Squire's Quest

by Judith B. Glad

  When Abner pushed his empty plate toward the center of the table, Callie stood and began to gather up dirty dishes.

  "I'll do that." Bethany practically snatched them out of her hands.

  Merlin smiled around the table. "Thank you for taking care of Cal until I could get here, Mrs. Simpson. We'd best be off now. It's starting to snow."

  He went to the line of nails beside the door and pulled down her coat. "Where's your bundle?"

  "Bundle? What--" she frowned. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

  "Cal, there's no room for you here. Unless you want to sleep in an alley, you'll have to come with me."

  "He's right, Miz Callie. Even if you had money, there's no place in town for a decent woman to stay. Not all by herself alone."

  Bethany nodded in silent agreement.

  "But I can't stay with you! You're a man."

  His chuckle infuriated her. How could he take this so lightly?

  "You won't be with me. You'll be in my cabin. All by yourself."

  Was it a hint of regret she heard in his tone? Or was she hearing her own daydreams?

  She'd been alone most all her life, or so it seemed. Nothing about tonight would be any different.

  Or would it? This time someone was taking care of her, someone who'd done it before. Even if he was planning to do it from a distance, she felt...safe.

  * * * *

  He could have put her up behind him, but didn't. Instead he'd had Abner lift her so she sat across his thighs, enclosed within his arms.

  Just where he wanted her.

  "Is that all you have, that little bundle?" He drew a deep breath, smelling the faint aroma of yeast, something flowery and springlike, and an elusive scent that took him back to nights on the trail with her snuggled beside him in the bedroll.

  "Everything, and it's mostly rags. "

  The mile and a half to his cabin seemed to pass too quickly. When he let her slide to the ground, he almost ached. Dismounting, he loosened her pillowcase from behind the saddle and led her to the door. "It's not fancy, but it's warm and the bed's comfortable. Tomorrow I'll lay in some supplies, but there's coffee and tea and some biscuits and bacon for breakfast. Water's in the bucket. I filled it this morning. Outhouse off to the west, left as you go out. Go ahead and settle in. I'll come back after I've stabled Gawain."

  Before he could be tempted into lingering, he pulled the door closed behind him. Once inside the barn, he tended to Gawain. "This is crazy, you know that? She's just a friend. Someone who needs my help. There's no sense in me thinking she sees me as any more than a friend who's helping her out of a bad situation. Tarnation, she probably sees me as being on Mick's side. If only I hadn't asked her all those questions."

  Gawain nickered as if in agreement.

  "Yeah, you'd think I could've kept my mouth shut. Defended her. We both know she'd never help rob a bank."

  But did he? The Cal he'd known six years ago had been a little girl, honest and innocent. Today's Cal was a woman grown, with six years of her father's less-than-savory influence behind her. He'd met enough bad women in his travels to know they could be as wicked as any man.

  Or as good.

  His gut told him Cal was one of the good ones.

  Or was something lower down talking?

  * * * *

  When Callie woke up the next morning, she wasn't sure where she was. Eventually, after she'd forced herself to lie still and think, her surroundings started to look a little bit familiar.

  Merlin's cabin. That's where I am.

  That brought back all that had happened since the Pinkerton man had come to town. His suspicion. The robber who'd threatened to cut her throat.

  And the crate, still sitting in the freight office at the depot.

  She touched the scab at the side of her neck. It was still a little sore, but was healing cleanly. Not so her memory. She doubted she'd ever forget the terror she'd felt when he'd grabbed her. Or the belly-churning reaction to seeing him fall bleeding at her feet.

  Her mother died at peace, knowing her pain was ended. Callie had expected it, had been prepared. As much as anyone could ever be, she supposed.

  The robber had been alive and dangerous. Then he had been lying limp and bloody at her feet, smelling of piss and ordure. And not long after, he'd been dead.

  Stop it! He would have killed you as soon as blink. Better to put her mind to her future.

  The knock at the door startled her out of her ruminations. "Wait!" she scrambled out of bed and across the icy floor. With her ear close to the splintery door, she said, "Who is it?"

  "Merlin. We need to talk."

