Deborah Camp (38 page)

“Take some advice, Cassie. Stay away from Boone. Don’t take the law into your own hands.”

Cassie smiled and shook her head stubbornly. “You try following that advice, Jewel, and see how little comfort it’ll bring you. If we had a sheriff worth his salt, we wouldn’t have to worry about justice being done.”

“Yes, I know.” Jewel sighed, then chuckled. “Clarence is a tub of lard with a holster strapped around him. The only thing he’s got going for him is his stupidity. He’s too dumb to shoot and too clever to draw first.”

Cassie shared Jewel’s laughter as she washed her hands and arms. Then she elaborated on the sheriff’s peccadillos as she breaded the fish and laid them in the skillet to fry. “And he stinks. Lordy, I never smelled a man who stunk so bad. Even Pa never smelled that foul.” She smiled to herself. “I like a man who keeps a clean body. Rook bathed every day. Sometimes twice a day. He always shaved every morning too. He took pride in himself.”

“That so?”

“Yes,” Cassie said, glancing around at Jewel.

“Well, when he visits me he doesn’t shave every day and he doesn’t pay that much attention to how he looks or smells. Sounds to me like he was trying to impress somebody or get somebody’s attention.” Jewel smiled slyly, and it made Cassie blush and whirl back to the stove. “You
don’t have to hide your feelings from me,” Jewel continued. “I love him too.”

“I won’t ever see him again,” Cassie said, more to herself than to Jewel. “No use talking about him.”

“Why won’t you see him again?”

“ ’Cause I’m out here and he’s—well, heaven knows where he is. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t take over his daddy’s gang now that Blackie’s gone.”

“Hogwash! There’s no Colton gang anymore. It died with Blackie.”

Hearing the catch in Jewel’s voice, Cassie turned around and went to her where she sat at the table. She placed an arm around Jewel’s shoulders, hugging Jewel against her side. Jewel turned her face into Cassie’s waist, hiding her grief and flowing tears.

“Jewel, Jewel,” Cassie crooned, bending down to plant a kiss on Jewel’s head. She felt pity for the woman, who couldn’t mourn her son’s passing openly. “Cry your mother’s tears. You’re entitled to that. You brought him into this world and it’s only right that you should grieve over his leaving it.”

“I—I know he was bad,” Jewel said as she sobbed against Cassie, “but I can remember how sweet he looked at my breast. Those big, dark eyes looking up at me, trusting me, loving me.” She sobbed again and wrapped her arms around Cassie’s waist. “I never wanted any of my children to die before me. It isn’t right.”

Cassie held the grieving mother tightly and rocked her back and forth like a baby.

It was an inky night, with only the palest glimmer of starlight to assure the world that God was in his heaven.

Cassie crouched behind some prickly bushes and concentrated on breathing rhythmically and evenly as she stalked her game. The mine opening was a mere six feet away from her hiding place, so it was imperative that she not make a sound or move a muscle if she was to glimpse her quarry without being seen herself.

Shorty had taught her how to hunt, shoot, and trap. By the time she’d entered her teens Cassie had surpassed Shorty in her skill with firearms and the whip. Shorty had been the better angler because he had possessed more patience than his energetic daughter, but Cassie had caught her fair share of catfish and carp. There’d been many a time that she and Shorty would have gone hungry if it hadn’t been for Cassie’s sure shooting or Shorty’s patient patience at a fishing hole.

However, Cassie couldn’t remember a time when stalking game had been more important than on this still solstice night. The crickets were performing a cacophonous symphony, to which a bullfrog added its deep-throated cadence. Straining to hear above the night sounds, Cassie could barely pick up the measured tap of an ax inside the mine. She wrapped her arms around her knees and wondered how much longer she’d have to wait. She guessed that she’d been sitting behind the bushes for nigh on an hour, and her muscles were beginning to cramp. Dampness began to seep into her joints as the night wore on.

She’d dressed carefully in dark colors and had hidden her pale hair under a black scarf. She’d smeared dirt on her face and hands for camouflage and had arrived at the mine on cat’s feet. Her quarry had arrived before her, leaving her no choice but to wait until he emerged again. Then she’d have her proof and could proceed with her plan.

