“You’re either crazy or stupid.” He spoke through clenched teeth, so angry he shook her. “You might have killed us both.”
Her face was stark in the darkness, the whites of her eyes full rims around the darks. He felt her trembling. She was terrified. Of him. He jammed splayed fingers into his hair, loose now from the leather string he had tied it with.
Steps outside the door. He clutched her to his chest, resting a finger to her lips. “Not a sound.” Her heart pulsed in her throat, but she made no noise louder than her rasping breath, which caught short when the door opened and a man peered in.
The darkness and clutter were all their defense. But they were enough. He closed the door and passed on. Quillan felt her go slack in his arms, and a flickering tenderness stirred inside. She had no reason to trust him, and he’d been brutal in his need to subdue her.
He let go his hold, and she sprang away, freezing when yet another hand found the door. It swung open and she gasped. Quillan tensed to spring.
“Carina?”
She jumped to her feet. “Mr. Beck.” Her voice was thin with fear.
He stepped forward and gripped her hands. “My dear …” He sent a hasty look over the shed.
Though the starlight from the open door hardly lightened the shadows, Quillan closed his eyes to slits lest they catch the light and betray him. Not that it mattered. In a moment Miss DiGratia would do so anyway.
“What are you doing out?”
“I lost my way on the mountain.”
“I told you to beware.”
“I only meant to take a short ride.”
“My dear, you’re trembling.” He cupped her elbow with his hand. “You must be terrified. There are bad things happening on the street. Bad men, as I warned you.”
She nodded.
“You were right to run.”
Quillan tensed. It would come now, her indignant retort that she had been grabbed and carried like so much grain. But it didn’t. Instead her voice was small. “Who are they? What are they doing?”
Beck shook his head. “It’s a travesty. The lawless terrifying the people. They’re telling the new marshal he’s as powerless to stop them as the last man.” He raised her chin with a finger. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see you home at once.” He kept hold of her elbow with one hand and guided the small of her back with the other.
She stopped at the door. “Aren’t you afraid to go out?”
“More angry than afraid. It’s an outrage.” A slick answer.
Quillan released the tension from his muscles. Beck was a better actor than he’d thought. He would indeed see her safe. Doubtless she trusted him to do so, though she had never asked what he was doing out there himself.
FOURTEEN
Is a violent deed more heinous than a violent thought? The thought and deed spring from the same spirit.
—Rose
CARINA’S KNEES SHOOK as she climbed the stairs to her cell of a room and shut the door behind her. She leaned back against it and closed her eyes, the jelly in her knees spreading upward to her chest and shoulders until her teeth rattled.
Opening her eyes, she raised a hand and stared at the bruising on her wrist, touched her throat, felt again the fingers there, muting her cry with a stranglehold. Not strangled, no, he had allowed the air to pass. Though he might not have. She had been powerless against him.
The pirate. The outlaw. What terror he struck in her, jumping out from the darkness like a demon spawned. She could believe him an outlaw. His arms were steel entrapping her, his hard weight crushing her to the wall. Her body had fought of its own accord, desperate to break contact with a madman. But was he?
Did he not keep her from walking blindly into the thick of it? Mr. Beck had warned her to stay inside that night. Why had she ignored him? Going to the mine had so preoccupied her thoughts. She expelled her breath. She had not meant to be out past dark. Father Charboneau had sent her off in time. If Dom had not lost his way …
She brushed fingers over the damaged wrist. Quillan had protected her. The streets were bad enough any night. But this … to teach the new marshal he had no power? She passed a hand over her eyes, pressed the eyelids with her fingertips, then pinched the bridge of her nose. What man was pazzo enough to take the job?
An Irishman. Donald McCollough, Mr. Beck had named him. No doubt he was simply a man down on his luck enough to accept the impossible task. Had she not seen the brutality, cleaned the blood from one fool caught by the roughs? More mornings than not there was at least one body battered unconscious and stripped of gold. And others who had been less reluctant, therefore robbed but not beaten.