  "I-- Just a bit. I have to dress."

  "I'll be back in fifteen minutes." She heard his footsteps squeaking on the hard-packed snow.

  Her dress was soiled and it smelled. She was used to the smell--yeast and sweat and a faint hint of the flowery soap she still had a sliver of. But today she wasn't going to be baking, and maybe there would be time later to wash it.

  With a resigned shrug, she pulled it on over her shift and slipped her feet into her cold boots. Once she was standing, her skirt mostly covered them, but still...

  Merlin's knock came just as she was combing her hair. "Just a minute," she called. Quickly she formed a twist at her nape and anchored it with half a dozen bone hairpins. She picked up her faded shawl--the cabin really was cold, but she'd been too busy to notice until now--and went to the door. "Come in."

  "Great God, it's like an ice house in here. Why didn't you build up the fire?" Merlin went directly to the fireplace and started laying logs on the barely smoldering embers.

  "You said you'd be back." She heard her sullen tone and cleared her throat. "I didn't want to make you wait."

  Once the new wood had caught, he turned and looked at her. "You'd risk frostbite so I wouldn't be inconvenienced? Tarnation, Cal. Where is your backbone? You used to have some gumption, but I'm thinking you left it back in Montana."

  Chapter Sixteen

  Openmouthed, she stared at him. How could he be so mean? Hadn't she held back the tears that had threatened again and again since the bad man had appeared? Hadn't she been obedient, even when she wanted to tell him he had no authority over her?

  The speckled enamel cup was in the air before she realized she'd picked it up. Merlin dodged, but it caught him on the shoulder, spewing cold tea across his canvas coat. By then she'd thrown the book that had been on the table and was reaching for the spectacles.

  "Hold it," he yelled, as he caught the book mid-flight. "Don't break those!"

  She looked at what she held in her hand. "Wha-- No, of course not." Carefully she set them down, and looked around for something else to throw.

  Before she could lay her hand on anything, Merlin's arms were around her. "Calm down." His voice was soft, his mouth close to her ear. "Cal, listen to me. Stop fight-- Oww! Tarnation, that hurt."

  She raised her foot to stomp his toes again. "Let me go!"

  His leg somehow got hooked around hers and the next thing she knew, she was on the bed, with him on top of her. No! Heaving with all her strength, she tried to toss him off.

  "Stop it. I'm not going to hurt you. Cal!" One of his hands captured her wrist, just before she could rake his cheek with her fingernails. He forced her clawed hand back.

  She attacked with her other hand and caught the edge of his eyepatch. The string snapped.

  The sight of his ruined eye broke her resistance. His eyelid was closed and sunken. A wide scar pulled the skin around it into an unnatural shape. The eyebrow was a zigzag line, half scar, half pale hair, and that side of his forehead was ropy with welts and furrows.

  "Oh, Merlin," she whispered, "that must have hurt."

  She was still speaking when he picked up the patch. The narrow leather thong that held it around his head had broken just at the edge of the black leather patch. He held it over his eye as he went to the shelves on the opposite wall. With his back to her, he replaced the damaged pa
tch with another one.

  When it was in place, he turned around. "You shouldn't have seen that."

  Sitting up, she gave him a long steady look. "And why not? It's a scar. I've seen scars before." One of their neighbors in Iowa had come home from the War with half a face. She'd been terrified of him until Ma explained why he was so hideous.

  "Yes, but--"

  "Oh, be quiet. Build up the fire. Or go away. Leave me alone." She flopped back onto the twisted bedding and rolled to face the wall. "Maybe I never did have any backbone. What do you care?"

  But she did care. She hated having anyone angry with her. Pa always seemed to be, as if she never could live up to what he expected of her. That was one of the reasons she'd been so happy at Mrs. Flynn's. Pa only came around once or twice a year.

  Frau Trebelhorn was almost as bad as Pa about wanting her to do everything a certain way, but at least she mostly had good reasons for it. A restaurant cook had to keep the kitchen clean, had to follow a recipe.

