She stomped up and down the levels of the boardwalk, not caring where she was going, ignoring the curious stares directed her way.
She hated it here. She hated the noise and the smells and the dirt and the lack of conveniences.
She hated the prejudices and narrow attitudes of the times, and the fact that women had no real equality.
She wanted to go home, to her own place, her own time.
The single thing that had made Barkerville bearable was Logan, and any day now Flannery would return and Logan would end up either being hanged or disappearing down the Cariboo Road forever, leaving her in this god-forsaken place by herself.
She passed the Chinese stores with their exotic-smelling herbs and whiffs of incense, and hurried past the row of windowless one-room cabins occupied by single miners.
A footpath veered away from the ankle-deep dust in the road, and she followed it.
It led up the hill, and sweat poured down her forehead as she climbed.
Exhausted and dizzy, her head pounding, she finally found a spot under a tree that provided some shade and plopped down. She could see the entire town from this vantage point, a confused collection of peaked, two-storied frame buildings, cabins, tents, saloons, warehouses, stovepipes, outhouses, sheds, and flumes.
She picked out the Nugget and Pandola’s Store.
She identified Frenchie’s and stared for a long time at the high shingled roof, picturing Carmen Hall and her expressionless eyes and sharp tongue, and suddenly Hannah knew what she was going to do.
Whatever else she might be, Carmen was an intelligent woman, Hannah told herself, and so was she. Maybe the two of them could figure out a way to keep both their men alive.
Before she could change her mind, she got up and started down the hill.
Hannah had never been in a brothel before.
The first thing that hit her was the smell, a combination of stale whiskey, male sweat, cigar smoke, and something horrible that reminded her of the eggs at Pandola’s.
Her stomach lurched.
She was in a sort of parlor, with garish furniture and thick draperies drawn tightly shut against the sun. A piano sat in one corner, and there was a long table laden with bottles of liquor. Above it was a painting of a blowsy naked woman with a suggestive smile, sitting on a stool and pulling one dark stocking up a fleshy leg. Her pubic hair showed and her lavish breasts hung down over her belly. The nipples were elongated and bright red.
Hannah frowned at it.
Did real women ever have nipples like that?
The sound of women’s voices came from the kitchen, and Hannah heard the voice of the blond woman who’d answered the door saying, "There’s somebody ta see ya, Carmen."
The tiny dark madam sashayed through the doorway a moment later. Carmen’s plucked eyebrows rose when she saw Hannah.
“Well, well, dearie. Come calling, have you? I didn’t realize it was my at-home afternoon."
Hannah was having second thoughts about her impetuous decision, but it was too late now to change her mind.
"I'd like to talk to you. Carmen. It’s ... private.”
Carmen gave her a long look and then shrugged.
"Sure. C’mon in here.”
Hannah followed her down a dark hallway, and with a key Carmen opened the door to a small office. She gestured at a chair, then moved behind the oak desk and sat down.
“So, what’s this about? You need a donation for the church that group of yours is so keen on building?”
Hannah folded her hands in her lap and then unfolded them again.
"No. I want to discuss something, but I need your assurance that what we say in this room is confidential, just between you and me.”
Carmen’s eyes narrowed and traveled slowly up and down Hannah’s figure.
"You got something in your belly you want to get rid of?”
Taken aback, Hannah shook her head.
"It’s not about me. It's about the man you live with. Flannery."
Carmen's face turned to stone.
"Oh, yeah? What about him? You never even met him. He’d already left Barkerville before you got here."
“That’s true, but…..will you give me your word that what I tell you won't go any further? Especially that you won’t tell him?”
Carmen shrugged indifferently.
"Sure." Her grin was cynical. "Some things are best kept just between us girls, right?”
Hannah nodded, wondering how best to explain, and decided to just blurt it out.
"Logan’s planning to shoot Flannery, and I want to know if there’s any way you and I could prevent it."
Carmen stared at Hannah.
“What’s McGraw got against him?"
“His sister." Hannah explained about Nellie.
"Well, well." A cruel grin slowly twisted across Carmen’s mouth, and then she laughed aloud. When the laughter ended, she leaned towards Hannah.
“Why the hell should I care, or you either? They’re both big boys—let ’em fight it out. It’s not my affair.”
She pointed a beringed finger at Hannah. “And you been preaching about woman’s rights, why should you concern yourself with what men choose to do? McGraw shoots Flannery, he'll hang for it."
She lowered her voice to a sarcastic whisper.
"Get him to will the Nugget to you, dearie, and between us we could clean up in this town. Wouldn't that teach the men a lesson?”
Hannah got to her feet. Her knees were shaking, and numb horror gripped her. She’d made a terrible mistake.
Carmen was laughing again as Hannah fumbled open the office door and fled down the dark hallway. She yanked open the street door and slammed it behind her.
The sun was still beating down, and she turned blindly and started walking toward the Nugget. Her heart was slamming against her ribs. She’d been a fool. Worse than a fool, she'd been a traitor to the man she loved.
Hannah had no illusions left about Carmen Hall. The other woman would likely tell Flannery exactly what Hannah had said, and Logan’s life would be in danger from a bullet instead of a rope.
