A Wanted Man (23 page)

“I didn’t—” He was rarely caught so unprepared. “You were angry at me.”

“I
am
angry at you,” she corrected. “Very.” She moved forward to rest one foot on the bottom rail of the corral fence. “But this isn’t really about you anymore, is it?”

How could the woman still surprise him? She shouldn’t. And yet she did, with her strength and her honor and her quicksilver adaptability.

“Did you really think to leave me behind?” she said, a harsh edge to her voice that said she’d rather be shouting at him.

“It would simplify matters.” He would not apologize for what he’d said. He was merely being cautious and logical.

Of course she trusted her father; she loved the man. But there were many men in the world who were loving fathers but bastards in all other ways. “You’ll slow me down.”

“I’ll do a lot more than slow you down if you try and do this without me,” Laura said through gritted teeth. She understood Sam’s concerns, she truly did. But she also knew full well that the only person’s word who could stand against Haw Crocker’s was
hers
. She had to see for herself exactly what was going on at the mine before she did so.

For Jo Ling could have lied. She was an angry young woman. It was not, Laura had decided, an unlikely state of emotions for a woman in that profession. But for all Laura knew Haw might have thrown Jo Ling over for Lupe, and this was Jo Ling’s revenge.

No, she must be certain. Then she would find her way to the authorities, Sam’s objections be damned.

He said nothing, studying her with the unholy gleam of speculation in his eyes.

“Whatever you’re plotting, just stop it,” she said. “It’s going to take chloroform this time, too, to keep me home, and I don’t see any handy. And you’d better hope it knocks me out for the entire night, because the instant I wake up I’m coming after you. It’s not like I don’t know where you’re going.”

Finally, he nodded. Oh, how could she be so very outraged at him, justifiably so, and still be so drawn to him?

He did not trust her judgment. Did he really think that, if there was the slightest chance in the world that he was correct about her father, she would take the risk of contacting him? He should know her better than that.

And yet he was beautiful in the night, a dark prince, a dangerous predator preparing to go on the prowl. Her heart thrummed in her chest, that traitorous heart that betrayed her once, pumping strong and eager, the anticipation of what they were about to do threading with the excitement of
him
, the two emotions twined together so she could no longer separate them, and it tingled in her extremities, made her stomach flutter.

“We’re going to have to move fast,” he told her. “Can you ride something better than the nag?”

“Of course,” she said bravely, and hoped fervently it
was the truth. Well, she’d had practice lately, hadn’t she? She had to have improved.

“Astride?”

She hid her wince. “Why do you think I wore the bloomers?”

T
hey led their horses out of the compound, lifting into the saddles only when there was a low hill and a hundred yards between them and stray eyes and ears. The wan moonlight barely penetrated the night; if Laura got more than twenty feet away from Sam and his horse, she couldn’t see them, disorienting her completely, for she was a woman who depended upon her sight. She could hear them, though, the creak of saddle leather, the horse’s snuffle, the soft metallic click that told her Sam had just checked the loading of his pistol, sending a shiver of apprehension down her spine.

She wondered—but didn’t dare ask—how he planned to find the rails in the darkness. They could ride right by and never notice.

But she shouldn’t have doubted. They’d been riding no more than ten minutes when he swung his horse to the left and picked up his speed slightly.

“How’d you find it so easily?” she couldn’t help but ask, even though she’d promised herself she wouldn’t
talk to the man except when absolutely necessary.

“It’s not the first time I’ve had to find something in the dark,” he said before the silence, eerie and uneasy, descended again.

Riding astride was not as difficult as she expected. Her balance was better, once she found it, and Star, the neat little gelding they’d pressed into service as a packhorse on the way to the Silver Spur, seemed perfectly content to follow Harry, as if he was already accustomed to it.

Starlight dazzled her. The moon, which appeared as if it might wink out at any moment, offered no competition, and so the stars burned bright and hot. The brisk, cool air kept her sharp, wide-awake, conscious of the fact that she had come very far, in many ways, in the last two months.

The boom startled her, a rumble in the distance that vibrated the ground beneath them and caused Star to shy until she soothed him with a soft word and a quiet hand. “What’s that?” She squinted at the sky, clear and pure. “How can there be thunder? Behind the mountains?”

“They’re blasting at the mines.”

“Oh. Of course.” Her stomach tightened. She thought, with Sam beside her, she wouldn’t be worried. For all that she was furious at him otherwise, she trusted his judgment and his skills when it came to matters such as this.

Perhaps it was nothing, she consoled herself. They would get to the mines and find happy, well-paid workers and one crazy Chinaman compassionately locked away for his own good. Maybe they’d even find Sam’s friend, so busy working and making money he hadn’t had time to write.

That was the world she’d been born into, where peo
ple were kind, life was fair, and everyone got what they deserved. Her illness had stripped that comfortable illusion from her, and though her parents had tried valiantly to return it to her, she knew better now.

“How far away are we?” she asked.

