“How long, do you suppose,” she said to the man unhitching the mule team, “till they’re likely to come back out?”
The man grinned at her. “Depends on which whistles they’re aiming to wet, ma’am.”
Kate started to ask him what he meant, but the words died on her lips as the tent flaps were thrown back and two scantily clad women emerged, beckoning Floyd and Ezekiel inside.
The women were young—her age, if she had to venture a guess. One was clad in nothing but a shift. The other wore men’s trousers held up with suspenders, a corset and little else. Both had rouged lips and provocative smiles.
“You mean it’s a—” Her eyes widened. “Those women, they’re…”
“Line gals,” the man said. “You know. Prostitutes.”
Kate opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Not that she was a stranger to such women. Each night in Liffey Quay droves of them walked the streets, desperate to make enough to feed themselves and their children the following day.
Aye, that was the difference, she realized. That tense union of hope and desperation fueling such transactions was there all right, but in the eyes of the miners, not the women.
“You’re not from around here, are you?” the man said.
“No.” She couldn’t take her eyes off them.
“They line their tents up along the road. That’s why we call ’em line gals.”
“Makes sense.”
“Don’t worry, ma’am. If you ask me, them two’ll be out in no time.” He shook his head as the women laughed and pulled Ezekiel and Floyd into the tent with them.
Two hours later Kate was still waiting.
It was beginning to get dark. The tree stump she’d been sitting on was bloody uncomfortable. She was tired and cold and growing angrier by the minute. Men had come and gone from the tent, but there was no sign of her escorts.
What could be taking them so long? A man approached her, as had many since she’d arrived. Her father’s single-barrel flintlock rifle lay loaded across her lap. She leveled it at him and he backed off, grinning, his hands in the air.
Perhaps this hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.
She wondered if Mei Li had made it to the mining claim, if Will was there, and if he was, if he’d ride out to help her. She glanced at the darkening sky and knew she had to make a decision.
Rising stiffly, Kate redoubled her grip on the rifle. Just as she was about to cross the road, the tent flap opened and a woman stepped out. There was just enough light to make out her features. She was older than the other two and dressed in a fancy gown. The woman waved her over, which Kate thought odd. Cautiously she approached.
“Come on in and take a load off, honey.”
Surely the woman didn’t mean for her to come inside the tent? “I’m fine out here, thank you kindly.”
The woman looked her up and down as if she were appraising her market value. Kate tipped her chin at her.
“Floyd Canter says you’re Will Crockett’s wife.”
“Aye. Sort of.”
“Sort of?” The woman laughed. “Well, you ain’t what I would have expected, that’s for sure.”
“No, I suppose I’m not.” She remembered what Mr. Vickery had told her about Will’s first wife.
“Well, come on in.” The woman waved her closer. Kate caught a whiff of her overpowering floral perfume. “Had I known who you was, I woulda come out to fetch you a whole lot sooner.”
Kate shook her head. “No, I…I can’t. I have business up the road.”
“Tonight?”
“Aye.” She peeked inside the tent, but a potbellied stove blocked her view. “Mr. Canter…is he still in there?”
“Who, Floyd? He’s in there all right. Passed out cold, along with that friend of his.”
“What?” Kate brushed past the woman and ducked inside the tent.
Sure enough, Floyd and Ezekiel were laid out like corpses on the hard-packed dirt floor in a corner of the huge tent. Kate snaked around tables of soused miners who had prostitutes draped over them like icing dripping off tea cakes.
“Get up!” She kicked at Floyd’s limp body. His mouth opened and he hiccuped. Kate swore.
“What did I tell you. Dead drunk.” The woman who’d asked her inside stood shaking her head at them, her hands fisted on her more than ample hips.
Kate gripped her father’s rifle so tight her knuckles went white.
“Hope you wasn’t counting on them for anything important.”
