Except, this other family didn’t mind at all.
“Let’s enjoy this beautiful day.” Georgette settled back against her cushion, tipped her head, and closed her eyes. “I’ve always loved how warm the sun is.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He wondered what she would think if he struck up a conversation with the driver, another Bromi slave. She probably wouldn’t approve, him being a Treasure now. Clark sighed. Getting Tangled Wire over with would be the second step in his freeing himself. He could get through this…for his mother, who’d kept that letter from Garth as if it was worth a gold bar.
Judging by the top of the line steamcoach, maybe the letter was worth that much.
Wind gusted down Main Street in Tangled Wire, blowing sagebrush onto the porch of the post office. Shutters rattled over the windows and dust slapped Clark’s face. He lifted his elbow to his mouth to breathe against his jacket. Holes had appeared in the roofs and windows had broken. The laughter and chatter of everyday life had faded as if his mother’s destruction had dragged everything away.
He blinked, swearing dirt had gotten in his eyes and not tears. What did it matter to him if Tangled Wire collapsed? The town had never served them right.
The steamcoach passed beneath the front buildings. One had been the foreman’s office, now boarded shut, and the other had been the foreman’s home, still intact, but with shutters missing off the windows. Urchins had once dashed through the street, chucking rocks at stray cats or hitting barrel hoops with sticks. He’d been one of those, another fatherless wretch too young to work but too old to stay with his mother.
The smithy came next, followed by the newspaper shop. The owner had paid a nickel a day to deliver papers around Tangled Wire. Clark would sneak one away so he could help teach Mable how to read. She’d liked stroking the words, but when it came to book learning, she’d pick at a scab or wander off.
He’d yearned to return for her, but coming back while the army still watched over the mine might’ve meant his capture. With Tangled Wire in shambles, she should’ve moved on, maybe to a city.
Sweat beaded across his brow. No soldiers to be seen. A black cat sat on a barrel in an alley cleaning itself. An elderly man with a long gray beard slumped on the porch outside the hotel with an empty bottle of gin knocked over beside his bare feet.
“Where did you live?” Georgette spoke from behind a lace handkerchief. Clark wondered if she did that to protect herself from filth or if the dust in the wind bothered her lungs. It left his own with a raw itch.
Clark cleared his throat. “We lived at the saloon. My mother was a Tarnished Silver.” He shouldn’t be ashamed of that. She’d done what she could to keep them alive.
Georgette stomped on the floor of the steamcoach. “Driver, take us to the saloon, please, and wait for us there.”
The Bromi inclined his head and steered the vehicle toward the right-hand side. Clark scratched his cheek. The driver must’ve been to Tangled Wire before, since the sign had fallen off the front of the building. Clark recognized it only by size. It was still the biggest building.
Once the steamcoach stopped in front, Clark swung the door open and hopped down. Dust billowed around his feet.
“Clark, dear.” Georgette fluttered her handkerchief. “We wait to be helped down.”
His nerves felt as though they’d been pulled tight. He glanced around the street, but nothing moved besides the sagebrush. Perhaps no one would come.
“So the hertum was used up in the mine?” he asked for clarification. All he knew about the mineral came from newspapers.
Georgette accepted the driver’s hand and stepped down from the coach. “Three years ago, yes. My husband sold the land to the government. Soon this will become a ranch, or flooded for a lake, or perhaps the train will pass through.”
Clark nodded, studying one of the crumbled houses. It had been a boarding house for mineworkers with a shed in the back. He and Mable had scaled the woodpile onto the shed’s roof so they could hop to the boardinghouse’s roof. If they lay on their stomachs, they could watch Main Street without notice.
Georgette held out her arm, so he cupped her elbow as they headed up the porch stairs into the saloon. His heart thudded harder. The last time he’d stepped there, he’d been fleeing from the mine. He’d pummeled into the main room, pushing aside customers, and dashed to his mother’s room in a fog.
Blood on the floor, on the bed. A Bromi slave lifting her body. Her hand dangling, with a trickle of red along her wrist.
