by Jill Barnett
Dagny, on the other hand, had inherited more of Mama than just her dark beauty. She was sweet, even-tempered, softer, more vulnerable. Often unencumbered by the hot and roiling emotions that lit a fire under Hallie. Dagny was the quiet one.
“You said you will need it Saturday, miss?” the stone carver asked. “For your father’s burial?”
“That’s right.” Hallie forced a smile to her lips, and it felt out of place.
“Follow me over to that wall and you can decide the size and shape of the gravestone from those sketches.”
“Anything is . . .” Hallie’s voice tapered off. “ . . . fine.” The man was already making his way across the barnlike room. He couldn’t hear her.
Hallie glanced at Dagny. An empty wagon now sat next to the dock, and near it, a huge, blond man stood talking to her sister, his hat in his hand. The lack of women in the city made women-snatching a common occurrence, especially here near the wharves.
Hallie panicked. Her fears were fueled by the sheer bulk of the man, who looked as if he could snatch her dazed sister in an instant. She grabbed a brick ax in both gloved hands, just in case, and flung it over her shoulder as she marched toward the man she imagined as her sister’s would-be abductor. With her adrenaline and her imagination racing in tandem, Hallie made it to the dock in time to hear the tail end of the man’s words just as he reached toward Duggie.
“ . . . abduct you.”
Hallie’s fingers gripped the handle and she raised her elbows high ready to heave the heavy tool at him.
“Hallie! No!” Dagny screamed, pushing the man away from the descending ax.
The solid iron smashed onto the dock, splintering the wood and sending waves of bone-ringing pain up Hallie’s arms, through her shoulders and clear up to her neck. She squeezed her eyes closed and shook her dizzy head. Even her teeth ached. When she opened her eyes, the man was sitting up, a trail of blood trickling from where he’d gashed his head on a nearby crate.
“What were you thinking!” Dagny flared. She jerked open her velvet bag, pulling out a hankie, and dabbed at the dazed man’s head while she crooned a soft apology.
“What was I thinking? Didn’t you hear him? He was going to grab you! Get away from him while I get someone to call the sheriff.” Hallie swirled around and slammed into the stocky chest of the stonemason.
“What’s going on here?” The man looked back and forth from the giant to Dagny, to her . . . to his ax.
Hallie spoke right up. “Hurry, get some rope or something to tie him up before he gets away! He tried to nab my sister.”
“Duncan?” The stonemason sounded truly amazed.
“Who?” Hallie asked.
“Oh Hallie, be quiet!” Dagny snapped. “He was doing no such thing!”
“There’s his wagon right there . . .” Hallie pointed to the empty spot where the wagon had been waiting. “Well . . . it was there.” She looked down the dirt street. There was no empty wagon. “Well,” she looked at them, conviction flaring from her eyes, “it was!”
“Miss Fredriksen, there must be some mistake. Duncan wouldn’t hurt your sister.”
“But I heard him say he was going to abduct her!”
The blond man named Duncan looked up at Hallie. “I was warning her, ma’am. I told her it wasn’t safe to sit out here alone where someone could abduct her.”
“Oh.”
“Of course he was, Hallie! I can’t imagine why you thought he would hurt me. Look . . . you can see kindness written all over his face!” Dagny glared at Hallie.
Duncan looked at the stonemason. “Abner sent me to pick up those headstones and that order of lumber, Hank.” He glanced over at the empty spot where his wagon once sat. “Looks like I’ll be a while, though, going after that runaway team.”
Hallie felt awful. “I’m sorry, Mister . . . ?”
“Just Duncan, miss,” he smiled. “And that’s all right. You were just looking out for your pretty little sister.” He glanced at Dagny.
“I’m sorry about your wagon,” Hallie apologized.
“Don’t worry, miss. I’ve one you can borrow, Duncan,” Hank assured them. Duncan will look out for your sister while we finish up that order.” He paused and eyed the ax, still embedded in the jagged crack that marred the dock. “You sure pack some wallop.”
Hallie ignored his comment, since her elbows were still ringing with the effects of her “wallop.” She looked at her sister. “You’ll be okay?”
Dagny purposely ignored Hallie, sticking her nose up in the air. She was still angry with her.
Sighing, Hallie turned and followed Hank inside, glancing back once more at her sister. It was then that she realized that Dagny had shown more emotion in the last ten minutes than she had since they got the news of Da’s death. And that, she supposed, was a good thing.
Abner stretched his long arms up toward the ceiling, then lolled his head back, trying to work the crick out of his shoulder. A plump, chamois bag sat on the walnut bed table, sloping to one side with the weight of its rich contents. Next to it was rested a hollow laudanum bottle. He picked up the bag’s rawhide drawstrings and swung the gold back and forth, watching it swing methodically before his eyes for longer than was normal.
He smiled. He did it! He’d won! He’d broken his weak-minded father’s addictive gambling curse. But then he’d also outsmarted everyone at the table, especially the three drunken miners who’d assumed he’d be an easy take just because he was a slow and meticulous player.
He had watched, and learned, and waited, relying solely on his cunning to best those he felt were intellectually beneath him. But best of all, he had done what his feeble father, the perpetual loser, couldn’t. It was this one, single triumphant thought that sent power flooding through his opiated veins.
Now he had the money he needed, and then some, to get that bullying group of Australian extorters off his back. There had been some talk lately of forming a vigilante group to get rid of the scum, like the Sydney Ducks, who plagued the city with their threats, setting fires and looting. Paying them off now would give him time to get together with some of the reformers, like Sam Brannan, who’d been pushing for vigilance.
Abner got up and washed the previous night’s sweat from his face and neck, drying them with a cotton towel as he wandered over to the window.
The sound of warning shouts came up from below and he saw a wagon round the corner and careen down the street. Its driverless team slowed as it neared the narrow stable path, his stable path. That was his wagon and team.
“Duncan! That fool.” Abner flung the towel into a corner. He grabbed a striped neckcloth and furiously buttoned his collar as he stalked from the room.
A short time later Abner pulled the errant wagon up to the Battery Street Supply Company. He wrapped the reins around the brake lever and eyed the loading dock. Leaning against the side beam of the open freight door was his dim-witted assistant. The wide expanse of Duncan’s brawny shoulders was unmistakable, and Abner couldn’t see his head, which was shadowed by the doorway overhang. He could tell from the man’s stance he was lollygagging around while Abner’s team and wagon took off for parts unknown.
That was all he needed, to have his wagon and team stolen.
As he stormed toward Duncan it became apparent that the idiot was talking to a woman. He could see the outline of her full skirt, and her bonnet bobbed gently as she spoke. The fool was supposed to be picking up a supply load and instead he was talking with some trull from the wharf.
“Duncan! What do you think you’re doing?” Abner shrilled. He turned to give the harlot a scathing look, and was stunned to stone. It was the Fredriksen beauty. The delicate, younger sister of the troublesome virago. She shrunk back from him, and Abner quickly altered his look.
“Miss Fredriksen, I’m so sorry.” Abner bo
wed slightly, not aware he still stared so intensely. She cowered back against the pallet box behind her, and Abner assumed she was repelled by Duncan’s presence. “Is this ne’er-do-well bothering you, my dear?” he asked. All she did was shake. The poor girl was so scared of the giant that she couldn’t speak. He’d seen others react to Duncan that way, which was why he kept him in the back of the mortuary most of the time.
He swirled toward Duncan. “Get away from her!” he ordered. “I’m not paying you to harass innocent young women, nor am I paying you to let my strongest team run loose. You were supposed to load those supplies”—his voice had angered into a high-pitched shriek, and its volume scratched through his taut throat—”and then come right back!”
Duncan’s straw-colored hair looked even more yellow against the bright red flush of his large, square-boned face. His narrow gaze followed Abner’s pointing finger and lit upon the wagon by the dock. Abner watched the hulk gulp deep breaths of air, and if he didn’t already know the man had more hair than wit, he’d have thought the dummy was really angry.
The girl stood up and placed her hand on the straining muscles of Duncan’s rising arm. “Don’t, please,” she pleaded. “I don’t want to cause you any more trouble. I’ll be fine.”
Abner couldn’t believe it. He thought she’d been so frightened of Duncan, and instead she was touching him! Duncan lowered his straining fists. Silent, he turned slowly and began to methodically load the waiting wagon.
It must be pity she feels for the oaf, Abner thought. Dagny Fredriksen is young and probably compassionate. Any creature as lovely, as unspoiled-looking as she, would have to be sympathetic to someone like Duncan.
The first time he saw her, well over two years ago at the burial of her mother, he had thought she was exquisitely lovely. She was young but not gangly or gawky or plump. At that young age she looked exactly as she did today, as if she were molded from head to toe out of the finest, purest porcelain. With her dark hair and eyes, she stood out among the vapid pallor of the Nordic blond Fredriksens. Just looking at her had stirred in him a wealth of emotion. He remembered feeling as if he’d discovered a finely carved piece of Singhalese ebony inside a crate of sawdust.
Intending to assure her that Duncan wouldn’t bother her anymore, he stepped closer. “Miss Fredriksen, I—” He stopped when he saw her expression. She looked up at him with dread in her eyes. The trembling of her small, gloved hands was obvious.
“Excuse m-me, s-sir,” she stammered, backing away as she spoke. “I . . . I must find my sister.” She turned and rushed across the warehouse.
Abner watched, dumbfounded, as she scurried to her sister’s side. She was frightened of him. He thought about the last few minutes, picturing the scene in his mind and hoping to figure out what he had done to frighten her. Briefly, he played with the absurd idea that she preferred Duncan to him, but his innate sense of self-worth extinguished that ridiculous thought. He finally lit upon the only solution he could rationalize. He must have scared her when he shouted at Duncan and then turned his angry look toward her. She might even imagine that he blamed her for Duncan’s idleness.
What a foolish mistake on his part! He should have known someone young and sensitive would be repelled by his shouting. When he pondered the thought, he realized that during most of their previous encounters he’d been angry, or at least acting so. He delighted in trapping any of her young siblings in his garden because he could drag the brats home where he might have the opportunity to talk to Dagny. But the pretext never worked, because her older sister would be there every time to handle the complaint. Then he’d have to make a big show of the whole incident, and wasn’t able to do much more than stare at Dagny. Thinking back, it dawned on him that she had always hidden behind her older sister.
Abner eyed the women as they left the building, bonneted heads close as they hurried away. He needed to find a way to lessen her fear and soften her feelings toward him. He likened her to a skittish filly of his youth, shying away from her master. He remembered how his equestrian mother had taught him that an apple or a carrot or any sweet delicacy could quench a filly’s fear. It was that lesson that he’d use now. The problem was acquiring the right delicacies, for, in his limited experience, women’s tastes were expensive.
The elation he was feeling from his lucky gaming victory was still fresh, fueled by the essence of liquid flowers tainting his blood. He loved how he felt when they opiate was cursing through him, making him feels as if he could conquer anything. He was powerful. He had bested a whole table of gamblers. Luck be damned! He understood that he had now manifested his own destiny, and he’d do so again. He strode toward home, where he would pick up his winnings and return to the gambling haven to stake a bigger venture.
Once home, he retrieved the gold, but before he left the room, he pocketed the umber bottle. Nothing, not physical pain, not anything, would hinder his goal. He patted his pocket. The elixir of success. He left, determined to make his own destiny.
“Black Mariah. Seven-card stud, high spade in the hole splits the pot.” The dealer announced the next hand while he shuffled the poker deck.
Abner watched the cards fly across the battered tabletop. His first card, dealt facedown, slid toward the table edge before it stopped, stuck on a sticky stain of spilled whiskey. He leaned against the wall behind him, trying to look bored. But deep inside, his guts squirmed.
