Wilderness Double Edition 22, page 18
“I’ve been meaning to ask. How much younger is this sister of yours?”
“Nine years,” Zach said. Despite the age difference he had always felt close to Evelyn, although when he was younger their constant bickering often made him wish he had a brother instead. Evelyn had always loved to tease him, and to get him into trouble with their parents. His ears still burned whenever he thought of all the times she had tattled on him for doing something of which his folks did not approve.
“That much?” Annie said. “Why, you were nearly full grown when she was still in swaddling diapers.”
“Nine is hardly full grown,” Zach said. Although he was willing to concede their age difference had added to their many silly misunderstandings.
“When I was nine I was living on the streets and fending for myself,” Annie revealed. “I had to learn mighty quick to grow up. It’s a wonder I’ve turned out as pure at heart as I have.”
Zach was tempted to mention that he did not think a woman who sold her body could be all that pure, but just then they passed the big side-wheeler and he stopped short in dumbfounded disbelief.
“There’s no boat here.” Annie stated the obvious, nodding at the empty berth. “Are you sure you have the right spot?”
“Of course I’m sure!” Zach snapped. But he wasn’t mad at her. He was mad that fate had thwarted him yet again. He turned to the side-wheeler and hurried to the foot of a gangplank where a variety of goods were being loaded. Half a dozen crewmen regarded him with expressions ranging from amusement to hostility.
“What can we do for you, chief?” one asked at his approach.
“The Betsy Lee.” Zach said. “Can you tell me how long ago she left? And when she might be back?”
“Why should we?” demanded a crusty river hand with a belly as large as an ale keg.
Another smirked and said, “We’ll tell you all you want for a twenty-dollar gold piece.”
At that, several laughed. Zach’s temper heated, and he was on the verge of drawing his bowie and demanding answers when Apple Annie let go of his arm and pointed at the crewman laughing the loudest. “You’re not being very sociable, Jack Webber. Not nearly as sociable as you were the other night when you paid to play around under my skirts.”
Webber reddened like a tomato when his friends directed their mirth at him. “You shouldn’t bring that up, woman.”
“Why not? You certainly enjoyed yourself,” Annie said. “Or do you always grunt like a stuck boar in mixed company?”
“You have nerve,” Webber said.
Annie sauntered up to him and poked him in the chest. “Why should I be nice to you when you won’t be nice to my friend? His sister has been kidnapped, you big oaf, and all he wants is to find her.”
“No lie?” Webber responded, and at her emphatic nod, he said to Zach, “Captain Massey took his boat out yesterday morning bound for Fort Union on the upper Missouri. He won’t be back for a month of Sundays.”
Crestfallen, Zach turned away. Massey had been his best hope of finding Athena Borke, and thus his sister. “Wait a minute,” another man said. “This sister of yours, does she look a bit like you? Part Indian, I mean, with long dark hair? In the company of a woman about twenty-five to thirty?”
Forgetting himself, Zach ran up and gripped the man’s arms. “That might have been them, yes!”
“The only reason I remember is because of the woman,” the crewman said. “She could take your breath away, she was so good-looking.” He nudged the one with the large belly. “You remember her, Spike. We were unloading a shipment when the Betsy Lee put in and her passengers came off. Your eyes about bugged out of your head.”
“Oh, her!” the other man exclaimed, and grinned a lecherous grin. “Dang, she made a man drool just to look at her.”
Annie put her hands on her hips. “And I don’t, I suppose?”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am,” the first crewman said. “Sure, you’re pretty enough, but this lady was downright gorgeous. Why, the way she walked, it took a fella’s breath away. She’s the kind of woman that makes a man glad he’s a man, if you catch my drift.”
“I’d like to catch your head in a vise and squeeze,” Annie said. “Or some other part of you lower down.”
Zach had no time for her silliness. “Tell me,” he said to the pair who had seen Athena Borke and Evelyn, “did you happen to notice which way they went when they left?”
