The Rose Legacy

by Kristen Heitzmann

  “Are you all right, Daddy?” D.C. dropped to his knees beside him.

  Cain could only nod. He hadn’t the breath for words, and the pain was growing sharper. The blood had started to congeal, but the gash needed sewing. D.C. took the scarf from his neck and tied it tightly around the wound. That brought some small relief. Cain tried to rise but failed.

  D.C. caught his shoulders and sat him up. “Thank God Quillan saw the flood.”

  Thank God indeed. Cain surveyed Quillan still lying in the mud. When push came to shove, that young man did the right thing every time. He could have saved himself and climbed to safety, but he’d risked warning others. Yesirree, God had His eye on Quillan.

  Cain looked up the gulch. He’d seen a lot of things during his years on the mountain, even seen floods, but none like this one. None that took buildings and made matchsticks of them, roaring down the gulch like a monster devouring everything in its path, changing the landscape until he hardly knew it. The water must have been clogged somewhere high, building and holding until its force could not be contained.

  Lives had been lost, he knew. It was impossible they hadn’t in a cataclysm of nature such as this. But some had been spared on account of Quillan. Cain’s heart swelled. He loved that man like a son, same as he loved D.C., God bless him.

  He gathered his strength as Quillan and D.C. helped him to his feet, or rather his foot. The peg was somewheres down the mountain. He hooked his arm around Quillan’s neck. But then, what need had he of a wooden leg when he had a friend like Quillan?

  Quillan felt mauled, battered, and torn up as he helped Cain stand. The rain had stopped or mostly so, and people crawled from their holes, congregating at Central, or what used to be Central Street, now just a scattering of buildings beside a flowing mire of debris.

  One side of the city had fared okay; the other side was simply gone. The sight shook him. How easily the work of their hands had been swept away. A house built on sand. What had the foundation been? Greed?

  All around them small vignettes played out, people surveying the aftermath with looks of disbelief and disorientation. He supposed he and D.C. looked much the same. Cain just looked gray.

  They sloshed through the mud toward Central and found Mae perched on a stool, an island amid the slag. Somehow her perch didn’t look any queerer than the rest of it. He started by her, too weary to speak. His boots sucked in and out of the mud, each step an effort.

  Mae gathered herself. “Have you seen Carina?”

  Quillan turned. “She’s not with you?” He shifted Cain’s weight.

  Mae shook her head. “Berkley Beck claims he saw her riding up the gulch before the flood.”

  Quillan looked up the gulch where the water had roiled and rushed. Only slowly did her words dawn on him. “Where can I take Cain?”

  “They’re setting up infirmaries at the hotel and my place.” Mae’s voice softened. “Take him to my bed. The old coot looks half drowned.”

  Quillan turned away without response, starting up the way that used to be Drake, Cain half hopping between D.C. and him. Like a seed germinating, concern for Carina DiGratia grew inside him. Soon it was a weed, twisting his stomach.

  When they reached Mae’s, Quillan laid Cain in the bed as gently as he could. The arm would need stitching, though how Cain had cut it, Quillan wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t wait now for the doctor. He glanced at D.C.

  “You’ll stay with him? Have Dr. Felden see to his arm?”

  D.C. nodded. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Quillan gripped Cain’s hand briefly, then went out. No telling how long it would be before Dr. Felden made his way to Cain. Many others would be brought in. Many in worse condition. Many beyond any doctor’s help. He’d intended to join the search himself for injured and dead down the gulch.

  But it appeared his first direction was up. Why had Miss DiGratia ridden up the gulch in the storm? Though his strength was sapped, there was no time to rest. She could be injured … or dead.

  If she were dead, there was no hurry. So why did he force his legs to move, even with the left one shooting pain at every step? He’d pulled or torn something on the side of the knee, though the joint was whole. He sighed, passing the knot of men Berkley Beck was organizing.

  He wanted no part of anything Beck had a hand in. He kept on until he found Tavish with Jock. They’d made it to the near side of the flood, and Jock’s strength must have pulled them out. Tavish held tight to the gelding, as though letting go even now might mean death.

