by Cox, Deborah
The heat in the tiny space increased. Anne fanned her burning face with her hand. She crossed her arms over her chest and ran her hands up and down her arms. What if he knew about the gold? The menace she'd glimpsed in his pale eyes last night on the street when he'd demanded to know what the dead man had said caused a tremor that ran down her spine.
She also remembered the shadow of pain she'd seen pass across those eyes. He was too dangerous, too complicated, too—too unpredictable. She didn't want to admit that he intrigued her nearly as much as he frightened her.
Was he following her? Maybe he was just traveling the same way. Why would he follow her...?
A million dollars. She wrote the number in her mind and counted the zeros: six. It would be heavy. She had a twenty-dollar gold piece in her reticule. It would take fifty thousand of them to make a million.
It didn't matter. She didn't care that a million dollars would allow her to live like a queen. Today she would be starting a new life with her aunt in Ubiquitous.
Then why did you lie? Why didn't you just tell him what the Mexican told you about the gold?
She couldn't answer her own question. Maybe when she was safe and sound in her aunt's house, if he was still around, if he was indeed following her, maybe then she'd tell him.
Leaning back against the seat, she tried to relax, tried to forget the man who sat across from her, his long legs practically wrapped around hers, his knees nearly touching her seat. She tried to think about Aunt Marguerite and the life that awaited her in Ubiquitous.
The image she had created of her aunt's house floated before her closed eyes, an image she'd carried with her all the way from Natchez. It would be cozy and full of nice furnishings and bric-a-brac, things her aunt would have picked out lovingly and chosen just the right place to display. Once she reached Ubiquitous, she would be living in the kind of place she had only glimpsed from outside.
What would it be like to sleep in the same bed every night, a bed that didn't roll and pitch with the river's current? She would eat off the same dishes every day, sit in the same parlor every evening, and wake up in the mornings without that disoriented feeling of not knowing exactly where she was.
A million dollars. No one could find it if they did not know already where it was.
Carefully she peeked at the gunfighter through slitted eyes. He'd pulled his hat down over his forehead. He was staring at her. The hairs on her arms stood on end and her mouth went dry. And she knew in her gut that he was following her.
* * * * *
Just before dusk, the stagecoach pulled up in front of the depot in Ubitiquous. Anne climbed down practically before it stopped rolling. She didn't know why Rafe Montalvo hadn't spoken to her during the excruciatingly long stagecoach ride, but she wasn't about to give him a chance now.
A little man with round wire-rimmed spectacles and thick, straight, nondescript hair peered back at her from the cool, dark interior of the stagecoach ticket office.
She glanced around to make sure Rafe Montalvo wasn't close enough to hear her before she asked, "Can you tell me how to get to Marguerite Tremaine's house?"
"Well, yes ma'am. Turn left two blocks up the street. It's a big white house on the right. But—"
She didn't wait to hear what else the man had to say. This was the last leg of her journey, and nothing was going to get between her and her goal. She grabbed her carpetbag, stepped onto the planked sidewalk, and headed up the street, limping slightly because of the blisters on her feet.
Again she glanced up and down the street, her skin prickling with the sensation of watchful eyes. But only a few people braved the heat on the streets. Her other traveling companions walked across the street toward the hotel, and Anne smiled. She would have no need of a hotel tonight. Maybe she would never have to stay in a hotel again.
There was no trace of Rafe Montalvo.
Anne breathed a sigh of relief. Soon this would be over. She would be safe. She would have no need of gold or adventure.
Now that she had arrived in Ubiquitous, the first thing she planned to do, once she was safely settled in her aunt's house, was buy a good pair of boots. In Natchez, there hadn't been time to purchase anything. She'd fled in the dark of night, fearful that Borden McKenna might make good on his threat and come to the apartment where she and her father had lived to get the money he claimed her father had cheated him out of.
