Hunted [The Flash Gold Chronicles] (7 page)

Sebastian bolted to his feet, eyes larger
than Francis Barton’s prize nuggets. “Kali?”

“Yes.”

Despite Sebastian’s acknowledgement, the man
beside him grabbed his shotgun. He raised it to his shoulder and
Kali tensed, ready to throw herself to the ground. A rifle
thundered a foot away from her ear. The shotgun flew from its
owner’s hands. Cursing, the man flung himself behind a log even as
the rest of Sebastian’s cronies lunged for their weapons.

Cedar fired two more times.

“Sebastian!” Kali ducked and scrambled behind
a stump. She found her own rifle, but she did not want to fire, not
if this was a misunderstanding. “What’re you—”

“Stop!” Sebastian called. “Everyone stop
grabbing for your firearms.”

None of his men had managed to fire a shot,
not with Cedar preempting them, but they had all found cover, and
irritated snarls came from behind the rocks and logs.

“I
invited
her up here,” Sebastian
went on. “She’s the one I
told
you about. Albeit, I wasn’t
expecting her so soon.”

A twinge of irritation ran through Kali. Why
had he expected her at all? Did he truly think his offer that
irresistible? If not for Cedar, she would not have taken a single
step in Sebastian’s direction.

A shadow moved at her elbow, Cedar joining
her behind the stump.

“Have I mentioned how much I’m enjoying the
enhanced chambering speed your modifications have granted my
Winchester?” he asked while Sebastian calmed down his men.

“Not since Thursday. Do you think that one
was going to shoot me?” Kali asked, already unimpressed with
Sebastian’s comrades.

“If I thought that, I would have shot his
chest, not his firearm.”

“Ah, so that was merely a warning for an
ambiguous action.”

“Precisely.”

“Kali?” Sebastian called. “Who’s with
you?”

“Cedar,” she said. “The, uh, fellow you met
at my workshop.”

“He wasn’t invited,” Sebastian said.

“He’s willing to work too. Why turn down an
extra hand? He’ll take a cut of my share. No need to pay him.”

“That so?” Cedar murmured.

She elbowed him.

“He willing to take a cut of your rations
too?” Sebastian asked. “Because we don’t have enough to feed
someone that big.”

“We brought our own food,” Kali said.

“You didn’t even bring a blanket,” Cedar
whispered.

“Sshh.” She could see nothing of his features
in the dark, but sensed his humor was tickled by the situation. Or
maybe gun-slinging put him in a good mood.

“Come in,” Sebastian said. “We’ll work out
the details in the morning. It’s late. Long past when respectable
folk ride up on a camp.”

“Yes...we were delayed.”

Kali stood and walked toward the fire, arms
spread to show she had no weapons in hand. She supposed the
courteous thing to do would be to mention that a dangerous woman
might be about and that Kali’s presence could bring danger to the
entire camp.

“Getting sexed up, probably,” Sebastian
muttered to the man at his side who snorted and nodded.

Kali narrowed her eyes and reconsidered the
level of courtesy she would show the man. Such as,
maybe
she
would warn him if she saw a grenade plummeting toward his head.

Cedar did not stray from her side as she
approached, and she admitted a smug satisfaction at having him
looming there. She knew Sebastian would not be jealous—that would
have required him to have had an actual interest in her—but at
least Cedar’s presence proved she was not so undesirable as he
believed. Except, she reminded herself, Cedar was not her beau and
she had lied to Sebastian. Her smugness faded.

“You arrived sooner than I expected,”
Sebastian told Kali. “The steam equipment isn’t here yet. We’ll be
bringing it up on a raft from Dawson soon.”

“That’s fine. We can help with the sluice box
or whatever you have set up so far.” Kali glanced around. Though
she and Cedar had passed numerous claims with such equipment, she
had not noticed any on Sebastian’s land. Maybe she had missed it in
the darkness.

“Good. We have lots to set up,” Sebastian
said. “We’ve barely got the tents pitched.”

“Is there room for us in one?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he said in a tone that assured he
was not. “They’re already claimed. You can bed down over there.” He
smiled and pointed to rocky ground near the fire.

“Thanks,” Kali said, glad the air did not
smell of rain.

