Lake of Fire

by Linda Jacobs

  Most of the time, things had evened out. For every time Constance had been chosen to sing solo soprano in the choir, Laura had won the blue ribbon for jumping her horse over the tallest and widest obstacles. For every prize Constance had won for her preserves and comfits at the Evanston Ladies’ Club, Laura had seen samples of her poetry and journaling printed in their monthly newsletter.

  Whatever Cord had held back, things to do with his family … and later, to do with Laura … none of that mattered. As surely as Constance and Norman enjoyed the precisely pruned shrubs and formal garden of Como Park in St. Paul, Cord and Laura both belonged in the chaotic country of Yellowstone.

  Constance stared out at the wilderness that had swallowed them and prayed Laura’s toughness would bring her through.

  Deep down, she loved her as though they were sisters.

  Norman Hagen left his room when sunrise silhouetted the Absarokas and turned the dark waters into a lake of fire. He’d planned to see this dawn on the train.

  Walking down to the pier, he saw that sometime during the night, the remains of the Alexandra had sunk. Tough break for Hank; there’d been a deal of money in that boat, and Norman hated to see anyone’s investment turn sour.

  Yesterday afternoon in the lobby, he’d come upon Hank still wearing his tattered clothing and drawing stares from arriving guests. Aware of the image the railroad wanted to project in their hotels, and, not incidentally, feeling sorry for Hank, Norman offered him a shirt and trousers. They were about the same height, and though Norman was thicker in girth, Hank had been able to cinch up his belt. Someone must have taken pity on his sister earlier in the day, for she wore a lavender lace-trimmed dress instead of the violet robe Norman had seen her in during the fire.

  Their lives had changed, as had his.

  Today, he planned to ask Constance to marry him. And he intended to make sure Forrest Fielding understood that, despite the hotel deal falling through, Norman would use his influence to be sure the Northern Pacific threw some banking business Fielding’s way.

  All night, Sergeant Nevers had kept his vigil guarding the infirmary and the two men who’d been attacked. At times, he wondered why he bothered, for there was a quality in the stillness around the hotel that said no one was abroad in the night.

  Every half hour, he checked in at Edgar Young’s bedside, but by dawn the patient had not made any coherent sounds. He did moan occasionally, and Dr. Upshur had indicated that perhaps there was hope. As for the other patient, with the coming of morning, Larry heard Forrest Fielding demanding breakfast and a bath and reckoned he was much improved.

  Larry decided to go over and check in by telephone with Headquarters. They could send over some fellows from Norris Station to reinforce the reduced staff here.

  He checked out with Dr. Upshur and left the infirmary. Though he started to take the most direct route, when he was near the hotel he stopped and looked toward a clump of brush not far from the wall.

  Stepping out into the hotel drive, he gauged the distance to the thicker vegetation. He turned and looked down toward the pier where the Alexandra had been docked, again thinking distance. He picked up a chunk of gravel and, trying to mimic Feddors’s trajectory, pitched it.

  It disappeared into the thicket, just as he’d watched Cord Sutton’s obsidian fly out of sight into darkness. Apparently, there was something special about the stone, at least to Laura Fielding, who had wanted it badly.

  Larry headed for the scrub and started looking. It didn’t take long to find the distinctive piece of black glass, shiny side up and glinting in the morning sun.

  Manfred Resnick had already dressed and was drinking coffee before a lively fire when the soldier station phone rang. He went behind the wooden desk, sat in the straight chair, and answered, identifying himself as being with Pinkerton’s.

  The male voice over the wires sounded tinny. “This is Private Arden Groesbeck calling from Headquarters.”

  “Yes.” Resnick recognized him as one of the members of the posse from Lake.

  “There’s no danger at Lake,” Groesbeck said. “Last evening, Sutton was sighted up in the Absarokas, miles from there. He and the girl had abandoned their horses and set out on foot.”

  “How did you get back to Headquarters so fast?” Resnick sipped his coffee. “Did you apprehend them?”

  “No, but Feddors and Stafford are still up there. We found Danny Falls shot beside his campfire and were ordered to try to get him to the Fort Yellowstone hospital before he died.”

