Wilderness Double Edition 23, page 6
Uncomprehending, Zach glanced down and was as shocked as his escorts. His buckskin shirt was spattered with drops of dry blood. A much larger stain marked where Alain de Fortier’s shoulder had pressed against his midriff when he carried Alain to the hospital.
“That’s blood!” Lester declared.
Toby trained one of Zach’s own pistols on him and cocked it. “I suppose you have no idea how it got there, do you, ’breed?”
Struggling to stay calm, Zach answered, “Sure I do. From a deer I butchered yesterday. I have a tent pitched in the woods west of here, and I’ve been living off the land.” He added as if it were an afterthought, “I don’t have a lot of money, so I have to make do as best I can.”
“And you expect us to believe you?” Toby took a step back so more space was between them. “How stupid do you think we are?”
“Let’s not rush to judgment,” Lester said. “It could be just as he says.”
Toby swore. “You’re always so ready to give trash like this the benefit of the doubt. One of these days, you’ll get a blade in the back if you’re not careful.”
“All I’m saying is that his story could be true,” Lester defended himself. “Woodsmen like to have the stars over their heads at night, not a roof. My grandfather was that way.”
Zach gauged the distance to Toby and opted not to do anything for the moment. When ordered to go on, he hummed to himself to give the impression he did not have a care in the world.
The next side street was not as busy. There were not as many lights, either. A rider passed them going in the opposite direction. A woman in a tight dress bestowed a come-hither look from a recessed doorway.
“We should arrest her, too,” Toby growled.
“Hell, if it were up to you, half the population would be behind bars,” Lester observed. “You have to learn when to bend the law and when not to.”
“Don’t start on that again,” Toby said. “Granted, you have more experience than me. But I learn fast. And if I’m less willing to turn a blind eye to lawbreakers, it’s only because I want to make captain before you.”
Lester chuckled. “When I was your age, I was a fountain of vigor and vim, too. But age mellows a man, Tobias. He learns what is important and what isn’t. He learns when to get upset and when not to.”
“Oh no,” Toby said. “Another lecture.”
Zach was listening to the tramp of their shoes. Ahead, on the right, the dark mouth of an alley appeared.
“Scoff all you want,” Lester chided his partner, “but I’ve been wearing a badge longer than you have. It wouldn’t hurt to listen to me now and then.”
“I swear. There are times when you remind me of my father.”
Zach glanced over his shoulder. They were so busy bickering they had not noticed the alley. Toby had let the muzzle of the pistol drop, and Lester had not drawn his. Zach casually placed his hand on the hilt of his Bowie, then took it off again. He would not kill them. They were just doing their job.
“What’s wrong with that?” Lester was saying. “Josiah is a damn fine man. He asked me to look after you, didn’t he?”
“I don’t need coddling,” Toby spat. “I can take care of myself.”
“Never refuse a helping hand, boy,” Lester said. “I wish I’d had someone to take me under his wing when I was your age. I might not have made all the mistakes I did.”
Zach was abreast of the alley. Spinning, he darted into it, but he went only a few yards. Turning, he crouched and cast about for something he could use as a weapon, but there was only a stack of empty crates against one wall.
“Come back here!” Toby bellowed, and rushed in after him.
Levering upward, Zach punched him where it would hurt any man the worst. Uttering a strangled gurgle, Toby doubled over, dropping to his knees. Wresting the Hawken from his grasp, Zach pointed it at Lester, who had stopped in the alley mouth and was clawing at his side arm.
“Don’t try it,” Zach warned.
For a few moments it seemed Lester would draw anyway. His stout body as rigid as a plank, he hesitated.
“Please,” Zach said. “I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if you make me.”
“I wear this badge for a reason.”
“And I have a sister to save,” Zach said. “She’s been kidnapped. They were on the Astoria, and when I tried to get to her, the captain sicced his deckhands on me.”
