Ransacker

by Emmy Laybourne

  “Come,” Alice said gamely. “You’ve all spent too much time helping me. I’ll have wasted the whole evening for us all. We must dance again before the night ends!”

  She took Sissel’s hand and led her toward the floor. Stieg, James, and Howie followed.

  Sissel dodged Stieg’s glare the rest of the night. She tried to enjoy the music, but she couldn’t get her mind off McKray.

  He had set her up. Bridget had probably stolen Alice’s combs while he was dancing with her! Sissel remembered Bridget saying something about McKray forgiving past mistakes. Was the girl a pickpocket? A professional thief?

  Bridget had been crying, though, upset. He had forced her to do it. That was plain to see. What a cad! Sissel was furious.

  And now McKray knew she could find gold. He didn’t have the full measure of her powers, but he knew her secret. What would he do with the information?

  Sissel kept stepping on James’s feet as they danced. She could tell he was upset with her, irritated she was so distracted. She tried to focus on the touch of James’s hand at her waist, which had so enthralled her before. But it could not compete with the worries that pressed down on her now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Stieg paced Sissel’s room, glowering at the Persian carpet. It was Sunday, in the quiet hours after church and before dinner.

  “You risked a great deal—”

  “Alice needed me. Those combs are her mother’s best pieces!”

  “You’ve never used the Nytte in a space like that—so full of people. A million things could have gone wrong!”

  Sissel chewed on her lip.

  “Why didn’t you come to me?” he asked.

  “I knew you’d tell me not to interfere!”

  Stieg considered that for a moment, then shot back, “You’re right! I would have! It was reckless, what you did! You could have truly hurt yourself.”

  “I feel better than I have in my whole life, Stieg. Every time I use it I get stronger.”

  “You use it often, then?”

  Sissel’s face flushed red.

  “It is mine to use,” she said. “It is my gift.”

  They were surprised by a knock on the door.

  Sissel opened it to find one of the porters there. He held out a small cream-colored envelope to Sissel.

  “I gotta wait for a reply,” he said. He seemed embarrassed.

  She said her thanks and shut the door.

  “What is it?” Stieg asked.

  Sissel opened the envelope and read the note within, printed in a blocky, graceless script.

  “A social card?” Stieg asked.

  “Mr. McKray requests the pleasure of my company on a carriage ride,” she said. She looked up at Stieg, her surprise written so baldly on her face that Stieg laughed. He shook his head.

  “I think you’ve got another beau,” he said.

  Sissel looked back down at the note. Her heart was pounding. This was about last night.

  “So it seems,” she said.

  Stieg was watching her closely. “You don’t think he’s trying to influence you to get us to sell our land, do you?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with our land.”

  “Well,” Stieg said, his eyes twinkling, “you need not go if you don’t want to, but I’m not entirely surprised. I saw the way he was looking at you when you danced. Do you think he’s too old for you?”

  “I don’t know,” Sissel said.

  “Five years seems like a great distance now, but the difference between a man of thirty-five and a woman of thirty seems like nothing.”

  Sissel simply shrugged. She wasn’t thinking about the age difference one bit. She was thinking about what McKray knew about her, and how to get him to keep it a secret.

  “Do you want me to tell the porter you aren’t feeling well?” Stieg asked.

  She shook her head, and hoped her voice sounded casual. “No, no. I suppose I could go out for a ride.”

  Stieg smiled in an indulgent way that made her feel terrible. Another lie told to her brother—that she would consider Isaiah McKray as a beau.

  Sissel opened the door. “Tell Mr. McKray I will be down presently,” she said. Relief dawned over the porter’s face. Obviously he knew the nature of his errand.

  “I’ll tell him, miss,” he said, and scurried off down the hall.

  Stieg let himself out, telling Sissel to report in when she returned, reminding her their discussion wasn’t finished. But in general, he seemed amused.

  Good, Sissel thought, let him be amused and not suspect the trouble I’m in.

