Rebecca took a deep breath, inhaling the day and the bustling energy of the camp. She grinned as she recalled their first sight of the mountains. And the casting off of death—the delicious primal celebration of life that followed. She lifted her face to the late midday sun. The radiant warmth on her face and pleasant soreness rekindled the lingering, tactile memory of the hot spring sun on her back the previous afternoon, the vast emptiness, the backdrop to them taking each other again, the taper of his muscular torso when he rolled her over to the very edge of the blanket, placing her above him.
“Rebecca. Rebecca? Rebecca!”
She forced her eyes open. Sarah was standing in front of her, her head cocked, a concerned, but amused expression crinkling the freckles across her nose. “Are you okay?”
A vision of Inga answering this very same question just a month prior, back on the Missouri, flashed in Rebecca’s mind. I always thought she had been thinking about Johannes that morning, when she seemed so dreamy and removed. Rebecca smiled, thinking of Inga. Sarah smiled back, unaware that Rebecca’s mind was elsewhere. Poor Inga.
“I’m fine,” said Rebecca, “in fact, make that grand.”
The redhead’s face cocked slightly again, and she laughed. “Judging by the expression on your face when I walked up, I’m not sure where you were, but I think I want to go there,” she sighed, “particularly after Two Otters Creek.”
Rebecca, with Sarah at her side, watched as across the circle of wagons Reuben and several men got the forge fired up. His voice carried, then became indistinguishable in the hubbub of the encampment as he gave directions. “Spread a blanket under the wagons, and lay out the tools so we are not tripping over them. We’re going to need…”
Rebecca felt Sarah’s gaze from the side. “The looks that man throws in your direction,” the redhead said softly, “particularly when you’re not aware, are truly something to behold.”
Rebecca took Sarah’s elbow and gently nudged her arm. “You’re one to talk. Zeb trips over his mustache every time he is around you.”
Sarah giggled and blushed. “Zeb is such a nice man.”
Nice man? That’s all?
Sarah, still watching the men laying out the spare parts and tools, and firing up the forge over at the supply wagons, didn’t pick up Rebecca’s sharp, questioning glance.
Rebecca looked around her at the uneven landscape dotted with shallow buttes. One side dropped off abruptly, the exposed striations of different colored rocks each reflecting the sun in its own peculiar way, their abrupt bases softened by leafing cottonwoods and alders wherever there was a spring, creek or other water source. Badger Creek flowed north with a crystalline rush towards its rendezvous with the South Platte, which Reuben had said was miles north of them. Zeb said the Indians called the river, Padouca.
“Rebecca?”
“Yes, Sarah,” she answered, feeling a twinge of annoyance at being pulled back from savoring the surroundings.
“Have you decided if you’re going back to England?”
Rebecca stared at her. She was still looking across the circled wagons toward Reuben and the men who had begun their work, beginning with the supply wagons themselves. “That question came out of the blue. Why do you ask?”
Sarah’s eyes moved to hers. “I was curious. I haven’t decided what I’m doing either. I could stay in Cherry Creek. It’s growing, and everyone, even the army captain, said the growth is bound to accelerate. I wonder if there’s anybody doing seamstress work?” Sarah paused and looked up at the sky. “I could go on to Salt Lake. Those Mormons seem like very nice people.”
The redhead’s gaze returned to Rebecca. “So, have you decided?”
“Sarah, I have a question for you.” Rebecca dropped her voice to a whisper. “Do you have a gold map?”
Sarah’s jaw dropped open and her big blue eyes widened. She began to speak, thought better of it, then glanced over her shoulder and leaned closer, her voice a demanding whisper. “Who told you that?”
“Reuben and I were talking. Evidently, Inga had said something to Johannes who in turn mentioned it to Reuben.”
Sarah glanced behind her again. “There is a map, Rebecca. I discovered it quite some time ago on the train, when Jacob was out playing poker and I was locked in the compartment dreading his return, and…and what would happen. I found a parchment gold map. Though I have tried to draw out of him where, and how, he obtained it, he has refused to tell me, even when he’s drunk. I think he keeps it in his jacket—you know, the brown one he always has with him. And—I’m quite sure, in fact, I know—that he uses it for a pillow every night. Where Jacob goes, that jacket goes.”
