Wolver's Gold (The Wolvers)

by Rhoades, Jacqueline

  “Before the trial?” McCall asked. “Isn’t that jumping the gun?”

  “Why?” Bertie asked, “That’s the way they did it the first time. When fifty eyewitnesses saw him do it, the evidence was pretty one-sided. Law said he had to have a trial, so they gave him one. Of course, it took ‘em longer than two days to hang him, because they had to hold the funerals for the dead, clean up the mess from the bank burning, and give folks a chance to get here for the party.”

  “Excuse me?” McCall looked around the kitchen at all the faces smiling at his ignorance.

  “Hangings were a big event back then,” Washington explained, “and not just for Gold Gulch. “Families on outlying ranches and farms, and folks from neighboring towns came to watch. They brought picnic baskets and made a day of it. They got to see justice done, used it as an example to their children, and had an opportunity to visit with friends and neighbors.”

  “Besides,” Eustace added, “Gold Gulch was mostly wolver back then and we like our justice swift.”

  “Unless you’re innocent,” McCall added sardonically.

  “But Jake Brannigan wasn’t and the tourists don’t care. It’s not like we’re doing the real thing.”

  “And it’s one of our biggest money makers,” Bertie chimed in. “Why, we’ll be frying up chicken and ham for box lunches and family picnics all day. Streets’ll be so crowded you won’t be able to move. You’re going to be busy, Sheriff. It’s a big day for pick pockets, too.”

  “Sheriff Porter used to deputize six or eight men to help keep an eye on the crowd.”

  “Nice of the Mayor to tell me. Where am I going to find that many men on short notice? I’m assuming on a day like that, you’re all pretty busy.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. I’m thinkin’ they’re planning to say you derelicted your duty or whatever they call it. That’d be grounds for firin’ you, wouldn’t it? They needed to keep you on ‘til Hangin’ Day, but once it’s over...” Eustace drew his finger across his neck. That’s why they’re holdin’ Court on Saturday night.”

  Washington and McCall exchanged glances. “What do you mean they’re holding Court?” The schoolmaster asked. “Court’s not until Monday.”

  Sunday was the first night of the full moon when the pull was strongest, but even the Second was wise enough not to schedule Mayor’s Court on a Sunday and then demand attendance. Sunday was the only short day of their seven day workweek. To hold it after closing on one of the busiest days of the year was almost as bad.

  “That’s the other thing those fellers were saying. Didn’t I tell you? Mayor’s holding Court at ten to settle some important issues. All pack members are to be in attendance. He’ll be convening at the church since there won’t be room nowhere else. O’course, that don’t mean you ladies,” he said to the women. “But don’t you worry. We got ‘em licked.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “Most of ‘em are betas,” he said of the list of names, “But hell, they’re only dealing with tourists. They’ll be by tomorrow to pick up their badges. Might be good if you said a few words to swear ‘em in all official like.”

  McCall and Washington exchanged another significant glance. This time, it was the sheriff who spoke. “We’re moving up the schedule. Don’t waste time putting anything back. Take it all. Saturday will be a busy day at the bank. They won’t have time to notice, if they haven’t already. How’s the leg?” he asked Washington.

  “It’ll hold, but I don’t expect to need it.”

  Rachel had suspected there was more damage to Washington’s leg than either man had let on. Wolvers tended to heal quickly, but though he did his best to hide it, Washington’s limp remained.

  “Yeah, right,” McCall said, but he didn’t sound like he agreed or thought it was right. “I’ve said my piece and there’s no convincing you otherwise, but I still want you to be careful.” He looked at the list Eustace gave him and shook his head at the omega. “They’re all betas except you, and you’re not going to be deputized.”

  “Aw, come on, McCall. I can do it! Even with my bad legs I can take on a tourist...”

  “Never said you couldn’t, but I don’t want your attention to be anywhere but on Miss Rachel. You hear me? After her book club, I want you sticking to her like glue. She’s in the kitchen, so are you. She goes to the store, so do you. You tell Maudie she’ll have to make do without you for a few days. You’re on security detail.”

