The Rose Legacy

by Kristen Heitzmann

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind. Now about Mr. Beck, I’m just asking you to keep your eyes open. Whom does he see? What do they say? There might be something you missed while having your hand kissed.”

  “Omaccio.”

  His laugh deepened. “I don’t want to know.”

  “Cad.”

  “I guess I deserved that. Seriously, Carina … Miss DiGratia …”

  “It’s foolish now to stop.” And somehow she didn’t want him to. As Mr. Beck said, calling her Miss DiGratia put such distance between them.

  “All right, then, Carina. If you should see or hear anything besides land disputes, those beyond Beck’s own devising, will you tell me?”

  She considered carefully. Out of fear, she had promised to help Mr. Beck. How was she less fearful now of the man Beck had accused? If what Mr. Beck said was true, she was in the arms of a ruthless killer. But if what Quillan said was true … Could she truly play both sides? “If there is anything to notice, I’ll tell you.”

  They broke out of the trees, and she realized he had so held her attention that they had reached the gulch floor without her once feeling the dizziness of the steep decline. At the same moment, she caught her breath and stared. Where was Placerville?

  Cain sat on the stump outside Mae’s, where he’d landed with D.C.’s help, his arm bandaged and his belly full of hot cakes. He raised a hand to Doc Felden as the man jumped down from the door to the ground where Mae’s porch used to be.

  The doctor adjusted his spectacles after his jump. “How’s the arm?”

  “Hurts like the dickens. Guess that means I’m still alive.”

  The doctor smiled and passed by, striding swiftly on to his other charges, going to and fro between the infirmaries with the vigor of a man of younger years. Just like Quillan—always on the move.

  And where was Quillan anyhow? Most the town owed him a big thank-you. The minutes he’d given them with his alarm had saved plenty of lives, folks scrambling up the mountain before the flood waters could carry them away.

  Cain shook his head. He’d be plucking a harp right now if it weren’t for Quillan rushing in and carrying him off like a baby. D.C., too, maybe. Most of the dead had been men tangled up in their tents, unable to break free. Thirty-one mounds had been added to the graveyard, and there were still some missing.

  Quillan, for one. Cain frowned. Where’d he gone off to? No one had seen him since the flood, since he’d carried this old bag of bones to the safety and comfort of Mae’s bed. And plenty had looked to shake his hand and thanky-kindly if he’d been anywheres around. Of course, it was like Quillan to avoid all that.

  Squinting up the gulch, Cain made out a black horse that might be Quillan’s Jock or Jack. At that distance he couldn’t tell them apart. But he was fairly certain it was one or the other, and it was carrying double—Quillan and a lady, her long black hair flying out in the breeze like a sail.

  “Hee-hee!” Cain cackled. Quillan had snagged himself the DiGratia woman, probably plucked her from some hidey-hole like a hero from the storybooks. And he looked the part, all straight and dour. Was it pleasure or duty that had her in his saddle? Though on second look there was no saddle, and their expressions were a little rough around the edges.

  Quillan reined in. “Mornin’, Cain. Where’s the doctor?”

  “Just moseyed down to the hotel infirmary. He’ll be back, though. He’s flittin’ back and forth like a bee what can’t choose his poison.”

  Quillan jumped down from Jock—it was Jock, Cain saw now—and lifted Miss DiGratia down. She stifled a cry, cradling her arm.

  “She hurt?” Cain motioned with his own bandaged arm.

  “Dislocated shoulder.” Quillan steadied her at the elbow and eyed the front door four feet off the ground where the hill had washed away.

  “Try the back.” Cain grinned. “It’s still connected to earth.”

  Quillan’s leg had stiffened, riding down. He tried not to limp as he walked Carina to the back door. He felt awkward already, all too aware of the gleam in Cain’s eye and exactly what it meant. And Cain wasn’t the only one who had eyed them riding in. Thankfully the disarray of the city would keep most folks minding their own affairs.

  And now that he had time to think of it, his affairs would keep him busy, too. Seeing Crystal in the daylight recalled to him his loss. His equipment, his tent, likely his wagon and possibly his team. It would be some time before he was back on the road.

