The Wildflowers at the Edge of the World

by Shaylin Gandhi

  Sophia brought her own revolvers up, aiming between Gray’s eyes. “Hurt them and you die.”

  He issued a mild shrug. “Fair to middling, I’d say.”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “Death threats should bear a bit of artistry, don’t you think? I’d certainly expect my kitten to concoct something a bit more…vicious.”

  She narrowed her eyes. Was he stalling?

  His gaze slid past her shoulder. “As it happens, though, you’ll have endless hours to invent something more suitable, for next time.”

  Sophia turned.

  Henry clutched Temperance in meaty hands, a bowie knife pressed to her throat. Sweat beaded his brow. Where his finger had been, only a white tuft of gristle remained. His blood blackened the bodice of Temperance’s green dress.

  Hot white rage poured in, an incendiary flood. Sophia’s forefingers crooked, bringing the triggers to the brink of engagement.

  “That would be unwise, kitten. Killing me would only ensure a particularly messy death for your friends.”

  Frustration leapt from her in a single gnarled cry. Trembling, she lowered the guns.

  “Splendid.” Tucking the Remington back into his boot, he retrieved his cane, then shouldered the shotgun and mounted the stairs. “I’ll let myself up. I trust nobody shall move?”

  Nobody did.

  Standing still wasn’t difficult—the sheer weight of Sophia’s anger tethered her to the floor. Her entire body hummed, each heartbeat launching fury to a new height. The sight of Henry’s blade immobilized her, too—a glittering silver line against the elegance of Temperance’s throat.

  From the chaotic sea of red, a single clear question arose.

  How can I dislike a woman who stands that straight with a knife to her neck?

  Then she reminded herself that they were only in this mess because of Temperance’s hesitation, and the question drifted away.

  Upstairs, the crash of breaking glass mingled with the rumble of overturned furniture. The whole house trembled.

  Eventually, Reverend Gray strolled back downstairs. His expression revealed nothing. “Do you know where the diary is?”

  “No,” Temperance said.

  He considered that. Leaning in, he plucked the paper from her hand. “And what are you clutching to so desperately?”

  Sophia quivered against the urge to move. She knew exactly what that folded parchment was.

  Temperance’s eternal patience finally cracked. With a cry, she snatched at Madam’s will, but stilled when Henry’s knife drew a few glistening red drops. Still, she didn’t wince, didn’t make a sound.

  A wave of respect surged through Sophia. Grinding her fingernails into her palms, she forced herself into stillness.

  Gray unfolded the paper and scanned a few lines. “More intriguing than I’d imagined. Did Irene gift you anything else? Any other precious bequests?”

  A single tear streaked down Temperance’s cheek. “May the Lord strike you down where you stand.”

  He laughed, lifting his arms. “I’ll hold still, if He sees fit to try. But, while we wait, I’d strongly advise you to answer the question.”

  “She gave me nothing.”

  He held up the paper. “Save for the entirety of the Scarlet Blossom.”

  “Give it back.”

  “Oh, on my honor, I shall.”

  Sophia’s stomach capsized like a sinking ship. On my honor. She’d heard that before.

  Surprise never stirred, not as Gray peeled Irene’s will into strips, then the strips into bits. The paper drifted like so much snow in his hands as he tossed Temperance the pieces. Scraps flurried, sticking to the blood on her dress. The rest dissolved into the tea puddle on the floor.

  “I’ll return in one week. Deliver the journal then, and we’ll conclude this ugly business.”

  Temperance’s voice turned to stone. “I can’t deliver something I don’t have.”

  “Then deliver five thousand dollars, instead. That shouldn’t be too strenuous a task for ladies so deeply devoted to their work.”

  Sophia nearly choked on her fury. “Five thousand dollars? That’s impossible.”

  Gray gazed back mildly. “Indeed. Make it ten, then. Every single week, until the journal rests in my hands. Consider your contributions tithes to the church.”

  “And if we don’t?” Temperance said.

  Gray shrugged. “This place will be mine someday. But, until then, a brothel might burn to the ground in any number of ways. All this wood, I’m afraid. Such a terrible threat to the safety of my precious doves.”