Sarah looked down at the ground, studying the toes of the elk moccasins Zeb had made for her, and sighed, “I hope you don’t think less of me. It is the only reason, except one other, that I maintain any association with that scum Irishman.”
Rebecca was startled by the venom in her eyes.
“I mean to have that map, Rebecca. I will have that map. Whether I shall ever find the place marked on the map, or sell it, or burn it, does not matter. I will have that map.” Sarah was standing almost on her tip toes, her hands clenched fists at her side, and her jaw stuck out, and her freckles popped from the red flush over her nose and cheeks.
Rebecca made every effort not to react to Sarah’s sudden, abrupt change in demeanor. “What was the second reason?” she asked.
“Revenge.”
Rebecca looked sharply at her friend. “Sometimes, Sarah, it’s better to let things go and move on. Life is too short,” she swept her hand out toward the vast, rolling lands around them, “to become over invested in something so dark.”
Sarah’s eye lids were quivering, and her jaw clenched. “There are other times, Rebecca, I’m sure you know, when principle and justice demand that something started, be finished.”
Rebecca broke their gaze, an odd unpleasant feeling in her stomach. “May I ask where this map says the supposed gold is?”
Again Sarah glanced around, leaned into her, and responded in a whisper. “In the mountains southwest of Cherry Creek, quite far, I think. On the map, they’re called Las Montanas Rojas. Jacob says the words mean The Red Mountains.”
Reuben was right! Rebecca was silent for a moment as she thought, then she put her arm around her friend, put her lips near hers, and whispered, “Yours is not the only map, Sarah. I have one too.”
Sarah drew back, her eyes wide. “You do?”
Rebecca nodded. “It is a map to, and of, land my father was deeded by the King of Spain. His trading ships often visited Spanish ports. He bequeathed it to me…” She turned, looked around to make sure they were not overheard, and continued, “I shall tell you the story in detail another time.” She fixed her eyes on Sarah’s. “It describes potential gold deposits,” she paused, “and like yours, the location is Las Montanas Rojas.”
Sarah’s eyes widened further, one hand flying to her mouth to cover a sharp intake of breath.
Across the circle of rigs, sitting on the tongue in the shade of the wagon, Jacob watched the two women, looking down from time to time to time as the point of his boot knife scraped grime from under his fingernails. His chest felt constricted with a seething resentment and animosity as he watched them laugh and whisper. Brunette queen and double-crossing redhead.
He swung his gaze to Reuben and the men working on wheels at the far side of the circle, wiped the nail dirt from the knife on his pants, and spat. One down, three to go.
CHAPTER 42
MAY 18, 1855
REVENGE
Rebecca had laid out on the tailgate everything she needed to freshen up. “Your vanity,” Reuben liked to call the tailgate. Rebecca gathered her towel and a small canvas sack she had converted to a handbag for just such occasions. Don’t want to ruin my good purses. As she sorted and the sun beat down on her cotton shirt, its heat permeated the cloth, warming her back.
She gathered the Sharps, made sure there were an ex
tra five loads in the pocket Sarah had sewn into her riding dress, and decided to wear her light blue, wool jacket. The trees would be shady. She set off humming from the wagons. Perhaps I should tell Reuben where I am going? No, Sarah knows.
It was a short walk to the cottonwoods, the trees great crooked arms and their rough, textured trunks accentuated by the newly formed leaves. Rebecca wet her lips as she walked…Dry. Very dry out here. One hundred feet inside the cottonwood stand, completely hidden from the wagons, was a curve in the creek, its flow fifty feet across. Two large rocks broke the current, adding to the sound of the clear, rushing water.
Where the water drifted in a small eddy by the bank and stirred, rather than flowed, she could see her reflection, distorted in the movement of the water surface—a long, dark-haired woman wearing a tapered brown riding dress that heightened the curve of her delicate hips, blue cotton shirt underneath a light wool jacket of the same color, one hand holding a canvas bag, the other the Sharps.
