by Val Wood
Lake nodded. ‘A waggon trail.’
‘But—’ Georgiana began. ‘Why—?’
‘Why couldn’t we have come that way?’ Lake finished for her.
‘Yes. Wouldn’t it have been a better road?’
He wheeled his mount around and prepared to ride up the mountainside again. ‘No. That’s not the way we go.’ Then he glanced at her. ‘This is Indian trail. Faster. Safer. Down there is for settlers and waggons. Not long now,’ he said, which gave them hope, which was dashed as he added, ‘to the head of the valley.’
The trees were not so dense now as they climbed, though the trail was steep and hazardous with huge boulders which they had to skirt, the horses skittering on loose stones which clattered down the mountain. They grew hotter as the sun rose higher and the women pulled their shawls over their heads to protect them. Georgiana started to wish, not for the first time, that she had brought her hat instead of leaving it at the Indian settlement.
‘There it is.’ Lake drew to a halt as they came out of the tree line to a rocky clearing, and pointed down the mountainside. The trees thinned towards the base, being replaced by thick scrub which then petered out into lush green pastureland.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Georgiana murmured and cast her eyes around it. She glanced to the left of the wide valley where the green uplands rose towards a high escarpment of rock, then over to the right where the meadowland was confined by the mountain range. Down the valley bottom a wide creek flowed through the grassland to the end of the vale, where it disappeared beneath a rocky hillside.
She narrowed her eyes to stare southwards above the escarpment where from this height she could see the waggon trail, now as slim as a pencil line, snaking across a rocky plain. Then she turned back to the valley below. There were shacks or cabins in the distance and cattle grazing at the side of the creek, but she couldn’t see any people.
She turned towards Kitty and Lake, who had dismounted. ‘So,’ she deliberated, and saw Lake looking at her. ‘Is this the only way in?’
He raised his eyebrows and shrugged with a slight ironic smile on his lips.
She glanced down again. Was there a break in the rock escarpment? From here there didn’t appear to be. So how did Wilhelm Dreumel bring in waggons and equipment?
She dismounted and stood beside him. ‘It’s a secret valley, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Nobody else, except the Indians and Mr Dreumel and his men, knows that it is here.’
Lake too looked down into the valley. ‘And the buzzards and the eagles. Anything that flies. Once, many years ago, it belonged to the Indians, but they moved on to better hunting ground.’ His lips turned down. ‘That was before the white man decreed that they should exchange the land of their fathers and live in settlements and become farmers.’
‘How did Mr Dreumel find this land?’ Kitty asked curiously.
‘He didn’t find it,’ he said abruptly. ‘He saved someone’s life. A half-breed. He told him of the valley and brought him here.’
‘Why would he do that?’ Georgiana gazed at him intently.
‘A return for a life.’ He half turned from her so that she couldn’t see his face. ‘Dreumel was looking for land to breed cattle. This is fertile land, fed by the streams and the creek and protected by the mountains and the escarpment. He will look after it. For as long as he can,’ he added.
And then he unexpectedly found gold, Georgiana considered. And that’s where Robert Allen came into the picture.
‘Come.’ Lake abruptly turned away and mounted his horse, leaving a stirrup free and putting out his hand to help Kitty up. ‘We shall be there by noon.’
The mountainside was steep but the horses were sure-footed, and Georgiana made encouraging sounds to Henry as she negotiated the slope. ‘I would call you Hetty if you were mine,’ she murmured to her. ‘Why should you be called Henry? That’s not a suitable name for a young mare of independent spirit. Hetty is much more appropriate.’
Henry or Hetty gave a snicker, but Georgiana was not to know if it was in response to her murmurings or because they were down at last and pushing their way through the scrub to reach the grassland, with the promise of a cooling drink from the gurgling waters of the creek.
Georgiana and Kitty were hot, hungry, tired and sore by the time they splashed across the creek and reached the few shacks halfway along the valley. The track was dusty and potholed, and if they had been expecting a structured settlement they were to be disappointed. There were half a dozen log cabins, thrown up, it seemed, for they were ramshackle affairs. One was larger than the others and Lake led them towards it.