  Silence.

  The Reverend sketched a bow. “My deepest thanks for a lovely visit. I do so look forward to our next.” He moved off. Nobody stirred—except for Riley, who leapt off the bar and streaked toward Gray, growling.

  Turning, the Reverend brought down his cane with vicious force.

  Time stretched, became elastic. A hundred thoughts flickered through Sophia’s mind, a thousand considerations, as she weighed the value of a man’s life and pronounced judgment, all in the span of one eternal second.

  She raised the Colt and pulled the trigger.

  BOOM.

  The Reverend’s cane burst in a shower of wooden shrapnel. Riley veered away, unharmed, wedging himself under the settee.

  Gray froze, staring. He still clutched the gold lion’s head, but the cane’s shaft ended in splinters an inch from his fingers.

  “You won’t hurt anyone in this house,” Sophia said. “That includes the dog.”

  An indescribable transformation passed over his features. His blue eyes deepened, widening to luminous pools.

  She stepped back, suddenly adrift. He’d shown his true face after Irene had fallen—except now a veil seemed to lift, revealing an awestruck boy with eyes as bright as new coins.

  “You missed,” he said, strangely. “But I’ll allow you another try.”

  Sophia’s fingers tightened. The Reverend simply stood there, his expression radiating utter trust, and to her shock, the ghost of her dead heart lurched. Such…vulnerability. For a moment, she glimpsed her younger self—saw the girl she’d been before her mother had thrown her away, before Adrian had crushed her.

  Chest aching, she lowered the Colts.

  “Interesting.” Cool detachment resurfaced as the Reverend smiled. “No cause to apologize for my cane, kitten. I’ll merely add it to your tab.”

  He took Henry and went. As the door creaked shut, Sophia wondered why she felt as though something monumental had just happened—and that somehow, she couldn’t even say exactly what.

  17. Annie.

  Annie picked slivers of porcelain from the carpet and tossed them into the tin bucket. The rhythmic ping soothed her still-trembling hands.

  She’d never stared down a gun barrel before. The look of it…that vacant little hole, that clamoring death just waiting to be delivered.

  A shiver tore through her. Ping.

  Then the Professor had stepped forward, protecting her.

  Would Samuel have done the same? She tried to imagine that, then scoffed. May as well picture a giraffe at the North Pole.

  She snuck a sideways glance. Palmer traversed the carpet on hands and knees, scrubbing away tea and blood. His braid trailed beside him, brushing the floor.

  Somehow, she'd never actually looked at him before. Not really.

  She did now, though—traced those heavy brows and deep-set eyes, lingered on his strong nose and proud cheeks. All those jutting features overshadowed a strangely sensual mouth, a little Cupid’s bow that only just saved his face from severity. Still, he wouldn’t stand out in a crowd. Maybe not even in a half-filled room. And everything about him was too long—arms, legs, fingers. Face, too.

  Back home, folks would’ve called him a raw-boned country boy.

  Truth be told, Annie didn’t think him handsome. But a subtle new harmony shone from his features, something more elusive than beauty. A purity, almost.

 
She sat back, her skirts puddling around her. “Professor.”

  He paused, mid-scrub. When he looked up, the strangest jolt whispered along her skin.

  “Why’d you step in front of me?”

  “I didn’t want the Reverend to shoot you.”

  A typical Palmer answer—practical as all get-out. Still, she sensed another meaning beneath the simple words. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed.”

  “Yes.” His stare sent heat rising in her cheeks.

  “Might be that’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for me.” She looked down. Her hands twisted in her lap like they belonged to somebody else, to some shy schoolgirl she’d never met and wouldn’t even make friends with. “Look, I gotta ask you something.”

  He leaned in. His wet rag landed on the bloodied carpet, forgotten. “Yes?”

  “Palmer, are you—”

  “What’s that?” somebody said.

  On the bottommost step, Temperance stood, gazing upward. A thin, fresh scab darkened the rich brown silk of her throat. “On the ceiling?”

  Annie looked up. The chandeliers scattered shards of light across the tin tiles, same as always.

