Bound for Glory

by Tess LeSue

  “The Hunt’s over, then?” The Apache talked right over her. He had a nasty habit of doing that.

  She frowned at his back but answered, “I suppose it’s more of a race now than a hunt. The rest of them are trying to catch Ortiz before he gets to San Francisco to collect. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone steals Deathrider off him before he gets there.” And that would be the end of the Plague of the West, she thought disconsolately.

  “Someone could steal him? Someone like Kennedy Voss?” the Apache asked.

  “Someone exactly like Voss.” And he could do it too, Ava thought. Kennedy Voss was smarter, meaner and more ruthless than anyone she’d ever met. He was liable to shoot Deathrider right off Ortiz’s horse. Maybe he’d given up on chasing Ava and already turned around and started after Ortiz. Maybe if she could get to some water and dump the Apache, and get a fresh mount, she could catch up to the hunt before that happened. . . .

  Maybe she could even get to Ortiz and Deathrider before anybody else did.

  “How do you know about Voss?” she asked the Apache. “You seem to know an awful lot for a man who has been languishing out here in the desert.”

  “Pete Hamble has a big mouth,” he said with a shrug.

  Well, that was the truth.

  “I guess we can all sleep easier, knowing that the Plague of the West has been caught,” he said, and there was a sharp edge to his voice. “Now we just need to worry about the sadists who are out hunting him.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Those men gave Ava nightmares.

  They each fell into their own thoughts. Broody thoughts.

  But the silence made Ava’s thirst scream louder. At least talking was a distraction. Now she was painfully aware of her swollen tongue and stinging lips. And she felt strange. Not right. Even though the sun was fierce, she was barely sweating. There wasn’t a drop left in her to sweat out. She was just a dry furnace, burning up.

  “What’s your name?” the Apache asked abruptly. From the thickness of his voice, she could tell he was suffering too.

  “Cleopatra,” she lied without missing a beat. She wasn’t about to tell him the truth.

  “Suits you.” Was that sarcasm?

  “Thanks.” Two could do sarcasm.

  They lapsed back into silence.

  “Aren’t you going to ask for my name?” he said after a few minutes.

  “No.” She licked her lips. It was like rasping with sandpaper. “I don’t plan on knowing you long enough to need your name. As soon as we get to some water, we’re saying adios.”

  He gave a parched laugh. “Fair enough.”

  This time the silence held, and they rode toward the shimmering horizon, each locked in their own broody thoughts and ravening thirst.

  Later—much, much, much later—she could have kicked herself. Because if she had asked his name, he might well have told her. It was the kind of thing that would have amused him, the contrary ass. And knowing his name would have saved her a world of trouble.

  2

  One month earlier

  SAN FRANCISCO UNFOLDED like a miracle as Ava crested the hill. There had been moments—such as when she’d lost the trail in the mountains, or when she’d stumbled into a nasty-looking brown bear, or when her horse went lame—when she’d genuinely wondered if she’d get to San Francisco at all. But here she was. Alive and kicking. If very, very tired. She’d barely been out of the saddle for the past year, and she was feeling it. She had the dust of seven states and territories on her heels, and a head full of stories as a result. She’d filled almost every page of her notebooks with research for new books, and completed two manuscripts already, both of which she’d painstakingly copied by campfire light so there would be duplicates to send back east. She had no need to travel again for a good long while, she thought with satisfaction as she took in the glitter of the bay. She was looking forward to finding a nice lodging house. One with a good cook, a comfortable bed and cozy armchairs, maybe even a rocking chair or two on the porch. She could sit in the sun and rest and write. Not that writing was restful. She pulled a face. But at least she could do it with her feet up, and with a cup of genuinely hot coffee beside her. And she wouldn’t smell like horse anymore.

  And when she wasn’t writing, she could watch the world pass her by. Wouldn’t that be fine. Maybe she wouldn’t even budge from the porch for a month. What she needed was a boardinghouse with a view. Nowhere too quiet, somewhere she could just watch the bustle. Somewhere with a touch of luxury. She wasn’t taking her rest in an uncomfortable bed, not after sleeping in a tent for months. She wanted cushions and white sheets, some fripperies and fancies; she wanted civilization.

