Lake of Fire (33 page)

In the infirmary, Laura sat in a straight chair outside the room where Dr. Upshur was operating on her father. He’d warned that when he began probing for the bullet, it would be a critical time. If he severed a larger artery or perforated the top of Forrest’s lung, provided the bullet had not already done so, survival was unlikely.

Beyond the hospital walls, Larry Nevers stood sentry, taking a minute every half hour or so to check in with her as darkness approached. Each time he stopped by, it reminded her that somewhere out there, someone might be taking aim at her father again through the lighted windows.

Or at her.

She went to the casement at the end of the hall and pulled down the paper shade.

Coming back, she stared at the closed door of the surgery. Part of her wished that Constance and Aunt Fanny … that Cord, were with her, but she knew that even if they were in the same room, everyone waited with their own thoughts and demons.

How awful that in the last few days, her father’s primary emotions toward her had been anger and disapproval. Yet, how was that different from the way things had been at home?

From inside the operating room came a clatter. A moment later, a white-garbed nurse came out carrying
a metal implement and disappeared into another room. With the surgery door ajar, Laura rose to her feet to peek through the opening.

A moment later, she wished she had not. Dr. Upshur had his back to her, but blood stained the sides of his white apron, making her imagine how much there must be on the front. Her father lay on the table with a cloth over his nose and mouth that she thought must be saturated with chloroform. His shoulder and chest were bare and bloody.

“There, miss.” The nurse pushed past Laura carrying the tool and wafting a smell of disinfecting alcohol. Just before she closed the door, her eyes above the mask showed sympathy. “Not much longer.”

Laura looked up and down the empty hall and moved toward the desk where they had come in, passing closed doors. From behind one of them came soft voices. When she was in front of another, she heard a long moan.

“Excuse me, please,” Laura spoke to the young woman who had earlier appeared to be in charge of hospital files. “Have you a pen and paper?”

“Certainly, Miss Fielding.” She turned back and found an inkwell, a fountain pen, and a sheaf of stationery.

Laura went into a vacant room with a table and chairs, closed the door behind her, and pulled the window shade. At last, with the events of the past days crowding her mind, she poised pen above paper.

How terrible it is to wait, while the surgeon’s skill and
divine luck decide our futures
.

Oh Lord. The hospital’s faded walnut table, marked by ink and water, now has a new dark spot, for I pressed too hard with my pen near the paper’s edge. Aunt Fanny has always cautioned that a lady does not leave such trails, but whenever I am overcome with the desire to write, it seems I am wrought with dark emotion that does not jive with a lady’s rules. How simple it seems for Constance and how difficult for me, a woman who has worn trousers and killed a bear. Now that I have seen this country, the land Cord wanted to show Constance when he believed she might be the one for him, I have trouble imagining returning to Chicago and settling back into my life
.

Of course, if Father does not survive, my life, wherever I am, will be vastly different
.

As has happened so often in the past week … can it have been just over a week since I met Cord? … my thoughts turn to him. How safe I felt at his side, in spite of the wilderness around us. How right it seemed to be immersed in nature with him
.

It has been so difficult since we arrived at the hotel, first learning that he cared for Constance and having to hide my feelings. This afternoon when she admitted they were not pledged, my heart leaped. If only this thing had not happened, we might be together now
.

Father lay in the wagon so quietly that if his chest had not risen and fell, I should not have known he lived. I have not shed a tear, but I sense that inside me there is a great flood waiting for release. If only Father knows how I do love him, how I have always loved him, and wanted him
to love me, not for the way I earn my keep, but because he treasures me
.

It is as though I am waiting to see if I must weep tears of relief
.

Or of mourning
.

A
fter sharing an uneasy dinner with Constance and her mother, Cord escorted them across the lobby on their way to bring dinner to Laura. He’d selected the dishes himself, deferring to the ladies for agreement: stewed chicken and dumplings, green peas, hot yeast rolls and sweet butter, along with an apple crisp he’d sampled for his dessert.

He held the front door of the hotel open for Constance, Fanny, and a young waitress bearing a tray covered with a white napkin. How odd he had believed Laura was a serving girl.

How was she taking the attack on her father? In tears or braving it out, he would vote for the latter. And how was Forrest faring? Had the bullet been successfully removed, the caliber established? If so, would Hank give up his theory of Cord shooting Forrest with a pistol?

When they started down the path toward the hospital,
it was almost full dark. Bats dipped and fluttered in silhouette against the sky. Cord scanned the parking area, almost empty now that the stagecoaches and touring wagons had been driven away for the night.

Fanny followed his gaze. “I heard a big touring group left this afternoon. The hotel won’t be booked up again until tomorrow night.”

“The manager should make sure that doesn’t happen during high season,” Cord replied.

A lone figure with an unruly head of hair walked with purpose from behind the east wing, hands in his trouser pockets.

An electric sensation shot down Cord’s arms. “Edgar!”

His banker stopped and turned; a false-looking smile distorted his features. Beyond him on a path that led toward the Wylie Camp, but also forked and ran along the shore toward the ruined cabin, Cord saw Hank and his sister, Alexandra. Hank had apparently changed from his road-dusty gray suit into a darker model and wore one of the new-style square crown hats. Upon locking eyes with Cord, Hank took Alexandra’s arm and turned her away.

Edgar began walking toward Cord.

Constance laid a hand on his arm. “Mama and I can take Laura her dinner.”

He hesitated.

Her blue eyes looked dark in the twilight. “When Edgar didn’t show up for the excursion this morning, I sensed something was wrong.”

“You guessed right.”

With another look toward the hospital where Laura waited, Cord decided to try to get the truth from Edgar again.

