The Rose Legacy (24 page)

Èmie resisted. “I can’t, Carina. He’s my uncle.”

“Don’t you want him stopped?” But she saw Èmie’s dismay. She couldn’t betray Uncle Henri even for his own sake.

Carina drew herself up. “I’ll go.” When Èmie’s grip relaxed, Carina freed herself. “Here’s my key. Go inside.” She wasn’t certain what she could tell the marshal, but she stalked through the rain to the dreary police building.

The single lamp shed a sooty light on the front office. The cell in the back was walled of stone, but the ceiling was sod, dripping now onto the packed dirt floor. It smelled like a cave. The front office was clapboard with a lone window that let in what dismal daylight there was. A man sat hunched in the leather chair, one eye swollen shut, his arm in a sling, and a gash on the side of his head that was beginning to fester.

With one look at him, the words died in Carina’s throat. She would get no help here, but at least she would try. “Marshal McCollough?”

He laughed, a hoarse, choking laugh that went on and on. “Donald McCollough here.” He patted his chest at last. “But marshal? That, lassie, is a myth.”

She felt angry and sorry for him at once. “I have a complaint to make. Or rather a concern.”

He just sat there as though he hadn’t heard. What could she say? Could she tell him Èmie’s fears? Something bad might happen. You must act, must stop it. She couldn’t bear to see him sit there looking more helpless than she felt.

Turning on her heel, Carina went back out into the rain. Her hair was a wet mass already, the ends dripping down her skirts. The street was rushing mud, and she held up the denim to step off the stoop to the boardwalk, then cried out when a rough hand gripped her arm and swung her around.

“What do you want with the marshal, woman?”

Her heart jumped to her throat as she looked into the face of the scarred Carruther, his lip drawn up more than ever like a cur. Blood rushed in her ears and no sound would come as he shook her hard, demanding, “What did you want!”

She tried to scream, but he had literally scared the breath from her. She fought to break free, but his strength was brutish. His horrible animal smell washed over her as they closed in combat.

“Let her go.” A voice broke through her panic, but she continued to fight, her shoulders wrenching and twisting.

Abruptly, the huge paws released her, and she staggered, then turned and rushed to the outstretched hands Mr. Beck offered like a rope in a tempest. What madness, running to him for safety after just … But his face was firm now, detached, showing none of his earlier emotion.

Still, her heart thumped within her chest, and she realized Beck was waiting for some explanation. At last her voice came. “Èmie’s uncle is drunk. She’s afraid for her safety.”

Berkley Beck’s expression eased. He cupped her hands between his, then looked past her head to the huge Carruther. “This woman is in my care. Any man who accosts her in any way will answer to me. Is that understood?”

To her amazement, the brute nodded and turned away exactly as a hound might obey his master after laying a rabbit at his feet. Did Berkley Beck wield such power? If so, he was the one to help them. He could do more than the wretched man who wore the marshal’s badge. As if reading her thoughts, he met her eyes boldly.

“I told you it was useless to go to the law.”

“I see that now.”

“You should have come to me.”

“I didn’t know—”

He held up a hand. “I understand. But tell me again what the trouble is.”

“Èmie’s uncle …”

“Oh yes. He’s drunk.” Mr. Beck’s expression was noncommittal. “Men get drunk. Èmie’s uncle is no exception, nor is this the first time she’s seen him so. Why run for help now?”

“She’s afraid he’ll do something terrible.”

“Like what?”

Carina shook her head. “I don’t know. She thinks he’s been paid to … to do something.”

He didn’t answer at once, just led her down the boardwalk and under the streaming roofs. Then he spoke in carefully measured words. “You understand how preposterous that sounds.”

It was true. “I know that, but …”

“Carina, the marshal can hardly go about arresting everyone who might do something terrible. Until a crime is committed, he has no power over a free citizen. He can’t act on someone’s fears alone.”

“But Henri Charboneau has money.”

“He’s a thief.”

She stared a moment. Was there nothing Mr. Beck didn’t know?

He walked her along briskly, turning the corner at Drake. “If you’re concerned, keep Èmie with you. I’ll see what can be done about the rest.”

“Can you do something?”