  And a town full of money, like this one was, should be able to provide that.

  The harbor town undulated around the bay, a bustling sprawl with the scent of gold fever spicing the air. The sunshine was bright, and the air was fresh, and everything had that crystal clear sparkle that came with summer by the sea. The gold rush was in full swing, and the place was overrun with hopefuls from all corners of the globe: their high spirits made the whole town sing. The bay bristled with the masts of anchored ships, the docks were a hive of activity and the streets teemed with people speaking a dozen different tongues. It was a modern-day Babel. Ava felt her spirits lift. She inhaled the salt air and squinted against the light spangling off the surface of the water. Yes. Things would improve now. She could feel it.

  Rejuvenated by the bustle, she set off into town. The boardinghouse could wait; there was business to take care of. It didn’t matter how tired and travel sore she was; she never missed a deadline. Which was quite an accomplishment, considering she wrote miles from civilization, under the roughest circumstances imaginable. Ava Archer believed in getting her hands dirty. Unlike some of her colleagues, who stayed in their comfortable town houses back east and wrote a load of utter fantastical nonsense, Ava experienced her stories firsthand—at least as much as she could. She immersed herself in the west: she wanted to see it, breathe it, smell it. And she was convinced that that was why her books sold. People believed in her work—because it was real.

  Well, mostly . . .

  So she had dragged herself back and forth across the country, gathering up the legends of the frontier (and creating a few legends of her own in the process), working like a dog year after year, banking her money, saving for a future when she could pack her inkwell away and go home. In style. The adventuring had been fun for a good long while (although it was wearing thin of late), but she’d always been in it for the money. She’d wanted independence, and she’d got it—that and more. She hadn’t just supported herself—she had profited. She was beholden to no one, and when she considered her past, the power of that was thrilling.

  In order to get paid, though, she had to get the manuscripts to the publisher, which was no small feat when she was almost three thousand miles from New York. Over the years, she had found ways around the distance; which was why she headed for the newspaper office before she found a boardinghouse; her manuscripts would be bedded down long before she was. After all, books meant money, and money belonged in a bank. So she took her books straight to the “bank,” handing the twine-wrapped sheaf of papers over to the local newspaper in exchange for a hefty check. Publishing on the frontier was rough and ready, and immediate. The newspaper would be cranking out her words before she’d crawled out of bed tomorrow.

  The other set of copies she would send back east, for a much slower, but bigger, payoff. Her publisher would deposit the money into her account as soon as the manuscripts arrived on his desk in six months, and he paid much more than these frontier newssheets did. But the newssheets got the work out fast, in installments in their papers as well as in hastily slapped-together chapbooks. Her books were read a thousand times over on the frontier before the ship carrying the original manuscripts even made it halfway to New York.

  It was
that kind of thought that struck home: the sheer distance between herself and New York. Her birthplace was a lifetime away, not quick or easy to return to. The knowledge was as exhilarating as it was enervating. The frontier was wholly opposite to the world of her childhood: rougher, readier, less concerned with who your parents were than with who you were. So long as you were white anyway. Being nonwhite was a whole different thing. As she saw firsthand, because the frontier surely wasn’t all white. It was a sea of difference: there were the myriad Indian nations (she couldn’t even name a fraction of the tribes she’d spied on her travels); free black people seeking land and hope, the same as any white wagoner trundling west; Mexicans, some who had been in California since it was part of Mexico and some who’d come north for gold. And then there were the people pouring in from the ships: Chinese people, and others from farther-flung parts of Asia; Turks and travelers from the Far East; and an influx from the Southern American nations. For every blond German, there was a Filipino; for every Brit, a Chilean; for every white easterner, an African. The American frontier was the crossroads of the world, and nowhere was that true more than here in gold country. But even so, race mattered here as surely as it mattered in New York, perhaps more. She could see it in the way the man at the newspaper office fawned over her, even before he knew her name, while ignoring the black woman waiting patiently by the door. And she could see it in the way the woman deferred to her, keeping her gaze fixed on the floorboards.

