Fletcher's Woman

by Linda Lael Miller

What if he left her alone, just long enough to take the bank draft to Frazier, and she died?

  Sick fear washed over Jonas at the thought, and he paused in the center of the floor, fighting it down. He had to go; whatever happened, he had to go to Frazier and settle the debt. If he didn’t, Rachel’s life wouldn’t be worth living if she did survive.

  Jonas opened the door leading into the hallway and bellowed, “Herbert!”

  In response, footsteps clattered on the stairs, but the form that burst into the hallway was not that of the night clerk. Instead, a plump, weary-looking woman appeared, her gray hair falling in wisps about her face. “My Herbert’s at college in the mornings, Mr. Wilkes!” she prattled.

  Jonas closed his eyes just long enough to yearn for Mrs. Hammond’s nerveless, comforting presence. Then he handed the room key to the woman and barked, “Stay in this room until I get back. Lock the door, and don’t let anyone in. Do you understand? No one.”

  Herbert’s mother looked distraught. “But how will I know if it’s you that’s back?” she whined.

  Jonas was already striding past her, toward the landing and the stairway. “There’s another key downstairs—I’ll use that.”

  The lobby was empty. Jonas raced through it and out into the warmth of a summer day. He glanced once in the direction of the bay and was almost blinded by the silver dazzle of the sunlight dancing on the sapphire water.

  In the august chambers of his bank, Jonas snapped an order for a draft to be drawn. The amount so staggered the timorous clerk that confusion reigned.

  Jonas shouted until the other patrons fled and then he shouted until the president of the bank came out of his cubicle to attend to the matter himself. The delay was intolerable.

  Finally, when Jonas could bear the endless checking and rechecking, tallying and subtracting no longer, he barked, “Have it ready in five minutes!” and ran outside.

  The telegraph office was next door, and Jonas debated for only a moment before he went inside and dictated two messages, both destined for Providence.

  The first was very brief.

  HAMMOND. COME NOW. HOTEL. JONAS.

  The second, which cost Jonas a great price, pridewise, was only slightly longer.

  GRIFFIN. CHINA DRIFTER IN PORT. HURRY. J.W.

  The draft was ready when Jonas stormed back into the bank. He snatched it from the banker’s hands and darted out again.

  Jonas was winded now; he forced himself to stand still and consider the fact that he had forgotten to reclaim the horse and buggy from the livery stable. But there were horses tethered all along the street, and Jonas helped himself to a pinto gelding. Ignoring the outraged shouts of its owner, he booted the stunned animal into a dead run.

  Reaching Miss Cunningham’s sturdy house, minutes later, he tied the stolen horse to the picket fence, vaulted onto the walk, and ran to the door. Breathless, Jonas wrenched at the bell knob.

  The door opened almost immediately, and Captain Frazier filled the chasm, looking almost like a gentleman with his frock coat and gracious smile.

  Bracing himself with one arm on the doorjamb, Jonas ferreted the draft from his coat pocket with his free hand and held it out. “Your word?” The question was a ragged, windless whisper.

  Frazier took the draft and examined it with quick, eager eyes. “My word,” he agreed, after a long time.

  Jonas whirled, staggered back down the pine-board walk, and dragged himself up into the saddle.

  The ride back down the hill seemed interminable, and Jonas had time enough to regret a great many things. He could have been kinder to Rachel the night before, instead of baiting her as he had, instead of letting her wonder whether or not he would take advantage of her in spite of his promise. And he could have chosen a better time to beat the hell out of Griffin Fletcher, too.

  Jonas skirted a trolley car, and the bell spooked the borrowed gelding, making it rear. He brought the animal under control easily, however, and prodded it into a run again. Slow—even at its top speed, the horse was slow. So next time steal a racehorse, he chided himself.

  A block from the hotel Jonas owned, he nearly collided with a buckboard. Minutes later, he abandoned the lathered horse where he’d found it in the first place and ran into his building.

  Jonas was halfway up the hotel staircase when the sound of the woman’s frantic wails reached him. For a moment, panic fused him to the wall of the stairwell, and a wordless litany of rage and fear hummed in his mind.