“Not so close that we can’t turn back if you want to change your mind.”

“Oh, I’m so glad. Let’s turn around right now.”

He yanked his horse to a halt and swung around. “Are you serious?”

“No,” she said. “Pretty surprised you bought it, though, even for a second.”

“Yeah, well, even
I
am more ready to believe something when it’s what I want.” He nudged Harry back into a trot.

Is that what she’d done, she wondered? Believed that there was something there between them, something real and strong, because that’s what she wanted to believe? She understood that she had a romantic nature, and that because he looked like a hero, acted like a hero, she might have placed him in that role because she so wanted him there, ignoring any evidence to the contrary.

It was something to ponder. She was certain she’d have plenty of lonely evenings to do so when this was all over.

“A half an hour?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe more. I can’t judge from the sound. When we start seeing lights, though, it’s time to slow down.”

But a smell reached them next, drifting over a low ridge. Coal fires, wood fires, the rank odor of rotting refuse. And, oddly, a strong, stinging stench that reminded her of garlic.

And then the sound: a low rumble, too distant and
soft to pick out any individual sound, like muted heartbeats. But it grew stronger, the various lines untwining. Laura could detect a pounding, the groans of machinery and the steady chatter of loaded wagons rolling over rough ground.

Light rose above the ridge, a blare of low orange against the midnight blue sky, muting the stars’ dazzle. They must have dozens of lanterns mounted around the mine camp to throw up that harsh glow.

Sam slowed his mount to a walk. The hoofbeats were certainly too soft to be heard above the clamor in camp—if this was what it sounded like in the dead of the night, imagine the din during the day—but Laura winced all the same. And so she was relieved when, at the base of the rise, he dismounted and motioned for her to do the same.

They let the reins trail on the ground; both of the horses were well enough trained to stay ground-tied. They crept up the long slope while Laura’s heart thundered painfully in her chest, the rhythm echoed by the pounding she suspected came from the stamp mill.

“Get down,” Sam said, as they approached the top. She did as he asked, crawling on her hands and knees, pebbles biting into her palms, until they lay flat on their bellies on top of the rise, peering through the screen of a dead bush.

The mining camp sprawled below them, a swarming infection of humans overwhelming the narrow valley.

It looked like another world from the ranch. The buildings were raw wood and unrelentingly ugly. Empty barrels and discarded machinery rusted in spare corners. Three railcars sat on the tracks, awaiting their load.

Lanterns on poles studded the camp, casting harsh
light on bare ground that was unsoftened by a single shred of living green. Tents spread out from the cluster of buildings, hundreds of them, dirty, sagging, no more substantial than if they’d been fashioned of old sheets.

“They can’t live in those,” Laura whispered, “all winter long. It must get cold up here.”

“More than cold. And living’s probably pushing it.”

Maybe, when this was all over, the authorities would make Crocker live in one of those all winter long. It seemed an appropriate punishment. “Obviously they work shifts around the clock.”

People swarmed below, waves of workers in loose dark clothes and long braids, streaming toward a large structure that clung to the side of the low mountain.

“Must be the entrance to the mine there,” Sam said. “We’re just in time for shift change.”

“Sure have plenty of guards, don’t they?” Laura was surprised that her voice was so even; her stomach shimmied like soft jelly. The guards were easy to pick out; they wore broad hats and strutted among the workers, showing off the rifles they carried. “It looks like a prison…” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she’d said. “Oh, Sam, I’m sorry.”

“Didn’t take your words to remind me,” he told her. His were dark with devastation. “This place did. Even the posture of the workers…you can see the defeat from here.”

“And were you defeated?” she whispered.

“Hell, yeah. They don’t allow anything else,” he said, his voice scoured clean of any emotion.

“How did you survive, then?”

The clamor from camp swelled into the night, filling the valley with harsh and painful sounds. Finally, he said, “Damned if I know.”

“How can they need so many guards?”

“Lot of silver in there.”

“And a lot of people who don’t want to be working there,” she said.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed. “Even if a mine’s losing half its ore to high-grading, they don’t need that many guards.”

“So you’ve no doubt that Jo Ling’s telling the truth?”

“Enough of the truth to decide what to do from here based on what she told us,” he said. He rolled to one hip. She’d seen him intent before, what she thought of as his hunting mode. It was nothing like this, though. Fury burned in his eyes, his mouth was hard and harsh, an avenging angel, as if he were restraining himself from running down that hill and taking out every single guard himself by only the thinnest thread. And anyone who saw him now would have believed him capable of doing so. She had no doubt that what Mr. Hoxie once claimed to be the truth was so: Men had only to see him coming to surrender.

“Come on,” he said, gripping her upper arm to assist her. “Let’s get you out of here.”

“What? Now? We’ve barely—”

“Move it, Laura.”

They were so close to the truth. His friend could be down there—working, voluntarily or forced. And he was planning to hustle her off to safety before he did anything about it.

