Lake of Fire

by Linda Jacobs

  She snapped her fingers. “There’s a little ole gal, just about your size, who got here this afternoon. She’s staying next door in the vacant superintendent’s house with her brother.”

  When the door finally closed, Laura stripped off her filthy rags and lowered herself gingerly into the hot water.

  Her injured arm throbbed. Her flayed feet and the torn palms of her hands stung when the soap touched them. The burns on the back of her calves felt hot, and the red welts of insect bites itched wildly.

  As she began to soap herself, surrounded by the delicate aroma of roses, a wave of anger rolled over her. It wasn’t fair that she enjoy this luxury while Cord was imprisoned.

  Too late, she wished they’d made love in the cavern, but at the time, it had been impossible. Neither she nor Cord had been able to do more than mourn the life they’d imagined together.

  Since their capture, Cord hadn’t asked her to do anything to help him, probably fearing Feddors would thwart whatever he asked. But she believed he would want her to contact his father in Salt Lake City.

  Before she could rise from the tub, a knock sounded on the door.

  Streaming water onto the rag rug covering the plank floor, Laura reached for her towel. Wrapping herself hastily, she went to the door. Surely Captain Feddors would have more couth than to interrupt her while she was bathing.

  “Who is it?” she asked carefully.

  A female voice answered, sounding younger and more delicate than Katharine Stafford. “You needed something to wear?”

  Laura opened the door a scant inch and peered through.

  Alexandra Falls, her golden hair perfectly coiffed, stepped up to the doorway. She wore a white voile dress embroidered with tiny violets and carried the deep purple dress Laura had seen her wear at the Lake

  Hotel.

  Clutching her towel with one hand, Laura swung the door wider.

  Alexandra studied Laura with violet eyes. “They phoned the Lake Soldier Station yesterday that they had found Danny … Hank and I came at once.”

  “He’s not …”

  “Alive … barely.”

  Though Laura had wanted Danny to live because of Cord, she hadn’t realized how relieved she’d be to learn she hadn’t killed a man.

  Alexandra walked in and dumped her dress over the arm of a mohair divan decorated with lace doilies. “I came for Danny, but … I believe Hank came after you.”

  Laura’s heart sank. He was probably already in Captain Feddors’s office asking him to string Cord up.

  “He knows about you and Cord, but once he’s out of the way, Hank’s sure you’ll get over it.”

  The twilight filtering through the white window shade had a sudden nightmarish quality. Hank wanted Cord dead and he thought she would “get over it”?

  Alexandra turned her head and a small pendant swung free of the neckline of her dress. Hanging from a braided gold chain, a woman’s sharp white profile was drawn finely against black onyx.

  Laura almost gasped aloud. Yet, why should she be surprised? Danny Falls would have given Violet Fielding’s cameo to the little sister he loved.

  Like Cord with his obsidian, like the cameo had been to Laura before she lost it, Alexandra clearly viewed it as a charm that might save her favorite brother.

  Though she wanted to rip it off her neck, Laura decided to bide her time.

  Shutting Alexandra out of her room at the Stafford’s, Laura lit the lamp and dressed in haste.

  As she’d hoped, when she came out of the bedroom, lamp in hand, Alexandra was nowhere in sight. Thankfully, in front of the door sat a bottle of witch hazel to clean her wounded feet and hands, Epsom salts and a foot pan for soaking, and fresh linen for bandages. Beside the first-aid supplies sat a well-worn pair of black felt slippers that looked too wide but would work with her feet wrapped.

  When she once more left the bedroom, muted voices came from the kitchen, along with the aroma of meat, onions, and a warm smell of baking potatoes. The light from that room was stronger.

  Though Aunt Fanny had taught Laura a lady did not eavesdrop—what had she and Constance been doing in the Lake Hotel lobby?—Laura set the lamp on a walnut drop-leaf table and moved closer.

  “We brought in a man accused of arson and attempted murder.” John Stafford’s voice was low and controlled. “You wouldn’t notice, but apparently he’s of Nez Perce blood and Feddors has dredged up …” He paused. “Feddors shot at him to stop him getting away.”