  He wrenched himself free from the wall, bounded up to the landing and into the corridor.

  The door of his room was wide open, and the cries of Herbert’s mother were louder now.

  Dear God, he prayed. Don’t let her be dead. Please, don’t let her be dead.

  In the doorway, Jonas froze. The bed was empty.

  “Where is she?” Jonas demanded, never knowing whether the question was screamed or whispered.

  The blubbering woman raised herself slowly from the floor of Jonas’s room. There was a gash in her forehead, and the sleeve of her shabby calico dress was torn to reveal a plump shoulder.

  It took all of Jonas’s forebearance to keep from wrenching her the rest of the way to her feet and then beating her back to the floor again. He closed his eyes, sank against the doorframe, and hissed, “What happened?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was so hot. So unbearably hot.

  Rachel opened her eyes. A Chinese woman, eyes downcast, swayed in the void above her. A wooden spoon nudged gently at her lips.

  “Drink,” urged the woman.

  Dear God, it was true—everthing Jonas had said was true, Rachel thought wildly. Douglas has brought me to China! She groaned, turning her head away from the figure sitting nearby.

  “Please drink,” pleaded the woman. “Make strong.”

  Rachel did not want to be strong. She wanted to die.

  But the woman was quietly insistent. “Drink.”

  Rachel drank, tasted the unfamiliar, herb-laced broth on her tongue. How could she be in China? The journey took a long time, even on the fastest ship, and it seemed only last night that Jonas had bought her dinner and taken her to see a play—and forced her to spend the night in his hotel room.

  But she had been very ill. Perhaps the sea voyage had taken place while she was fighting that strange battle on the dark cliffs of her spirit. Perhaps she had been asleep for months! Vaguely, she remembered a sense of motion.

  No, that had been a clattering, jolting sort of movement. Ships glided smoothly over the water, unless they encountered rough seas.

  She accepted more of the broth. “Where am I?”

  “Seattle,” came the toneless reply.

  Seattle. If Rachel had had the strength, she would have given a shout of joy. As a healing sleep swept up to enclose her, she submitted to it, allowed it to carry her. This time, there would be no battle in the darkness.

  • • •

  Molly Brady stood still in the cool sanctuary of the general store, her shopping basket over one arm, her eyes bright with an intuitive, mysterious fear as they examined the folded message.

  Throat dry, she opened the telegram and boldly read it, even though it was addressed to Dr. Fletcher.

  GRIFFIN. CHINA DRIFTER IN PORT. HURRY. J.W.

  Molly stiffened. J.W. Jonas Wilkes, of course. The gall of that man, summoning Griffin when no one knew better than he did how difficult—even dangerous—it would be for him to travel now.

  Outside the store, in the morning sunlight, Molly reread the message, puzzling. Why should the presence of any particular ship interest Griffin?

  Overhead, in the azure sky, gulls shrieked their constant, raucous complaint. But Molly ignored them, crossing the road slowly, wondering.

  The China Drifter. Now, why did that name prickle the lining of her stomach the way it did?

  She wandered through Tent Town, only halfhearing the friendly greetings of the women who were taking advantage of the warm weather to wash out cloth
es and blankets. Molly smiled distractedly, and uttered a directionless “good morning” at suitable intervals. She’d lived in Tent Town herself once, and she didn’t want the others thinking she considered herself above them because she worked for the doctor now.

  In the woods that separated Tent Town from the Fletcher house, Molly stopped along the path and thought hard.

  Griffin’s main source of income came from the interests he held in half a dozen sailing ships. Heaven knew, he would have starved on what he earned as a doctor.

  Molly sighed. Was the China Drifter one of those ships? If it was, why would Jonas Wilkes, of all people, trouble to wire Griffin that it was in port? Surely, vessels that he owned a share in came and went all the time, bringing various cargoes to Seattle and leaving with the inevitable lumber.

  Molly’s stomach clenched. It was a trap. Jonas was trying to lure Griffin to Seattle, where all manner of fatal accidents could befall him.

