Ah, she remembered now. She’d taken it out of her calico dress and had put it away in the night table as usual. Her thoughts had been so full of Will that morning, she’d forgotten to retrieve it. No matter. After her visit to the priest, she’d hurry back. And then they’d be on their way.
As she passed the Vickerys’ cottage, she noticed their wagon was perched askew on the hillside. She must remember to say goodbye to the lawyer and his wife before she and Will left town.
Breathing hard, she finally reached her destination. “Father Flanagan, are you up?” she called out as she approached his tent. No answer. She called his name again, and this time heard him stirring inside the tent.
“Sunday already, is it?” His voice was thick with sleep, and a hangover, if she had to guess.
“No Father, it’s Friday. But might I have a word with you all the same.”
“Is that you, Kate? Mrs. Crockett, I mean.” The tent flap slapped open and the portly priest peered out at her, squinting. He was dressed in nothing but his long johns, which were stained with what smelled distinctly like whiskey. “What the devil are you doin’ up so early? I don’t hear confessions before nine you know.”
“I know, Father, but I can’t wait that long. And while I’ve got some confessing to do, it’s not absolution I’ve come for, but advice.”
“Advice, is it? Well, why didn’t you say so?” He snapped the tent flap shut again, and she waited while he dressed. A few minutes later he emerged from the tent, and once he found his balance, led her to a couple of stumps near the dead campfire where he obviously did his cooking. “Now, what might I advise you on?”
She took a seat on one the stumps and struggled with how to begin. He was young, not that much older than herself, she suspected. Had he been a more experienced priest she might have felt more comfortable with what she was about to tell him.
“Go on, lass. Spit it out.”
“All right.” She drew a breath. “It’s like this, Father.”
Father Flanagan sat on the stump across from her and listened to the whole long tale. How she came to Tinderbox and met Will, how she shamelessly asked him to marry her so she could keep the store. She related the terms of their bargain, what they each hoped to gain, and how they hadn’t really been living as man and wife.
Until last night.
The priest’s green eyes grew wider and rounder with each new revelation. She told him about Will’s first wife, how she and their unborn babe had died of cholera. The hardest part was telling him about Will’s guilt over her untimely death, and his wish to never marry again. She finished by describing the magnitude of the obligation he surely felt after what had happened between them last night.
“So you see, Father, I must have the annulment. His ship leaves in a week, and I would not have him miss it for the world.”
Father Flanagan sucked in a breath and slowly exhaled. “You haven’t told me everything, Kate.”
“But I have.” She’d left nothing out, nothing of importance.
“Aye, you’ve explained the mess you’re in, and how you intend to skittle across the pond back to Ireland and send your husband on his merry way north.”
She nodded, wondering what else she possibly could tell him.
“But you haven’t said how you feel about this man, or how he feels about you.”
“Oh.” She blinked her eyes a few times before answering. “Does that…matter?”
Father Flanagan snorted. “That’s the only thing that does, you silly girl. I’m a priest, but I’m not stupid. I was there last night, and saw with my own eyes how it is between you.”
“At the party, you mean.”
“Aye, at the party. Where else?”
She met his annoyed gaze and struggled for the right words. “I…I don’t know how I feel.”
“Aye, you do. It’s plain as the nose on your face, Kate.”
“But he doesn’t want me, Father. And I won’t be a ball and chain around his heart.” Father Flanagan started to bluster, but she cut him off. “Besides, I’ve got to go home. My brothers are counting on me. We’ve the debt to pay and—”
“Was does your husband say about it?”
“The debt?” She shook her head. “I haven’t told him. Aye, and thank God for it. That’s exactly the kind of thing that would keep him with me against his will.”
Father Flanagan rose from the stump and, to her shock, plucked her straight off hers. They stood head to head, and he squeezed his face up in exasperation. “Go home, Kate. Tell your husband you love him, and tell him about the debt.”
“I’ll do no such thing.”
He turned her so she was pointing down the hill, and gave her a little push. “And say a dozen rosaries—on your knees, mind you—for your sins.” He made the sign of the cross, and blessed her.
“Aye, well, I’ll surely do that, Father. That and more. But about the annulment. Is it possible, do you think, to—”
“Go home, Kate.” He shook his head and moved on wobbly legs back to his tent.
As she lifted her skirts and started back down the hill, she let out a string of Chinese swearwords she’d learned from Mei Li. Fine. She’d just have to convince Will that she didn’t care about the annulment. That it didn’t matter that she was…that they had…oh, blast!
She’d see him on that ship if it was the last thing she did. On the rest of her walk back to town, Kate crafted a few grand lies she could use if he resisted.
When she turned into Main Street it was still quiet as death. The fog had begun to lift, which would make the first part of their journey back to Sacramento City go easier. Floyd Canter was still lying in the street, snoring. Mustart’s corral was still open. Kate kept moving.
A minute later she stepped onto the cabin’s back porch. Daisy was back in her pen along with her father’s gelding, which meant Will had returned from hunting. Both horses should be saddled and ready, but they were not. As she’d suspected, he didn’t intend to leave. Not after what had happened between them.
