She finished washing, then dried off and powdered herself, luxuriating in the feeling of being clean. She pulled on a robe. In the morning she would go down to a special room set up in the hotel where maids washed women’s hair for them. Oh, how good it would feel to have clean hair! She had sent all her dirty clothes down to be laundered for her, and she hoped she could find such services up in Central. She walked to a window and peeked through the lace curtains. The rooms here were small but clean, and her room was on the west side. From her window she could see the Rocky Mountains on the horizon, lying in wait for her, beckoning her.
She breathed deeply against tears of hurt. She had to forget about Cole. He was just a part of her life that was over now. She had done a stupid thing, allowing her emotions to run away with her like that. Now she had to think about what lay ahead for her. In just a couple of days she would reach her new home up in those mountains, start a new life, meet new people. The ugliness of the war was behind her, Unionville was behind her, her sister’s cruel coldness was behind her. Her eyes misted at memories of her father and mother, memories of Tom and how happy they’d been those few short weeks they’d had together before Tom left, never to return. Now she had another memory that hurt, but this one could have been avoided.
She walked over to the bed, crawling between clean, flannel sheets and blankets, sinking into a feather mattress. Her mind raced with thoughts of what she had been through to get this far. Addy Kane, a Christian woman who had never known violence, ripped away and threatened by outlaws, digging a bullet out of one of those outlaws, shooting Indians, sleeping with a wanted man! She supposed she shouldn’t tell the people who had hired her about the outlaws, about killing an Indian … certainly not about having an affair with a wanted man she hardly knew!
All that had happened left her utterly exhausted. “Please just stay out of my life now and let me forget you,” she muttered, thinking about Cole. There was more to a relationship than the man being meltingly handsome and knowing exactly how to touch a woman, more to it than the fact that he had happened to save her life more than once. A man had to be ready to give his heart, had to be settled, have a job, leave the past behind him. Cole wasn’t ready for any of those things.
She fell into an exhausted sleep.
Cole leaned close to his campfire and lit the end of a small stick, then held it to the tip of a thin cigar. He puffed on it and threw the stick into the fire, staring at the flames for a moment while he smoked quietly. Shadow stood hobbled and grazing not far away, and in the distance he could see hundreds of lantern lights in the darkness. Denver lay in the wide, flat land northwest of where he’d made camp. He had already been there, had bathed and shaved, even drank and gambled some. He liked Denver, might even stay; but for now he would camp away from the city, give Addy time to get there and leave again. He didn’t want to run into her.
She probably hated him now, and it was best that way. Trouble was, what if he’d got her pregnant? He picked up a small rock and threw it, disgusted with himself. “You’re a damn fool, Nick Coleman!” he growled, using his rightful name. It was best for Addy if he stayed out of her life, but now he had no choice but to go on up to Central. It shouldn’t be difficult to find her there. All he had to do was find the school. The only honorable thing for him to do was make sure he hadn’t left her in a bad situation.
If he had, they’d have to marry, and what a damn awkward marriage that would be, neither of them even sure they loved the other, neither of them ready to commit to something like that. He didn’t have any right loving the woman just because she looked like Bethanne. For God’s sake, there had to be more to it than that! And what the hell was he going to do for money? In a town like Central, he supposed it would be easy to get it the way he’d been getting it for some time now—just rob a bank or a gold shipment. What was he thinking? He sure as hell couldn’t earn it that way if he was married to a proper woman who was carrying his child!
He stood up, keeping the cigar between his teeth as he watched the city in the distance. She was probably there by now. God only knew what was going through her mind. How badly had he hurt her by just riding off the way he had? But he couldn’t stay and have to look at her, wanting her again, knowing it was all wrong. He couldn’t bear the hurt in her own eyes, or the hatred.