“Clark?” Georgette’s even tone yanked him from the memory.
“I’m fine,” he grunted. The interior still reeked of booze and mold, but another scent crept in: dirt. Wind whistled through a crack somewhere in the wooden wall.
“Hello?” Georgette called.
Chairs had fallen over at the tables; a lone mug rested beside a stack of cards.
The saloon owner emerged from the back room. “Yeah?” Despite his gray whiskers and baldness, Clark recognized the bulbous red nose and pockmarked forehead. He’d never cared about the affairs of the army so long as they paid him for his goods. Good, he wouldn’t mind Clark Treasure being back, if he even remembered the boy who’d lived in his attic.
Age hadn’t helped his demeanor.
Georgette stiffened. “Do you own this property?”
“Sure do.” The owner dragged his gaze over her ensemble. “You wanna buy it, lady?”
She lifted her nose. “I do not. I’m here about information.”
He turned his head to spit tobacco juice onto the scarred floor. “Look, I ain’t a businessman. I rent rooms now that the hotel shut down and I serve meals. It’s a fine location, even if things are bad now. People travelling gotta stop, and this here is the last place for a good ten miles.”
Georgette leaned against the nearest chair. “We’ll eat here then, and I still need some facts.” Her voice purred. “What food do you offer?”
Recalling the owner’s culinary skills, Clark wrinkled his nose. At least they seemed to be the only people in residence, besides the drunk in the street. Old Billy, the drunkard he remembered from way back, and been replaced by this new fellow with the matted beard.
Clark sat across from Georgette and stretched out his legs. His skin tingled with a naughty delight as if he were a child again. He’d never gotten to sit at one of the patron tables before.
The owner brought them tin plates of hard wheat bread and slices of turkey. Georgette smiled while she ate, as though it tasted divine. Under the table, Clark noticed she clenched her hand into a fist. She would make a grand actress. Clark gnawed on the gritty hunk of bread. Even the stuff he’d consumed on the run had fared better, but it reminded him of his childhood.
“Be thankful for that,” his mother would say whenever he complained. Living alone, he’d learned how amazing that vulgar food had been.
“Another plate,” Georgette said. The Bromi driver ate at the table beside the door so he could guard the steamcoach.
The owner brought them water-spotted glasses of ale. Georgette passed him fifty cents and sipped the drink.
“Thank you kindly. Now, for that information.” She flashed her teeth.
That woman could flatter her way to the top. Clark popped the last bit of bread into his mouth. Maybe that was how she’d won a catch like Garth Treasure.
“What you want?” The shop owner wiped his hands on the stained apron that strained against his rotund beer belly.
“This is Clark Treasure.” Georgette nodded to him. “His mother used to work in your establishment as a Tarnished Silver. Her name was Judith Kurjaninow.”
The owner narrowed his eyes at Clark. Fresh beads of perspiration coated Clark’s body. If the owner didn’t remember him, he should frown, not glare.
“Might you remember Miss Kurjaninow?” Georgette asked as she finished her ale.
“I don’t got no Tarnished Silvers left.” The owner took her glass behind the counter. “They all moved onto other
mines. The cities. Wherever. No matter to me none. People don’t come here for that entertainment no more.”
Clark steeled his voice. “What about Mable? She was a little girl. Should only be about fifteen now. Sixteen maybe.” Old enough to have to whore, unless she found better work.
Or had died.
Ice ran over his spine. Laughing Mable, who’d chased cats to pull their tails until Clark had told her he’d slap her next time she did it. He wouldn’t have, but he’d hated the screeches of the felines who had no better lot in life than they did.
“Everybody moved on. The rooms are rented out now.”
Clark wondered if his mother’s blood still stained the floor. Were any of her clothes packed into trunks? Maybe his old cot still rested under the eaves in the attic.
A click riveted his attention to the counter as the owner pulled a shotgun from beneath it and aimed it at Clark’s head. “Said your name’s Clark Treasure, huh? Judy’s little by-blow?”
lark gripped the edges of the table. Coming back had been a mistake. If he ducked, Clark would have time to draw his pistol from his belt; he could knock the older man down then.