Will met her at the door.
“It’s time,” she said, and brushed past him. “Everything’s packed.”
“Kate, there’s something I want to—”
“If we hurry, we can make Sacramento City by tomorrow.” She strode to the night table and jerked open the drawer.
“We need to talk, Kate.”
Her mouth dropped open. She whirled on him. “Where is it? Have you got it?”
“Have I got what?”
“Sweet Jesus, the money bag!”
“What?” Will’s brows collided in a frown. “You mean you—” He stepped around her and jerked the drawer completely out of its track. A second’s worth of inspection proved what Kate already knew was the terrible truth.
“But you always have it on you.”
“Not this morning. I—it slipped my mind.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders. “Think, Kate. When was the last time you saw it.”
“Last night, when I ran back here from the party. I put it there, in the night table, right before you—” she glanced at the battered door “—before we…”
“It’s all right. It doesn’t matter. We can—”
“It does matter.” Oh, God, not this. Not now. “I have to go home, Will. I want to go home. Can’t you see that?”
He looked at her, and for the briefest moment she thought she read something she never expected to see in his eyes. Then it was gone, and his face turned to stone.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll get the money back.”
“How?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea who stole it.”
So did she. She recalled Jed Packett’s hands on her at the party last night.
Will slid his pistol out of his belt and checked the firing device. “Stay here.” He strode to the door and shot her a hard look. “And this time, I mean it.”
Chapter Seventeen
Stealing was a hanging offense.
But only if the thief lived to see the local vigilance committee carry out the sentence. Kate had come to learn that more often than not the wronged party took matters into their own hands.
Fearing for Will’s safety, Kate waited in the cabin as he had bid her, sitting on the edge of the bare, straw-stuffed mattress, tapping the toes of her boots nervously on the floor.
Early that morning before her visit to Father Flanagan’s, she’d made a bedroll of the furs and blankets that had covered the bed, and stashed it in the corner with the few things she and Will would need for their respective journeys.
Only the pillows were left. She grasped the one Will had slept on and pressed it to her chest. It smelled of him. His scent was on her, as well. She closed her eyes for a moment and recalled their passionate lovemaking.
Never in her life had she fathomed the intensity of emotion and sensation that had fused inside her at the moment of her release at his hands. It had been nearly too much to bear.
Now what she could not bear was the thought of their parting. Never to see each other again.
She cursed herself and cast the pillow aside. She must be strong now. For Will and for her brothers. Father Flanagan was dead wrong. It didn’t matter what she felt or what she wanted. She had obligations, and Will Crockett had dreams of a life that didn’t include her.
Drawing a measured breath, Kate rose and looked for something to occupy the time while she waited for Will to return. She’d been enough trouble to him already, and promised herself she’d do as he asked her and stay put while he retrieved their money from Jed Packett. The ruffian couldn’t have gotten far. He must have slipped into the cabin while Will was out hunting and she was paying her visit to the priest.
One last time, she paced the perimeter of the store and living area, inspecting every shelf and corner, making sure they weren’t leaving anything important behind. Will had deeded the building and the land to Matt Robinson. Matt hadn’t really wanted it, but Will had Mr. Vickery draw up the papers all the same.
Crouching down, Kate peered into the cubbyhole under the counter where her father had kept his battered old money box, the one she and Will had ceased to use weeks ago. The package of letters she’d discovered her second day in Tinderbox was hidden behind it. She’d almost forgotten them. Smiling, she pulled the parcel from its hiding place and carefully unwrapped it.
Her father had kept all of Michael’s letters to him. She turned the pages, running a hand over the fluid script, her smile turning to a laugh as she recognized some of the pictures Patrick and Frank had drawn in the margins.
Michael had written to their father regularly. Mei Li had taught her to read the months of the year, and Kate recognized the words as she leafed through the individual missives. The first was dated April 1848, more than a year and a half ago, when her father had first come to America.
There were many letters after that, nearly one each month, though some months were missing. It was startling that so many of Michael’s letters had arrived at all. They’d been hand-carried by friends of friends, and sometimes by strangers or seamen. So many were emigrating to California from Ireland, Michael had always found someone willing to carry a letter.
She leafed through to the end of the stack, then frowned. The last letter was unopened. She broke the seal and unfolded the crisp paper. Lord! It was dated the twenty-first of June 1849, nearly two months after she herself had left Ireland! But…how on earth could it have arrived before she had?
Kate stared hard at the date on the letter, and then it dawned on her. “Of course!” She’d come by steamer to New York, then by another ship to Panama, over land, and by yet another vessel to San Francisco. The journey had taken six long months. It was cheaper, but far slower, than the clippers that left out of Dublin and Limerick and sailed straight for San Francisco without pause.
She quickly scanned the words, but could make out very few of them, save for names and the date at the top of the page. “Blast!” Stepping to the window, she looked out on Main Street. The fog had thinned, but there was nothing to see. The street was quiet.
She had no idea when Will would return. It might be hours. He’d said to stay put, but what he really meant was that she shouldn’t go after him. Fine. She wouldn’t. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t pay a visit to Mei Li.
