The Diamond of the Rockies [03] The Tender Vine

by Kristen Heitzmann

  She shrugged. “Then let me ride Jock.”

  “Doctor—”

  “Felden would never have allowed me to perform acrobatics and climb that chimney. But I did it.” She untied the woolly mat from the litter, threw it over Jock’s back, and turned to Quillan. “Your hand, please.”

  Quillan looked from her to the horse, then to the priest. Father Charboneau’s expression was carefully neutral. Quillan turned back to her. “Not so fast.” He wound the rope around the front and back of the mat to hold it in place and gave it a tug to be sure. Then he took out his knife and cut the remainder of the rope. The rest, he tied to the broken but usable bridle.

  Carina’s heart swelled when he turned, caught her at the waist, and swung her into a sidesaddle position on Jock. Quillan eyed her. “Satisfied?”

  She smiled. “Grazie.”

  His mouth quirked up, almost roguish. “What’s the response?”

  “Prego.”

  “Prego, Carina.” He cupped her knee, then turned, untied the tarp, and left the poles lying in the snow. He rolled the tarp tightly and stuffed it into his pack, then took hold of Jock and started on. Father Antoine gathered the blankets, sent Carina a quick grin, and came up beside her. Carina felt strong and capable, no longer prisoner to her injuries or anyone else’s opinion. Now surely they could go home.

  TEN

  As a dove from a cage spreads its wings to the draft, so my hands on the reins in the freighter man’s craft.

  As the dove winging higher up into the sky, so the plodding of hooves, crack of whip say good-bye.

  —Quillan

  QUILLAN WAITED WHILE CARINA made yet another tearful farewell. She had an amazing reservoir of both tears and words. As for him, the sooner they were on the road, the better. Well, he’d had one difficult parting. Alan Tavish. Which was why he’d picked up the team and wagon without Carina, had those few moments alone with a friend he would likely never see again. And that was why he had given Sam to Alan, so the old man would not be alone.

  Beyond that, Quillan could leave Crystal without regret. Carina, it seemed, could not. He leaned back against the wagon, crossed his arms and his ankles. Already they’d added half again as much as he had planned to haul, parting gifts from all who couldn’t let her go without some token. Finally she disentangled from Èmie. No, one more hug for Mae. He leaned back again. Ah, for real this time?

  Down the first stair, down the second. He straightened as she kept coming. He waved a hand to Mae, farewell to a woman he respected, to Èmie whom he hardly knew. And there was Carina, her waist between his hands. He swung her up onto the spring-loaded carriage seat he’d fashioned in place of the ordinary box he’d ridden for two years. It was even cushioned and covered in leather. Impractical, but he had her comfort to think of.

  “All set?” He half expected her to say no, there were dozens more people she must bid adieu, or rather arrivederci. “How many ways are there to say good-bye, Carina?” He climbed up beside her.

  “Too many.” She sniffed.

  He took up the lines and released the brake. She turned and waved furiously as he slapped the traces on the team’s rumps. He felt a pang seeing Jock pulling beside a chestnut gelding. His Clydesdales, Socrates and Homer, in the wheeler positions, didn’t seem to care, but Quillan could swear Jock missed Jack. Still, it was good to be off.

  “It’s breaking my heart.” Carina clutched her throat with a limp handkerchief as they passed Father Antoine Charboneau.

  Quillan raised a hand. He had the priest’s word and Alex Make-peace’s that they would block off Wolf ’s chamber once weather allowed. As to the rest of the cave, Makepeace had plans to lead guided tours for adventurers. Bully for him. He’d have his hands full between that and the New Boundless. Too full to miss Carina, Quillan hoped, though his wife had said a private and prolonged good-bye there, too.

  Her breath sucked into a sob, and he cupped her knee. “It’ll be all right.”

  “Why can’t we take them all?”

  He pulled with his left hand to bring the team around the corner. “They have their lives.”

  “And they’ll go on without me, and I won’t see Èmie’s restaurant, and Mae . . . she started out so prickly and—”

  “You made her into mush.”