  Palmer said, “It’s Henry’s finger.”

  Startled, Annie looked closer. Sure enough, she found a fleshy, bloody nub caught in the seam between two tiles, as if someone had torn the head off a pale snake and flung it upward until it stuck.

  A giggle burbled up her throat. “Holy buckets, would you look at that?”

  Palmer rose. “I’ll get the broomstick.”

  “No,” Temperance said. “Leave it there.”

  Taken aback, Annie fastened her gaze on their new Madam. She’d never seen Temperance angry before, and even now, that didn’t look to be the case. But a new hardness had settled into the smooth lines of Madam Hyacinth’s face.

  Determination, most like.

  “Can I see you and the girls upstairs?”

  Annie rose. She spared a sidelong glance, but Palmer had already bent back to his work. Oh, well. “I reckon you can, Madam Hyacinth.”

  ***

  ​Irene’s boudoir lay in shambles. Bits of smashed glass drowned in pools of spilled perfume. Dresser drawers cascaded in an upside-down jumble. Lacy underthings littered a mattress that slouched halfway onto the floor, and the writing desk had been overturned entirely. Only the Chinese folding screen and peacock-feather dress stood unscathed in the corner.

  Annie clapped a hand to her mouth, trying to swallow the hot rage clawing up her throat. Pillaging a living woman’s room was insult enough, but ransacking a dead one’s?

  Downright despicable.

  Temperance stood by the window. “We owe you our thanks, Sophia. I want to say that first.”

  Sophia leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “It was nothing.”

  Annie studied the tiny ice queen, letting that indifferent air cool her anger. “I thought, when you said you were in the circus, you meant as an acrobat.”

  “I did. But I was a sharpshooter, too.”

  “We’re fortunate.” Light sifted through Temperance’s hair, brightening the tiny curls framing her forehead. “Without you, that could’ve gone much worse.”

  “It didn’t exactly go well,” Annie said.

  “No. Which is why I’m asking you all to make a decision.”

  Sophia shifted, looking as uneasy as Annie suddenly felt.

  “If the Reverend wants this journal so badly,” Temperance said, “I won’t hand it over, even if we find it. Considering Sophia’s story, it’s clear Madam didn’t want him to have it, and there must be a reason. So I plan to give him ten thousand dollars next week, like he demanded.”

  A cry leapt from Annie’s lips. Give in to that bastard? Plumb crazy. “Of whose money? I ain’t auctioning myself off like Flora did. Talk about my worst nightmare. No way, no how.”

  Sophia protested just as loud.

  Temperance raised her hands. “Letting him blackmail us would only be temporary.”

  At that, quiet descended.

  “If either of you want to leave, I’ll understand. I’ll even give you Madam’s five-hundred-dollar offer. Start another life. Put Caribou Crossing behind you and never think about the Reverend Gray again.”

  Sophia’s eyes flickered.

  “Or stay. But staying means crossing a powerful man and seeing it through. Because I’m not letting him burn our home, and I’m not letting him take it. No matter what.”

  Annie laughed. Crossing powerful men? A whisper arose in her marrow.

  Do something reckless. “I don’t know about y’all, but this place means freedom to me. Safety. I ain’t going back to Texas, not ever. And I especially ain’t leaving on account of someone so crooked he’d spit up a corkscrew if you fed him a nail.”

  Sophia offered a brittle smile. “I agree. Whatever it takes.”

  Temperance exhaled. “All right. Then we’ll bring the Reverend down. And in doing so, we’ll save ourselves.”

  At that, a thrill awoke, familiar and sweet. The electric promise zinged down into Annie’s bones. “How do you reckon we do that?”

  Madam Hyacinth smiled in a way she never had before. “He’s a confidence man. We only have to find out who he’s conning, and how. Then we’ll expose him to the whole town. If the Mounties won’t get rid of him, an angry mob certainly will. I’d like to see him take our home away then.”

  18. Sophia.

  Though the plan was only half-formed, Sophia volunteered anyway. She had to do something to still the jittering need inside her, to soothe the aching desire to see the Reverend undone.

