A Wanted Man

by Susan Kay Law

  “Can you describe him to me? In detail?”

  “I don’t know,” Sam said.

  “It’s worth a try.”

  Laura’s hand hovered over the page as she waited expectantly for him to begin. And Sam just wanted to dash out of that cube of a room and keep going, out into the open range, where a man could breathe, where he could run a day, two, and never run into something that would cage him.

  He closed his eyes, trying to conjure Griff. His image sprang up immediately, the details piercingly clear: a narrow, hollow-cheeked face, dull eyes sunken deep and encircled by purple, more dead than alive.

  Griff, in Andersonville. But that wouldn’t do any good; he didn’t look like that anymore, thank God.

  Nobody should ever look like that.

  He struggled to recall the last time he’d seen Griff. It bothered him that he didn’t know. Why hadn’t he noted it at the time, just in case? How could he have forgotten that tomorrow was never promised?

  He had vivid memories of the last time he’d seen his family. Of his brother, serious and determined, heading off to war as Sam and his parents waved from their doorstep, his mother gulping back tears, his father with his arm around her shoulders. And his parents, not long after, in almost the same position as he himself trod down that path.

  But Griff…

  Ah yes. Virginia City, the Red Garter saloon. Griff, laughing at him over a table as he laid down a full straight and hauled in a hefty pot.

  “He looked—looks—younger than me. Though he’s not. Got that kind of face, like a kid who grew too fast and never filled out all the way.” He waggled his chin. “A lot of chin. His nose is sharp at the end. Deep-set eyes.”

  “Wait. Just a minute. I can’t keep up.”

  He heard the furious scratch of lead on paper. In the small, steamy room, Laura’s fragrance bloomed. Exotic flowers, kinds he’d never smelled before, no doubt gathered in faraway places that he didn’t even know the name of, distilled to elemental sweetness just for her.

  His breath came just a bit easier. It helped, to concentrate on her instead. She was so far away from prison, untouched by brutality and darkness.

  “Hair?” she murmured.

  “Brown.”

  “What kind of brown?”

  Her voice reached him through the night, a soft and gentle tendril like a spring breeze.

  “Dark. Ah…like turkey feathers? I’m not used to thinking about things like this. Do you study everything in such detail?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Hush now. You’re distracting me.”

  He could almost forget where he was when he concentrated on her, the sound of her voice and the scent drifting from her skin and the fact that she was mere feet away.

  “Texture?”

  “What?” If she’d studied him as carefully…what had she seen? He couldn’t hold up to such scrutiny.

  “Of his hair. Straight, curly, frizzy?”

  “Oh. Peg straight. Clipped above his ears last time I saw him.”

  “Good.”

  He was not an artist, and yet he was certain he could describe her face down to the last freckle.

  The scrape of lead slowed. One more quick stroke, then all was quiet.

  “Might as well look,” she said. “See if I’m anywhere close. It’s an odd way to draw, and I’m not used to it. It might be very far off.”

  She held the paper tilted to capture the flare of the sputtering candle. And he had to stare at her for a moment first, her face a study in fierce concentration, her skin glowing in the soft, fluttery light.

  “It’s…” He squinted, trying to figure it out. “It’s not that far off.” But it wasn’t that close, either, though it was very difficult for him to pick out exactly what was wrong. “His forehead…broader, maybe.”

  She’d no rubber, and so blurred the lines with her forefinger, drawing in sharper lines a fraction outside the originals.

  “Better?”

  “Yes.” He could see Griff in the face now, a suggestion of his features in the pale gray lines. “Deeper hollows beneath the cheeks.”

  A shadowing with the side of the lead solved that.

  “Hmm. Almost there. I—”

  He’d almost forgotten Jo Ling’s presence, hovering over Laura’s other shoulder, until she interrupted him. “Ah. That one. I remember.”

  Dread and hope rose together, churning painfully in his belly. “You do?”