  She tucked her white blouse into her skirt. She had changed into these more casual clothes after church, not expecting to be going anywhere. She knew anyone would think she was preening for McKray, making herself look pretty. That was not it at all. She wanted to look capable and grown-up.

  Her hair was forever escaping the bun. It was too thin. Sissel didn’t have time to take it down and repin it. She patted it into place and found her hands were shaking.

  She placed her hands on the cool, lacquered top of the bureau and leaned toward her reflection.

  “Steady,” she told herself.

  * * *

  MCKRAY WAS WAITING in the lobby, talking to Collier.

  Sissel stopped on the stairs. They were discussing a shortage of mutton for the restaurant. Such a mundane, adult conversation. Suddenly she felt like a small child, playing at being grown-up. She wanted to turn back, but lifted her chin and marched bravely down.

  McKray turned. When their eyes met he ducked his head.

  Good, she thought. He should look away, ashamed.

  “Miss Hemstad,” he said, tipping his hat.

  “Good afternoon,” Sissel replied.

  “I hope it’s not too presumptuous of me to ask you to take a ride with me?”

  “Not at all,” she said.

  As far as Sissel was concerned, all this dialogue was for the benefit of the gossip hound Collier, who stood behind the counter, officiously polishing his glasses.

  Collier nodded to Sissel as she passed. She dipped her head back.

  McKray led her out the door to the carriage waiting outside.

  This was a finer buggy than James had procured for the dance the night before, richly appointed, with a leather cover lined with red silk. Joshua, one of the hotel porters, stood holding the reins. The leather was fastened with brass rivets. Sissel stepped up into it as Joshua held the horses. They were a pair of matched palominos. Showy horses, very pretty. Their tails were braided with red ribbons to match the cushions of the surrey.

  McKray held her hand as she climbed inside.

  Minnie and Abigail were walking by, and their eyes nearly popped from their skulls, seeing Sissel being courted by Isaiah McKray.

  Sissel wasn’t happy about being summoned by McKray this way, but at least she got to enjoy the amazement on her schoolmates’ faces.

  McKray followed Sissel’s gaze to the girls and tipped his hat to them.

  “Ladies,” he said.

  Then he gave the horses a touch of the reins and they drove forward. Sissel was sure the two girls’ mouths hung agape as they passed.

  “I guess we’re an unlikely pair,” McKray said.

  “Maybe we are,” Sissel said.

  The horses trotted and swiftly put the town behind them.

  “The town’s booming,” McKray said, just as Sissel said, “That was some trick you pulled last night.”

  He cleared his throat.

  “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to give your friend such a scare. But I had a mind to know the truth about you, and now I know it.”

  “You used poor Bridget terribly!” Sissel said. “To make her steal?!”

  “She owed me a favor,” McKray said, frowning.

  “For what?” Sissel asked.

  “I bought out her contract from a Telluride cathouse, if you really want to know.”

  Siss
el snapped her mouth shut.

  “Perhaps you’d better take me back,” Sissel said.

  “Now, now. I didn’t mean to offend. She approached me and asked for my help, and I gave it to her. She’s working off her debt to me.”

  “Well … after what you made her do last night, I should think her obligation to you is over. What a risk! What if someone else had caught her?”

  “No one would have,” he said. “Little towns like this, people want to believe everything’s safe and sound. They should be on guard, but they want to trust and for life to be easy.”

  Sissel had to admit he had a point. She and her siblings had lived in Carter for nearly three years. Her sister was a murderer—had killed six men—and no one suspected a thing.

  “We’ve got more important things to talk about,” McKray said.

  Sissel sat back, arms crossed.

  “I was right about you, but I’ve not come here to gloat about it. I want your help. You know I’m developing several mines around the area. I want to hire you to help me. I’ll pay you as much as I pay my top assessor. That’s ten dollars a day, fifty a week.”

