Rocky Mountain Oasis

by Lynnette Bonner

  They heard noises from outside in the street, and he grabbed her face with one of his hands. “I swear I will kill you if you breathe a word of this to anyone!” And with that Percival Hunter moved down the hallway toward the back door of the boarding house.

  Brooke righted the chair and collapsed into it. Smoothing her hands over her skirt, she willed away the trembling that coursed through every limb. She had to calm down, or Sky would know something was wrong the minute he saw her. She pulled in a long draw of air and released it through pursed lips. Then again.

  She could do this. She had to do this. Lives depended on it.

  Back inside the Mercantile Jason once again examined the scene before him—this time with a little more calm but with no less shock. His heart thudded, heavy with dread.

  Just inside the door, Fraser lay in a thick red pool of blood, his eyes wide open, lifelessly staring at the ceiling. A trail of blood led from Fraser’s bedroom at the back of the store, to where he now lay. Blood splattered everything. A bloody ax lay just beyond the body, a hatchet nearer the door. The poor man’s body was mutilated. He had deep cuts and hash marks all over him. The side of his neck was a gaping hole. The killing blow had come in the form of a gunshot. By the angle of the exit wound, Jason surmised that the gun had been placed in the man’s mouth. Probably by that time he had been too weak to resist.

  Still in disbelief, he turned to a barrel of picks next to Fraser’s body.

  Blood smeared some of them, as though Fraser had been trying to grab one to defend himself.

  Rubbing a hand over his face he turned his eyes to the ceiling for a moment. Unbelievable. This couldn’t have happened! Not here. Not this.

  The room was deathly quiet as the men stared in shock at the scene before them. Even Jed, who was usually so talkative, was strangely silent. Looking at him, Jason was surprised to see tears streaming down the old man’s face. Jed had not moved from his place by the door, just stood staring down at the body of his friend in disbelief and incredulity.

  Sky was the first one to recover his presence of mind. Bending over, he laid his fingers across the staring eyes, pushing them closed. “The body’s still warm,” he noted out loud. “He can’t have been dead for long.”

  Sky moved purposefully about the room, willing himself to remain calm, his eyes taking in every detail. Being careful not to step in the path of blood, where he could see bare footprints, he followed the coagulating trail back to Fraser’s bedroom. Pushing aside the colorful cascade of beaded strings—the divider that separated Fraser’s room from the Mercantile—he noted that the trail started on the rumpled bed, where a large dark red stain could be seen.

  Turning, Sky let his eyes range over the room, taking in the door and windows, trying to figure out how the murderer had gotten into the room. He knew Fraser had always meticulously locked up his store at night. His eyes paused. The latch on one of the front windows was open. “Jason, was the door unlocked when you came in?”

  “Yeah, I just walked right in.”

  “Jed, you had better go get Gaffney and Carle,” Sky said, referring to two of the other miners in town that he knew could be trusted. “Tell Bill we are going to need three of his fastest horses.

  “Jason, I know you didn’t get much sleep last night. Do you think you could ride back to Lewiston? There aren’t enough of us in town to conduct a thorough investigation. We are going to need a posse.”

  Jed left to do Sky’s bidding as Jason answered, “Yeah sure, I can do that.”

  “Fine, we’ll put together as many of the pieces as we can and then you can ride out this afternoon. Check the ledger, will you? What was the last entry Fraser made?”

  Jason walked over behind the counter and picked up Fraser’s receipt book. He grimaced and swiped his fingers across his pants.

  Sky’s stomach clenched. There must have been blood on the cover. He still couldn’t believe this was happening.

  Jason ran his finger down the page. “A string-tie for seventy-five cents.”

  “So someone was in after Brooke and I left,” Sky muttered to himself as he crossed the room to get a better look at the front window latch. When he saw that the window latch was indeed open, he stopped and scanned the room once again. Sky turned toward Jason. “Fraser always locked everything up, didn’t he?”

  Jason nodded.

  “How long have you worked for Fraser now?”

