Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04)

by Ann Parker

  “Done,” said Prochazka. “Now, to retire and rest.” He turned to Nurse Crowson, who had suddenly appeared, back from her errand for the physician. She handed him a small tonic bottle along with the ring of keys. Prochazka gave the bottle to Jonathan, instructing, “A teaspoonful now, before she sleeps. Another tomorrow, should she need it.”

  Inez sat up slowly, and eyed the quantity of whiskey left in the glass on the floor by Jonathan. It would be more than enough, she decided, to ensure she wouldn’t need any of what was in the small brown bottle.

  Harmony, who was hovering by the stairs, said, “Mrs. Stannert was going to join us in a trip to the Garden of the Gods tomorrow. Is that still wise or should she stay here and rest?”

  Prochazka shrugged. “As long as she is not at the reins or climbing the rocks, I see no harm in that.”

  Inez raised her arm—to her surprise, it obeyed her—and rubbed her eyes. She said, “Thank you, doctor.”

  He stood, helped her to her feet, and said, “You are lucky I was here. The sooner the shoulder is put back in place, the easier it is. Too much time passes, and it becomes more painful, more difficult.” He looked at the grandfather clock. “I must get back to work.”

  To work? When does he sleep?

  “Let us help you to your room,” said Jonathan. He picked up her glass, and Harmony came across the floor to join them.

  Aunt Agnes added, “We’ll all walk you up the stairs, Inez, and make sure you are well in your room for the night, or what’s left of it. Goodness, what a fright you gave us all.”

  Inez turned to accept the glass from Jonathan and caught a glimpse of Lewis and the nurse, conversing in low tones by the reception desk. The intensity of their whispers caught her attention as well as something about their stances. They bent toward each other. Lewis was doing most of the talking and he looked…angry? worried?

  Mrs. Crowson was shaking her head slightly. She suddenly laid a hand on Lewis’ sleeve with a single word. They both turned to look at Inez, similar expressions of suspicion, doubt and…

  Could it be fear?

  What have they to fear from me?

  Jonathan on one side of her said, “Slowly up the stairs, Mrs. Stannert,” while Agnes on the other side said, “Just how much of that liquor did you drink, dear niece?” Harmony placed an extra shawl gingerly over her shoulders. It occurred to Inez that maybe it wasn’t her they were scrutinizing.

  It gave Inez something to mull over as she carefully climbed what now seemed a very long set of stairs to the second floor.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  “Are you certain you are feeling well enough to do this?” Harmony asked for the umpteenth time. She had the reins of the buggy and was focused on the curve in the road ahead, so didn’t see Inez roll her eyes.

  “Harmony, I am fine. Dr. Prochazka was correct. Once he settled my shoulder in place, the pain went away, and I slept like a baby.” Although Inez thought that the remaining scotch probably had as much to do with her recovery as the doctor’s magic hands. “Are you certain you don’t want me to drive?” she added. It made her nervous to see Harmony, who still struck Inez as being on the frail side, in control of the buggy and horse. From the toss of her head and the prance in her gait, the mare in the traces was more than happy to be out of the livery.

  “I shall echo your sentiments, dear sister, and say really, I am also fine.” She flipped the reins lightly, urging the horse up the incline. The four wheels squeaked faster. “Everyone treats me like an invalid, and yet I’ve never felt better since coming to Manitou. I’m stronger than I’ve been in quite a while. Wouldn’t you agree, Lily?”

  Lily, face bowed and hidden, nodded, the motion intensified by the large straw sunhat she wore. “Yes’m,” she said, nearly inaudible.

  “Now, as I was saying,” Harmony continued. “We passed Balanced Rock on Buena Vista Drive, just as we left Manitou. But oh, wait until you see the Gateway! It’s magnificent.”

  “So have you been this way before?” Inez asked.

  “Oh, yes. Mr. DuChamps took us and Aunt Agnes to see everything when we first arrived. It’s nice that the Garden is only a couple of miles from the hotel.”

  Inez gazed at the evergreens on one side of the road and the red sandstone formations on the other. “Where is Mr. DuChamps today?”

  Harmony’s hands tightened inside their buckskin gloves. “More business to attend to.”

