by Cathy Pegau
“You put him on your blanket and dragged him to the crevasse.”
“His damn slipper fell off near the dogs’ pen. That mutt grabbed it before I could and another one bit me.” He held up his bandaged hand. That explained why there were injuries on the palm and on the back of his hand. “Then that one started barking his fool head off.”
Byron. What was the saying about not trusting anyone your dog doesn’t like?
“Killing Stanley didn’t do what you thought it would.” Charlotte tried to moisten her lips, but her tongue and mouth were equally dry. “Neither did ransacking the hotel rooms or having Peter York attacked.”
“I told those thugs to break a rib or two, not just mess up his pretty face. Incompetent boobs.” Meade’s brow furrowed. “But I didn’t ransack the rooms.”
“I did.” Caleb Burrows spoke softly from behind Charlotte.
Her heart felt like it stopped, and Meade’s gun jumped in his hand, though he kept it pointed in her direction. Between the pounding of her own heart and the sound of the storm, she hadn’t heard the lawyer come in. Neither had Meade.
“You?” Charlotte was tempted to face him but didn’t want to take her eyes off Meade. “Why? What were you looking for?”
“Something Welsh had that I needed,” Burrows said. “I waited in the lobby for everyone to go down for breakfast then snuck upstairs.”
“You went through the other rooms and left the note to cover your tracks,” she said. If Burrows also had a gun, she was in deep trouble.
“I didn’t write any note,” Burrows said.
“I did that,” Meade admitted. “Figured I’d try to get what I could out of the situation.”
The reason dawned on Charlotte. “You wanted to scare the company off.”
“Nothing worked. What would it take to get them to quit?” Meade glared at Burrows, the sneer on his face revealing just how he felt about the lawyer. “Decided you wanted the money after all, eh?”
“Money?” Charlotte turned her head enough to catch Burrows’s eye, but quickly returned her attention to Meade. “The five thousand dollars?”
“The insurance Stanley talked about,” the producer said. His gaze darted between her and Burrows. “Our upstanding guardian of the law here was supposed to convince the AEC to quit harassing us. I told Stanley he was a fool to trust him.”
“No,” the lawyer protested. “I gave the money back. Left it in his tent the night he died. I wanted the letter he’d written to the AEC telling them all I’d done to betray them. That was his insurance against me. I couldn’t let that get out.”
Was that whom Carmen had seen in her tent that night, Caleb Burrows? Had she mistaken him for her husband?
“That wouldn’t look good at all, would it?” Meade’s mocking tone irritated Charlotte. She could imagine how Burrows felt. “Bad enough for a lawyer trusted by those naïve folks to take a payoff, but any chance of you getting onto the territorial legislature would be blown to bits.”
A white man pursuing a political position might be allowed to sweep a minor bribe under the rug. A Native man, however, would have to have an irreproachable reputation. Would Caleb Burrows have misrepresented himself to the AEC for money? Charlotte had no delusions of the lawyers’ behavior; any man could be tempted by the right price. Seeing how passionate he was regarding the treatment of Natives, she was surprised he’d nearly succumbed to temptation.
“It was wrong to take Welsh’s money in the first place, I know that,” Burrows said. “It’s something I’ll have to reconcile with myself for a long time. The Native voice shouldn’t be hushed at any price. But as I said, I returned the money. Left it in Welsh’s tent. I just wanted the letter, which I found. That is less of a crime than murder.”
“Where’s the money now?” Charlotte asked. Carmen would have found it as she went through Welsh’s things, wouldn’t she?
“Safe. I’ll hand it to my guy personally, once we’re back in California,” Meade said.
“You went into his tent,” Charlotte said. Maybe Carmen had seen Meade searching for the money after learning about it from Welsh, not Burrows bringing it to him. That would explain the blood smear on the Welshes’ tent. “You needed the money to appease the mob. If you convinced the studio to declare the film canceled, legitimate investors could write off their loss. You’d have fewer people to repay.”