The men watched Cedar as he moved farther
away from the fire than Sebastian had indicated. He ignored them.
Well, Kali doubted that, but he
acted
as if he was ignoring
them. The way nobody introduced themselves struck her as odd, but
the gunfire greeting had probably set the men on edge. Thus far,
the night did not hint of future friendships, so she hoped Cedar
could complete his business with John Wilder within a day or
two.

She laid down her gear and, under the guise
of performing her nightly ablutions, checked the two smoke nuts
nestled in her pocket. She decided to sleep with them and the knife
on her belt as well. While she doubted anyone would bother her with
Cedar around, she did not like the camp atmosphere.

When she returned from washing at the river
and saw Cedar’s all-in-one bed-blanket-pillow stretched over the
rocks, she remembered she would be expected to spend the night
tucked into it. With him.

Though the rest of the men had disappeared
into the tents, Sebastian sat on a log by the fire. He probably
wanted to see if another man would actually share a bed with her.
She glowered at Sebastian and stalked over to join Cedar.

He crouched beside his blanket, waiting for
her. He lifted a hand, perhaps asking if she wanted to get in
first. She waved for him to go. Sebastian glanced their way, and
she dropped her hand. Presumably people who shared beds worked
these details out early in their relationships, though she supposed
she could claim this was their first night on the trail together if
anyone voiced suspicions.

Cedar removed his boots, though thankfully
none of his other clothing. A part of her would not mind seeing him
sans garments some day, but not with an audience nearby. He slid
between the blankets and laid his rifle close by.

“Not sleeping with it tonight?” Kali sat down
to remove her own boots.

“I didn’t want you to get jealous.”

She snorted.

“Will you be all right here if I leave later
to scout Wilder’s claim?” Cedar whispered.

“I think so,” Kali said. Thus far Sebastian’s
story had panned out, though admittedly coming in at night meant
she had seen little of his claim and his operation. “But on the
chance he’s planning something squirrelly, when would you be
back?”

“Morning. Early.”

“I suspect I can keep myself out of trouble
until then.”

“Hm.”

Kali poked around for a way into the
cocoon-like bedding. Cedar lay on his side to provide more room for
her. Her options were facing him or not. The former seemed far too
intimate, so she laid on her side with her back to him. Hard, lumpy
stones pressed into her ribs, and cold seeped through the blanket.
Spring might have come to the Yukon, but all that meant was she
probably wouldn’t wake with ice crystals freezing her eyelashes
shut.

“Can you slip me one of my vials?” she
murmured. “Just in case I
can’t
keep myself out of trouble
while you’re gone?”

The blanket rustled. The small container he
pressed into her hand was warm, and she wondered where he had been
keeping it. Kali wriggled about, finding space to draw her knee up,
and she slipped the vial into her sock. She pillowed her head with
her arms and closed her eyes.

“Does this mean we’re not putting on a
demonstrative display to convince him of the veracity of our
relationship?” Cedar asked, his words tickled with amusement.

“You’re my beau,” she whispered, “not my
husband. For all he knows, we’ve just begun our courtship and
haven’t had, er, you know, yet.”

“Ah. No kissing either?”

“Are you just teasing me because it’s fun and
you can right now without risking a punch in the belly, or are you
implying that you’d actually like to do...stuff?”

Long seconds passed without a response, and
she winced. Had she implied she wanted him to say he wanted to do
‘stuff’? Because if he did not want to do ‘stuff,’ she certainly
didn’t want him to think she wanted him to do ‘stuff.’ She closed
her eyes and groaned inwardly. When had she become such
a...
female
?

“I only mention the latter thing, because it
would puzzle me,” Kali said, “seeing as how you turned down my
suggestion we might go to the dancing hall last month and I’ve
never caught you leering suggestively at me when I’m bent over a
steam engine.”

That drew a chuckle from him, but then
another silence. She pulled the blanket higher over her shoulders.
Maybe they should just go to sleep. Sebastian had left,
disappearing into one of the tents.