  Even on the frontier, the old rules won out. White people forced their way above other people; men forced their way above women; the rich forced their way above everyone. And her own freedom wouldn’t last forever, she knew. The thought weighed heavily on her as she pocketed the check and left the newspaper office. She got away with being a woman alone because she was young and strong, quick and quick-witted. And armed. But one day she’d be old—like her mother—and the only protection against the powerlessness facing older women in this society was marriage. Or money. A moneyed woman could force her way through the world in ways poor women could only dream of. Unless they attached themselves to a man, which Ava Archer had no intention of ever doing.

  No. Money was the answer. She held her saddlebag closer and forged ahead.

  Her next port of call was usually the port itself. Most of the major shipping lines took post back east. But when she stepped from the newspaper office, she spied something better. Much, much better. An actual, honest-to-goodness sign of civilization: the United States post office. She hadn’t seen an official post office in more than two thousand miles.

  The gold rush had changed things, she realized as she took in the new buildings across the beaten-earth square. The post office was just a low-slung timber building, but it had grandiose white columns running the length of its street frontage, making it look respectable as hell compared to the buildings around it. A knot of people bunched at the postmaster’s window, also making the place the busiest building on the street.

  It was like a mirage in the desert. In the past, she’d had to fork out a ridiculous amount of money to get her package not only on a ship, but also hand-delivered to the recipient after the ship had docked.

  A post office was progress. San Francisco was delivering on its promise of ease so far. Her spirits lifted again, like sails billowing in a trade wind.

  * * *

  • • •

  “YOU’LL WANT TO be at the Palladium tonight, Miss Archer,” the postmaster said eagerly, practically falling out of his window in his keenness to speak with her. He’d recognized her name, as everybody did; it was one of the most famous names in the west. And once he’d recognized her name, he tried to point her toward a story. Again, as everybody did. She tried to be nice about it; after all, sometimes the stories were really worth it.

  “All of Frisco will be there. Including some very interesting types.” He acted like he’d handed her a precious gift.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” she said, keeping a worried eye on her package as he handled it. The original copies of the manuscripts were at the newspaper already, which offered a measure of security, as they’d be in print by tomorrow night, but she still wouldn’t relax until this package, with the copies, was safely processed and on its way to New York. The man was fumbling about with her livelihood—it made her nervy.

  The postmaster realized she wasn’t impressed with his hints. He deposited her package into his canvas sack and dropped the coyness. In a rush, he exploded: “Kennedy Voss is here!”

  Ava kept her calm, but only because she’d had years to perfect her poker face. Kennedy Voss . . .

  “And not just Kennedy Voss! Others too!”

  And with that, the floodgates opened. The men in the queue behind her joined the explosive excitement. It became a mob in practically no time at all.

  “It’s like nothing Frisco has ever experienced before!” one man was babbling.

  “They’re pouring into town and heading straight for LeFoy’s dance hall!”

  “There’s some kind of to-do happening!”

  “Everyone’s there!”

  “Any minute now even the Plague of the West himself might ride in!”

  The Plague of the West . . . Deathrider . . .

  Imagine . . .

  A tingle shot straight through her.

  But no, that was ridiculous. Deathrider was nowhere near these parts, not according to what she’d heard.

  But Kennedy Voss was.

  She tapped her fingers impatiently on the postmaster’s windowsill. Perhaps she would go to LeFoy’s after all. Kennedy Voss didn’t sell as many books as the Plague of the West, but he was a good little earner. It seemed mad not to take the chance to make another few bucks—especially since he’d all but fallen in her lap.

  Feeling magnanimous, she thanked the postmaster and promised the clamoring crowd that they’d see her later at LeFoy’s Palladium.

  “I wish you’d write a book about you,” one man hollered as she walked away. “I wouldn’t mind reading about what you get up to!” A chorus of catcalls and whistling followed that bit of charm.

  Ava ignored them. She’d had practice at ignoring men.

  “I can show you the way to LeFoy’s,” a very tall and stiff Englishman offered as she plowed across the street toward her horse. “I wouldn’t waste time; I hear it’s rapidly filling up.”

