Kissing Comfort (2 page)

“About that.”

“They went northwest.”

“It looked to me like they rode out in pairs. Real precise they were. Probably couldn't help themselves.”

Newton had seen that, too. “Soldiering leaves it's own kind of mark on a man, I reckon. They took all the horses. I suppose they mean to sell them.” He looked to where a couple of cows still grazed on the hillside not far from the center of the attack. “What I can't figure is why they killed everyone.”

“Ain't there a saying that dead men tell no tales?”

Newt nodded slowly, rubbed his chin. “They must have come from the same direction they left. They weren't following the train. They were waiting on it.”

“I had the same thought. You come across a strongbox anywhere when you were poking around?”

“Didn't see one.”

Tucker Jones grunted softly. “Neither did I. These people don't seem to have much in the way of valuables left.”

“There're all kinds of buzzards.”

Tucker grunted. “Can't sleep here,” he said. “I don't mind saying so.”

“One of us had to say it.” Newton whistled softly for his horse. The mare had meandered to an outcropping of rocks and was snuffling between two boulders and scratching at the ground. “You take care of the lanterns while I get Dulcie before she gets herself stuck.”

For the rest of their lives they would disagree about who heard the hollow cry first, but they sprinted toward the source of the sound and reached the outcropping at the same time.

Newton grabbed Dulcinea's reins and pulled her away while Tucker pressed his face against a narrow crevice in the rocks.

“What do you see?” Newt asked, quieting Dulcie.

“Shh. Can't see anything.” Tuck turned his head and gave the opening his ear. At first he was met with silence, but he knew something about patience, and he counted out twenty-two long seconds in his mind before he heard the sharp release of a breath held too long. He straightened. “I need one of those lanterns.”

While Tuck was retrieving it, Newt bent over the crevice and put his head in the same position. “Did you hear something?” he called after Tuck. “I don't hear it now.”

“That's because you're talking.”

Newt gave way a few inches to let Tuck dangle the lantern over the crevice. Both men tried to peer in. They bumped heads, swore softly, and it was Newton that gave way, but not before he glimpsed a pair of dark, expressionless eyes staring back at him. “Mother of God,” he said under his breath. “That's a child. Is he alive?”

Tuck watched the pupils constrict in response to the light. “Alive.”

“How'd he get in there?”

“A better question is how are we going to get him out.”

True enough. Newt went in search of a crowbar while Tuck kept the lantern light above the child's upturned face.

“Dulcie must have startled him,” Tuck said when Newt returned. “I think he was sleeping. He's got some of the sandman's grit about his eyes.”

“What do you know about the sandman?”

Tuck shrugged and pointed to where Newton should set the crowbar. He explained to the child what they were going to do, but there was no reaction. Other than the soft cry when Dulcie surprised him, he hadn't made a sound. Other than blinking, he hadn't twitched.

“He puts me in mind of Lieutenant Carmichael,” Tuck said, setting the lantern down. “Remember?”

“Monterrey,” Newt said. “I remember. It's only been four years and a bit. That was the battle that struck him dumb. He was never right after his brother was killed. Are you saying that's what happened to this little fellow?”

“I'm just sayin', is all.” Tuck helped Newt apply weight to the crowbar. “Just sayin'.”

Both men grunted as the boulder shifted. Newt held it in place long enough for Tuck to reach inside the widened crevice and extract the child. As soon as Newt let go, the precarious arrangement of rocks began to slide. Tuck jumped out of the way of a boulder that would have rolled over his feet if he hadn't been alert to the danger. The lantern was crushed and the light extinguished.

Newt caught Dulcie's reins before the mare strayed too far. He led her across the loose rock to follow Tucker back to the wagons. He hitched Dulcie to the first wagon he came to while Tuck plucked another lantern from the ground and carried it and the child well past the freshly dug graves, the overturned and scattered belongings, and the eerily silent covered wagons.

It was anyone's nightmare.

Still shaking his head, Newt came to stand beside Tucker. His friend was on his knees in front of the child and looking about as helpless as Newt felt. The child they'd both assumed was a boy was wearing a red-and-white gingham dress.

“He's a girl,” Newt said.

“I'm not disputing it.”

“Does she have name?”

“Of course she has name. She's just not saying what it is, is all.”

“We need to call her something.”

“We'll come to that by and by.”

“Has she said anything at all?” asked Newt.

“Not a word.”

Newt also dropped to his knees. While Tuck was still a little taller than the girl in this same position, Newt met her at eye level. “How old are you?”

The child blinked but remained silent. She stared back without defiance or interest, not so much seeing him as seeing through him. It occurred to Newt that she was an empty vessel. Soulless. Her hair was as black as her eyes; pulled back from her forehead to make a tight braid that was coiled at the nape of her neck. Bits of dried blood dotted a scrape on her cheek, and there was a bruise just beside her right eye. The rocks were to blame, no doubt. She was just a wisp of a thing, skinny more than slender, all of her fragile boned, yet somehow still steady on her feet. The shoulder seam in her dress had a small tear, and her black leather boots were scuffed and layered with dust. Perhaps someone had hidden her away among the rocks for safety, but Newt was inclined to believe she'd found her own way there. She hadn't understood those boulders could become a tomb. She would have died under them if Dulcie hadn't come across her.

“Maybe some water,” Newt said finally. “A little food. That might help.” He started to rise and noticed for the first time that she was clutching something in her right hand. It looked like a tin. Slim and rectangular, slightly longer than the small fist she made around it, the side that he could see was painted red and white like her dress. “What's that in her hand?”

“I've been wondering myself.”

“Have you asked her for it?”

“She's got no reason to give it to me. Way I figure, it's all she has in the world, so I'm lettin' her keep it.”

