The Captive Within (A Prairie Heritage, Book 4)

by Vikki Kestell

  He stared at her. She stared back. In his hands he held towels and a large basin. He walked toward her, and she retreated into her prison.

  Limping, he followed her into the room and set the things on the table. Then he locked the door from the inside. The key hung from a chain. He put the chain over his head and the dangling key inside his shirt. With some difficulty, he began to remove his trousers.

  Mei-Xing was terrified—until she noticed him grimacing in pain. Cautiously, she watched as he removed a soiled bandage from his upper thigh. Even from across the room she could see how inflamed the wound was.

  “I need your help,” he said for the third time.

  She slowly drew near. What she saw made her gag. The wound should have been stitched but had not been. It gaped open, six inches or so of it, across the muscle and around the back of the thigh, angry and festering.

  She, as well as the others at Palmer House, had read and reread the newspaper accounts of Morgan and Su-Chong’s escape and disappearance. Accounts of four men found in a car near Union Station, four men who had suffered violent deaths.

  He must have been cut during his escape.

  Eyes glazed but intent, Su-Chong stared at her. Something of the young man he had been, the boy she had known, glimmered for a brief moment.

  Finally Mei-Xing swallowed and whispered. “I will need needle and thread. Alcohol.”

  He nodded toward the basin. Mei-Xing, trembling, reached for it and found what she needed in it.

  Mei-Xing bowed her head as she remembered. That moment had changed things between them. She could not think on the weeks after that without shuddering in shame.

  Oh God! What have I done?

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 30

  (Journal Entry, January 14, 1910)

  We have received a note from Mr. O’Dell. He has taken rooms in Seattle and is now looking for Mei-Xing’s family. It has now been eight weeks since her disappearance. Oh, if only she had confided a little more in Breona or Joy. If only we had pressed her a bit to tell us of her past, her family!

  Emily tells me that Martha Palmer has taken Mei-Xing’s loss very badly. She does not go out or receive visitors. Lord, please comfort us by your Spirit. You promised to never leave us comfortless.

  —

  Yaochuan Min Liáng hung back to study the large house on the corner. He noted the distinct air of disrepair about the place, but also the visible efforts recently undertaken to improve it.

  The grounds showed evidence of sharply trimmed back shrubbery. The tall, wrought iron fence surrounding the grounds was newly painted. The house, of a magnificent design, was set far back from the street, sheltered by tall Ponderosa pines and shrubs that softened the look of neglect. Liáng turned resolutely and followed Flinty up the house’s walkway.

  Flinty nodded at a man standing on the front porch. The guard Flinty had told him of? Flinty removed a key and opened the locked front door. Liáng followed him into a large entryway and then through a set of closed doors on the right into the house’s great room.

  A slender woman, her ash blonde hair caught up in a braided knot at her neck was working at a desk in a corner of the room. She looked up and smiled when she saw Flinty.

  “My dear friend!” She left the desk to come and greet him. The woman, perhaps in her sixties, took his hands and gave him a soft kiss on his cheek. And then saw Liáng in the doorway behind him.

  Flinty nodded at Liáng. “Miss Rose, this here’s Mr. Liáng. Mr. Liáng, this here’s Mrs. Thoresen, what I tole ya ’bout.”

  Flinty’s eyes were alight with hope. “Met Mr. Liáng here up in Corinth, I did. Ya won’t b’lieve who he’s a-lookin’ fer.”

  Liáng stepped fully into the room and extended his hand to Rose. “Madam. I am Minister Yaochuan Min Liáng. My church is in Seattle.” He smiled, his manner placid. “I am honored to be pastor to Mr. and Mrs. Jinhai Li.”

  Rose gripped his hand. “Seattle! Mr. and Mrs. Li. Do they . . . have a daughter?”

  Liáng, still smiling softly, bowed in assent. “Yes, Mrs. Thoresen. Her name was Mei-Xing Li.”

  “Was? Her name was?” Rose’s eyes filled.

  “Ah! I am so clumsy and insensitive! Please, may we sit down?” Liáng apologized, compassion showing on his face.

