Colorado Dawn (31 page)

Taking Tricks with them, the ladies went to the creek, leaving Ash and Declan sitting at the fire. After they’d washed and tended their needs, the ladies gave their good nights and retired to their separate sleeping quarters.

Silence settled across the clearing. The moon rose and the animals, including the two horses belonging to the Zuckers, moved slowly in dappled shadows cast by moonlight shining through tall firs and hemlocks and alders, munching grass already withered by the first frost.

Tricks sat between Ash and Brodie, head up, ears pricked. Even a nightjar calling from the brush dinna draw his attention away from the small campfire across the clearing. Ash leaned forward to drop a limb on the fire, then sat back and waited for the smoke to clear.

“He lamed his own horse,” he said to Brodie in a voice that wouldn’t carry. He went on to explain about the tail hair tied around the animal’s pastern, and the swelling it had caused. “It’s only temporary,” he added. “The beast will be sound by morning, but the question is why?”

“As an excuse to join up with us? Maybe hitch a ride in one of the wagons?”

“Perhaps.”
But why?

Ash tried to recall all that Maddie had told him after her meeting with Zucker in the lobby of the hotel. Zucker thought she’d taken that photograph of his missing brother somewhere in the mountains around Breckenridge. He had wanted her to take the more northerly, left-handed fork into Denver, which went through the Blue River area, thinking she might see something along the way to jog her memory. Which wouldn’t happen if she took the right fork through Kenosha Pass—the road they were on now. But if he convinced them this road was blocked, they would have to turn back and take the other route—the one he had wanted Maddie to take in the first place.

“He wants to make certain we go through Blue River,” he told Brodie. He went on to explain his reasoning. “That’s what this is about. He thinks Maddie will recognize where she took that photograph, and that will lead him to his brother.”

“So it’s Maddie he’s after.”

Ash felt the cold, deadly resolve that had carried him into many a battle move through his chest. His hands itched to feel the saber in his grip. “He treads dangerous ground if he even comes near my wife.”

“He must really want to find his brother,” Declan mused. “I wonder why?”

“Or find something his brother has.” Ash lowered his voice even more. “You saw the photograph—the pickax and sluice. Miner’s tools. Perhaps his brother hit ore, and Zucker is trying to find it.”

Brodie looked over at the smoking fire across the way. “Could be.” He looked up into the sky. “There’s a full moon tonight.”

“Aye. If he moves, we’ll see him. If not, Tricks will.” He ruffled the wolfhound’s rough coat. “The lad will know what to do, so he will.”

“Jesus.” Brodie looked down at the dog between them. “He’s never killed anyone has he?”

Ash smiled. “Not yet. But I’m sure he would enjoy the practice.”

“Jesus.”

That night, Ash slept as lightly as he ever had on a field of battle. Twice he left Maddie’s side to sit outside, well out of the fire’s light so he wouldn’t make an easy target.

He loved the night. It stripped away everything—sound and motion and substance—until all that was left was a vast, looming stillness that hung in the air like a hushed breath. It awakened his mind and sharpened his senses. It made him intensely aware that he was the intruder into this dark world, but if he curbed his impatience and cleared his mind, it would slowly reveal itself in furtive rustlings, a bird’s startled cry, the silent fall of a star across the dome of the sky.

It was a whole other world, the night. Elemental and primitive and beautiful in its simplicity. His years as a forward rider with the Rifles had taught him how to use the darkness to his advantage—how to move silently through it, blending into the shadows until he reached his quarry, then strike before his enemy even knew he was there. The night was like one of Maddie’s negative plates. Skewed, flat, and colorless. Beneath the stars and the pockmarked moon, even blood ran black.

And tonight, as Ash sat studying the two men snoring beside their dying campfire, he contemplated shedding some. Because of Maddie. And his fear for her. And his fear for himself if he had to live a life without her.

But the pull to her side was stronger than his need to kill a man he wasn’t yet sure was his enemy. So after a while, he rose and went back to his wife.

·  ·  ·

Maddie awoke to the low drone of male voices. Ash was gone, all his blankets piled on top of her. She snuggled into them, smelled his scent in the rough fabric, and woodsmoke, and that lingering mustiness of coarse wool.