“I assure you I can. At the very least I’ll see that no harm comes to Èmie.” He spoke with such confidence, such knowing. How could he be sure, when men like the Carruthers roamed the streets? But then, he had cowed the huge Carruther with words alone. Mr. Beck was more than he seemed. But could she trust him? He stopped her at the boardinghouse steps and faced her squarely, every bit the man she had first put her faith in.

“Carina, I know I behaved poorly. And I understand your hesitance in seeking me out. But I trust you understand now that I’m your best hope. Surely you have seen how capable I am of seeing to
your
safety, my dear. You would do well to consider my affection.”

His narrow face was earnest, the eyes neither angry nor demanding. How could she have thought he would force her? Or was he a chameleon changing colors to suit the moment? She drew a shaky breath. “Thank you.”

By his lowered brows, that was not the answer he’d hoped for. Her arm dropped to her side as he released her hand, tipped his derby with a flick to its brim, and walked away. She looked up into the storm-torn sky and felt a few scattered raindrops on her face. The storm had worn itself out and turned its face away like a woman who rages, then can’t remember why.

“You got a burr in your hide?”

Quillan turned and realized he’d left Cain some distance behind. The ground around the Boundless was rough and broken, rutted from the new rain, and the slag was treacherous for a one-legged man with a crutch. “Sorry, Cain.”

“What’s your rush, anyhow? You think I’ll stick a shovel in your hand and say dig?”

“It wouldn’t do you any good.” Quillan looked back at the hole bored into the hillside. His aversion to it was almost as strong as D.C.’s, though with less reason. He’d not spent one day working a mine with pick, shovel, or even pan. He didn’t know the backbreaking labor or the mind-numbing effect of the darkness, the still, heavy weight of the mountain all around. Nor would he.

“I see it in you. The same gold-grubbing greed of your father.”
My father’s a preacher.
“Your real father, idiot. Your savage father. You’re no more Mr. Shepard’s son than you are mine. Your father was a savage, your mother a harlot. And you’re the worst of them both.”

If for nothing more than to prove her wrong, Quillan would never work a gold mine. He’d come up here only to satisfy Cain, to have a look at the hole he was now half owner of, worthless as it was. The rain and ground water would have kept them out of it anyway. But Cain wanted to make sure none of the new shoring had washed away.

D.C. and his partners had done well enough with that, and it held soundly. Now Quillan was ready to go. But he hadn’t meant to move so fast he caused Cain difficulty.

“Ain’t she a purty sight?”

Quillan looked again at the gap in the hill. “I don’t know, Cain.”

“She’s gonna make you rich, don’t ya know.”

Quillan didn’t answer. It was too close to the real thing. Did investing in a mine count as gold-grubbing—even if he didn’t work it? Was there gold greed in him? Didn’t he hoard his savings just the same as if it were gold nuggets he guarded at the end of a rifle?

No. He worked for that money. Honest labor. Diligence. And thrift. He swallowed the sourness from his throat. “Come on. It’s getting on to dark.”

Cain shrugged the crutch back under his shoulder. “I know D.C.’s determined to stand his ground, and I know you’re not for working her yourself, but there’s silver in that hill. I feel it calling.”

Again Quillan kept silent. Gold. Silver. It amounted to the same thing. He wouldn’t touch either.

Cain stared at the hillside. “It’s there, and I’m gonna find it.”

He wouldn’t call Cain a fool. For all he knew, the old man might be right. It just didn’t matter. He’d bought in to help Cain save face, nothing more. They reached the wagon, and he helped Cain aboard. Then he walked around with a pat to Jock’s neck. He’d made a quick run to Fairplay yesterday and returned to Crystal this afternoon with his horses.

He didn’t admit to himself that it was partly to take advantage of Miss DiGratia’s offer. He couldn’t seem to keep it straight that he meant to avoid her. How could he, if he needed to learn what she knew? From the livery, he’d seen her leaving Beck’s office in the rain and almost said something, then turned for his tent instead. That’s when Cain had halooed him to go have a look at the mine.

But something nagged at him, something in the way she’d moved, almost as though fleeing. That was ridiculous. She couldn’t hate her job that much, even if it entailed working for Berkley Beck. He was just jumpy. The storm probably, the charged sky that left everything feeling more intense.

