by Nan Ryan
Dane and a business associate, Tom Lancaster, had left New York the day after Christmas. He hated leaving her, Dane had told her, but the trip was necessary. It could be postponed no longer. He and Lancaster were obligated to travel to the faraway New Mexico Territory for the purpose of surveying and evaluating land and mineral holdings.
Now, with Dane gone for less than a week, Elizabeth was beginning to realize just how empty her life would be without him. Boltwood was closed for the holidays and time hung heavy on her hands. Edmund, Louisa, and the boys had left the same day as Dane. They were spending the remainder of the long holiday with the wealthy Belmonts at their country estate far from the city.
At the stroke of midnight on that solitary New Year’s Eve, Elizabeth took down a near-empty bottle, poured the last of her father’s amontillado sherry into a glass, and raised it in a toast.
“To 1869, a brand-new year filled with hope. May it be the best one of my life,” she said aloud. She looked at her dreary surroundings and added, “And the last New Year’s Eve I spend in poverty!”
On a blustery day in March of 1869 the already nervous New York Stock Market hit a new low. The Curtin brothers were financially ruined.
Badly shaken, reluctant to mention it to his wife, Louisa, Edmund Curtin arrived at the Fifth Avenue mansion as a cool dusk was settling over New York City. In the wide downstairs corridor, a couple of steamer trunks stood open. Puzzled, a frowning Edmund was about to ascend the stairs when the front doorbell jangled.
At the foot of the stairs he paused and waited while the butler answered the door. Out in the cold stood a uniformed messenger, who handed the butler a small yellow envelope.
The curious butler held out to Edmund a small silver salver atop which lay the yellow missive. Wondering if somehow the entire world already knew he was destitute, if some forgotten creditor was immediately calling in a debt, Edmund picked up the telegram with shaking fingers.
Irrationally annoyed when the butler did not immediately move away, Edmund snapped, “That’s all, Johnson. Don’t you have work to do?”
Apprehensive, Edmund Curtin hurried into the empty downstairs drawing room and tore open the small yellow envelope.
Edmund,
Have found missing hexagon. Coordinates seem right. Know I am near underground cavern where gold is buried. Only matter of time before I locate it. You must see to it that Elizabeth Montbleau becomes my wife. As her husband, I can best protect her interests.
Dane
Edmund read and reread the telegram. Could it be possible? Was Dane actually near to finding a fortune in gold? Enough gold to save them all from disaster? Would it be so terribly wrong to persuade Elizabeth Montbleau to marry Dane at once? The gold was their only hope. His only hope. Besides, Dane was genuinely fond of Elizabeth and she of him.
Struggling with his conscience, Edmund was still staring at the telegram when his dark-haired wife, Louisa, swept into the room.
“So you’re finally home,” she said, coming to him, lifting her cheek for a kiss. She saw the message. “What is that?”
“Nothing, really.” He slipped the yellow telegram into a pocket.
Not particularly curious about its contents, Louisa nodded and announced, “Edmund, I cannot stand one more day of being shut up in this house. The winter has dragged on forever and I feel I shall go mad.” She flounced away, crossed the room to close the shutters against the approaching night. “I’ve decided to take the boys out of school and sail to Europe tomorrow.”
Another man might have been dumbstruck to hear his wife had made a sudden decision of such magnitude. Edmund Curtin was not. Louisa was a spoiled, willful woman who always did as she pleased. Long ago he had given up on keeping her in line. This would not be the first time she had become bored with New York and gone to Europe without him.
All he said was, “Do you think it’s wise to take the boys out of school, my dear?”
“You’ve said yourself that travel broadens horizons and serves as a good education. It’s high time the boys spent a few months in London.”
So that was the end of it. Her mind was made up, passage had been booked on the Cunard line, and she would expect him personally to be available to drive them to the docks at three the very next afternoon.
“Now I must fly,” said Louisa, lifting her skirts and hurrying away. “I’m going to dinner and the theater with the Morgans. See to it the boys are fed. And don’t wait up. There’s an after-theater party at the Seligmans’.”
