by Maren Smith
The flute and lutes continued to play, but Chin had stopped dancing. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything but hear the escalating screams—of people, horses, pigs; nothing that was theirs was spared. Her chest tight and beginning to ache, she sucked a hard breath and smelled again the smoke as the buildings were torched. Her heart raced, thundering beneath her breast exactly as it had as she and her mother raced through the temple, across the courtyard, past the gardens and the fence, scattering chickens and not stopping to catch their breath until the cool shade of the forest enclosed them. That forest had been her childhood playground, but it offered no sanctuary for they had been seen and imperial pursuers were already closing ground fast behind them.
Hands shaking and numb, Chin dropped her fans when the man stepped away from the bar.
Run, she heard, soft as a whisper in her mother’s long-gone voice. It was the last thing she had told Chin, although she had not said it very softly back then. No, back then she’d hissed it, panic and fear turning her beloved sing-song voice to a growl as she’d shoved that bundle of precious heirlooms into Chin’s arms. Run and don’t look back, no matter what you hear!
Six years ago, Chin had looked back, watching in horror as her mother ran back toward the soldiers, veering away at the last in an effort to draw them from her own daughter. Six years ago, they had caught her mother anyway and they had killed her, just not right away. Six years ago, at barely more than fourteen, a girl-child who had never in all her obedient life been anywhere without a proper escort, Chin turned her back on her family and fled.
Here and now, in the crowded confines of the Red Petticoat, with miners and cowboys shifting restlessly and beginning to boo the lack of entertainment, that man from her homeland beckoned to her with the pale fingers of his finely gloved hand. She felt the closure that gesture signified, like lightning bolting up through the stage floor and into her badly shaking legs. Oh yes, she knew that man. His name was Quan Ji and he was the son of the man who had murdered her entire family. And that cane he brought with him as he pushed toward her through the dense crowd, it was no innocent walking aid; it was a sword, thin but masterfully crafted for sharpness. And he was not here to pay her a hundred dollars. Not for a poke, ordinary or not. He was here to finish what his father had begun in the bloodstained courtyard of her ancestors’ home all those years ago.
Run, her mother whispered, soft as a Shaanxi breeze in Chin’s mind. Don’t look back, no matter what you hear.
Abandoning her fans on the stage where they had fallen, to her ever-lasting shame, Chin did as she was told. Once more, she ran.
Chapter Two
Shouts of disappointment rippled the crowd as Chin dashed for the side-stage exit. Dozens of chair legs scraped the floor, startled men leaping to their feet to watch her go. It was an odd thing, to be so scared and so aware all at once. Everett Jackson was staring after her with concern and bewilderment. So was Madame Jewel. Standing up from the piano, Charlie had put down his music sheets and was now turning, dark brown eyes sweeping the hall for whatever danger had sent her scurrying through the side stage curtains.
Clear across the room from him, Ji had stopped advancing. Still without expression on his face, or the faces of the black-garbed bodyguards who flanked him, his cool gaze followed Chin until she couldn’t see him anymore. She almost plowed right into Gabe, but he caught her by the shoulders instead.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, her own momentum helping to swing her around and tuck her up amongst the excess curtain at the corner of the wall. “Are you all right?”
She never had been very good at masking her fear. What Gabe read in her must have given him the only answer he needed.
“Get to your room,” he ordered, giving her a shove. “Shove something heavy up against it and don’t open the door for anyone until I get there.”
Chin’s half second of relief vanished along with Gabe when he stepped through the curtain. Mr. Gabe was a good man, and he knew how to keep the peace in a brothel where fights among rough clients occurred damn near on a nightly basis. But he didn’t know Quan Ji or his father, Quan Jiao-Long; she did. She also knew, best intentions aside, Gabe would not be able to stop Ji or his bodyguards from following.