  “If he were fleeing … ?” Katharine’s tone suggested he must be guilty. “The woman?”

  Laura waited for her to want her out of the house.

  After a moment of silence, broken by the sizzling of meat in a skillet, she heard Katharine. “She cares for him?”

  “From what I’ve seen, yes.”

  Laura stepped closer. In the light of a kerosene chandelier, Stafford took down a blue-and-white enameled cup from a shelf beside the polished black woodstove. He poured coffee from a matching pot set toward the stove’s rear.

  “You said he was accused …” Katharine dumped the beefsteak onto a white china platter.

  “Feddors thinks he’s guilty.”

  “You don’t.”

  Laura moved into the doorway. “Cord’s not guilty, Lieutenant,” she declared, looking up into Stafford’s intent gray eyes.

  “Call me John.” He pulled down another cup and filled it for her.

  She took the coffee. “I told you Danny bragged about trying to kill Edgar Young.”

  “But why?” John stirred in sugar from a china bowl decorated with pink roses. “He and Edgar were meeting together in the old cabin as though they had a common interest.”

  “They did. Having Cord buy the hotel out from under Hank was one more skirmish in the war between brothers.” She held the hot cup by the handle and blew on the liquid. “Only when Cord turned out to be ‘unqualified,’ it backfired. Danny went into a rage at Edgar’s apparent incompetence.”

  “Time for supper.” Katharine brought plates to the table along with a loaf of fresh-baked bread. John snagged the meat platter, while she opened the stove door and pulled ashy baked potatoes from the coals. He brought over knives and forks, and pulled cloth napkins from a drawer. Last, he got down a syrup pitcher, decorated with the roses that must be Katharine’s favorite, and filled it from a five-gallon wooden keg.

  Laura watched their well-rehearsed routine and imagined her and Cord preparing dinner.

  The three of them sat. John and Katharine bowed their heads while he said a rough but heartfelt prayer. Laura hadn’t prayed in a long time, but she sent up a silent entreaty for Cord.

  When the plates were passed and filled, she finally realized how hungry she was. After nearly three days without food, and only picking at camp beans last night and this morning, the succulent aromas invited her to attack the simple yet tasty fare.

  “More bread?” John asked, after a silent interval of everyone putting laden forks to their mouths.

  Laura swallowed a bite of the rich and yeasty loaf, soaked in syrup. “Do you suppose that Cord … ?”

  “I’m sure Feddors would love to starve him,” John said, “but prisoners always get an ample, if simple meal. If you like, I’ll stop by and make sure.”

  “Lieutenant …” Laura began carefully, “… John. It’s been my impression that many of the men don’t care for Captain Feddors.”

  His sun-roughened face took on a neutral expression. “A lot of soldiers despise their officers.”

  “Cord Sutton is a gentleman, and he owns a fine hotel in Salt Lake City.” Her words tumbled out. “Won’t you please help him?”

  The gray of his eyes changed to that of a winter sky. “I may deplore Feddors’s attitudes, but I must uphold the law. Mr. Sutton will face his accusers in a proper hearing.”

  Defeated on another front, she rose and took her plate to the drain board. “In addition to the rest of your hospitality, could I borrow a little money for Western Unio
n? I need to send a telegram to Cord’s family in Salt Lake City.”

  “Go over to the hotel,” John suggested. “If you try to do it from the superintendent’s office, I’m sure Feddors will make sure something happens to divert it.”

  The summer evening was cooling as Laura made her way across to the National Hotel. Stars already spangled night’s canopy, and she found it amazing to be in a place without electricity in 1900. Muted illumination barely spilled from the upstairs rooms. The porch lamps were gas, as were the lobby chandeliers, their glow soft and golden.

  Inside the lobby decorated with red, white, and blue bunting for the Fourth of July, Laura went to the desk. “Telegraph,” she requested.

  The receptionist pointed to a closed door next to the dining room. Though Laura went and tried the brass knob, it did not turn. She knocked impatiently, garnering curious glances from guests.

  Finally, the door swung open slowly. Laura felt sure that the young man wearing a rumpled shirt and suspenders had been asleep at his post. His curly red hair was ruffed up on one side, and his freckled cheek bore a crease from where he must have been lying on the desk.

