Kissing Comfort (55 page)

He frowned slightly. “Is she touched?”

Bode leaned forward as if he meant to step in Comfort's direction. He was waved back immediately. “You know what the Rangers did to her, Crocker. Drugged her. Put her in a hole. Took her out to amuse themselves and sold tickets to amuse everyone. That was your idea whether you admit it or not. I know these Rangers better than you, and I know something about the way they do business. You're a stranger to the Barbary Coast. You should have let them do things their way. It wouldn't have been so obvious they were working for someone else.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. You should have talked to Bram. When he hired the Rangers to keep me from arriving at my own birthday party, he knew enough to leave the details to them. They like to stay in the Coast, and they do their best work at night.” He smiled without humor. “And they damn sure never used a lottery.”

Crocker said nothing for a long time. He stared at Bode with something like grim admiration for his adversary. “They couldn't control their own kind,” he said at last. “I was led to believe that was never a problem.”

“It isn't usually.”

“I suppose I asked too much of them. I told Bram I overstepped.” He glanced briefly at Comfort. She hadn't moved. She continued to regard him blankly. “They said they lost her in the brawl. I should have been there, but I stayed away on the off chance she would recognize me. Perhaps that was another error of judgment. Things might have gone differently if I'd been around. They were too rough with her, I gather. She has a delicate constitution.”

“Delicate,” Bode said. “Yes. She's certainly that.”

“I'll make sure that no harm comes to her,” Crocker said. “Provided you do as I've asked. I'm sympathetic to her condition, but it doesn't alter my terms. I need you to convince Jones and Prescott here that they have to withdraw their offer. I don't think they believe I'm serious.”

“We believe you,” Newt said. “Tell him, Tuck.”

“We believe you,” Tuck said dutifully. “We just think you need to consider if you're going about this the right way.”

“So it would be a kindness to kill her now, is that what you're saying?”

Comfort's skin prickled again as a chill slipped under her skin and burrowed like a weevil, deep into her marrow. Her attention was caught, but this time in a new way. It was no longer only the sound of his voice that scraped her nerves raw. What he said was important to her, not because he said it, but because she'd heard him say it before. She waited to see what her uncles would do.

Neither Newt nor Tuck said anything. They didn't shrug. They didn't move.

“That's why I thought,” said Crocker. He glanced at the tin in his palm, turning it over and over while everyone waited for him to speak.

Comfort waited, too. It would be important, what he said.

“You want me to leave her,” he said at last. He smiled derisively. “And leave her this.” He tossed the red-and-white tin at Comfort.

Twenty years ago she'd been unprepared to catch the thing he tossed in her direction like an afterthought. Back then it landed in the cradle of her dress, and she'd only had one clear image of it before darkness trapped her as much as the rocks. This time, though, she knew it was coming; knew it before he did, because her dreams had been a safe harbor for her memories after all.

She deftly plucked the tin out of the air with one hand. The robe slipped off her shoulders. She crouched as though to catch it, but the move was a feint, and before Crocker could register what she meant to do, she attacked.

Twisting her body around, she brought up her back leg in a high fold, her knee higher than her raised foot. She struck hard at his gun hand with the ball of her foot, snapping her leg back to keep him from grabbing it. The Colt flew out of his hand and thumped hard on the floor. He ducked and tried to reach it, but his fingers were numb from the blow, and he couldn't feel the gun when his fingers grazed it. He threw up his other hand to block another kick, one she delivered with the heel of her foot this time. It caught him on the shoulder, knocking him sideways. He recovered quickly and sprang up. He shook himself off and stepped over the gun so it was protected between his feet, out of easy reach for anyone trying to get it. It only occurred to him as Comfort tossed the tin sideways at Bode that no one was coming to her aid.

He held his ground when she danced closer to him, but when he drew back his fist, she struck him hard between his ribs with the heel of her hand. The blow drove the breath from his lungs and rocked him backward. He staggered, working his arms like windmills to regain his balance. A chair fell sideways. One of the end tables teetered.