  Quillan reached a gentle hand to his shoulder. “I need to take him, my friend.”

  Tavish nodded, letting his arms slide away. “You’ll be finding the lass?”

  Quillan drew his brows down. “What lass?”

  “Miss DiGratia. She came for Dom just before the flood.” The old man’s eyes were softened with worry.

  “How much before?”

  Tavish rubbed his chin with the side of his hand. “Time enough to reach Placer.”

  “You think that’s where she went?”

  He shrugged. “It’s where she always goes.”

  Quillan led Jock. He wore only a halter bridle, but it would have to do. Reaching solid ground, he mounted bareback, turned him up the gulch, and started off. If Miss DiGratia was in Placer when the flood hit … He frowned, not certain why it mattered. She’d been nothing but trouble for him, especially today.

  But then, he’d been trouble for her, too, starting with their ill-fated meeting on the wagon road. He shook the hair back from his face. He’d lost his hat along with everything else. Not everything. He patted Jock’s neck. Maybe Jack had swum free as well.

  He hoped all four horses had survived. He didn’t expect to find the wagon whole, but maybe. Somewhere down the gulch things would wash ashore, tangled up and waiting to be retrieved. Things … and bodies.

  He dropped his chin, acknowledging the thought he hadn’t wanted to face. He didn’t want to be the one to find Miss DiGratia, didn’t want to see her broken and still, she whose life seemed to pulse in her, strong and tenacious. Even if that tenacity made him crazy sometimes.

  What was she doing up the gulch? Didn’t she know the danger of a storm like this, how the water could build so fast in the narrow canyons? No, of course she didn’t know. How could she? He felt a shiver of dread.

  If he hadn’t scared and upset her … He shook his head, too tired to think about it.

  Jock climbed the gulch strewn with rubble and oozing mud. The creek ran high, twice as high as normal, bursting its banks, but nothing like the churning madness it had been just hours ago. Looking up, he blinked, unsure his mind wasn’t playing tricks. His eyes searched the gulch from side to side. Placer was gone.

  Jock stopped, sensing his confusion. Quillan stared. It was washed away, every building gone as though they’d never been there. No mining works, no town, no hotel, no cabins—nothing. The flood must have been a wall of water through here. His throat tightened painfully. There was no way she could have withstood that. Unless …

  He turned and looked up the mountain. Was it to Placer she went, or somewhere else? He felt a grim hardening inside. Why? Why would she go there? What could the Rose Legacy mean to her? He turned Jock, purposeful now in his movements. The horse responded accordingly, huffing heavily with the digging of his hooves into the steep, slippery slope.

  Quillan reached the clearing and stared dully at the gaping mine, empty, no huddling figure awaiting him. Fool, to think she’d gone there. Part of him was relieved, the part that was shamed by this piece of ground. He didn’t want her here, seeing what he came from. He dismounted, dropped the halter rein, and walked slowly from the mine to the foundation. He’d never set foot inside the square of his birthplace, not since he could step at all.

  He looked down at the blackened stones and felt the familiar quiver in his spine. Every time he thought of them dying in the fire, lying there and dying … Mrs. Shepard had described it too well and too often,
the smell of burnt flesh, the blackened, charred bodies. Yet standing there, he felt something else. A sadness at his loss, and a deep loneliness.

  His arms were heavy at his sides, his mind and body weary. But it was his soul that hurt most. He was alive, but why? For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. When he was small he had tried so hard to believe, to trust, to do what was right. But it was never enough to satisfy her, the woman who held him and whispered poison in his ear.

  He sighed. It was getting dark, the clouds overhead clumped together, leaving patches of indigo sky spattered with the first faint stars. He should have brought a lantern if he could have gotten hold of one. But what use was it now? If Miss DiGratia had ridden up, she was washed away.

  Angry and hurt, he started back for Jock. He bent to pull a twig from the left rear hoof and caught the glitter of something in the muddy gravel. Taking a step toward it, he made out the shape, reached, and pulled it from the dirt. A silver crucifix. Carina DiGratia’s crucifix.