“Not anymore, I’m not.” Kate turned on her heel and made her way to the opening of the tent, noticing for the first time the handful of curtained stalls running all along the wall. One of the drapes was open. Inside she spied a narrow bed and a washstand. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she breathed, and crossed herself as she stepped outside.
The woman followed. “If you don’t mind my saying, it seems mighty strange to me that any wife of Will Crockett’s would be out and about with men the likes of them two.”
Kate ignored her.
“You’d best stay with us till tomorrow. By then, them two varmints should be up and around.”
“Mrs….?”
“Beecham. Rose Beecham.” The name explained the woman’s dizzying trademark scent. Rose arched a neatly plucked brow at her. “And it’s Miss.”
“Miss Beecham, then. I appreciate your hospitality, but everything I own in the world is up that road.” She nodded toward the dark woods. “I can’t wait on Mr. Canter and his friend. I’m going.”
“But—”
“I’m going,” she said, and marched toward the trees, cocking her father’s rifle on the way.
Will galloped into Tinderbox and jerked the mare to a halt in front of the store. Locked up tight. He peered through the window and saw that Mei Li hadn’t been kidding. The counter was swept clean, the shelves empty. Not a tin pan was left.
He swore, and was still swearing as he charged through the back door into the cabin. An open powder horn, scattered garments and hardtack crumbs on the table told him that Kate had come and gone in a hurry.
At the bed, he ran his hand over the rumpled blankets and the soft dip in the pillow where her head had lain.
Two minutes later he hauled the blacksmith out into the street by the scruff of his neck. “Which way did she go?”
“S-south. Then w-west. You know. The usual way.” Mustart trembled in his grip.
“Yeah, you ought to be shaking.” Will released him and started to pace. “Just like that, you let her ride out of town with two drunks.”
“I tried to stop her. Honest, I did. When I sent Floyd out after her with the news, I figured she’d go on to the claim to fetch you back. I had no idea she’d—”
“Save it.” He glanced at the sun in the blue sky overhead, and judged the time at three. Four, maybe. “When did they ride out?”
“Before noon.”
“Then they’re already there.” He whistled for his horse and the mare clopped down the street toward him.
“Maybe not. Them mules moved outta here slow as molasses in winter.”
Will grabbed Mustart by his wool vest and jerked him close. “You’d better pray nothing’s happened to her.”
“I swear, Will, I—I did everything I could to stop her. But you know how she is when she gets an idea in her head.”
He did know, and bit back another curse. Glancing back up the street, his gaze lit on Landerfelt’s Mercantile. The shades were drawn across the storefront window.
“He’s not back yet,” Mustart said. “Tomorrow maybe. Speaking of which…” He nodded at the bay mare.
“I’m keeping her—for now.”
Mustart didn’t argue.
Will mounted, ready to ride out after Kate, then turned in the saddle as the rumble of livery and a thunder of hoofbeats sounded from up the street near the Chinese camp.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Mustart said. “Looks like Dunnett. But what’s he doing coming from that dire
ction?”
Will took off like a shot, his gaze narrowed on the seat of Dunnett’s wagon. Kate wasn’t with him. He reined the mare up short in front of the draft team, forcing Dunnett to stop in the middle of Main Street.
“Where is she?”
“Who?” Dunnett’s brows rose in question.
“Kate, you idiot. Didn’t you see her?”
Dunnett shook his head. “Didn’t see no one. That was the whole point of taking that Injun trail ’round north of the road.”
“What?”
“Them Packett boys tipped me off. Their wagon did a cartwheel off the road into a ditch just outside Spanish Camp. Busted a wheel.”
“The Packetts? Mustart said it was your wagon that—” Will glanced at the neatly packed load and realized Mustart had heard wrong.
“Then they was looted. Some gang outta Coloma. Lock, stock and barrel—everything gone. Landerfelt’s gonna raise Cain.”
“The Packetts are still out there?” Will’s gut tightened.
“Can’t rightly say. They was tryin’ to fix that wagon wheel when I last saw ’em.”
“And Kate’s on her way—” He didn’t finish the thought.