“Sam, it’s okay. I won’t follow you, I promise. I won’t try to talk you into taking me along. I’ll stay right here, or by the horses. You can slip down there—look for Griff, hunt for records. Whatever you think best.” If they missed their opportunity, and it was her fault because she’d insisted upon coming along, she would never forgive herself. “We’re already here. I’ll hide un
der that damn bush and not move a muscle if that’s what’s safest.”

“You were right, Laura. There must be three dozen guards down there, maybe more. I’m good, but I’m not that good. There’s nothing I can do right now. We need authorities, lots of them. The army, probably. We’ve seen enough to go to them. And if they won’t believe me over Haw Crocker, they’ll believe you.”

His eyes, level, probing, met hers. “Can you do it, Laura? Even if you find out your father’s known all along?”

“He didn’t.”

“I know you believe that, Laura, but I have to know that you can stand on this.”

If she didn’t say yes, God only knew what he might do in the name of finding evidence. “If he had anything to do with this, he’s not the father I loved, anyway.”

What did he see in her eyes? She met his gaze steadily, willing him to see the truth, to understand her determination to see it through and make it right. Apparently he found what he was looking for because he nodded.

“All right then. Let’s go.”

They crept down the side of the hill, as slowly as they’d made their way up, guilt dogging Laura every step of the way. If she hadn’t insisted upon coming along…

She didn’t see the hole, but her left foot found it. “Ouch!” she cried out, an automatic outburst.

“Gotcha.” Sam’s hand was there so quickly it was as if he’d anticipated her stumble, a firm support beneath her elbow. “You okay?”

“Let’s find out.” She put a smidgen of weight on her ankle, then a bit more. “I think it’ll hold. I didn’t mean to shout like that, though.”

“It’s okay. I’ll gag you next time we go on a clandestine foray, so you won’t have to worry about it.”

“You keep threatening to tie me up. I’m going to start thinking you’re all talk, no action.”

He dropped her elbow, turning again toward the horses. “I—shit.”

“What?” Her gaze followed his. “Shit.”

“Well, what do we have here?” There was the cold, mean click of a hammer being cocked, the sound clear and chilling above the muted din from camp. Jonce stood no more than twenty feet to their left, just upslope. He had another man with him whom Laura couldn’t recall ever seeing, a swarthy fellow with a nasty scowl. This one held a rifle like the rest of the guards down in the mining camp, hip high and angled their way. “Lookee here, Carver. All that yammerin’ about how we’re not supposed to be tipping one back on duty, forcing us to slip outta camp to ease the boredom, and here we find something so interestin’. They should be grateful that we was so thirsty, eh?”

She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the guns, as deadly fascinated as a moth heading for the light. And then, blessedly, her stunned brain began to function again.

“Oh, thank
God
you found me,” she said brightly, rushing toward them. “I had this absolute
need
to see the landscape at night, you see, to paint it properly, and then we were lost, and oh my goodness, we just followed the sound, thinking we’d find people, but then there were all those—” Her lips curled. “Those
men
, and—”

“For God’s sake.” Sam shoved her behind him, shielding her from the guns with his broad frame as if
he were immune to the bullets. “Don’t you ever run toward a gun again, or I’ll shoot you myself.”

“It could have worked.”

“No, it couldn’t have.”

“You didn’t give it a chance, and—”

“Shut up,” Jonce snarled at them. “You think we’re brainless saps like Collis? You’re not going to distract us by bickering.”

“You hear that, Laura?” Sam twisted around to look at her as he scolded. But his eyes flicked meaningfully toward the horses. She nodded in understanding. “No use in trying to distract them.”

“That’s too bad.” She inched out from behind Sam, sliding downhill. But the men knew their business and kept the guns on Sam, for what threat could she be? They would not be duped into splitting their attention by a silly fribble of a girl. “I’m very good at distraction,” she purred.

“So,” Sam said conversationally. “You gonna shoot us here, call for help, or haul us back to Crocker?”

“Oh, we’ll take you back to Crocker,” Jonce informed him. “You, you’re no problem, we could pop you right now and save us the trouble. But I’m not makin’ a decision on Miss Hamilton, there, myself.”

“Well, we should get to the horses, then.” Sam took a step toward them and Jonce jerked in reflex, the barrel of his pistol lifting an inch before he brought it back into line. “Easy, there, Jonce. Kinda jumpy, huh?”

“I’m thinking you two best be walkin’.”

“Walking? It’ll take us all night to get back, and Miss Hamilton’s not likely to make it. You do know she has a fragile heart, right? If she drops over on the way there—well, can I be the one to tell Crocker you drove
Baron Hamilton’s daughter to her death?”

Jonce and Carver exchanged quick, worried glances. “You’re in charge, Jonce,” Carver said.

“Oh, yeah,
I’m
in charge when it gets sticky, right?” He sighed. “Guess we’ll have to go back into camp and snag a couple of horses before we head back to the ranch.”