But nothing like tonight. Not in the open, dragging men into the street. Was there no safety? Quillan Shepard had kept her safe. A tremor shook her. How her heart had jumped! Could he not have spoken first? But that would have given him away. And would she have listened? Would she not more likely have run? What was he doing there in the shadows?
Her chest went cold. Robbery. Was he one of them?
Creeping along the wall, Quillan made his way from the shed back to the street. Three men lay there; one he knew would be the marshal. There were sounds of fighting in the alley behind the bank, shouts and fists, boots on ribs. He scanned Central. They would go on all night, but he’d missed what he needed to see.
Who had made the threat to the marshal? Who had warned him to turn a blind eye, then had him beaten senseless? He could only suspect, for Miss DiGratia had prevented his knowing. He frowned, still feeling the throb of teeth marks on his arm.
Quillan should have let her go, let her walk into it, should have let her see for herself what her foolishness wrought. He left the wall and ran across the street. He had lost his chance. Now the best he could do was make it to his tent without incident.
At least he hadn’t been seen. He considered Miss DiGratia’s silence. She hadn’t given him away. Maybe she had finally realized he was helping her. Or maybe the sight of Berkley Beck brought such pleasure and relief she forgot him altogether. He snorted. Most likely the latter.
He traversed the darkened tent camp, most of the occupants wisely inside their canvas walls, not willing to make themselves a target for this night’s activities. Stopping outside Cain’s tent, he hesitated, then knocked on the wooden doorpost.
“Who is it?” The voice was D.C.’s.
Quillan was relieved to hear him there. He’d instructed him to stay with Cain tonight, but he wasn’t sure the boy would follow that advice. “It’s Quillan.”
“Well, let him in, boy.” Cain’s voice, insistent and annoyed. The flap opened, and Quillan stooped to enter.
Cain waved him in with a cup of coffee. “What in tarnation are you doin’ out tonight?”
“Trying to get a look.”
“You’re crazier than a coon in a tail trap.”
Not if he could have gotten a clear look as he’d planned. Quillan sat down cross-legged, and the mottled mutt sidled in next to him. “Something has to be done, and it won’t come from our constabulary.”
“Bunch of cowards.” D.C. scowled, tossing a stale crust he dug out of his bedroll to the dog.
Cain turned to his son. “Can you hardly blame ’em? McCollough’s likely had his head busted in, and the others are next if they so much as show their faces. If they know what’s good for ’em, they’re headin’ for the hills right now, don’t ya know.”
Quillan clenched his fist. “That’s why it has to come from us.” “You mean vigilante action?”
Quillan traced his fingers down the dog’s neck where the crust had disappeared in one gulp. “It’s been done before.” He’d seen it. He knew how situations like this could escalate. He’d watched it in Laramie when his foster father worked the people into righteous anger against the sinful elements. Reverend Shepard had been crushed and confused when his words were made the excuse for violent repercussions that left three people dead.
Quillan shook his head. “But I’m not suggesting that. I hope it doesn’t come to it.”
“What, then?” Cain shifted his stump of leg on the cot and rubbed the thigh.
“If we can find who’s behind it, name the perpetrators and bring them to justice, we can have an end to it.”
“How do you intend to do that?”
Quillan raised an eyebrow. “I have a plan.”
Cain’s larynx jumped up and down his throat beneath the thin, slack skin. “You’ve got a plan.”
“I’m not sure yet about all the pieces. But I’m working on it.”
“What piece ain’t you sure of?”
Quillan tipped his head down, unwilling to be misconstrued in this next part. “Carina DiGratia.” He flicked his eyes up to see Cain’s reaction.
Cain ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip and said nothing, but D.C. flushed red and looked about to splutter something, only anything he said would leave him with egg on his face. Cain didn’t know Miss DiGratia had doctored his son following one of his more shameful moments.