  A lulling, sea-scented breeze whispered in the treetops, and Molly picked idly at the peeling bark of a madrona. Griffin was recovering now—the frightening effects of the morphine had passed—but it was still difficult and painful for him to move about. If something in this strange message drew him out of his bed and off on some wild trip to Seattle, the results could be disastrous.

  Molly longed to crumple the offending wire into a ball and toss it into the woods, where it would lie forgotten until it became a part of the mossy ground, but she knew that she couldn’t. There was the small matter of integrity, and Molly had more of that than she needed.

  Squaring her shoulders, she lifted her skirts with one hand and marched home.

  Griffin’s reaction to the telegram was just what she had feared it would be. He paled when he read it, and a muscle flexed taut in his jaw. “Frazier,” he whispered, and his tone gave the name an ugly sound.

  Molly stood by, wringing her hands, as Griffin crushed the paper and tossed it furiously against a wall. “Griffin, it’s a trap of some sort—don’t you see that it’s a trap?”

  But Griffin’s right hand was white with force as he grasped the quilt that covered him. “Get out of here, Molly, unless you want to watch me dress.”

  Molly turned and fled the room, though she stood by in the hallway. The sound of Griffin’s struggle was almost unbearable; there were muffled groans and curses as he opened bureau drawers and pillaged through them for his clothes.

  “Molly!” he demanded, after a few minutes.

  Molly hurried back into the room to find her employer braced, white with pain, against the edge of the bureau. He had managed, somehow, to get into his trousers and his boots, but his shirt was hanging open, revealing the tight linen binding holding his ribs in place.

  “Button this damned shirt!” he snapped, releasing his grip on the bureau to turn toward her.

  Molly knew better than to reveal the pity she felt; she cloaked it in honest disapproval and unshakable reason. Closing the buttons with quick, efficient hands, she muttered, “For heaven’s sake, Griffin, how do you expect to make such a journey? You can’t even button your own shirt! There won’t be a steamer leaving for hours, and you certainly can’t ride a horse!”

  The dark eyes were flashing when Molly dared to meet them. “Jonas had a good reason for sending that wire, Molly. If it’s what I think it is, I have to go.”

  “Since when are you in league with Jonas Wilkes?”

  “Since the China Drifter dropped anchor in Seattle,” snapped Griffin, flinging himself in the direction of the bedroom doorway and groping along the corridor to the top of the stairs.

  Molly took care not to reveal that she was braced to grasp Griffin should he fall. “What could be so important that you would take a chance like this?”

  “Rachel,” he said. And then he was at the bottom of the staircase, gripping the newel post for support. There was no color at all in his face, and Molly could see the effort he was expending just to stand.

  “Will you listen to reason!” she shouted, in her fear and her affection. “This could kill you!”

  The look in his eyes was terrible and desolate and absolutely unyielding. “I would rather be dead,” he rasped, “than see Douglas Frazier hand-deliver Rachel to one of the slugs he does business with!”

  Molly’s mouth fell open, but words would not pass her throat.

  Griffin was alternately thrusting and dragging himself through the house, toward the kitchen.

  There, Molly managed a choked, “He sells people?”

  “Specifically, women,” Griffin replied, as he plundered a kitchen drawer for the supply of cash he kept there. “Nobody has managed to prove it yet, but young ladies have a way of disappearing suddenly when Frazier is around. He’s clever—he probably charms them into leaving.”

  “And then?”

  Griffin’s eyes were fierce as he stuffed currency into the pocket of his trousers. “And then they find themselves the personal property of some rich old lecher in Santiago or Hong Kong or Mexico City.”

  Molly felt sick. She touched Griffin’s sleeve gently as he opened the back door. “Godspeed, Griffin Fletcher,” she whispered.

  He kissed her forehead lightly, squeezed her shoulders once in a kind of stricken reassurance, and turned to make his way down the steps and stumble toward the barn.

  Molly was watching from the window when he emerged, seconds later, with Billy and the horse, Tempest. Together, exchanging words she could not hear, Billy and Griffin hitched the horse to the buggy.

  Molly closed her eyes, felt warm tears gather in her lashes. The prayer shining in her heart was a fervent one.