Lester’s features were hard to read in the dark. “If what you’re saying is true, you should go to the law.”
“If I do, my sister will be killed.” Zach would have said more, but Toby was trying to rise with a pistol in each hand. He slammed the Hawken’s stock against the young policeman’s temple and, as Toby folded, covered his partner.
Lester had taken a step but stopped. “Hit him again and you’ll have to kill the both of us.”
“Do you believe me about my sister?” Zach asked.
A long minute elapsed before Lester responded. “My duty is to take you in. Every instinct I have tells me you’re telling the truth, though, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts. They’ve kept me alive this long.”
Toby was still conscious. “No!” he bleated, weakly groping for a weapon. “Shoot the bastard!”
Squatting, Zach reclaimed his flintlocks and tucked them under his wide leather belt. He also relieved Toby of his own pistol and tossed it behind some nearby crates. “What will it be?” he addressed Lester, who had not moved.
The older policeman shifted so his back was to the left wall and held his arms out from his sides. “I hope you find your sister. If you need help, look me up. Lester Hampton. Ask for me at any police station and they’ll track me down.”
Zach was at the alley mouth. “Thank you,” he said. “Tell your partner I’m sorry but I had to do it.”
Lester wasn’t looking at him. Lester was staring down at Toby, who had risen on his elbows. “Toby, no!” he cried, but it was too late. A clacking sound was wafted on the night wind. It would bring other police who might not be as obliging as Lester Hampton.
Zach ran to the next intersection and went left. At the junction after that, he turned right. People stared, but that couldn’t be helped. He had to put as much distance be^ hind him as he could. Intent on watching behind him for pursuit, he had no idea two policemen were in front of him until one shouted.
“Hold it right there! Hands in the air!”
They were fifty feet away, their pistols out and aimed. Zach dug in his heels, jerked his arms aloft, and whipped into the street, past an oncoming carriage. A pistol boomed and a horse whinnied in pain. Running flat out, Zach came to another intersection and turned north.
A hasty glance showed the carriage had stopped and one of the lead horses was down, thrashing in the traces. The driver was railing at the police, but they paid him no mind.
They were after Zach. He was to the end of the next block when the next shot rang out. Angling east, he heard more clacking. Police were converging from all points of the compass and would soon have a net thrown around the area.
Zach had to get out of sight. He would hide until they gave up, then resume his hunt for Evelyn.
A dark structure held promise. It was long and low, and over the front door hung a large sign that read in bold white letters: Smith Brothers, Imports and Exports Our Specialty. He sprinted around the corner and along the building until he came to a window. A sharp push confirmed it was locked. Drawing his Bowie, he was about to try and jimmy the window open when gruff shouts filled the street.
The police were almost on top of him.
Frantic for a spot to hide, Zach raced to the far end of the building. The alley ended at a wall. He had trapped himself. Turning like a wolf at bay, he raised the Hawken. “Down here! I think he went down here!”
Shadows flitted out near the street.
That was when Zach noticed the building adjacent to Smith Brothers. Windows were spaced every twenty feet or so, and the one nearest to him was ajar. The sill was only eight feet off the ground, so it was the work of an instant for Zach to take a running bound and leap up with his arms outstretched and hook his elbows over the edge. He almost dropped the Hawken. A swift kick and he was inside, rolling on his shoulder. He was in a small, black-as-pitch room. The vague outline of a door beckoned, but Zach turned. Footsteps were pounding down the alley. Quickly closing the window, he locked it and dropped flat.
Someone came to a stop outside. “Do you see him anywhere? I could have sworn I saw him duck in here.”
“I don’t see anyone,” another said. “Damn it, I hope we haven’t lost him.”
There was a scrape and a thump and a shape appeared at the window. A hand tried to open it. “Locked. I guess I was wrong. We’d better keep looking.”
Their footsteps retreated. Zach rose and sprang to the door. The hallway it opened into was narrow and musty. There was no rear exit, so he cautiously padded toward the front.