  Rose was trembling as Liáng handed her into one of the great room chairs and took another near her. Flinty stood by Rose’s chair, waiting to hear Liáng tell his story again.

  “My dear lady,” he said gently, “Sadly, I used a wrong word. Mr. Flynn has told me that, until several weeks ago, Mei-Xing was living happily in this house. Is this so?”

  “Yes,” Rose replied. “Are we speaking of the same young woman? Just 16 years old? A tiny, beautiful girl?”

  Liáng sighed in relief. “I believe we must be. Please let me show you and tell you what I know.”

  At Rose’s anxious “Yes, please do,” Liáng removed a newspaper clipping from his coat’s breast pocket. He unfolded it and handed it to Rose.

  Rose took the clipping from his hand and stared into a grainy photo of her beloved Mei-Xing. The image, not recent, was of a child on the cusp of womanhood. Beside it was her obituary.

  “But, but I don’t understand,” Rose muttered. Her shocked face told Liáng what he needed to know.

  “So this is the Mei-Xing you know?” he had to ask.

  “Yes! Yes, it is her! Please tell me what this means!” Rose demanded.

  Minister Liáng bowed his head. “I can tell you. I didn’t believe it when it was told to me. Did not wish to believe it. I came here to prove it an unspeakably evil falsehood, but now I must face the truth.”

  “It is a story of two families,” he began.

  —

  Edmund O’Dell reread what he had scrawled the night before. He had written down every detail he could recall of the confrontation between Mei-Xing and Su-Chong on that infamous night in Corinth last year. And then he had fallen asleep with his face on the paper.

  He wiped the sleep from his eyes and read it again. They had hurled the words at each other while Su-Chong Chen held Rose Thoresen by the throat. Su-Chong threatened to end Rose’s life if the U.S. marshals and Pinkerton agents did not allow him and Dean Morgan to escape their custody. O’Dell could remember, could clearly hear, every word from that night being spoken and yet . . .

  He growled in frustration. Some piece of what they had said eluded him. And a blamed important piece, he remonstrated with himself. I need coffee. He heard a thump as something hit the bottom of his hotel door. O’Dell hoped it was his requested copy of the Seattle Daily Times.

  He retrieved the paper and began reading it from front to back. He reached the society section and studied the announcements and black and white photographs.

  Would Mei-Xing’s family have moved in these circles? It was obvious to those who knew her that she came from wealth and had been carefully educated and brought up. However, she was Chinese. Would Seattle society mingle with and acknowledge the Chinese elite?

  O’Dell finished the society pages and moved on. When he reached the obituaries he perused each one, looking in particular for Chinese names, finding some, but not the name Li or Chen. He finished and turned the page.

  And stopped. That “thing,” that forgotten tidbit, tugged at his memory again. He slowly turned back to the obituaries although his eyes were focused elsewhere, his mind on that night . . .

  They said you were dead.

  He sucked in his breath. Su-Chong Chen had said that!

  Mei-Xing’s voice floated in his memory. She hated me.

  Who? Who hated you, Mei-Xing? O’Dell ground his fists into his forehead trying to recall the elusive conversation.

  Nothing more came. O’Dell stepped out onto the room’s veranda. He could smell the tang of salt water from the nearby wharves. Could hear gulls circling overhead crying to each other.

  Placing a cigar to his lips, his mind raced to process the new tidbits of information his
incomplete memories had provided. He automatically lit the cigar’s end and sucked repeatedly it to make it draw.

  As sparse as those bits of memory might be, he could reasonably conclude two important facts from them. One . . . Mei-Xing was believed dead.

  He glanced inside his room at the crumpled newspaper. The obituaries. If she were believed dead then—

  O’Dell nodded to himself. He would visit the Times, search the obituaries, find those persons at the paper who could help him find what he looked for.

  And two . . . she hated me.

  Hated me. Someone hated Mei-Xing. Hated her enough to arrange her “death” and consign her instead to a life of living hell?

