Where Cowards Tread

by Sabrina Flynn

  Feeling a tug on her heart, Jin pulled the blanket back up to his chin so he wouldn’t get cold.

  “Goodbye, bahba,” she whispered. Then left.

  42

  The Hunt

  After two days of chatting, walking, dining, and making generally dull conversation with tourists, Isobel hadn’t caught a hint of Hadley. She couldn’t find any preachers who were busy making friends or photographers or artists lurking around the grounds preying on foreign travelers.

  Worried she had been wrong, she plopped herself onto a chair in Sally’s, and ordered a coffee. Charles B. Hadley could be halfway to Hawaii by now. Or in Mexico. If she’d been running from the law, she’d have struck out for Europe by way of India by now.

  Tim hadn’t arrived yet, but Sally, an old woman with cheery eyes, several missing teeth, and a pipe, came up to the table. She and Tim were old friends.

  Sally slipped her a note along with her coffee. Isobel opened it, read the scrawl, and quickly tossed down some coins.

  Isobel looped the reins of her horse over a low limb, gave the mare a pat, and ducked into a forest that bordered a single track. Mist clung to the ground, twining through Monterey pines. Soft moss cushioned her footfalls, and as she walked through the lush forest, she couldn’t help but think of Jin—the girl would love it here.

  A pang stabbed her heart. Those eyes. Why hadn’t she taken her along? The answer was obvious. Isobel wasn’t there for pleasure; she was there to track down a man who had murdered a girl.

  She found Tim leaning against a tree, smoking a pipe. He tipped his hat, and turned his eyes towards a lone cabin set in a clearing.

  “See, I was wrong,” she said.

  Tim shook his head. “Hadley is known around here. Keeps a boat in the harbor, used to charter it, then he started posing as a preacher till the hotel caught on. I reckon that’s why he headed back to the City.”

  “A confidence man?”

  Tim tilted his hand. “There’s nothing illegal about charitable donations to a preacher down on his luck.”

  “But he’s not one, is he?”

  Tim snorted. “Half the preachers in the West are outlaws that put on a clerical collar.”

  Point taken. “What’s he been doing?”

  “Keeping a low profile. I only found out about him ’cause his uncle visited a saloon and mentioned it to a patron who happened to be a friend of a friend of mine who has strong feelings about preachers.”

  Isobel considered the cabin. The land around it was cleared. An outhouse, a shed, and a corral. A thin trail of smoke rose from a chimney to mingle with the mist. “Have you seen him?” Isobel asked.

  Tim shook his head. “Came over as soon as I got the tip and left a message for you. A gray-haired fellow came out to tend the horses. I hear that’s his uncle.”

  It was early yet, and Hadley seemed the type to sleep till noon. “What should we do?” Isobel asked.

  Tim puffed out a cloud of smoke. “You’re running this show, girl.”

  She arched a brow. Normally she’d agree, but lately she had discovered the value of experience. “I’ve wised up, Tim,” she said. “I don’t have anything to prove anymore, and I’m keen on staying alive.”

  Tim eyed her. “Humor me, then. What would you do?”

  Isobel thought about it, her gaze flickering down to the rifle at his side. “Do you think his uncle will be an issue?”

  “He’s a sturdy fellow.”

  “We could plug the chimney and smoke them out. But that would put them on alert.” She considered the cabin door. She hadn’t changed into shirt and trousers, and was still dressed in a riding outfit—hat, blouse, split skirts and boots. “Or I could just go knock on the door.”

  “A.J. wouldn’t like that.”

  “Well, he went and got his plow cleaned, so he doesn’t have a say in it.”

  Tim grunted, then nodded. “See if you can lure one of them away. I’ll keep on Hadley.”

  “Try not to shoot him, Tim.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Isobel adjusted her hat, slipped off her wedding ring, and marched up to the cabin. “Hello there! Anyone home?” she called in a melodic voice. Instead of knocking on the front door, she knocked on a post. “Hello?”

  The door opened. A fit, gray-haired man in a plaid shirt and Levi’s with suspenders filled the doorway.