Quillan leaned forward. “You know whom I suspect.”
“And you know I agree with you.” Cain raised a knobby finger.
“If we can get someone inside, someone close to Beck, someone he trusts …”
“Carina DiGratia.” Cain’s nasal drawl made the foreign name sound almost comical.
“Think about it, Cain. She has access to his files, his ledger even. If we can learn whatever there is …” Quillan swung his arm.
“What happened to you?” D.C. pointed.
Quillan looked down to the spot D.C. indicated. Just below the roll of his sleeve, two semicircles of red gashes showed the work of Carina DiGratia’s teeth on his forearm. He stared a moment stupidly, as though he didn’t know perfectly well how they’d gotten there.
D.C. hunkered close. “Looks like someone bit you.”
Quillan looked from D.C. to Cain. “Someone did.”
Cain’s face suddenly sported red spheres on each cheekbone and on the bulb end of his nose. He drew his knee up to his chest and cackled. “Carina DiGratia.”
Quillan hung his head. “I hate it when you do that, Cain.”
Carina woke to a throbbing ache in her right wrist. She opened her eyes and examined the bruise. “How …?” Then it wasn’t a dream. Her mind had conjured strange images again and again through the night: Quillan howling from the crest of the mountain, then seizing her out of the darkness, his hands like steel claws, his head that of a wolf, but the eyes … the eyes were Quillan’s gray, fierce and searching as the talons seized her and they soared up higher and higher over the mountain that held his parents’ graves.
Absently she felt her throat. It hadn’t fared as poorly as her wrist. But she was thankful Mr. Beck had come when he did. She flushed at the memory of Quillan’s hold, the iron forearm across her ribs.
She had felt it before when he shot the snake and held her dangling. He seemed to enjoy trapping her between himself and some obstruction. Well, she had given as good as she got. Sitting up, she brushed her fingers through her hair and recalled the feel of her teeth in that same iron arm. It was flesh after all.
She climbed out of the cot, and her heel bumped the leather satchel underneath. She dropped to her knees and looked but didn’t open it. She knew the contents well enough. What had made her bring it? Some crazy hope that Flavio would regret his actions and come for her?
Sighing, she folded her hands. “Grazie, Dio, for this day and for protecting me last night.” She paused. “Thank you for … for Quillan and Mr. Beck. And per piacere give me my house today.”
She dressed and washed, then, taking up the letter she’d penned the day before, she went downstairs to the smell of pork and flapjacks.
Cain pushed open the swinging door with the head of his crutch. A complete abstainer, he nonetheless went inside the Emporium and made his way to the polished bar at the back. The place stank, but he’d smelled worse.
William Evans set up a cup and filled it with coffee, then gave him a haggard grin. “Mornin’, Cain.”
They had too many years of gold fields to let their differences on drink come between them. William Evans was a good man, even if he peddled the devil’s water now instead of scratching dirt. Cain looked around the room, most all the chairs in place, the sawdust undisturbed. “Seems you had a slow night.”
Evans puffed his cheeks and blew the air out. “I expected it. The poor fools who didn’t found themselves facedown in the street.”
“And the new marshal?”
Evans shook his head, then scowled. “No better than the last. They’ll have him right where they want him.”
Cain sighed and sipped his coffee. “Poor fella. Keep electing honest men, and the roughs’ll have their way every time. Need a regular thug to do the job.”
“Anyone in mind?”
“I was sorta thinkin’ you, Will.” Cain raised his cup in toast.
Evans laughed. “I’d like to have a piece of them. But I got a family to think of now. It’s not just me anymore.”
Cain nodded, feeling gloomier than ever. “That’s why you settled for business over pleasure.”
“I’d hardly call crushing stone and shoveling dirt pleasure, though I admit it had its excitement when I was younger. No, Cain, I’d be no better than McCollough. Once a man has something to fear for—or rather someone—he’s helpless.”