She’d have to warn him, the sooner the better. And when she did, she knew their relationship would be over. He’d never forgive her for this.
"Yooohoo, Hannah? Hannah, there you are." Elvira hailed her, her voice filled with excitement. She was driving a buggy smack down the middle of the street.
Daisy was sitting beside her with Klaus on her lap.
Elvira reigned the horse to a halt and hollered, "Get in here. We’ve been trying to find you for an hour already. Pandola said he didn’t know where you’d gone."
Hannah stared at them, feeling as if the entire day had become some sort of disjointed nightmare.
She climbed down the steps to the street and Daisy reached a hand to help her into the buggy. It was a tight squeeze with the three of them on the narrow leather seat.
"What are you two doing? Whose buggy is this?”
“Doc Carrolls. He lent it to me.” Elvira shook the reins and the horse started moving again.
“Where are we going?"
"Down the Cariboo Road about ten miles,” Elvira said, letting the horse trot along past the business section and through the Chinese settlement. "Daisy’s brought us some food, so we can have a picnic later on.”
"What about the men’s supper at the Nugget?"
"Zeb will manage on his own,” Daisy said complacently. "I left soup and pasties.”
"Elvira, why are we doing this?"
“Because last night, after I'd finished for the day, a cattle drover brought a man to the hospital. He’d found him wandering along the Cariboo Road. Daniel Conner, his name is. Anyhow, Doc Carroll figured Daniel was either psychotic or drunk, because he thought he’d seen a vision from heaven. Doc checked him over and then gave him a stiff sleeping potion. When I got to work this morning, Daniel was still out of it, but when he woke up just before noon, he told me about watching silver and blue and gold carriages that
had no horses pulling them. Daniel said they were traveling along a shiny black road at unheard-of speeds."
Hannah gasped.
"It sounds like he saw cars, on a highway.”
"Exactly. I quizzed him closely as to the exact location. He was pretty good at explaining where he was when it happened. He'd stopped to water his horse and have a drink by that wooden bridge, Hannah, same place we were. The drover didn’t see a blamed thing, so it's probably just some optical illusion or other, but I still figured we should go take another look. I told Doc I needed the afternoon off and asked if we could borrow his buggy to have a picnic, and he agreed. So I picked up your mother, and then we went looking for you.”
She turned and gave Hannah a look.
"Where on earth were you? Old Pandola looked really down at the mouth, said you and he had an argument and to tell you he was sorry and to come back tomorrow."
“He did?”
Hannah wondered if she wanted her job back or not. It seemed unimportant after all that had happened. Another thought struck her.
“Did you tell Logan where we were going?"
"I told Zeb we were going for a ride in the buggy. He’ll tell Logan," Daisy said. “Logan wasn’t home. He took a wagon load of lumber out to Jeannie and Angus this morning. They want that cabin finished before winter. He wasn’t back yet when we left.”
"Maybe we'll meet him on the road.”
If they did, Hannah decided with a sinking heart that she'd ride back to town with Logan and tell him what she’d done. It was on her conscience and she felt absolutely sick about it.
They bounced along in silence for a while, all of them sweating copiously. The air was absolutely still. Hannah could smell the horse, and the dust from its hooves sifted over them in a fine cloud.
They reached the spot where Logan would have turned off to get to Jeannie’s claim, but there was no sign of him, and Hannah felt shameful relief. At least she had another few hours before she’d have to tell him.
They'd gone another mile when a huge cloud of dust up ahead warned that something was approaching, and soon they could make out two coaches and several men on horseback, riding quickly towards them.
Elvira pulled the horse and their buggy to the side of the road to let the cavalcade past. Clouds of dust billowed over the buggy as the assembly passed by.
Hannah saw that the coaches were filled with women. They waved and smiled as they passed. Hannah's gaze was caught and held by one of the men on horseback.
He wore a low-brimmed hat, and from under it his coal-black eyes seemed to caress her face in the moment it took his horse to pass the buggy.
He raised a hand to her and gave a wolfish grin, and a cold shudder spiraled down Hannah’s spine.
She was suddenly convinced he was Flannery, returning with his European cargo of women.
She thought of Logan, returning to town and learning that the man he’d waited for so long was back, and she envisioned Carmen telling Flannery...
"I have to go back," she burst out. "Stop the buggy! I have to get back to town right away." "Don't be silly, we're nearly there,” Elvira declared. "We'd have to follow in the dust of that group that just passed, and I’m not doing it.”
Daisy agreed with Elvira.
Hannah had no choice except to give in. In abject misery, she sat lost in her own dark imaginings as the buggy jolted its way along the Cariboo Road and the sun dropped in slow motion towards the mountains.
"There’s the wooden bridge. This is the place Daniel described,” Elvira finally said.
They seemed to have been driving for an interminable time, with the usual stops so that either Elvira or Klaus could relieve themselves, and Hannah felt groggy and slightly nauseated from the dust and the heat and her worry over Logan.
“He said he was sitting by that poplar over there, right by the creek.”
"Well, I don’t see any cars or any highway either." Daisy peered around as Elvira unhitched the horse and led him down to the water for a drink.