Jock noticed it, too. Still, he felt an uneasiness inside that made his step quicken and his hand eager on the reins. Beside him, Cain whistled a tune. Quillan wished he could be more like that, taking in the moment, savoring it even.

He turned to Cain. “Where’s D.C.?”

Cain shook his head. “Went off with that threesome of hellions he calls friends.”

Quillan didn’t make a judgment. D.C.’s moral conduct wasn’t his responsibility as long as it didn’t directly hurt Cain. He hadn’t taken D.C. with him this time, since he’d known when he started out it was a quick turnaround. Maybe he should have, given the frown between Cain’s brows.

“Alan’s hankering for some checkers. Why don’t I leave you at the livery?”

Cain rubbed his palm over his crutch. “Why don’t you join us?”

“Don’t think I can sit.”

“What’s got you so worked up?”

Quillan turned Jock onto Main and flicked the reins. “I don’t know. Just a feeling inside.”

Cain sighed. “If you were on talking terms with the Almighty, you might better understand those urges.”

Quillan didn’t want to go down that road again—it was the one place Cain seemed intent on rubbing raw. He pulled Jock up to the livery and jumped down, then led the horse inside. Alan Tavish tousled the head of the boy who mucked stalls and sent him off with his pennies. Quillan walked around and helped Cain down to the packed dirt floor. He raised a hand to both men, then left them.

Outside, the gray-shrouded evening drew on. Even though the mud-thickened street was once again crawling and honky-tonk plinked from the saloon doorways, there was a heaviness in the air, almost a collectively held breath. In anticipation of what?

E
IGHTEEN

Death is a wily opponent, sneaking up on the unwary, yet eluding the deserving.

—Rose

C
ARINA WOKE TO
Èmie’s screaming in the morning half-light. They were pressed into each other on the cot, and Èmie’s large bones were rigid with fear. Rolling over, Carina shook her. “Stop. Èmie, stop.” She shook her harder.

Èmie shot up with a sharp exhale. “Something’s happened.”

Carina had slept poorly, squeezed between Èmie and the hard edge of the cot. She was in no mood for hysterics. She waved a hand in annoyance. “If it’s happened, it’s happened. What good to scream about it?” At Èmie’s stricken look, Carina felt remorseful. “You were dreaming. Your uncle is probably sick in his head and won’t show his face today.” She slid from the cot and stretched out the kinks, then looked out at the gloomy dim of an overcast sky. “You ought to be a rooster. Only a rooster would know it’s morning already.”

Èmie was silent, sitting stiff and unmoving, very like she’d been when Carina first saw her. The thin braid that hung down her back was only slightly mussed, and Carina examined her own. Stray wisps were everywhere, dangling beside her face, curling from last night’s rain. “Come. We’ll wash and eat.”

Èmie sat still, unbudged.

Dio, give me patience
. “Èmie …”

“I don’t want to see it.”

“See what?” Carina brushed the wisps from her face.

“What my uncle’s done.”

“
Oofa!
You don’t know anything. Do you borrow trouble?” She tugged Èmie by the hand, the taller woman following like a doll with limbs of sawdust. “Come. I’ll show you.”

Firmly, Carina led her outside. Their skirts were wrinkled, their hair mussed, and their faces unwashed. But she pulled Èmie out the front door and swung her arm. “There. You see? No fire and pestilence. No—” Her eyes lighted on a gathering near the corner of Central and Drake, men shouting and rushing over, pressing into the mob.

Èmie’s eyes were bleak as she, too, took in the scene. “I’m going home.” She stepped off the porch and walked stiff-legged around the side of Mae’s.

Carina stared after her a moment, then started for the street. Anything could draw a crowd like that. A snake, a … Her breath caught as Quillan Shepard stepped out from the alley behind Fisher’s Mercantile and raised a hand. Why did he always appear so abruptly? She stopped short, though he didn’t touch her.

His face was grim, and he looked as though he’d slept worse than she. “Don’t go over there, Miss DiGratia. A man’s been killed.”

His words stunned her. “What man?”

“William Evans, owner of the Emporium Gambling House.”