She smiled, remembering how he had wrapped his arms around her in the night and she had yelped and tried to roll away, startled by the coldness of his skin. But he had chuckled and pulled her back against his chest, and soon his hands had warmed on her awakening body and he was moving into her from behind and she was stifling her cries against the blanket so the others wouldn’t hear.

That rogue.
Tonight would be her turn.

Smiling at the prospect, she tossed the blankets aside, sat up, and lifted the flap of the tent.

Ash and Declan stood over the campfire, holding steaming mugs in their hands. Behind them, a thin coating of frost shimmered on the bowed roof of her wagon, and although a thin curl of smoke rose from the stovepipe, she saw no sign of Lucinda. She looked around but didn’t see Edwina, either, or any sign of the Zucker brothers.

After digging through the blankets for the chemise Ash had removed from her in the night, she slipped it over her head, then pulled a skirt, a blouse, and a pair of long woolen stockings from her valise. She quickly dressed, finger-combed the worst of the tangles from her hair, tied it back with a ribbon, then stepped through the flap.

It was a glorious day. A perfect day for photography. She drew in a great breath of cold air and stretched the kinks from her back, then realized she had drawn the attention of the two men beside the fire.

Declan quickly looked away.

Ash didn’t, his gaze sweeping over her in a possessive, hungry way that made something deep inside her pulse with memory.

She walked toward him, thinking some day she would photograph
him as she saw him now, his hair silvered by sunlight, his eyes hot with desire, his tall form radiating male power.

But without the clothing, of course.

“What are you grinning about, lass?” he asked as she approached.

Ignoring that, she waved toward the cold fire on the other side of the clearing. “The Zuckers are gone?”

“Early this morning.” He grinned. “I’m surprised you slept through it. Rough night?”

“Ah…restless, perhaps.”

“But pleasantly so, I’m guessing by that wee smile.”

“I’ll go wake Ed,” Declan muttered and abruptly walked away.

“You cad,” Maddie scolded as soon as he was out of earshot. “Now he’ll know what we were doing.”

Ash laughed and pulled her close for a kiss. “I doubt he cares, love, since he was probably doing the same thing with his wife.”

Maddie blinked at him in surprise. “But Edwina is increasing.”

“Aye. And how do you suppose she got that way?”

“Good morning,” Lucinda called, making Maddie jump back from Ash’s embrace. “Is that coffee I smell?”

“Before he left, he apologized for being so forward with Maddie,” Ash said later, when they were all gathered around the fire, finishing a quick breakfast of bacon and pan biscuits and stewed apples.

“I’m more concerned about Silas,” Maddie muttered.

“Aye.” Ash tossed the dregs of his cup into the fire, loosening a hissing gout of steam. “I almost wished Zucker had stayed so I could make sure he dinna hit the lad again.”

“I’d feel better knowing where he is, too,” Declan seconded. “I don’t like the idea of him lurking up ahead somewhere.”

“Assuming,” Lucinda put in, “that we believe what he said about the landslide and change our route accordingly and head up toward Blue River.”

Ash turned his head and looked at her. The woman had a sharp
mind. He appreciated that she had so quickly grasped their dilemma. “If we do, we could be playing right into his hands.”

“And into an ambush,” Declan added.

Edwina Brodie looked from one to the other. Ash could see she was showing the strain of travel already. Brodie had told him she had a delicate stomach. She looked it this morning. Her face was drawn, her eyes shadowed by dark circles. He found himself imagining how Maddie would look with his babe growing inside her. Then remembering the one she had lost, he wondered if they would be given a second chance.

“But if we stay on our original route,” Edwina Brodie argued, “and there really is a landslide, we would have to backtrack several days.”

“And probably miss the statehood vote,” her husband said.

“And I might miss my meeting with the owners of the Denver Pacific,” Lucinda added.

“But the alternative could be worse,” Ash stated, “if we ride into an ambush.”

In the end, despite the possibility the road might be blocked and the delay might cost Declan his statehood vote and Lucinda her meeting with the railroads, they decided to continue on their original route. As the sheriff said, “Better late than dead.”

Within an hour, they were packed, harnessed, and traveling again.

They crossed Red Hill Pass just after noon, and because the grade was relatively gentle and didn’t overly strain the mules and Miss Hathaway’s pacer, Ash allowed only a brief stop to water the animals and pass out cold rations of jerky and canned fruit before he had them moving again.