  Carina looked stunned and shaken. He guessed not having seen the flood in action, she could hardly fathom the damage in its wake. At the sight of Placer washed away she’d been full of questions and her own descriptions of the wall of water she’d escaped, but seeing Crystal half demolished had left her speechless.

  “Let Mae know you need the doctor.” He pushed open the door for her. “I’ll see you Friday.”

  She was too tired or too dazed to get his meaning, and she only stared up at him, the brown of her eyes like strong coffee.

  “I expect your offer’s still good?”

  “My offer?” She searched his face.

  “Don’t want that cheese too blue, do we?”

  Her eyes registered cognition and a little alarm. But he couldn’t back out now that he was close to getting what he needed. “I’m afraid there might not be apples, though. I doubt I have a wagon left to haul them in.”

  Turning before she could speak, Quillan left her. Jock needed grain, but whether or not there was grain to be had, he didn’t know. And what would he use to pay for it? His savings, his very future, was buried under mud and water or already washed away. He growled a word under his breath. So much for affliction staying away.

  He should have known. What sort of fool keeps his savings in a hole? He passed the bank, solid and unscathed, standing as an island amidst the destruction. All of Crystal’s residents who had their money there were secure. But he? No, he didn’t trust the banks, and with good reason.

  Another bitter thought to chew on. His own youthful stupidity. His need to be accepted, a fourteen-year-old’s understanding of loyalty, a wild streak run amok. And a pardon that didn’t undo the deed. He’d stood before the judge with wide-eyed terror, caught red-handed in a robbery he hadn’t known was happening, his “friend” having left him to take the blame.

  By some miracle, the judge had seen it for what it was and canceled the warrant, issuing a pardon that resolved him of legal responsibility. Reverend Shepard hadn’t been so forgiving. But then it did rather blight his reputation to have his ward in such a spot. So Quillan had left home for good, but not without learning a powerful lesson.

  He shook his head. It had been too easy for Shane Dennison to clean out that bank. And since then Quillan had trusted his own means of securing his future. He looked over the swollen creek bed shrinking now innocuously, leaving tons of mud and gravel where the tent city had stood. A new lesson. Nothing was forever.

  He blew out a disgusted breath. A rope corral had been stretched alongside the creek and horses gathered into it. As Quillan neared, he searched the herd, hopeful in spite of himself. His eyes brightened. Jack! The first stroke of luck this morning. Now if it just continued.

  Carina stood in the doorway where Quillan left her. It was too much, the old buildings of Placerville washed away and half of Crystal as well. What if she had not made it to the mine? The Rose Legacy had saved her.

  “Upon my life, I thought you were gone.”

  Carina spun at Mae’s words, looked into the violet eyes unusually deep and moved. Gone. How close she had come to it! Did Mae care? Would anyone have missed her, mourned her? Tears sprang to her eyes, and when Mae spread her arms, Carina rushed to her embrace. Overwhelmed, she buried her face against Mae’s neck, ignoring the shooting pain from her shoulder.

  Mae rocked her, crooning, “There, there. There, now.”

  Carina sniffled, warmed and soothed by Mae’s voice and arms.

  “You’re safe now.”
Mae smoothed her palm over Carina’s hair, stroking, stroking. “Did Quillan fetch you down?”

  Carina nodded, her face still pressed to Mae’s neck. Then she pulled away, the pain in her shoulder finally more than she could stand.

  Mae cupped Carina’s face. “What is it? Are you injured?”

  Carina reached to the throbbing joint. “My shoulder. Non c’è nulla di grave.” At Mae’s questioning frown, Carina realized she had slipped once again into the language of her youth. What was wrong with her? “There’s nothing much the matter. A dislocation only.”

  “I’ll draw you a bath. And we’ll have the doctor up directly.”

  Soaking in the large metal tub filled with warm, scented water, Carina closed her eyes and pictured the spring gushing from the rock and soaking her with its icy force. Though shockingly cold, it had also been invigorating, stripping away the grime and blood and leaving her skin tingling and fresh.