The scrape of boots on loose rocks triggered her attention, and Cassie angled forward to peer expectantly through the brambly tangle of branches. She was rewarded with the sight of Boone’s face, clearly revealed as he lifted the oil lamp and blew out the flame. He fit his pickax in a loop on his saddle and then swung up onto the back of his horse.

Her suspicions were vindicated. The realization that Boone had played her for a fool had left her bitter and wary again, but she was regaining her self-confidence and composure. So far she had read Boone as if he were a verse she knew by heart. He wasn’t nearly as clever as he thought he was. Boone’s downfall, Cassie decided with an inner smugness, was that he’d underrated his mark. Boone saw Cassie as a backward, ill-bred idiot who had shut down her brain with the first endearments he uttered. Not so! She’d gone right on thinking even though Boone’s words had worked their way into her heart. She might be a little backward and ill bred but she was no idiot, and that was where Boone had tripped up. He didn’t know it yet, but the hunter had become the hunted. Cassie was hot on his trail.

When she could no longer hear the progress of horse and rider through the dense woods, Cassie unkinked her limbs and started for home. Slim welcomed her, yipping and leaping madly. He was so glad to see her and she was so glad to have positively identified her trespasser that Cassie let Slim spend the night inside the cabin. He slept beside Cassie’s bed, but the hound’s nearness wasn’t enough to dispel the suffocating loneliness Cassie had known every night since Rook had ridden away without even saying good-bye.

As had become her usual routine, she cried herself to sleep.

Rook’s heart swelled with love when he saw Peggy’s round, sweet face. She’d put on a few more pounds since
he’d seen her six months before. She stood an inch below five feet and seemed so tiny that Rook felt a surge of protectiveness toward her. It occurred to him that she was shaped just like Jewel. Would she look more and more like Jewel with every passing year?

A forest green bonnet covered her russet hair and matched her full-skirted dress. She wore brown kid gloves and carried a small silk purse. Her alert eyes darted from side to side until she spotted Rook coming toward her.

He hurried across the platform, laughing when she gave a little squeal of pleasure and reached out to him.

“Peggy,” he said, enfolding her in his embrace and lifting her off her feet. He pressed his face into her jasmine-scented hair before setting her down. “It’s good to see you again. Did Jack come with you?”

“No, he stayed to run the store. When did you get in?”

“Last night,” he told her. “I rode in from Fort Smith.”

She pulled back and her gaze swept him from head to toe, her green eyes missing nothing. “Where did you get those bruises and that cut on your lip?”

“It’s a long story,” he said, hedging and trying to distract her with a disarming smile.

Running a gloved hand up the front of his vest, her fingers rested momentarily against the stiff collar of his white shirt. “Oh, but don’t you look fine! I’m so very proud of my handsome, successful brother!” Her smile was as fleeting as the sun that darted behind a puff of cloud and threw shadows across the train-station platform. “We’re one brother short now, aren’t we?”

“I’m afraid so.” Rook picked up her tan leather valise and slipped his free hand into hers. Her fingers tightened around his as they had done when, only a slip of a girl herself, she had helped him cross busy streets. “The town’s attitude isn’t pretty. People are treating our tragedy like a carnival. They’re coming from miles around to look at Blackie’s body.”

Peggy clutched his hand, drawing on his calming strength. “Oh, dear. How dreadful! How is Mama Jewel taking it?”

“Badly. I’m glad you’re here. She needs you. She needs both of us beside her.”

“Yes, of course she does. The poor dear,” Peggy said, turning tear-filled eyes up to Rook. “No one knows he was her son?”

“No one except …” He started to tell her about Cassie but decided he felt sad enough without adding to it thoughts of the love he’d lost. “No one. I’ve claimed the body, but the sheriff won’t release it until tomorrow at noon. We’ll bury him shortly after that in a cemetery outside of town.” The irritation and contempt he felt for Sheriff Barnes was patently clear. “I tried to make arrangements for the burial today, but the sheriff is basking in his glory.”

Rook helped his sister up into the buggy, then sat beside her and flicked the reins. The horse trotted forward, setting the buggy to bouncing and rattling along the busy street.

“Some of Judge Parker’s men are coming, and the sheriff’s scheduled a town celebration of some sort in the morning. That’s why he won’t release the body to me until the afternoon.” They were approaching the sheriff’s office where Blackie Colton was laid out in a coffin that had been propped up against the outside wall. A crowd milled around it. “Don’t look, Peggy,” Rook warned. “It’s gruesome.”

