by Merry Farmer
How could she refuse?
“I-It started years ago,” she began in a hush, head lowered in shame. It took a colossal effort of will not to look around at the others in the restaurant to see if they were judging her. “I’m an orphan, you see. I grew up alone, without anyone looking out for me. But I was pretty, and as it turns out, I had a flare for the dramatic and could sing.”
She paused, her memory pulling her back through all those years to the ignorant young girl she’d been. How could she have been so foolish as to land herself in the situation she’d ended up in?
She must have been silent for too long. Cody reached out and took her hands, though he didn’t interrupt her thoughts. She owed it to him to go on.
“The orphanage wasn’t a bad place, but I was headstrong.” She risked looking up enough to send him a sheepish smile. “I was fifteen and brash, and I wanted to be on the stage. The closest large city to the orphanage was Philadelphia, so I ran away. I don’t know if I was lucky or…exceptionally unlucky.” She paused to swallow. “I’d only been there a few days, hadn’t even run out of money yet, when I met a man named Ulysses Glenn. He was a talent scout and manager for theaters in the city, or so he told me.”
She let out a shuddering breath, the cold fingers of the shadows of those years creeping over her.
“It all seemed so fun at first, so exciting,” she continued. “Ulysses secured parts for me in reviews. He even got me a part in an opera once, though only as a supernumerary.”
“A what?” Cody blinked.
Miriam managed a weak laugh. “Someone without any lines or singing roles. A glorified set piece, really.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Go on.”
Miriam wasn’t sure she wanted to. She swallowed. “I was young and foolish. I thought Ulysses loved me. I…I slept in his bed.” She flushed bright red.
“You were fifteen?” Cody asked through gritted teeth.
All she could do was nod. “We started traveling after about a year. We went all over the place. Ulysses got me parts in show after show. It was exciting. I loved being on the stage. I loved being celebrated and entertained after the shows.”
She paused to gather her thoughts, suddenly wishing that they were alone, where no one would be in danger of overhearing her.
“I was approaching my seventeenth birthday when Ulysses encouraged me to go with another man after the show one night,” she all but whispered. “I didn’t know that that other man had paid him. It never occurred to me to think about it. All I knew was…was that I was having fun.”
She genuinely couldn’t look him in the eye now. She couldn’t even go on with her story. It broke her heart to uncover everything she’d worked so hard to put behind her, to run from. The more she revealed, the more Cody would hate her, and right now, she couldn’t bear that.
Because she loved him.
The truth stung like the crack of a whip. She loved this man who she should have married. He was good and kind, and he hadn’t taken advantage of her in a moment when he most certainly could have. She loved him for that if for nothing else. But she didn’t deserve him, and as soon as she finished her story, he would see that. He would toss her aside the way he had Wendy and send for a purer, more innocent bride.
Except that a whisper in the back of her head told her that he wouldn’t, not this time.
“I became a little bit famous on the Mississippi, on riverboats,” she went on, postponing the inevitable by telling a happier part of the story. “People used to come from miles around to hear me sing. There were even posters of me on the—”
“Where are they?” A woman’s shrill voice booming through the restaurant cut Miriam’s story—and every other conversation—short. “Where are those theater people?”
The restaurant’s doorway framed four women in flouncy, ostentatious dressed, bright wool coats buttoned to their necks. The Bonneville sisters.
“This is ridiculous,” Melinda growled, searching the restaurant. “How are we supposed to cancel our appearance in this stupid show tonight if we can’t even find the people in charge?”
Miriam’s thoughts shifted from her own troubles to the problems her troupe faced so fast that she leapt to her feet, knocking her chair over as she did. “What?”
The Bonneville sisters zeroed in on her and marched in her direction. Well, Honoria stayed by the door, coughing into her handkerchief and looking pale and wary.
“Ugh, her.” Melinda sniffed and tilted her chin up.
“She thinks she’s so pretty,” Bebe added. “I don’t see it.”