Georgette might get shot, though.
He fought away the buzz in his brain. He had to diffuse the situation. “What of it?”
“You’re the one the army’s after. Saw the wanted posters around. Figured they had you by now.” The owner spit onto the floor again. “Never forget when one of my sluts gets shot, either. That captain never got a dismissal, the bugger. Now git up, boyo.”
Those blasted wanted posters. “It can’t be me the army wants. Must be a mistake.” He didn’t take his gaze off the shotgun.
“Sure was you. I’ll be getting that reward now. Eight hundred dollars will really help me a lot. Finally get outta this dump.”
A chair scraped near the door; the owner swung his gun and pulled the lever. It fired with a blast that rattled the saloon. The Bromi driver jerked and blood splattered the wall behind him as he fell.
Poor man. If he’d been with his tribe in the cliffs, he might have still been alive. He’d probably been after the gun under the steamcoach. Clark had seen the butt of it sticking out when he’d first climbed aboard back at the ranch.
The driver had perished because of Clark.
“Nobody move now!” The owner pulled a gunpowder horn from beneath the counter.
It would take him a few seconds to reload. Only a fool would be scared enough to pause.
Clark yanked the pistol from his belt, aimed it at the saloon man’s heart, and fired. The owner pitched backwards, sputtering. Blood lifted in a shower. Droplets struck the bottles behind the counter, most of them empty, and dripped down the whitewashed wall. The body thumped against the floor.
Clark stared at his hands, but they didn’t shake. Shit. What had the world done to him that he cowered thinking about facing his past, but didn’t worry about killing another human being? He checked the pistol to confirm he had four other bullets in the cylinder and slid the weapon into its holster. Maybe the Treasures would buy him one of the zoompistols. Although they pumped steam from the holder as exhaust, the laser beams worked with more accurate precision. They cost a small fortune, too.
Would Georgette want to support him still, even after she realized he was a murderer?
“That was a good shot,” she said.
“I’m sorry.” He fastened the leather strap over his pistol to keep it from tumbling out.
“You’ve killed before?” She pulled a lace-trimmed handkerchief from her silk reticule and wiped perspiration off her brow, but her voice didn’t waver.
He met her gaze. She would respect an honest answer. “Yes.” He’d killed a lot since the day he’d fled the mines.
“With good reason.” She flicked her handkerchief before tucking it away.
“Yes. My mother lost her life to senseless murder. I would never do that to another.” He pictured Judy’s large gray eyes framed by painted lashes. Her laughter had made everyone else laugh with her.
“Do you want to tell me what happened when you were here last?”
He kept his hands still at his side, his chin lifted, shoulders drawn back. “No.”
Georgette nodded. “I will never ask again, but if you ever care to, I will listen. I won’t judge you.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Thank you.” How could she accept everything? Georgette was an educated, wealthy woman. She should know better—but he was safe. Somehow, she saw that in him.
He would prove he deserved her respect.
She crouched beside her driver and felt his neck. “Dead. Can you find a blanket for him?”
“Yes. The saloonkeeper had kept a closet for linens, in case any of his patrons insisted on clean ones. Some of the generals had; most of the customers hadn’t cared as long as they got a cheap tumble.”
“We’ll put him in the back of the coach. I’ll drive us back.”
“I can drive.” He’d worked as a chauffeur for a summer, before the army caught up with his trail.
“All right. Is there anything else you want to do while we’re here?”
The driver deserved respect, not to rot on the floor. The old rooms held nothing for Clark anymore. “I’ll get the blanket. Come with me in case anyone else walks in.”
She hovered at his back as he found the closet in the kitchen. As he opened the door on hinges that squealed, he remembered a time when his mother had been getting fresh ones because a man had ordered it.
“Don’t you hate catering to them?” he’d spat as she’d handed him pillowcases.