“Film’s a risky business, Miss Brody, but it shouldn’t ruin a man or his reputation. Stanley told me Burrows had returned the money, but he’d planned to offer more to get the AEC off our backs for good.” The producer’s hand tightened on the pistol grip, turning his knuckles white. “I couldn’t believe it. We had just gone over how in the red Fortune was. He never listened to a damn thing I ever said.”
“So you killed him,” Burrows said.
Meade’s mouth curled into a cruel smile. “Bribery may be a lesser crime than murder, Mr. Burrows, though it depends on who does the bribing and who kills whom. You had as much reason to kill Stanley as I did. If I kill you while you’re trying to silence the unfortunately and fatally wounded Miss Brody, I doubt anyone would get too upset. Hell, I might be considered a hero for solving Stanley’s murder.”
Charlotte’s brain registered that something about Meade’s stance or arm position had changed.
Move!
Before she could react, strong hands grabbed her shoulders and swung her around. All at once, Caleb Burrows was between her and Meade, and a gunshot rang out in the small space.
Burrows’s weight fell against her back, shoving her down the narrow aisle toward the door. “Go.”
Charlotte stumbled forward, taking half a moment to look back. Burrows lay on his stomach blocking the aisle between the rack of furs and the stack of boxes. He held one hand to his back, his face contorted with pain.
“Run!”
Charlotte ran. She yanked the door open. Wind ripped it out of her hand and banged it against the shed wall. She held up her arm to keep the door from bouncing back and hitting her.
“Help! Help me!” she cried out as loud as she could as she ran toward the mess tent, the wind snatching her words away. Would they hear her over the wind? Over the music?
The dogs began to howl.
The lights on the pole swung frantically. Light and shadow danced across the paths and tent walls. A bulb banged against the pole and flashed brightly before going out.
“Help! He has a gun!”
Snow and ice kicked up by her left foot, between her and the tent. A split second later, she heard the shot. Instinctively, Charlotte veered in the opposite direction.
Her mind screamed, Wrong way!
She started toward the mess again and another shot sent her reeling to the right. Charlotte slipped, fell to one knee. Pain sliced through her knee and up into her thigh. She lurched to her feet and went left again. From the corner of her eye she saw Wallace Meade emerge from the near darkness. He raised the gun.
Pulse pounding in her head, Charlotte darted sideways, angling toward the dark. Toward the ice.
Moving target, her brain shouted as she zigzagged. Don’t stop.
How many shots? Three? Four? Had he reloaded the bullets after shooting Burrows?
Oh God, Burrows. Was he dead?
Behind her, shouting. Not Meade, but she didn’t dare turn. Didn’t dare stop.
The ice sloped upward, worn smooth in places where the crew had trekked over the last several days. Wind biting into her face, she slipped and slid. She was getting closer to the crevasses. Meade was somewhere behind her in the dark. She couldn’t stop.
The crew had marked the dangerous spots. Would she be able to see the marks before she fell to her death?
Something hit the back of her leg. She stumbled and fell, sprawling onto the ice. She scrambled forward. Her right leg collapsed beneath her.
Don’t stop.
Using her hands, her left foot, and her right knee, she managed an awkward gait for a short distance, then sprawled aga
in. Quickly, she rolled onto her back and sat up, hands braced on the ice behind her. Meade was on his knees holding the gun straight out toward her with both hands.
A fast-limping shadow loomed over Meade. It dropped onto him, shoving him forward.
Bang! Pain lanced through Charlotte’s left shoulder. The impact knocked her back; her head smacked into the ice.
Help. Get up. Get away.
Shouts. Another shot. Loud enough to be heard over her pounding heart and ragged breathing.
Charlotte lifted her head. The shadowed figure rolled off Meade. He touched the producer’s neck, then lurched toward her.
“Miss Brody,” Roger Markham said kneeling beside her. “Charlotte. Where are you hurt?”
“Leg.” A wave of pain and nausea rippled through her. “Shoulder. Caleb Burrows. In the prop shed. Meade shot him and killed Stanley.”