Shouldn’t be that way, Lord. Lettin’ fear keep a man from doin’ what’s right. But who was he to judge? “You seen my boy lately?”
“Now, Cain. I can’t play nursemaid to every runt that comes in here lookin’ for fun.” Evans leaned hammy elbows on the counter.
“I just thought you might’a noticed he’s freightin’ with Quillan these days.”
“That so? What about the Boundless?”
“Morty and Slow Jim run out on her. Claim she’s dry. Cain’t hardly expect better from Daniel Cain. Quillan’s my full partner now.” Cain slurped the coffee.
“Quillan?”
Cain rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand. “For all it’s worth. He won’t touch a pick, don’t ya know.”
“Well, he can’t hardly work a mine without folks connecting him to his pa, now, can he?”
Cain shrugged. “Don’t rightly know why not. None of that affair was ever proved to any degree. And anyhow, the sins of the father cain’t rightly pass on to the son when the son never knew the father.”
Evans shook his head. “I don’t know, Cain. That was a bad business, and memories are long up here.”
“Not so long as cain’t be set right.”
Evans leaned close. “I heard it, Cain. You heard it yourself. It wasn’t human.”
Cain opened his mouth to reply, but Evans looked up as someone swung in through the doors. By William’s scowl it wasn’t someone he cottoned to, but Cain didn’t turn. He’d learned to melt into the scene by not drawing attention to himself. Came in handy more times than not.
William Evans wiped down the bar to Cain’s left and set up a glass. “What’ll it be?”
“I haven’t come to imbibe.”
The voice was Berkley Beck’s, and Cain wasn’t surprised by William’s poor welcome. Will’s opinion of Berkley Beck wasn’t high, and he had a quick-trigger temper. With William Evans as marshal, Berkley Beck would watch his p’s and q’s, even if he was in cahoots with the roughs.
Beck didn’t take the stool but leaned an elbow to the bar and scanned the room. “I have business to discuss, though I notice yours is rather off.” Evans scowled deeper as he poured a cup and set it out. “Someone ought to take a shotgun and clean out the whole mess of them.”
“I presume you mean the roughs.”
“I mean everyone deservin’.”
“Well, we have our marshal, though I haven’t seen him this morning.”
By the look on Evans’ face, he was too close to speaking his mind. But he only said, “You won’t,”
then waved a chunky finger in Beck’s face. “Doc put thirty stitches in his head last night.”
“Thirty?”
“More or less. And that’s not to mention a broken arm and all the other cuts and bashes. He’ll be as worthless as the last.”
Beck rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, that does bring me to the business I mentioned. But …”
Through the corner of his eye, Cain saw Beck’s gaze fall on him.
Evans crooked his arm and rested his chin on his palm. “Don’t worry about him. That old coot’s deafer than a post. Let’s hear your business.”
Beck hesitated, but Cain stared into his cup, then took a leisurely mouthful, swished it through his teeth, and swallowed. Turning, Beck gave him his back and leaned a little toward Evans on the counter. “What if I could assure that you and your customers would go unharrassed after this?”
Evans’ dark woolly brows drew down until they joined. “And how could you do that?”
Beck’s voice was smooth, reasonable. “I don’t know that I can. But what if? Would it be worth something to you?”
“That’s a big fat if.” Evans looked skeptical and more than a little perturbed.
Beck rested his palm on the smooth polished surface of the bar and glanced briefly at Cain. “Let’s say I can. And let’s say it would cost you a hundred dollars a week.”
“Bah!” Evans pushed off from the bar.
“What would you lose in revenues if every night became like last night? All the miners hiding in their tents, holed up in their rooms, afraid to go out …”
“They’ll come back. Last night was on account of the marshal.”
Beck smirked. “And of course he’ll be ready for action tonight.”
Evans’ shoulders hunched. “Even if he’s not, the men won’t stay holed up long. They’ll just watch their backs and each other’s.”
The Rose Legacy Page 17