  Now clear of town, he gave a snap of the reins and the horses began to trot.

  “Is that where we are going now?” Sissel asked. “To one of your mines?”

  He made a gruff noise of assent.

  “Do you truly think I will help you, after the nasty trick you pulled on me last night?” Sissel said.

  “Don’t you need the money?” he asked.

  “You made my friend Alice cry,” she said. “Not to mention poor Bridget. No kind of gentleman would do such a thing.”

  “I never claimed to be a gentleman.”

  “No? Then why do you wear those fancy suits? Why do you drive such a lovely surrey?”

  McKray turned and glared at her.

  “You’re awful forward,” he said.

  “Perhaps I am.”

  McKray frowned at the reins in his hand and kept driving straight.

  “Let me try again,” he said. “I’m not much good at this … Miss Hemstad, you can tell where gold is, and I own several mines. That seems a promising situation.”

  Sissel thought about this, watching the birds dart and hide in the prairie grass.

  “I know I tricked you, and I do apologize. But look, I have teams of miners. You could just waltz into one of my mines and tell us where to dig. Why, imagine their faces, all lit up with wonder! Imagine them breaking great hunks of ore riddled with gold out of the ground.”

  Or silver or nickel or platinum, Sissel thought to herself.

  “Picture yourself buying a new dress for your sister. Or a silver-backed brush and mirror set. Imagine having so much money none of you Hemstads have to work another day. All just from walking into a mine and pointing.”

  Sissel cast her eyes up into the endless blue sky above. She could see it all.

  Then she sighed, letting go of the fantasy.

  The word would get out. The miners would talk. The Baron would find them, bringing more Berserkers, or worse, the law would catch up with them and they’d hang her sister.

  “Thank you for your offer, but my answer is no,” she said.

  A wagon was drawing near on the road. The driver, a farmer, raised his hat in salutation; McKray gave him a terse nod back.

  “What if I offer you fifteen percent? Fifteen percent of gold from my land, dug up and processed by my miners. It could be thousands of dollars, Miss Hemstad. Tens of thousands. My father took two hundred seventy thousand in gold out of his mine in Ouray, Colorado, last year alone.”

  Sissel tried to grasp that.

  “I can’t, Mr. McKray. I appreciate your offer. I do.” She laid her fingers on one of his big meaty hands. He turned to look at her. “It’s a good offer. I see that. But I have to keep what I can do a secret. And I need to ask you, to beg you, if I must, to help me keep it a secret.”

  “Oh,” he said. “I can keep a secret.”

  McKray directed the team of horses onto a thin side road, little more than wagon wheel ruts through the grass. He drove on until they reached a bit of shade from a couple of forlorn willows.

  McKray shifted in his seat so he was facing in her direction. He removed a folded piece of heavy stock paper from the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to her.

  She opened it.

  There was her brother Knut’s face, staring up at her from the wanted poster.

  Sissel looked to McKray, then back to the poster, and to McKray again.

  He wasn’t smiling now, but looking grim and resigned.

  “This is over two years old,” she said. “This man, this poster, it’s not correct—”

  She was stumbling over the words, realizing, as she spoke, that she should pretend not to know anything about the poster or the boy pictured on it. Only now it was too late.

  “That’s a drawing of your brother,” McKray said.

  “No,” she said. “This warrant is no good. They found this boy. Someone turned in his body for the reward. Don’t you see?”

  McKray sighed.

  “It doesn’t matter what I see. What matters is what everyone else sees. If this poster were to find its way to the hands of the locals … For five hundred dollars? Lots of men would try for that bounty.”

  Tears sprang to Sissel’s eyes.

  “I’m not saying I’m going to do anything with this,” he said, then he fumbled for his handkerchief. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just saw that poster when I was visiting my father in Colorado last spring. I’ve held it ever since.”

  “You mustn’t tell anyone!” She took the handkerchief and dabbed it to her eyes.