  Inez turned to William, who sat trapped between Inez and Lily. “So William, you’ve seen the rocks before?”

  No verbal answer, but a prompt arm shot out, finger pointed at a particularly spindly formation by the side of the road. He looked up at her from under a round-brimmed sailor-style hat, hazel eyes questioning. Inez smiled, “That’s right, William. Those rocks are red. And I hear there are more magnificent ones ahead.”

  “He’s seen ’em before,” muttered Lily in an undertone that Inez could barely discern. “You like climbing on rocks, right Wilkie? We’ll climb another mountain sometime.” She hugged him fiercely to her.

  He wiggled out of her grasp, shouting, “Rock!”

  “Oh, he’s quite the little mountain goat,” said Harmony.

  Inez was alarmed. “You let him wander around on these?” Visions of William clambering about under Balanced Rock—a huge cubical boulder teetering on a single apex—flashed through her mind.

  Harmony smiled indulgently, a single dimple appearing, then gone. “Only small ones, Inez, and only when he’s holding tight to Lily or Jonathan’s hand.”

  Inez thought back to William’s stiff-legged and determined race down Williams’ Canyon the previous day, and wasn’t certain she liked the sound of that at all. But she decided to let it pass.

  She glanced over at Lily. Lily had been very quiet, and had spent most of the ride with her head tilted down, not looking at the sights as they passed. In fact, when she’d met them for breakfast, William in her arms, she had given Inez only one guilty glance, murmuring, “G’morning, ma’am,” before busying herself with making sure he at least ate, as opposed to wore, the majority of his oatmeal.

  “The Gateway is up ahead.” Harmony pointed at an immense wall of red sandstone, broken in the middle. A road wound between the two monolithic walls of rock. Inez gasped.

  Harmony glanced at her. “So, this is new to you? Leadville doesn’t have scenery like this?”

  “Not at all.”

  Inez had to admit, the rock entrance to the Garden of the Gods was imposing. Then, through the clop-clop of the horse and the squeaking of the wheels, Inez heard something else. “Stop a minute.”

  Harmony brought the buggy to a halt.

  “Do you hear that?” Inez asked.

  Everyone, except William, listened intently. The wind shifted bringing the plaintive skirl of…

  “Is that bagpipes?” Inez said.

  “It seems to be coming from over there,” said Harmony.

  Inez squinted up at another formation, which looked very much like someone lying at ease, nose pointed to the sky. They listened to the lonely music for a bit. “Who would be up there, piping away?” Inez wondered aloud. “It doesn’t look easy to climb.”

  Harmony shook her head, and said, “We are almost to our picnic spot beyond the Gateway. Maybe we’ll discover the musician on the other side.”

  A short while later, they passed through the gateway of giants. Inez gazed up. “Impressive.”

  “When Jonathan brought us here, he said something about the gate not being one of human workmanship. There is an air of the artificial about it, because the massive portals seem to have been carved; but the workmanship is all divine.’” She smiled. “Jonathan told us a bit about it: The pillars of the gate to either side are red sandstone, and three hundred and eighty feet high, too high for any but the Great Architect to think of rearing.”

  Once they reached the other side of the Gateway and were a comfortable distance into the valley itself, they stopped for lunch. Lily spread out
a blanket and set out the baskets. Inez and Harmony trailed after William, who seemed intent on picking up every single rock and examining it, before carefully setting it back down in its resting place.

  “Harmony, can you tell me what, exactly, Jonathan mentioned about the hotel and its current situation?” Inez asked in a low voice, glancing over her shoulder at Lily. They were far enough away that she felt certain Lily would not be privy to their conversation.

  “Well,” Harmony passed a hand over her eyes in thought. “I know that the major hotels in Manitou are vying for guests and prominence. It is apparently quite a coup to have Dr. Prochazka with the Mountain Springs House. But I believe he came at a price. Something about supporting his research into consumption and so on. They built the clinic for him, you know.”

  Inez shook her head. “I really don’t know anything about it.”

  “Well, this is Dr. Prochazka’s second summer here. Lewis told Jonathan that the Mountain Springs House had the highest winter occupancy rate of any of the hotels in the area. He made quite a to-do about it and credits the physician.”