  O’Dell’s expression darkened and a hot fury sparked within him. He didn’t know how long he stood there lost in his dark thoughts. He only knew that when he shook himself into action and brought the forgotten cigar to his lips, it was broken, crushed within his clenched fist.

  ~~**~~

  Chapter 31

  Heat radiated from the red swelling of Su-Chong’s leg. He lay on his side on the edge of her bed. Mei-Xing had cleaned the infection from the wound as best she could, her stomach revolting as it drained its poisons.

  Although he flinched, Su-Chong had made no sound when she poured the alcohol over the wound. She caught the alcohol and what flowed from his leg in the basin then repeated the process until, finally, she could see the edges of the wound more clearly.

  Her hands trembled as she threaded the needle. She took a small dish, poured alcohol in it, and placed the threaded needle in the alcohol. As she stared at where she must pull the edges of the wound together, her whole body began to shake uncontrollably.

  “I can’t do it,” she whispered through chattering teeth.

  Su-Chong grasped her wrist. She tried to pull away, but he held her firmly.

  “Look at me,” he commanded.

  Unwillingly, Mei-Xing did. Su-Chong’s eyes may have been glassy with fever, but his voice was adamant.

  “You must do this, Mei-Xing. I have seen your embroidery and needlepoint, remember? You excel at needlework. Think of this as only simple mending. Nothing more.”

  He gripped her wrist so tightly that Mei-Xing gasped in pain. Still he held her wrist and his eyes commanded her compliance.

  Wild thoughts pummeled her mind as he stared at her. What if he dies? What if he dies outside this locked door? Who would know? How long would it be before anyone found him? Found me?

  His grip on her wrist did not lessen. Reluctantly, she realized, O God, please help me! I must do this.

  Finally she nodded and he released her. For a moment she wavered, unsteady on her feet. Then she gathered herself and pulled the needle and thread from the dish of alcohol. She knelt beside the bed and took a deep breath. And began.

  He stayed within her room that day, sleeping fitfully on her bed. In her heart Mei-Xing was glad. If he were to die in her room, at least she would be able to take the key and escape!

  However, after several hours of sleep he awakened and, although feverish and weak, forced himself to rise and leave, locking the door behind him. When he returned she saw he had stacked jars of water—enough for a week at least—on the floor just outside the door.

  He leaned heavily against the door frame and motioned to her. She brought the jars, two at a time, into the room. Then he left again.

  He returned a bit later and pointed to a tray on the floor piled with food: crackers, cheese, canned fruit and soups. She understood. She dragged the heavy tray into the room, but he left once more. This time he returned with a pillow and a stack of blankets.

  After locking the door and tucking the key within his shirt, he collapsed on her bed and fell into a restless sleep. As his fever increased, Mei-Xing huddled on the floor, watching, waiting, listening to his groans. Once he called for water and aspirin and Mei-Xing gave them to him.

  She had no real sense of time because the light was always on. When she grew hungry, she ate. When her eyes would stay open no longer, she made a bed on the floor and slept. When she awoke, she cleaned and re-bandaged his wound, watching their supplies carefully.

  Twice more he called for water and aspirin and she gave them to him. After what Mei-Xing guessed was three days, he began to improve. The fever broke and he sweated profusely.

  Mei-Xing bathed his face with a damp rag. The wound, although puckered and dreadful looking, drained clear fluids.

  He would live.

  On the fifth day he left the room, limping and unsteady. Mei-Xing looked about her. The room and bed linens stank. Only a bit of food and water remained.

  When she heard him return a few hours later, she was relieved. He had bathed and changed his clothes.

  He gestured to her. “Come out here.”

  Mei-Xing froze, unsure of his direction to her. He gestured again.

  “I have clean clothes for you, but you should bathe first.”

  He was right about that. Mei-Xing had not bathed in going on two weeks now. But he was asking her to leave the room? She was suddenly afraid.

  She walked slowly into the little sitting room she had glimpsed once before. A hip bath sat by the sink, filled with clean, hot water. Su-Chong’s rank-smelling clothes lay in a pile off to the side. Clean clothes for her lay stacked nearby.