  “I won’t! I haven’t! All this time, I’ve kept this secret. And I’ll keep on keeping it, too. In fact, if you would help me, I’d do everything in my power to protect him. Protect all of you.”

  Sissel was cold. Her belly felt like it was being filled with lead. “This is blackmail. You’re blackmailing me?”

  “No, no,” he said. “That’s not what I’m about. Work for me, Miss Hemstad. Let me hire you to do what you’re so good at. You’ll get rich and keep your family safe.”

  “Safe from you!” she blurted out. “Don’t pretend you are not the threat.”

  “Listen, Miss Hemstad, I’m just after money. That’s all. I promise. Take that poster. Keep it safe or burn it up.”

  Sissel looked to his face, to be sure he meant it. He held his hands up.

  “I’m not here to ruin your life,” he said. “I just … when I see an opportunity, I seize it.”

  Sissel clutched the poster. She leaned against the leather backrest. She felt alone and scared and exhausted all at once.

  McKray whisked the reins at the horses and brought them around in a large circle. He set them back toward the main road.

  For a while, the only noise was the horses’ hooves hitting the road and the squeaking of the fancy leather upholstery.

  “If you change your mind about visiting my mines, do let me know,” McKray said.

  “I suppose I should thank you for finding this poster and keeping it safe,” Sissel said.

  “Only if you feel like it,” McKray said, in a voice so low she pretended not to hear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Things weren’t as easy as they’d been before Mandry assaulted her, but Hanne tried to make sure Owen and Witri and all the cowboys knew she was all right.

  Tincher had been informed of a scrap between Owen and Mandry. He might have figured out what had really happened, between Hanne’s black eye and Mandry’s bruised and battered face, but no one had felt the need to comment on it and bring it into the open.

  Hanne presented a cheerful face to the company and tried to let them see she wasn’t worried or afraid.

  In stolen moments late at night, she reassured Owen—it could have been so much worse. She could have killed Mandry. It was only Witri’s intervention and Daisy’s appearance that had kept her from it. But
Owen was upset about the whole thing and there wasn’t any time for them to talk it out. He was away riding all day and sometimes had night guard as well.

  That morning Hanne had moved to embrace Owen before he mounted his horse, and Owen hadn’t seen her stepping forward. He swung up, just past her reach, and given the horse his heels, riding off.

  She turned and caught Witri watching this small and likely accidental snub.

  An hour or so later, he presented her with a little bundle, made of a flour sack.

  “You go on and take your husband some dinner today,” he told her. “You deserve an afternoon off, and anyway, it’s Son of a Gun stew tonight, and I want to save you the horrors of preparing that dish.”

  Son of a Gun stew, Hanne knew, was made from a freshly butchered calf, every last bit of it, from tail to horns.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  Witri nodded, his kind green eyes twinkling at her from beneath his towel headdress.

  “Lovely young bride like you can’t be keeping company with an old dried-up cow pie like me day and night,” he said gruffly. “Go on. I put some molasses cookies in there, too.”

  * * *

  DAISY WAS VERY happy to see Hanne. Hanne could tell the dog didn’t like it that her two masters spent so much time apart during the day. Since Mandry’s attack, Daisy seemed particularly anxious.

  Nevertheless, Daisy had a job to do. She needed to be with Owen, helping bring the cattle into line. But each evening she came racing into camp, body squirming with joy to be reunited with her mistress.

  Now she played in the flowers, while Owen and Hanne sat on a large rock, enjoying the sun and the last bites of their picnic. Scattered around them were the grazing longhorns. They were near the front of the drive. Tincher had switched around the positions after the fight, moving Owen up toward the front and assigning Mandry to ride drag. It was a hard place to ride, at the back of the herd, where the dust and the smell was the worst. Hanne knew Tincher did it to punish Mandry.

  Jigsaw and the horse Owen was riding for the morning, a mature chestnut gelding named Brutus, had their heads together as they cropped the grass, as if gossiping.