Yellowstone Memories

by Spinola, Jennifer Rogers

  “Liar.” Jewel jabbed the gun at him.

  “Don’t believe me? Pick it up yourself. It’s too light to hold gold.” He scooted the wooden chest with his foot, and it moved easily. “And Crazy Pierre had far more gold than would fit inside a little box like that. Savvy?” He shot her a triumphant look. “But I have a hunch there’s something inside that’ll tell us where to look—and I bet I can interpret Pierre’s clues. I met him, remember? You didn’t.”

  Jewel shook the chest furiously, and Wyatt watched as her bright eyes dimmed and her lips turned downward. She sat back on her heels and rested her chin in her hand.

  “Maybe you’re right.” Jewel swallowed and looked up, her long braid falling over her shoulder. “But I have something you don’t.”

  “My key?” Wyatt took a step closer, his fingers curling into fists.

  “And mine.” She clinked them both together. “Plus the actual letter Crazy Pierre sent my husband with instructions.”

  “Give me my key back.” He held out his hand.

  “No.” She hid the keys in her skirt pocket. “And I’ve got the gun, so I give the orders here.”

  They were stalemated. Wyatt stood there silently a moment, wondering if he should offer peace or try to grab the gun. He flexed his fingers and then made a swipe for the gun.

  Wrong choice. Jewel turned the barrel on him in a liquid second, her dark eyes flashing.

  “My uncle was right about you,” Wyatt spluttered, slowly putting his hands up. Feeling hot, angry blood pump in his veins. “That’s why you came here looking for work, isn’t it? So you could pick us off one by one after you steal all our clues to find the gold?”

  “Your uncle said that? Well, that’s certainly ironic.” She aimed coolly at him, and for the first time Wyatt’s heart pulsed with real fear. “You’ve both been trying to get as much information as you can from me about the gold, but you’ve forgotten one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Wyatt licked his lips, wondering if he could dart up the stairs or if she’d really shoot.

  “That I’ve been doing the same thing with you.”

  “But … but you’ve no right! My uncle hired you!”

  “He hired me to train his horses. Which I’ve done. Exceedingly well, I might add, on such a meager salary and without heat or running water in the bunkhouse.” Jewel took a step closer. “Have you ever slept a night out there? It’s pure misery in the winter. The place is full of rats.”

  “Still.” Wyatt shivered, chilled by the images of scurrying mice and Jewel aiming at his nose. “Taking a job to smoke us out is wrong. And by taking the key, you’ve stolen from me.”

  “It’s not your key. It belonged to Crazy Pierre.” Jewel sniffed. “And why are you hiding it from your uncle? Skulking around here at midnight instead of telling him what you’re doing?”

  “Because my uncle can’t keep a secret to save his life. He’d tell everybody in town about the key, and I’d be shot by a dozen gold diggers trying to strike it rich.” Wyatt’s pulse burned. “And what business of yours is it anyway? It’s certainly more my key than yours.”

  “It was Crazy Pierre’s key, and you stole it from him.”

  “I didn’t steal it! I found it. There’s a difference.” Wyatt took a step forward. “I was in Deadwood, South Dakota, buying horses, and I found it in the stable grounds. Pierre died before I could return it to him.”

  “Really.” Jewel smiled as if in amusement.

  “It’s the truth, I tell you! Why would I lie?”

  She studied him a moment, her dark shadow quivering against a pitted wall in the flickering lantern light. “So you found the key.” She narrowed her eyes. “Even if I believe you, it makes no difference. I also found it in the stable when I happened to be sweeping up. You dropped it there like refuse, did you not?”

  “Irregardless, the key was my property!” Wyatt jabbed a finger at his chest.

  “Irregardless?” She cupped a hand over a laugh. “That doesn’t even make sense, Mr. Kelly. It’s regardless.”

  “You’re wrong!” He raised his voice, sweat prickling under his hat. “I think I know English.”

  “Well, I think I know prefixes. And it’s wrong.”

  Wyatt felt his fists clench in fury. Of all the nerve. “Listen, miss,” he growled, trying to think of an argument that would catch her, corner her, into letting him go and handing over the letter. “That key was protected in the domicile of my uncle, and I’ll have you arrested!” He waved an arm for emphasis, bluffing the first thing that came to mind. “The last time a no-good Indian stole something from one of the ranchers in this part of the state, the sheriff had him hung. You hear me?”

