by Jodi Thomas
He was huffing now, snorting like a bull. “I’m going to slice you up good,” he growled. “No one interferes with me.”
Nichole dodged another lunge and countered with a cut across Mole’s forearm. He swore and swung wildly, slinging blood through the air. Nichole ducked and darted a few steps away, but the windows pinned her.
He took a great breath and began closing in, leaning his entire body from side to side as he walked. Teasing her to try and get past him.
Suddenly a shot blasted through the room, shattering a window above Mole’s head. “Hold it right there!” Adam’s clear voice shouted.
Mole and Nichole both turned toward the door as Adam took a step closer. “What’s going on?” he demanded without lowering the rifle from his shoulder. “Nick, are you all right?”
“This ain’t none of your business, Doc. Stay out of it.” Mole lowered his knife an inch. “I got a right to deal with my girls the way I see fit, and I don’t like the idea of Dancing coming over here whining to you about her sorry life.”
“She’s very ill. You almost beat her to death.” Adam moved closer, the rifle still pointed at Mole’s chest.
“I didn’t give her any more than she deserved,” Mole reasoned. “And I don’t take kindly to your butting in where you ain’t wanted. You don’t know how these women are in my place. I got to keep them in line or they’d steal me blind. They’re all lazy, or they wouldn’t be making a living on their backs.”
Adam didn’t lower his gun. “Get out,” he said. “Get out and don’t come back.”
Mole glanced around the room. “I ain’t no fool,” he said as he took a step toward the side door. “But no man treats me wrong and gets away with it, not even a doc. You’ll get yours sometime when you ain’t got a gun pointed at me. And you can tell Dancing, she’s as good as dead. I’m through with her and that mouthy friend of hers. They can starve, for all I care. When I toss them out there ain’t a person in town who’ll give them a bread crumb.” He turned and was gone as quickly as he’d appeared.
“He means it.” Nichole moved to Adam’s side.
“So did I.” Adam put the rifle down. “Are you all right?” He glanced first at Nichole, then at Sister Cel.
“We’re fine, but Dancing—”
Before she could finish, Adam knelt beside Dancing. The patient looked like a rag doll someone had kicked into a corner and forgotten. She wasn’t even crying anymore.
Adam’s hands moved carefully down her body, feeling for more breaks in her bones. After a moment, he ordered, “I’ll need more bandages, hot water, and all the light we can set up about the table.”
Nichole hurried to the cabinet just as she heard footsteps rushing down the stairs. In a blink, she had vanished into the corner by the cabinet.
“What is going on, Adam?” Bergette screamed as she rounded the corner and rushed past the nun and into the office. “Did I hear a shot?”
Adam carefully lifted Dancing to the table. Blood was spilling onto her bandages in several places and his shirt-front was stained with crimson rain. “We have an injured woman,” he said calmly. “Would you like to help?”
Bergette looked first at Dancing, then at the redhead standing next to the nun. “Does Mrs. Jamison know about the kind of people you see?” Her voice held a hint of a threat.
“She knows I’m a doctor.” Adam was far more interested in Dancing than in Bergette. “I see people who need help. I suggest you either help or get out.”
“You can’t talk to me like that!”
“I don’t have time to talk to you any other way.”
Bergette opened her mouth then snapped it closed. She ran from the room yelling for Charles to bring her pills. Everyone knew the argument wasn’t over, she’d just run out of ammunition. She was the kind of woman who would make him pay dearly for his harshness.
“Sister, lock the door,” he ordered. “And you,” he looked at the redhead.
“Ro-Rose,” the frightened woman hiccuped her name. “Just Rose.”
“Do you think you can hold your friend? Cradle her in your arms and try to keep her still. We’ve got to reset her leg, and she’s got a bad gash on her head from the fall. We’ll have to work fast, she’s losing a great deal of blood.”
The prostitute joined him. “I can do whatever I have to do. My ma was a midwife back in the hills. Blood don’t frighten me none.” She seemed happy to be asked to help and she hugged Dancing. “And Doc, no matter what happens, thank you.”
