Darlin' Druid

by Lyn Horner

  The woman shoved her aside and laid into Blake. “Don’t you use such language in this house! And come down from there this instant.” Scowling at Jessie, she accused, “You had him in your room, didn’t you!”

  Jessie gulped, realizing how bad the situation appeared. “No, ye don’t understand. I didn’t –”

  “You have the gall to deny it, looking like that?” Mrs. Wilson raked Jessie’s disheveled hair and wrinkled gown with a damning glare, then shifted it to Blake. “And him standing on the steps. Come down from there, I say. Why are you bleeding? What hap –?”

  “Shut up, you old hag!” Blake roared, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket as he descended the last two stairs.

  Mrs. Wilson gasped. “Don’t you dare speak to me –”

  “I said shut up,” he snarled savagely as he crossed the foyer, mopping blood from his head.

  The older woman gave a shrill cry and sidestepped away from him, clutching at Minerva, whose mouth formed a silent “Oh!”

  Jessie wanted to run from him but knew she was safer facing the blackguard in front of witnesses. Hugging herself, she lifted her chin when he paused to pin her with a malevolent stare.

  “We’ll meet again, my pet,” he said, tone deadly soft. “I promise you that.” Seeing the tremor of fear she couldn’t suppress, he laughed evilly and strode out the door, drawing frightened squeaks from the women outside.

  Listening to his angry footfalls descend the porch steps and fade away, Jessie leaned against the wall behind her and closed her eyes, shaking uncontrollably. A moment later, the door slammed shut, causing her to flinch and open her eyes. Eleanor Wilson stood glowering at her, hands on her skinny hips, with the other women gathered behind her.

  “You brought that villain into my house, you little tramp!” the hawk-faced landlady shouted.

  Pushing away from the wall, Jessie faced her. “I didn’t! He let himself in and came up to my room and –”

  “What do you take me for, a fool? I locked the door. He couldn’t have gotten in unless you opened it.”

  “I didn’t, I tell ye. He must have picked the lock.”

  “Ellie, I’m sure Jessie’s telling the truth,” Minerva said, stepping forward. She wore an unusually grim expression. “That man’s vicious enough to do anything.”

  “Stay out of this, Minnie! This is my boarding house, and I won’t have my reputation ruined by the likes of her.”

  Minerva flicked one end of her canary-yellow boa at the other woman. “Phooey on your reputation! Try recalling what it was like peddling drinks for a living. Then maybe you’ll have more –”

  “Hold your tongue, you painted up feather duster!” Mrs. Wilson stormed, turning on her with hands clenched.

  “Stop it!” Jessie cried, thrusting herself between them. “Hasn’t there been enough trouble here today?”

  Eyes spitting fury, Mrs. Wilson jabbed a bony finger at her. “You have nothing to say about it. You don’t live here anymore.”

  Jessie sucked in her breath. “What?”

  “When I caught you with your so-called fiancé, I told you I’d evict you the next time.”

  “But I swear –”

  “Pack your bags. Now!” the woman ordered adamantly, arms crossed over her flat chest.

  It was useless to argue, and Jessie was suddenly too angry to even try. “Fine. I’ll go and glad to, ye sour old picklepuss!”

  The landlady’s sputters of outrage and Minerva’s explosion of laughter followed Jessie upstairs to her room – her former room. She swiftly stuffed her belongings into her battered valise, barely managing to cram in the new gown Tye had paid for. She hadn’t yet picked up the other two from the dressmaker, which was just as well since she had no way to pack them.

  On her way out, she made it through Minerva’s weepy farewell without breaking down and ignored Eleanor Wilson’s black-clad figure, posted like a vulture in the parlor doorway. The other women had taken shelter in their rooms, either wanting no more to do with her or simply afraid of their landlady’s wrath.

  It wasn’t until she was outside and several houses up the street that Jessie’s situation truly struck her. Where was she to go?

  Stopping abruptly, she dropped her heavy valise and glanced up and down the street, searching for an answer. Blake’s last menacing threat repeated itself in her throbbing head. If she went to a hotel or another boardinghouse, he would track her down, and if he got his hands on her again he would kill her. She now believed him fully capable of murder.