He put up two fists and successfully blocked her next blow. She countered with the other hand and yelled something he didn't understand at the same time she struck him on the chin. His head snapped back so sharply that he thought she'd separated it from his spine. Dazed, he continued retreating. The gun lay in the open. He waited for her to stoop to get it, his hands fisted and raised again as he prepared to deliver a knockout, roundhouse punch that would render her senseless. She stepped over the Colt instead, so confident in what she could do to him now that she didn't even kick it out of the way.

That enraged him. He snarled at her. She came at him anyway, her dark eyes no longer vacant, but feral. There was no anger in her that he could see, only ferocity. She meant to kill him if she could.

Fury focused him, keeping the periphery of his vision dark. She was all he could see, and the need to make her cower, to make her fear him again, was all that was on his mind as he leapt at her. He telegraphed his intent a full second before he jumped.

Comfort heard the voices clearly, all of them faintly hoarse, urgent, all of them calling her name. Was there something she was supposed to do? It always seemed as if there was something she should do.

She pivoted sideways and met Crocker's leap with her elbow, jabbing it solidly into his ribs. His momentum still drove her down, and she had to bend under his weight or risk dislocating her collarbone. She vibrated with the force of his leap, absorbed the energy of it, and just when she thought he might take her down, she was able to twist her shoulder and roll him off her. He sprawled facedown on the floor, his chin rippling the carpet until he stopped his long skid forward. He flopped awkwardly for a moment, his body as ungainly as a fish out of water. When he was finally still, he also had the gun back in his hand.

Comfort was quick, but this time Bode was quicker. He hadn't counted Crocker out just because he was finally down. He stomped on Crocker's wrist with his heel and held it there even after Crocker's fingers unfolded around the gun. Comfort started to reach for it, but Bode shook his head. “Let Tucker get it,” he said. “You hold this.” Over Crocker's prone body, Bode passed her the red-and-white tin.

Comfort took it and brought it close to her chest. “He's the one, Bode.”

“The one?”

“The one who gave this to me.” She stepped back as Tucker dropped to his haunches and took the gun from Crocker. “Did you hear me, Uncle Tuck? He was there before you found me.” She looked past Bode to Newton. “He's the one who led the raid, the one responsible for the murders. He was supposed to be our guide, but he left us. And when he came back, there were more men. They answered to him. I heard them. I know they did.”

Newt nodded slowly. “Not hard for me to believe at all.”

“Well, how about that?” Tuck said.

Crocker turned his head. There was a carpet burn the size of a quarter on his chin. His voice was weak because he was still fighting for breath. “What's she saying?”

Bode ground his heel harder against Crocker's wrist. “Twenty years back,” he said. “A wagon train on the other side of the Sierra Nevada.”

Newt stood, drawing Crocker's attention, and pushed the desk four feet to the right to reveal the pair trussed in drapery cord like lambs for the slaughter. Their mouths were stuffed with the lacy antimacassars from the arms of the sofa, but making certain they couldn't talk was merely a precaution. They were unconscious, one with a bleeding scalp wound, the other with no visible injury. “Guess that ginger cat's good for something after all.” Newt made certain Crocker had a good look at his cavalry before he came to stand beside Tuck and took up where Bode left off. “I have to believe you recall a wagon train you attacked and plundered. Left everyone for dead or dying. Only our little girl survived.”

Tuck said, “You probably didn't expect that. Who could have?”

Comfort stared down at Crocker. “You told them to leave me,” she said on a thread of sound. “I was hiding in a shelter of rocks. You tossed your tin inside and told them to leave me.” She drew a shaky breath. “They replaced the rocks. I couldn't get out. You let them bury me alive, and you left.”

Bode held out a hand to her. Her fingers tightened on the tin before they relaxed, but then she freed one hand and put it in his. He smiled gently and brought her around, careful to keep her out of reach of Crocker's free hand, the one he wasn't crushing under his foot.

“Who'd have thought after so long that she'd know you?” asked Bode.

“She doesn't know me,” he growled. “She's dreaming if she thinks she knows me.”