When Nichole heard Sister Cel lock the door, she joined Adam. They worked for hours trying to repair the leg and cool Dancing’s raging fever. While Nichole and Sister Cel followed Adam’s orders, Rose seemed to know what to do. She’d been honest about having no fear of blood for by the time Dancing’s head was stitched Rose’s top was wet with her friend’s blood.
She pushed away the nun’s efforts to clean her up and continued to cradle Dancing.
Finally, long after midnight, Dancing slipped away. They’d all tried but couldn’t hold her to this earth. She died without a whimper, without a fight.
Adam pulled away in defeat, Rose cried softly as she held her friend’s cooling hand to her cheek. Sister Cel prayed in a soft voice that was almost a song. The smell of blood and death hung in the air, weighing on everyone.
Adam heard Nichole follow him as he walked into the darkness of the porch. Without a word, he opened his arms and they held one another tightly. He could feel his heart pounding against hers, her breath brushing the side of his throat, the warmth of her body pressing against him.
This was part of it, he wanted to scream. Part of the magic she thought he had. Part of being the doctor she wanted him to be. Not the wonder of saving a life, anyone could handle that, but the ability to keep going when death wins.
He didn’t kiss her. He only held her. There were no words for him to tell her why, or how dearly, he needed her close. There were no words needed for her to understand.
When the nun called him, Adam slowly pulled away. He touched her hair, silently saying thank you as he returned to the house.
Without a word, Nichole slipped into the foyer. Moving up the stairs, she climbed into the attic. She retrieved a box of clothes that would make her invisible and maybe even bulletproof. She now had a mission.
FOURTEEN
STANDING IN THE shadows of a quarter moon, Nichole stripped off her warm wool trousers and heavy cotton shirt. Slowly, she removed her undergarments, knowing that where she was going she might get hurt. She couldn’t stand the thought of ruining them.
The musty air was cool against her bare flesh as a spiderweb brushed her shoulder. She pulled a roll of bandages she’d taken off Adam’s supplies from her trouser pocket. The wide cotton strip was tied with a piece of midnight blue yarn. Laying the yarn on a beam, she wrapped the bandage around her rib cage and across her breasts, pressing the soft tissue as flat as she could.
The familiar wrapping gave her a sense of coming home. The tight bandage made her straighten, as though placing on an invisible cloak of the warrior inside her. Her muscles tightened, her stance widened, her senses became more alert.
A smile touched her lips as she thought that this was Adam’s bandage that now bound her. The memory of the morning so many months ago at his farm came drifting back to her. She could almost taste him as she recalled the way he’d kissed her and how his hands had spread over her breasts forever branding his touch on her skin.
What if they’d had longer that morning? What if he’d made love to her?
High in the dusty attic, his memory kept her warm as she dressed in bandit’s black. The silk shirt slid across her skin like a caress. The pants were a little baggy, but the tarnished silver-buckled belt held them tight. She used the yarn to tie her hair back knowing that if she continued this disguise, she’d have to cut it a few inches shorter. Nance’s
father’s hat fit low but securely. She used her own soft leather footwear that laced high, a cross between a moccasin and a boot. Wolf had them specially made not to make a sound or leave a heel print, even in sand.
Last, she wrapped her gun belt around her waist, high and secure. A gunman might think of wearing it low so that his draw would be a second faster, but not a Shadow. A tiny circle of leather hooked the Colt in place so that it wouldn’t accidentally fall from the holster. If she did her job correctly, she’d never need her gun, Wolf used to lecture. She slipped the knife into its casing at her calf and straightened.
More than her clothes had changed. Her entire carriage, the very air around her had been rearranged. Any softness was gone, any hint that she was a woman. A tall thin man seemed to have been born in full armor. She pulled black gloves over her bandaged hands and the transformation was complete.
