* * *
Charlotte was just about to blow out the small oil lamp on the teacher’s desk when she heard a wagon draw up outside the schoolhouse. Her heart seemed to lurch in her chest.
Thomas! He’d come! He’d come to wish her good luck as she embraced her teaching career with the orphans arriving on the train tomorrow afternoon.
In truth, she’d been annoyed that he hadn’t found the time to visit her. Particularly if there was a madman on the loose. Although by now she had come to understand from Gladys Hayes that Sam Renner was little more than a myth. He hadn’t been seen in town for years.
However, she’d been scrupulously following Thomas’s orders. During the day, she remained out in the open, where she could see anyone approaching. After dark, she stayed in the schoolhouse and kept her door locked and bolted.
From Gus Junior Charlotte had learned Rosamund was ailing and there were maggots in the cabbages and the lack of rain required constant irrigation. Knowing that Thomas had been tied up with pressing matters eased the sting of his neglect of her. She really should be out there, helping him, and she would tell him so.
But now Thomas had come to see her. Unlike their first meeting at the Imperial Hotel, Charlotte had the presence of mind to consider her state of undress before she opened the door. She pulled the blanket from the cot and wrapped it around her shoulders, covering up her flimsy nightgown.
Then she hurried over to slide the bolt and unlock the door.
Her fingers were still gripping the key when the door flung open, smashing into her. She staggered backward. A gust of chilled air blew into the room. From the darkness a hunched form lurched inside, a long duster flaring about his legs.
She could smell him. Even before her horrified eyes recorded the details—long, straggly hair streaked with gray, dirt caked on his clothing, boots so worn she could see toes poking through—she could smell him, the thick stench of a destitute man who had almost ceased to be a human being.
He stepped into the room, an awkward swaying step that had his shoulders rising and falling when he dragged one foot behind him. He reached out one arm and swung the door shut. His other arm rose, as if in a salute. And gripped in his fist Charlotte could see a long, lethal-looking knife.
“Madeleine,” he said. “I’ve come to kill you.”
Terror slammed into Charlotte. Her senses sharpened. Time stilled. She had never felt pure panic before, and it left no room for fear. Her mind seemed crystal clear, her thoughts rational, her body poised for action.
Sam Renner. He was not a myth after all.
But he was supposed to arrive on foot.
“Mr. Renner,” she said softly. “I’m afraid you are mistaken. My name is...my name is...” The lie froze on her lips. “My name is Charlotte Fairfax. I’m not the one you are looking for.”
“Beautiful Madeleine.” He stepped closer to her. The sharp, acrid odor of his unwashed body filled her nostrils. “You betrayed me. You stole my gold and crippled my body and turned my life into a nightmare. I’ll do the same to you.”
Charlotte backed away and crashed into the desks that blocked her retreat. The blanket fell from her fingers as she fumbled blindly at the desks, weaving her way between them, not daring to take her eyes off the man advancing upon her.
Sam Renner came after her with his swaying gait, the knife poised to strike. Lamplight glittered on the blade. Twice they circled the tiny room, Charlotte fumbling her way backward, Sam Renner following, like some kind of a macabre dance.
Then she tripped over the blanket that lay in a heap on the floor. With a cry she stumbled. Sam Renner reached out and grabbed her by the arm and swung her around. Gripping her with one hand, brandishing the knife in the other, he ushered her toward the log wall of the cabin until her back slammed against it.
“Don’t fight,” he said. “Or I’ll slice you open.”
Grunting with effort, or perhaps with pain, he dug in his pocket and pulled out several coiled strips of rawhide string. One at a time, he raised her hands above her head and tied her wrists to the wooden pegs on the wall where the children would hang their coats. Then he squatted by her feet and tied her ankles together.
She could kick him. Topple him backward and escape.
But even as the thought rose in Charlotte’s mind, it was too late. Her feet were trapped. Sam Renner straightened and surveyed her. She stood in front of him, dressed in her flimsy nightgown, ankles bound, arms flung wide and tied to the hooks, as if crucified.