Hiking her silk skirts, Chin fled past the bathing room and the kitchen to the gems’ private stairs. She took them two at a time until her momentum ran out, but already the commotion in the main room was escalating. Patrons were stomping the floor, irritably chanting—“Jade! Jade! Jade!”—though it died down quickly enough once Charlie’s piano banged out the beginning strain of the lively tune, “Take Your Time, Miss Lucy.” Every half-drunk to all-the-way soused patron below began to sing along, belting out, “When young my heart was bent, sir, upon a nice young beau…” in various keys (the majority of which were off), and just like that, “Jade” was forgotten.
Reaching her room, Chin fumbled the latch with unsteady hands. At last it opened and she spilled inside, slamming the door behind her. She pressed against it with all her weight, listening intently for the slightest hint of pursuit.
Block it, Gabe had told her. Legs still shaking, she ran to the dressing table, the heaviest thing in the room next to the bed. She threw herself against it, shoving, pushing and pulling, all four wooden feet anything but quiet as she slid the bulky furniture across the floor. Door now blocked, Chin stumbled back, hands pressed hard over the wild fluttering that consumed her stomach.
Run.
Chin dove for the wardrobe, throwing open both doors and dropping to her knees long enough to wrestle the false bottom out onto the floor. Her bundle was right where she kept it, packed with only three remaining heirlooms. The others she’d had to sell to survive in the years since she’d stepped off the ship that had brought her out of China. All her money was tucked in there too, carefully hoarded through four months of working as a gem. Just in case. Because in the back of her mind, she’d always known “just in case” was fated to happen, and this was it.
Hugging her precious bundle, Chin grabbed a spare dress—the white one, decent enough to be worn outside the Red Petticoat, with its pattern of tiny blue flowers. Normally, it was her “go to the bank and withdraw all the funds Jewel had just deposited for her” dress. Tonight it was her “get out of town with as few people noticing as possible” clothing. She changed quickly, rolling her mother’s silk dancing dress into a hasty bundle before stuffing it into the folds of the blanket, concealing it with the rest of her things before rolling and wrapping all four corners down tight. Chin was still securing it with a length of rope when a knock at the door made her jump.
Softly, Dottie called, “Jade? Honey, are you all right? What’s happened?”
Clutching her bundle to her chest, Chin backed from the door. Not because Gabe had told her not to open for anyone other than himself, or because Dottie was obviously not on that selectively short list, but because she was terrified who might be coming down that long hall of bedrooms behind the other gem.
Without answering, Chin abandoned the door and ran to the window instead. Unlike some gems, she only had one and the view, overlooking the alley between the Red Petticoat and the wholesale liquor dealer next door, was anything but spectacular. Dropping her bundle, she had to shove with both hands to get the heavy sash up, the rope pulleys squealing in protest between the glass and frame over every inch she gained. Outside, it was a dark and cloudy night, without moon or stars to lighten the darkness. Lamps that had been lit along the street cast enough of their faint amber glow back into the barren alleyway for her to see just how long of a drop it was to the dirt below. Far off in the distance, a blue-white flicker of lightning announced the coming storm. It had been months since the last rain. Miners both loved and hated weather like this. Swollen waterways brought a chance that gold might be swept down from newly eroded banks into their own claims, but some fool almost always got himself killed in the torrents of swift-flowing mud and water.
Thunder, soft as a s
tomach’s growl, rolled down out of the hills, but that wasn’t what made Chin jump. Her door rattled under a heavy-fisted knock.
“It’s me,” Gabe said from the other side. “Open up.”
Chin’s whole body shuddered, the need to flee at instant war with the inevitable consequences of the plan rapidly unfurling within her brain.
Stay in her room, Gabe had told her. Open for no one but him. That she should drop everything now and obey, she knew, but that wasn’t her only reason. Leaving the safety of the Red Petticoat after dark and without escort was never allowed. Not to do so invited the kind of punishment Gabe was best known for, by Madame Jewel and her gems.
Another knock, louder this time.
“Chin,” Gabe called in a tone that said clearly he was in no mood to be ignored. “Open the door.”