“We have blonde hair too, you know,” Melinda added.
“Yeah, and unlike some people, we don’t wear rouge.”
Miriam was on the verge of snapping that they could use something on their pinched faces, but she stopped herself as the oldest sister stepped forward pushing Melinda and Bebe aside.
“Where is that man?” Vivian demanded, hands on her hips as she reached the table. “That Kopa-something man?”
“The gypsy,” Bebe snapped.
“He’s not—”
“We’re backing out of his stupid show.” Melinda cut Miriam off.
If they had said the same thing in any other circumstances, Miriam would have shouted for joy. Since the day they had put out the call for acts from Haskell to join the show, the Bonneville sisters and their frankly dreadful musical ensemble had been a thorn in all of their sides. But nothing about their defection was good news now.
“But you can’t back out.” Miriam rested her hand on Cody’s shoulder as she edged around him, careful not to knock over any more chairs or anything on the table. “The show is tonight. Your father has already pledged his money in support.”
“About that,” Vivian said in a voice that was almost sing-song in its viciousness. “Papa says if we’re not going to participate, he sees no reason to give you any money.”
“Good luck not going bankrupt,” Bebe snorted.
“Why?” Miriam considered clasping her hands in prayer if it would get them to change their mind, but for once in her life, she had no desire whatsoever to retreat into a dramatic character to deal with the crisis at hand. This was her show, her troupe, her friends. She needed to deal with the fiasco as herself. “What could possibly make you want to back out of what promises to be a delightful show?”
The Bonneville sisters stared at her as if she’d turned orange.
“Have you looked out a window today?” Vivian snarled.
“It’s snowing,” Melinda added.
Across the room by the door, Honoria coughed loud and long enough to rattle the chandelier. Miriam was surprised that her heart went out to the odd sister out.
“We’re going home,” Bebe finished.
The three sisters by the table nodded, lifted their chins, and pivoted to march out of the room, sweeping Honoria along as they went.
“But…but you can’t. You promised.”
Miriam leapt into pursuit. Cody jumped up and followed her. He didn’t reach her until they were in the lobby.
“Let them go,” he said, catching her arm and tugging her close. “You can’t rely on anyone with the last name Bonneville for anything. Well, except Honoria. She looks terrible, though.”
Whether Honoria Bonneville was reliable or whether she looked terrible were the least of Miriam’s concerns.
“The show, Cody.” She turned to him, grabbing his hand. “If the Bonneville sisters back out, other people might back out. If other people choose not to show up because of the weather, then there might not be a show at all.”
“It could be rescheduled.”
Miriam shook her head. “And we would rack up even more debts for hotel bills, meals, rental of the school, everything.” Her thoughts spun into more desperate territory. “If we don’t mount this production tonight, we’ll be worse than broke. We’ll be in debt. I can’t let that happen to these people, Cody. They’re my friends. They looked out for me when…when others would have tak
en advantage of me.”
Whether he truly understood what she was saying or not, Cody nodded and squeezed her hand. “Then let’s go see if we can’t get those witchy Bonnevilles to change their mind.”
Cody’s words brought Miriam hope—hope that lasted for all of five minutes as she fetched her coat from her room, then rushed outside. Vivian Bonneville had been right. Miriam hadn’t been looking out the window. A fine powder of white was drifting down from the pale-gray sky. It formed a thin blanket over snow that hadn’t melted from Haskell’s last snowfall. The air was bitter cold, and a hint of worse to come filled the air.
“Which way do you think they went?” Miriam asked as she and Cody reached the street.
Cody searched up and down the street. The snow hadn’t gotten bad enough to prevent some of Haskell’s more intrepid citizens from going about their business. Miriam could only pray that it would remain that way.
“They must have gone up to the school to look for Miles,” Cody finally decided.
Miriam nodded. “He’ll want to know about this, even if that’s not where the Bonnevilles went.”