“I didn’t really expect there would be, but it was worth a try.” Elvira sounded disappointed. "Let’s have a look around.”
Leaving the horse to graze, they walked back and forth along the water. They went across to the woods and up and down the road, but there was absolutely nothing except the cheeping of birds, the chatter of squirrels, the sound of the water, and a deep humming stillness.
Klaus trotted glumly at their heels, hot and panting.
“I’m going to wade into the water and get cooled off,” Hannah finally decided, and she stripped off her sandals and socks and hiked her cursed long skirts up around her hips. She waded in.
The icy water bit at her skin.
Daisy and Elvira followed, and even Klaus minced delicately in and had a drink.
Daisy unpacked the lunch, and they sat on the grass and ate jam sandwiches and raisin muffins, but Hannah had no appetite at all.
A black cloud seemed to have settled over her, a despondency that reached to the depths of her soul.
She drew her knees up and rested her chin on her bunched-up skirt, staring unseeing at the water, trying not to think of anything.
Daisy and Elvira talked quietly, but they, too, had none of their usual energy or exuberance. After a time they gathered up the remnants of the lunch and stowed them in the buggy.
"We might as well get back,” Elvira said.
It took all three of them to hitch the horse up again, and by the time that was accomplished, Klaus had wandered off.
Daisy called, but he didn't come. They all took turns calling with no success. Daisy began to get flustered, and Elvira became annoyed. Hannah had no energy left to feel anything.
For the next hour they tramped along the creek, walked up and down the road, and made forays into the woods, shouting themselves hoarse.
The sun was dropping towards the mountains. Before long it would be dusk, and now Daisy was frantic.
"We can’t go on looking much longer,” Elvira warned. "It’s going to get dark before too long. We need to start back."
Daisy burst into tears, and Hannah wanted to strangle Klaus with her bare hands.
A terrible desperation was growing in her, an overwhelming need to get back to Barkerville, talk to Logan, attempt one last time to reason with him.
"I’ll make a trip along the edge of the creek, just in case Klaus tumbled in and can't get out,” she said. Half running, she started off, but she hadn't gone ten steps before she heard the dog, barking frantically from somewhere upstream.
"I hear him," she shouted to the other women, and Daisy gave a joyful cry. There were bushes growing along the bank, and Hannah pushed her way through them. They grew thicker and more difficult to get through as she got farther upstream, and Hannah veered away from the creek into the woods, looking for an easier path, listening all the while to Klaus’s high-pitched yapping.
She could hear Daisy and Elvira panting along behind her, and Klaus sounded much closer when she finally fought her way through one last stand of willows, head down to avoid the whipping branches.
She looked up. The water was much wider and deeper than it had been, and Klaus was standing on the edge of it, barking at a group of men.
A truck with a winch was pulling her van out of the water, and behind the men and the truck was a modern highway. A battered station wagon drove by slowly, and a woman in a cowboy hat gawked out the open window.
A white R.C.M.P. patrol car was parked on the shoulder of the highway, its red light flashing, and several uniformed constables stood on the bank, supervising the proceedings.
Behind Hannah, Elvira and Daisy came crashing through the underbrush. She sensed them standing just behind her, as dumbstruck as she at the scene unfolding a hundred yards away.
“No,” Hannah whimpered. “No, no, no—"
She whirled around and plunged back into the bushes, trying frantically to retrace her path back into the past, back to Logan.
But wherever
the gateway was, it had now closed behind her.
Yesterday’s Gold: Chapter Twenty-Four
Logan rode slowly back to town, the empty wagon clattering and bouncing along the rutted road behind the horse. It was late afternoon, the hottest part of the day. He was hot and tired and dirty, but none of those things bothered him at all.
For the first time in months, he was at peace. It went beyond happiness, this feeling that had come over him; it was bigger than that. At some point today, Logan had realized that he wasn’t going to kill Flannery after all.
Instead, he was going to ask Hannah to marry him, and if by some twist of fate that meant going to live in her future time, then he'd do it. If it didn’t happen, they’d make a life in his time, not in Barkerville, perhaps, but somewhere they both chose.
The world was a big place. He had plenty of gold stashed away. They could live well.
It was a quiet revelation, with none of the fire and brimstone that revelations were supposed to bring.
He'd been skinning a log with his ax, half listening to the constant stream of innocent chatter from Angus.
Jeannie was sitting on a chair by the half-built cabin, her back to them, nursing the baby. Sophie was snorting and making indelicate slurping noises, birds were chattering, the stream gurgled.
He stopped and rested for a moment, leaning on his ax handle, and he'd thought of killing and what it did to people. He’d shot Chalmers, and although it had been a necessary act, it had made him soul-sick all the same, that taking of a human life.
Here, in this peaceful place, he realized simply that he didn’t want to do it again.
Besides, just as Hannah kept telling him, murdering Flannery wasn’t the answer anyway. It wouldn’t bring Nellie back; it wouldn't stop other men from taking advantage of girls like her. Hannah said the answer was in education, in providing support in the community, and Logan was inclined to believe her.
Now and Forever: Time Travel Romance Superbundle Page 59