He walked over and petted Shadow’s neck. “I’ll go up there, see her, make sure she’s all right,” he said aloud to the horse. “If I see any hope, I’ll find work, get myself settled … or maybe I’ll just leave. There are probably a lot of men up there more worthy of an Addy Kane than I am—preachers, bankers, store owners—settled men who have a lot more to offer than bad dreams and an outlaw past.”
Damn! He could just ride away from it all right now if he wasn’t worried he’d left her pregnant. That would be the wisest thing to do, but he didn’t have any choice.
“Hello there!”
Shadow whinnied, and Cole swung around to see three men step into the light of his campfire. He’d been around bad seed long enough to know by a man’s eyes if he could be trusted. These men looked hard, packed a lot of weapons. And where were their horses? There could be no reason for leaving them behind but wanting to sneak up to his camp on foot. “What do you want?” he asked.
The tallest one, who sported a beard, stepped in front of the other two. “Oh, we were just headed for Denver, saw your campfire.” His hand rested casually on a six-gun at his hip. “We thought maybe you were headed back down from the mountains … maybe one of them prospectors that’s sold his claim to the richer mineowners, and maybe you’re packin’ a good amount of money, headed for Denver to put it in the bank? There’s a lot of gamblin’ and whorein’ to be done in Denver. A man needs money for them things and we’re a little low, Mister. You understand what I’m tellin’ you?”
Cole kept the cigar clenched in his teeth as he spoke. “I’m no prospector, and all I understand is you’re a bunch of thieves who go around at night preying on people. You’d be best to get the hell away from my camp.” He slowly reached up with his left hand and took the cigar from his mouth, tossing it aside.
The man facing him chuckled. “Well now, you see, we want to give you a fair chance. There’s three of us, and we’ve made ourselves visible to you.”
Cole glanced at the other two, one young and clean shaven, the other perhaps old enough to be his father, grizzly and dirty. The man in front could be a relative, a friend … didn’t matter much.
“Now, you just hand over any money you’ve got,” the man continued, “and your weapons and your horse, and we’ll leave you by your fire here. You can even have your food and water. Deal?”
Cole’s upper lip moved into a sneer. “No. I’ll make a deal with you though. All three of you leave now, and I’ll let you live.”
One of those in the background chuckled.
“Hey, Mister, we don’t want to kill you if it ain’t necessary,” their leader told Cole.
“Same goes for me,” Cole answered.
They all stood silent for a few seconds, no sound but the night wind, and very distant, indistinguishable voices coming from the city in the distance. The three men eyed Cole carefully, and Cole could see a hint of doubt and fear in their eyes.
“I remind you there’s three of us, Mister,” their leader repeated.
“One man who’s damn good with a gun can take three men any time,” Cole answered. “Now, which one of you wants to be first?”
Again the air hung silent.
“This is bullshit!” one of the others finally grumped. He went for his gun, and instantly Cole’s was out and fired. Everything happened in only a second. The first man went down. The leader drew his gun at almost the same time, but Cole got off three shots, putting the last two bullets in the man in front. He cocked his six-gun again, aiming it at the third man, who had not drawn his gun. The man simply stood transfixed, gun hand ready but frozen in an arch outside his holster. His eyes bugged out in f
ear, and Cole stepped a little closer.
“You take your friends here and go find a place to bury them. But first you drop your weapon, and you take theirs and place them beside it. Then you leave all your rifles and any other weapons right here with me as well. You can come back in the morning and get them. I won’t be here.”
The man swallowed. “Who … who the hell are you?”
“You don’t need to know. Now do as I say!”
“Y … yes, sir.” It was the youngest man. He walked off into the darkness to get their horses, then returned and scrambled to lay all their weapons beside Cole’s campfire. Cole helped him load the two dead men onto their horses. The younger man mounted up and picked up the reins to the two horses. “What if somebody catches me burying them?” he asked. “How do I explain it?”
“I don’t give a damn. Tell them you were ambushed in the dark and didn’t see who did it—maybe it was Indians or somebody who was drunk. Just leave me out of it.”
