Breathe: A Novel of Colorado (21 page)

Odessa couldn't resist glancing back at Bryce. He looked as
surprised as she that Amille was speaking coherently and in full sentences. "Who? Where?"

"John and I. We loved to ride out into the valley and look upon
the mountains. But that was before we had Anna."

"Anna. That was your baby's name?"

Amille nodded. "But then they came and took her. Took her."

"Who?"

"The men. The men who wanted John's mine. They said if he
didn't sign it over to them, they'd hurt us." She turned miserable eyes
upon Odessa. In them, Odessa did not see a madwoman. She saw
truth. She glanced back at Bryce in alarm.

"Amille," Bryce said, gently easing forward to walk beside them.
"Anna died in the creek. She drowned," he said softly.

"No," Amille said. "That is where they left her." She shook her
head suddenly, as if tossing away the bad memory. "But they didn't
get what they wanted. John still has his mine. And Sam hid his
entrance. No one will find it. Not there."

Odessa sat up straighter in her saddle. Bryce caught her eye,
obviously wondering the same thing. "Amille," she said slowly, "you
said Sam hid his entrance. Did Sam discover a silver vein?"

"Maybe my baby is here," Amille said, her eyes once again distant. "Do you think she's here? I've been looking for her. Looking for
her. Looking for her. Looking for her."

Odessa sighed and let her go ahead, her heart aching for the woman
as she slipped back into her familiar, incoherent world. Bryce pulled
alongside her and reached out a hand to briefly cover hers. "What do
you think that means?" Odessa asked, nodding toward Amille's back.

He shook his head.

"Do you think Sam discovered silver on his land?"

"Could be. His land abuts John and Amille's. It would make
sense." He shook his head. "But he never said a word about it."

"Might he have been concerned? Frightened, what with this
story about John and Amille and the baby?"

"John would've gone to our sheriff." He dropped his voice. "The
girl-she was little, not quite three years old. Slipped and fell. Amille
hasn't really been right in the head since she died. You can't take what
she says as truth."

They rode for a while in silence. "Sam never mentioned anyone
coming around?" Odessa asked then. "Anyone who wanted to buy
his land? Anyone pressuring his neighbors?"

Bryce pulled his head to the side as if reluctant to say anything.
"Mining ... It's a dangerous business, Odessa. You break your back
trying to see if there's anything but rock in your yard and if you're
lucky, you find it. But that's when others come around. Most miners
are alone. Easy prey. That's why many take on a partner."

"Or hide their mine claim."

He studied her intently. "You don't think..." His eyes moved to
Amille and back again. They pulled up their horses, letting the rest
of the group move on without them.

"You've settled in here to recover your health," Odessa said.
"But is this thing about Sam ever far from your mind? I'd just about
decided it was all in my imagination, that I was too ill to think clearly
that night and misinterpreted it ... but Amille-maybe God brought
her here for us, Bryce. So that we might be reminded of the truth, the
need to ferret out the truth. Justice."

Bryce let out a humorless laugh. "We have your memories from
a night when you were desperately ill, an odd poem from a dead
man, and the rantings of a madwoman. How are we to ferret out
the truth?" He lifted a shoulder. "I don't know, Odessa. Maybe our
minds are too long idle, jumping to conclusions. The storyteller in
you is acting up." He held up a hand as she began her retort. "And
even if it's true ... we're not in any shape to go and track down any
claim jumpers. Right?"

"Right," she said reluctantly.

"Think on this with me, Odessa. John DeChant is apparently
well and working his claim, even as we speak. I hold the land deed to
all of Sam's land-even any potential mine-and you perhaps have
the key to finding the entrance, if it even exists. Until one of those
pieces changes, I believe we need to treat all of this as conjecture.
Agreed?"

"Agreed."

The sheriff took to escorting Moira everywhere in town and coming
to call for tea almost every day in the shop's back room. His pursuit
was evolving into full-out courtship, blessed by the family or not,
and Nic and Moira struggled to find a reason or rationale to end it.
They knew they had to-Reid was making Moira progressively more
uncomfortable; each day it continued, it encouraged him onward.
Today, Dominic was helping an elderly man with his selections from
the stacks of novels, patiently waiting as the man moved to put on
his eyeglasses and slowly turn the pages-perusing the words as he
might a crate of fruit to see if they were palatable-while Moira and
Reid remained in the back room.

Every time Nic excused himself, the customer asked another
question.

Feeling Reid's heated gaze upon her, Moira hovered near the
doorway. "I think he might need a woman's touch," she said to Reid,
moving to grab her apron.

"It's I who needs a woman's touch," Reid said in a seductive
undertone, taking her hand and pulling her to him. He stared up
at her from his chair, reaching for the other hand, holding both in
his. "I've been fighting it, Moira, this desire in me. I've been calling
on you for weeks." He rose, towering now above her. "It's time. I've
been patient. You have to say I've been very patient. Please, Moira.
Give me a kiss. Just one." He pulled her hands up to rest on his chest
and placed his hands on her neck, pulling her closer.