Peggy turned her face away and lifted a lacy handkerchief to her lips. “How could they do that?” she asked, her voice muffled. “Do you think he was as bad as they made him out to be?” Her green gaze swiveled back to Rook.

Rook shrugged, hating to lie but reluctant to tell the truth. Peggy had never believed the stories about Blackie. Peggy thought there was goodness in all people. Rook knew better.

“Who knows? It doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” The sun came out from behind the cloud. The golden brightness brought out the freckles on her skin. “We loved him and that’s all that’s important.”

Rook nodded, but he couldn’t deny the relief he felt in knowing that Blackie Colton would no longer be a thorn in his side.

“We’ll go to Jewel’s first.”

“First?”

“Well, she wants us to stay at the Crescent. It isn’t right for us to stay in her house, seeing as how it’s a business place.”

“Oh, yes.” Peggy smoothed the gloves over her hands in a distracted gesture. “Of course, I wouldn’t mind staying at her house. I refuse to be ashamed of her.”

“Me too. But you know how she is about this.”

“Yes.” Peggy turned toward him and laid a hand on his coat sleeve. “Rook, let’s you and me try to talk her into retiring. I’d love it if she’d come live with me. And Uncle Hollis and Aunt Pearl would be most happy to have her! They’ve told me over and over again that Mama Jewel could have her own room in their big old house. You’ll help me talk her into it, won’t you?”

“I’ll try, but—”

“Oh, I know we can do it!” She smiled and faced front again. “It would be wonderful if we could be a real family, now that … well, now that …”

“Now that what?” Rook asked, thinking she meant to say “now that Blackie’s dead.”

Dimples appeared in her cheeks, and she peeked at him through her short, thick lashes. “Now that Mama Jewel’s going to be a grandmother.”

He was overjoyed at this news, and he turned to share a joyous smile with his sister. He tried to picture her as a mother but found it difficult, since he still had trouble seeing her as someone’s wife.

“You don’t say!” Rook laughed and planted a loud, wet kiss on Peggy’s rosy cheek. “I’m going to be an uncle?”

“Yes, come November. Around Thanksgiving, God willing. So you see? I want a real family for my baby, not just bits and pieces.”

“I understand.” Rook slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against his side. “We’ll talk to Jewel together, honey. I’m sure she’ll agree that it’s time to fold her tent and retire.”

Cassie held up the lamp and noted the places where
Boone’s ax had bitten into the mine walls. Did he think she was so dense she wouldn’t notice that someone had been messing around in there? She leaned against the back wall and looked at the curving tunnel that led to the outside. She’d reached a dead end without finding so much as a piece of quartz or any other kind of shiny stone.

She briefly considered enlarging the tunnel and going further into the mountain. Didn’t make sense to do that, she argued with herself. Whatever Shorty had found he’d found in this section. Her gaze slid down to the boarded-up section that led to a tunnel someone had started before Shorty discovered the mine. Memory sent her back to a wintry day over a year ago.

“What’s that?” she’d asked, pointing to the boards.

“That’s where somebody decided to start another tunnel,” Shorty had answered.

“Did you put those boards there?”

“Nope. They did, I reckon. I peeked through the cracks. Looks like a short tunnel that played out right quick.”

“We’re not going to mine that part too, are we?” she’d groaned, rolling her eyes in despair at the prospect.

“We’ll think on that when the time comes. We got enough to do in this main tunnel for now.” He’d glanced at the bleached boards and squinted thoughtfully. “The structure must be weak in there. That’s why they boarded it over, I reckon.”

“To keep people out so’s they wouldn’t get hurt?” Cassie had asked.

“To keep people out … yeah.”

Her mind back in the present, Cassie set the lamp down and bent forward to examine the crisscrossed boards. The two oil lamps illuminated the area around her, throwing yellow light on the brown walls of soil. She gripped the edge of one board and pulled. Wood screeched against rusty nails, held firm for a second, and then gave way. Cassie shone the lamp through the opening she’d just made but saw nothing different from the rest of the mine. She sat down wearily and leaned back against the rotting boards. Then she looked up, imagining she could see her pa’s silly grin.