Chasing the Sun
Page 41
As they waited their turn before the conductor, Edwina scanned the lobby. Directly across from the entry doors was a high, paneled counter that showed remarkable, if grimy, workmanship, manned by a harried elderly clerk passing out brass keys as the passengers signed in. Beside the counter rose a steep staircase that led to a banistered mezzanine off which doors into the upstairs rooms opened. To the right of the entry, an archway opened into a dining area, now deserted in the mid-afternoon lull, while to the left stood a closed door, which led, judging by the tinkling piano music and loud voices, directly into the reprobate’s saloon.
“She with you?” a voice asked.
Turning, Edwina found the conductor frowning at her, his small, faded blue eyes flicking to Pru, who stood slightly behind her. Edwina read disapproval in his expression and felt her ire rise. “She is.”
The conductor’s lips thinned beneath his bushy gray mustache. “You’ll have to share a room. That all right by you?”
“Of course it’s all right.” Edwina started to add and why wouldn’t it be, you pinhead? when a sharp tug on the back of her coat choked off the angry retort. Pru hated scenes.
The conductor licked the tip of his stubby pencil and turned back to his list. “Names?”
“Edwina Ladoux ... Brodie. And this lovely lady with me,” ignoring her sister’s warning glare, Edwina swept a hand in her direction, “is my—” Another jerk almost pulled her backward. Before she could recover, Pru stepped forward to say, “Maid. Prudence Lincoln, sir.”
While Edwina gagged and coughed, Pru accepted their room assignment, nodded her thanks, and shoved Edwina on into the lobby, where the front desk clerk was directing passengers to their rooms.
“You almost choked me,” Edwina accused, rubbing her throat.
“Hush. People are looking,”
“At my vicious maid, no doubt.”
“Welcome, ladies.” Showing stained teeth—what few were left, anyway—in a broad smile, the hotel clerk, a grizzled old man with eyebrows as fat as white caterpillars, beckoned them forward. “Room number?”
Before Pru could answer, Lucinda stepped past them and up to the counter. “Room twenty.” Setting her valise on the floor, she gave Pru and Edwina an apologetic smile. “I told the conductor we would share. I hope you don’t mind. It’ll be safer,” she added in a whisper. Then without waiting for a response, she turned back to the slack-faced clerk, plucked the pen from its holder, dipped it in the inkwell, and smiled sweetly. “Where shall I sign?”
“Twenty?” The old man was clearly aghast. “But that—that’s the Presidential Suite!”
“So I’ve been told.”
“But you’re not the president.”
“Alas, no.” Turning the full force of those dazzling green eyes on the befuddled clerk, Lucinda leaned closer to whisper, “But Uncle insisted I take it if I ever came to Heartbreak Creek. Will that be a problem?”
“Goddamn.”
Apparently, that meant it wasn’t. After ordering a freckled boy to take fresh linens and water to “the big suite,” he reverently placed the key in Lucinda’s gloved hand and bowed them toward the stairs. “Last room at the end of the hall, ladies. The boy is setting it up now.”
As they headed toward the staircase, Edwina gave Lucinda a wondering look. “Are you really Grant’s niece?”
“Grant? Who said I was Grant’s niece?”
“But, I thought ... you mean you’re not?”
Lucinda laughed. “That old drunk?”
Not much of an answer, but apparently all Lucinda was willing to give. As they trooped up the stairs, Edwina mused that there were a lot of unanswered questions about Lucinda, not the least of which was what was in that valise that she guarded so protectively. Edwina sensed that, like her, Lucinda had been through hard times and devastating loss. But Lucinda had chosen to fight back, while Edwina had chosen to run.
But, really, what choice had she? Raised in the lap of luxury without a care beyond what to wear to the next ball, Edwina barely knew how to survive. Oh, certainly she had skills—dancing, flirting, performing parlor tricks like finding water with willow sticks or playing the piano blindfolded—but that hardly put food on the table. Other than her meager sewing income—which Pru augmented with sales from her tiny vegetable garden and the occasional household position that came her way—the only thing that had kept them going through the last hard years was hope. But after five years of the excesses of Reconstruction, that was gone, too, and now all she had left was her sister, a weed-choked cotton plantation sold for back taxes, her father’s watch, and a graveyard full of new markers.
What reason had she to stay? To slowly starve to death? To continue fighting off the advances of Cyrus McCready, the same carpetbagger who had taken her home and was now living in it with his wife and children? Or to become prey to scalawags and carpetbaggers and Klansmen who were supposed to be helping the battered South, but were rapidly destroying it?
The South she loved was no more. She realized that the day Pru had been attacked by white men in broad daylight just because of her dark skin, while she had been vilified for having such a close relationship with a woman of color. If she hadn’t begun carrying her late husband’s old pistol everywhere she went, there was no telling what might have happened.
She wasn’t running away. She just had no reason to stay.
As they neared their room at the end of the landing, the door swung open and the freckled boy darted out. “All set up, ma’ams. You need anything, just yell over the banister.” Then he was off down the hall.
“Set up” meant tattered linens were stacked on the unmade beds in each of the two bedrooms opening off the sitting area, and a pitcher of cold water sat on the bureau. Edwina peered down into its murky depths. “Is this the water we’re not supposed to drink?”
“I’ll stick with brandy,” Lucinda muttered, carrying her valise into the bedroom on the left.
Maddie stopped beside the pitcher, took a look, and shuddered. “It looks used. How vexing.”
“I wonder what’s wrong with it?” This whole water thing confused Edwina. “With a stream running right through the middle of town and all those waterfalls streaming down the slopes, how could the water be so bad?”
“Probably the mine,” Pru said as she hung her coat on a hook beside the door. “They often use harsh chemicals to leach gold or silver from the raw ore. If it seeps back into the ground, it can taint the entire water table.”
Edwina turned to stare at her. “How do you know these things?”
“I read.”
“About mining practices?” Edwina shouldn’t have been surprised. Her sister took in information like a starving person gobbled up food. But mining practices? “Why would you read about mining practices?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” As she spoke, Pru set herself to rights, straightening her sleeves, brushing her skirts, running a hand over her tightly pinned hair. “I’m only guessing, of course. But since the mine is upriver from the town, and I did see some sluices running down from one of those waterfalls to what I assumed was the concentrator, I can only deduce the water is being used to leach out unwanted chemicals.” She paused in thought, one long, graceful finger gently tapping her full lower lip. “Or it could be for a water cannon, I suppose. I’ll have to check.”
“Oh, please do!” Good God. Shaking her head, Edwina walked into the bedroom she was to share with Pru.
An hour later, their valises unpacked, their beds made, and the four women as refreshed as could be and sharing one pitcher of cold water between them, Lucinda came into the sitting room with her valise in her hand and Maddie on her heels. “We’re famished,” she announced. “Shall we brave the cooking in this wretched place and go down to the dining room?”
“Dare we?” Edwina asked.
Pru straightened her collar and checked her buttons. “I’m willing.”
“Excellent.” Swinging open the door, Lucinda motioned the other ladies into the hallwa
y, stepped out after them, and locked the door. “And while we eat,” she said, following them down the stairs, “Edwina can tell us all about her new husband, and Maddie can tell us about her errant husband, and Pru can tell us what she hopes to do with all that astounding book learning.”
And perhaps while we’re at it, Edwina added silently, you’ll tell us what you have in that valise you guard like stolen treasure.
Berkley Sensation titles by Kaki Warner
PIECES OF SKY
OPEN COUNTRY
CHASING THE SUN
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Twenty-eight
Epilogue