  “I couldn’t carry the tub into your room and bring the water, too,” Su-Chong murmured. He was weak, Mei-Xing could see. He had lost more weight.

  He placed a cushioned chair against the door of the small apartment, the effort clearly taxing him. “This door is locked,” he said wearily. “No one else is in the building right now. I will sit here while you bathe.” He gestured weakly. “The door in the hallway. A commode.”

  He sank into the chair and she soon heard deep, regular breathing. He was asleep, his head resting on the back of the chair.

  The water in the bath steamed, and Mei-Xing tested it with her hand. With a glance to where Su-Chong slept, she quickly threw off her filthy clothes, tossing them into the same heap as his.

  She sank into the steaming water until it covered her completely. She had never felt a pleasure as exquisite.

  —

  O’Dell found the sprawling Seattle Daily Times building and asked to see the archives. After showing his Pinkerton credentials and receiving permission from the managing editor, a receptionist led him down damp stairs and a dimly lit hall to the vault.

  Casually, O’Dell asked, “If I were to need some assistance, perhaps from a long-time employee, whom would you recommend?”

  The receptionist, a too-blonde blonde with frizzed tresses, studied him for a minute, her hand on her hip. “Ya might try Hank,” she finally offered and started back the way they’d come.

  “Hank, huh?” O’Dell called after her. “Where do I find Hank?”

  “Here,” a voice spoke from behind him. O’Dell saw a middle-aged man wearing an ink-stained vest over his shirt.

  “Hank, I’m O’Dell. Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” O’Dell asked.

  Hank, as it turned out, managed the vault and archives. “I was a crack reporter until I broke m’ hip,” he explained. “Since I can’t chase stories anymore, they offered me this job down here.”

  Without giving too much away, he hoped, O’Dell told him what he was looking for.

  “Sure, I remember that girl. Quite a sad story,” Hank mused.

  “Can you help me find the obituary?” O’Dell hid his excitement, but it was difficult. Finally, he was catching a break!

  In addition to the obituary Hank found two issues that reported Mei-Xing’s disappearance and then the finding of a suicide note and the location where she was presumed to have jumped to her death.

  “Never found a body, though,” Hank told him. “The tides below the bluff she jumped from are pretty nasty. And they never could figure how she got there. Was pretty far from her home.”

  O’Dell scanned the details of the articles: Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jinhai Li. Su
icide note discovered. Believed drowned. Tragic romantic association.

  His eyes returned to the last sentences:

  Miss Li’s death by her own hand is said to be attributed to a tragic romantic association. According to close acquaintances who do not wish to be identified, Miss Li had been engaged to be married last year to Mr. Su-Chong Chen, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Wei Lin Chen, long-time family friends of the Li family. Miss Li had unexpectedly broken off the engagement resulting in strained relations between her family and that of her fiancé.

  Su-Chong Chen! He had found the connection at last. O’Dell quickly read the rest of the article and then carefully copied both of them word for word.

  —

  Mei-Xing roused herself from her reverie. She again studied the scratches representing her time in this place. She carefully added the first line of a new group. Her accounting would not be entirely accurate. She had lost track while Su-Chong battled his fever. But it was close enough.

  She pushed the bed against the wall. Sat down. Wrapped herself in the bed’s blanket.

  The room had no heat but what worked its way up from below. During the day her room was a little warmer; in the evenings she had to wear all the clothing Su-Chong had provided for her and wrap herself in blankets.

  Occasionally, when a winter storm was blasting Denver, Mei-Xing could hear its wailing through the thick walls and bricked over windows. Although Mei-Xing did not know where she was, she had the sense that this room was not on a ground floor.

  She walked across the room and back again, picking up the threads of her thoughts.

  It had taken several more days for Su-Chong to regain his strength. While he rested she washed their clothing and the linens, hanging them about the rooms wherever she could. She wore one of the too-large dresses he had left for her because she had nothing else. At least it was clean.

  She prepared canned foods she found in the tiny kitchen, worrying when she saw the stock diminishing. Then the flour ran out and they ate the last of the stale crackers in the cupboard.