A man with a grizzled beard sat outside the doorway on a wooden chair, his feet resting on planks of wood which had been laid as a boardwalk. He removed a clay pipe from his mouth. ‘How do, Lake. Weren’t expecting you!’
He seized the chair arms and pushed himself up. ‘Pleased to meet you, ladies.’ He grabbed his hat, lifting it to reveal a bald head with sprouting wisps of white hair, then replaced it.
‘Is Mr Dreumel here?’ Georgiana asked.
‘Nope.’ He sat down again.
‘Edward Newmarch?’ She assumed Robert Allen would be using that name.
The old man spat into the road. ‘Nope.’
‘So where would we find them?’
‘Don’t rightly know, ma’am.’ He ran his tongue around his gums. ‘Could be anywhere.’
Georgiana dismounted, glad to have her feet on the ground, though her legs ached. ‘They’ll be up at the mine, I suppose?’
‘Mebbe so.’ His eyes surveyed her, then he glanced towards Kitty. ‘Can either of you gals cook?’
‘Cook?’ Georgiana was disconcerted by their title and the question. ‘Why?’
‘Fellow who called himself a cook has gone. Left. Skedaddled. We’re eating dry tack. Ain’t easy when you’ve onny a few teeth.’
‘I’m sure it’s not,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m afraid I haven’t come as a cook.’
‘What have you come for, lady?’
‘I’ve come to see Mr Dreumel.’
‘He ain’t here.’
Georgiana fought back her frustration and behind her Kitty gave a slightly hysterical laugh.
‘We’ll wait,’ she said, and turning to Lake asked, ‘Will it be all right if we go inside? It’s so hot out here.’
There was a hitching post outside the building and Lake fastened up the horses. ‘You can rest inside,’ he said. ‘The men will be down this evening. Isaac is here as a guard, though he’s not much use.’
He led them into a large room where chairs, tables, packing cases, boxes, and barrels of ale were crammed together. A long counter ran down one side. On it were glass jars with the crumbly remains of biscuits, an opened tin of sardines and a dish of honey with a fly struggling in it. A half-eaten loaf of bread lay mouldering on a tin plate and there was a sour smell of stale ale and tobacco.
‘I can’t believe that this is how Wilhelm Dreumel lives,’ Georgiana muttered. ‘He is so very neat and well turned out.’
‘He doesn’t.’ Lake overheard her. ‘This is the men’s doing.’ He wrinkled his nose and turned to go out. ‘The place stinks.’
‘It’s very odd, Miss Gregory,’ Kitty whispered as he went out of the door. ‘But you know when I said that Lake smelled? Well, I haven’t noticed it lately.’
Georgiana grimaced. ‘Probably because we don’t smell very sweet either, Kitty! Oh what I wouldn’t give for a soak in a hot tub! This is not what I expected at all.’
They made themselves as comfortable as possible, putting chairs together so that they might stretch out their weary legs. Lake brought them water and offered them beer, which Georgiana refused though Kitty accepted, then searched through some of the boxes and found a bag of biscuits, which he gave them.
‘I have to leave now.’ He stood and looked down at them, his face inscrutable. ‘I have brought you to your destination. You will be safe enough when Dreumel returns.’
Georgi
ana considered, then asked quietly, ‘Will we be safe before he returns?’
He stared at her for a moment before putting his hand inside his jacket to the back of his belt. ‘Take this.’ He handed her a knife in a leather sheath. ‘Stay in the camp. Then you’ll be safe.’
‘Thank you.’ Gingerly she took it. The knife handle was bleached bone and protruded above the sheath, which was scrolled with symbols. She reflected that she would never have the courage to use it. ‘Do I—?’ She wondered how to bring up the matter of payment for his services. ‘Can I – I mean, do anything for you in return for you bringing us here?’
He looked down at her for a moment without speaking, then a flicker of a smile passed over his lips, vanishing in a second. ‘You are in my debt,’ he said softly. ‘One day perhaps you will repay me?’
‘I’ll be glad to,’ she said, slightly unnerved by the intensity of his glance. ‘Thank you.’
He turned and left, not lifting his hat or saying goodbye, and the two women glanced at each other.