“Why? You could go to the authorities yourself and tell them the truth.”
Cole nodded. “I could. Let’s just say I’m giving you a break. If I tell them the truth you’ll go to jail. Is that what you want?”
The young man shook his head. “Why do you care?”
Cole nodded toward the jacket the young man wore. “You’re wearing a Confederate jacket. You fight for the South?”
The boy’s eyes lit up a little brighter. “I did.”
“And you lost everything back home and came here hoping to start over.”
The boy frowned. “How’d you know that?”
“I know the look. Now get going.”
The young man shrugged. “Sure. Thanks, mister.” He turned and rode off. Cole looked down at his gun, wondering when he would be allowed to quit this life, not even sure anymore where it had all started. He only knew it had to end somewhere. And for now, he didn’t want the attention of a shooting. He listened and watched for a few minutes to be sure the young man had truly left, then began saddling Shadow.
“Sorry about this, boy, but as soon as dawn cracks we’re getting out of here.” He finished loading most of his gear onto the animal, then sat back down on his bedroll, piling up an extra blanket for a pillow, since he wouldn’t have his saddle to lean on while he slept. He stared at the campfire a while longer, too worked up now to sleep, and he wondered if this was how it was going to be forever. Stay a few days here, run, have it out with someone, gamble, drink, run again, stay a few days there, wanting to settle but not knowing how to live that way any more. He picked up a small flask of whiskey that lay beside his bedroll and uncorked it, taking a swallow. He licked his lips and corked it again, telling himself this was all the more reason he couldn’t settle with a woman like Addy.
Addy’s eyes widened when she looked out the window of the stagecoach that carried her and other passengers up Clear Creek Canyon. Jeanette Booth had chosen to stay in Denver with the Beans, and Addy again felt totally alone. She had met and made friends with people on this long journey, even almost fell in love, and now they were all gone from her life. She actually missed the people with whom she had shared so much danger. Fighting for each other’s lives drew total strangers very close. She’d heard that sometimes on the trail west, women widowed by the elements or Indians sometimes married total strangers just to have a man take care of their family. She was beginning to understand how that could happen.
Now she would have to start over again, making completely new friends in Central, but first she had to make it there alive. What she saw out the window led her to wonder if she might never get there. This road was not nearly so dusty as the roads out on the plains, and that was because it was almost pure rock, a ledge cut out of the side of a canyon wall! If they were to meet someone coming down from above, how would they even be able to pass? She stuck her head out to gawk at canyon walls hundreds of feet high, where here and there a scraggly shrub grew out of pure rock. Up top were pine trees, and everywhere huge boulders hung out from nothing, looking as though they would surely drop at any moment, tumbling down to crush the coach and all its passengers. Another few hundred feet below she could see a creek flowing, and it looked yellow. She wondered if that meant it flowed with gold dust.
“Don’t be worried, ma’am,” a young man told her. He rode in the coach with her, along with a painted, buxom woman who was undoubtedly headed for Black Hawk or Central to sell herself to men. Addy had tried to be casually friendly with the woman so as not to insult her, but the woman, who called herself Sassy Dillon, had such a wicked mouth it was difficult. Besides that, Sassy was rude, looking her over as though she was a sorry prude to be laughed at.
A prim little schoolteacher, huh? the woman had said when they first met as the stage left Denver. You sure ain’t the kind the men up at Central City need. She had laughed a bawdy laugh, her big breasts jiggling. She wore a rather prim dress for a woman of such wild mannerisms. Addy suspected she dressed much differently when in Central. Her yellow hair was twisted up under a feathered hat, and she wore far too much powder and color on her face. The young man riding beside her, whose name was Benny Reed, seemed to already know her, and as they talked with each other, it was obvious both had been to Central several times and knew it well, just as they were familiar with this hair-raising ride to get there. Apparently both had had business in Denver, but Addy was not about to ask what it was. She decided it would not be wise to get too friendly with these strangers, especially a woman like Sassy. She would not want to be seen warmly addressing the woman when she got off the coach, for fear it would look bad to anyone who might be there to greet her.