  “Six years, almost seven.”

  “You ever know anyone who thought he had reason to kill him?”

  “There was that incident with Chang. The one he told you about.” Jason shook his head. “Other than that, Fraser was just about the most-liked man in these parts. I never knew him to cheat anyone. In fact, just the opposite. He would go out of his way to make sure he treated people more than fair.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing about Chang. I think we should pay the man a visit.”

  Jason glanced down at the body on the floor. “Yeah, we should find out precisely where Lee Chang was last night.”

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  Jed returned with Gaffney and Carle, both of whom began to swear in anger when they saw the murdered man. Bill Currey, the old livery owner, came in behind them, cursed, and then began to shake so badly that Sky helped him down onto a small wooden cask for fear his legs would go out from under him.

  “Jason—” the old man reached a trembling hand in the direction of Fraser’s counter—“bring me some of Fraser’s special brew. I need me a drink.” He rubbed his face, as if to erase the sight on the floor from his mind.

  But when Jason moved to comply, Sky said, “Bill, I’m sorry, but during the course of this investigation there will be no drinking. We are all going to need clear heads in order to figure out the truth.” He turned serious eyes on all of the men in the room, making sure they understood the importance of this order. His eyes were compassionate, though, as he turned back to the quavering drunk. Everyone in town knew that ol’ Bill Currey was very fond of his liquor. He was always on the step of Roo’s Saloon even before it opened, waiting for his first drink of the day.

  Sky said, “I’ll take you over to Jed’s for a good strong cup of coffee in a minute, Bill.” Then, turning to the other men, he began to assign tasks. “Gaffney, you go outside and check around for any footprints around the store. This fresh snow is not going to help us any but make sure any prints are not disturbed until I can see them, if you find any. I need to go see Brooke. I don’t want her walking in on this.

  “Carle, I want you to take your horse and search further out. I don’t know what we are looking for, so take note of anything that looks unusual.

  “Jason, you should go around the store and see if you notice anything that’s missing or out of place. I noticed there is a safe in Fraser’s room, but it didn’t look tampered with. Do you know if he keeps money anywhere else?” Jason shrugged. “As far as I know, he keeps all his money in the safe.”

  Then he amended somberly, “Kept. Kept his money in the safe.”

  Sorrow suddenly threatened to overwhelm Sky and he looked at the floor for a moment to get his emotions under control. Anguish washed over him. He was too good a man to have something like this happen to him. He glanced at the body again. No one should have something like this happen to them.

  Realizing the men were staring at him, he turned to Jason. “All right. Just see if you notice anything unusual. Jed, I’ll take Bill over to your place, let Brooke know what’s going on, and then you and I can move him.” He nodded to Fraser.

  “I’ll come with you. I got an extry blanket in my room to home.”

  Sky led Bill over to the boarding house and pushed through the front door.

  Brooke jumped and spun toward them, her hand going to her throat. He frowned. “You all right?”

  She nodded, smoothing her hands over her skirt, a question in her eyes. Something didn’t seem right. But he was probably misjudging the situation due to his own roiling emoti
ons. “I have some bad news.”

  “Oh?” Her voice was breathy.

  “David Fraser has been killed.”

  She closed her eyes and groped for a chair behind her, sinking into it slowly.

  Sky helped Bill to a seat at the table, but his attention remained fixed on Brooke as he placed a cup of black coffee before the man.

  She pressed her lips together and fiddled with her fingers, studying them intensely. This was hitting her hard.

  He stopped in front of her. “Brooke? I need to get back to the Mercantile. Can you keep Bill here company for a bit?”

  She glanced at Bill and nodded, her gaze returning to meet his.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He touched her cheek, then turned toward the door.

  “Sky?”

  He looked back at her.

  “I saw a man in the alley last night.” She pinched her lips together.

  He blinked. “You did? Did you recognize him?”

  She nodded. Looked into her lap for a moment, then back up at him. “It was the mountain man. The one who rode the stage with me from Lewiston. You remember him?”