She’d fingered the fine linen. The man had been paying extra, so the saloonkeeper ordered the best. “Sometimes you must set them up to knock them down.”
“Huh?”
With sheets in her arms, she’d kicked the closet door shut. “Sometimes you have to play by their rules so you can learn them. Then, you can blow them over better.” She winked one of her blue-coated eyelids. It had been the only time he’d seen a rebellious side to her, but it let him know life hadn’t beaten her down.
By playing the Treasure card, he could learn those rules. He could set up his own game and knock down all the villains.
The closet smelled of mothballs and potpourri. He pulled two sheets off the top shelf. The linen didn’t seem as bleached as he recalled. Awkward yellow spots made his cheeks flush as he stepped past Georgette.
“I’m not ignorant of the world,” she said. “My parents were factory workers, but my father earned enough to start his own when I was fifteen. Did you know Garth was a lawyer?”
“No.” He didn’t know much about Garth—his father—other than his wealth.
“My father’s previous boss tried to sue him for rights to the new factory. Garth was that man’s lawyer. He met me at one of the hearings. Garth won the case and left my father penniless, but Garth hadn’t believed in hurting a working man. He offered my father a small fund to start a new cloth business. Garth paid court to me for a year before we married.”
Clark mulled that as he carried the sheets to the driver. Garth had learned to play by the rules, even if it hurt a poor man, and then he’d turned around to knock the boss down.
They rolled the body into one sheet and knotted the other on top. Despite the Bromi man’s bulk, Clark hefted him over his shoulder. The muscles in his back and shoulders pulled tight.
“I can help.” Georgette lifted her arms.
“It’s fine,” Clark grunted. She opened the steamcoach door for him and he laid the body on the rear seat. He helped Georgette onto the driver’s bench and swung up alongside her.
She rested her hand on his knee. “You’re sure you’re done here? It’ll be easier for you to acclimate to our family if you have no regrets.”
Georgette had been the one seeking answers. The rundown town, the saloon with a dead owner behind the counter, another in the coach. His mother’s blood perhaps staining a floor. “I have no regrets.”
&nbs
p; The man peered through the attic window of the saloon to watch Clark Treasure drive away with that frilly bitch sitting beside him. Leave it to Clark to find himself some rich old matron. The man bared his teeth and ran his tongue through the hole where his front tooth had been knocked out in the street fight.
Woo-eee. Clark Treasure had actually come back to Tangled Wire. Idiot. What had he expected? The army had combed through Tangled Wire looking for that bastard a whole year after he’d skedaddled. If they’d been willing to pay then, they’d still be willing now. They didn’t give up on a man that wanted.
The miner memorized the decorations on the steamcoach: gold embossed trees and horses across a white background. Each family used their own design for their vehicles. Once he described it to Captain Greenwood, the army would know how to nab that little fool. If it weren’t for Clark, the mine mightn’t have closed. The miner might not be penniless in a beat up town.
Chuckling, the miner set off for the blacksmith. That old man would let him borrow the donkey so he could get to a telegraph office to find Captain Greenwood.
When they reached the Treasure ranch, the sun had begun to sink. Jeremiah marched from the stables to meet them. Clark bit back a groan. He had to be polite to his half-brother, no matter how much the man irritated him.
“Why’re you driving?” He narrowed his blue-gray eyes at Clark.
“There was an accident,” Clark began, but Georgette stood.
“Where is your father? A despicable man shot our driver in Tangled Wire.”
Jeremiah grabbed the edge of the coach. “Mother, are you hurt?”
“We’re both fine.” She allowed her son to lift her down. “We need to see him buried.”
At least they would give the Bromi man a proper burial. Clark coughed for attention. “Where should I put the steamcoach?”
“Leave it there. Someone else will see it goes away,” Jeremiah snapped. “Father’s at the Smith farm.”
“He doesn’t usually call on them so late.” Georgette turned to Clark. “The Smiths bought some land from Garth last summer. They hope to start a new life farming out here.”
Treasure, Darkly (Treasure Chronicles Book 1) Page 5