  What difference did it make if she'd built up the fire or not. She was the one threatened with frostbite. He'd probably slept warm and cozy, not waking at every creak and groan of the cabin, not wondering if a robber might be creeping up, intent on breaking in.

  A robber or worse. There had been a look in the eye of the man who'd kept asking her where the money was. A look she'd seen, and feared, in other men's eyes.

  The sounds of Merlin mending the fire were somehow soothing. She lay there and listened. Heard him fill the kettle with water from the bucket. Was embarrassed when he pulled the chamber pot from under the bed and carried it outside. She'd used it, and she should have emptied it. She rolled over and sat up. She might not go along with what he wanted her to do, but she could at least cook his breakfast.

  She owed him that much.

  * * * *

  He'd been too hard on her, Merlin decided. And he'd misjudged.

  Cal had been so meek last night it had scared him. He'd seen it before. A woman--or a man, for that matter--who'd been through a bad spell just giving up. There'd been a flood, down in Texas, a day or two before the herd came to a river crossing. All that was left of a small cabin had been a rock fireplace standing alone in the middle of a newly-scoured floodplain.

  After they'd bedded the cattle for the night, Merlin had gone across to the homestead, thinking to bury any bodies, for he was sure no one had survived the flood. He'd found the woman lying on a rough mound marked with a crude cross of twisted mesquite sticks lashed together. She was alive.

  Her body had been alive, but her mind was somewhere else. She'd obeyed him, had allowed herself to be lifted to his horse, taken to the chuckwagon, fed and bedded down. Not a single word had she spoken, not even the next day when he'd carried her to a nearby settlement and turned her over to the minister of the only church.

  Last night he'd looked at Cal, seen a similar emptiness creeping into her eyes, and had worried. This morning she'd been so passive that his fear had made him attack, hoping to shock her out of it.

  Be careful what you wish for...

  When he opened the door, carefully, in case he had to dodge more flying objects, he saw her kneeling at the fireplace. The sizzle of frying bacon told him breakfast was on its way.

  "Whose spectacles are they?"

  "Huh?"

  "Those spectacles on the table. Whose are they?"

  "I don't know. They were here. I was using them for a magnifying glass, to pull a splinter." He slid the thundermug under the bed. "Can you be ready to go to town in an hour?"

  She looked back over her shoulder. "Why?"

  "Sheriff wants to talk to you. Mick and I gave him what we knew yesterday, but he's not satisfied. He wants to know what that fellow was looking for."

  "I don't know!" There was a note of near-hysteria in her voice. "He kept saying 'Where's the money. I told him I didn't have any money, but he didn't believe me."

  "Maybe it was in the crate your father shipped." He accepted the plate she handed him and waited for her to come to the table before he sat.

  Her dark brows drew together and she held her fork suspended over the plate. "How do you-- It can't be. I saw them load it on the stage in Virginia City. It's just things he'd stored at the saloon, things he didn't want to leave behind. I don't think he was planning on ever going back."

  "Huh." After a couple of bites, he set his fork down. "I think we'll pick it up, see what's inside. Can't be sure if we don't know what's in it."

  "Oh, no! You mustn't."

  "Why not? If there's no money in there, we'll close it up again. He'll never know."

  "I hope not. He'd be-- Pa would be really mad if he thought someone had been poking around his private matters. He's like that." She sounded plumb scared.

  Had she almost said he'd beat her? Merlin wouldn't be surprised. Lemuel Smith was a piece of work. A bad one.

  * * * *

  The sheriff listened to Callie's account without comment. When she'd told him everything she could remember and had shown him the scab on her neck, he sat back in his chair and said, "Well, now Miss Smith, I reckon that agrees with what Agent Conner and Lachlan here told me. Abner, he don't recall much, which is a pity."

  He sounded as if it was Abner's fault he hadn't seen anything. "That man knocked him unconscious. And then he kicked him."

  "Yes, ma'am, I know. But still... It's a pity. Thank you for comin' in. I won't bother you no more." He escorted her and Merlin to the door.

  "If you hear from your father, you let me know, now."

  Merlin's hand tightened on her arm. A warning. "Yes, of course."