His gaze drifted down her body.
“Beautiful Madeleine. Always beautiful.”
“I’m not your Madeleine. My name is Charlotte.”
Cunning flashed in his eyes. “Charlotte, Madeleine. Frenchwoman’s name.” He took a step forward. “You won’t fool me with your lies. Never again.” He took a step back and lifted his knife. “I’m going to gut you like a fish.”
“No. Please.”
“Please?” He tipped his head back and laughed, a horrible, cruel laugh filled with bitterness. “You put a bullet in my back and left me for dead and stole my gold and now you say a pretty please and expect me to fall at your feet again.”
“It was not me. It was someone else.”
Ignoring her, Sam Renner leaned forward. His face loomed in front of hers. The smell of his stale breath surrounded her. In his eyes she could see the fire of insanity. Spittle formed on his lips as he spoke to her with a burst of passion.
“Since that day, my life has been hell. I live like an animal. I crawl like a crab, I eat like a scavenger. I’m in constant pain. I have no future. The only pleasure I have left is taking my revenge. I’m going to gut you like a fish.”
He drew back a step and raised his arm. The blade glinted in the lamplight and began its descent toward her belly.
“Wait,” Charlotte yelled. “The gold. Don’t you want your gold back?”
The knife ceased its motion. “You have my gold?”
“Why did you think I came back?”
Confusion flickered across Sam’s face. “Why did you come back?”
“I hid the gold before I left Gold Crossing. I had to come back for it.” Quickly, desperation guiding her mind, Charlotte spun her tale. “I hid it in a hole in the ground under an apple tree. I came to get it, but the tree must have died. I can’t find the right spot. That’s why I took the job. I needed to stay around and search for the gold.”
“You have my gold?”
“Yes. And if you kill me, you’ll never find it.”
She could see indecision hover on Sam’s grimy features. And then something flashed in his eyes. Not hate. Not anguish. But hope. A faint glimmer of hope that there could be a measure of restitution. That life could be worth living again.
Charlotte snuffed out a spark of pity. She forced herself to look at the knife. She imagined the blade sinking into her gut, imagined the pain, and imagined the blood spurting from the wound. The fleeting sense of shame she had felt for tricking the poor demented man vanished in an instant.
Reaching up with both arms, Sam used the tip of his knife to cut the rawhide straps that bound Charlotte’s wrists to the coat hooks. She held her breath, muscles tensed, waiting for him to crouch down and cut the tie around her ankles. When the straps fell away, she’d smash her knee into his face and make her escape.
Without turning her head, Charlotte stole a glance at the door. Sam had not locked or bolted the entrance. Her feet were bare, which might slow her flight on the rough gravel ground, but whatever her speed, it would be greater than his. She’d have no trouble making it to the safety of the Imperial Hotel, where a handful of men had already gathered to wait for tomorrow’s train.
But Sam didn’t crouch down. The knife poised in one hand, he fumbled inside his long duster and brought out a coil of braided rawhide rope.
He shook the coil loose, and she could see a loop at one end of it.
Reaching up once more, Sam slipped the loop over her head and yanked the sliding knot to tighten the noose around her neck. Only when he had her safely caught with the rope did he squat before her and snap the cord that tied her ankles.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“My shoes. Let me put on my shoes. And my clothes.”
Sam jerked the rawhide rope. The noose cut off her air.
“You go as you are,” Sam said.
Taking wheezing breaths, Charlotte slid her fingers beneath the rope at her throat and managed to ease the pressure against her windpipe.
“All right,” she rasped. “All right.”
Sam jerked the rope once more but she was prepared, her fingers tugging back against the impact, protecting her throat from the bite of the noose.
Charlotte made her way to the entrance, took one hand away from her throat and pushed the door open. The night air was cool. Darkness covered the landscape. A few yards away, she could see the looming shadow of a horse and cart. In the sky, a million stars twinkled, cold and uncaring. Halfway down the street, she could see the steady burn of gas lights at the Imperial Hotel, and at the far end, the yellow square of the doctor’s window shone like the beacon, promising safety.
