Silver Lies (49 page)

At the corner to her street, Inez wavered.

Denver.

Sands had said, "Go to Denver."

Her impulse was to head anywhere but.

However, Denver had Mattie Silks. Mattie had the box. Inez, in the saloon safe, almost certainly had the key. She thought further of the two bundles of counterfeit she’d withheld from Cooke—one of fifties, the other of twenties—also in the safe. If the counterfeiting extended to or emanated from Denver, Denver would surely have Treasury agents or others looking into it. The melody ran true: It would have to be Denver.

Inez neared her home with a yearning she hadn’t felt in a long time. The small frame house waited, offering safety, sanctuary. She unlocked the front door with a sigh, stepped inside, and stopped.

Something was different. Something was wrong.

Leadville’s clamor, normally muted by the walls, sounded more distinct than it should have. The chill air inside felt alive, stealing toward her from the rear of the house and curling about her ankles. She gripped the shotgun tighter and moved forward.

The bedroom doors stood open. A quick glance revealed no intruders, no disturbances. She flattened herself against a wall and scanned the kitchen. The back door gaped, wounded wood showing white around the lock. The kitchen appeared untouched, unoccupied.

Holding her breath, she strode into the kitchen, paused by the pantry, and approached the broken door, fully expecting to find a dead rodent impaled on the boards.

Nothing.

Everything else was as it should be, which unsettled Inez more than if the house had been in disarray. It was as if someone had come to violate her, then disappeared, deed undone, with a whisper: "I’ll be back."

The parlor.

On entering the house, she’d noticed the piano was intact, her furniture standing. She’d not walked in.

Inez rushed to the parlor.

The splintered, dark wood was kicked into a corner. She stared, not quite sure of what she saw. The curve of broken rockers was her first clue. Then, she picked out a bit of saddle trim, a fragment of wooden mane.

Joey’s rocking horse.

"Damn them!" she screamed. "What do they
want?
"

A white square sat like a stranger on her piano stool. Holding the shotgun in the crook of her arm, she ripped open the envelope.

Spring assailed her nose. Dried rose petals drifted to the floor. The note was on plain paper, folded twice. She opened it and more petals fells out. In block letters, the note read: "One Rose left."

Underneath, underlined: "We want it all."

999

Old habits of packing fast and lean returned, along with the words Mark would say as they hastily prepared to slip from nameless towns turned ugly: "Take only what you need. What fits in one bag."

For Denver, that meant her winter traveling suit, charcoal gray and uncomplicated, and a change of clothes for Joey. The note from Joe’s pocketwatch.
Paradise Lost
. She stuffed it all in the carpetbag. The Remington was in her pocket. No extra bullets. No second hat.

Inez stole precious minutes to nail the broken door shut. Each slam of the hammer was accompanied by the vehement exclamation: "Bastard!"

She locked the house, after a final glance at the smashed rocking horse and her unscathed piano.

On Harrison, she hesitated.
Stop at the bank for money?

No.

Cooke knew about the rocking horse.

The hired livery driver looked doubtful when Inez gave him directions to Abe’s house. "After that," she said, "I’m going to Chicken Hill."

The horse pulling the cutter shook its mane as if disapproving. The driver, a well-swaddled beanpole of a man with a bulbous nose and sorrowful eyes, seemed to share the sentiment. "Now what’s a lady like you wanting with the colored and the Irish?"

Inez held up a quarter eagle. "When you deliver me to Chicken Hill," she said.

His doleful air vanished.

Inez hadn’t been to Abe’s cabin since Mark’s disappearance. Rough hewn logs faced the street, but she remembered the interior as being as warm and comforting as the owner.

The horse busied itself with a feed bag and the driver with his pipe while she mounted the porch and pounded on the door. An eternity later, vibrations in the porch boards heralded approaching footsteps.

Abe opened the door in shirtsleeves. "Inez!" His eyes widened. "What’re you doin’ here? Who’s mindin’ the saloon?"

"Useless."

"By himself? Damn it, Inez—"

"Bat Masterson’s there in case of trouble," she added hurriedly.

"Masterson!" His eyes narrowed. "What’s he doin’ in Leadville?" "Visiting. He’ll wait until you arrive. But that’s not why I’m here."

Her teeth were chattering so she could hardly talk. "Abe, listen. Bat remembers Reverend Sands from Dodge. Sands was a hired gun. Oh Jesus, Abe. He killed a woman and her husband. A respectable woman, not some sporting girl. And there’s probably more. Bat wouldn’t say."

