by Linda Jacobs
“But I didn’t hear …”
“I didn’t hear the shot, either.”
The forest hugging the canyon rim could easily hide a marksman.
Norman stepped up to the wagon on the other side and bent to examine Forrest. Constance followed and stood at his side, blue eyes wide.
“Perhaps a poacher,” Norman suggested.
Cord made an impatient gesture. “No poacher worth his salt would work this close to a tourist area. As we heard nothing, he must have been shot from downwind.”
“You’re saying someone shot Uncle Forrest on purpose?” Constance cried.
“Who, pray tell?” Hank’s cold gaze fell upon Cord. “Perhaps I should ask you to empty your pockets to find out if you pistol-shot Forrest at close range.”
Laura saw the danger in Cord’s profile as his clenched muscles turned his scar white. She moved between the two men. “For God’s sake, we haven’t time for you to fight.”
She shoved past Cord and saw her father looked ashen. Cord was beside her in an instant, tearing open Forrest’s coat to reveal bright blood drenching a white shirt from left shoulder to waist.
Behind her, she heard Hank’s sharp inhalation. Was he wondering what would happen to his backing? For how could her father survive with his heart pumping away his blood?
Cord ripped Forrest’s shirt, popping off buttons, to reveal a neat hole welling blood. It appeared to be above and to the left of his heart, but only just.
“I’m going to lift him, Hank. Can you run your hand under his back and see if there’s an exit wound?”
Dimly, she heard Hank. “Let someone else.” He remained at a little distance, looking as colorless as his coat.
“I’ve got a good angle to reach under,” Norman said from the opposite side of the wagon. “Pick him up now, Cord.”
Constance covered her face with her hands.
“Ready, then.”
Cord lifted.
Norman’s hand disappeared under Forrest’s back.
Laura dreaded what he might feel, the sticky slickness of more blood, the ragged edges of a larger exit wound.
“It’s dry.”
Her shoulders sagged as her father’s were lowered back to the dusty wagon floor. Cord pulled a folded navy bandana from his pocket and pressed it over the bullet hole, bearing down with the heel of his hand. “I’ll hold pressure.”
Norman scanned the forest along the canyon rim. “It would be good to be away from here in case someone is lurking about, but we seem to be lacking a driver.”
“Press-gang one from another tour.” Cord looked up the dirt road about fifty yards where another wagon was stopped. Though the tourists appeared to be away, two drivers in dusters stood together smoking and talking.
Cord waved and shouted.
“I can drive while you hold on the wound,” Norman offered.
But, as soon as he spoke, one man broke away and came running toward them.
Burke Evans looked ashamed for having deserted his guests, but Laura suspected it had happened before. “I’m sorry, folks, I thought you’d want plenty of time to enjoy …”
He stopped and stared at Cord’s stained shirt, then past him to Forrest lying limp in the wagon. “Gad!”
“Let’s get him to the Canyon Hotel,” Norman ordered. “There’s bound to be a surgeon there.”
“Possibly a doctor is on call, sir, but that’s not a good bet,” Burke Evans reported. “I’ll have you to the Lake Infirmary at top speed.”
Laura’s eyes met Cord’s, and she saw in his her own belief … that her father might not survive the ride.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JUNE 27
Dr. Upshur, a nondescript, brown-haired man in his thirties wearing a white coat spotted with what Cord believed was Forrest’s blood, faced the crowd that was waiting for news.
The doctor’s gaze roved over the group from the wagon: Constance and Norman, Hank, Cord, Laura, and a goggle-eyed Burke Evans. In addition, because the wagon had arrived behind lathered horses proceeding at a gallop, Fanny, Lieutenant Stafford, Sergeant Nevers, Manfred Resnick, and even Hank’s elusive sister, Alexandra, had come to see what was wrong.
“Mr. Fielding is in grave danger, and I know you are all interested in his condition,” Dr. Upshur said, “but there are other sick people here, and I cannot have them disturbed.” He considered. “His daughter may stay … the rest of you must wait elsewhere.”
