A Touch of Camelot (16 page)

"What?"

She closed her eyes and whispered, "She knew naught but his princely face. It was when her brave knight returned to her in the garden that the queen first asked him his true name."

Before Cole could ask what she was talking about, Gwin leaned forward. Her lips touched his, gentle and warm as sun-kissed flower petals. It was fleeting and chaste and compelling. For a second, he even forgot the agony in his arm. He caught a heady whiff of lilacs and raised his hand to touch her hair. It felt soft and thick, heavenly. Before he had a chance to absorb what was happening, she pulled back.

He stared at her, speechless.

Her eyes were still closed. "Oh, my love," she whispered, "I am all yours."

Cole knew that he'd heard her right that time, but the words she uttered still made no sense."Gwin, what's—?"

Her eyes opened, and they seemed to shine in the dim light. Cole thought for a moment that there might be tears brimming there."I'm sorry, Cole."

A handcuff slipped over his wrist before he could react. If it hadn't been his bad arm, he could have easily yanked it away before she had a chance to anchor the other end to the metal lock of the sturdy trunk behind him.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

She stood and jumped back, dropping his jacket to the floor. He caught a flash of silver as she tucked a key into her skirt pocket. "The bleeding's stopped, so you'll be all right if you don't struggle. The conductor will be through here on his rounds soon, and—"

"No!" Frustrated, Cole tried to stand. The trunk, which he would have sworn was packed full of nothing less than pure lead, didn't budge. He only succeeded in jarring his bullet wound. "Gwin, don't do this."

But she was already moving away from him, pulling up her skirt in handfuls, tucking the hem into her waistband. He saw before she turned her face away that she really was crying. She looked almost comical with her skirt all bunched up around her waist, revealing the stark white pantalets that clad her slim legs beneath it, but he didn't have much time to pay attention to that. He knew now what she planned to do, and there was nothing funny about it. She planned to jump the train.

She snagged Arthur by the arm and swung him around, pointing him toward the door, toward the open observation deck that sided the day coach ahead of them. "Let's go!"

Arthur hesitated. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his treasured slingshot. He tossed it to the floor next to Cole. "Here, take care of this for me, will you?"

Cole tried to reason with him. "Arthur, you don't have to do this."

But the kid wasn't open to argument. He would stick with his sister, crazy or not, stupid or not, reckless or not. With only a wistful look back, he vanished through the open doorway.

Cole strained at the cuffs, ignoring the pain that gnashed through his damaged shoulder. "Damn it, Gwin! Please don't do this!"

She looked back at him, her fingers clutching at the splintered archway as she blinked back tears. "I'm sorry, I have to. Can't you understand?"

"This isn't the way! Just stay and together we can ..." But the plea died in his throat.

"Good-bye, Cole."

And then she was gone.

PART TWO

“With bereaved hearts, the two lovers parted. They would be lovers nevermore. To her lone, cold chamber stole the queen, her cheeks still wet with tears, while Lancelot took his horse and rode slowly into the forest ...”
  From the love story of Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot, as told by Emmaline Pierce to her daughter, Guinevere Pierce, 1868

Chapter Twelve

Virginia Range Mountains, Nevada

Cole figured he must have eaten something so horribly disagreeable before going to bed that it was now fighting its way out somewhere within his digestive system. The result, of course, was a long night of bad dreams.

He was in his own narrow bed in his own neat-as-a-pin apartment on Madison Street in Chicago. If he listened hard enough, he could hear the clip-clop of the horses' hooves passing along the cobblestone street below and the familiar call of morning pushcart vendors. If he opened his eyes, there, flanking his bed, would be an oak dresser. Atop the dresser, inside two oval brass frames, would be the faded daguerreotypes of his parents, the father he had idolized and the mother he had never had the chance to know.

If it was Thursday, Mrs. Chalmers, the housekeeper who came in once a week to tidy up, would soon be knocking at his door. A plump woman, she would be wheezing like a set of hearth bellows after having climbed the stairs.