  He searched his memory. “Vaguely. You’re sure it was him?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I’m glad you told me. I need to get back. Stay inside, okay?”

  She nodded.

  Sky stepped out onto the porch and rubbed one hand back over his head. A man in the alley the night before couldn’t have been up to any good. He wished she had awakened him so he could have seen the man too. Was he involved in the murder? If so how? Had he done the killing, or had he hired someone else to do it? There were too many questions and not one answer.

  An hour later, Sky decided the time had come to question Lee Chang. Jason accompanied him as he entered the Joss house. The Joss house, a two-story building on the south end of Main Street, served the Chinese as a combined saloon, gambling hall, boarding house, and temple. The bottom floor consisted of a kitchen, a living-dining room, two bedrooms, and the large gambling room. The upper portion of the building housed the Chinese temple. Sky didn’t know any white man who had ever been permitted to enter the temple area.

  The dingy interior of the building writhed with smoke, and debris littered every surface, evidence of the previous night’s party.

  Taking a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dim light, Sky composed his thoughts. The last thing he wanted to start was a racial war. There already existed enough tension between the Chinese and the white faction of the town, without letting this situation go down that road too.

  One thing was clear, and it bothered him—these assailants had had a gun, so why hadn’t they simply shot Fraser in the first place? He had been stabbed repeatedly before being killed, as though someone were trying to prolong the torture. Obviously, Fraser had been sleeping in bed when attacked, so why hadn’t the criminals simply shot him? A bizarre crime. Sky had never seen another like it.

  And what about the safe in the back room? Why wasn’t it tampered with? Sky knew from some of his previous conversations with Fraser that he had quite a substantial sum in that safe. He had been saving to send his daughter to a finishing school back east. Maybe the killer hadn’t known this fact? Still, wouldn’t he have at least checked? Maybe he had been interrupted?

  Accustomed to the dim interior now, Sky could see Chang sitting at his usual table in the back of the room. With a gesture of his hand Sky instructed Jason to stay in the doorway, where he would have an excellent view of the whole room. Walking purposefully toward Chang, Sky made a mental note of the position of each of Chang’s four body guards. The men sat strategically around the perimeter of the room so that if you looked directly at one, the other three remained out of sight.

  “Morning, Chang,” Sky said politely. “I assume you’ve heard about Fraser?”

  Chang pulled his pipe from his mouth and nodded. Raising an overflowing tankard, he took a deep draught. Then, smacking his lips he squinted up at Sky. “Can I help you?”

  Sky cut to the chase. “Where were you last night after nine o’clock?”

  With a grin Chang glanced around at his companions. “He wants to know where I was last night.”

  Everyone in the room chuckled but Sky and Jason.

  His face turning suddenly serious, Chang answered, “I was here, Mr. Jordan.” His hand swept around the untidy room. “Here, enjoying a wonderful celebration.”

  “What were you celebrating?”

  Sky saw Chang’s eyes flicker before he answered, “My wife had a birthday.” He replaced the stem of his pipe in his mouth, drawing deeply.

  Sky’s eyes narrowed. Jenny Chang had told him it was her birthday a couple of weeks back when she had picked berries with Brooke. So what had the celebration really been about? A noisy cover for a brutal murder? Fraser’s store was just across the alley from his room at Jed’s, and he hadn’t heard a sound coming from the Mercantile. Surely sometime during his struggle with his assailants Fraser had yelled for help. If the festivities—and the storm— hadn’t been so loud, I would have heard him call for help.

  Sky considered his options, hands held readily at his side. Glad I told Jason to stay by the door. He needed to bring Chang in for questioning.

  Whether he was guilty or not, it appeared he was trying to hide something.

  He could come back with more men to make the arrest, but Chang might be gone by then. On the other hand, Chang had four men strategically located throughout the room—all of them armed. Sky momentarily wished he was wearing his own gun, but since he had given up law he had quit wearing it. His only weapon was the knife strapped to his hip.