Cord opened his mouth to protest that he was going to remain with Laura, but closed it. If Forrest’s sister and niece were willing to accept the verdict, then he must, as well.
Lieutenant Stafford stepped forward. “With your permission, doctor, I’m going to place an armed guard on duty. As we don’t know who shot Mr. Fielding or why, we cannot be sure they will not be back to finish the job.”
Hank glowered at Cord. “As the only man with a motive, want to show us you’re not carrying a pistol?”
Stafford looked pained. “Let’s all get out of the hospital as the doctor ordered.”
Everyone, except Sergeant Nevers on guard duty, and Laura, left, moving with reluctance the way a crowd will when told to disperse from a wagon accident.
Cord hoped Hank would be ignored, especially as Captain Feddors was not around, but as soon as they were out of earshot of the hospital’s front door, Stafford paused.
“What’s this about motive?” he asked Hank.
“Sutton wants to stop my purchase of the Lake
Hotel.”
For a fleeting moment, Cord thought he saw a look of satisfaction on the face of Alexandra Falls, but it vanished before he could be sure. He wished she would leave, but she showed every sign of settling in to listen. Thankfully, Fanny and Constance had walked ahead and were almost at the door to the hotel.
“Come, Lieutenant,” Norman interceded. “I know Mr. Sutton, and I don’t believe he would resort to violence to achieve a business goal.”
“You’re taking his side?” Hank’s voice rose. “Because you think I’m hiding something to do with that letter and the inspections?”
At Hank’s tone, Norman gave him a steady look. “I’m taking the side of law and order. And though I did not previously have a prejudice about the documents, your bringing them up now is certainly suspicious.”
Hank turned to Stafford. “None of us in the canyon heard a shot. What if Fielding collapsed because he was fatigued, and Sutton took the chance to shoot him point-blank? The sound would have been muffled.”
A glance passed between Stafford and Manfred Resnick.
“Did anyone see Mr. Fielding fall?” Resnick asked. “Was anyone near him?”
“Laura and I were,” Cord admitted. “But we were walking ahead looking at the ground, watching our footing. There were lots of roots, stones, and slippery patches.” He gestured toward the hotel. “Get Laura out here and ask her if I ran back and shot him.”
“I will be speaking with her,” Resnick replied. “Did anyone hear a shot?”
“Nope,” from Burke Evans. “I’m afraid I left the party to share a smoke with one of the other drivers.”
“The wind was up, coming through the treetops like an approaching train, along with the roar of the falls,” Cord said. “I didn’t hear anything I’d call a shot.”
Norman frowned. “Constance and I both heard a high-pitched something, that may have echoed in the canyon below.”
Stafford looked around at the group. “Then it is likely that Mr. Fielding was shot from a distance downwind with a rifle.”
Hank stabbed a finger at Cord. “Aren’t you even going to search him?”
“For what?” Resnick asked. “If he had a pistol, he could have thrown it away along the path, from the wagon, or into the brush around here.”
Hank snorted. “Nonetheless, Lieutenant Stafford, I shall speak to Captain Feddors about your failure to properly investigate this matter.”
He strode away in the direction of the soldier station.
Esther G
iles, looking cool in a white lawn dress, stood outside the log building with Captain Feddors. In female company, the dour officer seemed transformed, smiling.
Hank almost turned away and came back later. But his mission was to present his case against Cord, a smoke screen against his own failings. As Norman suspected, the letter and the inspection report had indeed been sidetracked from the railroad.
It had been just after the grand opening in 1892. Everything was going so well, when he noted the marked envelopes in the postal niche inside the hotel’s front door. The first was from a team driver he’d been forced to fire a few years before for sloth. This season, the man had been back in the park working on a road crew outside Hank’s domain. They’d run into each other near the front door the day before and had words. Well, words on Hank’s side; the driver had been grabbed by two male hotel employees and escorted outside.
Hank’s face heated, and he reached for the missive, without thinking that it was against the law to interfere with the post. That was when he noted the larger envelope, also addressed to the railroad, with the name of the inspector at the upper left corner.