Zach was even with the next door down when he noticed a thin line of light around the edges. He thought he heard whispering. Anxious to avoid whoever was in there, he crept forward on the balls of his feet.
Suddenly, the door was flung wide open and the muzzle of a pistol was thrust out, inches from his face. “One move and you’re dead.”
Eight
What sort of mansion has bars in the windows? That was the question Evelyn King asked herself as she paced like a restless cougar in the confines of the bedroom where she had been placed.
Evelyn was scared. More scared than she had been since she was abducted. She did not like the man Palantine. She did not like how he looked at her. No one had ever looked at her the way he did. His glittering eyes devoured her as if she were a succulent piece of meat.
Then there was all the whispering that went on before the butler, James, brought her upstairs. Athena and Palantine had been saying things about her, she was sure. Athena would glance at her every so often and nod, as if agreeing with whatever their host was suggesting.
As she had twenty times already, Evelyn walked up to the window and wrapped her hands tight around two of the bars and strained with all her might. It was pointless. She was wasting herself. The bars were solid metal. Moving to the door, she put an ear to it but heard nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. The house was as quiet as the deep woods in the still hour before dawn when the meat-eaters had stopped roaring and snarling and howling and before the creatures that preferred the day came out of their burrows and dens and nests.
Evelyn tried to open it, but the door was the same as it had been the last ten times—locked. She balled a fist and went to punch it but stopped herself. If Athena Borke heard, she would think it amusing, and Evelyn refused to give her captor any measure of pleasure.
She wished she could get her hands on a gun or a knife. Her brother would smile to hear her say that. Zach had always said she was too kindhearted for her own good. He used to tease her that she would make a terrible Shoshone because if her village was ever raided, she would give the raiders milk and cookies instead of counting coup. She always replied that counting coup was for warriors, not women, and he always brought up that when a village was attacked, the women and children were expected to rally to its defense.
“The Shoshone way of life isn’t like the white way of life,” Zach once said. “All you think of are fancy dresses and a nice house and the theater.” He had bobbed his chin at their valley and the craggy snowcapped peaks that ringed it. “The real world is teeth and claws and bullets and blades. The sooner you admit that, the better off you’ll be.”
Evelyn had been upset with him, as was often the case. So what if the world she liked was not the world he liked. That did not make her world any less desirable. He seemed to blame her for wanting to live where people were not always out to kill one another, and where she could walk out her door without having to worry about running into a grizzly or a mountain lion or a rattlesnake.
In the wilds, that wasn’t possible. But in her father’s world, the civilized world of cities and towns, where the only animals that roamed free were dogs and cats and poultry and pigs, and killers were thrown into prison and left there until they rotted, a person could live without fear. A person could go her entire life without once being attacked by beasts or men who behaved like beasts.
Is that so bad? Evelyn had often wondered. Her answer was always a rousing, “No!” It was the kind of life she had yearned after for half her young life. To feel safe. To be safe.
A knock at the door intruded on her thoughts. The door opened and James stepped inside and bowed. “I beg your pardon, little miss, but my master and Miss Borke want me to escort you to the dining room.”
“And if I refuse to go?”
“I am to throw you over my shoulder and carry you. I would rather it not come to that, and I am sure you would, too.”
“Did they say what they wanted?” Evelyn asked.
“They did not tell me and I did not ask,” James responded. “Mr. Palantine is touchy about his private business. He does not like people to pry. Least of all his servants.” James moved aside and beckoned. “After you, little miss.”
Her head held high, Evelyn strode out. His hand fell on her shoulder. The hallway curved to a landing, and from there they descended a curved flight of stairs into a grand parlor. James ushered her across it and through a doorway and into a long room that contained a long table and chairs, and little more. The table was of highly polished wood. Mahogany, Evelyn believed it was called. Silverware and glasses had been set out for three people.