  Laura pushed into the wardrobe-sized office. An enormous rolltop desk dominated the room. “I need to send a telegram to Salt Lake City.” She reached for the message pad and bent over the desk to write.

  Aaron Bryce

  Salt Lake City, Utah

  Army in Yellowstone has taken your son Cord into custody. He is falsely accused of attempted murder. Send telegram immediately Washington or wherever commander above this garrison resides. Most desperate urgency. Laura Fielding.

  “I can’t send this,” the young man protested.

  Laura looked at him in disbelief. Was everyone in town a pawn of Captain Feddors? “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Salt Lake is a big place. Without an address, there’s no way this could be delivered.”

  “Aaron Bryce is a wealthy man. The people at the telegraph office will know who he is,” Laura said with a confidence she did not feel.

  “I’m sorry, miss.” He looked nervous, as he had obviously read the message.

  “Look,” she said reasonably. “What do you care if I waste my money? Go ahead and send it.”

  Taking the paper, he bent dutifully over the key and tapped out her message. She watched restlessly, willing the wires to sing with her words. Surely, the Aaron Bryce who’d taken an orphaned child to his heart would be able to help him.

  She realized the operator was speaking. “You’re Laura Fielding, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s a telegram came about an hour ago,” he said, “addressed to you at the hotel. You weren’t registered …” He shrugged.

  Reaching into the cubbyhole labeled with the letter F above the desk, the operator handed over a thin envelope.

  She took it carefully, as if it would burn her. She’d never seen a telegram that brought good news.

  Deciding to read it in private, she turned slowly and walked out, passing between the barroom and the hotel office with its wide bay window fronting the porch.

  Taking a deep and measured breath, she slit open the telegram.

  By gaslight, she read: Arriving Mammoth tomorrow’s morning stage stop Leaving Lake at dawn stop Your father Constance Norman Hagen stop You will take afternoon train from Cinnabar to Chicago with us stop Army says you are well and that Cord is in custody stop Thank God Constance saw through him as she will marry Norman Hagen stop.

  Your loving aunt Fanny.

  Slowly, Laura stepped off the porch. She headed across to the darkened parade ground, clutching the wrinkled paper. The message might as well have come from Venus. With everything overturned in Laura’s life and now Constance’s, Fanny persisted in her straight-laced ways. She and her brother, Forrest, would clearly always be well suited to one another.

  Putting this reminder of the world she used to inhabit aside, Laura looked over at Fort Yellowstone. The windows of the big houses on Officers’ Row glowed with lamplight. Farther down, the stockade made a darker shadow beyond the Headquarters building.

  Imagining Cord behind barred windows, lying on a hard cot, if, indeed, he had a bed, brought fresh tears to her eyes. Having sent the telegram into the void, there must be something more she could do.

  She would go to the stockade if she thought there was any chance of Feddors letting her see Cord. Failing that, she hurried off the edge of the cleared area where the cavalry drilled. Her sore feet protesting, sage and scrub grabbing at her ankles, she crossed the road and approached the fort’s hospital, lying in a field beyond the neat layout of the rest of the fort.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  JULY 4

  Larry Nevers was alone at Edgar Young’s bedside in the Lake Infirmary when the injured man died. If he’d known time was so short, he’d have wakened Dr. Upshur, who had bedded down around midnight in a room at the rear.

  Near the end, Edgar’s eyelids had fluttered and he twisted in bed, grasping at the covers. “Uhhh.” Larry had moved closer. “Yes, Edgar?”

  “Daaaa …”

  “What’s that? Danny? Are you talking about Danny Falls?” Hour by hour, hoping Cord Sutton wasn’t guilty, Larry had waited for this. “Did Danny stab you?”

  Edgar appeared to panic. He managed another gasp. On the exhale, he seemed to grow smaller. His chest did not rise again.

  Larry shouted, “Dr. Upshur!” as the light of life in Edgar’s eyes burned out.

  His military boots clomping on the wood floors, Larry rushed into the hall.