In terms of housekeeping, she didn't have much of a job when it came to looking after Cole's place. Cole always picked up after himself. And so, perhaps it was because she was not kept busy enough that she had taken to concerning herself with Cole's state of bachelorhood. "You find yourself a nice girl to marry, Mr. Shepherd," she'd advise. "There are plenty of nice young ladies who would jump at the chance to catch themselves a fine young buck like you."

Cole smiled to himself. Perhaps Mrs. Chalmers was right. Maybe it was time he thought about finding himself a nice girl to settle down with. A nice, sweet—

"Curse it all to hell! I can't budge him. He must weigh two hundred fifty pounds. I swear, if he up and dies on us, I'm going to leave him here for the birds."

Not two-fifty, dear heart, one-ninety last time I checked.
And even as he corrected her exaggeration of his weight, Cole was forced to confront the gloomy possibility that he might not be the victim of bad dreaming after all. When he forced his eyes open, he saw that he was not in his cozy little room overlooking Madison Street. It was dark and cold, there was dirt in his mouth, and it felt like someone had driven a railroad spike through his arm.

"Gwinnie! He's waking up! He's waking up!"

Cole hoped it was part of his dream that someone seemed to be tugging on his left leg in a futile attempt to drag him, but he feared not. The leg-pulling stopped just before Guinevere Pierce's pale, dirt-streaked face swooped down into his narrow line of vision. "You're bleeding again and you're too heavy for us to move you. Are you all right?"

Cole spat out some dirt. "Sure I'm all right. I'm just dandy, Gwin."

He closed his eyes again, perhaps in a last ditch effort to convince himself that this was all indeed a dream. It had to be. If it wasn't, and he really was on his first assignment, it certainly wasn't going very well, was it?

Fritz Landis's words came back to him with stunning clarity:
"Your first solo assignment is to escort them from Caldwell to San Francisco without misplacing them along the way."

It had sounded simple. Insultingly simple. Fritz had neglected to mention, though, how incredibly lovely Guinevere Pierce was, how she would have a way of getting under his skin that would make him want to choke her one minute and pull her into his arms the next. There had been no mention about the kid, about how Cole might find himself growing attached to the shaggy-haired ragamuffin who carried a cheap slingshot named Excalibur. There had been, come to think of it, no mention either of Oriental assassins, gunshot wounds, or jumping trains that were moving at twenty-five miles per hour across rocky, desert-like terrain. Just a simple assignment.

Simple.

The memory of his own escape now came back to him. He had wasted two or three minutes swearing at the top of his lungs and struggling with the handcuffs, trying to drag that trunk full of lead across the floor of the car—a worthy cause, certainly.

Next, he had frittered away more time trying to devise a way to reach the call rope to signal the conductor—another physical impossibility. It was then he'd begun to pity himself, vividly picturing his career going all to hell. Finally, he had remembered the hatpin Arthur had used the night Gwin had cuffed Cole to his berth.

Cole had taken that hatpin from Arthur and dropped it into his own coat pocket. Gwin might have confiscated the key, but she couldn't have known about the hatpin. She had dropped his coat on the floor within reach, and Cole snatched it up eagerly.

Picking the handcuff lock had seemed to take forever and he had been tempted more than once to give up, but he sweated it out. After all, a Pinkerton man never gives up. Isn't that what he had always believed?

By the time Cole had freed himself from the cuffs, he figured he was twenty minutes ahead of Gwin and Arthur on the line. Since it was night, he hoped they would stick close to the tracks. If he headed east on foot, he had a good chance of running into them. And with that last thought in mind, he'd jumped the Central Pacific Express 420.

He didn't remember much after that. Whatever he had banged his head into upon landing had been made of much sterner stuff than his poor, aching skull.

"Cole! Can you sit up? Are you all right?" There was an exasperated feminine squeal. "Holy Moses, I think he's passed out again. What are we going to do now?"

Cole groaned and rolled over onto his back. His arm felt like it was about to snap off. “I believe you mentioned leaving me for the birds.”

Her hands were on him then, smoothing his hair back, cupping his face. It felt nice.

"Cole Shepherd, open your eyes!"