  For a moment she considered going to the police, but would they believe her if she told them what Blake had done, what he’d tried to do to her? He was known as a respectable businessman with powerful connections back east. No one saw how rotten he was underneath that refined exterior, anymore than she had seen it until today. Weren’t the police more likely to believe him than her? Ivar Andersen would believe her, for he’d always distrusted Blake, but he had no authority.

  Saints above, what if Blake accused her of hitting him on the head? Might she end up in jail? Worse yet, what if he was hiding somewhere nearby, just waiting to catch her and drag her off someplace where he could take his revenge? Her heart gave a frightened lurch; she glanced wildly around, imagining him behind every tree and bush. She wouldn’t be safe in this city until he left Utah. She had to get away!

  But where to, she asked herself again.

  For an instant David came to mind, just as he had when Blake held her in his merciless grasp, but she angrily cast aside the idea of going to him. She must be insane to even think of it. There was only one person she could run to, one person she could trust completely, and that was her brother.

  Picking up her valise, she set off for the train station. She knew the Utah Southern Railroad ran south from Salt Lake City, and Blake had said something about a branch line that extended east into the WasatchMountains toward Alta, toward Tye.

  Please God, let there be a train leaving soon.

  * * *

  David grumbled under his breath as he knocked on the front door of Wilson’s Boardinghouse early the next morning. After his last run-in with Jessie, he’d sworn never to “interfere in her life” again, yet here he was about to do exactly that.

  No doubt her temper would blow sky-high, but he didn’t care; he couldn’t endure another night of imagining what that cabrón, Stanton, might do to her. No matter how infuriating she was, he had to warn her, and one way or another she was going to listen to him this time. He just hoped to hell he wasn’t too late.

  The door opened to reveal Jessie’s severe landlady.

  “Mornin’, ma’am,” he said, touching his hat to her.

  She drew a startled breath then pursed her lips sourly, making him wonder what Jessie had told her about him. Regardless of that, if the woman thought she could keep him from her pig-headed tenant, she was wrong.

  “Ma’am, I need to see Jessie. Is she in?”

  “No,” she snapped. “She no longer lives here. I evicted her yesterday.”

  “Evicted!” Astonished, he rocked back on his heels. “Why?”

  Mrs. Wilson clucked her tongue. “If she really is your fiancée, I feel sorry for you, young man.”

  “What the . . . what happened?”

  She twitched her shoulders as if to settle her ugly black gown. “I caught her in a scandalous situation. With another man, I’m sorry to say.”

  An image of Jessie lying naked with Stanton popped into David’s head, and he clenched his jaw. “Tell me,” he bit out.

  Sighing in annoyance, the grim-faced matron said, “I suppose you’d better come in.”

  He stepped inside, doffed his hat, and fought for patience as she closed the door. Primly folding her hands, she launched into an indignant account of what had gone on the previous afternoon. She spared no chance to malign Jessie, and simmering with fury, David believed her at first. But when she mentioned Stanton’s bleeding head and his baleful vow to see Jessie again, the story she told sudd
enly didn’t ring true. Jessie hadn’t given in to Stanton, she’d fought him off, he guessed, stomach knotting.

  “You poor man!” Mrs. Wilson exclaimed, flushed from her vindictive tirade. “You’re lucky to be rid of that red-haired hussy.”

  David gritted his teeth, tired of her opinions. “Do you know where she went?” he asked sharply.

  The old harridan scowled at him. “Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said? Surely you don’t mean to run after her, Captain.”

  “Jessie’s life may be in danger, woman!” he bellowed. “Do you know where she is or not?”

  She jumped as if snake-bit. “T-t-try Andersen’s Café, near the depot. She works there.” Jerking the door open in invitation for him to leave, she backed away.

  He nodded curtly, slapped his hat on and stalked out, determined to track Jessie down. What he would do when he found her, he didn’t know. He only knew he had to find her before Stanton did.