  “I don’t need a bodyguard,” Rachel protested at the same time Eustace did.

  “Is this the sheriff talking or the...”

  “The sheriff,” McCall said decisively. “Miss Kincaid is stirring up trouble, trouble they’ve already said they don’t like. The easiest way to stop it is to stop the ringleader, make an example of her, send a silent message, so until she’s played her part, I want someone with her at all times. Bertie, Liddy, I want you on watch, too.”

  “We don’t even know if I can do this,” Rachel worried, “What will you do if I fail?”

  John Washington looked at McCall. “A lack of confidence is such an ugly trait in a woman, don’t you think?” he asked drily.

  “It’s a pity, really,” McCall answered seriously, though his eyes were dancing with humor, “If it wasn’t for that, she’d be kind of cute.”

  “You two are not funny,” Rachel huffed. “I’m serious. What will you do if I fail?”

  “Failure is not an option, Miss Kincaid,” they said together and started to laugh.

  “Stop it. Stop it! It isn’t the least bit amusing to me,” she insisted, “Don’t you two see? Don’t you understand what will happen if something goes wrong?” She threw up her hands. “Go ahead and laugh, but if you two go and get yourselves killed, I shall never speak to you again. Never!”

  They thought that was funny, too, until she burst into tears and fled to her room.

  McCall was there before she could close the door, gathering her into his arms and holding her head to his chest and whispering comforting words.

  “Hey now, what’s all this, Red? No need to cry. We were only trying to lighten the mood.”

  “I’m going to lose you,” she sobbed. One way or another, he would no longer be hers.

  “You knew that from the beginning,” he said gently.

  “But it’s too soon.” It seemed like only yesterday she had three weeks. Suddenly, she had three days. “You don’t have to do this,” she said, and hated the sound of desperation in her voice, but still, she went on. “You could leave tonight. We could leave tonight. I could go with you.” She felt him catch his breath and her heart stopped. What if he laughed at her suggestion?

  “You’d leave your home, your father, your friends? For me?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, yes, I’d do anything for you, anything to keep you safe. I love you, Challenger McCall. I wasn’t going to tell you, but I have to say it once before you’re gone from me forever.”

  “I love you too, Red, and I wish things could be different, but this is my calling. It’s what I was meant to do. I’ve made the commitment and I can’t run away from it.”

  He crushed her to him, so tightly she could barely breathe, but she didn’t protest. She couldn’t. She could never be close enough to Challenger McCall. He loved her.

  “You’ve made me dream of possibilities,” he went on. “There’s got to be a way to make this work. I just can’t think about it right now. Later, baby. Later, we’ll think and talk and find a way. Right now, I need you to be strong.”

  Later would be too late. Rachel could be Challenger McCall’s lover, but she could never be the Alpha’s mistress, the woman who would be cast aside when he found his Mate. She sniffled back the new tears that threatened and stiffened her spine. He needed her to be strong and that’s what she would be. She’d have years ahead to shed her tears.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to John,” he assured her, “and nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  “I know,” she whispered, because she
knew it was what he needed to hear, but it was a lie. Something would happen to Challenger McCall one way or another, and whatever way the wind blew, she would be left behind and alone.

  It was much easier than Rachel thought it would be. Book club attendance swelled beyond the rows of seats in the schoolhouse. Their success going over the moon had awakened their wolves and given the women of Gold Gulch pack the same sense of power and freedom she had felt when she ran as a wolf. With that power awakened, they were eager for more of that freedom in their daily lives and since the awakening had begun with Jane Eyre, they were curious to see what ideas would come next. They wanted the respect they deserved and their wolves demanded, and hoped to find it in the little red schoolhouse.

  As he’d threatened, Achilles Marbank was there, and so were a dozen other men. If the whispered comments she overheard in the cloakroom were any indication, their reasons for support had more to do with the bedroom than suffrage. Rachel was secretly relieved to learn her reaction to McCall on the night of the Hunter’s Moon wasn’t all that unusual.