  Isobel took a hasty step back. “I’m so sorry, sir. My horse threw me, and I seem to be lost. I’m from the Hotel Del Monte. I started walking, you see and…” Isobel stumbled over her own feet and fell back with a thud.

  The man rushed out. “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked.

  Isobel blabbered on about her clumsiness, and clutched her ankle.

  “Charlie, get out here.”

  “I’m so horribly clumsy. It’s not hard to imagine how I got turned around, I’m sure.” She tried to get up, but the man wouldn’t have it.

  Charles Hadley soon came out. Tall and broad of shoulder, he was as fit as his uncle, but two decades younger. Dark brown hair, with a scar on his right eye that lent him a rakish air. While his uncle wore practical clothes for working, Hadley wore something more suited to a gentlemanly hunt.

  “What’s happened?” He had a pleasant voice.

  “I’m afraid I startled her,” the uncle said. “She’s from the Hotel Del Monte. Lost her way.”

  The two men shared a look, and Hadley bent to examine Isobel’s ankle.

  “I’m sure it’s just a turn.” She offered her hand, and Hadley pulled her carefully to her feet. His hands—large, strong, and gentle—steadied her around the waist.

  “Thank you,” she said breathlessly, looking into his eyes.

  The uncle bent to retrieve her hat, and dusted it off.

  “Are you sure you can walk?” Hadley asked.

  Isobel tested her weight on the foot. “Yes, I believe so. I’m so sorry to disturb you both. If you could just point me towards the hotel, I won’t bother you further.”

  Hadley smiled. It even reached his eyes. “It’s no bother. I’m Charles Hadley. This is my uncle William.”

  “Mary Read.”

  In short order, the men got her situated on a stool on the porch and pressed a glass of lemonade into her hand. Charles was all charm without pressing her. Interested in her without being intrusive. He listened, and his eyes, a deep blue, were attentive and curious. Small wonder Ella had been seduced by him.

  Isobel had expected a man who oozed seduction like strong cologne. But he was the opposite. Genuine. Rugged, yet cultured. And he was also interested in her family. Where did she live? Napa. What did they do for work? Wine merchants from Germany. With each baited answer, Charles Hadley was hooked through the cheeks. Only he thought he was baiting her. And that’s precisely what Isobel wanted.

  “I’ll just get the horse saddled,” William said.

  “There’s no need. I can walk…” But her protests fell on deaf ears. William insisted, and soon came back leading a dappled gelding. The horse nuzzled her ear and she squeaked in surprise.

  Charles laughed. “Honey wouldn’t hurt a fly,” he said. “Gentlest horse you’ve ever met.”

  “The horse I got from the Del Monte stables could use a few lessons on that.”

  “We’ll find her.” Charles put a foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle with ease. With a smile on his lips, he offered a hand.

  Suppressing a shudder, Isobel reached for his hand and settled herself behind him. She wrapped an arm around his waist expecting a lecherous touch, but he didn’t pat her hand or make any suggestive comments.

  Again, not what she expected.

  Honey knew the pathway and walked at a leisurely pace. The trees closed in and mist wound its way through lush ferns as birds sang their hearts out.

  “Have you lived here long?” Isobel asked.

  “I used to visit my uncle when I was younger, before the hotel came around.”

  “Are you glad it did?”


  He thought a moment. “Sure, I’m glad. Or I wouldn’t have met you.”

  “We’ve only just met, Mr. Hadley.”

  “But Honey likes you. That’s special.”

  “You said Honey likes everyone.”

  He chuckled, a soft rumble. “I suppose you caught me. Can I show you around Monterey, Miss Read?”

  “I’ve already done the 17-Mile Drive.”

  “That’s for tourists. There are places only locals like me know.”

  “I’m not sure… We’ve only just met.”

  “That’s all right. I understand. How about lunch? Your choice.”

  No pressure. No coaxing. How many months had he courted Ella before gaining her trust? This was a patient man, in the most dangerous sense.

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  They talked of her interests, of sailing and reading, and hiking, anything to lure him farther away from the cabin and into a state of relaxation. But the moment the pathway curved around a tree, the foliage opened just so, giving Charles Hadley his first glimpse of Isobel’s horse and the reins tied to a tree.