“Have a pleasant evening, my dear,” said Edmund, and knew, as he watched her leave, that spoiled though she might be, and selfish, and yes, even foolish and irresponsible, he could not live without her. He loved her. Had loved his beautiful Louisa since the first night he had seen her at a summertime ball when she had just turned sixteen. In his eyes she was still the flirtatious young beauty of that long-ago May evening.
Suddenly terrified by the prospect of losing Louisa, he hurried from the room, climbed the stairs, and rushed into his paneled library. Not stopping to light a lamp, he went to the wall safe behind his mahogany desk. He carefully turned the small wheel-lock to the correct combination and the door swung open.
He reached inside and withdrew a forest-green jeweler’s bag. He turned and poured the contents of the heavy bag out on his desk. Glittering diamonds and rubies and emeralds sparkled, reflecting the suffused light coming from the gaslights lining the street outside.
Louisa’s jewels.
Her jewels were all that was left of the Curtin fortune. Valuable though they were—particularly the sparkling twenty-karat Star of the West—their worth was not nearly enough to save a way of life.
Edmund dropped down into his chair behind the desk, put out his hand, touched the twinkling stones spread out before him. A fear as cold as the stones gripped his heart. He felt dizzy and light-headed. His mouth was dry and his heart pounded.
Everything he had was rapidly slipping from his grasp and he was helpless to stop it.
Or was he?
Edmund had rehearsed what he would say at least a hundred times. But now as he climbed the stone steps of Boltwood, he could remember nothing of the carefully written speech he had intended to make to Elizabeth Montbleau.
He had just come from Pier Fifty-three, where he had waved to his departing family as the big oceangoing vessel was tugged out of the harbor toward the open sea. He had waited only until he was sure Louisa had retired from the deck and could no longer see him, then he had hurried to the carriage and ordered the driver to take him to Boltwood straightaway.
Now, pulling the lapels of his cashmere greatcoat up around his freezing ears, Edmund drew a deep breath of frigid air, opened the front door and ducked into the wide hallway of Boltwood. Noisy, laughing boys swirled past him, anxious to be outside, happy the school day was at an end.
Hat in hand, Edmund waited. When all the shouts and squeals had died and the old building was silent, he saw Elizabeth coming down the corridor. She smiled upon seeing him, and put out her hand. He took it in his gloved one.
“I miss the boys already,” Elizabeth said. “I do wish Louisa could have waited until the end of the school term.”
“Yes, so do I. But you know Louisa.” He smiled sheepishly.
Fond of the gentle man, Elizabeth responded, “Well, travel is an education in itself.”
Edmund took Elizabeth to a small coffeehouse nearby and over hot chocolate topped with marshmallows, told her he had heard from Dane. She herself had received no letters, so Elizabeth was relieved.
“Thank God, I was afraid something had happened to him. Is he well? Will he be coming home soon?”
“He’s well and he’s very lonely.” Edmund coughed nervously, then proceeded, feeling like a conspirator in some evil plot. “He said he misses you terribly and his only regret is that he didn’t make you his wife before he left New York.”
Elizabeth glowed. “Such a sweet thing to say.”
Edmund swall
owed hard. “He … ah … Dane says it was a dreadful mistake and one he wishes to rectify at once.”
Elizabeth nodded. “So he’ll be back soon and—”
“He wants you to marry him immediately. Right now.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and she tilted her head to one side. “I’m very flattered but we both know that’s out of the question.” She laughed and added, “A wedding with no bridegroom? Impossible.”
“But it isn’t,” Edmund quickly corrected. “You can be married by telegraphic proxy. It’s done all the time. It’s what Dane wants.”
Puzzled by the strange turn of events, Elizabeth was dubious. Why would a man who’d not bothered to write her in all the weeks he had been away suddenly feel he couldn’t wait to marry her?
Edmund’s hand covered hers atop the table. “For all his seeming confidence, Dane is unsure of your feelings for him. That’s why he wrote to me, instead of you. He said that if you really love him, you’ll marry him immediately.”