At the head of the table sat Palantine, sipping wine from a gold goblet. On his right was Athena Borke. Somewhere or other she had acquired a new black dress with frilly lace at the throat. Over against the wall stood Mateo and Carlos, awaiting her beck and call.
“Miss King!” their host happily exclaimed, and rose out of his chair. “What a delight to see you again. Please, take a seat. My dear friend Athena mentioned she was hungry, and I thought it proper to feed the two of you.”
“I don’t want any food,” Evelyn flatly informed him. It occurred to her that maybe Palantine was unaware of her plight, and she quickly said, “Your dear friend has kidnapped me. What I want is to be let go.”
Palantine fixed a stem stare on Athena. “Is this true? Have you taken this fair child against her will?”
At that they both laughed heartily.
Evelyn sensed there was more here than met her eyes. “You don’t care what she has done?”
“Not one bit, girl,” Palantine said. “You see, this isn’t the first time. Athena and I share a mutual business interest.”
“I don’t understand,” Evelyn admitted.
“Of course you don’t.” Palantine reached over and patted the empty chair on his left. “Sit down and all will soon be made clear.”
Evelyn would love to turn and bolt, but James was still behind her, his hand on her shoulder. She did as she had been bid and folded her hands in her lap. “Make it clear to me,” she said.
Palantine’s burning eyes focused on hers. “Before we go any further, let’s make one thing clear, shall we? You do not tell me what to do. Ever. I tell you what to do, and when I tell you, you had damn well better do it.”
“I don’t like you,” Evelyn said.
His big hand flicked out and caught her across the cheek with a loud smack. “The second thing for you to remember is to treat me with respect. No sass, ever, or you won’t like the consequences.”
Shocked, Evelyn touched her cheek and came close to tears. Being struck still shocked her. Neither her father nor her mother ever hit her when she was growing up. Shoshones did not believe in striking their children; they believed it did more harm than good.
Athena Borke, much to Evelyn’s surprise, stiffened and said angrily, “That will be enough of that, Edmund. Need I remind you the girl is under my care?”
Palantine’s thick lips quirked. “Grown a conscience, have you? Or is there something special about this one?”
“She is an instrument of revenge, nothing more,” Athena said. “But she is my instrument, and I will decide how she is to be treated.”
Evelyn repressed a shudder when Palantine gave her that hungry look again. She looked at her butter knife but restrained herself.
“So this one is to be spared? What a pity. She’s a pretty little snot. And you know how they like the innocent ones.”
“I never said she would be spared,” Athena responded. “In fact, you’ve given me an idea I’ve been mulling over since we arrived.”
“I have?” Palantine said, and tearing his gaze from Evelyn, he drained his wineglass. “How so?”
“My current object in life is to make her brother’s life as miserable as I can. It was to this end that I kidnapped her.” Athena smiled at Evelyn, who stared coldly back. “It has occurred to me that few things would tear him apart more than learning his sister had entered the trade.”
“What a marvelous idea!” Palantine exclaimed. “I always have admired your devious bent.”
Evelyn did not like the sound of that. “What trade are you talking about?” She imagined being put to work in one of those shops where girls toiled at making garments for twelve hours a day.
“She has no idea, does she?” Palantine said to Athena. “None whatsoever. She’s led a sheltered life up in the mountains. It would never even enter her head.”
“What wouldn’t?” Evelyn asked.
“Up in the mountains, you say?” Palatine fixed his wolfish gaze on Evelyn once more. “As fresh as a daisy, is that it? Why, I’m tempted to buy her myself. Most of these urchins are not nearly as innocent as they pretend to be.”
Evelyn was terribly confused, and admitted, “I don’t understand any of this. But whatever you have in mind, I won’t go along with it.”
“My dear child,” Palantine said, “if Athena decides to enter you into the trade, you won’t have any choice in the matter. You will be thrown into a locked room and customers will pay quite handsomely for an hour of your time.”
