Shadow's Stand

by Sarah McCarty

  “You’re not hoping that someone’s going to rescue you when you get to the hotel, are you?”

  “No. That is not one of my hopes.” Being able to get what she needed out of her room without him noticing? That was one of her hopes.

  He took her elbow. “Let’s go.”

  The whole way to the hotel, she held on to a wish, almost a belief, that someone should notice she was being held captive. At least they should look at them twice, but nobody looked at the army officer and the Chinese woman. In reality, nobody looked at her at all, but they all looked at him and she had to admit, he did cut a striking figure in his uniform. Part of it had to do with how he carried himself. The rest had to do with how well his uniform fit and the utter cleanliness of it. She looked at his gloves. There wasn’t a smudge in sight. The colonel was a very precise man.

  “How did you find me?”

  “There aren’t many women who look for jobs as explosives experts. Word gets around.”

  She cursed herself. She hadn’t even thought of hiding that.

  They arrived at the hotel without incident. It was a simple three-story structure with modest decor and a clean interior. They catered to families. An unmarried woman alone was suspicious, so she wasn’t surprised when, as soon as they entered the lobby, the clerk called her over. Daniels stayed with her, his hand on the middle of her back. As if she needed the warning.

  Bowing, she greeted the clerk. “Hello, Mr. Brown.”

  Keeping his voice low, the clerk informed her, “I’m sorry, Miss Fei, we don’t allow gentlemen up to our female guests’ rooms.”

  She didn’t need the colonel’s painful grip on her elbow to know he didn’t like that.

  “You do not rent rooms to men?” she asked.

  The challenge was slapped down. “This is not a saloon. We do not allow fraternizing above stairs.”

  The gentleman in the corner reading a newspaper folded the top to look at her. A woman coming down the stairs ushered her son out the door faster than was necessary. Fei’s blush was not feigned.

  “Oh, my.”

  She didn’t know what to say or to whom.

  Daniels’s lopsided smile gave her the shivers. “I’m sorry, darling, it wasn’t my intention to ruin your reputation when I suggested we come get your trunk.”

  “We didn’t mean any disrespect, sir, but this is a decent hotel for families,” Mr. Brown said.

  “I understand.”

  “If the lady needs help with her trunk, we have a bellboy who could assist, if that would be acceptable?”

  Fei’s “That won’t be necessary” was overridden by the colonel’s “That would be appreciated.”

  “Of course.” The clerk rang a bell on the desk. A middle-aged man came out of the back.

  “Miss Fei will need help with her trunks.”

  The man nodded and waited. Daniels reached out and stroked the back of his fingers down Fei’s cheek. “Don’t take too long, darling. We’ve got an appointment in ten minutes.”

  She kept her expression demure and her eyes downcast through sheer force of will. “Of course.”

  Her room was on the second floor. She took the stairs as quickly as she could. The bellhop lagged behind, likely not in a hurry as he knew he was going to have to wait on her anyway. Reaching her room, she quickly entered and closed the door behind her. She didn’t have much time.

  Dumping out the trunk, she lifted the false bottom. Four sticks. She only had four sticks left. Tearing at a petticoat, she started ripping strips of material off the bottom. Grabbing two sticks of the dynamite, she tied them to the outside of her right thigh and then two to her left. Putting on the petticoats over her clothes, she tied them before pulling her blue cotton dress over her head. Buttoning it quickly, she stuffed the sulfurs in the pocket. In the other one, she stuffed her map. Smoothing her skirts, she checked her appearance. The dynamite wasn’t noticeable. On the floor, amidst the shirts and dresses, was her gold nugget. Her good-luck charm. She picked it up. For a moment she just stood there holding the nugget, inner panic flaring.

  The colonel would kill her as soon as he had what he wanted. She had no doubt of that. She assumed he was telling the truth when he said Shadow had escaped. Maybe he was telling the truth about the other, too. Men tended to know more about their enemies than about their friends. And Shadow was an enigma to her. It had always felt like love when he touched her, but then he’d step back and the feeling would be gone. So the colonel could be telling the truth or he could just be spinning her a lie because he needed her to believe it so he could recapture Shadow. And quite frankly, she was tired of guessing.

  A knock came at the door. With minimal fuss, she tossed a pair of pantaloons, a new shirt and skirt, stockings and a sweater into her pack. The rest she shoved back into the trunk. Then she hurried over to the door, vividly aware of the dynamite strapped to her thighs, the chances she was taking. Fingers on the doorknob, she stopped and took a breath. Catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror by the door, she smoothed her hair. Everything looked to be in place. It was time to go. She opened the door.

  “Your trunk?” the bellhop asked.

  “I have decided I only need a pack.”