  She slapped her gloves across his thigh. “Stop it.”

  “Sorry.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out a lump of silver the size of a caterpillar. “And this from Joe Turner, the first silver nugget he got from the Carina DiGratia mine shaft. He’s afraid all his mines will stop producing now.”

  “Unhealthy superstition.”

  “He made me a legend.” She dabbed her nose with the handkerchief.

  “You made yourself one.” And that was the truth. Crystal would not forget Carina. She didn’t know it, but her mystique would only grow in her absence. Carina 3DiGratia belonged in the stories of Crystal, the same as Wolf and Rose, but Carina Shepard belonged to him. He reached an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side.

  They passed the end of Main Street and left the buildings of Crystal behind. Quillan didn’t look back, though Carina turned and watched until the town disappeared behind a curve. He didn’t remind her it was she who wanted to go home, nor that she’d despised the town for most of her time there. He just let her grieve.

  The road was hard-packed snow. If the weather held, they would cross Mosquito Pass into Fairplay and stay there tonight. If they got a very early start, the next day should bring them into Morrison, possibly even Denver. How long they spent there depended. Carina was excited, thrilled at the prospect of meeting Rose’s family. He was uncertain what to feel.

  “How long do you suppose a letter would take between Sonoma and Crystal?” Carina stuffed the handkerchief into her pocket.

  “How long’s it been taking?”

  She shrugged under his arm. “I sent two letters at the start. Then everything turned upside down and . . .” She waved her hand and sniffed. Back out came the handkerchief. She dabbed one eye, then the other. “Mamma sent one reply. ‘So glad you’re safe and happy.’ When, of course, I was neither. I couldn’t keep deceiving them. So I stopped writing.”

  He felt a dim foreboding. “You haven’t written your family since?”

  She shook her head. “But I must write Mae and Èmie and Father Antoine.” She threw up her hands. “Oh, so many others!”

  He glanced sidelong. If she hadn’t written since the start, her family knew nothing about him. His knowledge of women might be vague, but wasn’t that unusual?

  “I miss them already.”

  “Why don’t we just stay?” He threw it out flippantly.

  She spun under his arm. “You know it’s impossible. You’ve sold the mine; I’ve given everything to Èmie. What would we do?”

  He shrugged. “Still have my wagon and my tent.”

  She pushed him in the ribs. “Don’t be ugly.”

  “That was ugly?”

  “You’re mocking me.”

  Well, maybe a little, he conceded. “There’s only two choices, Carina. Stay or go.”

  “Of course we’ll go! But it’s so hard. You’d see, if you had a heart at all.” Again she smacked his thigh. This time he kept quiet. Somehow he doubted Mae was flailing anyone, or Èmie either. They’d miss Carina, he was sure. He just doubted it would be so animated. They began a short climb, and he removed his arm from her shoulders to use both hands on the reins.

  “How can I want two opposite things so much?” She started to cry again.

  Quillan shook his head. “Enough, Carina. How many tears can you cry?”

  “As many as I need to.” Her pout proved it.

  He knew better than to say more, but her crying gave him a helpless feeling he didn’t like. Would she keep it up all the way to Sonoma?

  “Besides, tears are natural, necessary.”

  “Necessary?”

  In answer, she dug through the bag a
t her feet and took out a small volume. “Here.” She flipped through the pages, sniffed, and cleared her throat.

  “Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,

  Tears from the depth of some divine despair

  Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,

  In looking on the happy autumn-fields,

  And thinking of the days that are no more.”

  She swiped at her eyes. “You see? Tears for the days that are no more.

  Our days here are done, and our friends . . .” She folded the book cover over her hand to hold the place while she pressed the handkerchief to her eyes.

  Quillan glanced at the spine. Tennyson. There was one man who agreed with her. But tears were not in Quillan’s nature.

  She dabbed the handkerchief to her nose. “What is it the French say? Partir, c’est mourir un peu.”

  Quillan glanced over his shoulder, startled to hear French from her lips. He shouldn’t be surprised. Nothing should surprise him anymore. “What does that mean?”