Markham started unbuttoning her coat. He shouted toward camp, where Charlotte heard excited voices coming closer when the wind allowed. “Billy, go check the prop shed. Burrows is in there, shot. Take someone with you and do what you can. Someone go get my medical kit. Hurry. She’s losing blood.”
Cold. It was so cold on the ice.
“I was a medic during the war.” Markham gently opened her coat. “Let me . . .”
His voice was swallowed by a roar in her head as she passed out.
* * *
Charlotte woke up long enough to realize she was no longer outside but lying on her cot. Paige and Elaine were getting Charlotte out of her coat and clothes. According to Paige, Markham had gone to check on Caleb Burrows and would be back as soon as possible.
Even with their help and moving as little as possible as they removed her garments, Charlotte could only bite her lip so long before the pain reduced her to tears. Elaine held a folded wad of linen to her shoulder. Paige tended to her leg.
“I played a nurse once,” the actress said as she gently swathed Charlotte’s calf. “This ain’t so bad at all.”
Charlotte was shaking and trying to control her breathing when Markham returned with his medical kit in hand.
Kneeling on the floor beside her, he withdrew a syringe and a small glass bottle from the leather and canvas bag. “Burrows is in his tent resting. Lucky for him, Meade was a damn awful shot. Bullet hit his right hip. Wound’s not too bad, but I think it chipped or cracked the bone. Can’t do much for him at the moment but keep him sedated.”
Charlotte wished Meade had been less lucky when he’d taken aim at her, but it could have been worse, she reckoned.
“What is that?” she asked Markham as he consulted the bottle.
“Morphine. Bullet’s still in your shoulder. We need to get it out, and it’s gonna hurt like hell.” He met her gaze and gave a rare smile. “Don’t worry. I’ve done it before under worse circumstances.”
“Morphine makes me deathly ill and I can’t breathe,” she said. His reassuring smile faded. “Can you use something else or get me a drink?”
Surely someone in the company had a bottle. Alcohol would numb her some or maybe knock her out.
Markham turned to Paige, who stood behind him with Elaine. “Go see if anyone has a stash. I need to sterilize the needle and wound anyway.” He put away the morphine and syringe. “Glad you were able to tell me. I’ve seen guys with bad reactions. It ain’t pretty.”
Charlotte tried to relax on the cot, now that she knew she wouldn’t stop breathing while Markham fixed her up. “When I was a little girl, I tried to see how far I could go when I jumped off a swing. Landed wrong and broke my leg. Doctor gave me morphine while he set it. It felt like I was trying to breathe through water.”
“Lucky you didn’t die,” Markham said while he set out what he needed.
Charlotte chuckled at his lack of a bedside manner. He was a soldier-turned-cameraman, not a doctor. Though she had met doctors with less charm.
“Meade’s dead, isn’t he?”
Markham nodded, his lips pressed together. “I won’t bother you for your side of the story now, but I have a feeling it’s a doozy.”
“Thank you for saving me.”
He shrugged, as if embarrassed that she was making something of the act.
Paige came back into the tent. She pulled off her gloves with her teeth and retrieved a small brown bottle from her pocket. “Carmen gave me this. Stanley had a couple of bottles with him for the trip up that she’d forgotten were in her case. She promised it’s safe.”
Markham took the bottle and read the label by the light of the lantern. “Thirty percent alcohol, among other things. Can’t hurt.”
He uncorked the bottle and helped Charlotte take a generous swig. Almost too sweet at first, with the distinct tang of alcohol and a slightly bitter aftertaste. As she lay back down, Elaine returned holding a larger bottle.
“From one of the set guys,” she said, passing it to Markham. “Not much left.”
“It’ll do for the wound and needle.”
He opened the bottle and carefully poured some of the liquid over Charlotte’s shoulder. Burning pain radiated out along her arm and up her neck. He stopped, gave her more of Welsh’s medicine as well as a swallow of whatever was in the bottle. After several minutes, Charlotte started feeling woozy. She closed her eyes.
“There you go,” Markham said. “Just go to sleep. We’ll be done here soon.”