  The readings were well received and then she took some time to talk about the women behind the movement; Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Sojourner Truth.

  The applause for the readings and Rachel’s remarks was heartening, the smiles and nodding heads encouraging. Not all were enthusiastic, however.

  “What good will the vote do us? We’re pack. We follow our Alpha.”

  “Are we pack?” Rachel asked in return. “Can we sit in the Alpha’s Court without hanging our heads in shame? Do we have the same rights of ownership as other pack members? Do we receive the same pay? This isn’t about votes. It’s about being recognized as contributing pack members who deserve the same benefits as others.”

  “Fine for you. You haven’t got one. Don’t like ‘em I’ve heard. But you’re telling us to go against our mates.”

  “You’ve heard wrong. I like them fine,” Rachel laughed. “I’d never ask you to turn against your mate. We need them just as they need us; two halves of a whole. Tell us, what would your mate’s objection be to bringing in more money? And what if, heaven forbid, he should pass away? Would he want another wolver dictating what was best for his mate and family? Would he want another male to profit from his business until his cub came of age?”

  The debate went on for some time until one timid woman spoke up. “So how do we ask for change if our voices can’t be heard?” she asked, so quietly Rachel had to repeat the question so the others understood.

  Women shifted forward in their seats. Those standing along the walls stepped up with eager faces.

  John Washington was right. They only needed a push in the right direction. McCall was right, too. They came because they were interested. The battle was half won.

  Rachel hadn’t known the Mate was there until that moment at the very end when she felt herself suffused with warmth and pride and she looked up at the little loft above the coatroom where the school’s library was kept. Lenora Hoffman smiled at her and walked away before anyone else noticed her presence.

  Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, and when she opened them again, Rachel smiled at her audience and gave them the push they needed.

  “We don’t ask. We don’t need to. We are wolver. We are pack. It’s time we took our rightful place. We do what those women did. We join our voices and speak as one until our voice is heard.”

  Chapter 31

  Eustace took his assignment seriously, so seriously Rachel was about to scream.

  “Please!” she begged McCall after he came to her bed that night.

  He was laying, spread-eagle, in the middle of the bed. Rachel clung to his side, dangerously close to the edge.

  “Shit, Red, give me a few minutes to recover, will ya? I’m a wolver, not Superman.”

  “You, Mr. McCall, are a bed hog.” She inched a little closer, forcing him to move. “And you don’t listen. I wasn’t talking about you-know. I was talking about Eustace.”

  His body vibrated with his chuckle. “It’s called sex, Red. You can say it. I won’t tell.” He shifted another inch. “Eustace is doing exactly what I told him to.”

  “He’s worse than Arthur, always under my feet,” she complained, “He’s like Goosey, Goosey Gander; upstairs, downstairs...”

  “And in my lady’s chamber?”

  Rachel giggled. “I thought he might try!” She looked up from where she had her head on his shoulder. “Where did you learn nursery rhymes?”

  “We weren’t total barbarians. Training didn’t start until we were five.”

  “Good lord! They didn’t give you a gun, did they?”

  “Wooden ones, but at that age, most of the training was about defense and safety. Herding the animals into the barns, how to hide, what to do when the alarm sounded, that sort of thing. By six or seven, I could set a rabbit snare, knew what roots you could eat. By eight or nine, we learned what ammunition went with which weapon. I learned how to shoot arrows and later bolts with a compound or crossbow. There wasn’t much time to play.”

  “That’s no life for a pup,” Rachel whispered. She crawled up his body to reach his lips.

  “I know, especially for a cub like me who liked to play.” He ran his hand down her back to her rear and squeezed her cheek, then gave it a little smack. “Eustace stays with you until the job is done. One more day won’t kill you.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she insisted.

  “I’m sure the Rutherfords thought they’d be fine, too.”