Carina looked at the backs of the townspeople huddled together. Had Èmie known? Guessed what lay at the center of that crowd? Carina shuddered. What morbid fascination brought them to view a dead man’s body?

Quillan’s voice grew rough. “It’s—his throat’s cut.”

Carina brought a swift hand to her own neck.
Com’ é terribile!
For a moment she thought she’d be sick.

Quillan caught her elbow. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you that.”

Carina had seen plenty of death. Not even Papa could save them all. But except for the gunshot man, they had been natural deaths—sickness or accident or old age. Not murder. She swallowed hard and lowered her hand, then met his gray eyes. “Why?”

He shook his head, jaw cocked. His eyes held the same intensity she’d seen in them the day they rode to the lake, some unexpressed bitterness.

Carina looked over her shoulder to where Èmie had disappeared, then returned her focus to the man beside her. “But who would do such a thing?”

The eyes sharpened, not unlike those on the rattler’s head he’d severed. “An animal, Miss DiGratia. In human form.” He turned and left her, heading not for the street, but through the field away from town.

Carina felt the breath leave her in a slow sigh. A man dead. Throat cut. Lying in the street where people gathered like vultures. She shuddered. Where was the sense of it? She turned and hurried back to Mae’s. She hadn’t meant to be seen in her disheveled state. She’d been drawn, unthinking, toward the crowd.

Once again Quillan Shepard had blocked her way. But what was he doing there? Why was he even in town? It was Tuesday. Should he not be miles away? She found Mae on the porch, hands on her hips and hair as wild as Carina’s own.

“What is it this time?”

“A man was killed last night. William Evans, of the Emporium.”

Mae’s eyes widened. “Grizzly Will?” Her mouth opened and hung there, gaping. “What would someone kill him for?”

Carina shook her head. “I only know what Quillan told me. His … throat was cut.”

Mae’s flush vanished; her cheeks went limp and pasty. Carina feared she might faint, so swiftly did the blood leave her. But she only sagged against the post and mumbled, “Not again.”

Dread crawled Carina’s spine. “It’s happened before?”

“What?”

Carina stepped forward. “You said ‘not again.’ ”

Mae rubbed her face like a flabby dough. “I’m not myself. I … I knew Will a long time.” Her voice trailed off like a bygone memory.

Carina took the stairs and helped Mae to sit on her porch chair. It began to drizzle, but Mae made no move to go inside. Carina was in no hurry to reach Berkley Beck’s office, though she supposed she must go eventually. Right now, she simply sat with Mae.

“I haven’t called him Grizzly Will in years. He’d grown too respectable.” Mae shook her head. “After all he survived, why now?”

Mae didn’t want an answer, and even if she did, Carina had none. She didn’t know this man, nor did she understand such evil. She startled when Mae suddenly laughed, a low, almost strangled laugh. “His arms were so thick in those days, the men dubbed him Griz, and he could wrestle every one of them into the ground.”

Carina shook her head. How could such a powerful man have his throat cut? It couldn’t be Èmie’s uncle. He was large, but not … surely not capable of this. He was a thief, not a murderer. She couldn’t believe Èmie lived with a man who could cut another’s throat. “What will be done?”

“Done?”

Mae wasn’t thinking straight, and Carina asked it more plainly. “Will they find who did it?”

Mae’s eyes closed and she rocked back in the chair. “Can’t say. They didn’t the last time, although that was a long time ago.” She shook her head. “No, I can’t say as they will.” And then Mae ground her knuckles into her eyes and cried.

Carina waited, but it was clear Mae no longer wanted her, hardly even knew she was there. It frightened her to see Mae cry—Mae, who callously shrugged off the deaths of so many. People die. Isn’t that what she said? But then, most people don’t have their throats cut.

Carina stood up and, when Mae made no notice, went inside to wash. She had slept in her skirt in case Èmie’s fears proved more widespread than her uncle’s drunkenness. Now she changed into her only alternate and put on a fresh blouse. She brushed the tangles from her hair and quickly rebraided it.

Mae was gone from the porch when Carina went back out. She considered checking Mae’s rooms but didn’t. Some grief was better suffered alone. Hadn’t Mamma shut herself away when the two babies after Carina died?

