Lone Star 01 (3 page)

They hastened across the field to the cabin, and went inside; then, propping the door closed, they looked about the dim, musty interior. A crumbling fireplace was built against the far wall, the storm echoing mournfully down its tall chimney. The remnants of a wooden stool and bedframe were cluttering one corner, luckily under a portion of the remaining roof, and when Ki checked the broken pieces, he found them to be rotten and relatively dry.

Swiftly they scraped up the trash and old leaves that littered the floor, piling it all with the broken furniture in the fireplace hearth. Opening his slicker, Ki took from his suit jacket his waterproof box of block matches, and after a few tries, he managed to light a fire.

Satisfied, he stood for a moment with Jessica in front of the warming flames. Then he said, “I'll be back in a short while.”

“You're leaving? No, Ki, not without me—”

“Stay here, Jessie, and get dry. After that dunking you took, you'd risk catching pneumonia if you went out again.”

“And you couldn‘t, too? Ki, where are you going?”

Ki, already at the door, merely answered with a soft, knowing smile. Then, closing the door behind him, he stepped out into the cold, rain-lashing storm. The first task was done; now for the second.

He set off in a steady run back toward the river. It distressed him to leave Jessica filled with questions and doubts; but to have explained, he felt, would have resulted either in her refusing to let him go, or her insisting on coming along. It would have taken too long to persuade her otherwise, and time was of the essence. Alone, he could make better time. Indeed, if he'd been alone before, he wouldn't have left the river; only the priority of finding shelter for Jessica had compelled him to act as he had.

Arriving at the ruined bridge, he angled downriver, veering down the bank and sprinting along the water's edge to the rapids. The turbulent river was swirling against the rocks, spuming over the haphazard dam of debris that was trapped, higher and thicker than ever, like bits of food between the teeth of a giant. Without hesitating, Ki ripped off his slicker, suit jacket, and Wellington boots, and dove in.

The rampaging current carried him toward the nearer of the two channels that formed a fork on either side of the jutting boulders. Swimming furiously, he propelled himself toward the middle of the river, and a moment later he was flung violently against the choking mound of debris. The shock of his impact dislodged one of the dead Morgans, which squeezed between the rocks and was carried away.

Frigid hands clawing for a hold, Ki lifted himself out of the water and onto the rough, scrubby branches of a yellow pine. Balancing gingerly, testing for weight and shifting before each step, he carefully eased among the debris and rocks, poking deep and clearing away, searching to recover what might remain of theirs.

Time, precious time. If he'd been able to begin his hunt earlier, when the shattered wagon had first washed up against the rocks, he'd have had a better chance of finding things. If he'd waited much longer than he had, it would have been hopeless. Every minute, the raging tide was adding new debris, pushing forward what was there already, covering over the old and grinding it up, then prying it loose and sending it swirling away, lost forever.

He spent almost an hour in his search, digging with his hands and clinging precariously with his feet. His weapons were gone. Those made of wood, like his bows and arrows and
nunchaku
sticks, had undoubtedly floated away immediately. Those of metal, like his
sai
swords and studded mail gloves, simply had sunk to the bottom. And his explosive devices would be beyond use, even if he discovered any—which he didn't.

But with a sigh of relief, Ki managed to locate Jessica's bulky trunk. Its top was crushed and one side was stove in, and its Excelsior lock was snapped open and twisted awry. Its two hefty leather straps still held it closed, however, though tree roots were wedged between them and the lid, making it difficult to haul from the debris.

At the other end of the rapids, where the carcass of the second Morgan remained hooked to the harness, Ki discovered his own Bellows case. This took even greater effort to extract, caught as it was in the venturi of two boulders, and firmly held underwater by the leaden foreleg of the dead horse. Launching himself into the water, Ki prodded and shoved and wrenched, struggling to keep from being sucked through the geysering vortex between the boulders. For a seemingly endless time, the case refused to budge, only the fact that it was made of impervious “alligator keratol” saving it from breaking apart in Ki's levering tug-of-war with the rocks. Stubbornly Ki kept working, determined to reclaim the case, which not only contained a change of clothing, but his prized multipocket vest and an emergency assortment of smaller weapons—throwing daggers, spare
shuriken,
and the like.

At last he maneuvered his case free. Thrusting it and himself out of the water, he carried it across to where he'd upended Jessica's trunk to drain, at the edge of the debris closest to the bank. Then, taking a deep breath and an iron grip on the case, he slid back into the river and began an agonizing one-handed crawl toward the shore. He fought the current, counting each off-balance stroke in his mind, savoring each yard he gained. Grabbing at slick tufts of grass growing along the bank, he tossed the sodden case up onto the ground.

Again, hesitating only long enough to fill his lungs, Ki dove back to the rapids to retrieve the trunk. It was larger and heavier than his case, weighing him down like a wa terlogged anchor as he hugged it with his left hand and braced himself against the river's brutal rush.

The current pummeled him, tossing him into a dangerous tangent. Despite himself, despite his years of training and experience, a sensation of dread seeped through Ki as he forged again toward the bank. He'd made a mistake, a fatal error, tackling too great and awkward a load this time, and he was going to be swept away and drowned. He forced down his panic, calling on the last of his inner resources to strain forward, wrestling with the pitching, sinking trunk. He could not die this way, it would not happen, it was not a true thing.