Elizabeth pondered those words. “If you really love him, you’ll marry him immediately.” Suddenly she felt like the worst kind of hypocrite. She was fond of Dane Curtin, but she was not in love with him, was not sure she ever would be. Worse, Dane thought her a lady above reproach. Suppose he found out that nothing could be further from the truth.
What if, years after she had become his wife, Dane learned she was responsible for a man’s death? She had never told him—had never told anyone—about Colonel Frederick Dobbs at Shreveport landing. She had never even told her dear father, much less Dane. Now it was too late. Her path was chosen.
It was too late to tell him about the night she had spent with a Yankee spy. Dane had always behaved the gentleman because he assumed that she was pure, an innocent. Would he be shocked and disgusted to learn she was not a virgin? Would he be able to tell? The Yankee hadn’t realized that she was. Maybe Dane wouldn’t know that she wasn’t.
Tired of being lonely, tired of being poor, Elizabeth felt she couldn’t let the opportunity pass her by. She would take a chance on her past staying dead and buried. She would be a good and faithful wife to Dane Curtin. So good, so faithful, he would never know that she was not deeply in love with him.
Elizabeth looked up. Edmund Curtin was waiting for her answer. Almost holding his breath as though her decision meant as much to him as it did to his brother.
Looking straight into Edmund Curtin’s eyes, she smiled and said, “I will marry Dane immediately.”
The shocking news came not two weeks after Elizabeth Montbleau became the bride of Dane Curtin by telegraphic proxy. The Curtin-Lancaster expedition was missing, possibly all dead, in the southern wilds of the New Mexico Territory.
Elizabeth and Edmund were horrified. What should they do? What could they do?
As soon as the initial shock had passed, Edmund Curtin became his calm, decisive self. Insisting that Elizabeth try to get some rest in one of the many guest rooms upstairs, he left the Fifth Avenue mansion.
He was back before the sun went down. Silently he climbed the stairs to his library, closed the door behind him, and withdrew the green jeweler’s bag from the wall safe. Thankful that Louisa had not chosen to take her most valuable jewels abroad, he slipped the bag into the inside breast pocket of his well-tailored gray frockcoat.
When he came back downstairs, he found Elizabeth waiting in the drawing room. She rose and looked at him expectantly.
He announced, “Elizabeth, I am going to the New Mexico Territory to search for Dane. Martin Exley, the Santa Fe agent for the Curtin company, is handling all the arrangements on that end.”
“I am going with you.”
“Elizabeth, that isn’t prudent. The New Mexico Territory is still quite untamed and dangerous. Besides, you have obligations … the school and—”
“None of that matters.” Impatiently, she shook her head. “My husband is missing and we must find him.” She paused, then said, “But, Edmund, what about the stock market crash? Surely that has affected your precious metals holdings?”
“Somewhat,” was all he said.
“It’s a long journey to the New Mexico Territory and we may have to stay for several weeks, perhaps even months. The expense? Can we afford it?”
Edmund couldn’t tell her the truth. That in fact he couldn’t afford not to go. That finding Dane and the hidden gold was his only hope. That he was gambling all he had left in the world.
Edmund patted his breast coat pocket, where the heavy green jeweler’s bag felt solid and comforting. His palm rested directly atop the hard, large twenty-karat Star of the West diamond.
“Leave that to me,” he said calmly. “We Curtins always go in style.”
12
AN OLD NAVAJO WOMAN, her hands adorned with silver and turquoise rings, sat unmoving on the broad, flat portal, the porch of Santa Fe’s El Palacio Real, the Palace of the Governors. Her ancient face was as burnished brown and deeply carved as the rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains. She leaned back against the wall of the one-story adobe building, her watery black eyes blank, the wrinkled, tissue-thin lids drooping and closing.
Dozing and dreaming of days gone by, the old Indian woman was neglected by most, tolerated by others in the Queen City of the New Mexico Territory. A fixture there on the portal, where the seat of government was located, she had long ago forgotten where her home was. She recalled only that once she had lived high in the Jemez Mountains, the wife of a powerful Navajo chieftain to whom she had borne three strong sons.