She moved silently to the opening and dropped down to the storage room. For an instant, she thought she saw something move among the boxes.
“Nance? Sister?”
No one answered.
Nick pulled her Colt and moved between the boxes. Nothing. She crossed the room twice. No one. If there had been someone in the room, they were as good at disappearing as she was.
She slipped into the hallway and down the stairs. Adam’s voice drifted from the examining room. He was talking with the undertaker, offering to help so that Dancing could be buried soon after dawn.
As she passed the office, she saw Rose sleeping in a chair behind Adam’s desk with an empty bottle of whiskey next to her. She once again reminded Nick of a ball of red yarn, for her hair was a flaming blanket covering her. Sister Cel must have retired and Nick guessed Adam would think she had also.
Tiptoeing across the room, Nick kept an eye on Rose. Silently, she opened a window and slipped out. She’d learned years ago that doors caused too much noise and draft. Windows were a far easier porthole. The darkened porch on the moonless side of the house would be the perfect place to penetrate the world outside.
She crossed to the house next door and entered the same way she’d left the boardinghouse. It was only an hour before dawn and everyone was asleep in this establishment that housed most of Mole’s employees.
Nick passed from room to room, looking, listening. The rooms were cluttered and smelled of old whiskey bottles and bodies in need of washing. Most of the rooms had two or more women sleeping together, their customers having left for the night. A few men had paid to stay till dawn, but they didn’t stir as Nick walked past.
She entered each door, checking first the location of weapons, and then studying each man.
In the last room on the second floor, she found what she searched for. A stout, barrel-chested man spread across the bed on his belly. His right forearm had been bandaged with what looked like a bar towel. The smell of blood and filth assaulted her nostrils as she moved closer and forced herself to stare at the nude man. His body was hairless and rounded, reminding her of his name, Mole.
He snored unaware as she circled the bed. The cut she’d slashed into his arm had bled through the towel, but the injury didn’t seem to be bothering his sleep. The back of his body was scarred and ugly like a sand sculpture that had been pitted by rain and distorted by wind.
Nick fought down the bile that climbed in her throat. Without looking away, she moved to the chair where he’d draped his clothes. Slowly, she slid her hand into his pants’ pocket, thankful for the gloves.
Nothing.
She moved to the other side of the chair and felt inside the other pocket. Mole grunted in his sleep and rolled to his side as her fingers touched a key.
Clutching it, she almost ran from the room. She should have moved slowly but realized she couldn’t endure seeing more of his body than she already had.
Once she was in the hall, Nick leaned against the wall and listened, afraid to breathe. Mole’s snoring continued.
Slowly, an inch at a time, she relaxed.
Within minutes, she was back outside and once more in the fresh night air. She slipped into the total blackness behind a building and took a deep breath, enjoying the rush of excitement through her body.
Something rattled in the alley behind her. Nick froze. Someone had followed her from the Mole’s house. Her first thought was that Mole, still nude, was stalking her, but he couldn’t be. She’d left him snoring and his stocky body could have never moved down the stairs without waking half the house.
She waited several minutes then relaxed. Probably only a cat, she thought as she started down the street staying well into the shadows. In the wild, animals were like allies, warning her of danger. In towns, they could confuse even the best Shadow.
The rules turned over in her mind like a lesson long ago memorized. Stay behind the light, never between it and something that might show your outline. Move slowly as if melting, for fast actions cause attention. Pick your next hiding place before you leave where you are. Listen. Listen.
Glancing at the sky, she calculated. Thirty minutes maybe before the first hint of dawn. Thirty minutes to complete her mission.
Slipping into the doorway of the first saloon, she tried the key. Nothing. It would have been a great help if she knew which saloon Mole owned. But she could hardly ask Adam. If he had any idea of what she planned tonight, he would do everything in his power to stop her.
The second saloon. The third. The key didn’t work. She moved on into a part of town less well kept, more lawless.