  And as much as she wanted to blame Temperance for not filing Irene’s will, she was equally to blame. After all, she’d failed to shoot. She’d had every reason—and still hadn’t pulled the trigger.

  She had no idea why, except that she’d glimpsed a sliver of humanity in the Reverend Gray, and that had stopped her, somehow. Even though it hadn’t been real.

  Now, she stood by the paddock, distracting herself by fiddling with her corset’s stifling boning. How did Annie wear such constricting monstrosities? Daily? Clearly, the Texan had never made a living as an acrobat.

  Annie led her horse out, spearing Sophia with a sky-colored stare. “You just gonna stand there? Or you gonna saddle up…what’s his name, anyway?”

  Sophia glanced at the blue-eyed paint. “I’ll walk.”

  Annie raised an eyebrow. “Suit yourself.”

  They left the yard in silence.

  Slogging down the street beside Annie’s appaloosa, Sophia collected mud with her skirts. Countless men streamed by, hauling loaded sleds as they traded months-old news from the Outside.

  Every step reminded her of the Colts she’d strapped to her thighs, beneath all those accursed petticoats. She shouldn’t need the guns, not in church. Still, she felt better knowing they were there.

  Shouldering through the crowd, Sophia almost regretted leaving the beautiful paint horse behind. But she’d never be able to saddle him without thinking of Adrian—of that soft, low voice and those shining eyes. Of the awful betrayal she just wanted to forget.

  Annie’s voice intruded. “You ever been to one of these before?”

  “What? A church?”

  “A sermon. Or services. Or what have you.”

  “No. My parents weren’t religious. You?”

  Annie snorted in the least ladylike fashion possible. “Naw. Pa always tried to convince me, but I told him praying made about as much sense as hollering down a well.”

  Sophia chuckled and sidestepped a well-dressed miner, ignoring the ill-disguised longing on his face.

  “I wasn’t the best daughter,” Annie said. “Shoulda been, but wasn’t.”

  “You got in trouble a lot?”

  “Like it was my damn job. Always getting sent off to someplace or another for ‘rehabilitation.’”

  “How’d that work out?”

  “It didn’t. I just drank and smoked and gambled har
der. Ma always said I had a rowdy streak a mile wide, and to let it burn itself out. But Pa wanted me brought up real proper. It was just a big battle with those two, with me in the middle, wilder than an acre of snakes and getting worse by the minute.”

  Sophia glanced up. Annie’s bonnet hid her eyes, but sunlight fell on lips drawn down at the corners.

  Tenderness stirred, an emotion so long-forgotten that its arrival felt alien. Like her, Annie carried the shadows of her past. “Why’d you do all that?”

  “Dunno. It was just…people telling me what to do always felt like being owned. And I couldn’t stand the thought of belonging to anyone but myself.”

  “That’s why you came north?”

  Annie stared ahead. “My Pa died. Got his leg tore up in a barbed-wire fence. The fever took him a week later.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” The words sounded woefully inadequate.

  “I’m the one who oughtta be sorry. I was a rotten daughter, and he died, and I damn near went outta my head after that. Tried to set things right, and instead I did something I’ll regret to the end of my days.”

  Sophia slowed, curiosity piqued. “What?”

  “I got married. To a rotten son-of-a-bitch, turns out.”

  19. Temperance.

  The courthouse—a two-story monster of painted white clapboard—stood on the bank of the rushing Yukon. A square cupola sprouted from the roof, perforated by a glittering round window that stared down like a gigantic eye.

  Temperance tried to quell the flutter in her chest, but the looming building offered no comfort. Unbidden, that awful moment played over again—the will fluttering to pieces while resolve turned to ashes in her mouth.

  That was the taste of dread, she knew. Back in Salt Spring, she’d recognized it the moment she’d come home and seen her sister’s contorted face. Peony had died in violence, choking and alone. Because of her.

  Now, the prospect of losing the Scarlet Blossom—of surrendering Irene’s hard-won jewel, of abandoning Annie and Sophia when they needed her most—was almost as appealing as facing her sister’s death all over again.