Filmy light shone through the thick cloud of smoke that haloed the corner table. The sun had set hours before, and now, when his nerves sang to an unfamiliar, straining melody of tension, Abner was thankful for the concealing darkness.
Another card and the bet was to him. He picked up five twenty-dollar gold pieces and tossed them in the kitty. The other five players followed suit.
Again the cards flew around the circle of men, and the man on Abner’s right, a merchant named Harris, had the bet with a pair of jacks showing. The pot quadrupled.
When the fifth card was dealt, Abner couldn’t believe his luck. With his down cards, he had an ace-high flush, and while Harris had three jacks showing, Abner had the man’s fourth jack down. Harris boosted the pot by two thousand. Two men folded and two matched the bet.
The sixth card came, and Abner tried to remember the call. Black Mariah. Black Mariah. High spade in the hole splits the pot. He knew Harris couldn’t have four jacks, since he had it in his own down cards, so since Harris was pushing up the pot, he must have a high spade. Abner matched the bet and the two others folded.
The last card was dealt. “Down and dirty,” the dealer quipped.
Sweat beads popped through the pores in Abner’s forehead and the sting of smoke scratched his eyes. The last card lit face down in front of him. By the rules of the house, neither man could look at the last card.
Harris eyed Abner’s bank, then bet. If Abner wanted to call, he’d have to bet everything on this one hand. With a nonchalance he didn’t come close to feeling, Abner pushed his bank into the kitty. “I call.”
Harris laughed when the dealer flipped over the hole cards. He had the ace of spades, giving him a full house and the high spade in the hole.
Abner lost. Numb, he stared at the pot. Harris laughed and laughed. The sound gritted down Abner’s spine.
The jeering merchant started to gather the kitty, but the dealer stopped him. “It’s Black Mariah, remember? Not all the cards are up.”
Abner didn’t understand. Another player nodded at Abner’s two remaining hole cards and explained. “In Black Mariah, if the queen of spades is a hole card, it beats both the best poker hand and the high spade. The holder takes all.”
The dealer reached in front of Abner and flipped over his two hole cards. The queen of spades stared back at him.
Cheers erupted from the table; he’d won, all of it. The moisture evaporated from his mouth. He felt the others crowd around him and clap him on th
e back. Someone shoved a canvas bag into his hands to hold all the money on the table.
The boisterous voices of the surrounding men made him suddenly nervous. As he scooped his winnings into the bag, he could feel their expectant stares. A few coins were left on the table, and he waved them off. “The drinks are on me,” he boasted.
The crowd swarmed back to the bar, and Abner knotted the heavy bag through the fastener on his suspenders. He jerked his sack coat closed. A bottle of whiskey sat forgotten on the table. He was still numb, and needed to feel something, even the bitter burn of rotgut whiskey. Abner took a gulp.
It took about three minutes for the whiskey to create a war in his stomach. Painful cramps shot like lightning from his belly, knifing their way to his lower organs. A splitting ache ran from his rectum up his spine to his neck, and made him flinch.
The whiskey bottle crashed to the floor. He groped through his coat for his medicine bottle. “Water, please,” he croaked at one of the nearby men.
A little Chinese man shuffled over. He picked up the laudanum bottle and examined it. Abner jerked the bottle from the man’s claw-nailed hand. “That’s mine!”
The man grinned and nodded his pigtailed head.
“Get away!” Abner hugged the bottle and squeezed his eyes shut when another pain gripped him. When it passed and he opened his eyes, the strange little Chinaman stood in front of him, holding a glass of water. Abner uncapped the tincture and tried, with shaking hands, to pull some of the liquid into the dropper. The bottle was empty, so in desperation he dumped the small amount of remaining medicine into the glass. Instead of tinting a rich ruby, the water barely turned pink.
“All gone,” the grinning man said and shook his head while Abner pounded the heel of his hand against the bottle, trying to jar loose any last bit. He slammed the bottle onto the table and grabbed the glass, inhaling the contents as if he were smothered and the glass held air.