God, but it was, it was. His chest was throbbing, aching, and there was a ringing in his ears, and for an instant he thought the feel of stone and sediment under his feet was a hallucination. Ki clawed onwards, knowing that if it was a mirage, it really didn't make any difference. It was all over but the swallowing.

Kicking, frantic to relieve the pressure in his lungs, he reached the shallows, head reeling and stomach knotting with convulsions. Water boiled against his thighs as he straightened, choking and gagging, and shoved the trunk the last few feet to the bank. Wading, he dragged it to the safety of a sloping ledge and slumped beside it. His strength was sapped. He lay there, momentarily helpless, while with wracking coughs he dispelled muddy river water from his lungs.

When he felt somewhat recovered, Ki carted the trunk up to where he'd dumped the case, and tilted both on end to drain them. Slowly he collected his jacket, slicker, and boots, and after dressing he waited a bit longer, recouping more of his flagging energy. Then, balancing the cumbersome trunk on his back, holding it steady with one hand, he picked up the case in his other hand and set off up the bank toward the trail.

Chapter 3

Ki's return to the cabin was steady but sluggish, the storm flailing about him. Gradually the wind lowered, and in time the rain lessened into a chilling drizzle. The overcast parted, drifting southward, but now the sky was dark with late evening. Stars began to glimmer here and there, and a pale quarter moon was a blurry crescent in the blue-black dome surrounding it.

Ki savored the washed freshness of the crisp evening breeze. He made little effort to avoid detection, walking openly along the center strip of the trail, bending low with the weight of his load, moving by sheer reflex. If he was attacked now, he doubted he had enough strength left to fight, and he was becoming so numbed with exhaustion that he was almost past the point of caring.

Eventually he reached the field, and saw smoke spiraling from the chimney of the cabin. Heartened, he quickened his pace. When he arrived, he put down his case long enough to open the door, then stepped inside.

The interior was bathed in a ruddy glow from the fireplace blaze. Jessica stood with her back to the fire, steam wisping from her tweed riding jacket and skirt, her blonde hair plastered wetly to her head. When she saw Ki enter, she rushed forward to help him, her green eyes widening with relief and surprise.

“Ki! How on earth did you—”

“Never mind how,” Ki gasped, dropping her trunk and the case next to the hearth. “It needed to be done, and it was.”

“No, it didn't. You said yourself everything was replaceable.”

“So I first thought. Then I remembered your father's book.”

Jessica paused, nodding thoughtfully. “You're right, Ki, I'd brought it along. But it was still a horrid chance for you to take, and I'm not sure it was worth the risk of losing you as well.”

“Ah, but you didn‘t, Jessie. I'm here, the book is here, and a lot of other things are here that we'd better get to drying.”

“And one of those things is you,” Jessica said pointedly. “I'll unpack, it's the least I can do, while you shuck some of those sopping wet clothes and rest by the fire. And, Ki?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

Ki smiled wearily in acknowledgement, and gladly accepted her suggestion. He stripped off his slicker, suit jacket, and black ankle-high boots again, adding to them now his socks, sky-blue shirt, and string tie, leaving himself clad only in his drenched trousers.

He settled comfortably, cross-legged, before the crackling fire, and started breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. When he'd slowed his inhalation/exhalation cycle to ten breaths a minute, he cupped his right ear with the palm of his left hand, and concentrated on one thought: relaxation. After five minutes, he switched to the other hand and ear. After another five, he crossed his arms and covered both ears, still breathing inaudibly, his tongue adhering to the roof of his mouth. And in that position he remained.

Meanwhile, Jessie was busily emptying his case. She laid out his denim jeans, collarless shirt, rope-soled cloth slippers, and brown leather vest near the hearth and wiped and cleaned his weapons with the hem of her skirt. Then she arranged the case so that it too would dry. Nothing, she was relieved to find, appeared ruined.

Then she turned to her trunk. Opening it, she realized bleakly that it was beyond salvation and would have to be replaced. Blessedly, it had stayed together enough to protect the contents. Most of her extra clothes were ruined, but her wide brown belt was fine, and there wasn't much damage that could be done to her well-worn jeans and matching denim jacket—except maybe to shrink some more, and they already fit her as snugly as a second skin.

Resting on the trunk's linen-lined set-up tray was her custom .38 Colt revolver, still in its waxed holster, along with a gun-cleaning kit, a cut-crystal perfume atomizer, and a few other feminine trinkets. These she set aside, lifting the tray's bottom, which acted as the lid of a second compartment underneath. She removed a letter and a black calfskin-bound pocket notebook, silently thanking Ki again for having endangered his life to recover them.

Taking the letter and book to the hearth, she propped them up to dry. Then, on second thought, she picked up the letter again to see if the soaking had made it illegible. The notebook worried her less; she knew its entries were in india ink, having frequently studied the pages of names, dates, and places since her father, the author of the notebook's contents, had died, leaving it in a hidden compartment of his old rolltop desk.

The letter was on a single sheet of tablet paper, and though some of its writing was smeared a little, it had been protected by the envelope. Postmarked six weeks ago at Eucher Butte, it had been penned with exquisite script in stilted, formal language: