Heartbreak Creek

by Kaki Warner

“You have to eat, Ed. You hardly cast a shadow anymore.”

  “Skinny as old Cooter Brown,” Brin crowed, waving a carrot.

  “That makes no sense, Brin,” her oldest brother said as he served himself another slab of roast beef. “Cooter Brown was a crazy drunk, not skinny.”

  “If he was drunk all the time,” Lucas pointed out in his logical way, “then he wouldn’t have had time to eat, so he was probably skinny, too.”

  “Then she’s as skinny as Mrs. Gebbers’s old swayback mare,” Brin argued, refusing to give up. “That nag has lips so long she almost trips on them.”

  Edwina ignored the unkind comment, deciding it was simply Brin’s revenge for an afternoon bent over a primer, nothing more.

  “Ed’s lips aren’t near that long,” Joe Bill defended.

  Near?

  “And her back isn’t swayed,” loyal Lucas put in. “Except when she wears that butt-thing and it makes her dress poke out in back like—”

  Lucinda cleared her throat. “That butt-thing is called a bustle, I believe.”

  “Butt-bustle then.”

  “Children,” their father warned.

  “Well, it does,” Brin insisted. “Looks like she’s got a pillow stuffed under there.”

  Maddie pressed her napkin over her mouth.

  Edwina looked at the faces grinning at her, then at Maddie—still hiding behind her napkin—and Lucinda, whose green eyes were dancing.

  “See what I have to contend with?” she said in mock exasperation. Then for the first time since Sally came home, she laughed out loud.

  It was bath night, an arduous chore under any circumstances, but more so with Declan gone on his rounds and not available to supply intimidation. The boys went first, leaving water spills and havoc in their wake when they trooped upstairs to bed. While Edwina cleaned up the mess, Brin bathed. Once she was done, Edwina helped her into her flannel gown, then set buckets of fresh water on the stove to heat. Later she would return for her own bath. Perhaps with Declan. The idea of that made her heart dance.

  “I think washing is stupid,” Brin groused as she stomped up the staircase with Edwina. “Chick never bathes and Amos only does it once a month.”

  “Sad but true.”

  “And Pa never used to bathe every single day until you came. Now he sometimes even smells like flowers.”

  “Yes, he does.” Edwina smiled at the memory.

  “When I grow up, I’m never, ever going to bathe.”

  “I’m sure the bugs will be delighted.”

  “What bugs?” At the top of the landing, Brin stopped. “What’s that sound?”

  Edwina froze, instantly alert. From Sally Brodie’s room came a faint moan, then a weak voice calling her name. Alarmed, Edwina gave Brin a gentle shove. “Go on to our room. Now.”

  “I can’t. You locked the door, remember?”

  The voice called again.

  Something was definitely wrong. Not wanting to take time to go down the hall, unlock the door, relock, and come back in case the sick woman needed immediate help, Edwina made a quick decision. Putting a hand on Brin’s shoulder, she said, “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  The door was unlocked. When Edwina pushed it open, she saw Sally lying on the floor across the room, her head resting in a pool of blood. “Sally!” she cried, rushing forward.

  The woman’s eyes opened as Edwina knelt beside her. They were swollen and bruised. Blood seeped from a gash across her forehead. “What happened?” Edwina asked as she pressed her apron against the cut to staunch the flow. “Did you fall?”

  Sally’s lips moved. Her voice was little more than a sigh. “Run . . .”

  “What?” Edwina bent closer.

  The hazel eyes widened. Sally’s labored breathing quickened as she looked past Edwina’s shoulder. “No. Y-You . . . promised.”

  Edwina whipped around, then leaped to her feet when she saw a painted Indian standing inside the closed door. With one hand he pinned a struggling Brin against his body, his dirty hand over her mouth. In the other he held a knife, poised at the child’s throat.

  “You scream, she dies.”

  Edwina’s knees almost buckled. When she saw the long greasy hair, the war paint, the breechcloth and leggings, she knew she faced Declan’s enemy, Lone Tree. Her heart stuttered in her chest.

  How had he gotten past Amos? Why had he attacked Sally Brodie? Why was he here now, threatening a child?

  Declan’s child. He’s trying to get at Declan through his children.

  “No . . .” Sally Brodie’s voice was raw and broken. “Not . . . my baby. You promised.”

  Promised? Edwina’s mind reeled. Was Sally in league with Lone Tree? She took a step forward. “What are you—”

  “Don’t talk!” The knife jabbed. Brin whimpered as a drop of blood ran down her neck. Edwina retreated, terror bubbling in her throat.

  “You promised . . .”

  Still not comprehending, Edwina spun to see Sally Brodie trying to push up onto her elbow. Lifting a shaking hand, she pointed at Edwina. “Take her . . . not baby . . . take—” Her words dissolved in a fit of coughing.

  Finally understanding, Edwina faced the Indian again.

  He had his ear to the door, listening. He was filthy, his hair matted, his swarthy skin grimy with dirt. The stink of his unwashed body mingled with the smell of Sally’s blood in the small room.

  “Take me.” Edwina’s chest was so tight with fear she could scarcely get out the words. “The child will only slow you down. Take me.”

  “Quiet!” Straightening away from the door, he waved the knife, motioning Edwina closer. “Come now.”

  On shaking legs, Edwina crossed toward him, praying her knees wouldn’t give way. Every instinct told her to run, to scream, to fight. But the terror in Brin’s eyes reminded her she must do what he said.

  When she was within arm’s reach, he whipped the knife around and pressed it under her chin. “You scream, she dies. Understand?”

  Edwina rose on tiptoe, trying to escape the prick of the knife. “Yes.”

  “You do what I say, she lives. Understand?” He pressed harder.

  She felt a warm trickle as the tip pierced flesh, and bit her lip to keep from crying out. “Y-Yes.”

  He took the knife away. “Open the door.”

  She opened the door.

  He peered out, then dragged Brin into the hall, his hand still over her mouth. She had quit fighting. Her eyes looked blank. Her fingers clutched at the hand clamped over her face.

  “Go,” he ordered Edwina, pointing the knife toward the stairs.

  With him looming behind her, Edwina went down the staircase.

  Where was Declan? Why hadn’t anyone heard? Where was Amos or Yancey?

  Then she saw Amos crumpled behind the front desk. Bleeding.

  Nausea churned in her throat. She stumbled, then lurched forward when the knife pricked the small of her back.

  He shoved her into the shadows of the dining room. The lingering odors of the evening meal wafted over her, momentarily overshadowing the reek of blood and musk from the filthy man behind her.

  Brin started to whimper again. Oddly, that helpless, mewling cry gave Edwina the strength to keep going. Brin needed her. She couldn’t weaken now. She had to keep them alive until Declan found them.

  “Do what he says, Brin,” she called back to the terrified child. “Papa will come. Just do what—” A vicious jab cut off her words. She staggered, gasping in pain as a warm wetness soaked into the back of her dress.

  He shoved her out the kitchen door. A moment later, they were across the back alley and into the shadows of the trees behind the hotel, following a footpath that wound through the brush. Knowing every step took them farther from help and safety, Edwina choked back the scream pressing against her teeth and put one foot in front of the other.

  The spicy scent of fir and pine and spruce hung in the air as the stillness of the forest closed around them. Sound dwindled to the
distant rush of water ahead, the muffled thuds of their footfalls on the carpet of needles underfoot, and the harsh breathing of the man crowding behind her.

  The days had lengthened as summer approached, but with high peaks rising all around them, daylight was fading fast. Edwina prayed someone would realize they were gone while there was still enough light for Declan to track them. Brin couldn’t take much more of this.

  She glanced back, saw the child hanging limp and glassy-eyed in Lone Tree’s grip. In shock, but still alive.

  Hurry, she called silently to her husband.

  The roar of the creek grew louder as they moved out of the trees and into a small clearing. Ahead, a footbridge hung over the rushing water. They crossed it, then left the path and ducked into the brush. A few yards into the trees, they came to a horse tied to a sapling. It had painted markings and a feather attached beneath the braided leather of the bosal halter. Instead of a saddle, a dirty woven blanket was tied to its back, with two leather loops for stirrups.

  Lone Tree tossed Brin onto the horse’s back, then vaulted up behind her. He motioned for Edwina to give him her arm.

  She hesitated, sensing that with the tangled brush all around them and the Indian distracted with Brin and his horse, this would be her best chance of escape. Then realizing she could never leave the child alone with this madman, she took Lone Tree’s arm and swung up behind him.

  She hated to even touch him, but as soon as they cleared the trees, he kicked the horse into a lope and she had no choice but to grip his waist to keep from falling. After turning onto a rough track, they climbed steadily upward in a zigzagging series of switchbacks. As they continued higher and higher, the town spread below them.

  No light showed in the hotel kitchen.

  No voice called out.

  No one except Sally Brodie even knew they were gone.

  Twenty-two

  Declan had just left the sheriff’s office when Joe Bill ran up, his chest heaving. “She’s hurt, Pa! You gotta come!”

  “Who?”

  “Ma—my real ma! Amos, too! I think the Indian got them. R.D. went for Doc, but she’s bleeding all over the place and I can’t find Ed.”

  He shoved his son back toward the office. “Get Buck. Bring him to the hotel. And don’t leave his side!” Before the words were out, Declan was running, his bootheels thudding loudly on the boardwalk.

  Lone Tree had finally come. But why would he hurt Sally? And what about his other children? And Ed?

  Without breaking stride, he cleared the boardwalk and raced across the street, his lungs burning for air. As he neared the hotel, he saw most of the lights were on and figures were moving in the lobby. Gun drawn, he slammed through the double doors, almost crashing into Yancey and Lucinda, who were bent over Amos, pressing a wad of cloth to his bleeding head. Judging by his groans and his efforts to fend them off, he was very much alive.

  “Where is he?” Declan looked wildly around, praying he would see Lone Tree lurking in the shadows. “The Indian! Where is he?”

  “Gone.”

  He looked at Lucinda, saw a terror in her ashen face that mirrored his own. “What happened?”

  “Ask your first wife.” She turned back to Amos. “He beat her. Bad. I sent your oldest for Dr. Boyce. She’s asking for you.”

  “Christ.” Holstering the pistol, he raced up the stairs, calling back as he went. “Lucas and Brin?”

  “Lucas is fine.”

  The way she said it brought him to a stop. He whirled and looked down at her, his hand clasping the railing so tight his fingers went numb. “And Brin?”

  “Gone.”

  His chest seemed to cave. “He took her?”

  “Edwina, too.”

  He stood frozen, unable to comprehend it, unable to get his mind to accept what his ears were hearing. Why would he take Ed and Brin when it was him Lone Tree was after?

  “Go talk to your first wife,” she said again.

  Her tone caught Declan’s attention. What would Sally know? Unless she was in it with Lone Tree. But why?

  To hurt me. The realization knocked the breath from his lungs. To hurt me in the worst way they could. Rage exploded like fire in his chest. Whirling, he charged up the stairs.

  She was propped in bed in a bloodstained gown, her eyes closed. Every breath was a wheezing rasp. Her skin was so pale he could see the blue vein in her neck pulse with each heartbeat. She had been beaten and by the sound of her breathing, probably wouldn’t survive the night. Yet he had little sympathy—little feeling for her at all, except anger.

  Movement caught his eye, and he looked over to see Miriam, the hotel maid, sitting in a chair in the corner, a handkerchief pressed over her nose and mouth.

  “Go,” he ordered.

  She fled. After the door closed behind her, he approached the bed and glared down at his first wife.

  It scared him how badly he wanted to hit her, shake her, throw her bodily out of his life. “What happened?” he demanded.

  Her lids fluttered open. Her gaze wandered for a moment, then settled on his. “Bobby . . .” She reached out a skeletal hand.

  He ignored it. “What happened?” he demanded again.

  Her hand fell back to the bed. “He came for you. Found me . . . instead.” As she spoke, a bloody foam gathered in the corners of her mouth. “Took our baby . . . took . . . Brin.”

  Declan leaned closer to hear her. The stink of infection almost turned his stomach. “Where did he take them?”

  Tears filled her eyes, overflowed in slow, glistening trails down her sunken cheeks. “P-Promised . . . wouldn’t hurt . . . children.” Her eyes lost focus, stared blankly past his shoulder. “Hit me . . . made me tell . . .”

  He could feel her drifting away. In panic, he reached out and shook a bony shoulder. “Tell him what?”

  Her gaze swung back to his. “Fear . . . high places.”

  Declan pulled back, his heart thudding as the old terrors clutched at his chest. Senseless, dizzying terrors that robbed him of his will, and paralyzed his body, and sent his mind into an endless plummeting spiral.

  “Waiting . . . for you.”

  Her voice was so weak he had to watch her lips to catch the words. “Where?” But he already knew the answer, and dread was building with every heartbeat.

  “The . . . mine.”

  A shudder rippled through him. He fisted his hands to stop the tremors, as if somehow that might hold the panic at bay even as images flooded his mind—high platforms, spindly scaffolds, steep, sheer bluffs. Dizziness pressed behind his eyes and the terror spread, clamping like a band around his chest.

  It was the perfect revenge. Goddamn him.

  “Don’t do this,” Edwina cried, jerking against the ropes that bound her to a two-foot diameter upright post on the platform high above the entrance. “She’s just a baby!”

  Ignoring her pleas, the Indian dragged the thrashing child toward the big, barrel-sized wooden bucket perched on the edge of the platform. It was apparently used to move tools between the three levels, and he had already emptied it of shovels and picks and sledgehammers. Tied to the handle of the bucket was a stout rope that snaked up through a block and tackle on the scaffold high above them, then back down where the loose end was wrapped around a metal cleat like those used to secure a boat’s mooring lines, which was bolted to the post where Edwina was tied.

  Frantically, she dug at the ropes. “Lone Tree. Please. I’ll do anything you ask. Just let her go.”

  He shoved Brin into the bucket.

  Brin shrieked and tried to scramble out.

  “No!” Edwina screamed when she saw the Indian draw back his arm. “Do what he says, Brin. Get in and don’t look out. Do it, Brin. You’ll be safe there until Papa comes.”

  Sobbing in terror, the little girl huddled in the bucket.

  Lone Tree untied the rope from the cleat beside Edwina and pulled.

  Far above, the pulley block squealed, sending pigeons roosting in the overhe
ad beams into fluttering flight. A grating sound as the bucket scraped across the rough boards of the platform. Another heave and it lifted off, swinging wildly out over the seventy-foot drop to the ground.

  “Edwina!” Brin screamed, clutching at the wooden rim.

  “Hold on!” Edwina’s heart pounded so hard she felt dizzy. “Sit down, Brin! Don’t move!”

  Spinning and bobbing, the bucket rose higher. Brin shrieked.

  “Stay still, Brin! Don’t look out! Papa is coming!”

  Grunting with the effort, Lone Tree heaved on the rope. Brin’s wails grew fainter as the bucket rose ten feet—fifteen—swaying and rocking with every pull.

  Jesus, help her, Edwina prayed, her mind reeling with terror as the bucket continued to rise. Hurry, Declan.

  Lone Tree stopped pulling and looped the rope around the cleat, letting the loose end coil on the deck beside the post. Then, panting and slick with sweat from his exertions, he kicked the scattered picks and shovels aside, pulled the knife from the strap holding his breechcloth to his waist, and turned to Edwina.

  Declan tried to calm his spiraling fears as he raced through the dwindling light. He could do this. He could overcome this senseless terror. The lives of his daughter and Ed depended on it. Yet with every thud of his horse’s hooves on the rocky switchback track that rose up to the mine, his panic built. Despite the chill evening air, sweat trickled down his back. His hands shook. His head swam until his vision blurred.

  What if he couldn’t?

  “You all right?” Buck called to him.

  Declan looked blankly over at him, then forced a nod.

  On his other side, R.D. grimly urged his horse faster. He had refused to stay behind, insisting he had truer aim should they get a clear shot. Declan was determined that wouldn’t happen. He couldn’t allow his son to take a life before he had even started his thirteenth year.

  The mine loomed darkly ahead, its gangly scaffolds and open platforms perched precariously on the face of the bluff. How could men work in a place like that? How many had slipped off the edge and plummeted to their deaths?

  Declan pushed the thought away before terror overwhelmed him. In the distant part of his mind still thinking clearly, he realized the sprawling structure was too dark. There should be a lamp lit. Not that having light would make the ordeal awaiting him any easier. But there should be a watchman on duty. It shouldn’t be so dark.