Will’s heels dug into the mare’s sides as he reined her around to the south. Clods of dried mud flew up, pelting Mustart, as he galloped back down the street and out of town.
Three hours later Will had to stop himself from beating Floyd Canter senseless outside Rose Beecham’s tent in Spanish Camp. Not that Floyd had any sense to begin with.
“That’s for letting her out of your sight.” Will hauled him to his feet and pushed him toward the tent. Floyd stumbled inside, a shaking hand cradling his bloodied nose.
“Tell that mangy partner of yours that as soon he wakes up he’ll be getting some of the same.”
Floyd glanced back at him and hiccuped.
Will swore.
“You think mighty highly of her, don’tcha?” Rose Beecham stood just inside the circle of light pouring from the tent.
“What?” He hadn’t noticed her until now.
“Never seen you get this worked up before—over a woman, I mean.”
He ignored Rose’s comment as he mounted up and slipped his borrowed rifle from its saddle holster. “How long ago did she take off?”
“’Bout an hour. She couldn’t a got far.”
He hoped to Christ she hadn’t. “Seen any sign of the Packett boys?”
“Not hide nor hair.” Rose glanced inside at the handful of miners drinking with the girls. “Wish they’d come on in. We could use the business.”
“If Kate shows up, keep her till I get back. I don’t care if you have to hog-tie her to do it.”
Rose batted her false lashes at him and smiled. “Why wait? I’ve got a couple o’ gals right here who’d be obliging, Will, if that’s the kinda thing you like.”
“Just keep her,” he said, and kicked the mare into action.
Kate trudged steadily up the steep, winding road in the dark, the sounds of cicadas keeping time with her pace. A sliver of moon peeked over the ridge top, its ghostly light filtering through the trees. She cursed herself for leaving her cloak behind in Spanish Camp. The night air was cold as the devil.
She’d been walking about an hour, and had seen no signs of Dan Dunnett or his wagon. No signs of anyone, in fact, which she thought odd. The occasional whoosh of a bat overhead and the scurrying sounds of small animals were the only evidence she wasn’t entirely alone.
At the top of the heavily forested rise the road took a sharp turn, cutting across the ridgeline. When she rounded the bend she stopped dead, redoubling her grip on the rifle.
“Good Lord.”
A wash of pearly moonlight reflected off the debris peppering the road. Kate stepped gingerly around odd bits of metal and wood, empty flour sacks, and yards of twisted homespun snaking across her path.
She blinked a couple of times, adjusting her eyes to the moonlight. Then she saw it. Just ahead—the dim outline of a wagon wheel, poking out of the trees on the downward slope of the ridge.
“Mr. Dunnett?” She approached cautiously. “Are you here?”
The sound of hoofbeats somewhere in the distance broke her concentration. Closing her eyes, she listened, but it was gone. Perhaps it had been her imagination.
A branch snapped behind her.
Kate’s eyes flew open and she whirled, leveling her rifle at the sound. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” The saucerlike eyes of a raccoon stared back at her from the edge of the trees.
She stood there for a moment, gripping the rifle, and let her heartbeat return to normal. It wasn’t like her to be this jumpy. As the raccoon waddled toward the empty flour sack, Kate turned her back on it.
Peering ahead, she saw that the wagon—what was left of it—had overturned, and was perched precariously at the edge of a steep drop-off. A thick stand of trees had kept it from plummeting over the side all together.
Narrowing her gaze, she studied the wreck. Smashed barrels and more open sacks littered the steep hillside around it. Her nose wrinkled as she caught a whiff of whiskey on the air.
Something wasn’t right.
She couldn’t put her finger on it, but something seemed strange about the wagon. “Mr. Dunnett?” She inched closer. “Is anyone here?”
Then it struck her. The wheels. They weren’t plain like those on Dunnett’s wagon. They were…
Yellow.