In Texas, she'd found that the wartime shortage of supplies had driven prices sky high. She'd been reluctant to spend the money as long as the boots she had didn't have holes in them. It didn't matter. She was just a couple of blocks from her new life. She'd walk there barefoot if she had to.
Dusk darkened the sky just enough to see the flickering lamp lights within the windows of the houses that lined the street. The scent of cooking food from those houses filled her senses and set her stomach rumbling. She smiled, her step quickening. The desires to laugh and weep warred within her as she rounded the corner and looked up at the large two-story white house on the right. She couldn't have missed it if she'd tried. It was the only white house on the street.
Finally she'd come home!
Joy swelled in Anne's heart and clogged her throat. She walked toward the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the house. Inside that fence was everything she had ever longed for. Once she walked through the gate, her life would never be the same again. This was where she belonged, where she'd always belonged.
The sight of boards nailed to the front door stopped her in her tracks. She glanced around to make sure she hadn't overlooked another white house, but her initial assessment was correct. This was the only one on the entire street.
The gate creaked open under her hand, and she walked slowly toward the front door. As she drew closer, she could see that something had been tacked to the door. She stepped up onto the veranda, and the bold print leaped out at her.
PUBLIC NOTICE
ESTATE OF MRS. MARGUERITE TREMAINE
PROPERTY FOR SALE BY BANK OF UBIQUITOUS, TEXAS
She couldn’t focus on the words that floated before her blurred vision. Sweat broke out on her forehead, and she wiped it away with the back of her hand. It couldn't be. Estate of Mrs. Marguerite Tremaine? Aunt Marguerite was dead? She read it again, and stunned disbelief slowly gave way to rage. She'd come all this way for nothing. Nothing!
She beat her fist against the boards.
Slowly, she looked around at what her mind hadn't allowed her to see before: the chipped paint on the house's facade, the weeds that choked whatever flowers might once have bloomed in the small garden.
Across the street, a light burned in a curtained window. Would whoever lived inside that house know what had happened? When? And how? There were so many questions.
Wrapping her anger and sorrow in a blanket of determination, she stepped down from the veranda and strode toward the large brick building, halting uncertainly at the door. Behind her, her aunt's house sat in the midst of its ruined yard.
She knocked, tentatively at first, but when there was no answer she knocked again, more insistently this time. Torn between the need to stay and wait and the urge to turn and leave, she slowly backed away. She had nearly reached the edge of the stoop when the door swung open and a small fragile-looking woman stood peering at her.
"May I help you, young lady?" the woman asked.
"Mrs. Tremaine," was all Anne could say past the tears that clogged her throat. Her voice trembled and she took a deep, steadying breath, gazing away from the sympathy in the little woman's face.
"Are you related?"
"I—I'm her niece f-from Natchez."
"Oh, dear, won't you come inside?"
"No," Anne said, taking another step back. She didn't think she could bear to be inside that bright, cozy-looking home, to see the way other people lived and to know that it would forever be a dream for her. She couldn't bear this woman's pity. "I just need to know—"
"Who is it, Sarah?" A man came to stand behind the woma
n. His eyes were wide and kind-looking, his demeanor and appearance as comfortable as the house they lived in.
The woman placed a hand on the man's arm. "It's Maggie's niece, come all the way from Natchez." She directed her next words to Anne. "It's been two months since Maggie took sick—"
"Two months?" Two months ago, she'd been living in Natchez with her father, only vaguely aware that Ubiquitous, Texas, and Marguerite Tremaine even existed.
"Consumption. She died about ten days ago."
"She was dead before I sent the letter," Anne murmured.
"It must be a shock to you, dear," the woman said. "Won't you come inside and have some tea? Perhaps some dinner?"
"By all means," the man insisted. "Maggie was a dear friend."
She was already off the stoop and on the sidewalk, gasping for breath, struggling to make sense of it all. "Thank you anyway, but I have to—"
Her throat closed, and she couldn't finish. Turning away, she picked up her carpetbag and hurried back toward the stage depot.