Finally, half a mile from the boardinghouse, the key worked on one of the most run-down saloons. The door swung open, and Nick slipped in. A moment later, she almost cried out in repulsion. The floor gave with her foot. Slime, tobacco spit, and filth covered the floor thick as a greasy chicken skin.
Nick forced herself to progress across the open area to the bar outlined by moonlight. There were no tables or chairs, only a long horseshoe-shaped bar and a pair of stairs leading to a second-floor landing, with doors off it every four feet. Men who patronized this place came to drink and to womanize, nothing more.
Behind the bar was cleaner. Sawdust coated the floor. She felt her way in the blackness for a door that must lead to storage. She found one beneath the stairs. The lock was a simple one she’d practiced with as a child. Within a minute the lock was opened, not broken, so it could be refastened. She opened the door and found stairs leading down. A lantern and matches were on the first step. Nick took two steps into the blackness, closed the door and lit the lantern.
“Thanks, Mole,” she whispered as if he’d left the light there for her.
Barrels of beer lined one side, whiskey the other. She sat the lantern on the third step and went to work.
With the sharp point of her knife, she chipped a hole in the back of each barrel. Guessing no one would be in the saloon before noon, most of the barrels would be empty before anyone checked and the basement floor would be a foot deep in whiskey-smelling mud.
Her act wouldn’t pay Mole back for the life he’d tossed away, but it was a start. Maybe without any liquor, he’d have to close and let the girls go somewhere else.
Something stirred near the steps, and Nick turned to stone. What if someone had followed her? What if someone had been sleeping beneath the steps? No, she told herself. The door had been locked. Mole would never imprison anyone inside his supply of liquor.
She moved slightly and saw a rat dart between two steps. “Rats,” she whispered. “I hate rats.”
Turning out the lamp, she retraced her steps, stopping to relock the door. When she made it back outside, the first touch of dawn brushed the sky. She hurried down the alley to where Mole slept and slipped the key back into his pocket, without even glancing at him snoring on the bed. She’d done what she came to do. If he caught her now, she’d simply fight her way out.
A woman on the first floor rose a few inches as Nichol
e passed, but a man leaving the house at dawn was not an unusual enough sight to fully awaken her. She rolled over and let Nichole pass without saying a word.
No one confronted her as she crossed between the houses and slipped back into the open window. Rose still slept in the chair, and Nick heard Adam and the undertaker working in the examining room. The smell of coffee came from the kitchen.
She climbed the stairs and entered the storage room, taking her first deep breath. But as she pulled herself into the attic entrance, she had the feeling that someone was watching her. Someone who wouldn’t be there if she looked back.
FIFTEEN
NICHOLE SLEPT THROUGH Dancing’s funeral. Only Adam, Rose, and Sister Cel attended. Bergette refused to even discuss the possibility of going, and Mrs. Jamison wouldn’t let Nance out of the house. Nichole knew she couldn’t attend, so after they left, she curled into the little bed in Adam’s old study and fell into a deep sleep. The night’s adventure had eased her sorrow and made her feel alive again.
When the sun was high, she came awake with a jerk at the sound of Bergette’s voice close by, too close.
“What do you mean I shouldn’t be in here?” Bergette shouted loud enough for the entire house to hear.
Adam’s low voice reached Nichole as she slipped from the covers and moved behind the open door. Through the crack, she could see Bergette standing over Adam who lay atop his covers fully dressed.
“I’m trying to take a nap, Bergette,” he said in a voice that left considerable doubt that he’d been asleep when she barged into his room. “I didn’t go to bed last night and I’d like to sleep an hour before I start seeing patients.”
“Oh, forgive me.” She pouted. “I forgot you were up all hours, first with the whores and then the undertaker. It seems you have time to talk to everyone in this town but your fiancée. Well, I’ve had enough. I don’t care how tired you are, it’s time we had a few words.”
“You talk,” he mumbled. “You seem a lot better at talking than listening. But can’t we move somewhere else besides my bedroom? Bergette, it isn’t proper.”