"I can't. If I open my eyes now, I'll find myself somewhere in Nevada with a mangled arm, a dented head, and two crazy people who will not rest until they've destroyed my career and left me for the birds. However, if I keep my eyes closed, the dream will eventually end. When I finally wake up, I'll be back in Chicago in my own bed and—"

"He's delirious. Arthur, come here, we've got to slap him awake."

Cole glared up at her. "I will not take one more slap, bump, dent, kick, punch, or bullet tonight. Maybe tomorrow."

Gwin reached behind his shoulder, grunting as she tried to pull him to a sitting position. "Can you walk?"

He winced as a sharp new pain bolted from the back of his head straight through to his forehead. "You should've known I'd catch up with you, Miss Pierce. I always do."

She muttered something he couldn't make out.

Arthur dropped to his knees beside him. "You didn't catch up with us. We caught up with you. I told her you're no quitter."

Gwin spoke. "Come on, Cole. Help me."

Cole hooked one arm around Gwin's neck and pushed the rest of the way up to sit. His head throbbed but it was still attached to his neck and seemed to be pointing in the right direction.

He surveyed the landscape. They were in the mountains, the eastern side of the Virginia Range. On the other side would be Reno, Carson City, Virginia City. There were a few trees, tall, standing silhouettes against a starry, moonlit sky, but most of what he could make out were rocks—rocks, dirt, scrubby grass and prickly bushes.

"How did you get loose from those handcuffs so fast?" Gwin asked.

"You're not the only one with a few tricks up your sleeve."

Arthur crooned, "Oh, I bet I know how!"

Cole gave him a warning look. "And you'll keep it to yourself. There are some things we men have to stick together on. Am I right?"

"You bet your boots!"

"Can you walk?" Gwin asked again.

Cole moved his legs, bending and straightening them out with gratifying ease. "Seems like it."

"All right," she said, rising to her feet. "Let's go. We've got a lot of walking to do. Hopefully, we'll be able to beg a ride when we get closer to civilization."

Cole stood slowly, mindful of the pain in his head, which stayed thankfully quiet, and the pain in his arm, which didn't behave itself nearly so well. "Any particular destination in mind, Miss Pierce?"

"Virginia City."

"Why Virginia City?"

"Because I know some people there, and—"

Cole eyed her suspiciously. "And what?"

She turned her head, deliberately avoiding eye contact. "And because I know how I can earn some money."

Cole wondered what she meant by that, but he decided not to ask. Not yet, anyway. "Fair enough. So, Virginia City it is. And then what?"

"We part ways. If you weren't bleeding and looking sorrier than a stray mutt, we wouldn't have stopped for you in the first place. In case you've forgotten, it's you we were trying to get away from."

"Oh, I remember, all right, but we've got a mighty long walk ahead of us, and a lot of things could change between now and then."

She picked up her bedraggled skirt as if she were the Queen of England. "Oh, I doubt that, Shepherd. I doubt that in a very big way. Now, let's get cracking. We don't have all night."

Chapter Thirteen

Judging by the position of the Big Dipper relative to the North Star, Cole guessed that it was almost two in the morning when they finally collapsed behind a clump of spindly pines.

"My feet hurt," Arthur complained.

Cole didn't doubt it. The ground was rough and rocky, the grass stiff and dry. He hunkered down next to the boy. "Let's see."

Arthur winced as Cole examined the soles of his bare feet. A full moon cast enough light to see by, but Cole would have known just by feeling them that they were cracked and tender. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped away some of the dirt. "We'll have to get this taken care of when we get to Virginia City."

Arthur slipped his foot from Cole's grasp and lay down on his side. He tucked his hands beneath his cheek and closed his eyes. "All I wanna do is sleep."

"Me too, kiddo."

The night air was chilly. Cole took off his coat and grimaced at a new flare of pain in his shoulder. After removing his gun from the side pocket, he covered the boy, who was already dozing. By then, Gwin had plunked herself down on the ground a short distance away and was working at removing her own shoes.

"I don’t think I could walk another step," she said, flinging one shoe aside to massage her foot.

"You'd better be sure to check those shoes before you slip your pretty toes back in them in the morning," Cole said.