  Within minutes he was dismounting outside Andersen’s Café. Tossing his reins over a hitching post, he frowned at the sign of the all-seeing eye over the café entrance. Jessie’s employer must be a Mormon. Mindful of how much the Saints resented CampDouglas being on their doorstep – it had been established more to keep watch on them than to protect them from Indians – he knew his uniform could pose a problem. But whether the café’s owner wanted him around or not, he meant to talk to Jessie if she was here.

  He squared his shoulders and walked in. Greeted by the aroma of baking pies – peach, his nose told him – he closed the door and scanned the long, narrow dining room.

  There were only a few customers in the place at the moment, and his gaze swiftly homed in on a stout, gray-haired man who was busy stacking dishes on the shelves of an open cabinet. His sleeves were rolled up, his shirt collar open, and he wore a long white apron around his ample middle. Presuming he was Jessie’s employer, David saw no sign of her, but perhaps she was in the kitchen.

  Pausing in his task, the older man glanced over at him, and his ruddy features took on a hostile expression. David set his jaw in determination and walked over to him.

  “Mister Andersen?” he inquired.

  “Ya, I am Ivar Andersen,” the man replied curtly in a heavy Scandinavian accent.

  David offered his hand. “Captain David Taylor, sir.” He waited until his handshake was reluctantly accepted before stating his purpose. “I’m looking for Jessie Devlin. I was told she works for you. Is she here?”

  Surprise flashed in Andersen’s pale blue eyes, followed by wariness. Pushing up his spectacles, he asked bluntly, “What do you want with her?”

  Forcing down a surge of angry impatience, David said, “We’re . . . friends, and I believe she’s in danger. She has been keeping company with a man she shouldn’t have trusted, and I just now learned –”

  “Herre Gud!” Andersen exclaimed. “He has done something to her! I knew it is because of him she left.”

  A fist clenched inside David’s belly. “Left? She’s not here?”

  “No.” Shaking his head, Andersen pulled off his spectacles and scrubbed at his face. “Why does she not listen to me about him?” he muttered to himself.

  “About Blake Stanton, you mean?” David reflexively rested his hand on the butt of his Army Colt, itching to have Stanton lined up in his gun sight.

  “Ya, ya, I tell her he is no good, but she does not believe me.” Replacing his spectacles, the man peered at David. “How do you know her?”

  David shrugged. “We got acquainted on the train from Omaha, and I looked her up after being posted to CampDouglas. Since then I’ve heard some ugly things about Stanton. When I found out Jessie was seeing him, I knew I had to warn her.” He scowled, hating himself for not dragging her away from the bastard that night at the hotel, like he’d wanted to do.

  “But when I stopped by her boarding house a while ago, I learned she had a run-in with him yesterday. I think he tried to . . . hurt her, but she somehow got away.” He held Andersen’s worried gaze. “And I’m afraid he’ll go after her again.”

  “Herre Gud!” the older man repeated in a choked whisper. “He is same kind of fancy man who takes my daughter, my Annika, from me. All kind of promises he makes, and she runs off to San Francisco with him. That is where I find her later – in the stinking hole where he leaves her to die, her and the baby he does not want!”

  Oblivious to David’s shocked stare, he continued, “Before she dies, she tells me how that animal treats her, how he hurts her! Argh, if I could get him I would . . . .” Grinding his teeth, he made a squeezing motion with his hands as if he were wringing the life from the man he hated.

  Finding it hard to speak, David cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, sir. But after what your daughter went through, I’m sure you know how anxious I am to find Jessie.”

  Lowering his hands, Ivar Andersen sighed heavily and raised his head. “Ya, and I help you,” he said gruffly. “I know where she goes.”

  Relief coursed through David. “Thank God! Tell me, please.”

  Andersen dug a folded scrap of paper from his pants pocket. “I find this under door. It is from Jessie. She goes to her brother. You know where is Alta, maybe?”

  Reading Jessie’s uneven script, David imagined her hand shaking with fright as she wrote it. “I’ve been there.” And he would be going back.