There was no longer a crowd on the street. They must have moved the body, but she made no effort to learn where. Mr. Beck was not in the office, so she took her place at her desk. She would work as though yesterday’s conversation hadn’t happened.

Did he need her filing services? It was a favor he did her? Though it humiliated her to consider the triviality of her job, especially as Mr. Beck had described it, she must do it still. If it were true no one else would hire her, she must make the most of this chance. She would show him he did need her assistance.

The rain came again, insistent, falling from skies dark and menacing, but not violent as it had been the day before. Still, Carina felt trapped, stifled. Though she wanted to, she couldn’t ride out to seek the solitude of the snow-streaked mountains. Of the mine.

Why? Why would she seek a scene of tragedy when right here in the streets of this city was death enough? Yet the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go. She had opened Pandora’s box, and now the Rose Legacy held a strange fascination for her she couldn’t ignore.

She stared out the window of Mr. Beck’s office through the rain to the rushing streams in the street. If only it would stop. She’d leave this moment, Berkley Beck notwithstanding. He hadn’t yet shown his face, and no one solicited his services. The office was a tomb, and she had run out of things to do. It made it harder to believe she was necessary.

Carina threw up her hands in frustration.
Innocente!
She was in his debt. She bunched her hands into the hair pulled tight on her head. She would not leave it loose again in his presence. The last thing she needed or desired was his affection. Her heart was too bruised already.

And she thought of Flavio. She thought of his times of melancholy, his silent brooding that left her separate, not knowing what to say, how to reach him. He was an artist, temperamental, moved by forces within him that she couldn’t understand. Sometimes his smile was easy, sometimes his gloom so dark it overshadowed her. Yet she had loved him since they were children, seeing in him a depth, a genius other men lacked.

She pressed her fingertips to the window, its streaming rivulets flowing over them, not touching her for the glass between. So it was with Flavio’s love. It flowed, yet couldn’t reach her. Divina had come between. Carina remembered her own vicious words, words spoken in anger and heartbreak, yet words only. Had they changed anything at all?

Yes
, her own spirit cried.
They changed you
. She was stunned by the thought. But it was true. She had unleashed a hatred she didn’t know she was capable of. Years of envy, of bearing Divina’s cruelty, her sharp tongue, her insults … all of it had come out when she saw the depth to which her sister would stoop.

Carina shuddered. Every step she’d taken since that night had been treacherous. A vengeful journey, as Father Charboneau had guessed.
“Are you given to revenge, Carina?”
It was Quillan Shepard to whom Father Charboneau had referred, but it was Flavio her heart condemned. Was that not her sole purpose in coming? To punish him? To hurt him as he’d hurt her? To make him come for her? To leave Divina?

“You must be washed in the blood of the risen Lamb.”
Had Preacher Paine seen through her as easily as the priest? Seen how she hated Divina in her unforgiveness. Divina, the darling, always the shining one. The one who lied, who demanded, who received. Divina who slapped, whose insults hurt because she knew the weak places to probe.

But something had changed, though Carina wasn’t sure when. Some subtle shift, and Carina had gained power. People noticed her, petted her. She grew into Mamma’s likeness, and Divina seemed … dulled, sharp-tongued, spoiled. She grew defensive—picking, picking, always picking.

But Carina had found a new strength. A belief in herself. And Flavio became her banner. The Romeo, the one who could not be reached: he loved her. In his fourteenth year he told her so in poetry. She was only twelve, but she knew what she had. Something Divina could never have.

Sciocca
. She pressed a palm to her forehead. Why did she think he would come? What did he care that she went so far? Wasn’t Divina close—and willing? Carina stalked across the room and back. Nine years she had loved him, waiting while he proved himself, became a man. Waiting for him to make good his promise and marry her.

Did Divina wait? No. She skulked in the shadows and laid a trap. And gladly he walked in.

Bene! She could have him. He deserved her sharp tongue; it would rouse him from his shadows. Wake up! See what you have chosen. You will wake to it every day.

Father Antoine Charboneau stood in the rain over the grave, freshly dug and turning to mud, into which they had committed William Evans, deceased. So it had come to murder. He’d seen it before, the camps never teeming with violence, but never free of it either. Something in this, though, was different, darker, ominous.