She set the carpetbag and shotgun on the porch. "When I confronted him, Sands denied nothing. He’s Harry’s man too, but refuses to discuss it. Yesterday, I tried to tell you what Hollis said about Harry and this counterfeiting business, but you wouldn’t listen. Now, let me in. We’ve got to talk." She shouldered her way past him and froze.

Crouched in a chair by the stove, Angel peered up, fingers fixed on the disjoined buttons and buttonholes of her half-closed bodice. Papers, pencils, and a dog-eared primer were scattered at her feet.

Inez found her voice. "What is
she
doing here?"

"Inez." Abe’s tone warned her. "You know Angel. She attends your church, remember?"

A complicated jumble of emotions crashed over Inez. "It’s not enough you take in stray cats and orphans. Now, it’s stray whores as well!"

"That’s it! We do our talkin’ outside, Inez." He turned to Angel. "It’s okay, honey. Mrs. Stannert and I, we’re gonna have this out right now."

He grabbed Inez’s arm and his coat, forced her out on the small porch, and slammed the door behind him. "That was downright rude."

"What is she
doing
here?"

"I’m teachin’ her to read and write."

"And what is she teaching
you
, Abe?"

He ignored her question. "She’s bright. Like you. Wasted in Cat’s place."

"So you’re rescuing her? Abe, you’re crazy. She’s young enough to be your daughter. Your granddaughter!"

Abe buttoned his coat, glaring at her. "What goes on between Angel and me is none of your business. And, if we’re gonna start like that, let me tell you how it’s been the past eight months bein’ your ‘business partner.’" He tossed the words at her like they were counterfeit coins. "When Mark left, I thought you’d just give up. I worried, didn’t know what to do for you and your boy. Then, Harry started comin’ round and you sent your boy away."

Her face burned as if she stood before an open furnace. "It didn’t happen like that!"

He ignored her outburst. "It was Harry and his flowers, his letters, his fancy gifts, his takin’ you out on Sundays." He shook his head. "You acted like he was the Savior, arrived for the Second Coming. Harry suited you, y’know. More than Mark ever did. It’s how you and Harry stride around. Like you own the ground you walk on, a cut above us mortals. Comes from bein’ born to a life of privilege, I’d guess."

"I don’t have to listen to this." Inez moved forward to grab her shotgun and carpetbag. Abe laid a hand on the muzzle and blocked her path.

"No runnin’ this time, Inez. We never talked about this, and it’s festered like a boil between us. Time to air it and be done. Now, when Harry wanted to buy my share of the saloon, I was willin’. Maybe, I thought, it’s time. Time to move on, open my own place. But when I tried to talk to you about it, all of a sudden you cast him into the sulfury pit. And there he’s been ever since. Not only that, I gotta hear about Harry on a regular basis as you rake him over the coals. Like I said, you slammed the door, but never let go."

"Send my things to Bridgette’s." Inez said through her teeth as she sidled toward the porch steps. "I’m done with this conversation."

Abe stretched his arms from porch post to post. The only other way out was over the railing.

"And Harry wasn’t the only one. Next was Reverend J. B. Sands." Abe sounded like he was identifying some vermin that crawled out of the trash. "He started hangin’ around, eyes all over you. Two, three weeks later—" He smacked a post. "Big surprise, he’s got feet of clay too."

Inez opened her mouth to respond.

"I ain’t done. Now Masterson’s in town. Jesus H. Christ. I remember you two carryin’ on in that dance hall of his. Lord only knows what happened afterward, but I can guess."

"How
dare
you throw that in my face!" She clenched her fists.

"I’m gonna finish. As I was sayin’, at the time, I figured it was none of my business. But, I always thought, privately, you know, that it was a good thing for you and Mark that we left Dodge when we did."

She swiped a hand across her face trying compose herself so she could speak without crying. "If you remember Dodge that clearly, you’ll also recall why Mark wasn’t there that night. I forget her name. Some actress. At least that was her stated profession. Blonde." She turned her head away and said bitterly, "They usually were."

There was a moment’s silence.

"I never said Mark was a saint." Abe’s voice was tired, his anger gone. "Or that you or I were. What I’ve always said, and believed, is that Mark loved you. And your boy."

He slumped against a post, looking as spent as she felt. "So, here we are, Inez. I’m lookin’ over the terrain, and what do I see? Harry on the saloon wall. Sands with a gun. And Masterson. I swear, I don’t want to be anywhere near when this all explodes."