Rounding a corner, she stopped and leaned against a pole for support. A sob escaped her control, and she clutched a fist to her chest. She would not cry. Crying did no good. It changed nothing. She was alone, more alone than she had ever been in her life, and she needed to decide what to do, not give in to tears.
The sky was darkening. She certainly couldn't stay here. She'd have to go back to the hotel she had scorned earlier.
It just cost money, something she had precious little of. Money for a bed. Money for food. She didn’t know if she could go another day without eating, and what did it matter? What was she going to do now?
She’d think of something, but not now. It took all her strength and resolve to straighten her spine, to turn away from her dream and head back to the hotel.
* * * * *
She didn't know what time it was when she finally gave up trying to sleep and got out of bed. Somewhere in the town, a rooster crowed, so it must be nearly dawn. Lighting a lamp beside the bed, she rubbed her face in an attempt to clear her head. Exhaustion and hopelessness lurked in the shadows, ready to swallow her if she allowed it.
She had to be strong. She'd always had to be strong.
With a weary sigh, she went to stand by the open window. What was she supposed to do now? The prospect of trying to make some kind of life for herself alone in this foreign place filled her with dread.
In all the world she had no one. Her mother's wealthy family in New Orleans had turned its back on them when her mother had married someone not of their choosing. Her father had no family. She had no one, nothing. Hopelessness and stark aloneness crushed her.
I could die and no one would care.
Swiping angrily at the tears that welled in her eyes, she knelt on the floor beside the bed, shoving her hand underneath the mattress, thinking about her father and reliving the night of his death over and over in her mind.
Until her father had been shot on the street in Natchez, she hadn't realized that blood had an odor or that death had an odor. Smelling it again just last night had brought back a flood of memories.
She closed her eyes tightly. Her mind played the "what if" game. What if Papa hadn't gone back out that night? What if he hadn't cheated at cards in order to win? What if Borden McKenna hadn't caught him? What if Borden McKenna had truly loved her?
As her hand closed around the object she had been groping for beneath the mattress, she tried to empty her mind. She pulled out the worn leather pouch and sat on the bed once again, stroking the bag's soft surface.
She'd made the running bag in Baton Rouge. So much had happened since then, she wasn't sure which of the fifty or so women who had taken refuge in the orphanage during the bombardment had come up with the idea. It didn't matter anymore. Whoever thought of it had made all of their lives easier. The next time they had to flee, their hands were free and their belongings hidden and secure inside their petticoats.
Even now, she could almost hear the cannon fire from the ships on the river that had sent her and the rest of the population fleeing through the streets in the middle of the night.
The running bag could be attached to hooks sewn inside the waistband of her skirt so that she could flee at a moment's notice without leaving behind her most prized possessions. At the same time, she could keep her hands free. It had worked well, and she had kept it, even after her father had sent Borden McKenna to Baton Rouge to find her and bring her to Natchez.
Opening the bag now, she spread its contents on the bed, trying not to think of the past. She had enough to worry about in the present.
She picked up a folded piece of paper, a letter from her father. He'd written it to her in Natchez while she was in Baton Rouge, but he had never gotten around to posting it. She'd only found it after the funeral. She couldn't bear to look at it. The pain of his death was too fresh still, so she stuffed it back inside the pouch and went on to the next item, a small bottle of perfume. Uncorking the bottle, she held it beneath her nose.
"Jasmine," Borden McKenna had said. "It suits you, Anne. Lovely, delicate, but strong."
A growl rumbled up from her throat. She might shed a tear now and then over her father's death, but she'd be damned if Borden McKenna would ever make her cry again. She placed the bottle on the bedside table and returned the rest of her possessions to the pouch, all except her money.