  Resnick hung up and went to tell Sergeant Nevers he was moving his investigation to Mammoth.

  Since the burning of the Alexandra had disturbed some guests enough to make them leave, Hank slept in a vacant room on the hotel’s first floor. His sister was a few rooms down the hall.

  Yet, when he came out in the morning and tapped on her door, she didn’t answer. After knocking louder and calling, he pulled out his master key and found the room empty.

  Thinking she must already be up and at breakfast, he started in the direction of the lobby. Before he’d taken more than a few steps, he heard the door at the other end of the hall open.

  “Hank!” Alexandra gasped.

  He turned to find her wearing a white dress embroidered all over with tiny violets. She might have looked fresh and lovely, but her expression was one of horror. “I was out walking and ran into Manfred Resnick, on his way to find us.”

  Long ago, Hank had been able to feel his brother’s presence, no matter how many miles separated them. When Danny had broken his arm wrestling a calf for branding on a neighboring ranch, Hank had abruptly become ill.

  This morning, though some deep instinct told him the news was of his brother, he had no inkling whether Danny was alive or dead.

  Cord opened his eyes to a brilliant silver-white light accompanied by a dreadful hissing. He leaped up, Colt in hand.

  A peculiar acrid smell came from the light that glowed brilliantly on the smooth rock walls and the rough boulders on the cavern floor. It twirled slowly, a disorienting circling of bright and black darkness.

  Behind him, Laura gave a muffled exclamation. Cord stood his ground though he felt dizzy and disoriented; he’d wakened from a sleep so deep he might already have been dead.

  The man on the rope reached the floor of the cavern, his knee-high black leather boots touching the floor. His blue wool coat, decorated with a double row of silver buttons, was smeared all over with pale ash, as were his trousers. A pair of crossed sabers peeked from beneath the carbide lamp strapped to his hat with a leather thong. Cord recognized Lieutenant John Stafford, gray eyes hard in his leathery face.

  Stafford drew his sidearm, a .45 caliber Colt. “United States Army, Mr. Sutton.”

  Here was the rescue Cord had hoped for, a way out of dying underground without seeing the sun again. But where was his elation, as he lowered his own weapon and bent to put it on the rock floor?

  The officer continued, “You’re under arrest for the attempted murders of Hank Falls and Edgar Young.”

  “As well as shooting Danny Falls.” With a sinking heart, Cord recognized Captain Feddors peering in through the hole, the morning sky above. He had his Krag aimed at Cord’s heart.

  “I shot a wanted killer … in self-defense,” Cord spoke before Laura could, to protect her.

  “Is Danny … ?” she began.

  “He wasn’t talking when we found him,” Stafford offered. “Groesbeck and the others took him to the fort hospital in Mammoth.”

  “Danny confessed to hurting Edgar,” she declared. “He tied us to trees and was threatening us.”

  Stafford kept his pistol ready. “How did you escape?”

  Cord’s hand started toward his pocket and stopped. “I found something on the ground and used it to cut the rope around my wrists.” He lifted his face toward the daylight and Feddors. “A shard of obsidian.”

  He could have sworn the captain shrank back, as though a man with two guns trained on him
might yet manage to work some kind of magic.

  But he recovered quickly. “I congratulate you, Lieutenant Stafford, on triangulating yesterday’s gunshots and discovering the cave.” He glanced at the ashes of their fire. “Looks like they were sending up smoke signals.”

  When they roped Cord up into the light, he looked away down the mountain. As far as he could see, green forest had given way to a landscape devoid of color. A layer of white ash covered the ground, and smoke curled up into the cloudy gray sky. The blackened skeletons of burned trees still stood. They might remain upright for another forty years, until the restless wind brought them down. Fire still ate at the hearts of the largest lodgepoles, crimson embers glowing within the charred exterior. To the southeast, small flames worked the slope, orange tongues licking their way through the undergrowth in the still air of morning.

  With a glance at Feddors, Stafford bent and lifted Laura to his saddle.

  “What do you think you’re doin’?” Feddors protested.