The ladies groused a bit, but he dangled before them the promise of a warm bath and soft bed if they made Jefferson by nightfall, which perked them up considerably.

It still felt like a snail’s pace to Ash, and he was grateful he was able to spend the long day on horseback rather than bouncing along in a wagon like a bluidy sheep farmer. Even so, they made good
time and were rolling down toward the Jefferson Creek bridge when Tricks warned him of riders advancing on their flank.

Wheeling Lurch, Ash rode back past the buggy. Waving Miss Hathaway to continue on, he pulled in beside the wagon to warn Brodie.

“Can you see who it is?” the sheriff asked.

“No. Keep going. I’ll catch up.” Reining Lurch off the track, he wound through the trees until he came to an elevated position with a good view of the road. He stopped and checked his weapons, levering one of his homemade scattershot cartridges into the carbine and making sure the chamber of his pistol was fully loaded. Then he called Tricks to his side and waited.

Two riders. Moving briskly, but not at a pursuit gallop. He watched them approach, then smiled when he saw who it was. Sending Lurch out of the trees, he galloped down to intercept Thomas Redstone.

“What are you doing here, heathen?” he asked as Thomas reined in. Ash glanced past him at the other man bouncing up behind him. A cleric. And one who dinna sit his horse particularly well.

“This man wanted to talk to your wife.”

“About what?”

Thomas tipped his head toward the round-faced man reining in beside him. “His brother. Ephraim Zucker.”

Seventeen

“G
oddamnit!”

Si jumped to his feet as Clete came stomping down the path from his perch in a pile of boulders above the road. Quickly, he stuffed the photograph of him and the dog into his pocket. “What’s wrong, Clete?”

“They took the other road, that’s what! Bastards! How we going to get the woman now?”

“What woman, Clete?”

“What woman do you think, moron? The photographer.” In a furious motion, he swiped his hat at Si’s head. “Damnit, we need to find that claim!”

Silas stood for a minute, not sure what to do. When Clete was mad, he knew better than to talk to him. But they’d been sitting here forever, and he was hungry and thirsty and the wind was turning cold. Finally, the waiting got to him and he broke the long silence.

“So what are we going to do now, Clete?”

“Shut up, you idiot! How can I think with you yammering at me all the time?”

“Okay, Clete.”

“ ‘Okay, Clete,’ ” his brother mimicked. “Christ! If I had a partner
with half a brain, Zucker would have already told us where the claim is and we’d be sitting rich. Now we got nothing!”

“I’m sorry, Clete.”

“Yeah, I know you are. You’re the sorriest damn thing ever walked this earth. I ought to kill you now and do the world a favor.”

Si watched an ant crawl across the toe of his boot. He wondered what it felt like to be so small. So small the wind could blow you far away and Clete would never even know you were gone. He smiled, imagining it.

Clete paced back and forth, kicking at rocks in his path. “We’ll have to go to Denver. See if Zucker registered the claim. If he did, we’ll have to forge a bill of sale, and reregister the claim under my name. If he didn’t, we can file on it ourselves. Once we find the claim.”

He paced and thought, then abruptly stopped. “Bud Purvis. Heard he was dealing faro at one of the hog ranches up there. He’ll help us. Remember ole’ Bud, Si?”

Si did. Bud kept a tarantula in a box. He would sometimes let it crawl around in his beard. But mostly, he liked to tease Si with it. Si hated crawly things. “Why do we need him? He’s mean.”

“That’s
why
we need him, moron. And also because these foreigners we been following don’t know Bud from Adam’s house cat. Who else can I send into the registry office to ask about the claim? You, moron?”

“No, Clete.”

“That’s right.” Clete paced some more.

Si sat down again. He didn’t know what Clete was talking about. He was hungry and cold and tired and wished he was back with the picture lady and Tricks and the big man who talked funny. They had lots of food.

“After he checks on the claim, Bud can help me grab the woman out from under that crazy Scotsman’s nose.” Absently Clete rubbed the bruise on his neck. “Hell, maybe we’ll take the Scotsman, too. Let him watch us take turns on his wife, then skin him and leave him staked on an ant hill. I owe him that, at least.”