The old woman wondered where her boys were. She asked anyone who would listen if they had seen her sons. They were only young children, her boys. Babies, really. Or were they? Had they grown into men already?
She had long since blotted out the painful truth. Had managed totally to abolish the horror of an early-morning attack on her husband’s high meadow village. No longer recalled standing naked in the stream, washing herself, and looking up to see a detail of mounted blue-coat soldiers bearing down on her. Had eradicated the pain and degradation she’d suffered as they used her to satisfy their lust. Had incised from the far reaches of her memory the recollection of crawling back to camp on her hands and knees, bloodied and suffering, to find her husband and her three sons lying dead, their bodies riddled with bullet holes.
She remembered none of it.
So she supposed that her husband had grown old and died in his sleep, as she soon would. But in her mind the boys were still little and she looked for them as she sat there on the government building’s broad porch in the warm March sunshine. Studied the face of each dark-haired male child and every strong young man that happened past.
The old woman suddenly sensed someone’s presence.
Her sagging lids lifted to see a tall, lanky man crossing the plaza, coming straight toward her from out of the glare of the sun. The woman blinked and squinted, straining to see him better.
His long, loose-limbed stride was familiar, as was the set of his wide shoulders. He was hatless. The west wind was tossing locks of his raven-black hair about his head and pressing one end of his white silk bandanna against his tanned, cleanly shaven jaw. His shirt was of dark navy gabardine and his trousers of tan hard-finished twill. A pair of silver inlaid spurs dangled from his belt and on his feet were boots of shiny black leather.
The old woman’s mouth gaped open as the tall young man steadily advanced on her. Hopefully she wondered if he might be one of her sons. Time got away. Maybe the oldest was grown now.
The tall man stepped onto the flat porch, crossed to the old Navajo woman, and crouched down directly before her.
“Is it …?” Her questioning eyes grew almost round.
“No,” he said gently, reaching for her gnarled right hand and holding it in his own. “No, Micoma, I’m not your son.” He smiled at her. “It’s West. West Quarternight.”
A smile immediately came to her thin cracked lips and her eyes disappeared into the laugh-line creases of her wrinkled skin. Her hand
gripped his with incredible strength as she nodded happily and repeated, “It’s West. West Quarternight.”
“Any messages for me this morning, Micoma?”
It was not an idle question. He meant it. West, as did all Santa Fe, knew the Palace of the Governors’ porch was Micoma’s main headquarters. In a hurry one day, he had left a message with her for Grady Downs. Micoma was flattered that he had trusted her and she had delivered the message word for word to Grady. A day or two later, Grady left a message for West with the old woman.
In no time, Micoma became West’s personal message bureau. Everyone in the Territory knew that if they couldn’t find Quarternight, they could leave word for him with the old Navajo woman. Amazingly, she never once forgot to relay the word. That, despite the fact that more than once she had thought—hoped really—that the dark-complexioned, black-haired West might be one of her own boys, grown.
“Anybody looking for me, Micoma?” West asked, and she silently began to nod. He knew she was carefully going over, in her head, the exact words she was to pass on. “Take your time now, there’s no hurry,” he said softly.
Normally an impatient man, West was extremely patient with the old Navajo woman. He knew if he waited, if he didn’t rush her, Micoma would quote verbatim what she had been told to pass along.
So West crouched there on his heels, smiling at her, holding her hand, waiting, tolerant of her as he was of no one else.
At last, forming her words very slowly and precisely, Micoma said, “White Hair has been contacted by Mr. X.” West grinned, knowing she meant that Grady had been contacted by Martin Exley, a Santa Fe based agent for several large Eastern Companies. “White Hair say that Mr. X have contract for you.”
West’s grin broadened. “Did you remind White Hair I will not take any more contracts?”
Micoma smiled her toothless smile and nodded. “I did. But White Hair say you will take this one. Say he will talk some sense into you.” She paused. Then, black eyes twinkling, she added, “White Hair say you have rock-hard head.” She chuckled and West laughed with her.