  After a second, he held out his hand. She gave him her bag. He motioned her out the door.

  On the way down the stairs, she discovered that deciding it was time to do something was a long way from being comfortable with doing it. When she got to the landing, her knees were weak and her hands were shaking. There was no time to give in to panic. The colonel was waiting at the bottom, one foot on the first step, one hand on the railing.

  “I was just coming to look for you,” he informed her as she descended the stairs.

  “It took longer than expected,” she told him when she got to the bottom.

  His pale blue eyes went from her to the porter.

  “Where’s your trunk?”

  She halted on the step in front of him. “I decided all I needed was the pack. We are coming back, aren’t we?”

  “Of course.”

  He was lying.

  The porter handed him her bag. The colonel’s smile was a false stretch of his lips as he handed the man a coin. “Thank you.” Adding several more, he said, “And please see that the lady’s room is held for the next week.”

  So much money spent on an illusion that didn’t matter. Why did he bother? she wondered.

  “Of course,” the desk clerk said, motioning the porter over and collecting the coins.

  Fei reached for her pack. The colonel smiled and tucked the pack over his shoulder. “I’ll carry that, my dear.”

  Of course he would. Holding the front door open for her, he waited for her to pass through. As soon as she was level, he said, “You changed your clothes.”

  The comment snapped just behind her ear. She jumped. His hand came down to the center of her back, touching lightly, letting her know he was there. That he was in control. It was hard to swallow.

  “It is uncomfortable to ride in my tunic and pants,” she lied. She needed the skirts to hide the dynamite. “The material is too thin.”

  “I’m not complaining. I don’t approve of that heathen garb anyway.”

  Heathen. He was calling her heathen and he was the one doing the kidnapping. Instead of spitting out the truth, she kept her gaze down and her hands meekly folded. Her ancestors had known one thing, men relaxed around a woman they thought submissive.

  “While you were gathering your items, I sent a boy to have our horses brought around.”

  He motioned to the rocking chairs. “Please sit.”

  It wasn’t a request. It was only the illusion of choice. She gave him the illusion of gratitude. With a bow so shallow as to be an insult, she said, “Thank you.”

  “I can see what Shadow liked in you. It’s a nice change to have a woman around who does as she’s told.”

  “A woman’s place is cherished at her husband’s feet.”

  He sat beside her. �
��Maybe later we’ll test that out.”

  Maybe by then she would be gone. The dynamite felt heavy on her thighs. She could only hope it didn’t slip. Had she tied it tightly enough? Had she tied it too tightly? The only way she would know was if it fell off, or if her legs got numb. Waiting to find out just put a finer edge on the night. The colonel reached into his vest. She stiffened.

  “No need for nerves. It’s just a journal.” He held it up. He opened the cover and she knew immediately there was nothing “just” about it. There were dates and columns and precise areas of structured writing.

  He took a pencil out of the spine and turned to a page three-quarters of the way through.

  “You write in this book?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  He closed the book and tied the leather flap down. With equal precision he tucked the pencil into the spine. “It’s good to have a record. There will come a time down the road when people will need to know what I’ve done. I don’t want the newspapers and the biographers creating fiction because they don’t have fact.”

  “It is your life story?”

  He turned so fast she jumped back. “Do not refer to my life’s work as a story.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “People don’t always understand why leaders have to do what they do.”

  “You wish to be understood?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you put all in the book? Good and bad?”

  “How else would there be context?”

  She had no idea.

  Three men rode up the street leading two saddled horses. Daniels stood as the riders approached.

  “Colonel.”

  “Men.”

  The men did not have the colonel’s neatness of appearance. They looked like what they probably were, opportunists. Men who did whatever they needed to for coin.

  Daniels glanced down his nose at her. “Do you need assistance?”

  Getting out of the chair, no. Getting up on the monster horse they brought her, likely.

  “I do not know.”

  “Well, since daylight’s burning…”

  Grabbing her by the waist, he tossed her up onto the big chestnut. She clung to the saddle horn, glad she hadn’t strapped the dynamite to her waist. “Xei-xei.”

  “I do like the way you say that.”

  “I will remember.” And never say it again.

  He smiled, grabbed her horse’s reins and turned them south.

  “I just bet you will.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  BY THE TIME THEY REACHED the claim, their number had grown to twenty and Fei had run out of fear. Not that she hadn’t started out with a fair share, but every hour they’d ridden she’d watched, prayed and hoped. But no miracles had occurred. No heroes had appeared. After twelve hours, she’d decided she would have to save herself. By the fourteenth hour, she had a plan. By the fifteenth hour, she was prepared to enact it. The horses plodded into the clearing.

  “We’re here.”

  The men looked around. “I don’t see anything.”