  “To leave is to die a little. That’s how I feel.”

  Dying a little. He understood that. He died a little with Cain. And leaving Alan, too, he supposed. It did feel like death of a sort. He just couldn’t express it in tears.

  She patted the book. “Tennyson knows how it is.”

  “He’s a poet.”

  She turned. “So are you. But you have no idea how I’m feeling.”

  Quillan cocked his jaw, staring straight ahead. Words came unbidden. “Like footprints in damp sand on the creek bed of the mind, so the ripples on your soul from the friends you leave behind.” Yes, it hurt to leave Alan.

  She slapped the book shut and flung her arms around him. “Oh, Quillan, I’m sorry. I’ve been unfair.”

  He raised his elbows to keep hold of the team as her head lodged between his upper arm and side.

  She sniffed. “But don’t you feel bad for leaving anyone?”

  “I’ll miss Alan.” The tightening in his throat proved it, but he shoved it back and focused on the road.

  She settled her arms around his ribs. “Only Alan?”

  His elbows were going to get very tired.

  She stroked his chest. “You don’t make many friends.”

  “Don’t want many.”

  “You’d be surprised how many think well of you.” She locked her fingers again, settling in. Good thing she was little.

  “That’s the difference between friendship and respect. I think well of lots of people I won’t miss at all.”

  She pressed her face to his chest and laughed, then ducked out under his arm and picked up the book, which had slid to the floor. Quillan dropped his arms before she could wiggle back in. It could be worse, though, for a long cold drive than Carina reading Tennyson. A smile tugged his lips. Could be a lot worse.

  Carina had not seen Denver since she had passed through on her way to Crystal. She had been too distressed to notice much as she rode the train through to the railhead in Gunnison, where she had purchased her ill-fated wagon and driven up to the city that called itself the Diamond of the Rockies. In truth Crystal was hardly more now than it had been then, a rough camp trying to make a name.

  But they had left the snowy mountains behind, staying one night in Fairplay and one in Morrison. The land they’d covered into Denver was tawny brown and nearly treeless. But Denver was a true city; gas lights along real streets lined with buildings that didn’t look as though they’d been thrown together with whatever was at hand, shop windows filled with more than picks and shovels. No work-weary men teeming the streets and wagons dodging stumps in the road. Men in top hats, fashionable ladies on their arms, strolled the timbered walkways.

  Perhaps the whole city was not so fair, but to her eye, Denver was a long sight better than Crystal. As Quillan drove the wagon through the streets with a knowing confidence, excitement pushed aside the aching for her friends. She was with Quillan. And he was fine company. “Where are we staying?”

  “The hotel’s about six blocks down.”

  She looked at the buildings around them. “There are hotels right here.” Imposing buildings with ornate trims and moldings. She looked up the tall brick face of one that especially appealed to her. “What about this one? Why not stay here?”

  He maneuvered their huge wagon past the hotel’s entrance. “Because that one’s a bordello.”

  Carina jerked her head around to scrutinize it. There was no tinny music, no women dangling from the balcony. It looked perfectly elegant. The windows were draped in sheers and velvet with leaded panes, some of them stained lovely colors. She could not believe it a house of ill repute. “But it’s beautiful.”

  He quirked his mouth. “Not all iniquity is ugly, Carina.”

  She pulled her gaze away, stung. From her first day in Crystal she had judged by appearances. Hadn’t she thought Mr. Beck kind and upright? And Quillan a rogue pirate? Well, he was a little that. But she was gullible. Even before she fled Sonoma, she’d seen only the surface. Flavio’s charm and bello volto, handsome face, and eleganza.

  She moistened her lips with her tongue. How would she see him now? Would she see past all that to the unfaithful heart? And what would Flavio see? Not the trusting woman she’d been. And what did it matter? She had a husband. Flavio would think nothing of her at all. Buono!

