by Sarah Hegger
“And I’ve got this.” Cole palmed his Colt. “And you better pray I find Ellie in one piece, or Colt and I are gonna be back and we’re gonna get really well acquainted.”
“I don’t—”
Cole tapped the barrel on the door. “You hear me, lady?”
“Yes.” She closed the door and the lock tumbled.
Cole already felt better. He straightened his hat and headed into the road.
“Which way do you think she went?” Bridget stood with her hands on her hips and looked this way and then that.
And snap his moment of triumph vanished.
There wasn’t much of Silver Creek. A saloon, the boarding house, a general stone and sheriff’s office on this side of the road and a bank, two churches, an undertaker beside the livery, and a huddle of houses on the other.
He could rule out the churches, not because Ellie wouldn’t go there, but because he’d bet she’d had a gut now of being called a whore and tossed out of places.
She would never go near the sheriff and knew better than to enter a saloon. Cole headed for the general store. A notice pinned to the board outside stopped him.
Of course, she wouldn’t want to risk getting back on the train, so she must have taken the stage, which meant she’d bought a ticket inside.
Telling Bridget to wait, he went in to enquire, and was back sooner than he’d thought he’d be. Ellie hadn’t been seen in the general store.
Bridget, of course, had made a friend. An earnest faced farmer’s son was trying to press a bunch of carrots into her hands. “They’re the sweetest we ever had.”
Cole gave him points for creativity.
Bridget went bright red. “I’m sorry, I don’t like carrots.”
The kid’s heartbreak almost slayed him, and Cole hurried to the rescue.
“Those are some fine carrots, son.” Not a thing he’d ever thought he’d say. “But best you keep them for selling. I bet you could get a pretty penny out of those.”
“I could.” Bridget’s bucolic swain wavered, gaze on the carrots. “But I have a whole cartload out back.”
With visions of a cart of carrots following him for the rest of his days, Cole tugged Bridget away. “Best you get to selling then.”
“I don’t like carrots,” Bridget whispered. “They make my teeth orange.”
Cole nearly asked how she came by that knowledge, but the idea she might tell him stopped him short. “Come on. Ellie didn’t get on the stage.”
“Oh, I know.” Bridget beamed at him. “She was seen behind this very store.” She pointed at it. “She was talking to Pigeon.”
“She was talking to a Pigeon?”
Bridget giggled. “Not a pigeon, Pigeon. It’s a person, and he’s very dirty.” She looked at him.
Cole hadn’t a clue. Not a one.
Bridget sighed. “He’s a trapper that lives around here. They call him Pigeon because he’s always picking up scraps.”
“Who told you this?”
“Zeke.” She blinked at him.
He could swear he’d been inside the store less than five minutes. “Who is Zeke?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “Zeke works for the railroad. He saw a pretty girl with dark hair, like you said Ellie looked, creeping around the store.” She leaned in closer and whispered, “He wouldn’t have noticed, only she was behaving strangely, and he stopped to have a look.”
There were times when you had to bow to the inevitable and Cole motioned her to continue.
“Well, first he sees Ellie and he was about to go and ask her if she was all right, when Pigeon got there and started talking to her.”
“Did Zeke see where she went?”
Bridget shook her head. “No.” Then she brightened. “But Abel did.”
Five minutes in the store, five and a half, at the most.
“Where did Abel say she went?”
“Down there.” Bridget pointed to a line of shacks beside the railroad. “He saw her creep into one of them.”
The way this search was going, Cole knew he wouldn’t find Ellie still there, but he went anyway.
This time he left Bridget outside on purpose. Who knew what more she could pick up?
The inside of the hut was dark and hot. Sacks were stacked up against the back wall. The top sacks were sunken as if somebody had lain there. A boy or a small woman.
Cole examined the shack. Not knowing what he was looking for but desperate enough to hope for something. A flash of color caught his eye and he bent. A green apple lay in the dust beside an already eaten apple core.