She would lead the way toward the hotel. When they were close enough, she would yell and throw her weight against the rope and attempt to break free. Even if the noose cut off her air, someone would come. Someone would hear her. It took a few minutes for a person to choke to death. Someone would come.
Behind her, Charlotte heard the scrape of Sam’s shuffling footsteps. An instant later, a circle of flickering light fell around her. He had picked up the small lamp in the cabin and was holding it high to illuminate their way into the darkness.
“Get going,” he ordered.
Charlotte set into motion. The gravel bit into the soles of her bare feet, but she ignored the pain. A thorn made her cry out. The rope jerked around her neck.
“Be quiet,” Sam hissed.
“Sorry,” she said in a low voice. “I stepped on a thorn.”
He made a grunted reply that might have contained a shred of sympathy. Encouraged by that small evidence of his humanity, Charlotte increased her speed. She had planned to walk in a semicircle, in an attempt to disguise her destination, but now she pointed her feet directly toward the lights of the Imperial Hotel.
The rope jerked, hard. She came to a halt.
“Not that way,” Sam said. “The apple orchard was next to the church.”
There had been an apple orchard! Despair washed over Charlotte as she thought of the layout of the town. The small white church was the one building in Gold Crossing that lay even farther away from the other buildings than the schoolhouse. Farther away from the lights. Farther away from safety.
“Keep going,” Sam said.
He was forgetting to whisper now. She would argue back, keep him talking, in the hope that he might raise his voice enough for someone to hear. Even as the thought formed in her mind, a burst of music floated through the darkness from the Drunken Mule, making Charlotte understand how unlikely the prospect would be.
Hope ebbed inside her. Why prolong the agony? Why not end it here?
Her feet stopped moving. She uncurled her fingers from the rope around her neck, letting the pressure bite into her throat.
“Keep going,” Sam said. The rope jerked, but only a little. And then she felt the prick of the knife at the small of her back. “If you don’t find the gold, I’ll gut you like a fish.”
Terror gripped her once more, and with it came a renewed spark of survival instinct. Oblivious to the sting of gravel and thorns beneath the soles of her bare feet, Charlotte set into motion again. The circle of lamplight danced and flickered around her, creating a play of shadows on the ground.
Ahead, she could see the small white church looming like an oasis in the darkness. Behind her, she could hear the sounds of Sam’s awkward progress—the drag and scrape of his infirm foot, the rustle of his long duster as he swung his body in each laborious step. Even in the midst of her terror, she couldn’t totally shake off her compassion for the man.
“Here,” Sam said, and jerked her to a halt.
Charlotte stilled, tried to draw calming breaths. She raked a glance around her. They were beside the church, on the opposite side from the small graveyard. The ground was covered in coarse tufts of grass. When Sam moved the lamp in a wide arc, she could see a few stumps and gnarled roots on the ground, evidence that there might once have been an orchard.
“Dig,” Sam said.
“Dig?” Charlotte straightened her spine. “What with?” She put out her hand, trying to keep it from shaking. “I need your knife. The ground’s too hard to dig with my bare hands.”
For a fraction of a second, she thought she’d get away with it. Then Sam laughed that horrible, bitter laugh of his. “You don’t get away with your wiles no more, Madeleine.”
Not taking his eyes off her, he bent to prop the lamp on the ground. Then he reached into a pocket on his duster and brought out a metal eating utensil, a spoon with a serrated tip that also allowed it to be used like a fork. Spork, Charlotte had heard someone call them.
“Dig.” Sam pointed at the ground. “Here.”
Charlotte took the spork he held out for her. Sam moved closer, letting the rope go slack.
“Dig,” he said. “Find my gold.”
Charlotte sank to her knees and struck the spork into the ground. The earth was softer here, evidence of past cultivation, and she managed to scoop out a spoonful of dirt.