  Jewel paled visibly in the lantern light.

  “I’ll have you arrested and taken before a magistrate before daybreak!” Wyatt leaned forward and tried to look menacing. Making it up as he went along. “Why, I know all about you. All about your … your sordid past. You thought I wouldn’t find out, but I know everything—and I’ll tell it all to the judge!”

  Jewel swallowed, and the revolver shook in her hands.

  What on earth did I say? Wyatt’s jaw dropped in surprise.

  “You don’t know anything about me,” she hissed, taking a step closer and holding the gun out with both hands.

  “I know everything.” He didn’t back away, determined not to lose the upper hand—no matter how he’d come by it. “And if you kill me now, it won’t be the first time. You’ll hang for it!”

  “If you kill me now, it won’t be the first time?” Wyatt halted, horrified. What did he mean by that? That it wouldn’t be the first time she’d killed Wyatt? How utterly ridiculous. What, did he sleep through grammar school? He gripped his head in both hands, wondering how he managed—by sheer, bumbling luck—to mess up everything.

  “Fine. Take it.” Jewel thrust the revolver at him so swiftly he nearly dropped it. “You don’t turn me in, and I won’t turn you in. Deal?”

  “Uh … pardon?” Wyatt craned his neck to see through smudged glasses.

  “Let’s just start over—you, Mr. Kelly—and me, nobody of any consequence.” Jewel flipped the corner of her shawl around her shoulder, a movement that should have resonated carelessness but did not. Instead, Wyatt noticed her eyes take on a terrified cast like a deer startled by an intruder.

  “As business partners. Fifty-fifty. Everything secret. Do you agree?” She knotted her hands behind her back, and Wyatt saw them trembling.

  “Fifty-fifty?” Wyatt felt the weight of the revolver in his hands, like an idiot, and quickly spun it around to face her. “Are you crazy? You lied about the spider. How can I trust you with anything?”

  “Oh no. I didn’t lie about that.” Jewel gazed up at his forehead. “It’s … still there. And I’m quite sure it’s a black widow.” She leaned forward, squinting. “Yes. Red hourglass.”

  And at that exact second, Wyatt felt something stir his hair. Something thin and tiny, like the brush of an insect leg.

  “You were going to let it bite me.” Wyatt gazed at her in accusation, his chest heaving. He’d hurled his hat and glasses across the room before clawing at his leather vest and stomping senselessly at the fleeing black speck.

  Now Jewel crouched near his fallen glasses, trying to bend the crooked frame back into shape.

  “A black widow, Mrs. Moreau. Really. How can I partner with you after that?”

  “You were going to shoot me.” She wiped the glass lens on the hem of her skirt. “I figured it was fair.”

  Wyatt didn’t respond, checking his hair again with a shaky hand. “Partners,” he muttered, turning up his lip. “How can I partner with the likes of you?”

  Jewel coldly handed him his glasses, her warm fingers brushing his briefly. “How can you afford not to?”

  Wyatt took the glasses with a terse nod of thanks and tried to straighten them on his face, his heart beating dizzy-fast again. Was she threatening him? After all, Jewel had obviously done some
thing in the past that frightened her—something that made her want to forget it. Had she stolen something bigger than a key or … killed someone? The only bluff that made her take notice was the law. The magistrate.

  Which meant …

  Hairs stood up on Wyatt’s neck as he studied her there in the dim lantern light. The keys in her hand, glinting, and her downcast eyes. The sparkling beaded earring that caught the light in colorful spots, next to the graceful curves of her neck.

  “Who are you?” he whispered, holding up the lantern to see her better.

  “Jewel,” she replied in mocking tones. “You know my name.”

  “That’s what people call you. But that’s not your real name.”

  “Collette Moreau. You know that, too.” She raised her face defiantly. “An Indian and a woman who can’t be trusted, and who couldn’t possibly learn the English language. What else do you want from me?”

  “Tell me more.” Wyatt didn’t know if he was asking or ordering, but he couldn’t pull the lantern away from her face. “Who are you? Where do you come from?”