  This was different, soothing the aches and dulling her thoughts. She drifted, and it was Flavio at the top of the shaft, his face twisted with fear as he called down to her. How could you go so far? I can’t reach you. Why, tesora mia, my darling? Why? And she had no answer, because every time she tried to speak, his face became Quillan’s and she would have to tell the truth.

  She jolted awake at the doctor’s voice outside the door. Climbing from the bath, she dried herself and dressed. She had only one blouse again, the one she had rescued from the mountain and sewn back together. The one she had fallen in was too badly torn to repair.

  She pulled on her blue denim skirt and admitted Mae and the doctor, wincing when he examined her shoulder. She was less stoic when he treated the abrasion with carbolic acid and packed it with alum. She gasped at the terrible stinging burn. Bruto! He was too rough, not like Papa’s gentle hands.

  “Quillan tended this?”

  Teeth clenched, she nodded.

  “Well, he got it connected again.” He snickered.

  That was funny? She sent him a dark look.

  He laughed a dry, cheeky laugh, as though it started in his mouth and stayed there. Then he rubbed his eyes, which looked puffy and dim, and blew out a slow breath. “We’ll sling it for a week to let the tendons heal. Don’t put any weight on the arm until the pain stops.” As he packed up his medicine bag, she wondered how long he’d been without sleep and how many injuries he’d treated already.

  Again it made her think of Papa, coming home so tired sometimes that he walked in his sleep. And Mamma guiding him in and taking his coat and his bag and his hat while he stood like a small boy without raising a hand.

  “Thank you,” she said, meaning it.

  “On to the next one.” He gave her a brief smile, then walked out.

  Carina lay back on her cot, more fatigued than hurt. “Are there still people missing?”

  Mae shrugged, dipping a bucket into the bath and emptying it out the window. “I don’t know the latest count. If someone comes up missing, their name gets posted on the board. The trustees send searchers.” She dipped the bucket again. “When they’re found, they’re crossed off and announced alive or dead.”

  Carina shuddered. “Was my name posted?”

  Mae nodded. “And taken off this morning. Didn’t you hear the hurrahs?”

  Carina lay back smiling. No, she hadn’t heard. But she could imagine.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I am become most despised.

  —Rose

  JOE TURNER ARRIVED not an hour later with a posy of wild flowers he must have picked above the level of flood damage. “I’m so very glad you’re safe, Miss DiGratia. It gave us all a terrible scare.”

  The Italians brought small food offerings, cheese and pastries baked by wives and mothers, offering encouragement in dialects she had to strain to understand. And miners, slouch hats pressed to their chests, with no offering but their good wishes. Carina was moved to tears.

  How could they all care? What could it matter to them that one foolish girl was safe? And then Mr. Beck came. Carina lay now on the sofa in Mae’s parlor exactly as she had the other time she’d been nursed back to health. And again she heard Mae through the door. “She won’t be working until she’s healed, Berkley Beck.”

  “Of course not, Mae. What do you take me for?”

  “And she’s had far too many visitors trotting through already. She’s resting now, and in dire need of it.”

  “Only just a moment.”

  “Come back tomorrow.” Mae’s tone was unyielding.

  “Tomorrow I have other duties.”

  “So much the better. She’s plumb worn out.”

  “Have a heart, Mae.”

  Carina felt as though no time had passed. Had she just imagined these last two weeks? Had the flood really happened? Did she truly fall down a shaft and spend the night in the care of Quillan Shepard? The pain in her shoulder and nearly every other part of her body told her it was so.

  She sank back into the cushions, thankful Mae was not permitting Mr. Beck. Things were too confused with Mr. Beck telling her to spy on Quillan and Quillan asking her to spy on Berkley Beck. How did she get into the middle, when all she wanted was her dear Flavio to come and take her home?

  The thought jarred her. It was what she had told Quillan, but was it what she wanted? If he did come, would she go? Could she be again the innocent, trusting woman in love? She pictured the vine-covered slopes of Sonoma, the sunlight like melting gold, warm on her forehead.