For the next twelve or so hours, Charlotte floated in and out of consciousness. Markham didn’t think her wounds were imminently life-threatening, but she heard him say he’d feel better once they were back in Cordova and at a hospital.
A fitful night of Paige or Elaine getting her a drink of water or giving her a dose of Welsh’s medicine was followed by a morning sled ride to the train. After getting her and Caleb Burrows settled on beds fashioned from several cot mattresses, Charlotte went back to sleep. The train trip was a blur of vague pain and concerned faces.
“Stay with me, Charlie.” Michael’s voice was thick with emotion.
Back in Cordova already? At least she hoped that was the case, and not that she was having some sort of auditory hallucination.
Charlotte wanted to tell him she was fine, but neither her mouth nor her eyes would cooperate. Maybe she had taken a few too many doses. At least she didn’t hurt much.
Chapter 16
Slowly, Charlotte opened her eyes. They felt gummy and gritty, the lids so heavy she considered going back to sleep.
You’ve slept enough.
She rubbed at her eyes with her right hand, the left refusing to move. All she saw was white and a slightly darker gray. Blinking her vision clear, she realized her head was turned toward a white wall and a white-curtained window. It was dark outside. Morning dark or evening dark? How long had she been out?
Charlotte turned her head, feeling the lumpiness of the pillow beneath it. Her left cheek touched the cool linen pillowcase. She smelled bleach and sweat. A second bed, unoccupied and crisply made, and a straight-back chair were on that side. A closed door interrupted another white wall.
Hospital. Semiprivate room, not in the ten-bed ward. The advantage of being the doctor’s sister, she figured.
The door opened and her brother came in as if she’d somehow managed to mentally summon him. His face was pale beneath the dark blond beard and mustache, but when he saw Charlotte looking back at him, he smiled.
“Good morning.” His shirt collar was open and his normally neatly knotted tie loose and askew beneath his suit coat. He bent down and pressed his lips to her forehead, perhaps as much in greeting as to check for fever, as their mother had when they were children. “How are you feeling?”
Charlotte tried to sit up, but a sharp ache cut through her shoulder. Her right leg throbbed in sympathy. She sucked in a breath.
“Lie still,” Michael said. “Here, let me get you some water.” He poured out a glass from a pitcher on the table between the two beds and helped her drink some. “Better?”
“Yes, thank you.” Her voic
e sounded low and rough in her own ears. “Which morning is it? I’ve lost track.”
He dragged the chair closer and sat. “I’m not surprised. You returned to Cordova yesterday. I looked at your wounds, but Markham did a fine job, considering what he had to work with. You woke up last night and spoke to me for a minute. Don’t you remember?”
Charlotte shook her head, but only slightly, to avoid wooziness. “Not at all. Last thing I really remember is being on the train, then hearing you call me Charlie.”
She must have been in bad shape if Michael had resorted to her childhood nickname.
He smiled, but there was concern behind it. “That was right before I examined you. The mixture you were taking did its job. I don’t think you felt me poking and prodding.”
“No, thank goodness.” She asked for more water and after having her fill inquired about Caleb Burrows.
“He should make a good recovery,” Michael said. “Might limp for a bit, but he’ll be back in the courtroom in no time.”
“He and Roger Markham both saved my life the other night.” She owed the two men and had no idea how she might repay them.
“So I heard from the piecemeal story the film people were able to provide. Are you up to telling me what happened, or do you want to wait for Eddington?” Michael consulted his pocket watch. “I expect him to be here any minute.”
Chances were good James had prepared a lecture on putting herself in danger after he explicitly told her to just watch and listen while he was gone. He had a point, of course, but he also knew saying such a thing to her was as good as telling her not to breathe. He’d be mad and concerned, as Michael was.
“I think I’ll wait for James, if it’s all right with you. That way, as my doctor, you can tell him not to aggravate my condition by yelling at me.”
Michael gently tugged a lock of her hair. “Even if you do deserve it. I swear, Charlotte, if you don’t start watching out for yourself . . . You had us scared to death, especially Becca.”