  Isobel felt Hadley stiffen and Honey stopped, sensitive to his rider’s emotion.

  “Someone must have found her!” Isobel exclaimed. But even as she said it, she knew the excuse was too late. No one “found a horse” and tied it to a tree.

  Where was Tim? Had he been trailing them through the forest or was he hiding by the horse? Good God, she hoped dynamite wouldn’t be involved.

  Isobel tensed to slide off, but Charles grabbed her left wrist in a vice-like grip and dug his heels into Honey’s sides. The horse surged forward.

  “Mr. Hadley!” She twisted her arm, trying to break free while keeping her precarious seat.

  She glimpsed white as Tim stepped out from behind a tree and raised his rifle. Hadley veered sharply, and Honey crashed into the forest. Branches whipped her clothing and she glued herself to Hadley as he ducked under a low branch.

  Her skin crawled with the thought of Tim’s rifle aimed at her back. Would he take a chance? Tim was a good shot, but there were too many variables.

  “What are you playing at?” Hadley hollered.

  “I don’t know what you mean!” Best to play innocent.

  Hadley jumped Honey over a log and broke through a wall of branches, thundering onto the road. A touring wagon veered to the side, nearly toppling as the wagon’s giant horse struggled with its footing.

  Honey shot off down the road.

  “That old man must have found my horse, Mr. Hadley! Please, let me down.”

  His fingers were strong. Painfully so. “You think I don’t see that line on your ring finger?”

  Damn, he was good.

  Dropping all pretense of the helpless female, Isobel punched the side of his head with her right hand, only the angle was awkward and he got his arm up to block the blow.

  Isobel continued pounding at him as the ground blurred below, but Hadley was an accomplished rider on a familiar horse, and he didn’t need the reins to control his steed. Honey sped up with a simple ‘yup yup’. Solid in the saddle, Hadley had all the control, while Isobel bounced and slid behind him without stirrups.

  She jabbed a fist into his kidneys. He grunted, but when she tried it again, he yanked her left arm, pulling her off-balance. She nearly slid off the saddle.

  They were coming up to a bend.

  Isobel abandoned her punching and tried to reach for a knife in her boot. Hadley drove his elbow back. The blow knocked the wind right out of her.

  Isobel struggled for long seconds, then gulped in air as they rounded the bend. It curved sharply to the right. Honey slowed slightly, and Isobel gathered her strength. She threw her right arm round Hadley’s neck, and he reached up to pry her arm free, but she was counting on that. As the horse curved around the road to the right, Isobel threw all her weight to the left. Both hands occupied, Hadley’s weight shifted. It was enough to topple him. Both riders slipped from the saddle.

  Isobel hit the ground, and bounced. Dirt and gravel bit into her skin, and she slid for some feet before coming to a stop. Groaning, she blinked past the grit in her eyes, and coughed as a cloud of dirt hit her full force.

  Hadley’s foot was caught in a stirrup.

  Another rider thundered past. Tim’s hat had blown off and the old man rode like a jockey, low in the saddle, milking every ounce of speed from the sedate hotel mare.

  Tim came alongside Honey, hooked his foot on a strap and leaned over to catch the bridle. He pulled horse and its former rider to a stop, cinching the reins over his own saddle horn, before maneuvering around Honey to point a rifle at Hadley’s head.

  “I wouldn’t move if I were you.”

  Hadley’s foot was still caught in the stirrup. He didn’t seem inclined to do much of anything.

  “You all right, Miss Bel?” Tim yelled over his shoulder.

  Isobel put weight on her arms. Found them sore but working, and spat a mouthful of dirt from her lips. “Well enough,” she croaked.

  “You’re damn crazy!” Tim hollered. “Git off your ass and hog-tie this fellow.”

  Isobel staggered to her feet to do as ordered. She was moving. That was good. But she’d feel the fall tomorrow.

  “What is this?” Hadley demanded as she tied him up. It wasn’t quite a hog-tie but she used good, solid sailor’s knots. Their captive was bruised and battered, and his clothes torn, but nothing seemed broken.