He kept looking. “Yes,” he whispered. Finally, a solid clue.
Half hidden beneath the sacks was a purse and one he’d seen in Ellie’s hands. Opening it he found a stash of bills and a handful of double eagles. He tucked it in his coat pocket. Ellie was too smart to have left without her money.
Outside a young man with a round, scrubbed face and a fuzz of yellow hair stared at Bridget with adoration.
They both turned when he left the shack.
Bridget smiled and pointed. “This is Zeke.”
Cole shook the man’s hand and instantly regretted it. Zeke had a wet, limp handshake.
“I was asking the lady what to do about the bag.” Zeke colored to his receding hairline.
If Ellie had left her bag, it meant she had intended to come back for it. His gut got to tingling with that bad feeling. “You mean Ellie left her baggage with you?”
“Sure did.” Zeke nodded. “But she only left two bits for me to keep it for the rest of the day. Then she didn’t come back for it.”
His first real connection with his illusive, small runaway. “We’ll take the bag.”
“Only. There’s money owing on it. Because like I said, she only paid me—”
Cole was going to grind his teeth to stubs at this rate. “I’ll pay you the money owed and take the bag.”
Relief flooded Zeke’s face.
He followed Bridget and Zeke to the small railroad office and waited while Zeke went into the back and brought Ellie’s carpetbag out.
Outside again, with the entirety of Silver Creek stretched in front of him, and Ellie’s bag at his feet, Cole was flummoxed.
Ellie had been in the shack, but he had no idea where to start looking now.
Footsteps scuffed behind him and he spun, hand on his gun.
A wizened old man in a buckskin shirt with long dark hair stood gazing at Bridget. He jabbed his thumb at her. “This one yours?”
Bridget looked at the man and then Cole. “This is Abel.”
“She’s my niece,” Cole said.
“How much do you want for her?” Abel eased closer to Bridget.
So tempting, but even he wasn’t that much of an ass. “She’s not for sale.”
“For anything.” Abel got a crafty look in his dark eyes.
Cole let this play itself out. The gambler in him recognized in Abel a man who thought the deck stacked in his favor. “What are you offering?”
“Information.” Abel grinned showing the gums where his front teeth should have been.
“What makes you think I need information?”
“That.” Abel pointed at Ellie’s bag. “And you been asking about the other gal what got off the train yesterday.”
So much for bluffing. “You know where she is?”
“Know where she might be?” Abel peered out the corner of his eye at Cole and wheezed a chuckle through his tooth gap. “Iffen the price was right.”
“She’s not for sale.” Cole shifted his coat away from his gun butt. It had been years since his last gun battle, but he wouldn’t back down. At the slightest sign of fear, Abel would take him on. “But how about you tell me what you know, and I’ll decide what it’s worth.”
Abel eyed his gun and licked his lips. “What’s in it for me?”
“Your neck.” Cole smiled. “You get to keep your head decorating it.”
“I think Pigeon has your woman.” He g
lanced at Bridget, and then said sullenly, “Your other woman that is. What do you need two for anyways?”
“What makes you think Pigeon has her?” Cole hardly dared hope.
Abel scratched his head. “Saw Pigeon light out first thing.” He shrugged. “Had himself something flung over his mule what might have been a woman.”
Cole had to take a minute to breathe deep. “Was she…is she…”
“Dead?” Bridget’s eyes went huge as she gaped at Abel. “Did he kill her?”
“Why would he bother to tote her on his mule if she were dead?” Abel gave them a look loaded with scorn. “Only reason to give up room on your mule would be for a live woman.”
The relief made his vision swim and Cole drew in two deep breaths before he could speak. “What makes you sure it was a woman and not some supplies?”
“I don’t know me any supplies what got long black hair and wears them dainty little button up boots.”
Chapter Fourteen
Even though riding astride the mule beat the hell out of being carted over its back, Ellie was ready to do anything if she could only stop moving.