“When I was a boy,” Cedar said, “there was
this hound that showed up in town. He was all mange and ribs, but
you could tell he’d be a handsome boy if you fixed him up. He was a
smart feller too. He knew how to open Old Lady Harrison’s screen
door and filch her meal preparations off the kitchen counter. The
dog didn’t have a collar, so I figured I could claim him and he’d
be the perfect hunting companion for a boy. Trouble was, he was
scared of people. He’d flinch away if you lifted a hand to pet him,
and if you cornered him he’d growl and snarl like a rabid wolf. My
grandpa said folks had beat him, and it’d take a passel of patience
for someone to get past that fear and turn him into a friend. I,
being ten or so, reckoned I was just the person.”

Kali was quite positive Cedar had never
strung so many words together in a row. She was not sure she liked
the implied comparison, but she listened without interrupting,
curious where he would take the story.

“I used some meat to trick him into a pen,”
Cedar went on, “and I trapped him there. I brought him food and
water every day and I spent hours talking to him and trying to get
him used to me. It seemed to be working. He didn’t growl so much,
and he wagged his tail when I showed up. Well, I wanted to pet him
powerful bad, so I slipped into his pen one day, gave him his food,
and tried to get close to him. He got real still and wary, but he
didn’t flinch away, so I thought everything was working like I’d
planned.”

Kali had an inkling of how the story would
end, but she asked, “What happened?” anyway.

“He bit me, jumped the fence of the pen, and
ran off. I never saw him again.”

“Am I correct in guessing you’re comparing
this mangy, scrawny dog to me?” Though more amused than angry, she
had a feeling she should give him a hard time.

“No, of course not.” Cedar cleared his
throat. “Maybe a little.” Another beat passed, and he switched his
answer to, “Yes.”

“At least it was a handsome and smart dog,”
she muttered. “Under the mange.”

“Very smart,” he said carefully.

“So, this story means...you’re afraid I’d
bite you if you took me to the dancing hall?”

“More afraid I’d bite
you
,” he said.
“And then you’d run away.”

“Oh.” Kali caught her bottom lip between her
teeth. She grew aware of her heartbeat, its rapid thumps against
her ribs. Her eyes were probably huge too. Like those of a startled
doe. She was glad for the darkness and that he was behind her so he
could not see her face. “I...know I can be a little...standoffish
at times.”

He snorted.

“Most times,” she admitted. “But nobody ever
beat me. No scars or anything. Well, except for that one scar from
the time I decided to make guncotton. Oh, and the first time I
tried to make those metal dogs and incorporate the flash gold,
well, that needed stitches from Doc. Marvin, but I’m not
bite-you-and-jump-the-fence damaged. Really.” She winced. She meant
the words, but at the same time she felt like she was trying to
convince herself.

The fire had died down, and men snored. Up
and down the river, the sounds of croaking frogs competed with the
gurgling water.

“It’s possible to scar someone without
touching them,” Cedar said quietly.

“I guess.” Between Sebastian, her mother, and
her father, she had certainly been hurt often enough. It was hard
to dismantle her booby traps and let people get close. She was not
certain she could even have this conversation—admit this
vulnerability—with Cedar by the light of day.

Cedar stirred. Since she had crawled under
the blanket with him, he had been careful to keep his distance, but
now he rested a hand on her waist. Her instincts reacted before her
mind, and she tensed. She rolled her eyes at herself and forced
herself to relax.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Just depressed. I
am
that dog.”

He chuckled softly, his warm breath stirring
the hairs on the back of her neck. He started to retract the
embrace. Kali caught his hand to keep it there. She wrapped her
fingers about his calloused palm and she shifted onto her back,
turning her head toward his. Darkness hid his face, but, for what
she intended next, maybe that was easiest—safest. She wanted to
believe he desired a relationship with her, but nobody ever had
before, not without an ulterior motive, and it was hard to believe
someone like him would be the first.

Stop analyzing this, came the thought from
the back of her mind. Do it before you lose your nerve.

Cedar must have sensed her intent for he was
the one to lean close. She almost grinned when that beard stubble
rasped against her jaw, but then his lips pressed against hers, and
she forgot about that earlier conversation. The chilly Yukon
evening grew warm. She was vaguely aware of releasing his hand and
sliding her arm around him, twining her fingers into the soft,
thick hair on the back of his head. The closeness of their
bodies.