink muslin.” “Exactly what I said to the dressmaker who was trying to talk me out of that lovely fabric. I don’t look a day over thirty, I told her.” She giggled. “Which is a slight problem when I have a daughter your age. But never you mind, because I don’t in the least.”
Her mother was a well-preserved and attractive forty-one, but she always wished to be younger. But then she wished for a great many things she couldn’t have. Although with her fingers on Hazard’s fortune now, Jo nervously reflected, she hoped Hazard was capable of protecting his assets. “I’m going home to sleep, Mother. The stage came into town very late last night. I’ll call on you tomorrow.”
“Not too early, darling. You know I need my beauty rest.” “I know.” As she knew her mother would forget she’d even been out of town before long.
Chapter 25
That afternoon while Jo was resting at Flynn’s, a man was inquiring about her at the stage office. He wanted to know if someone had been waiting for her when she arrived last night.
“Don’t rightly know if it’s any of your business,” George Parsons replied.
“She’s kin of mine.”
“She ain’t no kin of yours, and I know that for a fact.” George didn’t care if the man did look like a gunslinger. After letting Hazard’s daughter slip through his fingers once, he wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice, no matter how nasty the fellow looked.
The Empire cowboys changed their method of questioning after that, posing instead as messengers from Hazard. They’d been asked to deliver a package to his daughter and being strangers in town, they needed to know where she lived. Within the hour, the Empire men had Hazard’s address, but even better, they’d found the cab driver who had driven Jo Attenborough to Flynn’s house late last night.
They celebrated their good fortune, by having several drinks at Satchell’s Saloon, against the long journey back, they rationalized. But their leader hadn’t survived ten years as a hired gun without maintaining some personal discipline and after four drinks, he dragged the rest of his crew out of the bar.
It wasn’t a subtle operation, but then not a man among them was known for his subtlety. Two men were posted at the back of Flynn’s town house, two on the street in front while the leader and two additional men walked up to the front door, knocked and shoved their way in when the door was opened.
The single servant in the front hall was no match for three armed men and he was knocked unconscious in seconds. The leader waved his men forward, one toward the back of the house to hold the servants at bay, one upstairs while he stood watch at the front door.
Jo heard the heavy footsteps on the stairs and for a fleeting moment, she thought she’d wakened from her dream to the reality of Flynn’s return. But seconds later, her happy conjecture was brutally vanquished when a rough-looking man broke into her room and pointed his revolver at her.
“Up, lady,” he growled. “We got a fer piece to go.”
“I have no idea who you are,” she blustered, her pulse rate spiking with fear.
“Well, that don’t matter much, cuz I know who you are. Some Hazard’s daughter and yer cornin’ with me.”
She started screaming, the impulse without thought, terror-driven and ungovernable, and when he lunged at her, she picked up the first thing she saw and threw the bed lamp at him. He ignored the shattering glass as it struck him and kept coming, the crunch of glass under his boots suddenly galvanizing her. She leaped from the bed and bolted for the door, reaching it before him, feeling increasingly more confident of escaping. He was lumbering and slow; she was not and racing into the hall, she ran full-out for the stairs.
“Stop right there,” a gruff voice commanded and she skidded to a stop inches from the seven-inch barrel of a Colt revolver.
The man was barely her height, but his face had the hardened look of someone familiar with a loaded revolver. And he was directly in her way at the top of the stairs. Dare she try to kick him down the stairs? Would he shoot? The fleeting thought was curtailed by rough hands grabbing her from behind and holding her captive.
She screamed, a high, piercing shriek that echoed through the house for a brief moment before a filthy hand covered her mouth. And in short order, her mouth was gagged with a sweaty neckerchief, her hands were trussed from behind and she was being carried down the stairs. She squirmed and struggled to no avail. Within moments, she was being rolled up in a large blanket and brought outside where she could smell the fresh air through her shroud. A second later, she was tossed over a horse like baggage, the distinctive odor of the stable pungent in her nostrils.
Surely someone would take issue with a squirming bundle being led away on a horse, she hoped, but the men abducting her must have taken an untraveled route out of town because they proceeded unmolested. After a very long time, when every muscle and joint in her body was stretched and strained in agony, she heard the party drawing to a halt.
She was lifted down and unwrapped. Blinking against the sunshine, she quickly scanned her surroundings, hoping to recognize a landmark. But nothing was familiar.
“You got a choice, lady,” the man she’d seen at the top of the stairs said, his voice coarse and brusque. “If you don’t scream, I’ll take off the gag.”
She nodded in the affirmative and a moment later, the disgusting kerchief was withdrawn from her mouth.
“We’re puttin’ you on a horse here. Untie her hands, bring over her boots,” he ordered.
Shaking the blood back into her hands, Jo debated how far she’d get if she tried to leap onto a horse or if she could even manage to reach a horse with so many men surrounding her. The answer was as unpalatable as the look of her abductors, and her conjecture was short-lived. If she hoped to escape, this wasn’t an opportune time. Taking the man’s jacket and her boots that were offered her, she donned them and mounted the horse given her. After which, her hands were tied to the saddle horn, and the party set out once again.
As the sun moved across the sky, she tried to gauge their direction, but they traveled little-used deer trails and every tree looked the same. Much later that night, she did recognize the lights of Great Falls, but the horsemen skirted the town and headed north-northeast, she calculated, the lights fading behind them. No one spoke except for occasional words of direction from their leader.
She felt as if she’d dropped off the face of the earth and was traveling with a ghost troop. Tired, hungry, thirsty, she dozed off and on throughout the night, so weary as the hours passed that she found it
difficult to even conjure up enough energy to sustain fear.
As dawn broke, they rode into a large stable yard, the ranch house on the hill a dark, looming shadow, the outbuildings so numerous, she lost count. Once untied, she slid from the saddle; barely able to stand upright, she tottered behind the man leading her. He brought her to a small shed, opened the door and nodded at her. The small space was sparely furnished. A bed, a chair and, thankfully, a chamber pot, she noted, but the door was shut behind her and she was left in darkness.
Leaning against the door, she heard the key turn in the lock, the sound unmistakable proof of her captivity and the tears she’d kept at bay all day suddenly spilled over. Was there any hope at all of rescue? Did anyone even know she was gone from Flynn’s house? If so, were there any clues left behind? Wretched and despondent, she wondered if she had the courage required to face the horrors that might be in store for her.
Florence seemed like the safest of havens now that she was in such comfortless straits—even her mother’s brittle world of social amusements, the sweetest of refuges. Perhaps she wasn’t as brave as she’d always thought. Perhaps this raw frontier required a degree of courage she didn’t possess.
But with the next small sob, she reminded herself that both Flynn and her father were more capable than most; surely, they would come for her. In the meantime, she’d deal with this crisis as she’d dealt with others in the past, taking charge of her life a not unfamiliar task. And if ever there was a time when clear thinking was required, it was now.
Wiping away her tears, she set out to examine her prison, slowly feeling her way around the shed. The walls were solid logs, bereft of windows or any object she might use as a weapon. Perhaps the chamber pot would be a useful defense, she drolly thought. Although, in her present state of exhaustion, she hadn’t the energy required to mount an attack or attempt an escape. Groping her way to the bed, she sank down on the rough straw-stuffed mattress and shut her eyes. Whoever her captors were, she reflected, she would discover their identity soon enough.
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