  By his tone, Rachel knew there was something more. “You found more remains, didn’t you?” she said quietly.

  McCall nodded and he wasn’t smiling any more. “Seven. Three in one, four in the other. Neither one of those digs went more than twenty, thirty feet in, no shoring up of the sides or ceiling. Walls and roof collapsed, but you can’t tell me they were accidents. Two of the victims were women. One of the males was human. John has the few things I found that might help identify them.” His arm wrapped more tightly around her.

  “These wolvers don’t fool around, Red. These victims were friends, neighbors, pack. They murdered they’re own. I’ve seen packs go through a half dozen Challenges before an Alpha prevails. I’ve seen rival packs go to war over territory. I’ve seen murder for revenge. I’ve never seen this.”

  He rolled with her, taking them both perilously close to the edge of the bed. He was over her, around her, and he buried his face in her neck.

  “I need to know you’re safe and I can’t be here to do it. I’ve got to be out patrolling and keeping the fool tourists away from the scaffolding. God, you wouldn’t believe how stupid some of them are. Had a woman today, wanted a picture of hubby with a noose around his neck.” McCall shook his head at the stupidity. “He’s standing on the trap door with a rope around his neck and she’s leaning on the lever to get a better angle when not two minutes before, the men were testing it with a sack of rocks.”

  Rachel laughed, but only because she knew he was trying to turn the subject away from the dead.

  “We’ve never had an accident and I know, I know, you’d rather not have the first on your watch,” she placated, “but Eustace clinging to me is really too much. He only leaves me long enough to tell his stories out on the porch and gives Bertie a five minute lecture on my care and handling every time he does. Nothing will happen to me here. The hotel will be overflowing with wolver visitors. They wouldn’t dare try anything in front of all those witnesses and I don’t have time to wander away alone even if I wanted to. I think it’s the biggest crowd we’ve ever had and I expect tomorrow will be bigger. I’ll be up most of the night preparing for it.”

  “Some of the night, not most of it.” He nuzzled her neck and nibbled at her earlobe. “Most of it belongs to me.”

  “I’ll see if I can fit you in,” she said lightly, knowing full well it would be their last night together. She refused to let heartache ruin it. She wanted the memory of it to be filled
with sweetness and laughter, not heartache and tears.

  “Oh, I’ll fit in,” McCall snickered. His hand slipped between them and found that sweet spot between her legs. “You were made for me, Red. Hang on and I’ll prove it.”

  “Are you ready?”

  Rachel walked the length of the street, sticking her head in each doorway and calling out the question while Cassie worked her way through the shops on the other side of the street. In almost every shop, the answer was the same as the wolver women of Gold Gulch grabbed their hats and the signs they’d made with supplies from the school.

  “I’m ready.”

  Some called it boldly, laughing as they stopped what they were doing and headed out the door. Some answered with solemn nods of determination and fearful glances at their mates. They paired off in two straight columns, heads up, backs straight, matching their steps like soldiers marching off to war.

  Whether their men objected or not, there was little they could do without making a public scene. The few tourists, the diehards who stayed until the church bell announced closing, saw the marching women and left their last minute purchases sitting on counters to see what was happening. They waited and watched as the women reformed at the entrance end of the town, wondering what new scene was to be enacted for their benefit.

  Not so decorous as their sisters, the flowers of Daisy’s Bouquet danced up the center of the street, with the skirts of their flamboyantly colored outfits raised to show off the bright hues of their stockings. They twirled and high stepped and curtseyed to the crowd, laughingly calling out to the women and blowing kisses to the men. If anyone had missed the quiet withdrawal of the women of Gold Gulch, they were aware of it now. The wooden walkways were lined with watchers.

  “You’d better get moving,” Daisy said when she reached them. “Holt has ordered his men to stop your nonsense. His word, not mine. I don’t know what they have planned, but they’re taking up positions in the crowd.”

  “Do you hear that, ladies?” Rachel shouted to her troops, “They want this stopped. Will we let them?”