  He warily set his Colt down on a shelf next to a collection of dingy, dust-covered bottles. “Tell me the truth.” He hung his thumbs in his belt loops and glanced at her, shifting his hat nervously on his head.

  Jewel’s head came up, and she studied him in silence.

  “Look.” Wyatt crossed his arms. “Everybody has a thing or two to say about you in town, and around the ranch, but nobody really knows the truth.”

  “The truth.” Jewel gave a sad half laugh and looked away, putting her hands on her hips. “Is that what they really want?”

  Wyatt swallowed, and the scarlet bandanna around his stubbly throat felt tight. “It’s what I want.” “Why?”

  He scuffed the heel of his boot in the dirt, shrugging his shoulders. “Nobody even knows your real name. Except … well, me. Why is that? Why are you hiding?” He waved an arm around the root cellar. “Digging around in the dirt in a cabin at midnight?”

  Jewel didn’t answer, twisting her wedding ring back and forth on her finger. “If you must know, I am Arapaho and French,” she finally said in a tender tone, her gaze seeming to go right through Wyatt as if not seeing him at all. “I’m the daughter of an Arapaho chief, born in an Arapaho village just outside the border in Nebraska.” She swallowed and looked down at her hands. Her delicate fingers, now worn from cold water and harsh soaps. “I was sold as a bride to a French trapper in Idaho when I was a young girl.”

  It took Wyatt a second to register that Jewel hadn’t answered his question. Did she share her real name because she … trusted him? On some level? A wash of heat spread through his chest, and he blinked faster.

  Of course not. It was probably all part of her twisted plot to pull the wool over his eyes, like everything else. He shifted his position against the shelf, keeping his gaze focused on his boots.

  “How young were you?” he asked gruffly when she said no more.

  “Fourteen years old.”

  Wyatt’s hands clenched against the shelf, trying to still the angry throb in his heart at the thought of a fourteen-year-old slip of a girl being bought and sold like a mare—worse, like one of Uncle Hiram’s prize cattle—for a few gold coins or some blankets.

  “So what are you doing here in Wyoming?” he finally asked, clearing his throat.

  “I am Hagar,” she replied. “From the Bible you taught me at your table.”

  “Huh?” Wyatt shook his head to make sense of her words. “I mean, ma’am? Pardon?”

  “Running from great injustice and much suffering.” Tears gilded the corners of her eyes as she fumbled with the keys, knotting her fingers together. “I need this gold. Please. Help me find it. There’s enough for both of us, if the legends about Crazy Pierre are true. And I have reason to believe they are.”

  “What do you mean you need the gold?”

  Jewel turned, and a shadow covered part of her face. “I can’t tell you why. But I need it. My life may depend on it.”

  Wyatt crossed his arms. “Well, I need the gold, too, you know.”

  “You? For what?”

  He hesitated. “To pay back an old wrong,” he said quietly, his hands clenching into fists. “I’ve been planning it all my life. And I’m so close now.” Wyatt squeezed his eyes closed, scarcely daring to breathe. “So close I can almost feel it. After all these years, maybe I’ll finally make amends for my father’s death.”

  Jewel regarded him quietly. “I’m sorry about your family, Mr. Kelly.” She spoke so softly he had to lean forward to hear well. “I know you miss them.”

  Emotion quivered in Wyatt’s chest, and he feigned a cough to cover it. Pretending he hadn’t heard. “So how can I know you’re telling the truth about your … your story?” He gestured with his arm. “You could be spinning a yarn, for all I know.”

  “So could you. And to answer your question, you’ll just have to trust me.”

  “What if that’s not good enough?”

  “The truth is all I have, Mr. Kelly.” She spread her hands wide. Cracks showed on the tips of her fingers. And before she could cover it, he noticed an ugly scar running the length of one brown forearm when her long wool sleeve fell back.

  Jewel faced him there in the darkness, eyes glazed with sorrow, and something stirred in Wyatt’s gut. She has spoken the truth.

  “Well, come on then.” Wyatt stuck his revolver back in his belt and reached gruffly for the wooden box. “We’d better get out of here. We’ll take it with us and open it in daylight. What do you say?”