She'd been hoarding money and hiding it from her father all her life. If she had not, they surely would have starved to death. She had managed to save a small nest egg, most of which she had been forced to use in Baton Rouge to support herself and later in Natchez to support both of them. But she still had most of the silver and gold her father had won that last night. She'd left the folding money behind. Confederate money was hardly worth the paper it was printed on. Silver and gold, now that was a different story. Harder to carry, true, but silver and gold would always hold their value.
She knew how much money she had left. She'd counted it earlier in the evening after she ate a modest dinner in the hotel restaurant. Even so, she counted it again. "Thirty-six dollars," she said aloud when she'd finished counting, thirty-six dollars and whatever she had in her reticule. She'd started out with much more than that, but there had been so many men to bribe just to get across the border into Texas.
Thirty-six dollars wasn't going to last long, not when a stagecoach ride from San Antonio to Ubiquitous cost ten dollars. She didn't have nearly enough money to go back to New Orleans, even if she wanted to.
There weren't many things she could do to earn a living. She could sew, but she hated sewing almost as much as she hated being poor.
The only other skill she possessed was gambling, and she would only stoop that low once she exhausted all other options. But did she really have options? Or had she already exhausted them?
A million dollars in gold. The words of the Mexican haunted her. She'd tried all day to forget them. She'd told herself she didn't want the gold, she would be perfectly happy with a simple life with her mother's sister.
But that wasn't to be. Marguerite Tremaine was dead. And Anne had nothing. As always she would have to rely on herself. If she wanted that house, and she wanted it desperately, she would have to have money. In fact, if she wanted to live, she would have to have money.
It is hidden in a small church in the town of Concepción, near Chihuahua. Mexico. No one could find it if they did not know already where it was.
Where on earth was Concepción, Mexico? How far? How would she ever get there? Defeat settled heavy on her heart. She couldn't do this alone. The only person in Texas she knew by name was Rafe Montalvo, a professional killer. She could never ask him for help. Could she?
She blinked wearily. Her eyelids were heavy, and suddenly she wanted to sleep and not wake up for two days.
Her hand closed around the perfume bottle on the bedside table, and she carried it across the room to the open window. The sky had begun turning pink and soon the sun would be high overhead. If s
he allowed herself to fall asleep now, she wouldn't wake up until late afternoon, and she needed to be at the bank when it opened this morning.
Leaning out the window, she dropped the perfume bottle. It shattered on the wooden sidewalk below her window and she smiled with satisfaction. Why she had kept it for so long, she couldn't say, but it felt liberating to let it go. She made a silent vow then and there never to think of Borden McKenna again, never to look back, to keep her eyes fixed on the future.
She reached up to touch the locket that wasn't there, and the pain of loss twisted in her heart. It was the last thing her father had ever given her, that and the money spread on the bed before her now. She would go to the bank and try to turn that inheritance into a home. Perhaps her father could provide something for her in death that he never could have given her in life.
, * * * * *
The crack of a gunshot echoed across the empty desert.
Rafe sat Bolted upright with a gasp, suddenly wide awake. He was panting and covered with sweat. It took him a moment to get his bearings and remember where he was.
Texas, yes, Texas. Five years separated him from that hideous memory, five years and a thick wall of defenses.
"It was just a dream," he said aloud, as if they could protect him, as if they could wipe out the past and the pain that was every bit as strong today as it had been then.
He squeezed his eyes shut and ran a hand through his damp, tousled hair, then threw off the covers and got out of bed.
In the early morning darkness, he stumbled to the washstand across the room, poured water into the basin, then splashed it over his face and bare chest.
"Goddammit!" he said aloud, bracing himself with his hands on either side of the washstand, shivering in the aftermath of the dream. It was always like this afterward: the tremors, the nausea, the impotent fury.
The dream had haunted him for five years now, but lately it seemed to be visiting him more often than usual, as if his own mind were attacking him. It would give him no rest until he took the vengeance that had been his single reason to go on living and fighting, even in the darkest times when he would have almost welcomed death.