She raced to the back room, grabbed her cloak and was out the door like a shot. Mei Li could read her the letter. Oh, how she missed her brothers! She was dying to know how they fared, whether Hetty had had a boy or a girl, if Frank and Patrick were still in school.
She rounded the corner of the building, turned into the street and stopped. “That’s odd.” Narrowing her eyes, she peered down the street, her gaze fixed on the front door of Landerfelt’s Mercantile and Mining Supply.
It was open.
The Packetts weren’t allowed inside while Eldridge Landerfelt was away. That’s what Mr. Vickery had told her. Then why would—?
An image of the Vickerys’ wagon, covered in mud and parked askew on the hillside next to their cottage, flashed in her mind. Kate started down the street, remembering, too, the pair of oxen she’d seen that morning munching grass in the open corral at the livery.
Hired oxen. And a borrowed wagon.
Eldridge Landerfelt was back!
She stuffed the unread letter into the deep pocket of her calico dress and walked toward the open door of the mercantile. Will had told her to stay back, but she couldn’t stop herself. The Packetts were one thing, Eldridge Landerfelt another all together.
“Is anyone there?” She pushed the door wide and peered inside. The front room of the store was empty, the shelves as bare as the day Landerfelt rolled out of town with all his inventory, and theirs.
Tentatively Kate stepped across the threshold. “Will? Is anyone—?”
“I told you to stay put.” Will charged through the door leading from the back room, his face twisted in anger.
“What’s happened? Is Landerfelt—”
“He was here, but he’s gone.” Will checked his Colt, just as he had a half hour ago. “And I’m going after him.”
“Whoa, partner! Hang on.” Matt poked his head into the store from the back room. Kate hadn’t even realized he was there. “I think you’ll want to see this, Will.”
“What now?” He left her at the door and stormed into the back room with Matt. Kate followed.
She’d never seen the small room Eldridge Landerfelt used for storage. The building had a second story and his living quarters were upstairs. She’d never been up there, either, and was glad of it.
She entered the dusty storage room and saw Matt holding a small vial. It was fashioned of brown glass, the kind you’d see on an apothecary’s shelf or in a doctor’s bag. She remembered that Doc Mendenhall had a collection of them in his valise the night he treated her in the Miwok camp.
“What is it?” Will plucked the open vial from Matt’s hand and sniffed at it. “Christ.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Found it over there behind some old tins.”
“What’s wrong,” Kate said. “What is it?”
“Strychnine.” Will looked past her, eyes unfocused, and she could see he was grinding his teeth.
“I don’t understand. What…does it do?”
“That stuff’ll kill a man, ain’t used proper.” Matt handed Will the stopper to seal it up again. “Works quick, too.”
“Yeah,” Will said. “Just like that.”
Kate frowned, remembering what Doc Mendenhall had told her about her father’s last days. How he’d nearly recovered from his long illness, and then died all of a sudden for no good cause, as if… “You don’t think—?”
“I don’t think,” Will said. “I know.” He jammed the stopper back into the vial and stuffed it in his pocket. “Come on—” he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her toward the door “—we’re going.”
Will waited while Kate hugged Mei Li goodbye in the street in front of the store. The Chinese gir
l had tears in her eyes. Kate kissed Matt on the cheek, then he boosted her into the saddle atop Dennington’s black gelding. The few belongings they had kept for the journey were divided equally between Will’s mount and hers.
Kate had sold nearly everything left in the cabin and store two days ago. All that they’d made had been tucked away in the leather pouch Landerfelt had stolen from them that morning. Over a thousand dollars. Money enough to put Kate on a ship and buy him his passage north.
He still didn’t know what he was going to do on that count.
One thing he did know. Come hell or high water, he’d get that money back, and settle the score on the matter of Liam Dennington’s murder. Only there was no time to go after Landerfelt on his own and then come back for Kate. He’d have to take her with him now.
The Orion sailed for Sitka in eight days. And the letter sheet he’d read mentioned two or three clippers making return trips to Ireland at about that same time. His plan all along had been to see Kate safely aboard one of those ships, and pay the captain extra to look out for her.
That’s what was best, for him and for her. He knew that. Besides, each time he looked at her she looked away. It was as if what they’d shared last night had never happened. It shouldn’t have happened, damn it.
“Let’s go,” he said, and kicked the mare into action.
Matt and Mei Li waved to them as they trotted down the street toward the road leading south out of town. Mustart was hauling a barely conscious Floyd Canter to his feet in front of the livery when they passed.
“Goin’ for an early ride, eh?” he called out.
Few knew they were leaving town for good. Vickery, Matt, the Chengs. It was better that way. Will didn’t like goodbyes. “Something like that,” he called back.
Kate urged her mount in line with his. “I haven’t thanked him proper, or the Vickerys.”
“Doesn’t matter. You won’t see them again.”
“No. I won’t.”
His gut tightened as she pursed her lips and trotted on ahead. Maybe he was wrong about her. Maybe she wouldn’t have come with him or stayed married to him if he’d asked. He knew she’d gone to see the priest that morning. She’d mentioned it when they were saddling the horses.
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