She smiled down at the woman, laughing when she remembered how she had fallen in the water the first time she and Reuben made love, which seemed like ages ago. Which Rebecca are you now? The Rebecca of trading ships and stately row houses, or the woman who has killed two men, looks forward to sunsets and sunrises in this wild land, carries a Sharps rifle…and is no longer a virgin. She felt her lips widen and the brunette in the pool of water smiled back at her.
What does that scar look like? Her looking glass had long ago been broken, as had Sarah’s. Reflections in the water kegs had sufficed for grooming since then. She leaned over and set the Sharps against a rock a few feet away, sank to her knees on the stream bank, and lowered her face, turning her head one way, and then other, to get a better look at the scar. She ran her tongue over the raised red line at her lip, and looked again.
She startled at a sudden image behind her and rushed to straighten up, but rough large hands grabbed her neck and arm and pushed her forward. She was no match for the man’s strength as he shoved her head underwater. She struggled desperately but the grip around her neck and arm tightened, and the hand shoved her head deeper. Her forehead bumped twice on the rocks at the bottom of the creek. Her lungs emptied of breath. She felt herself weakening. Oh my God, what is happening? Reuben! A misty darkness began to fog her brain, red kaleidoscope swirls spinning in her eyes, the underwater rocks wavy in her vision, as the strong hand held her head under the water. A creeping blackness replaced the red swirls, and she felt herself drifting.
The first sound she heard was her own gasps, gulping, devouring air. The blackness receded, replaced by the savage face of Jacob O’Shanahan on top of her. Her dress had been lifted and her pantaloons ripped from her body. He had one hand over her mouth, the other between her legs. She was nearly anchored to the ground by his weight and the press of his shoulder on hers. One of his arms was behind her neck, the palm of his hand brutally covering her nose and mouth, the other palm pressing down her pelvis as his fingers touched her. One leg was pinned under his lower torso; the other waved feebly in the air.
He moved his lips from where they had been licking her neck, and let the full weight of his chest pin her completely, bruising her hips and lower back. Pain stabbed her. “Not so high and mighty now, are you Queenie? You brunette bitch. At least you will have a real man once before you die. And die you will.”
Rebecca heard herself groan under the painful clamp of his fingers.
“Oh, like that, do you? I thought you would. It’s always the hardest to get what has the sweetest taste.”
She was having trouble breathing, his hoarse, rank breath in her ear. “Imagine how torn up that farmer’s going to be—his woman dead and violated? He’ll get stupid, and then I’ll get him too. That’ll be three down, one to go.”
She was helpless under his bulk. His hand withdrew from her and she knew he was fumbling with his pants, both his legs now between hers, her thighs spread by the weight of his knees forcing them apart. Reuben, oh my God, Reuben, where are you? She flashed her eyes left and right, desperately looking for something, anything, to pick up and strike him with.
Jacob descended roughly down on her. “I’ve waited a long time for this.” She felt him at the very edge of her and tried desperately to shift her hips. He cackled in a hoarse whisper, “I like it when they move.” He raised his hips to thrust and then, suddenly, he shuddered, his body bearing down on her but his hips, instead of thrusting, relaxed.
She opened her eyes. Half-standing and half-kneeling above him, stood Sarah, her arm raised, the knife in her hand, a bloody red blur as she plunged it into his back, again and again, but Jacob’s breath in Rebecca’s ears had long ago ceased. With her free hand, Rebecca removed Jacob’s hand from her mouth. “Sarah, oh my God, Sarah, he’s dead! Stop! Stop!”
The redhead was crying, her face terribly distorted with a horrible look of hate, anger, and anguish. As if possessed, her arm kept rising and falling. Each time the blade entered his back, Rebecca could feel his body jerk. “Sarah, stop. Sarah, he’s dead, he’s dead!”
Sarah paused, bloody hand raised above her head, ready to yet again drive the knife downwards. Her eyes moved to Rebecca. She froze, then sank slowly to a sitting position, trembling violently, her arm resting on one knee, still holding the knife, the other hand covering her eyes. She began to sob.
Rebecca managed to slide herself, bit by bit, out from under Jacob’s heavy, burly corpse. She lowered her skirt, covering where she had been exposed. His back was a red mass of torn, blood stained brown fabric and seeping blood, which mottled the torn pantaloons that lay partially beneath him.