“I can go you one better, chief,” Spike said. “They got into a carriage from The Harvest House. You know, the carriage the hotel sends to pick up passengers who have taken rooms in advance.”
“Then that clerk lied to me.” On Zach’s first day in New Orleans, he had spent twelve hours going to every hotel in the city, asking if anyone answering to Athena Borke’s description had checked in. The desk clerk at The Harvest House had assured him she wasn’t staying there. But now that he thought about it, The Harvest House was one of the two or three most elegant hotels, if not the most, and Athena Borke always liked to stay at the best places her more than considerable wealth could afford.
“Hope that helps you,” Spike said. “I’ve got me a sister back in Indiana and I’d hate for anything to happen to her.”
Zach thanked them and headed for the heart of the city. “I can go it alone from here.”
“There you go again,” Annie said. “Friends through thick and thin, remember?” She whistled happily as they strode along. “Besides, I helped you out back there. If not for me they wouldn’t have given you the time of day.”
“This woman I’m after,” Zach made sure to mention, “is as dangerous as a riled bobcat. She’s had six people murdered that I know of, and I wouldn’t put it past her to do the same to us.”
“You’re talking to a girl who has had a knife held to her throat by a mad drunk. Who had a wife take shots at her because the husband liked to spend his hours with me instead of at home. A girl who has lived by her wits for so long, it’s second nature. This Borke doesn’t scare me.”
“She should. Your wits won’t stop a bullet.”
“I can take care of myself,” Annie said confidently. “If this Borke gal doesn’t turn your sis over, I’ll scratch out her eyes and box her ears until she does.”
It was something his wife might say, Zach mused, and without meaning to, he patted Annie’s arm.
“I’ve been wanting to ask,” Apple Annie said. “Where are you staying? If you don’t have a place, I’d be more than happy to put you up for as long as you’d like.”
Zach would rather not reveal the truth. Namely, that he couldn’t afford a long stay at a hotel or to rent an apartment, so he had staked a claim to a thicket in a strip of woods in the heart of the city. Mothers brought their children there to play in the sun and romantic couples walked hand in hand along the well-trodden paths but no one ever went too near the thorny thickets. His rifle, pistols, ammo pouch and possibles bag were wrapped in a cheap blanket and covered by leaves. Safe enough, he believed, until he needed them.
Annie misconstrued his silence. “No answer, huh? That’s all right. I get it. You have the ball and chain to think of.”
“She would like you,” Zach said. Louisa liked nearly everyone.
“Really?” Annie smiled and smoothed her dress. “Not many women do. It’s how I make ends meet that sours them. Not the apple selling, the other.”
Zach looked at her. “Among some Indian tribes, when a stranger stays the night, if they like the stranger they offer him the company of a woman for the night. Only for the one night, and he is not to take her with him when he goes. But they do not think less of the woman for it.”
Annie looked away and her voice became husky. “That was awful kind of you.”
“I am not white. I do not see things the way whites do. I am more Shoshone and proud to be so.”
“I wish I were part of a tribe. I wish I lived in a village where they didn’t look down their noses at me. I wish so many things.”
They covered ten blocks in silence. Around them pulsed the lifeblood of the city –waves of pedestrians ebbing to and fro, riders and wagons and carriages rattling and creaking in a tireless testament to human energy, and everywhere the babble of conversation punctuated by laughter and lusty oaths.
From a corner two blocks away, Zach gazed at The Harvest House. It had been painted purple from the ground to the roof. Purple carriages were drawn up in front, each with “The Harvest House” emblazoned in large gold letters on the side.
“How do you aim to go about this?” Annie inquired. “We can’t go from room to room demanding everyone open up. I hear they don’t let anyone in who doesn’t meet their standards.”