  “Think so. Skinny man, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  She turned toward him, her dark eyes grave. “Came to see me once. He did not want to…the other men send him. Welcome present. He said he only want women who want to. Told him Jo Ling did want to, but he say I lie. Ask me not to tell anyone we did not.”

  “That sounds like him.” After months of having his will beaten and stripped from him, Griff could never stand to think of someone else being forced into anything against their will. It literally made him sick; once, Sam had seen him vomit when they’d stumbled across a blacksmith beating his apprentice into submission. The blacksmith couldn’t have beaten anyone for at least a month after they finished with him. “Where is he, do you know?”

  “I…sorry, sir.”

  “Sorry because you don’t know?” He had to force the words out, a staccato burst of one syllable at a time, all he could gather with each labored breath. “Or sorry because you do?”

  And then he felt Laura’s hand slip into his, a lifeline tethering him to the world, keeping him from slipping back into the void.

  “Don’t know why happened,” Jo Ling said quietly. “Shouting. Lots of shouting. Dragging him off.” Too much knowledge lurked in her eyes, the same knowledge, he knew, that others sometimes saw in his, and Sam went cold.

  “Think they took him to the mines.”

  Chapter 18

  Sam plunged out of the door seconds later. Because whatever sickness had gotten hold of him had finally got the better of him? Laura wondered. Or because he was headed directly for the mines?

  She took a hurried leave of Jo Ling—a quick press of her hands, a rushed thank-you, a promise that they would find her a way to escape the Silver Spur. And then she dashed after Sam, her heart pounding, because if he were rushing rashly into danger, she did not know how she would stop him.

  Any way you can, she told herself. She was resourceful. And she knew his soft spots.

  But he merely stood in the yard, in a shaft of pale moonlight, his face uplifted, gulping air like he’d just surfaced from the depths of the sea.

  “Good. You’re here. I was afraid you’d…” She trailed off.

  She watched him struggle visibly for control. And then he found it—of course he did; the only surprise was that he’d ever lost it, even for a second—and looked down at her, his feet planted wide, his hands clasped behind his back.

  “Afraid I’d run off into trouble?” he asked. “Or afraid I’d gone off to have all the fun without you?”

  So he’d recovered enough to twit her. Good. “The latter, of course.”

  “I want to. Dear God, I want to.” His shoulders were rigid, and Laura thought perhaps he held his fists behind him because, if he did not, he would wrap his arms around her. “I want to go out there and rip the earth apart with my hands until I find him.” And then he did grab her, his hands on her upper arms. Pulling her close, pushing her away—he seemed caught between the two, his fingers digging in, holding her with a foot of space between them. “And I want to leave right this second to take you back to Hoxie and Peel and beg them to keep you safe.”

  “I am safe, Sam,” she said. “I’m with you.”

  He shook his head. “This is deeper than I thought. Illegal immigrants, forced labor for a mine that produces millions of dollars. People’ll do a lot for that kind of money, Laura. Haw Crocker’s got a lot to protect.”

  “I know that,” she said quietly.

  “Then let me take you back,” he said, his voice ragged.

  “Only if you come with
me,” she said.

  “I can’t do that, Laura. You know that.”

  He appeared a ghost in the moonlight. A black ghost, cloaked in regrets and remembered loss. But his hands on her arms were warm and strong, vibrantly alive.

  “Let’s go then. Right now.” Fueled by injustice, fury pumping its energy through her veins, she tried to whirl for the corral.

  “No.” He held her in place. Stopped her, when she was so darn tired of people stopping her. “It’s late, and we don’t know for certain how long it’ll take to get there and back. Better we have a whole night. Tomorrow.”

  “Silver Creek,” she suggested. “We could go right now, tell everyone. When they find out what’s happening out here—”

  The shake of his head cut her off. “Do you think any of them give a good goddamn what happens to a bunch of Chinamen? All they care about is if that money keeps flowing into their town, building all those pretty gardens, that fancy school.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Were you always so cynical? So ready to believe the worst of everyone?”