Last night, he’d tied her to a tree, and she’d gotten as much sleep as she could. Between her fear of the trapper, the wild animals, and her back aching from the tree bark, she can’t have managed much more than an hour total. They had traveled all day. The trapper led her in circles, and as she got more and more tired, Ellie gave up on trying to remember landmarks and concentrated on not collapsing in a puddle of tears.
Every bone in her body ached from the ride, and her head still hammered. The only water she got was the occasional sips the trapper allowed her, and that only after she begged.
As the afternoon waned, they climbed the arid hills to the tree line. Air got trapped amongst the big trees rising on either side of them, and Ellie felt like she was being baked. There was no trail, but the trapper wound them around and through the trees as if he knew where they were going.
With sunset, the heat dropped, and by the time a small cabin appeared in a clearing between the trees, she was shivering so hard her teeth chattered.
The cabin door opened, and a man stepped out. He drew closer, eyes on Ellie. “What you got there, Pa?”
He looked like the trapper, only less hairy, a lot younger and cleaner. Actually, he looked nothing like the trapper, and if she hadn’t heard him call the trapper Pa, she would never have mistaken them for relatives.
Pa came to stand beside her mule and beamed up at her. He flashed a smile of surprisingly sparkling white teeth. “I brought you a wife.”
It must have been her exhaustion because it sounded like the trapper said—
“A wife.” The younger man drew closer to her and stared up at her. “She don’t speak much.”
“She’s tired.” Pa sniffed. “She may look like a little bit of thing, but she’s got gumption.” He grunted and went to the other mule. “Once she got over her complaining.”
“What complaining?” Ellie had kept her woes to herself all day.
The son eyed her askance. “What if she don’t like me, Pa?”
“I reckon she won’t like you.” Pa started undoing the ropes binding the supplies to the third mule. “Not at first at any rate.”
“Why won’t she like me?” He looked crestfallen.
“She’s new to the idea of marrying you, is all.” He hauled a sack off the mule. “Now get her down from there and come and help with these supplies.”
The younger man reached for her.
Ellie stiffened and jerked back.
“She don’t want me to touch her.” He looked to his father.
“Isaac, I swear to the good Lord, you was dropped on your head as a baby.” Pa strode over and grabbed Ellie by the waist.
Before she could get a good scream gathered, she was on her feet and he was striding away again.
“If she’s to be my wife, I’m gonna need to touch her,” Isaac said.
He had a point, and suddenly Ellie found that so hilarious she started to laugh. Her laughter built to the point where her shaky legs wouldn’t hold her up and she dropped to the ground.
Isaac stepped back. “She’s not right. Why did you bring me one that’s not right in the head?”
“Ungrateful whelp.” Pa smacked Isaac over the back of the head. “She’s in shock, is all. I didn’t exactly ask if she wanted to come with us.”
Ellie got herself together and glared up at him. “What your father means is that he abducted me.”
“Of course he did,” Isaac said. “No women want to come up here any other ways.”
So much for any help from that quarter.
“She’s pretty, and she speaks nice.” Pa went back to unloading his mule. “She’ll get used to the idea of being here after a time. Best you use that time to woo her right.” He glared at his son. “There’ll be no forcing a woman under my roof.”
Isaac flushed and shook his head. “I wasn’t gonna anyhow.”
“See that you don’t.” The trapper jabbed a finger in Isaac’s face. “Until the preacher comes round and gets you hitched right. Man’s got a right to do what he likes with his wife.”
Ellie woke with the sun in her eyes. Sheer exhaustion had gotten her to sleep last night. After they’d finished unloading, Isaac and Pa had led her into the cabin and showed her where she could sleep. The men had bedded down by the fire in the main room and she’d slept in the only bed, in a loft above the kitchen.
The cabin was solid. She’d caught a glimpse of it before she stumbled up the ladder and fell across the bed.