  The colonel pulled out his revolver. “Playing games now would be very foolish, my dear.”

  The revolver didn’t scare her. They wouldn’t kill her until they knew for sure they had the claim. “It is here.”

  She slid off the horse.

  “Where are you going?”

  She walked stiffly up to the boulder. “The way is through here.”

  The men dismounted and tossed the horses’ reins over a bush. The horses immediately ducked their heads to eat. It had been a long ride. “Where?”

  She slipped behind the boulder. The colonel grabbed her arm and hauled her back out.

  “Oh, no, you don’t.”

  “But this is the way…”

  The man called John came over. “Damn narrow space. Do you think it’s a trap?”

  “Send her in first and see.”

  John gave her a push. Daniels yanked her back. “Not without some guarantee we can get her back.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  He grabbed some rope. “Fix it so we can reel her out.” He tied the rope around Fei’s waist and knotted it tightly in back. John tossed him a thinner rope. Daniels used that to tie her hands in front of her, and then to secure them to the thicker rope at the back of her waist. She stood, waiting patiently. She couldn’t implement her plan until she was in the cave. The colonel stroked her hair off her face. “You look very pretty like that.”

  She bowed her head, giving him the impression he wanted.

  “Just get her in there. This place gives me the creeps.”

  With a shove, Daniels sent her into the cave.

  THE CLAIM WAS EXACTLY as she and Shadow had left it. The bag of food tins they had brought still sat by the mouth of the cave. The saddlebags for carrying out the gold were on the far wall. The blankets and pillows she’d started to lay out were neatly bundled ten feet apart on either side of the fire pit. It was as if it was all waiting for her, eagerly anticipating the time she’d pick up the threads of her original intent and fix all that had gone wrong since she’d disobeyed Shadow’s order to stay put and stay safe.

  The claim was the same, but everything else was different. She was different. She wasn’t scared any longer. Not of making a decision anyway. Daniels and his men were not going to have her claim. They weren’t going to have Shadow. And they weren’t going to have her.

  Behind her, she could hear the colonel and his men struggling to pass through the opening. Once they succeeded, she wasn’t going to have much time. Rummaging awkwardly through the food sack, she located the knife and cut through the rope that bound her wrists and then sawed through the one on her waist, the pieces falling to the ground. She took the sulfurs and map out of her pocket and stepped out of her dress and petticoats.

  From beyond the rock entrance, she heard the colonel curse when the tension left the rope. “Fei Yen!”

  Her heart leaped to her throat. It was now or never. Lighting the lantern, she moved farther into the cave. She set it on a rock and looked at the map. She focused on small scribbles that looked like pebbles. It’d been two months since she’d checked the explosives her father had laid out. She needed to be very sure where the connections were. She wasn’t going to have much time once the series started. The narrow entry to the cave was only a delay, not a solution.

  “Goddamn it, girl, your ass better be there!”

  It was, but it wasn’t going to be there for long. Her hands shook. One way or another, she was leaving.

  “Get the hell out of the way, John,” she heard Daniels order.

  “Why? So you can get the gold for yourself?”

  Fei picked up the lantern. The flickering light cast grotesque shadows along the wall, highlighting the dug-out areas and the shored-up tunnels. There was fresh dirt around the openings. The claim was less stable than before.

  “Take off your gun belts, and strip down, goddamn it,” she heard the colonel say.

  It was time to go. Following the marks on the map, she walked around the perimeter of the cave, checking the fuse connections at each of the three tunnel openings that led deeper into the cave. The left one led to the waterfall. The center one was a dead end. The third narrow, ramshackle tunnel looked like a dead end but actually snaked around behind the waterfall. Getting to it was the key to her plan. If the explosions started from there, she could escape out the back of the cave, leaving the men trapped in the center. Buried. She shivered at the horrific image. Her stomach turned, but she buried the weakness. These men had killed others. Would kill her and Shadow. They needed to be stopped. She could stop them—she couldn’t think beyond that.

  Fei finished checking the front section and headed into the left tunnel to the back. She hated the back of the cave. There were steep ledges that crumbled to deep drop-offs along the carved-out path. When placing the charges, she’d almost fallen to her death when a narrow part of ledge had given way under
her feet.

  Putting the memory out of her mind, she picked up the sack of gold she’d reserved for herself months ago and dragged it close to the ledge. She searched the floor, looking for the connection. She couldn’t find it and began to panic. She took a deep breath and looked again. There was a spill of pebbles on the ground that didn’t look natural. She gently pushed them aside and found the connection, but she didn’t remember laying out pebbles like that. She sat back on her heels. Her heart pounded in her throat, her breathing stuck in her chest. She also didn’t remember tying those wires together.