"Reid, this is hardly the place." She pushed away but he held
her firm.

"Good enough to steal a kiss," he said, smiling down at her,
moving his face to hers. "Thoughts of your rosebud mouth drive me to sleepless nights," he said in a husky whisper. Then he kissed her,
softly, searchingly.

"Moira?" Dominic called.

Moira squirmed out of Reid's grasp and looked from him to the
door. She patted her hair guiltily. "Reid, we really shouldn't."

He just laid a hand on the wall as if weakened and smiled over at
her, rubbing a thumb over his lower lip as if he thought to draw her
back in. "I beg to differ."

Dominic appeared then, looking from one to the other. "Can
you come help me package Mr. Smiths books?" he asked, hooking a
thumb over his shoulder.

"Certainly," she said, moving past him in a hurry.

"I'll be on my way," Reid called to the trio at the counter. "I'll
be back at six to pick you up for the dinner at the Glen. Dress
appropriately."

"I look forward to it," Moira said, coming around to see him to
the door.

"Do you?" he asked, staring at her quizzically. "I can't seem to
figure you out. One moment you seem to be my girl, the next you're
a stranger to me."

"You know deep down who I am," Moira said sweetly.

He reached out as if to touch her face, caught himself and
grinned. "Until tonight."

"About tonight," Dominic called, finally finishing Mr. Smiths
transaction. The man took a step and then paused to peruse a display
of books to his right as if seeing them for the first time. "Odessa is
feeling well enough to accompany us-"

"The general graciously invited her to attend," put in Moira.

"We plan to pick her up at the sanatorium, so we'll meet you at
the Glen."

"I could fetch her. Then we could all go together," Reid said. "It's
our last night before I head out of town."

"No, no," Dominic said in friendly fashion. "It's way across town
for you. We'll pick Odessa up and meet you directly at six thirty."

"Very well," Reid said with a smile that held appreciation but eyes
that held disappointment. Moira knew he liked arriving at the general's
with her on his arm. General Palmer had taken to her of late, seeming
to think of her as a pleasant diversion in the midst of Queen's absence.
Half the time the men ended up in the baroque blue room, listening to
music, rather than taking their leisure in the general's den.

"Until tonight." She closed the door and watched the sheriff
move down the stairs and into the street. "I can't maintain this masquerade, Nic," Moira said, as she waved good-bye at the window and
then turned to lean against it, her face falling. She ignored old Mr.
Smith, who was hard of hearing. "I hate that he is always around,
and I think he's beginning to sense it."

"Just a little longer, Moira," Nic begged, coming over to her.
"With all the invitations you receive, we're meeting the finest people
in town. We can even call a few of them friends. We need to know
we can call more of them friends before you break that man's heart
and he comes to collect. Just a little longer," he said again, lifting her
hand. "We'll find a reasonable excuse yet."

"Young love," said Mr. Smith as he passed them by.

With that, he left. And Dominic and Moira burst out laughing. John DeChant sat on the old wooden chair, hands tied behind his
back. "I'm doing what you wanted."

"No," said the man above him, slapping him across the face.
Blood began to stream from the corner of his lip. "You've found one
measly vein of silver, barely enough to keep your crazy wife in the
sanatorium."

"You better pick up the pace, DeChant," said another man near
him, gripping his face. "Or they'll throw her in the streets. How long
do you think a pretty little woman like that would survive on her
own, mad as a hatter?"

John wrenched his face out of the man's grip. "You promised me
you wouldn't touch her!" He shook his head. "You want me to mine
my claim, but you also want me to search Sam's property. I can't be
two places at once."

"No," said the first man. "That's why we're taking over."

"Taking over?"

"There's two of us, one of you. We can be two places at once."

"And what am I to do?"

The second man lifted him from his chair and pushed him out
the cabin door. "You, my friend, have a day to find the O'Toole mine
entrance or you will die."

"No." John knelt down in the mud before his house. "Please.
Amille. She can't take it. It will be the end of her."

The first man lifted him up gruffly and dragged him toward the
path. "So be it. It'd make it far easier to purchase the property. But
we're fair men, DeChant. Do as you promised, find the entrance,
and we'll merely buy you out for market value and ship you and the
missus off to a sanatorium in France."

John turned and stared at him. "No. No, I will not do any more.
Any man who would take a child's life would not hesitate to take
another man's. Kill me now, but I will not help you anymore."

The man laughed and looked at his friend, then laughed harder,
shaking his head. "DeChant, I keep tellin' you that was an accident.
She slipped and fell-"

"Running away from you," John spat out.

The man's face lost any hint of mirth. "You're forgetting Amille.
You will help us, and help us now. Or we'll take your wife and make
her last hours the most miserable she's ever experienced."