The school was all but deserted by the time they pushed their way through the weather to the other side of town. Miles was indeed there, checking on the stage, the sets, and the props that had been built or donated for the show. A few of the men who lived in town were there helping him, but not as many as Miriam thought there should have been.
“I can’t get the pulley to work properly,” Miles told Miriam as she approached, before she could even mention the Bonneville sisters.
“What?” Cody frowned and jumped up to the stage where Miles was tugging on a length of thin rope. “I had that working just the other day.”
The faulty pulley problem bled into a problem with missing set pieces. That folded into a problem with several costumes that had gone missing. It turned out that Wendy had taken those garments to her shop for repair, but when she showed up at the school an hour later to deliver them, she also delivered bad news.
“I just met Dr. Meyers and Aiden Murphy on my way over here. Evidently, there’s a problem at the Cheyenne reservation nearby. They’ve been called away to help.”
“So they won’t be able to perform their song,” Miles completed her thought with a frown. “That’s bad news. Everyone in town has told me how proficient Aiden Murphy is with his fiddle.”
It was also bad news when the wind picked up and the snow grew heavier. It didn’t matter how hard they worked to get the stage in perfect shape now. The Bonnevilles were long gone, Aiden and Dr. Murphy had been called away, and three other families stopped by the school on their way back out to their farms and ranches to give their regrets.
“What do we do?” Miriam asked with only three hours until the curtain was supposed to go up.
Still working on last minute fixes to the stage, Miles scrubbed a hand over his face. “The show will have to go on with whatever acts we can put together.”
“I can play a few extra songs,” Juan offered, popping his head up from the area in front of the stage where he and Cody were setting up chairs.
Those chairs looked bleak and barren now.
Miles nodded. “And we’ll have Meizhen and Meiying draw out their acrobatics for an extra five minutes.” He pivoted, searching the hall. His determined expression shifted to puzzled, then to concerned. “Where are the twins anyhow?”
“I haven’t seen them since lunch,” Miriam answered. Her heart did a sickening lurch in her chest as she realized what that could mean. “They must still be at the livery.”
She twisted to find Cody. Their eyes met. He must have sensed the worry that was rippling through her. He dropped what he was doing and strode to meet her.
“Let’s go.” He took her hand, leading her away to the stage to where their coats had been piled on the costume table. “We’ll be back in ten minutes,” he called to Miles.
“You don’t have to do this,” Miriam told Cody as she shrugged into her coat. “I can go on my own.”
Cody shook his head to silence her. “These people are your friends. I think I have a bit of an idea how important that is to you. I want to help you. And besides,” he said as they started out the assembly hall door and down the corridor, “I’m worried about the weather out there. I don’t want you wandering through town on your own if it gets any worse.”
“It won’t get any—”
The objection died on Miriam’s lips as they stepped out into a world that had turned pure white. Snow now fell in heavy sheets, obscuring their vision. Cody was right. She’d come to know Haskell a bit in the last two weeks, but she didn’t entirely trust herself to walk halfway across town to the livery when she could barely see as far as the next building.
The news when they got to the livery wasn’t any better.
“I was hoping you’d come along,” Travis said, stepping away from the stall where he was busy feeding the livery’s horses and preparing them for even worse weather. He came to stand in front of Cody and Miriam as they inched toward the stable’s stone hearth to warm up. “I’ve been meaning to send someone to ask you, but as you can see, with Freddy suffering from that cold, there’s just me to handle things at the moment.”
“Ask us what?” Cody rounded on his brother.
“If those Chinese twins made it back to the hotel okay.”
Miriam’s heart thundered with panic. “They never went back to the hotel. At least, I don’t think so.”
Travis’s expression flashed to concern. “I told them not to take that wagon far, told them the weather wasn’t going to hold out.”
“What wagon?” Cody asked.