Again and again, her arm swung, spooning out the dirt, creating a hole in the ground. Despite the effort the night chill made her shiver. When she twisted to toss aside the loose earth, her flimsy nightgown tore where her knees trapped it against the ground. Mud covered her hands and forearms. When she struck hard with the spoon, grit flew up into her face. She could feel it grinding in her teeth, caking inside her nostrils, stinging in her eyes.
When the hole was big enough to bury a small treasure chest, Sam jerked on the rope.
“Stop.”
Kneeling on all fours, Charlotte ceased her digging. Too exhausted to scramble up to her feet, she folded one knee beneath her and slumped to sit on the ground.
Sam picked up the lamp and lifted it high. Charlotte watched, all thoughts of escape forgotten. Her lungs were heaving, her muscles throbbing, her hands shaking. Sam took a step to the left, to the right, illuminating the tufts of coarse grass beneath his feet.
“Here,” he said, and set the lamp on the ground again.
The rope jerked. Charlotte scrambled back to her hands and knees. Her fingers tightened around the handle of the spork. Her arm began to rise and fall, scooping out the dirt. Digging, digging, digging, one spoonful at a time.
High up in the sky, the stars twinkled. Down the street, merriment went on in the saloon. Charlotte dug, her knuckles bleeding, the flimsy nightgown clinging to her body, mud coating her skin, tears of terror and despair streaming down her face.
Minutes turned to hours. Thomas, Thomas, she thought, I’ll never see you again. I’ll never see my sisters again. How long did she have? Until midnight? Until dawn? How long would it take before Sam understood they were digging for a treasure that did not exist?
Chapter Fourteen
Thomas rode down the trail in the darkness, letting Shadow pick the way. He’d planned to get into town in daylight. After all, tomorrow was Thursday, and although some of the miners had decided no women would arrive, others were still hoping and had come down the hill to meet the train. Thomas didn’t want Charlotte alone in the schoolhouse with a bunch of woman-hungry males roaming around.
He ought to have set out earlier,
but Rosamund’s condition had taken a turn for the worse. For a few hours, Thomas had feared he would need to put the cow down, end her suffering. But then the fever had broken, and Rosamund had not protested when he had gently milked her, easing the pressure in her udders.
The light in the window of Doc Timmerman’s house guided Thomas into town. The doc and his wife turned in early, but every night the doc filled a lamp and left it burning by the window, to help people find him in case of an emergency.
Past the boarded-up homes, past the mercantile, past the noisy saloon Thomas rode, eager to reach the schoolhouse and sleeping Charlotte.
He dismounted twenty yards away, tied Shadow to a hitching rail outside an empty store, unsaddled the horse and took down his bedroll. He’d walk the rest of the way, so the clatter of Shadow’s hooves would not wake her up.
By the schoolhouse something big loomed in the darkness. The soft neigh of a horse greeted Thomas. He took out a match, stuck it against the sole of his boot and held the flame high. A buckskin horse. And a farm cart. He recognized neither, but in the darkness one horse and farm cart looked very much like another.
Thomas shook out the match before it scorched his fingers. He felt his way through the darkness to the schoolhouse door and gave it a light tap. The door slid open. He struck another match and held it high.
Instead of neat rows, the dozen desks stood askew, as if there had been a brawl. Quickly, Thomas counted the days since his last trip into town, ticked them off in his mind. No mistake. Thursday was tomorrow. The children had not arrived yet, could not have wreaked havoc in the classroom.
Worry twisted in his gut. Who had come for Charlotte? It could not be Sam Renner, for he was still three days away, and whoever had caused the disarray in the schoolhouse had arrived by cart. It had to be that man from Boston who was after her... Cousin Gareth, Thomas recalled.
He lit another match, searched for a source of light in the cabin. There was no lamp on the table, but he spotted one on the wall, fastened to a bracket with a reflector behind it. Not bothering with the niceties of unscrewing the bracket, Thomas wrenched the lamp free, taking care not to break the glass or spill the oil.
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