It had been so simple to fish it out with the other.
For eight years, he’d felt safe from discovery, but somehow those carefully hidden documents had emerged from a locked bank box. Why had he been so stupid not to burn them?
A peal of laughter came from Esther, and she gave an affected little wave with her pocket handkerchief. From experience, Hank expected the lawn square smelled of lily of the valley … the day before yesterday Esther had come to his boat for an afternoon interlude. Her husband, Harold, had taken a fishing tour. Though older than Hank, she had been a pleasant surprise. He’d loosened her Spanish ruby comb and let her long black hair spill over her pendulous breasts.
Hank drew a comb out of his pocket and smoothed back his hair that was falling over his eyes. With his own handkerchief, he mopped his brow.
Finally, he moved forward. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Giles; Captain.”
“Hank!” Esther trilled. “That is, Mr. Falls.”
He kept his face neutral, bowed to her, and spoke to Feddors. “I wonder if I might have a few minutes of your time.”
On the hotel porch, with the sinking sun throwing shadows of the pines across the scrub lawn, Cord settled into a rocking chair. He was exhausted, despite a bath and changing out of the blood-and sweat-stained clothes he’d been wearing when he carried Forrest out of the canyon. Hank might be Forrest’s partner, but he’d stood by like a stick that might snap when there was backbreaking work to be done.
It was all Cord could do not to find Hank and take him down a peg. Hell, it would be even more satisfying to smash a fist into his face.
But the high road would be best with Norman and Hopkins Chandler. Let it look like Hank was the desperate one, grasping at straws to save his hotel.
His hotel.
Cord had not thought of it that way before, but from the construction phase on, Hank had lived in this place. He no doubt saw it in a proprietary light, had believed he would go on here as many years as he cared to, in the role of manager for the railroad.
Cord forced his focus back onto his own goal. Hank would get over it, just as he planned to try to get over Thomas Bryce’s lording it over him.
Once Cord owned the Lake Hotel, mortgaged through the bank in Great Falls, he’d sell his half of Excalibur to his adopted brother, Thomas. As the hotel in Salt Lake was larger and grander, he should be able to pay off the loan and take the deed to the Lake Hotel, free and clear. After that, if people found out he had a Nez Perce grandmother, there would be no one legally able to take the property away from him. The best-laid plans …
With Forrest fallen, would Hank plead for more delays? Would his accusations, while apparently not given credence by Manfred Resnick or Norman, influence Hopkins Chandler upon his return from Bozeman?
The day’s events called for a whiskey, though what he wanted most was to go over to the infirmary to see Laura.
This afternoon, things had seemed to be falling into place. Constance’s staying with Norman once they’d alighted at the first stop had allowed Cord to lunch and share the canyon with Laura. On the walk up toward the wagon, he’d been planning to ask her to go with him tonight to hear Bitter Waters. This time he would introduce her.
As Cord started to rise from his chair and go to the lobby bar, something brushed his sleeve. He turned.
Constance moved her hand from his arm to the back of the rocking chair next to him.
He stood to acknowledge her and, though he indicated the chair next to his, she did not move to sit down.
In spite of the difficult day, she managed to look stunning as always, in a sapphire silk dress beneath a fringed shawl. She had pulled her sleek hair up, emphasizing cheeks pink from the day’s sun. Gold earrings danced when she moved.
The only clues to her distress lay in her troubled eyes that mirrored the deepest shade of royal in Yellowstone Lake, and the way she worried an embroidered handkerchief with her hands. “Uncle Forrest is the only father I’ve ever known. My own died before I was old enough to remember him.” She looked out over the water. “If anything happens …” She shuddered.
Sweet Constance, Cord thought, so soft and childlike with her emphatic ways. So pampered in her relatives’ fine house where he’d met her in St. Paul.
“Who could have shot him?” she despaired. “This West of yours is too wild, too cruel.”