“You look like you could use a drink.” Edgar approached with quick nervous energy.

Cord agreed, managing to keep a civil tone.

A few minutes later, he waited on the hotel porch while Edgar came out from the bar with a crystal tumbler of amber liquid in each hand. His hair, which had permitted Cord to identify him in the dusk, made a halo against the lighted door to the lobby.

Cord reached for a glass and caught the rich aroma of Jack Daniels Old No. 7. “Thank you.”

He took a seat in a wicker-bottomed rocker and motioned Edgar to sit beside him. They had the porch to themselves, an island in the night. A few patches of yellowish light spilled onto the grass from the first-floor windows down the long wall. Across the lake, a loon called; another answered the eerie, laughing cry. Inside the lobby, a string quartet began tuning their instruments for a performance to the reduced guest contingent.

Cord gripped the chair arm. “Where have you been since yesterday afternoon?”

Edgar took a deep draught of whiskey, and Cord thought he saw a tremor in the hand holding the glass. “I had some personal business to attend to. It was … inconsiderate of me not to leave you a message.”

“Extremely.”

“Ye … yes.”

Cord stopped the motion of his rocker. “You’ve been nervous as a cat ever since we got here, coming and going at odd hours so I can’t find you when I have questions. I don’t remember you being this way when we met in Salt Lake.”

“I’m sorry.” Edgar wet his lips with his tongue. “There are some … things that have come up.”

Cord turned away, finding the darkened lake more comfortable to look at than his partner’s tortured face. As the silence lengthened, he grew more impatient.

“I need to know, Edgar, where you got those papers we showed Norman Hagen yesterday. Did you steal them?”

“We agreed that the less you knew about it, the better.” Edgar seemed to have trouble controlling a hitch in his voice.

“I don’t recall agreeing to that.” Cord drained his drink and set it on the porch floor.

He got out of his chair, placed one hand on each arm of Edgar’s rocker, and bent down. “I asked you a question. I want an answer now.”

“I can’t tell you.”

Cord snorted. He straightened and crossed his arms over his chest, ready to reveal yesterday’s armed assault on the cabin, where Edgar had been sighted with a killer.

Before he could speak, a movement caught his eye through the lobby window. Hank Falls came out of the nearly deserted dining room, smiling and nodding to
the small group listening to music. Hatless, he wore his stock gray suit, still crumpled from the day’s excursion.

Cord had to make a conscious effort to shut his mouth. Hank had never changed his suit. Edgar had been meeting with Danny, whom he’d just seen with Alexandra.

“Get out of that chair!” Cord ordered.

Edgar cowered.

Cord grabbed his lapels and dragged him up. Turning Edgar, he pointed. “You see Hank Falls there?”

Only Hank’s back was visible as he mounted the stairs toward the second floor, but Edgar nodded.

“Now,” Cord went on, “tell me who was impersonating him with Hank’s sister this evening. The man you met in secret in the old cabin.”

Without warning, Edgar jerked away and took off. He was down the short stairs and running across the lawn before Cord caught up with him.

He grabbed Edgar’s shoulder. “You can’t get away from me, so you might as well tell me the whole story.”

Edgar’s face crumpled along with his resistance. “All … all right.”

Cord thought of propelling him down the lawn to the pier, away from where Hank or other guests might hear, but if the outlaw were out there watching him manhandle Edgar, he might attack. Just the thought of Danny saying Cord had served his purpose made his scalp tingle.

Cord gestured back toward the porch. “How
about you tell me over another drink?”

“Danny Falls is Hank’s twin brother.” Edgar cupped a fresh glass of Jack between his hands.

“I rather believe I had made that leap.” Strung too tightly to sit, Cord balanced a hip on the porch rail.

“Danny ran away from home when he was sixteen because their mother remarried and his stepfather beat him. Hank stayed because he always did things the way Jonathan wanted and was never punished.”

Cord suppressed the urge to say his heart bled for Danny.

Edgar swilled whiskey. “I met him in the bar at the National Hotel in Great Falls. We hit it right off. The booth in the back was a good place for talk with a man who drank my brand of booze.” He gestured with his glass. “Danny seemed an odd mix of itinerant miner and financial idea man.”

“What did he propose?”

“It sounded simple. If I wanted a piece of the pie when the Northern Pacific sold the hotel, I just had to make sure I brought a capable buyer to the table. Danny would supply the rest.”

“The documents.”

“This past March, we took the train, sixty miles from Great Falls to Helena and back. There was a bit more snow on the ground in Great Falls than in Helena.”

Cord made an impatient gesture.

“I’m trying to tell you how it was.” Edgar scanned the slope to the lake as though he also feared being watched by Danny. “We went into the First Bank of Helena’s vault. I expected the bank official to order him to produce identification. Instead, he clapped a familiar arm around Danny’s shoulders and admonished him about staying away from town so long. Then Danny pleaded the loss of his key, the banker laughed, and saw to it his safe-deposit box was opened.”

“Let me guess,” Cord said. “He took out the letter and the inspection report.”

“Under his arm, Danny carried a slim leather portfolio in which he put the papers from the box. It was only when we were leaving that I felt as though I stood upon a trapdoor, for, you see, the bank manager walked us to the door and called Danny, ‘Hank.’”

Cord’s drink was gone so he crunched ice. “What’s his motive in all this?”

“All I’m sure of is that there’s bad blood between the brothers, that Alexandra loves Danny best, and that that drives Hank crazy. So when she told Danny the railroad was going to sell the hotel and Hank wanted to buy it, Danny determined he’d thwart him.”

“You bring me as a buyer,” Cord said. “I produce the papers and discredit Hank; everybody wins.”