‘Well,’ Kitty said. ‘What a strange man!’ She got up from her chair and went to the door of the hut, watching him mount and wheel around to go back in the direction from which they had come. The Indian pony was tethered behind him. Georgiana stood behind Kitty in the doorway. ‘Goodbye, Lake,’ Kitty called. ‘Thank you.’
He turned in his saddle and looked at them, then raised his hand in acknowledgement and trotted away.
Kitty came back inside and stood looking at the jumble around them. ‘Would it be all right if I had a little sort-out, Miss Gregory? A bit of a tidy-up? If this is where we’re going to stay.’
‘I don’t know,’ Georgiana said. ‘We could ask Isaac, I suppose.’
As she spoke, Isaac entered. ‘Make yourselves comfortable,’ he grunted. ‘Though it ain’t really fit for wimmin.’ He chewed on his lip. ‘There’s a cabin free if you’re stopping awhile. Fellow who called himself a cook had it but as he’s gone—’
‘We’ll have it,’ Georgiana said quickly. Like Kitty, she didn’t relish staying in this building, for it was obviously used by the men as a saloon for drinking and eating. There were iron pans on the floor which looked suspiciously like spittoons. ‘Will you show us which it is?’
Isaac led them down the boardwalk to one of the cabins. ‘It ain’t very clean,’ he said. ‘He weren’t no good at housekeeping.’
‘And he was the cook?’ Georgiana said incredulously as they went inside. The cabin, like the other hut, hadn’t been cleaned in a long time.
‘He didn’t cook in here,’ Isaac said. ‘He cooked in the longhouse where you’ve just been.’ He rubbed a rough hand over his whiskers. ‘There’s a cooking stove in there. Hasn’t been lit since he went.’
‘How long has he been gone?’ Kitty asked. She hadn’t noticed a stove amongst the clutter. It must have had boxes piled on top of it.
‘Bin a while,’ he said. ‘Just before Bill Dreumel left for New York. We ain’t had a decent meal since.’
‘If you’ll light the stove,’ Kitty said, ‘I’ll try and cook something. Will there be anything worth eating in those boxes?’
‘Reckon so.’ Isaac’s eyes lit up at the prospect of food. ‘Beans, cornmeal, barley. Could catch you some fish! Plenty in the creek.’
Kitty went back with Isaac to the longhouse to investigate the prospect of lighting the stove and cooking, whilst Georgiana started to unpack their few belongings. There were four bunk beds in the room but only one had been slept in, judging by the rough blanket laid on it. The other bunks had storage boxes, lengths of timber, a spade, a pan, an axe and various other pieces of equipment piled on them. There were two wooden chairs stacked one upon the other, and a free-standing stove with an iron chimney going through the roof in the centre of the room. She put her hand near it. It was stone cold.
Where should I start? she thought. My former life hasn’t prepared me for this! Turning her back on the disorder she went to the door of the cabin and looked out. The sun was setting, but had not yet reached the top of the tree line at the end of the valley. The sky was suffused with red and yellow, and its advancing dazzling colour appeared to set the mountains on fire and turn the rippling water of the creek into liquid gold.
If I was in England now, she pondered as she surveyed the vista, Aunt Clarissa and I would be taking tea and I would be contemplating, as I was wont to do, the long evening in front of us, and debating whether to play the piano after supper or read a report on Women’s Rights. My aunt would be playing patience or nodding over her embroidery. Dear Aunt Clarissa, she thought, with sudden nostalgia. I wonder if I will ever see you again.
As it is, she glanced up the forested hillside, I wonder what I am doing here, waiting to confront a man who is an impostor. Who might even be a murderer! I have acted on a whim, which is not like me at all. Is it justice I am seeking? Justice for my cousin May, or for Wilhelm Dreumel, who might be unaware that he is being deceived?
She turned back into the cabin and stood with her hands on her hips. In the corner of the room she saw a broom leaning against the wall and a bucket at the side of it. She gave a wry self-deprecating smile. I didn’t at any rate, not by any stretch of imagination, envisage that I should have to clean out a room before I could live in it!
An hour later smoke was issuing from both chimney stoves. Isaac had cleared the ash, brought in wood and lit the fires. The prospect of a proper meal seemed to have galvanized him into action. He’d moved boxes and packing cases around the longhouse so that Kitty had room to cook, found a sack of flour, dried beans and barley, and had been promised soup and dumplings.