Although Cord had a house in Salt Lake City near Hotel Excalibur, he considered his ranch as home. A simple and sturdy log structure, surrounded by three hundred acres that his father, Franklin Sutton, had claimed to mine before the first homesteaders had come to the valley called Jackson’s Hole.
It was to his ranch that Cord had always wanted to bring his bride. But somehow in St. Paul, he’d been so caught up in disbelief that a woman like Constance wanted him that he’d forgotten to consider whether his life would be one she wanted to share.
On the day she had stood with him outside the Northern Pacific ticket office in St. Paul, she’d been very quiet. Ornate lettering advertised the Dining Car Line to Cinnabar, Montana, connecting by stage to Yellowstone Park. Cord had thought she was simply sad to see him leave, but now he remembered how she had peered through the arched windows at the photos of western landscapes and pronounced them stark.
“The West is my home,” he had told her.
On the hotel porch, Constance went on, “It’s just too difficult, too harsh out here.”
Cord sighed. Late June, and it was just getting on to the best time of the year. Constance had no idea what Wyoming was like in winter.
“I thought I could live out here,” she went on, “but I was mainly thinking of Salt Lake. I really didn’t know how remote Yellowstone was when you said you wanted to buy and manage the Lake Hotel.”
His collar felt too tight, and he tugged at the starched material. “Constance … Connie, no matter how right it seemed in St. Paul, it’s wrong for so many reasons.”
He didn’t accuse her of fabricating their betrothal.
“I don’t know why I decided you’d marry me,” she confessed. “I just wanted the fairy tale to be true, the way you swept in and were so different from the men I’d known. By the time Mother and I arrived in the park, I truly believed you would ask me as soon as we saw each other.”
Her fingers fumbled at the ring, and he covered them with his own. “No, please. That is my gift to you, for all we imagined. Can’t you keep it and feel glad?”
He caught a glimpse of tear sheen in her eyes before she bent her head.
Then she looked back at him frankly, with a hint of the jealous fire he’d seen this morning when he and Laura came around the corner of the hotel. “What about Laura?”
He hesitated.
“You fell for her when you were together on the trail,” Constance accused.
Why not admit it? “You’re right. I felt guilty about it and
held back because of you.” His voice rose. “But you shouldn’t question what I do from now on since you’ve made it clear you’ve set your cap for Norman Hagen.”
She flushed.
He was about to tell her about Norman’s inquiries for her, but before he could, the screen door to the porch opened.
“Constance,” Fanny Devon called from inside. “Laura hasn’t left the infirmary even though the doctor won’t let her see Forrest.”
Her bounteous curves appeared in the doorway. A pearl clasp anchored her dark hair atop her head. “We need to convince Laura to eat something and to rest.”
Constance rose obediently.
“William.” Fanny greeted him warmly, her voice dropping a full octave.
Cord rose. “Is there any more word on your brother?”
“Nothing yet.”
He gestured toward the dining room. “Let’s eat something and then take Laura a plate.” With the crowd diminished, the doctor might let him join her vigil.
In the infirmary, Laura sat in a straight chair outside the room where Dr. Upshur was operating on her father. He’d warned that when he began probing for the bullet, it would be a critical time. If he severed a larger artery or perforated the top of Forrest’s lung, provided the bullet had not already done so, survival was unlikely.
Beyond the hospital walls, Larry Nevers stood sentry, taking a minute every half hour or so to check in with her as darkness approached. Each time he stopped by, it reminded her that somewhere out there, someone might be taking aim at her father again through the lighted windows.
Or at her.
She went to the casement at the end of the hall and pulled down the paper shade.
Coming back, she stared at the closed door of the surgery. Part of her wished that Constance and Aunt Fanny … that Cord, were with her, but she knew that even if they were in the same room, everyone waited with their own thoughts and demons.
How awful that in the last few days, her father’s primary emotions toward her had been anger and disapproval. Yet, how was that different from the way things had been at home?
From inside the operating room came a clatter. A moment later, a white-garbed nurse came out carrying a metal implement and disappeared into another room. With the surgery door ajar, Laura rose to her feet to peek through the opening.