  Snatching it up, he raised his head and searched again the clearing of the trees, the mine. Was she inside? “Carina!”

  Nothing. He stepped into the opening, nearly pitch black and void. “Carina?” He knew better than to holler into an old tunnel. The timbers might have rotted and the sound could bring it all down. A few more steps. “Carina?”

  He felt the wall along one side and gingerly placed his feet. “Miss DiGratia, are you there?”

  A whimper from below. His heart leaped as he dropped to his knees and felt the floor until he found the shaft. How deep? “Carina?”

  “Sì. Son qui.”

  She sounded dazed but not as far down as he’d feared. And she was alive. He took a moment to digest that. It seemed unbelievable, and he realized he’d steeled himself to find her dead. His mind had to make the shift, but it was sluggish in doing so. Then suddenly it burst on him. She was alive!

  Emotions churned, the natural elation of having somehow accomplished what he believed he wouldn’t, then the surge of anger. Why was she here? What morbid fascination brought her to this shaft? He pictured her face riveted on the tale of his parents’ evil. His throat tightened, and he clenched his hands at his sides.

  “Are you hurt?” His voice sounded odd, tumbling down the shaft.

  She moaned, mumbling again, in Italian he assumed. Whatever his feelings toward her, she needed help. A lantern. A torch. Rope. How had he left with nothing? He stood and groped his way back toward the opening. Most tunnels had an alcove somewhere near the front. Maybe, though unlikely, he could find what he needed. He found the opening in the wall with his hands and felt for shelves.

  They were there, his palms running over rough boards thick with dust and cobwebs. Empty. He turned and felt the next, and then the last. Long cylinders, tallow by the feel. He grabbed one up and felt for matches. None. But a metal box. Well, flint and steel were better than nothing.

  He opened the box, found what he needed, and struck until his spark lit the candle wick. By its light he saw the lantern on the floor, but it was dry, whatever oil it once contained long since evaporated. Cupping the flame, he carried the candle back to the shaft, its light a pallid glow in the inky darkness.

  He held it out over the shaft and saw her, caught on a shelf with the main shaft yawning black beside her. He went back, searched the alcove for rope, and found a short length, somewhat rotted but not past use. Stuffing extra candles and the tinderbox into his pocket, he brought the rope back to the shaft. “Miss DiGratia?”

  No answer. She was shocked, dazed, and probably injured. “Carina, can you hear me?”

  She moved, her head tipping up until her face came into the light. “I’m here.”

  English! Good. “I have a rope. I’ll drop it down to you.”

  “I can’t climb. My shoulder, it’s ferito.” She mumbled again, a string of Italian, then collapsed against the wall in pain.

  He would have to go down after her. He looked for a place to attach the rope but found none. Frustrated, he returned to the alcove and rummaged the piles on the floor. The sacking fell away and he found what he needed: a handful of bent, rusted spikes. Outside he felt around for a rock that fit his hand well enough.

  He headed back in. Propping the candle against the tunnel wall, he used the rock to drive two spikes, angling away from each other, into a timber across from the shaft. He tied one end of the rope around the spikes in a double hitch, then yanked it hard. It held, and the timber seemed sound. He’d have to take the chance.

  With the lit candle between his teeth, he let himself down the shaft, hand over hand, feet finding whatever crevice they could. Some twenty feet down, he lighted on the narrow shelf beside her. She stared as though trying to piece together what she was seeing. Did she recognize him? Maybe it was better she didn’t.

  He took the candle from his teeth and held it upright over the shaft. The light was swallowed up, never showing bottom. It would have been a silent grave, the mystery of her death adding to her legend, how she disappeared during the flood but her body was never found.

  He crouched down, all too aware of her body right beside him now on the narrow shelf. Her arm was cradled against her, and he reached a hand to her shoulder.

  “Aah,” she cried and slapped at him.

  By the hang of her arm, he guessed the joint was out of place. He could jerk it back in, but not here on this precarious perch. He wedged the candle into a knothole, where it dripped and sputtered. Swiftly he took off his shirt and tied it around her, immobilizing the damaged shoulder. She fought him with her free hand, but her movements were weak, ineffective.