  “I’m surprised that some of the other hotels haven’t tried to steal him away,” Inez observed.

  “It goes beyond Dr. Prochazka and his physicks,” Harmony said. “Jonathan told me a few of their plans. They are going to add a bowling alley, for instance, and a billiard room, and another story to the hotel.”

  Inez raised her eyebrows.

  “They also have plans to add cabins to accommodate more guests,” Harmony continued. “You’ve seen the Cliff House, nearby? I gather they are one of the Mountain Springs House’s fiercest rivals. You’ve seen the tents dotted all around their hotel? It’s from the overflow. Well, the Mountain Springs House wants to enlarge its own property, and build cabins on the extra land.”

  Inez shook her head. “All that will not come cheap.”

  “That is what Jonathan told me.” Harmony paused. “I was so alarmed that I interrupted him, told him he couldn’t be thinking of sinking our life’s savings and our future into such a perilous scheme. We began arguing at that point. I don’t know if there might have been more he’d been planning to tell me about their schemes.”

  Inez frowned. “What you have said is enough. They sound as if they have grand plans. It will cost a great deal to accomplish all that and to hold onto Dr. Prochazka as well, particularly if he is perceived as an asset.”

  Harmony and Inez paused, watching William. He was examining with great interest an iridescent beetle that had been hiding under the most recent rock. He bent down and picked it up.

  “No!” Inez said sharply. “Put it down, William!”

  He looked up at her. His small fingers squinched down on the beetle’s carapace. The beetle waved its legs desperately. “No!” he said, just as sharply.

  Inez bent down and slapped his hand. With a cry, he let go of the beetle, which hit the ground and scuttled off to a new hiding place.

  “Inez.” Harmony sounded reproachful, as if she wanted to scold Inez but didn’t dare.

  Inez brusquely brushed off his dirty, sweaty palm with her gloved hand as he squirmed and tugged. She said, “Harmony, you don’t know the creatures in these areas. A harmless insect this time, a poisonous spider the next.”

  William was crying now. Inez gripped his hand and said, “Let’s get some lunch. Are you hungry, William? Bread and butter?”

  “Hunng-gy,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes.

  “And sleepy too,” said Harmony.

  They started back.

  Harmony said, “I’ve been meaning to ask you about last night.” She lowered her voice. “You weren’t sleepwalking, were you.”

  “No,” she said shortly.

  “What happened?”

  “Someone tapped on my door and whispered, ‘Come quickly. It’s William.’ I could not even tell whether it was a man or woman. It could have been anyone.” She shook her head. “I bolted out of the room without looking behind me or to either side. Sheer stupidity on my part, to be so impetuous.”

  Harmony set a hand on her wrist. “You were driven by instinct, Inez. You thought your son was in distress. Any mother would have done the same.”

  “I just can’t work out who it was,” Inez continued. “I let on to Lewis that Mr. Stannert might be interested in investing, so what good would have come of him or one of his allies shoving me down the stairs? I must admit, this morning I considered Mr. Epperley. He and I exchanged words yesterday. I think he tried to present himself as a confidante and overplayed his hand. Mayhap Mr. Lewis hadn’t had time to talk to Epperley about my telegram to Mark.”

  Harmony stopped walking. “Telegram?”

  “I sent a telegram to Leadville last night,” Inez explained. “I asked Mark to come as soon as possible. I know him: he will be able to worm his way into these affairs of men in ways that I cannot.”

  Harmony’s troubled stare fixed on William, who was gazing longingly at a large black crow hopping about, pecking the dusty ground. “But I thought Mr. Stannert wasn’t coming until next week. That you wanted this time alone with William.”

  Inez sighed. William tugged on her hand, leaning with all his body weight in the direction of the crow. “Bird!” he shouted.

  William’s pulling made her recently injured shoulder ache, so she let him go. Together, Inez and Harmony watched as he ran full tilt at the bird, which took off with a startled squawk.

  “I feel the situation here is too volatile,” Inez said shortly. “We need someone who would be sympathetic to our reasoning, and…” She dusted her gloved palms together, stopping herself. She had almost said, “And Reverend Sands is out of town.”