  “No,” he said hoarsely. “I learned fast, though.”

  No one should have it all stripped from them, every illusion, every shred of faith in other humans. How did you go on every day, when you had no hope that something good might come of it?

  “Then we’ll leave right now,” she told him. “We’ll cable my father. He’ll take care of everything. He’ll contact…I don’t know. The police, the army, the president. Whoever’s the right person to contact. They’ll come in and arrest that bastard.”

  It was a word she’d never said aloud. The bite of it pleased her, her anger surging in her veins until she shook with it.

  Sam just stared at her, concern on his face and regret in his eyes.

  “What is it?” she said. “It probably wouldn’t even take that long. My father can work very quickly. I know your friend might have to…stay there a few days longer than if we could get him out tonight or tomorrow. I’d rather get him out right now, but you’re right. We must be sensible about this, make sure we can do right by everybody. After all this time, a few more days—I won’t say they don’t matter, but they won’t make a difference, and we can end it all in one swoop.”

  “They could make all the difference in the world,” he whispered. “A minute could make all the difference.”

  All the difference when one is balanced on the edge between life and death, Laura thought.

  “In case something…” She didn’t want to suggest it; acid bit at the back of her throat. “If something goes wrong, though, it would be good to know we had someone coming behind us.”

  “Laura.” He gave her a small shake, as if to ensure she listened. “You must promise me. Promise me. That you will not attempt to reach your father.”

  “But…” She jerked back, away from him. He hadn’t expected it, hadn’t released her, and her arms burned where she pulled free. “You think he already knows,” she said flatly.

  “They do a lot of business together. You said yourself that your father was one of the original investors in the Silver Spur. He’s earned thousands, maybe millions, from his partnership with Crocker.”

  “No,” she said simply.

  “I can’t take that chance.”

  “You don’t know him.” Her anger at Crocker mutated, expanding to include Sam. “I do. And you’re just going to have to trust my judgment on this one. You’ve asked me to do that for you often enough.”

  He didn’t answer. Because if he did, it would be no.

  “You must believe me,” she insisted. “I know him. He could not do that. He could not stand by and see humans so vilely exploited for his profit.”

  “He has factories, Laura. He has mines.”

  “And that means he must abuse his workers?” she asked in a flash of scalding heat.

  “Hush. You lift your voice any more and it’ll rouse the hands and this entire conversation will be moot.”

  She hated that he had a point. She continued in a fierce whisper that would only carry to his ears but had the force of a shout just the same.

  “I know him. He could not do that.”

  “I can’t take that chance.”

  Couldn’t take a chance on her word, he meant.

  She whirled and stalked toward the main house, her head down, leaning forward like a sprinter seeking the finish line, quick enough that Sam had to step lively to put himself in her way.

  “Wait. Laura, you have to promise me you won’t go running off and—”

  She stopped in her tracks, spearing him with a contemptuous glare. “So now not only do I not know and understand my own father, I’m devoid of logic as well? What do you think I’m going to do? Go running off in the middle of the night and try and bumble my way back to the train myself?”

  Well, yes, that was exactly what he’d thought, but was smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “I’d rather not, but I will. I said I’d do this and I’ll finish it. My word can be trusted.”

  “I never said it couldn’t.”

  “Just my father’s, is that it?”

  Because there was no answer he could give that would not make her even more incensed, he remained silent. She resumed her march, bloomers snapping like sails in the wind, her narrow shoulders determinedly set as that of a boxing champion.

  The window gave her pause. He waited for her to head around to the door. He’d have to stop her, of course. If she were seen, it would raise too many suspicions about why she was wandering alone in that getup in the middle of the night. She could likely talk her way out of it—her talent in that regard had become quite obvious—but still, they’d wonder. Plus he was pretty sure if Haw Crocker presented himself in front of her right now, she’d make a fist and start swinging. Sam counted himself lucky she hadn’t started pounding on him already.