  The candle’s flame reeled and staggered as he looped the rope around her waist, then drew her up against him and brought the rope between his legs and around his own middle. The flame shrank and died, leaving only the thin acrid smell of smoke, but he couldn’t have carried the candle anyway. By touch, he tied another double hitch and yanked the rope for give. It held for now.

  Slowly he stood, drawing her up with him. It was just as well the darkness was complete. “Hold on to me with your good arm.” He put her hand behind his neck, and she must have understood because she clung, awakening feelings in him it was hardly the time or place to acknowledge.

  Using his feet on the wall, he climbed the rope, straining with their combined weight and his already depleted strength. His muscles burned and shook, bunching and seizing. He wouldn’t make it, couldn’t … The connection between mind and muscle felt severed. His arms knew what to do but wouldn’t do it. Come on! Finding a strength beyond his own, he reached the top, pulled them to the tunnel floor, and collapsed, dragging her down with him.

  She cried out in pain. “Per piacere, Signore. Misericordia. Misericordia, Dio.”

  Hearing her language come in broken tones tugged his heart with a compassion he hadn’t felt before for her. Yet she seemed so small and harmless … and soft, tied against him. He smelled her fear, but also her, felt her breath on his neck. His own breath wouldn’t come naturally. Clumsily, he fumbled with the rope, the knot easier to make than unmake. At last it came free and he untangled them.

  Carina rolled only enough to take her weight from the shoulder, then lay still. He couldn’t see, but he guessed she’d fainted. That was probably best. He dragged himself to his feet, then with a resolve that went beyond normal strength, he lifted her into his arms and carried her outside.

  Though only the rim of sky just above the mountains glowed azure, it seemed almost bright after the inky tunnel. The rest of the sky had settled into a starry black, mostly clear and moonlit. The storm had passed.

  Quillan stood with her in his arms and breathed the night air into his lungs, the clear, pine-scented air. He was keenly aware of all his senses. The night breeze in the pines, the chill of it on his skin. They shall bear thee up

  in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone … The words again. Why?

  Why would angels watch out for h
im when he’d gone out of his way to prove himself anything but angelic? The weariness settled back. Carina DiGratia’s insubstantial weight wore him down. He looked into her face, still in the moonlight. Maybe it was for her sake. The silvery light lined her face like a marble statue, only the dark brows and lashes breaking the pallor.

  He stood for a moment, lost in the sight. There is a garden in her face where roses and white lilies grow … Thomas Campion’s words at a time like this? He was past exhaustion.

  Jock turned his head and nickered, and Quillan carried Carina to the horse. She stayed limp as he lifted her up and mounted behind her. The air was sharply cold on his shirtless back, but he was warm enough where she leaned against him. Too warm, too aware of her. He would get down the gulch as swiftly as possible.

  But that proved an impossible task. The mud and debris were more treacherous going down, and in the dark, crazy to attempt. When they reached the Gold Creek mine, he reined in. What was the sense of breaking her neck now, if she hadn’t in her fall? He jumped down and took her weight into his arms.

  If she knew or cared, she made no sign, only whimpering in pain and muttering words he didn’t understand. He carried her into the mine entrance and sat her against the wall. The candles were in his pocket, and with some difficulty he struck a spark that lit one. In the flickering light, he found a storeroom and pushed open the door.

  A lantern and a can of kerosene. It sloshed when he shook it. Someone must have used the mine in the last several years, maybe for shelter as they were now. Dropping to his knees, he filled the lamp and lit it. Light jumped into the small enclosure, throwing the walls into rough relief. A pile in the corner might have been a blanket once, but it was rotted and ragged, and there were no others. Whoever had come took anything else useful with them when they left.

  He headed back toward the entrance, the light from the lantern swinging up and down the walls as he approached Miss DiGratia. Her eyes were open, watching him approach. Seeing her conscious put an end to his poetic musings. She was clearly in pain. He set the lantern on the rough dirt floor and began to untie the shirt that held her arm.