  But she wouldn't. She might tell Merlin, but she'd never betray Pa to the law, no matter what.

  She was afraid of what he'd do to her if she did.

  "Where are we going?"

  "To the depot. Mick's probably already there."

  "Why?" She didn't trust the Pinkerton man, even though Merlin seemed to.

  "To get the crate."

  She glared at him as they crossed the street but said nothing.

  "Afternoon, Miss Smith." The Pinkerton man met them at the freight office door and tipped his hat. "I appreciate your willingness to help."

  "I don't seem to have any choice."

  "Of course you do. You can simply refuse to cooperate." He pulled the door open and motioned her through. "The freight window's over there."

  "I know where it is." She'd had plenty of time to learn where everything was in the depot. Stubbornly she stayed back and let him lead the way.

  While they were waiting for the freight agent to fetch the crate, Callie pretended an interest in the timetables posted on a bulletin board, even though she'd practically memorized them the last time she was here. Merlin slouched on one of the benches and pulled his hat low over his face.

  The Pinkerton man watched her. She could feel his blue gaze like a spider crawling across her shoulders.

  "A good thing you showed up, Miss Smith. The boss was after me about this. We're only supposed to hold unclaimed packages thirty days." The clerk had the wooden crate sitting on a handcart. He looked to the Pinkerton man. "You're Lemuel Smith?"

  "No, but this is Calista Smith."

  The clerk checked the bill of lading he held. "That's the name here, all right." He eyed Callie.

  Oh, Pa, don't be mad. It's the only way to clear your name.

  "Can you prove your identity?"

  "No, I--"

  "I'm sorry, then. I can't let this go unless you can prove you're who you say you are."

  Just then the night ticket clerk came in. He remembered her, and remembered Pa too. "He made a big to-do over missing freight. Went stomping out of here with steam shootin' from his ears. Left this lady behind without a word. I reckon it would serve him right if she took it."

  "I don't know..." the freight clerk said.

  "Miss Smith has been working at Lambert House for about six weeks. Would you take Frau Trebelhorn's word she's who she says she is?" Merli
n said from the bench where he'd seemed to be sleeping.

  "She won't--"

  He silenced her with a glance. "Well?"

  "Harve, keep it simple. Give the lady the crate and stop worrying so much about the rules," the night clerk said.

  "Come to think of it, I have seen you at Lambert House. You're the one makes those fancy cakes, ain't you?"

  "Yes, but--"

  "Well, I reckon anybody who can cook like that ain't gonna be taking something doesn't belong to her. Hold the door, somebody."

  The Pinkerton man held the door for the clerk to wheel the crate out. "If you'll sign here, Miss Smith, you can take the crate right now. Got a way to haul it away?"

  "I'll take care of that," Merlin said. "We're obliged." He picked the crate up and set it on his shoulder, as if it weighed no more than a good sized book.

  "We are indeed," the Pinkerton man said. He handed each man something.

  Once they were on the sidewalk, Callie said, "Did you give them money?"

  "They're less likely to talk about this if they're tipped. Miss Smith, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know what's in the crate."

  "Oh! I thought you were going to take it."

  "Not at all. It's your property. Or your father's. I've no legal right to it, not unless it contains stolen money." He gave her a small bow, winked at Merlin, and strode away.

  She frowned after him. "I thought he wanted to know what's inside."

  "He does, but I'll bet he's pretty sure there's no money inside. Getting our hands on it was way too easy."

  They'd walked nearly a block before Merlin said, "Abner said Lester would haul the crate out to my cabin sometime this morning, so we're in no hurry. It'll be there when we get back. We'll stop at Ramsey's for dinner. I guess we'd better pick up some groceries too. We ate the last of the bread this morning."

  She opened her mouth to say she would bake more bread, and closed it again. "I can't stay at your cabin. It's not right."

  His hand tightened on her arm as she stepped onto the frozen ruts of Ferguson Street. "Where else? You said yourself you couldn't afford a boarding house or hotel. Watch out there."

  She stepped sideways to avoid the horse biscuits. "I thought to go back to Virginia City. I have enough for the train and the stage, and I was going to ask--"