  • • •

  “What happened?” Jonas repeated, marveling at his own patience.

  Herbert’s mother was still whimpering, still wringing her hands. “They had the key—I thought they was you—one of them hit me—”

  Breathing deeply, Jonas made himself speak in moderate tones. “How many men were there—and what did they look like?”

  The woman’s face was woebegone, and the cut in her forehead was bleeding slightly. “There was four of them, Mr. Wilkes—big, strapping men with sunburned faces. They came busting in here and took the girl, and I said to myself, ‘Marlys, there ain’t nothing you can do except scream.’ So I screamed, and one of them came back and hit me!”

  Rage pounded in Jonas’s veins and burned in his throat. He’d been had—Frazier had his fee, and he had Rachel, too. By now, he was probably back on board the Drifter, laughing his ass off.

  And Rachel was sick—so very sick.

  Jonas couldn’t bear to face the possibilities; if he did, he would slip into stark, useless panic. No, he had to think.

  He turned and glared at the door opposite his own. The windows of that room overlooked the street and much of the bay.

  He prowled across the hall, almost as though he was stalking something, and tried the door. It was locked.

  Jonas retreated a step, raised his left boot, and kicked. The lock gave way with a thundering crash and the door whined on its hinges as it swung open.

  At the window, he wrenched the curtains apart and scanned the still, glistening waters of the harbor. Incredibly, the China Drifter was at anchor, her white sails limp in the warm, motionless air.

  A harsh, jubilant laugh escaped Jonas’s taut throat; she was becalmed!

  But there were tugs to be hired, he reminded himself. The Drifter could be drawn out of the bay, into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Beyond that lay the open sea, where it would probably be an easy matter to catch the wind. Once Frazier reached the coastline, there would be no hope of catching him.

  Calmly Jonas left the hotel and walked toward the Skid Road.

  • • •

  Grim with pain, and sometimes only half-conscious, Griffin raced overland, to Kingston. There, he abandoned his horse and buggy and coerced the skipper of a small salmon boat to take him south, to Seattle.

  The cost of his passage was high, and he didn’t know which sm
elled worse—the residue of thousands of fish or the skipper himself.

  None of it mattered. Griffin stood at a railing near the bow, willing the pain into submission, feeling infinite gratitude for the laboring chortles of the craft’s steam engine.

  It was dark when the salmon boat groaned into Elliott Bay, but light from the kerosene street lamps along Front Street lay in golden splotches on the water. Peering into the gloom, Griffin thought he made out the sleek, familiar form of the Merrimaker, a craft in which he owned a major share.

  “Please,” he said, in a half-whisper, addressing himself to whatever superior forces might be listening. Then, as the salmon boat pulled alongside a wharf, Griffin bid the skipper a grim good-bye and vaulted over the side onto the shifting, creaking dock.

  As his feet made contact with the hard surface of the wharf, jarring pain shot through his testicles and exploded in his rib cage. Griffin staggered, caught himself, and started toward the shoreline.

  Behind him, the salmon boat was already retreating back into the bay.

  To keep his mind off the searing pain, Griffin concentrated on the click of his boot heels, the sound of the tide slapping at the pilings beneath the wharf, the familiar scents of pitch and sawdust and kerosene.

  Reaching the wooden walk that edged the wharfs, Griffin turned toward the lights and spirited debauchery of the Skid Road. The shrill laughter of a prostitute echoed over the dark water and the puddles of liquid light.

  He thought of the soft, warm way Rachel laughed and walked faster.

  • • •

  The Chinese woman was trying to feed her again; Rachel could feel the spoon prodding at her mouth. She wanted so to sleep!

  A man spoke sharply, in a rapid dialect, and Rachel opened her eyes just as he lifted her head from the pillow. At the sight of his face, her mouth fell open, and the woman shrewdly grasped the opportunity to thrust the spoon in.

  Rachel nearly choked on the broth, then muttered, “Chang?”

  The Tent Town cook did not look at her; instead, he scolded the woman sitting on the other side of Rachel’s cot. The poor creature trembled visibly, lowered her eyes, and then padded away, disappearing through a curtain of clattering beads.