  A pity, she thought.

  “You know what this is,” Isobel said, cinching a knot. “You killed Ella Spencer.”

  “I didn’t!”

  Tim spat from his saddle.

  Isobel grabbed Hadley’s collar and looked him straight in the eye. He looked so sincere, so honest, but then that was the game of a confidence man. She wanted to punch him.

  “I swear,” Hadley whispered. “It’s true, I set her up in a house, then went out for food. When I came back she was dead.”

  “You left her to rot!” Isobel growled. She dropped him, letting his head thud against the ground.

  “I left her like she was sleeping. Peaceful like. I folded her hands. I…I put a sheet over her! I knew how it would look. I had to run.” Hadley was getting frantic, struggling against his bonds.

  “Stay still,” Tim ordered. “I got a twitchy finger.”

  “What’s it matter? I’ll hang anyway.” Hadley looked on the verge of crying.

  “You should have thought about that before you seduced a fifteen-year-old girl. At the very least, you’re guilty of corrupting a minor.”

  “She was sixteen. I waited for her to turn sixteen.”

  Isobel resisted the urge to kick him, but Tim had no such qualms. He climbed right down from his horse and drove a boot into Hadley’s side.

  43

  Reckoning

  “There he is,” the boy next to her was wise enough not to nod at the three men turning down a muddy lane.

  Jin crouched in the dirt at the mouth of the lane with three other scruffy boys. She rolled her wooden dice, and barely noticed the boys’ shouts of excitement.

  A few coins and some whispered questions, it hadn’t been hard to locate Maa Min. He was notorious. And feared. And he had added a goatee to his chin. Other than that, his face hadn’t changed from the one she saw in her nightmares. He still wore a wide-brimmed hat, had a queue that hung to his waist, and was slim of build. His hands were lost in wide sleeves, and he was flanked by two men as they walked into a barber shop in the lane.

  Fury blinded her. It made her cold. Someone hit her on the shoulder, and Jin lashed out with a fist. It connected with a boy’s nose. He squeaked, and groaned, and the other two fell silent, watching her warily. Blood seeped from the boy’s nose.

  “It’s your turn,” one of them said weakly.

  Jin snatched up her winnings and entered the lane. Keeping her pace even, she wandered past the barber shop. There was only a small window, grimy and impossible to see through.

>   She had to catch Maa Min alone. So far, she had been careful. Never trailing him directly, but learning his habits. Watching. Waiting. And yet every time she caught sight of the murderer, she shivered with cold.

  He sometimes visited gambling houses, but usually he disappeared down guarded alleyways. She took care not to follow him into those.

  Jin could feel the revolver in her pocket and the knives resting at the small of her back. They burned against her skin.

  The lane was clogged with people walking along planks. She stepped off into the mud, and sat on her hunches, keeping her back to the brick and an eye on the barber shop.

  A man in rags shook a tin cup at her. He smelled like urine, and had a rag tied around his eyes. His forehead was bald and filthy and his queue undone like a wild man.

  Jin dropped her dice winnings into his cup.

  “Thank you,” he croaked. With a shaking hand he pulled a trinket from a pocket and handed it to her. It was a small disc with a character carved into the wood. “For good luck,” the beggar said.

  She ran her finger over the lines. “I will need it.”

  “So much anger,” the beggar said.

  Jin looked at him sharply. “I am not angry.”

  He tapped an ear. “My eyes are gone, but I can hear it in your breath.”

  Jin did not answer. Maybe if she remained silent, he would think she was gone.

  Maa Min’s companions exited the barbershop. One headed out of the lane and the other stopped to light a cigarette. He flicked the match at the beggar.

  Jin waited, ignoring the beggar’s rattling tin cup. Maa Min did not come out. She tensed. Here was her chance.

  Jin glanced at the poor blind beggar. She slipped a gold coin from her pocket and pressed it into his hand.

  “What is this?” he whispered.

  “I do not need it where I am going.”

  “Where is that?”

  “To kill the Guardian of Hell.”