  She’d picked him up like a burr. He was overly eager and refused to take no for an answer. And that was how she got herself tangled up with Lord Whatsit, who was as garrulous as he was annoying and who, it turned out through the course of conversation, had it in his head to be the subject of her next book.

  He had an icicle’s chance in hell. But try telling him that.

  “You’re a real lord?” Ava couldn’t keep the disbelief from her voice as they entered the main room of LeFoy’s Palladium. Perhaps if she hadn’t been sleep-deprived and soiled from the trail she might have been able to muster more courtesy, but she was, so she couldn’t. Instead, she kept elbowing her way through the crowds in the hall, scanning faces for Voss. His lordship followed along like a puppy.

  “In a line dating back to fifteen eighty-seven,” his lordship insisted. He seemed to think she should be impressed. She wasn’t. What good did a lord do her out here? She was much more interested in the knot of ruffians she spotted climbing the stairs to the gallery. She cricked her neck, trying to get a good look upstairs. The lamplight was dim, but she could make out a man—or, rather, men—who interested her far more than the Englishman trailing behind her.

  Sweet Jesus.

  Cactus Joe was there and Pete Hamble and, if she wasn’t mistaken, that was Sweet Boy Beau! Kennedy Voss was there too, leaning back on the railing on his elbows, cocky as a bantam rooster in a yard full of hens.

  It was a gallery full of legends. The kind that gave you nightmares.

  But why? Why were they all here in
the same place? And why weren’t they killing one another? She never thought she would see the day when Kennedy Voss stopped to take a friendly drink with Sweet Boy Beau.

  Something was brewing, and she meant to find out what. Even if she had to forgo her lovely boardinghouse bed and a good night’s sleep. Another good night’s sleep.

  Well, she could sleep when she was dead. Until then she’d just feel like a limp bag of soiled linen. She’d survived worse.

  “You can’t turn your nose up at a lord!” Lord Whatsit protested.

  Bah. The Englishman was a pinch-nosed streak of irritating, if she’d ever seen one. Who cared about him and his apple-in-the-mouth accent when Kennedy Voss was right there? She neatly sidestepped him and took the stairs at a clip.

  “I’ve read your books,” the Englishman called breathlessly as he hurried after her, “and I think you’d love to hear my story.”

  Of course he did. Men. They carried their egos on their backs like turtles lugged their shells. She paused at the top of the stairs and took in the clump of men by the railing. They were liquored up and had that charged air men got when they were thinking of violence. And that was definitely Kennedy Voss. And damn if that wasn’t English George and Irish George over there with Pete Hamble. Every varmint on the frontier was here. And, unlike Lord Whatsit, each and every one of them was interesting enough for her to write about.

  “Really, Miss—”

  “Hush up,” she snapped, elbowing Lord Whatsit in the belly as he huffed up behind her. “You can talk after you’ve bought me a drink.”

  Strangely, the gallery wasn’t full; there was no one except for Voss and the other varmints. The bar against the far wall was deserted, the gambling tables quiet. She imagined this gallery was usually heaving on a Saturday night; it had a prime view of the stage, private nooks to carry on clandestine business, its own handy upstairs bar and all the gaming tables the establishment offered. Downstairs (where Voss wasn’t) was certainly doing strong business: it was wall to wall with miners and fishermen; long-haul sailors fresh off the ship from the East Coast or Europe, South America or the antipodes; and merchants who’d closed up after another profitable week in a goldfield boomtown. The postmaster had told her the saloon–cum–dance hall–cum–theater was the hottest ticket in town, and when she walked in, she’d been impressed. It was something to see. There was a red-curtained stage at the northern end and a wide horseshoe bar at the southern end—a bar that was currently three men deep and doing a roaring trade. A sweeping staircase with curving balustrades led up to the gallery, which wrapped the three sides of the hall facing the stage. The place was as fancy as all get-out, with etched-glass lamps glowing like sunlit bubbles, gleaming brass trimmings and forest green flocked wallpaper above wood-paneled wainscots. Every inch of Californian oak (and there was a lot of it) was polished to a high shine. LeFoy’s was classy for the frontier, classier than she’d seen since she’d left the east, and far classier than the sea of men who frequented it.