  How silly to run for a doctor when the patient no longer needed his skills. In fact, there were no patients left since Forrest Fielding had been moved to the Absaroka Suite, in preparation for what would no doubt be a difficult journey home.

  Once the doctor was alerted, Larry was out the door. From the soldier station, he phoned the superintendent’s office at Fort Yellowstone.

  It took five rings. “Captain Feddors.”

  Larry had expected a private on night duty. “Sir, Sergeant Nevers at Lake. Edgar Young has died.”

  “Did he say what happened to him?”

  “No sir.”

  Feddors did not exactly chuckle, but made a noise that sounded over the humming wire as though attempted murder turned to the real thing gave him pleasure.

  As soon as he hung up, Larry called Norris and asked them to have a fresh horse waiting when he got there. Then he hurried to the stable.

  Danny Falls lay on a narrow metal cot in the Fort Yellowstone hospital.

  Laura pressed her palms against the rough plaster wall, holding herself up as she had been for hours. Alexandra occupied the only chair in the room, while Hank paced, pausing now and then to press his sister’s shoulder.

  After refusing Alexandra’s shrill request to leave and mind his own business, Manfred Resnick had cited his position with Pinkerton, as well as Danny’s near-certain guilt in the matter of the stagecoach attack, and stayed. He leaned against the wall, hands in his suit pockets, his one eye bearing its usual quiet watchfulness.

  Dr. Liam O’Malley, a grizzled man with white hair and ruddy cheeks covered with spider veins, shook his head. He held a flaring lamp to examine the darkened edges of Danny’s wound.

  “Thirty-seven years ago I marched off to Georgia, sewing the guts back inside men after Sherman spilled ‘em,” O’Malley mourned. “When will we stop finding ways of killing each other?”

  He looked over his shoulder toward the ceiling. “Live or die, it’s up to the Lord, as I’ve done all I can.”

  Laura looked from Hank to Danny, thinking how uncannily alike they looked in one heartbeat and how different in the next. Hair of exactly the same shade lay damp and stringy over Danny’s brow, where he sweated with pain. Hank’s hair had been slicked back with his inevitable pomade. Both men had the same rapier-thin bodies.

  Alexandra went to Danny, pressing her fingers to the pinkish froth at his lips as though she could push hi
s blood back inside. He heaved beneath her touch and worked his mouth.

  “Don’t talk,” she whispered.

  Laura looked to Hank. Much as he’d denied his brother, his eyes were tear bright, as well.

  “Tired,” Danny told Alexandra. He looked to Laura. “Tell what I done.”

  “No!” Alexandra said. “I don’t want to hear any of her lies.”

  Laura pushed off the wall. Reaching to the lavender neckline of Alexandra’s dress, she jerked forth the cameo. The delicate chain snapped, but she had her prized possession back in hand. “This belonged to my mother,” she declared. “I saw Danny rooting through my things at the stage. He took it and gave it to you.”

  “That’s impossible,” Alexandra continued her denial.

  Manfred Resnick came to Laura. “You sure this is the same piece?”

  She let him take it. “Look on the back. It says, ‘To Violet, upon the birth of our daughter Laura—Forrest.’”

  The Pinkerton man examined the jewelry. “Sure does say that.” He looked at Alexandra. “If Danny gave it to you, you must surely have known he didn’t come by it honestly.”

  “I thought it was an estate piece he’d bought for me.” Alexandra’s voice trembled.

  Hank stared at his sister. “When are you going to face the truth about your precious brother?”

  She was looking at Danny.

  The door opened to admit Captain Feddors. “Edgar Young has died,” he announced.

  “I …” Danny nodded again at Laura.

  “Danny killed him. I told you that.”

  Feddors reddened. “That true?” he asked gruffly.

  “Ye … yes,” Danny got out.

  Alexandra’s violet eyes went wide.

  Hank’s face flushed. “I was sure Cord tried to kill me.” His eyes sought his brother’s. “Who burned the steamboat?”

  “You said you would kill Danny if you saw me with him,” Alexandra wailed. Danny looked at her.

  “I asked,” Hank gritted angrily, “who burned the

  Alexandra?”

  Danny began to choke. Blood bubbled from the corner of his mouth.