Grabbing her bundle off the floor and hugging it again, Chin cast the door a last, fearful glance before throwing her leg over the sill and ducking under the window sash. She clung to the rough-board-siding of the building, scared of the inevitable jump.
“Chin!” Gabe said, his tone sharpening.
Looking right, then left, afraid someone would see no matter what she did, Chin waited only long enough to assure herself that the alley was empty. Pulling her skirts up around her thighs, she did her best to let her bundle drop gently into the dirt.
“Chin!” Gabe hammered the door hard enough to rattle the dressing table. “Open, right now, or I will kick this door in. One…”
Strangling in her corset, her chest consumed by ever-tightening knots of dread, Chin rolled onto her hip. She lowered herself to dangle by her arms. The distance left between her and the street was still longer than she was tall.
“Two…” Gabe warned.
Closing her eyes, she let go of the windowsill. She landed hard, pain shooting up her calf as her right ankle twisted and she went all the way down, landing on her fanny in a billow of blue-flowered skirts.
Grabbing her ankle, Chin rocked, too hurt to hold back instant tears, but too scared to do more than gasp when she heard the splintering crash as Gabe kicked his way into the room.
Run.
Chin grabbed her bundle, the pain on standing nowhere near as intense as her fear. She ran, limping down the alley toward the main through street of town. Ducking around the corner, she looked back just as Gabe stuck his head out the window. He glanced toward the busy front street. If he turned her way next, Chin didn’t see it; clinging to the shadows, she hobbled as fast as she could down the less busy business district.
Where she could go, she had no idea. The stage office had closed hours ago and wouldn’t reopen until morning. It might be days before the next stage stopped in Culpepper Cove anyway, and at best guess, she had ten minutes—twenty at most—before Gabe raised the alarm and someone sent a runner to find the sheriff. Without friends or family to hide her—apart from the one she’d just left behind; Chin scrubbed her wrist across eyes she never expected to well up with tears—Jebidiah Justice and his deputies would have her tracked down within the hour. She had to get out of town, and she had to go now.
The night lit up to the blue-white flicker of another burst of lightning. Thunder followed right on the heels of it and was anything but stomach-rumble soft. When another flash lit up the street, Chin found herself staring at the livery stable at the far end of the street. The stables were owned by Bo Magnusson, a hulking giant of a Swede and the town’s only blacksmith. Neither the cracks around the door nor the windows or loft showed any illumination, which meant Bo was either working late at the smithy or perhaps enjoying a late supper at the café down the street. Had the situation been less dire, Chin never would have considered the plan of action now forming among her otherwise scattered thoughts. Clutching her bundle close, she limped across the road to the stable.
Every step sent shocks of hurt radiating up from her ankle, but knowing who waited behind her, she dared not stop to check her injury. She made herself hurry faster, and by the time she neared the livery door, the first few drops of cool rain were splashing off her cheek and arms.
Her heart a battering ram, Chin pressed her ear to the livery door before building up courage enough to crack it open. The air inside was black as pitch. It felt warm, scented with the smell of horses, sweet hay, and saddle leather. A faint undertone of fresh manure caught her nose as she slipped inside. Heavy breathing and a nervous whicker raised the fine hairs of her neck. The horses, she told herself. Nothing more dangerous than just horses.
Another flash of lightning (with thunder booming hard enough for her to feel through the ground) briefly lit the livery interior. Although Bo’s was the only place in town where stalls could be rented, only one horse was stabled here tonight—a dappled mare who snorted and shied when Chin approached her stall.
“Shh,” she whispered, already looking around for the nearest saddle. She’d never saddled a horse in her life, but she’d seen it done often enough to figure out the basics. The hard part was trying to figure it out with only the erratic flash of lightning to guide her.
It was the wrong horse to try to ride out on during a storm. Each flash of blue-white light made the mare shy; each crack of thunder, growing louder and angrier by the second, had the animal tossing her head, the whites of her eyes showing as she stamped and snorted.