  No, it was Mae’s palm on her head, and she was in Crystal, Colorado, rescued from the mine shaft by a man as changeable as the mountain weather. Monster or man, he stirred her dangerously. If Flavio would come, it better be soon, before she forgot him altogether.

  Carina walked among the men lying on makeshift beds in the hotel restaurant, the tables having been pushed aside and stacked to make room for the injured. The men lay on bedrolls on the floor, as the women and children housed at Mae’s were using all the extra cots that could be amassed. Some of the women and children were injured, but many had simply lost their homes.

  With her arm immobilized in a sling, Carina was no good for changing bandages or any of the other tasks that required two hands. Instead she carried messages, refilled water glasses, mopped brows, and kept spirits up. It humbled her to see the faces of the men brighten when she stopped beside their beds.

  Some of them would touch her hand with gentle reverence when she felt for fever or checked a pulse. All of them thanked her, and she heard it whispered among them that they’d be sure to heal now, as though something in her touch could change their fate. Simple men, dreamers.

  And the women. How had Carina misjudged them so? The Italian wives with their black dresses and shawls, their old-world ways and old-world speech. The other women making homes with their men with crude determination, making the most of their loss to keep the light in their children’s eyes. It was as though her own blindness had been healed in the darkness of the Rose Legacy mine shaft, and now she saw them for what they were: fellow seekers.

  Carina tousled the head of a small boy come to visit his papa, whose legs had been broken in the flood. “What is that you have?”

  “A coon.” He pulled his shirt open a little more to show her the baby raccoon nestled there. “It’s ma died in the flood. I’m showing my pa.”

  “He’ll like that.”

  “I’m feeding it canned milk.”

  At thirty-nine cents a can, Carina wasn’t sure how much the boy’s papa would like that. With one finger Carina petted the scratchy fur of the coon’s head, softer to the eye than the touch. She smiled as the boy scurried off.

  Crouching low, she felt the fevered brow of an Irishman whose name she didn’t know. He’d been found late Thursday morning and had yet to regain his senses. Per piacere, Signore, heal this man. She prayed the same for each of them, knowing little or nothing of who they were. Only that it didn’t matter.

  Èmie came toward her with a tray of fresh bandages and ointme
nts held perfectly level in her unwavering gait. “I’m off to Mae’s with Dr. Simms.”

  Carina looked behind her to the young doctor who had come to Crystal to prospect but found himself needed now in his first profession. His overlarge ears and slightly bulbous nose did not enhance a stern bedside manner, but that wasn’t his way regardless.

  He gave her an awkward smile. “Doc Felden said not to overdo it. You’ll need rest to heal that shoulder.”

  Carina nodded. It was true her body needed rest. She felt every movement in a dozen places. But it could have been worse, far worse. And she felt obligated to repay the debt. God had saved her, and she had promised what? Anything.

  Some of that time in the darkness of the shaft was a blur. But she recalled her desperate plea. She had begged and bargained with God. He had done His part. She reached up and touched the crucifix that hung at her throat on a new chain, given to her by Joe Turner. The cross reminded her of Quillan’s words. He had been leaving. God had turned him back, sent him inside to search for her. Yes, God had done His part. Now she must do hers.

  “Carina.”

  She looked up to Father Charboneau and flushed. He must know her burden. Was it not so with him as well? God had stretched out His hand in both their lives. The priest repaid it daily.

  “Are you feeling all right? Èmie’s worried you’re pushing too hard with your own injuries not healed.” He smiled. “She sent me down to badger you into resting.”

  “I’m fine, Father,” Carina stated, though she ached badly.

  “You look as though you need some air. Will you walk with me?”

  She stood slowly. The sunshine would feel good. She followed him out and blinked in the brightness. She wouldn’t take the sun for granted again, not after the black skies full of hail and rain. Though clouds built now in the west, they were fluffy and white with no menace in them, only playful frivolity.

  They started toward the creek, where salvaging work was well under way—small piles of undamaged goods, larger piles of slightly damaged, and then parts and pieces, the largest piles of all. They passed a group of men hauling a freight wagon upright from the water, where it had been towed upstream.