Travis let out a breath and a desperate curse with it. “They kept going on about someone named Lou. I figured they were talking about Lou Adler down by Bent Creek. I know Lou makes shoes and boots sometimes, and I thought maybe they bought some from him.”
“Liu.” Miriam almost shouted the name as too many details came together in her mind. She whipped to face Cody. “You mentioned a man named Liu at lunch. He could be their brother.”
“They’ve gone looking for their brother out at Jasper Katz’s place.” Cody picked up exactly where her thoughts had gone.
So did Travis. His eyes flew wide with alarm. “They’ll die out there without shelter in weather like this.”
The truth of it was so harsh that Cody didn’t bother to contradict his brother, not even to ease the fear that froze Miriam to her place. Instead he said, “We have to go after them.”
“Not alone, you don’t.” Travis launched into action, whirling back to open one of the stalls. “They took one of the wagons, so they can’t have gotten far, even if they have been out for a few hours.”
“We can catch up with them if we’re on horseback,” Cody agreed, launching into action to retrieve his own horse from one of the stalls.
“Assuming we know where they’ve gone.”
“We do,” Cody told him. “They had a map. They’ll head for Katz’s ranch.”
“Then we might be able to find them before it’s too late.” Travis nodded.
“I’ll start out and see if I can reach them,” Cody went on, beginning to saddle his mount. “You see if you can find a few more men willing to go out and look too. There’s no telling if they’ve veered off course in this weather.”
“Right.” Travis nodded once, then the two brothers continued to work in silence.
Travis finished with his horse first and set out to find help. Cody was done and saddled a moment later.
“I’m coming with you,” Miriam told him, standing in the doorway before he could leave.
“It’s dangerous out there, Miriam. We don’t know what we’ll find, if anything. The blizzard could get worse.”
“Then you need someone else with you to keep you warm,” she insisted.
As dire as the situation was, Cody grinned. “I’m not going to be able to talk you into staying put, am I?”
“No.”
Chapter Eight
Cody wished that it had never started snowing. He wished that he had never said a word about Liu Chen working over on Katz’s ranch. He wished the Bonneville sisters had never barged into The Cattleman Hotel’s restaurant and interrupted his all-important conversation with Miriam. Most of all, he wished that Miriam had never gotten involved with the theater. Although he liked Juan Bertran and was glad to know Miles Kopanari.
But there was one thing Cody had no regrets about, and that was taking Miriam with him in the search for Meizhen and Meiying.
Even if she slowed him down.
“Wait, wait, we have to stop at the hotel,” she called out before he could nudge his mount to run.
“There might not be time,” he insisted.
“My…my shoes.”
“What?”
“I have thicker boots in my room. I…I don’t think I’ll last long in these shoes.”
Suppressing a sigh, Cody turned his horse to head up Main Street and over to the hotel. Why women were always so damn concerned with their shoes was beyond him. Why Miriam had gone out in inappropriate footwear in the first place was another mystery. But she was right about the need for thick, warm boots if they were going to ride out into a blizzard.
And as luck would have it, the hotel was a wise stop.
“What’s going on here? You look as though you’re preparing for a steeplechase instead of a theatrical extravaganza.” Howard Haskell himself greeted Cody in the lobby.
Miriam nodded to him, picked up her skirts and rushed up the hotel’s grand staircase. Cody removed his hat to bat off the snow and squared his shoulders.
“The twins have gone missing,” he told Howard.
Howard blinked, brow furrowing. “Which twins?”
“The Chinese twins, Meizhen and Meiying, that are part of the show.”
“But they can’t be missing,” Howard boomed. “The show goes on in two hours.”
“Yeah, I’m not so sure about that.” Cody winced and ran a hand through his matted hair. It was already a little damp from running down to the livery. He would be frozen through in no time if he didn’t handle this search carefully. “The Bonnevilles have already backed out, and several other people from town are more interested in hunkering down to ride out the weather than seeing or being in a grand entertainment tonight.”