Sarah had dropped the knife. Both her hands were pressed to her face, one of them bloody, smearing one half of her delicate features, accentuating her wild, animal look.
Rebecca tried to rise, but her legs were too weak. She felt bruised everywhere. She crawled on her hands and knees several feet to her sobbing friend, and put her arm around her.
“I…Killed…Him…I…Killed…Him,” Sarah kept repeating, oblivious of Rebecca’s attempts to calm her.
Rebecca was shaken, and still partially starved for air. Sarah, still clinging to her, heaved great, deep anguished sobs. Gradually Rebecca’s thoughts cleared. She glanced at Jacob’s body.
“Sarah. Sarah!” The redhead’s hysteria did not diminish. Rebecca drew her hand back and slapped her, then again. Sarah’s eyes blinked through her tears, no longer crying—but taking great heaving breaths.
Rebecca inhaled, gathering her thoughts. “Sarah, didn’t you tell me that he keeps the map in his jacket?” Sarah nodded faintly.
Rebecca pointed at the bloody corpse, “That jacket?”
Sarah blinked rapidly and nodded. In unison, they scrambled the few feet to his body on their hands and knees. Rebecca could feel her nose wrinkle as she reached out her hands and touched what had been the Irishman. There was blood everywhere. “Sarah, help me roll his shoulders up so I can check one pocket. If we don’t find it, we’ll do the same on the other side.” Sarah strained, lifting Jacob’s left shoulder six inches, then a foot.
Rebecca put her hand in his jacket, feeling the pockets, running her hands down the fabric. She looked up, and shook her head. “Let’s try the other side.”
They repeated the process, Sarah fighting with the weight of the body, and Rebecca rummaging through the dead man’s jacket, feeling the cloth and lining. She was about to give up when she felt something, “Sarah get me the knife.”
Without thinking, Sarah let go of Jacob. The corpse rolled over on Rebecca’s forearms, and Jacob’s lifeless open eyes stared at her, a sneer on his lips.
Sarah crawled back with the knife. “Pull this thing off me,” Rebecca said, trying to free her arms. Using one hand, Sarah freed her, and then handed the bloody blade to Rebecca.
“Where did you get this?” Rebecca asked.
“Zeb gave it to me. He has my Deringer right now. It needed cleaning. Dirt got into the action somehow, and there is
blood from the Indian…”
Rebecca yanked at the jacket and the lower corner came loose from Jacob’s lifeless press. She ran the knife down a line that had been crudely re-sewn, felt inside with her hand, and drew out a folded piece of parchment. She grinned at Sarah. “I think, Miss Bonney, that you are now the proud owner of a gold map.”
Sarah reached for the map but Rebecca held it back. “Wash your hands first.”
Sarah blinked, stood unsteadily and staggered several feet to the creek.
A wave of nausea washed over Rebecca as she watched Sarah stare into the same patch of reflective water where, only moments ago, she herself had been kneeling. “Your face, too,” she nearly shouted. “Get the blood off your face.”
Sarah cried out, “Oh my, oh what a mess,” and began frantically to splash water on her face, rubbing, then splashing, then looking anxiously back at her reflection. When she turned back to Rebecca, wet strands of red hair stuck to her cheek.
“Dry your hands, Sarah.”
When Rebecca handed her the map, the redhead sat back on her heels, held the map to her breasts, and began to cry softly. “Rebecca, I wanted to kill him. I really did. I can’t tell you how many times I thought about killing him.” Sarah’s eyes dropped to Jacob’s body. “I’m sorry.”
Rebecca eased around the body and over to Sarah. “Rest assured, if you had not, someone else would have. He was destined to die a violent death from the moment he was born. Think of all the people he has hurt. And the pain he caused Inga and Johannes. Think about what he did to you, and tried to do to me. He would have raped and killed me.”
“I know what you are feeling. After killing those two Indians at Two Otters Creek, I know exactly how it feels to take another human life as do you. But he had it coming. And now, you have the map. Reuben says there are no coincidences, and…” Sarah looked at her attentively through her tears, “I don’t know if you know this, but Reuben has maps, too.”
Maps of Fate Page 40