  “As a Southern gentleman, sir,” Stafford’s voice was bland, “I know you’d never considering making Miss Fielding walk under such conditions.” He gathered the reins, his elbows on either side of Laura.

  Perhaps because the lieutenant had put him in the position of being a boor, Feddors turned away with a look of studied nonchalance.

  Something in the set of his shoulders said Stafford had better watch his back.

  By dusk, they had long since left the scorched earth behind, come out of the mountains, and made their way down the Lamar River Valley. Cord had never been here, but knew where he was from studying maps.

  Though there was a stage station at Soda Butte, Feddors did not stop. Cord was glad Laura was riding, for the marshy bottoms along the river made for difficult walking.

  Finally, near dark, they came upon a camp of about twenty soldiers. Feddors took charge, ordering that his and Stafford’s horses be fed and watered. Cord studied the remuda of mounts with the troop, but neither Dante nor White Bird was among them. There was no sign of Danny Falls’s palomino, either.

  The smell of biscuits, beans, and coffee made his stomach cramp. He swallowed around the dry spot in the back of his throat. Another step and his ankle turned in the soft earth of a burrow.

  He went down and lay, hearing the pleasant sound of running water. In his mind’s eye, he immersed himself fully in the cold river, drinking deeply and soothing his parched tongue.

  Though there were at least ten tents pitched, Cord was left outside on a rough wool army blanket. His handcuffs prevented him from swatting the bloodsucking mosquitoes swarming up from the boggy bottom. He recalled Sergeant Nevers’s description of the forced march a poacher had endured along with a horsewhipping … he hoped to get off that lightly.

  Feddors could make a powerful circumstantial case, citing the fight with Hank in the case of arson, and suggesting Cord became enraged with Edgar when the hotel deal fell through. The added spice of his being Nez Perce, and proud of it, would no doubt prejudice the circuit judge further.

  Wait.

  In Yellowstone, the Army was the law. And Feddors, at present, was the commanding officer. There was no requirement that Cord have a lawyer or judge. Like the common poacher, he could be dealt with under military justice. And when he’d arrived at the soldier station to have his weapons sealed, Feddors had practically accused him of poaching the game he and Laura had found at Lewis Canyon, as well as the bear.

  Wide-awake beneath the open sky, he despaired of finding a comfortable position while he tried to ignore the quiet voices of two sentries who’d given up walking the perimeter for playing cards.

  With an ache in his chest, Cord wondered which tent Laura was in. He’d seen her earlier, sitting on a camp stool bathing her feet in a pan of water, and then wrapping them in linen strips from the camp first-aid box. Lieutenant Stafford stood observing, so Cord assumed it was on his orders.

  God, how he wanted to be free, to walk with her in the peaceful silence of evening, with her hand tucked beneath his arm. He’d point out where forests turned to stone passed the eons, up on the long shoulder of Specimen Ridge.

  If … when … he got these charges dropped and was free to come back to the park, he’d take her to see a whole cliff of obsidian that stood sentinel over a shallow lake. Jim Bridger, one of the early trappers and explorers of Yellowstone, had written in the 1840s of shooting mistakenly at the reflection of an elk in the mirrored volcanic glass. It had been hyperbole, but effective.

  The camp grew quiet; the sentries put away their cards. Only the Lamar made a rushing sound. Cord located his old friend, the Big Dipper, pointing perpetually at the North Star. Beyond the horizon, a silver glow signified that the moon was about to rise.

  The stillness was broken, a coyote sounding staccato barks, followed by a single mournful howl. Another answered.

  Cord imagined the band roaming free in the night, up on Amethyst Mountain. From where he lay, the peak was a black shadow hunkered down at the rim of the world.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  JULY 3

  The soldiers from the Lamar camp climbed the last steep switchback out of Gardner Canyon, a few miles from the northern boundary of Yellowstone. Laura looked over her shoulder for Cord, but all she could see was the broad, blue-coated shoulder of Captain Feddors where he rode behind her.

  This morning, when Stafford had offered his hand to help her ride with him, Feddors had instead taken her up into his saddle. His fetid breath sickened her.