  I must stop thinking of him. He’s not due back in Leadville until General Grant has finished with his Colorado trip and heads East. That will be much too late to help me here. I wish I could write to Justice, reach him in some way. But I’m not even certain where he is right now.

  Instead, Inez finished with, “And Mr. Stannert, for all his faults, and he has many, would not want to see you or me or William exposed to any danger. He will help.” I will make certain that he does.

  Harmony crossed her arms. “Do you think we are in danger?” She looked as though a sudden chill had swept over her.

  “I think,” Inez said soberly, “we must be very careful. Careful of what we say. Careful of who is around when we talk. For instance, last night, when you refused the tonic from Mrs. Crowson, that probably wasn’t wise.”

  “I was tired,” Harmony said. “I suppose I shouldn’t have said anything, but it all just slipped out. Nurse Crowson can be irritating, sometimes. Since Mrs. Pace’s return, I’ve just been taking the bottles and tipping them out when no one is looking.”

  Inez gazed at her offspring, now busy kicking the ground where the bird had been, sending puffs of red dust and grit up with each jab of a booted toe. “What about William’s doses?”

  “He still takes them.” She looked shaken. “He does have a lung condition, that has long been the case. Your physician in Leadville said so, as did our doctors in New York, and Dr. Prochazka in Manitou. William is doing well here, so I didn’t see the harm. I thought maybe it was helping. Do you think he’s in danger?” Her voice quavered.

  “In danger? Why harm a child? Who would do such a thing, and to what purpose? It would only discredit the hotel and its doctor.” Inez paused. “Unless, that is exactly what someone is trying to do.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Inez felt caught, trapped as surely as if the huge monoliths of the Gateway were grinding together, mashing her between tons of sandstone. She felt as if she was startling at shadows, but that these shadows had substance and were reaching out with poisoned fingers to touch those she loved.

  Licking her lips, she tried to calm the sudden upwelling of fear. “We mustn’t panic,” she said. “After all, how many people have actually been stricken by taking medicine that originates from the Mountain Springs House and its clinic? Only
Mr. Pace, that we know for certain.”

  William had returned and grabbed a fistful of Harmony’s skirt. He was tugging her toward the picnic blanket, where Lily sat slicing yellow cheese to go with the bread.

  “However, we must be circumspect,” Inez added. “I will talk further with Mrs. Pace, as soon as possible. Please, Harmony, don’t do or say anything that will draw attention to you in any way.”

  They had no sooner finished their meal and were still lazing on the blanket when they heard the rattle of an approaching wagon and a cheery “halloo.” Susan waved from the passenger seat. The woman at the reins, however, was a stranger to Inez. Trotting along beside them on a magnificent roan was Robert Calder. The wagon clanked and rattled like a tinker’s caravan.

  “I’m so glad we caught up with you before you left,” said Susan as they drew up and stopped by the horse and buggy. Inez rose and walked over to them. In the back of the wagon, Inez glimpsed stacked metal boxes, some of which she recognized as holding Susan’s photographic equipment and cases of photographic plates. “I wasn’t certain you’d still be here,” Susan continued, “and I wanted to introduce Mrs. Galbreaith.”

  Calder slid out of the saddle and helped both women down from the wagon.

  Mrs. Galbreaith turned out to be a pleasantly no-nonsense woman with a firm handshake. “Please, call me Anna,” she insisted.

  “Anna and I have been roaming about the Garden since early morning,” said Susan. “Sunrise here is magnificent. The colors in the rock and the sky, you cannot imagine. If only one could capture those colors on the plates. Black and white is such a pale imitation of reality. Anna has photographed the entire Garden at one time or another, and has done a marvelous job of showing me around. As has Robert…Mr. Calder.”

  “I was explaining to Miss Carothers how the Garden changes with weather and time of day,” said Calder. “Right after a rain, its hues are deeper, and it becomes so vividly red that if I were to paint it true to life, none would believe my vision real. In the soft light of evening, a sagy green suffuses the vegetation. At sunset, the last rays of the sun cause the enormous tablets of stone to flash out with surpassing grandeur.”