Before Zach could respond, a doorman in a purple uniform opened a purple-and-gold entrance door and into the afternoon sun walked a shapely woman dressed all in black, her face hidden by a veil that hung from her wide black hat. But it was not the sight of the woman that sent a lightning bolt searing through Zach’s chest. It was the downcast girl beside her. “That’s Evelyn!’’
Six
It had been more than a month since Zach King started his desperate search for his sister. More than a month of repeated setbacks, of continual frustration. More than a month of constant, gnawing heartache. Of sleepless nights. Of terrible guilt.
Zach never mentioned it to anyone, but he felt in large measure to blame for his sister’s plight. He was the one who’d led the raid on the trading post; he was the one who’d slit Phineas Borke’s throat. He was the one Athena Borke hated, and she had taken Evelyn to get back at him, to make him suffer as she had suffered.
Now, setting eyes on Evelyn after so long, Zach’s joy and relief were boundless. In his excitement and eagerness to reach her, he dashed into the street without looking. He heard a man yell and glimpsed a wagon bearing down on him, the heavy hooves of the four-horse team pounding the ground like sledgehammers. In his haste he had blundered directly into its path.
Suddenly hands were on the back of his shirt and Apple Annie jerked him to safety with mere seconds to spare. They watched the wagon rumble past, the driver heaping obscenities on Zach’s head, and she remarked, “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Zach didn’t give it a second thought. All he cared about was Evelyn, and rescuing her from Athena Borke’s devious clutches. Rising on his toes to see past the traffic, he looked toward the hotel and saw them already in a purple carriage. “No!” he cried, and broke from Annie’s grasp to bolt madly toward The Harvest House.
The press of pedestrians hampered him. There were so many they clogged the street, and try as he might, Zach couldn’t thread through them fast enough. Frantic, he shouldered aside one sluggard after another, but there were always more. He was still a block from the hotel when the carriage disappeared around a corner.
“Evelyn!” Zach hollered, but she could not hear him above the city’s din. His last sight was of her gazing glumly out the window, the portrait of despair. “Evelyn! No!” he groaned, and sagged, racked by sorrow deeper than any he had ever known.
A shadow blotted out the sun. “Are you going to stand there feeling sorry for yourself or are you going to go after her?” Apple Annie pointed.
Nearby was a cab, the driver nibbling on a sweetcake while waiting for fares. Zach sprang to the rear door and quickly climbed in, then offered his arm to Annie.
“Where will it be, sir?” the driver asked, bending to speak through one of the small front windows.
“Catch up to the Harvest House carriage that just pulled out,” Zach directed. “Hurry, before we lose them.”
“You want me to chase it, sir?” The driver was dubious. “Need I remind you drivers can be fined for reckless driving?”
“There’s five dollars in it for you,” Zach offered the last of his pittance.
“That much?” The driver flicked his whip. “I’ll see what I can do, sir, but I make no promises.”
Zach leaned out. The cab had to slow for pedestrians crossing in front of it, and when they reached the corner, the Harvest House carriage was nowhere in sight. A swarm of butterflies filled his stomach and he smacked the door and shouted, “Faster! We can’t lose them!”
At the next corner Zach looked both ways but did not spot it. The driver went on to the next, and then the one after that, and on down the thoroughfare until they had gone half a mile without a splash of purple anywhere.
“Do we keep looking, sir?” the driver asked when it was apparent they were chasing thin air.
“Yes” was on the tip of Zach’s tongue. He would be damned if he would give up after coming so close.
Annie had a cooler head. “You know, they’re bound to return to The Harvest House eventually. It might be smart to be there waiting when they do.”
Her idea had merit. ‘The Harvest House,” Zach told the driver, and slid to the edge of the seat, his body as taut as a bowstring, unable to relax even if he’d wanted to. “When we get there you can go back to your place.”
“Not that silliness again,” Annie said. “Whether you realize it or not, you need my help, and whether you want it or not, you have it.”
“Did you see her?” Zach asked. “She looked so sad.” It tore him apart inside to think of all Evelyn had been through. All on account of him.