  * * *

  Thirteen miles down the Jordan RiverValley from Salt Lake City, David passed through Sandy. Located at the western base of the WasatchMountains, a few miles below Little Cottonwood Canyon, the town was a shipping and smelting center for the mines that pockmarked the canyon and its offshoots. Most famous of the mines was the Emma, whose discovery back in ’69 had triggered the current silver boom. The Emma’s future hung in doubt since a serious cave-in this past June, David had heard, but judging by the tons of ore piled up around Sandy and the foul-smelling fumes belching from her smelters, the other mines were doing fine.

  David assumed Jessie had taken the train south to Sandy and then transferred to the narrow gauge Wasatch and JordanValley line for the short trip to Little Cottonwood Canyon. Unfortunately, rail service did not yet extend up the canyon itself, meaning Jessie would have needed to find another way up the steep trail – one more reason for the worry clawing at his insides.

  He hadn’t bothered with trains. After leaving Ivar Andersen, he’d hightailed it back to Camp Douglas to let Colonel Henry Morrow, the post commander, know he was returning to Alta – supposedly to check out a fresh tip about the deserter he had been sent here to find. Grudging every minute, he had changed into civilian clothes and traded his cavalry mount with its telltale brand for the nondescript animal he used as part of his prospector’s disguise. So far, the role had allowed him to conduct his search for the man he was after without arousing suspicion in the mining camps. He hoped it would also help him find Tye Devlin and Jessie.

  Swinging east from Sandy, he spurred his mount up the brush-strewn foothills, following the Wasatch and Jordan tracks. Before long, a deep gorge opened to his left; Little Cottonwood Creek ran through it, tumbling down from the mountains above. Here, his route veered south around a jutting butte, then circled north toward the canyon. At the turn, David glimpsed the JordanValley behind him, its lush green farmland standing out against the brown OquirrhMountains to the west. To the north, the dome of the Mormon Tabernacle glowed golden in the midday sun, and the Great Salt Lake spread out like a mirror northwest of the city. He had paused to admire the panorama on his first trip up here, but today he spared it only a passing glance. All he could think about was getting to Jessie.

  Reaching the granite quarry at the canyon’s mouth – source of stone for the Mormon Temple – David stopped to ask the workers if any of them had seen a young red-haired woman come through here in the past day. It turned out they all recalled seeing her just this morning. She’d made quite an impression, riding a mule, accompanied by a man who ran a string of pack mules up and down the canyon, bringing
in supplies and carting out ore. The muleskinner was a descent sort, the quarrymen claimed.

  Glad to hear that, David thanked them and headed his horse up the canyon. On both sides of him, high granite walls rose, treeless except for a few saplings and the stumps of older trees, cut down for lumber to shore up mine tunnels. Higher up, the canyon would level out into meadowland, but the ascent was by no means easy.

  None of the quarrymen had recalled seeing a sandy-haired man pass by, but the possibility that Stanton might be ahead of him on the rocky trail still ate away at David. He hoped to God he would reach Jessie first. If he did, he intended to blister her ears for getting into this mess and forcing him to commit what amounted to dereliction of duty. She wasn’t his reason, his official reason, for being in Utah, even if that recent dispatch from CampDouglas had seemed like the hand of fate drawing him to her.

  He would still be at FortSanders if a drunken prospector hadn’t shot his mouth off a few weeks ago in Alta’s Bucket of Blood Saloon. According to the barkeep David had questioned, the drunk had bragged about “gutting” an officer who’d tried to throw him in the guardhouse for fighting when he was in the army a while back. The fool’s boast had reached the town marshal who, in turn, had reported it to Colonel Morrow at CampDouglas.

  Aware of the deserter wanted for murdering a young lieutenant at FortSanders, Morrow had sent word north, asking that someone be sent to track down and identify the killer. David had requested the privilege, and in light of other matters, he’d been granted his wish. He meant to bring in the murdering deserter, dead or alive, but he had volunteered for this mission mainly because he wanted to see Jessie again.

  He snorted in self-disgust. The truth was he’d behaved like a lovesick schoolboy over her, barely reporting to CampDouglas before he’d gone looking for her, on the pretext of learning his way around the city. Then he’d lost his head in a combination of lust and rage, all but undressing Jessie in her landlady’s parlor. The memory didn’t set well with him.