Newt, Tuck, Bode, and Comfort all stared down at him. It was Comfort who finally broke the silence, the shadow of a rueful smile slowly changing the shape of her mouth.

“It's fitting,” she said softly, “that you should speak of dreams.”

Bode slipped an arm around Comfort's waist the moment he became aware that she was stirring in her sleep. He knew the difference between the lazy feline stretch that meant she was seeking his warmth and the first fitful movements that were the portent of a nightmare. He responded to either of these moments in nearly identical ways, drawing her close, cradling her bottom against his groin, rubbing his chin gently against her hair. He had learned that if it was warmth and ease that she wanted, he could safely close his eyes and drift back to sleep, but if it was a dream that prompted her restlessness, then it was better for both of them that he stayed awake.

He stayed awake, waiting. She stirred again and whimpered. Bode nudged her hair. She'd washed it this evening with soap infused with peppermint oil. His nostrils flared as he breathed in the cool, clean scent of her. He whispered her name; she quieted. Not trusting that the moment had passed, he stared beyond her head to the fireplace, where gold and orange flames crackled and occasionally an ember popped.

His gaze shifted to the dressing room door as it was nudged opened and Thistle emerged. The cat padded silently toward the bed, crouched, and leapt. Bode batted him away when he began a precise, delicate walk up Comfort's leg, but he allowed the cat to advance again when Thistle decided to test his balance on his own leg.

“Mind that you watch her elbow,” he whispered to the cat. “She'll knock you out.” He thought that Thistle seemed unconcerned. The cat kneaded the flesh of his upper thigh and buttock, circled the area twice, and finally curled on Bode's hip. “You're not long for that perch.”

Bode felt Comfort stiffen. That afforded him enough time to move his chin out of the way. The arm she had under her pillow went rigid, and she banged her knuckles hard against the headboard. The bed shuddered. Thistle stood, arched, and jumped over the arm Comfort flung backward, elbow sharp and high. Bode sat up, caught Comfort's arm, and watched the cat flee back to the dressing room.

“Coward,” he muttered under his breath. He released Comfort's arm, stroked her shoulder, and quietly said her name.

Her eyes fluttered open. She blinked once and then squinted against the firelight. Bode moved away and gave her room to turn over. When she did, he slid back under the covers and propped himself on an elbow, facing her.

She pressed an index finger against his chest. “Did you call me ‘coward'?”

“The cat.”

“Oh. He was in here?”

“Briefly. You scared him away.”

Comfort folded her finger back and lightly knuckled the underside of Bode's chin. “But not you.” She smiled. “I'm glad of that.”

He glanced at the carafe of water and glass on the bedside table. “Are you thirsty?”

She nodded. When Bode started to rise, she stopped him. “I can get it.” She pushed herself up into a sitting position, folded her legs tailor fashion, and poured water into the glass. She drained the first glass quickly but only sipped the second one. “It's been months since I dreamed about the raid on the wagon train. That's good, isn't it? I think it must be good.”

He smiled. “I'm sure it is.”

Comfort was visited by nightmares off and on for several weeks after Crocker had been laid out on the study carpet. Although Newt and Tuck made sure the Pinkerton man and his followers were escorted to the county jail before dawn broke, no one, least of all Comfort, held out any real hope that they wouldn't be freed. Bode visited the jail every day for almost three weeks to test the alertness of the guards and discover all the ways the jail was vulnerable to an attack. During that time, Newt and Tuck applied legal, political, and financial pressure to the city council to thwart similar influencing efforts out of Sacramento. The Pinkerton Agency insisted that Crocker was working within the scope of an investigation but would not offer any details to the newspapers.

Lack of information fed speculation for a time, but in the end the public grew weary of smoke without fire and turned their attention to a scandal involving a brothel owner named Maggie Drummond and her lawsuit against David Bancroft of Croft Federal. She alleged he failed to make payments on a line of credit that she'd extended to him over a period of eighteen months. He insisted he'd never frequented her establishment. While the city reveled in the classic she said/he said debate, Crocker and the pair who'd followed him remained behind bars, no longer the subject of gossip and rumor.