If ever a girl needed a plan, it was her, and she needed one right smart. She had no idea where she was or what direction town, any town for that matter, was in.
Also, she should find out the name of her abductor. His statement that he didn’t tolerate forcing a woman had gone no small way to letting her sleep. Until she was safely married to Isaac, and then she was her husband’s property. As she saw it, she needed to make sure she was long gone before the pastor headed this way. Whichever way they were.
She stretched and winced as all her aches and pains from traveling reacquainted themselves. As quietly as she could, she crawled to the edge of the bed and peered below. The cabin was empty with two bedrolls still laid out by the fire.
She’d fallen asleep in her clothes, but Pa hadn’t seen fit to abduct her with her luggage, so this was all she had. She climbed down into the kitchen.
Outside the windows, chickens pecked their way across a bare yard. To the right, a stand of aspens guarded a small creek. A couple ducks argued their way along the creek bank. To the left, the land had been cleared for planting and Isaac and Pa were swinging picks together.
She didn’t know how much time she had, so she put a pot of water on to boil for a wash. She also did the best she could with the stains to her traveling dress. Her coat had taken most of the abuse and would need a wash. A check out the window reassured her that the men were still working, now even a bit farther from the cabin.
A coffee pot sat on the table, and she emptied the dregs, refilled it and put it back on. Needing to keep her hands busy and her brain working, she tidied away the two bedrolls and put them in a nearby chest. Then she swept the floor and cleaned the tabletop. A plan blossomed as she worked. Her best chance of escape was to lull them into trusting her.
When her water was warm enough, she peeked out at her abductors before washing. It was an awkward process involving keeping as much clothing in place as possible and still getting cleaner.
But she did feel better once she was done, and she took the water outside. Behind the cabin, they had staked out and fenced a small vegetable garden and she tossed her water there.
A handful of tomatoes were ripe, and she picked them and went back into the cabin.
She poured herself some coffee, and even knowing it was probably pointless went searching for some milk or cream. Finding nothing, she settled for a dollop of honey and took her coffe
e to the porch.
Despite being her jailor, Pa had settled on a pretty spot. The cabin rested on a plateau, tucked in the lee of a large mountain. Behind the creek, she could make out where the land dropped into a rocky gorge.
Wildflowers grew in clumps around the cabin, and venturing off the porch, she picked a handful as she sipped her coffee. She walked into the aspen stand. Split pole fences housed three mules and a couple of cows. A herd of goats were roaming free, and she guessed they belonged to Pa and Isaac as well.
They were set up well. Between the livestock and the garden, they had most of what they needed to survive. Which meant Pa wouldn’t need to go into town all that often.
In her experience, men were driven by their balls and their bellies. As she’d stick a knife in herself or one of them before she went the balls route; she would work on their bellies.
Returning to the cabin, she dusted off her rusty housekeeping skills. At the Four Kings, she had sometimes given Pearl a hand, but it had been a long time since her pa had died, and she had kept house and cooked for him and her brothers. She’d done so in a lot rougher places than Pa’s cabin as well. She found what she needed to make bread. Someone had a yeast starter going, so either Pa or Isaac baked. Unless they made a habit of kidnapping women and getting rid of them when they had served their purpose.
No good would come of getting into a dither, as Pearl liked to say, so Ellie shoved any lurking scary thoughts deep.
Further exploration unearthed some sort of meat that she popped in a pot with some carrots and onions from a sack hanging behind the door and added her newly picked tomatoes. She put her stew on the stove to simmer. Next, she attacked the cabin. It wasn’t dirty, so much as neglected, and cleaning it gave her an outlet for her energy and a way to stave off the looming dither.
She tossed her dirty coat and two grubby shirts she found hanging behind the door in a pail to wash down by the creek.
Trying to escape one situation, she’d landed herself right in the middle of another. Cole would be back in Denver, doing whatever it was he did. He didn’t speak much about his business, but she got the sense he’d moved on from gambling to something steadier.