He brought an oil lamp to the cabin for the evening was closing in, and as Georgiana was putting another log into the stove the door opened again. ‘Isaac—’ she started to say. ‘Could we—’
‘Not Isaac,’ another man’s voice told her. ‘How the devil—?’
‘Did I get here?’ she answered, observing Robert Allen caustically. ‘I suppose you thought you’d seen the last of me, Mr Newmarch?’
Allen came towards her. ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘I really thought that I had.’ He looked exhausted. His clothes, his face and hands were spattered with mud. ‘I should have known better,’ he gibed. ‘Your sort never gives up.’
‘My sort?’ She bristled. ‘What exactly is my sort?’
‘Your class, Miss Gregory.’ He faced her, his eyes defiant. ‘Determined to keep lesser folk down. Oppress them. Prevent them taking the advantage of an opportunity when it presents itself.’
She lifted her head and stared coldly at him. ‘You know nothing of me. Not a thing! You are judging everyone by your own standards which, from what I have observed, are totally reprehensible.’
He put his hand to his eyes. ‘Then you know nothing of me, either! I admit,’ he said, sighing and glancing away from her, ‘that it doesn’t look good. And my conscience has bothered me over Newmarch. But the man was a fool! An utter fool.’
‘Was?’ she breathed. ‘Then, he’s—’
‘Might I sit down?’ He glanced towards the chairs which Georgiana had placed near the stove.
She nodded, and as he sat down she stood over him. ‘Don’t you think it’s time I knew the truth? I told you that I would inform Mr Dreumel. And I will. That is why I am here. That is why I have travelled all this way and at great inconvenience, I might tell you! But I am determined to find out about Edward Newmarch.’
He picked up a piece of wood from the floor and manoeuvred the door of the stove open with it. Staring into the flames, he murmured, ‘It’s good to have a fire in the evening. Relaxing after an honest day’s work. My da and my brothers were miners, you know. Though of course you wouldn’t know, how would you? But they couldn’t always afford a fire, even though they were working in coal all day.’
He looked up at her. ‘But I won’t bore you with all of that, Miss Gregory. I wouldn’t want to upset your finer feelings.’
She said nothing, but continu
ed to stare at him.
‘Sit down, Miss Gregory,’ he said. ‘If you don’t, then as you are a lady, I must stand, and I really am so very tired.’
She sat down and, folding her hands in her lap, she waited.
‘You’re right of course. You do need to know about Edward Newmarch.’ Allen took a deep breath. ‘So I’ll tell you. Even though he made me swear not to breathe a word. We were in New Orleans and he’d been invited by a rich Spanish family to visit them at their country house—’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Rodriguez country house was even more magnificent than the one they owned in New Orleans. Marble pillars flanked the entrance and as the carriage pulled up, three black servants descended the wide steps to greet Edward. One to assist him from the carriage, one to take his overnight bag and one to take him through the cool hall and into a sunny drawing room, where the floor waas laid with polished marble chips and scattered with Chinese carpets.
Sofia rose from her chair to welcome him. ‘I am delighted that you were able to come, Meester Newmarch,’ she said huskily. ‘So very pleased.’
She invited him to sit down and rang a hand-bell to order refreshments. ‘Bring wine,’ she said to the mulatto girl who came in answer. ‘And orange juice. Figs too, cherries—’ She made a circling clicking motion with her fingers to indicate other items.
Within minutes the door opened and more servants arrived carrying trays with glasses of white wine, dishes of grapes, figs, dark red cherries, almonds, olives, and plates containing slivers of smoked meat and fish and tiny pastry cases filled with potted chicken.
Sofia picked up a piece of smoked chicken with her fingers. ‘This is cooked on what we call a barbacoa. The Spaniards first saw it in Mexico.’ Edward watched her, fascinated. Her lips were soft and full, and he caught a glimpse of her pink tongue as she placed the meat in her mouth. ‘The food is cooked outside,’ she continued. ‘In ze open air.’
Edward took a sip of wine. It was cool and dry with an aftertaste of apple and spice.