“They make this trip just about every day,” Benny continued, trying to calm Addy’s fears. “They almost never have any accidents.”
Addy pulled back inside and looked at him. “Almost?” She put a hand to her chest. “I’ve never seen such country. I can hardly believe people made it all the way up here and built a whole city!”
“Aw, heck, lady, where there’s gold, men will find a way to get to it,” Sassy told her. “You’d be surprised. Central is practically as big as Denver, and it’s growing every day. Someday we’ll have fancy hotels, churches, even an opera house. Hell, they’re even talking about building a new school. That should make you happy. And thank God there’s plenty of saloons! You’re in the wrong trade, honey. If you want to make real money, you ought to do what I do!” The woman guffawed, and Addy felt herself blushing, wondering what Sassy would think if she knew the things she had done with Cole Parker. Was she really any different from the woman who sat across from her?
She shook away the thought. Of course she was! She had wanted more than anything to be able to love Cole, to hear him say he loved her, to make some meaning out of their liaisons besides lustful desire. The coach bounced over a rock, and she grabbed the hand strap, her heart taking a leap along with the coach. She looked at Benny, wanting to change the subject from Sassy’s joking about prostitution. “You’re familiar with Central, then?”
“Sure am. Worked in the mines there for a while. Left with a couple of friends, but they, uh, they got shot. Now I’ve decided to go back.”
Addy’s eyebrows arched. “Shot? How did it happen?”
Benny frowned and thought for a moment. “Well, you promise not to tell?” He looked at Sassy. “You, too, Sassy?”
The woman rubbed his thigh. “Honey, you know you can trust me. I don’t much care what a man does with his life, long as he pays me good when he’s in my room.”
She laughed again, and Addy felt almost sick at the sound, not sure how much longer she could bear having to ride in the same coach with the woman. Benny looked back at Addy.
“Lady, I got mixed up with some men I didn’t know were bad, you know? We headed down to Denver, and low and behold they started robbin’ people. I went along with it because I was afraid of them. Then the other night, we come upon this man camped in the hills just southeast of Denver.
He was a big guy, tall, broad. From what I could tell by the campfire light, he was pretty good lookin’. I think he had blue eyes, and them eyes, they had a way of starin’ right through a man. I mean, I could tell right off he wasn’t a man to mess with, but the men with me, they thought that with three against one, there wasn’t no problem.”
Addy put a hand to her chest. A big man with blue eyes that could look right through you? Cole? Was he somewhere near after all? No, that couldn’t be. “What happened?” she asked.
“Well, Gary, the guy who told us what to do, he stepped up and faced the man, told him to hand over his weapons and any money he had. The man up and says no! He says we’d better be the ones to hand over our weapons and go away and leave him alone, or we’d die. Ken, the other man with us, he just laughed and drew on the guy.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anybody draw so fast. That man had his six-gun out and fired at both Ken and Gary before either one of them could shoot back. Me, I just watched. I didn’t draw, and he didn’t shoot me. He made me give up all our weapons and load Gary and Ken onto their horses—said as I should lie about how it happened and say that I never saw who did the shooting. I guess he didn’t want the attention for some reason.”
Didn’t want the attention. That sounded like Cole. Why did her heart rush at the thought that he could be coming here after all? She should hate him. She did hate him!
“I turned in the bodies at Denver, told the authorities there somebody ambushed us, maybe Indians. I went back to that camp and all our guns was still there, but the man was gone—who knows where? Strangest thing I ever saw.”
“Well, if he was so good lookin’, I hope he comes to Central,” Sassy spoke up.
Addy felt an unwarranted jealousy at the words, but also anger. Yes, this was the only kind of woman men like Cole Parker should lay with, women who didn’t care that he didn’t love them, who needed nothing more than sexual pleasure.
Until Tomorrow Page 16