  But what about Quillan? What would her family think about him? She glanced over. He’d shaved before they left Crystal, all but his mustache, which rivaled the late General Custer’s. Now he was on his second day of beard, and his hair hung loose in soft shaggy layers. Her heart jumped. She loved the sight of him. But what would Papa think?

  She sent her gaze ahead to the stone building Quillan angled toward. It lacked the color and glow of the bordello, but seemed a solid, comfortable place. Quillan eased the wagon off the road and into the drive. He pulled on the reins and called, “Whoa,” then set the brake and jumped down.

  She felt stiff behind the knees and sore everywhere else as he swung her to the ground. A doorman opened the door for them, and she glimpsed a tasteful elegance surrounding the long mahogany desk to which Quillan led her.

  The clerk had an elongated neck with a pointed larynx that bobbed above his stiff collar and satin vest. “Good afternoon, Mr. Shepard,” he said in a low, respectful voice. She hadn’t expected him to address Quillan by name. Her husband was known in a city this size?

  She looked around the lobby with its brass chandeliers and cut-glass globes. The portieres hanging inside the doorways were olive-toned green, tied with gold tassels, the carpet red and gold. The clerk smiled graciously. She suddenly remembered Mr. Barton looking through his fish spectacles, thinking her wanton. But then she’d been with Berkley Beck, and all Crystal knew before she did what kind of man he was.

  Quillan signed the ledger, then handed another man a coin. “Would you show my wife to the room while I take our wagon to the livery?”

  “Certainly, sir.” The man took their key from the clerk. “This way, madam.”

  She followed the man up the stairs to the second floor landing, then down the long hall to the room with a brass number twenty-five nailed to the door. He unlocked the door and handed her the key. “The dining room is open, madam, if you and your husband desire a late luncheon. Bath and water closet are at the end of the hall.”

  “Thank you.” She went inside. The walls were gentian blue, the fireplace painted white, very like the room in which they’d spent their wedding night. Her heart quickened. She crossed the room to the window. It looked directly on the brick wall of the building next door. No stubbled ground and mountain creek. No view of slopes climbing majestic peaks. No valley beckoning her to come, to seek the secrets of a mine returned to the mountain or a spring gushing forth over frigid tiers of ice, or a cavern painted with a man’s life.

  And now she was missing it all again. Dio, what is wrong with me? Will I never be satisfied?

  But maybe it was natural to miss it all, eve
n though she was going home. In a large way Crystal had formed her. It would always be there in her heart. But home beckoned more strongly. She dabbed a renegade tear, then turned back and took in the room. Comfortable indeed.

  Quillan must have done well to stay there often enough to be known by name. But one had only to consider the prices he charged for his goods. How strange that he’d lived in a tent in Crystal. He was certainly a man of contradictions. She fingered the amethyst pin. He didn’t look like a wealthy man, didn’t act like one. But was he? Funny not to know.

  If he were a man of substance, if he had wealth . . . She stopped that thought. She had fallen in love with the rogue freighter. That was enough for her. But would it be for Papa?

  She took off her coat and hung it on the brass tree. Then she went down the hall and used the water closet. It was luxury after Crystal, even if it was shared by every room on the floor. She washed her hands and face, then went back to the room.

  She had just opened the door when Quillan climbed the stairs, followed by the same man with their bags. She turned and smiled. Four weeks ago, in pain and grief, she had despaired of hope. Now Quillan looked at her with such love it stopped her breath. Dio, you are good. She stepped aside as the porter deposited their bags, received another coin from Quillan, then left.

  Quillan motioned her in and closed the door behind them. “Do you like it?”

  “It’s lovely.”

  He slipped out of his coat. “Not as elegant as your first choice.”

  “I’m certain they wouldn’t know you there.”

  He opened his cuffs and rolled his sleeves. “Are you?”

  “Yes.” She remembered too well the disdain he’d shown for his mother, Rose, until he had read her diary. He would never cross the door of a bordello, but he no longer hated the unfortunate women inside.

  He hung the coat, then crossed to the fireplace and rested his hand on the high-back chair angled there. After a moment he said, “This is where I read my mother’s diary.”