  Maybe she’d be smart, swallow her offense, and request his assistance. And so he waited while she glared at the window with her hands on her hips, as if her gaze alone could bore a doorway in the thick log walls.

  Then she put her hands on the sill and jumped up, hanging herself over the ledge by her belly. Her legs wheeled in the air, flailing wildly.

  A gentleman would have helped. Except he was damned sure his assistance would not be appreciated, and he’d probably get one of those feet in his gut, or worse, if he tried.

  She must have gotten caught, hung up there on the wide sill, the window too narrow for her to swing a leg around, too high off the ground for her to get a push from it. She rocked back and forth like a child’s balance toy, kicking as if to gain enough force to propel herself over.

  Then she tipped, feet pointing briefly toward the narrow moon before she tumbled into the room.

  “Fool woman.” He started to run. She could have landed on her head, she could have—

  There was just sufficient moonlight to see her pop to her feet. She shook herself, affronted as a hen who’d had her feathers ruffled, then faded into the darkness of the room.

  It had not been a great night, Sam reflected. They’d discovered they were in much deeper trouble than he’d ever anticipated, facing the kind of crime that governments threw army companies at to solve. There was only the slimmest chance that Griff still lived, and Sam didn’t know if he should hope that Griff had survived thus far. For if he had, he was surely enduring hell again, and once was more than enough for any one lifetime.

  And Laura was furious at him. So angry that she might have left him once and for all right then if she hadn’t already given him her word.

  Yet, as he stood in that weak moonlight, staring at the deeply shadowed rectangle that marked Laura’s window, he couldn’t help but smile.

  Laura had that effect on him.

  Ben must have drawn short straw, because he was clearly assigned to shadow them the next day in the guise of being their “guide.” Or maybe he w
as just the person on the ranch who was the least likely to tell them anything, for even Laura was unable to pry more than a rare, inaudible mumble from him.

  Sam had half expected Laura to lose her control at breakfast and bring the huge, moldering moose head hung over the stone fireplace down on Crocker’s head. Her eyes had shot daggers at him the instant he strolled in. But then she’d gotten control of herself, smiled, and greeted him with as much fluffy charm as she’d displayed the day before. Crocker politely bid her “Good morning” and clearly dismissed her from his thoughts, underestimating her as badly as Sam himself once had.

  She was almost as angry at Sam as Haw. She’d kept Ben between them as they rode that afternoon, never glancing Sam’s way except to spear him with a fuming glare.

  They did, however, find the rail bed that led to the mine, two gleaming silver arrows buried in a raggedy carpet of scrub grass. And then their eyes did meet briefly. Those rails could lead them to an answer.

  Could lead them to finish this once and for all.

  Sam waited one tortuous hour past sunset. He would have liked to go out sooner, but there was too much activity in the compound, hands crossing to a poker game, a maid beating rugs behind the house far into the evening. He sat on the porch with a cigar as a prop, battling the urge to prowl restlessly.

  He’d waited for this for months. He was renowned for his patience, his ability to know when to bide his time and when to rush in recklessly. He’d never found it so hard to wait. The answer he needed was close; he could feel it. And he could not ruin it by being spotted saddling a horse.

  Finally, it was time. There was almost no moon. It would make finding his path more difficult, but it also made it doubtful anyone would spot him.

  He crossed to the corral, glancing once, regretfully, at Laura’s window. It was inevitable that her father would wedge between them sooner or later. He just hadn’t expected it to be like this.

  He should be relieved. She’d sleep peacefully in her bed while he did the risky and messy work ahead. She’d be safe enough there. Crocker thought her nothing more than Hamilton’s empty-headed daughter, and obviously her nighttime intruder had gotten what he came for. They’d only wanted the sketchbook. Crocker had probably decided that, displayed with the rest of Laura’s art or worked into a panorama, it might have made an official somewhere suspicious as to where Crocker was getting his labor.