  One other thing worried him. Jason. He was wearing a gun. His cousin made no effort to hide his dislike of anyone of Chinese descent and Sky feared he might use this situation as an opportunity to carry out his vendetta against them. Especially Chang, whom he blamed for the death of his mother. Sky didn’t want anyone innocent getting shot for moving too quickly or at the wrong time.

  Suddenly deciding that the direct approach best suited the situation, Sky, his voice loud and clear, said, “Chang, you’re under arrest.” Just as he’d anticipated, Chang’s four henchmen scrambled to their feet. But Chang held up one fleshy hand, palm out, tapping the air twice.

  “For what am I under arrest, Mr. Jordan?”

  “You are trying to hide something, Mr. Chang. I am not saying you are guilty of murder, but you lied to me about the reason for the celebration last night. I know it was not your wife’s birthday yesterday.”

  Angry, Chang’s eyes narrowed, his mouth hardening into a firm line. His smoking pipe, held in a tight-fisted grip, shook perceptibly. “You are right, Mr. Jordan. But we were unable to have the celebration on her actual birthday, so we had it a little late. Better late than never. You know how the saying goes.” He tried to smile casually, his voice surprisingly controlled despite the anger that radiated from his eyes.

  Sky hesitated. Chang might be telling the truth; he couldn’t let his dislike of the man cloud his good reasoning. “All right, I’ll check into it. But don’t go anywhere, Chang. You are not to leave town until your name is cleared. Do you understand?”

  Chang’s eyes darkened, but he nodded in affirmation.

  Brooke’s hands shook as she and Jenny Chang sewed Fraser’s body into a large piece of black denim. They worked in the front room of Jed’s boarding house. I’ll never see this room in the same light again. She felt nauseated and lightheaded, but she kept sewing. They were almost done now, but she could still see the poor man’s battered body as it had been when Sky and Jed carried him in on a blanket. A shudder ran through her. How could anyone do such a thing to another human being? And Percival had been involved in this somehow.

  She felt edgy and jumped at even the slightest noise, making Jenny look at her oddly.

  Jenny Chang had been very quiet as they worked side by side. Her dark eyes, though sorrowful, did not shed a tear. She merely pressed on steadil
y, doing the work that needed to be done.

  Brooke was the first to break the silence. “Did you know him well, Jenny?” Chagrined, she noted that her voice trembled when she spoke.

  “Mistah Fraser?” A sad smile softened Jenny’s face. “He good man. He always kind to me.”

  “How long had he lived here?”

  “Long time. Lee and I, we come twenty-three years ago. He here before us.”

  “Does he have any family?”

  “His wife die. He have a daughter. She come to visit him sometimes.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “She staying in Lewiston with a Judge Rand. She go to school there. She fifteen, I think.”

  Brooke immediately felt her heart go out to this young girl. She herself had been fifteen when her parents and sister had been killed. Memories rushed in on a surge of emotion and Brooke gasped, choking back a flood of tears. The memories added on top of this morning’s terror proved too much for her.

  Turning, she fled back to her room, throwing herself across the bed, sobs wracking her body. She jumped up again just as suddenly and threw the door’s deadbolt into place.

  Backing toward the bed she sat down with her back to the wall and her arms wrapped around her knees. She had begun to feel safe with Sky, but she should have known better. Somehow God had it in for her, and she didn’t think she would ever feel safe again.

  She scrubbed angrily at the tears coursing down her face. It seemed all she did lately was cry.

  Sky paused to let his eyes adjust to the bright outdoor light as he exited the Joss house. He stood for a moment, hands resting on hips, staring up and down the street, trying to decide what to do next. Sunlight glistened off the quickly melting snow as he turned to Jason. “I hate to send you down to Lewiston with no more information than we have, but if we are going to get this thing solved, we are going to need some outside assistance.”

  Jason’s face clearly portrayed his anger. “I’ll tell you how to solve this thing. We both know who is responsible. We should just take him out.” He nodded back in the direction of the Joss house and Lee Chang.