“She’s alive, isn’t she?” Annie said. “That’s what counts.” She touched his hand. “Don’t worry. By tonight the two of you will be reunited and the Borke woman will be behind bars.”
The comment gave Zach a start. He had not told Annie what he planned to do. Athena Borke would not get off that easy. Jail was too good for her. She deserved nothing less than to breathe her last gasp with his knife in her heart.
“What’s the matter? You do intend to turn her over to the law, don’t you?” Annie asked. When Zach said nothing, she sat back, her eyes widening. “You wouldn’t? You couldn't!”
“I have killed before,” Zach said.
“But a woman? Maybe I could see it if she was pointing at gun at you and you had no choice. But this would be outright murder.”
Zach sought to put things in perspective. “On the frontier, people kill other people all the time. White men kill red men. Red men kill white men and other red men. Certain tribes are always at war against other tribes. It is the way of things.”
“But a woman?” Annie said.
“When a village is raided, the women defend it as fiercely as the men, and often many die. When the men go on raids, sometimes the women go along, and sometimes they die.”
“That’s war. It’s different. For you to walk up to Athena Borke and blow her brains out is as coldblooded as can be.” Annie paused. “I don’t think I would like you as much if you did that.”
Zach tried a different argument. “She has brought great suffering to my family. Would you have me forgive and forget, as the ministers teach?”
“Why not?” Annie defensively demanded. “What’s wrong with turning the other cheek?”
Zach had a story to tell. “When the first missionary came to a rendezvous ten or eleven winters ago, he asked all the Shoshones and Flatheads to gather around. Through an interpreter he talked to them about the white man’s religion. He told them all men are brothers and should love one another. He told them that when an enemy walked up to a warrior and slapped him on the cheek, the warrior should turn the other cheek for it to be slapped, as well. I was there. I heard every word. When he was done, the Shoshones and the Flatheads did not say a thing and the missionary went off into his tent.”
“What’s your point?”
“I’m getting to that. They talked it over around their campfires that night, and they pretty much agreed that while the missionary meant well, he was the dumbest man they ever met.”
“The parson was only quoting from Scripture. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ It’s the Golden Rule.”
“The white Golden Rule,” Zach amended. “But whites do not have Bloods and Piegans raiding their villages. Whites do not have Sioux counting coup on them. If all Shoshones lived as that missionary wanted, there wouldn’t be any Shoshones.”
“So you’re saying that you don’t view killing the way whites view killing?”
Zach nodded.
“But you’re part white—”
Zach did not let her finish. “I am also half Shoshone, and long ago I decided to live by the ways of my mother’s people and not the ways of my father’s. I do not turn the other cheek. I do not extend my hand in friendship to all men and call them my brothers. I do unto others, as you put it, before they do unto me. And once someone has harmed those I care for, I make damn sure they never do it again.”
The cab clattered to a stop and the driver leaned down. “We’re at the hotel, sir, as you requested.”
Fishing out his poke, Zach paid the fare, then made for the golden doors to The Harvest House. They opened, disgorging a doorman in a purple uniform and a purple hat.
“Might I help you, sir?”
“No.” Zach tried to go on by, but the doorman shifted. “You’re in my way. I’d like to go inside.”
“I’m afraid you can’t enter the hotel without the permission of the owner, whose instructions in this regard are quite specific. Your kind are not permitted over the threshold.”
“My kind?” Zach said, stung by the insult. “This hotel is open to the public, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is,” the doorman admitted, “but to a select segment of the public that does not include anyone who is half and half … if you will.”
Zach almost hit him. He only refrained because Annie clasped his wrist and stepped between them.
“You can’t blame my friend for being upset,” she told the doorman. “You would be too if you were him.”
“It’s not my decision, miss,” the doorman said. “I’m only doing what my employer, Mr. Harold Wilkerson, pays me to do. No blacks, no Indians, no half-castes. It’s a rule of his.”