“Somehow looks familiar to me,” said Newt. “Could be I've had a tin like that myself.” He finished straightening and it came to him. He snapped his fingers above Tuck's head. “Dr. Eli Kennedy's Comfort Lozenges. That'd be the peppermint she has. Spearmint comes in a green-and-white tin.”

“Well, she can keep them,” said Tuck. “In fact, she can keep the name, too.”

“Eli? Now that makes no sense.”

Looking up, Tuck gave Newton a withering glance. “Not Eli. We'll call her Comfort until she tells us different. Comfort Kennedy.”

Newton thought about it, shrugged. “It'll do, I suppose. It's bound to be a puzzle trying to figure out who she is. Could be there will be kin back East; someone who will want to know what happened.”

“Water first. Like you said. Get the jerky out of my bag.”

Newt started to walk away, stopped, and then turned on his heel. “You're not thinking about keeping her, are you? We don't know anything about raising a baby. What are we going to do with her while we're prospecting?”

“A fool can see she's not a baby, and we can't leave her behind.”

“We can take her back to the trading post.”

“And leave her with strangers? That doesn't set right with me.”

“
We're
strangers.”

“But we can trust us,” Tuck said practically. “Name someone else you can say that about.”

Newt couldn't. “She's a
girl.
”

“So? You told me you grew up with four sisters.”

“You're making my point.”

“It's only until we can find her kin.”

“
If
there's kin.”

“You said yourself there's bound to be kin.”

Caught, Newt's mouth snapped shut.

Tuck arched an eyebrow. “Too late to take it back. Get her something to eat, and then you can nose around for clues. In the meantime, Comfort and me are going to sit right here quiet as snowfall and contemplate the stars. Seems like she needs a little peace. I know I do.”

“This is the plumb dumbest notion you ever took into your head, Tucker Jones, and I haven't forgotten the time you drank half a bottle of tequila and proposed to that Mexican whore in Vera Cruz.”

“True enough,” said Tuck. “But I wasn't the one who married her.”

June 1870

San Francisco

 

Except for the fact that the guest of honor had failed to make an appearance, everyone who'd gathered to celebrate his birthday agreed he was missing a splendid affair.

Comfort Elizabeth Kennedy stood with her back to the granite balustrade on the portico and surveyed the activity in the grand salon. She'd closed the French doors behind her when she made her escape to the portico, but she didn't have to strain overmuch to hear the lilting melodies of the stringed orchestra or the titter and tattle of so many voices rising and falling in concert with the music. Woman after woman was led in a graceful arc past the beveled windows, blurring the definition of each gown until Comfort saw them as a single piece and held their luminescence in her eye as she would a rainbow.

One corner of her mouth lifted as she saw her Uncle Tuck taking his turn across the floor with Mrs. Barnes. He was duty bound to do so, as Uncle Newt had already danced with the widow. It wasn't competition that prompted each of them to invite every eligible woman to dance; rather, it was the very opposite of that. Neither wanted to show the least favoritism or become the subject of speculation in regard to any particular female.

Smile fading, Comfort turned away from the house. Torches lighted the circuitous path to the fountain situated squarely in the center of the wide expanse of lawn. She considered leaving the portico for the relative privacy of the garden, even moved a foot in that direction, but then came up short as she realized she didn't want to be that alone. For a moment she let herself do more than hear the three-quarter time of the waltz; she let herself feel it. She swayed, feet rooted, her side-to-side bent so slight as to merely suggest motion. Raising her head, she studied the night sky and found calm and order and the peace that had been snatched from her when Bram made his ridiculous announcement. And it
was
a ridiculous announcement. Spectacularly so.

She couldn't bring herself to place all the blame on his shoulders. Hadn't she gone along with him? Trusted him as if she had no mind of her own? Where was the sense in that? His own mother would have counseled her against it. Abraham DeLong meant well. That was at the crux of the problem. He always meant well. Comfort rarely felt as easy in anyone's presence as she did in Bram's. That was his effect on people, his special talent, and tonight, when she'd needed to keep her wits about her, he'd managed to make her forget the most fundamental truth: there were invariably unforeseen consequences for following Bram's merry lead.

The doors behind her opened. Comfort stiffened as the music momentarily swelled, and she wished that she had acted on the impulse to leave the portico in favor of the fountain. It was too late, of course. She was standing in a pool of torchlight and couldn't hope to slip unnoticed into the shadow of a marble column.

“So this is where you've gone,” Bram said, closing the doors.

Comfort shrugged and purposely did not glance over her shoulder. If she didn't look at him, the odds improved that she would remain firm. Bram's reckless smile had caused hearts stouter than her own to seize.

“You're angry.” He stood directly at her back and placed his hands on the balustrade on either side of her. If he dropped his chin, he could rest it in the curve of her neck and nuzzle her ear with his lips. He did neither of these things. “I can tell you're angry.”

“Then there's no need to comment, is there?”

He chuckled softly. “How is it possible that you can be flush with heat and frigid in your sentiments? Butter won't melt in your mouth, but I could boil water for tea on the nape of your neck.” Bram tilted his head to gauge her smile and saw that there was none. “Oh, you
are
mad.”

Comfort lifted Bram's right hand from the balustrade and stepped sideways to elude capture. “I thought you understood that was a given.” She turned and showed him her most withering look. True to form, he remained undaunted. Worse, she was afraid his smile was actually deepening. “You might have warned me that you intended to announce our engagement.”

“You would have had no part of that.”

“Precisely.”

“Then I fail to understand how informing you would have helped. Everything would be just as it was at the outset of the evening when there was hardly an utterance that did not include the name of our sainted guest of honor. When is he coming? Where has he been? Will he be surprised? What could have detained him?” Bram's gaze slid from the fountain to Comfort. “I can tell you, Mother is mortified by his absence.”