  Or perhaps she was already sick with the agony of the third day of Cord’s ordeal, being forced to walk in handcuffs the forty-some miles from Nez Perce Peak to Headquarters. She felt certain that if Lieutenant Stafford had not taken her part, Feddors would have ordered her to walk, as well.

  Thank God, they were almost to Mammoth. She looked ahead at the late-afternoon sun illuminating Mount Everts on the opposite side of the steep-walled river gorge. Flat-topped, the long mountain had broad gray bands of rock running along its side, layered with green grassy slopes.

  They topped the rise and Fort Yellowstone lay before them, neat rows of buildings painted uniform beige and covered with red tin roofs. Laura saw a pair of long stables, across the road from two other T-shaped windowed buildings she supposed were barracks. In front of those, facing the parade ground, were four two-story duplexes that she suspected housed the officers.

  A quarter mile away, on the west side of the valley, the terraces of Mammoth Hot Springs shone white in the shadow of the mountain. Streaks of orange and rust algae marked the pale stone.

  Below the terraced hillside and directly across from the parade ground stood the five-story National Hotel, built of dark wood with a shingled roof. On the verandah, Laura saw rows of rocking chairs filled with people whiling away the last of the day.

  Feddors turned his horse onto the Fort Yellowstone parade ground, and Stafford followed.

  A troop of mounted cavalry drilled, hooves thudding on the packed earth. The horses had been brushed until they looked burnished, and the soldiers’ polished black boots and crossed swords on their forage caps reflected the glow of the setting sun. Women stood with their children in front of Officers’ Row, watching the spectacle and waiting for the men to be freed for the evening.

  The laughter and applause suddenly stilled, and a murmur rose at the sight of their commanding officers’ filthy uniforms, the tattered remains of Laura’s dress, and Cord, soot-blackened, in handcuffs.

  A cannon boomed from atop the rounded contours of Capitol Hill overlooking the fort, while the clarion call of “Taps” sounded. Captain Feddors rose in his stirrups to salute the lowering of the colors.

  Once the last notes faded, he dismounted. Laura slid off before he could help her.

  He gestured at Cord, who looked as though at any moment he would fall down. “Take this man to the stockade.”

  Laura’s gut churned.

  “The woman, as well.”

  Lieutenant
Stafford intervened once more. “I’ll take her to my home. Katharine will see to her.”

  Feddors bristled. “She’s an accessory to Sutton’s crimes …”

  “There’s no evidence of that …”

  Laura cut off Stafford’s mild reply. “There’s no evidence against Cord, either.”

  And nothing in his favor, unless Danny Falls lived and was willing to tell the truth.

  The home of Lieutenant John Stafford and his wife was one of the big tin-roofed duplexes facing the parade ground.

  Katharine Stafford, a rotund woman who smelled of baking bread, had a dusting of flour on the front of her black serge skirt. Kind blue eyes took in Laura’s ruined dress, her scratches and insect bites, and the dirty rags on her feet. Though Lieutenant Stafford had seen to it her feet were bathed and bandaged the night before last, there had been no other chance to clean up.

  Laura was grateful the dutiful officer’s wife asked no questions except whether she would prefer to eat or bathe first. Her skin crawled, and she felt even worse than the evening she’d washed in the hot pool at Witch Creek. Moreover, she felt sure she’d not be able to get a mouthful past the lump in her throat.

  While Katharine boiled water and prepared a tub in a front bedroom, Laura looked out the window between sheer lace curtains. The pale monument of Mammoth Hot Springs stood out against the gathering night. Smoke rose lazily from a fumarole in the middle of the parade ground. Tourists wandered from the springs down to the hotel.

  Katharine drew the rolled shade over the window. “You have soap,” she itemized, passing chore-reddened hands over a transparent glycerine bar that smelled of roses, “and a towel.”

  A thick, but rough-looking cloth lay folded on a stool beside the tin tub of steaming water. An oil lamp sat beside it with a box of matches, mute testimony to the fact that Fort Yellowstone did not have electricity.

  “Mercy me,” Katharine mused. She ignored Laura’s inability to hold up her end of the conversation. “What am I going to get you to wear? You’d go swimming in my clothes.”