  “Fine. But don’t even think of opening it without me.” Jewel picked up her darkened lantern and held up his, which threw gold across the dusty wood of the box. “Fifty-fifty. You keep the box, and I keep the keys.” She patted her pocket. “Partners, right?”

  Wyatt lifted the box, and something rattled inside. Sliding around the inside of the box with a tinny metallic sound. He tucked the box under one arm and paused to let Jewel go first, tipping his hat by habit, and then he took the stone steps two at a time. Unspeakably grateful to leave behind the musty root cellar, which crawled with spiders and reeked of sour pickles.

  As soon as he reached the top, he heard voices.

  Two men’s voices, filtering from the woods into the broken ruins of Crazy Pierre’s house. Distant torches flickered against the trees in glances of light and shadow, splintering in long stripes against the crumbling log walls.

  “Of all the rotten luck!” Wyatt hissed, ducking under the low cellar doorway and furiously brushing away cobwebs. “They’ve caught up with us.”

  “Who?” Jewel took a step back toward Wyatt.

  “The Crowder brothers. They’re ruthless. They’ll kill us both.” He put a finger to his lips.

  “There are two of us and two of them. We’re matched.”

  “Naw.” Wyatt stroked his chin as a wave of nausea flitted through his stomach. “Not against the Crowders. They’re crazy, both of them—and they carry more lead with them than a whole infantry. Why, I’ve only got a few more rounds. We’re finished, you know that?”

  “Can we make it outside?” Jewel stumbled over a sunken piece of flooring and caught herself against a rough-hewn chair.

  “Nope. They’ll see us for sure if we waltz right out the door.” Dull glass in the single window sparkled in sharp shards, and the opening was too small to squeeze through without cutting himself to ribbons.

  Jewel held his glowing lantern behind her to block the light. “Hurry, then. Get back down to the root cellar.”

  “No way.” Wyatt shuddered at the thought of spiders. “There’s no way out of that cellar. If they find us, we’re done for. Quick!” He pushed her back, feeling his hands turn cold. “Put out the lantern.”

  “Give me my gun back.” Jewel held out her hand.

  “What?” Wyatt spun around. “It’s empty! You said so yourself.”

  “I’ve got an extra round or two.” She jingled her skirt pocke
t. “And besides, you’re not exactly the best shot. I’ve seen you out on the ranch, Mr. Kelly. With all due respect, you can’t even shoot a magpie.”

  Wyatt scowled, feeling his cheeks burn in humiliation. “Are you crazy? I’m not giving you your gun back.”

  “What, you think I’m going to stand here and let them shoot me? I’d have been in and out of this place ages ago if it weren’t for you.”

  “You might shoot me in the back of the head and take ol’ Pierre’s chest for yourself.”

  “Better than getting run through with one of Benjamin Crowder’s knives. He’s not very accurate, you know.”

  “Fine. Take it.” Wyatt pulled her Smith & Wesson from his belt and slapped it in her hand. “Satisfied? Now douse the lantern and hide behind something. Quick.”

  Jewel reached out greedily for her revolver. “Try not to leave footprints in the dust. Walk like my people do when they’re stalking game: on the sides of your feet. Not the sole.” She jerked her head up. “I bet you left boot tracks all across the floor when you came in.”

  Wyatt swallowed nervously.

  “You did, didn’t you?”

  Jewel lifted the lantern for a quick look and then sighed and shook her head. As soon as she’d clicked a handful of bullets into her revolver, the inside of Pierre’s cabin turned to clammy darkness.

  Chapter 3

  Yellow light gleamed in one of the windows, illuminating a dusty maze of cobwebs and broken boards. Wyatt flattened himself against the wall beside the crumbly chimney. Hardly daring to breathe. Jewel ducked under the rotten table.

  “Get back,” she whispered, whacking his toe with the stock of her (heavy) revolver and making him jump. “Your boots are sticking out.”

  “Get back yourself!” he snapped. His toe smarted where she’d smacked it. “I can’t squeeze in here any tighter.”

  “Well try. You want to get us killed?” Jewel tugged a broken board against the chimney and angled it over his boots.

  Torches flickered, and Wyatt heard the whinny of horses. The clink of metal as someone lit lanterns and the stench of kerosene.