Why, this wasn’t Dan Dunnett’s wagon at all. It was—
A deep, guttural sound spooked her nearly out of her skin. Kate lurched back and lost her footing. A thick pine saved her at the last minute from tumbling down the slope.
“Who’s there? Show yourself!”
Someone was on the far side of the wagon. She heard scuffling amidst the rocks and pine needles littering the forested hillside, then the sound of splintering wood. She tried to get up, but her boot was wedged fast between two trees.
Hoofbeats sounded behind her. She’d been right! Someone was coming. She gripped the rifle, twisted her foot and pulled with all her might. She was free, but instantly started to slide down the slope. Her hand shot out and caught an edge of the wagon.
Eldridge Landerfelt’s wagon.
As she righted herself, every instinct told her that on the other side she’d find Jed and Leon Packett. The hoofbeats were louder now. No telling who the rider was. Better to act than not, her father always said.
She cocked the rifle and stepped purposefully around the wagon. “If you value your life, you’ll not move a—”
A bone-shaking roar split the air. Kate screamed and nearly dropped her weapon.
“Kate!” Hoofbeats thundered toward her. “Where are you?”
“Will!” Thank God!
She inched backward down the slope, her gaze riveted to the enormous shape lumbering toward her in the moonlight. She’d heard of them, of course, but had never seen one.
“I—I’m here,” she breathed, not managing more than a whisper.
The grizzly bore down on her.
Kate fired.
Sharp pain streaked like lightning across her ribs. Her last conscious thought as she tumbled backward and the rifle slipped from her hands was that Will had, indeed, been where he’d said he’d be. At the mining claim.
And when she’d needed him most, he’d come.
Chapter Thirteen
He hadn’t known the kind of fear that made a man’s mouth go dry, that caused his breath to seize up in his chest—until that moment.
Will jerked the mare’s reins and leaped from her back, borrowed rifle in hand, while the horse was still moving. Rounding the far side of the wagon, he skidded to a stop just before the drop-off.
Thank Christ Matt had changed the antique flintlock over to percussion fire. Will cocked the hammer. Aimed.
“What the—?”
Kate rolled dangerously close to his line of fire, grappling not with the Packetts, as he’d expected, but with a bear! A grizzly.
Will flung the rifle aside and yanked his buck knife from its sheath. A second later he tackled the bear, driving nine inches of tempered steel into its back. It went over easy, already dead, he realized, and thudded as it hit the ground.
“Kate!” He scrambled to his knees, fighting the slope, and reached for her.
“W-Will?”
“I’m here. It’s all right.” He pulled her to her knees, brushed the pine needles from her hair, turned her face into the moonlight to get a better look at her. “Are you hurt?”
“I…I thought you weren’t coming.” She gripped him tight, her head lolling back, her eyes closing. “That you didn’t—” her knees gave out beneath her and he took up her weight in his arms “—care.”
“Oh, Kate.” His gut twisted in knots till his insides burned.
“Kiss me,” she breathed, and opened her eyes. Moonlight reflected from their vitreous depths. “L-like you did before. In the rain.”
On the hillside, near the elderberries. He remembered. He’d thought about it a hundred times, maybe a thousand, since that afternoon.
With a ferocity born of fear and desire, and shame for his inability to protect her—feelings so violent he feared he might ignite—Will crushed Kate to his chest and kissed her.
She opened her mouth to receive his greedy tongue, but when he deepened the kiss and his hold on her, she pushed at his chest and began to whimper.
Instantly he pulled back. “You are hurt.” Holding her at arm’s length, his eyes raked over her body. Then he saw the blood. Trickling black in the moonlight from a set of parallel slashes across her side. “Christ.”
“If I die, I…I want you to know…”
He swept her into his arms as she lost consciousness. Whispering the only prayer he could remember, Will scrambled up to the road, carrying her. He laid her out and tore away the shredded part of her dress where the bear had mauled her.
Probing gently with his fingers, he realized the slashes went clear through her corset and shift to her soft skin beneath. His fingers came away bloody.
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