“Shh,” Chin soothed, but when she slipped into the stall to throw a saddle blanket over its back, the mare nearly knocked her over in its haste to push out the door past her. It darted nervously as far as the closed livery door, turning what was already a difficult chore for someone trying to heft a saddle half her own size, into something much harder. But Chin persevered. She was too scared not to, and although at one particularly violent crack of thunder, the skittish mare shoved her against the stalls and very nearly crushed her there, Chin got the saddle on her and pulled the cinches tight.
“It’s all right,” she whispered, petting the velvet softness of the mare’s neck before gathering her bundle and the reins together. She led the mare to the stable doors. The street outside would have been empty if not for one staggering drunk, currently using the hitching post across the street to brace himself while he pissed into the rain. No mere drizzle now, a swift fury of drops had turned the streets into a long puddle. Fastening himself back into his trousers, the drunk swept his hat off his head and spread his arms, welcoming the wet. It was, Chin frowned, likely all the Saturday night bath he thought he needed.
Whooping once, the man executed a stumbling jig, which lasted only until the next boom of thunder.
“Som’bitch!” he exclaimed, and staggered up onto the wooden sidewalk. “Som’bitch,” he marveled again, eyeing the sky. Wiping his face with both hands, almost falling over as he shook the water from his hair, he staggered off down the same alley that had brought Chin here.
Not seeing anyone else, Chin pushed open the door and led the mare out into the rain. The cool pelting drops quickly saturated both her hair and her clothes as she circled the side of the livery, giving herself as much cover as possible to negotiate her way onto the skittish mare’s back. She used a neat stack of wood for the extra height needed to get her foot in the stirrup, caught her skirt hem twice on the saddle itself, and dropped her bundle once. By the time she finally managed it, both she and the mare were drenched.
“Chin!”
Water dripping off the end of her nose, Chin nudged the mare to back far enough to see around the livery wall, through the storm and the dark. It was a search party, five men with lanterns, all spreading out to walk Culpepper street by street and alley by alley, calling her name.
“Chin, dammit!” Deputy Silas bellowed again, more than a little irritation seeping into his voice. Lawman by profession, a gambler at the Red Petticoat in his spare time, she had no idea what Gabe must have said to him to get him away from the faro tables and out into this. He hated getting wet almost as much as he hated getting dirty. “Chin!”
“Seen anything yet?”
Chin swiveled as far in the saddle as she could, leaning back until she could see not only Silas but Sheriff Justice as well, stepping out of the alley and onto the sidewalk. Not more than thirty feet away from where she was hiding, he stomped the mud from his boots while Silas snapped back, “Naw, nothing. I tell you this right now, Sheriff, that little Celestial gal had better’ve been took if she knows what’s good for her. If I’m out here getting soaked to the bone because she decided to take her a long walk, I don’t give a damn, I’ll bust her ass myself! Gabe can have what’s left when I’m done!”
“We’ve got to find her first,” Sheriff Justice reasoned. “The rest we can figure out once she’s back home safe.”
“Safe from whom?” Silas muttered. In a show of supreme irritation, he whipped his black hat off his head, sending accumulated rain water flying from the brim in a wide arc. He shook his hat at the sheriff. “Look at this! Ruined!”
Justice snorted, amused. “Well, I reckon that’ll learn you to buy a proper hat instead of that velvet dandified crap.”
Muttering and slicking his wet hair back, the deputy slapped his hat back on. “Chin!” he bellowed and stomped off down the sidewalk.
Chin craned her neck. She couldn’t see many alleys from where she was hiding, but every one that she could see was glowing yellow from the lanterns of other searching men. That didn’t scare her as much as the sheriff, however. Standing where the deputy had left him, Justice tipped his head as if he were staring right at her. Dark as it was and obscured by the heavy rain, she knew it far more likely that he was contemplating the stables, but the pit of her stomach still grew heavy, cold and tight.