Shadow's Stand (2 page)

“Goddammit, Sheriff, you can’t be considering this. We get little enough fun around here, and this injun was caught red-handed stealing a horse.”

“Shut up, Damon.”

“I don’t want to shut up. I want a hanging.”

“Yeah!” Damon’s friend Barney chimed in. “A hanging would liven up the evening.”

This was getting out of hand. She raised her voice to be heard. “I am aware of the price.”

“Horses don’t come cheap,” the sheriff countered her offer.

“It is my understanding that he did not succeed in the theft.”

“Doesn’t mean he wasn’t giving it a hell of a try.”

She squared her shoulders and set her chin. “But no theft means no compensation.” She couldn’t afford to give up any coin.

“That’s true,” Barney cut in, “but you’d be better off waiting on some white boy or drunk Chinee. This one will kill you and Lin without blinking an eye. Maybe worse. Indians ain’t got no honor.”

And Chinese had no worth. She’d heard the slurs too many times before to believe them valid. Especially coming from Barney. Just last week he’d tried to capture her along the way back from the claim. If the stench of his body odor hadn’t warned her of his presence, the fate he predicted might already have been hers. At his hand. She glanced at the sun sinking on the horizon. Night would arrive soon. Night meant suffering. She needed this man, now. Lowering her eyes, she folded her hands and resumed a properly demure stance. “I cannot go against my father.”

“None of you Chinese can, which makes for some nice recreation for us,” Damon sneered.

She could feel the thief’s gaze upon her. The stares of the other men didn’t bother her, but his did. Those brown eyes, so dark they were almost black, seemed to see all the way to her soul, to the secrets she was trying to hide. She would have to be careful around him. This man was discerning.

“Do you wish me to go back to my father and tell him the marriage was not possible?”

“Jian sent you?” Damon asked.

“Yes.”

“Shit!”

“This is not to your like?” Fei Yen asked.

“I’d like you to tell him to shove it up his ass, and if it weren’t for his ways with explosives, I’d do just that,” Barney growled.

Jian Tseng had a talent with explosives and the railroad needed a tunnel. His skill bought them better quarters, more consideration, favors. It would hopefully buy her this one.

Barney stepped closer and touched his finger to her cheek. “But as soon as we get that tunnel through the mountain, it’s going to be a whole different game, little girl.”

Disgust whipped down her spine. She didn’t lift her gaze or move away. This man would not see her run. “I’ll tell my father of your decision.”

The fact that Jian would be unhappy was heavily implied and the men were not too drunk to pick up on it. Her father had a reputation for being quick to anger, and when he was angry, he didn’t work. Or he worked in ways that caused accidents for those with whom he was displeased. Barney dropped his hand. “You won’t be telling your father squat.”

No she wouldn’t. But only because it would serve no purpose. Jian Tseng was not the man he’d once been since the madness had taken him. The thief was still studying her with those dragon eyes that saw more than a person wanted. Again, she wondered if this was a mistake, and again she knew she didn’t have a choice. The situation was getting too dangerous. The game too complex. The delicate web of her deceit too fragile. She needed an ally. At the very least, a guard dog. She waited.

There was swearing, but nothing from the thief.

“Someone go fetch the padre.”

Padre was a loose term for preacher, that she understood. But if the man of God who served this camp had ever known the inner peace that came from greater wisdom and a connection to his ancestors, it was long gone. He drank to excess and always smelled of urine and vomit and was rarely coherent. Yet they still called him a man of God.

There were many things she didn’t understand about this land. Her father had raised her in the way of his people, separate from the world, trained in obedience and duty. Until he’d decided to leave their home in China where he was but a third son and return to America with her and Lin to take up work on the railroad and make his own fortune. Dutiful daughter had never been a role with which she was comfortable, but life was exhausting outside it. She couldn’t wait for the day when she could escape. Her cousin wanted to go back to China. Fei Yen didn’t know where she wanted to go, just someplace where there was peace. She would really like to live in a world where she wasn’t seen as “less.”

The priest stumbled forward, hawking and spitting as he got close. “You decide to marry up, Fei?”

His lack of cleanliness was an affront. More so than his abbreviation of her name. She bowed slightly. The priest looked over at the thief. “Are you sure about this one? He’s more likely to kill you than help you.”

Could no one stop harping on that? “My father made the choice.”

“Jian’s a strange one, but you’re a good daughter to do what he says.”

She wasn’t, but she tried. Sometimes. Bowing, she kept her voice. “It is my duty.”

The thief still watched her. She felt his gaze like that of a burn on her skin. He didn’t have the look of a thief. There was pride in his stance and an arrogance in the lift of his chin that one didn’t expect to see in a criminal.

“Are you sure he’s guilty?”

“As guilty as sin, Miss Fei,” the padre responded.

She still couldn’t believe it. The thief cocked an eyebrow in response to her searching look. There was something about the man that led her to believe he wasn’t what he seemed. Then again, neither was she.

“Are you sure your pappy won’t reconsider this one?”

Not looking up, she nodded. It was humiliating, standing there in front of men who knew she was purchasing a husband. And not even one of decent character or her race, but just the next available. Because they thought her father wanted it, and they thought she was an obedient daughter. When nothing could be further from the truth. It was her secret shame.

The prisoner’s eyes narrowed. For a thief he had quite an attitude.

“Sure you don’t want to wait a bit, Miss Fei? There’s bound to be a white man along shortly.”

A white man who would feel superior to her because of the color of his skin. A white man whom all would see as superior to her because of her mixed heritage.

She kept her voice soft. “I cannot go against my father’s wishes.”

“Ain’t natural, him pandering you out,” Herbert muttered. Herbert was older, decent, a worn-out miner bent from too many hours panning for gold, and she’d often wondered what kept him among these men of no honor.

“Don’t be talking a daughter out of her duty,” the padre snapped.

She wished the priest’s concern was for her well-being, but she knew it was from fear of losing her father’s skill with explosives and what that would do to the income of the men who bought him his liquor.

“Don’t see why the man can’t just hire help like others,” Herbert muttered.

“He’s Chinese,” Barney interjected. “They’ve got strange notions.”

As long as they believed that, it would work for her.

“Well, what’ll it be, woman? Either he’ll do or he won’t,” the sheriff snapped. “If we’re not going to have a hanging, then I want to get back to drinking.”

Her stomach clenched. She had to make this decision. Years of discipline maintained her poise as she found her courage. “If you would please to ask him?”

“Don’t know why we have to go through this,” the sheriff muttered. “When a man’s facing death, he’s not going to quibble about taking vows he can abandon as easily as he makes them.”

“I would feel better.” She needed some illusion that this plan would work.

“You got a choice, injun.” The sheriff jerked his thumb in her direction. “Die now or marry up with this little woman and start a new life.”

“Why doesn’t she ask me herself?” The thief’s voice was smooth and deep and soothed her like fine tea on a cold day. It was very hard not to look up.

“It’s forbidden for her to ask you herself, you ignorant ass,” the sheriff shot back.

For once Fei was grateful for the rudeness of the men in this rough town. It saved her from having to respond or explain.

“So what’s your answer?”

The horse shifted, tightening the rope, and, for a moment, the thief couldn’t speak. Barney backed the horse up a step and when the thief found his voice, his arrogance was not diminished. “I want her to ask me.”

The sheriff drove the butt of his rifle into the thief’s stomach. He grunted and jerked in his restraints. The horse balked and danced out from under the tree limb. Smiling, Barney released the reins. With a slow slide, the thief reached the end of the rope.

Fei watched in horror as the thief’s legs clung to the horse while the rope tightened on his neck. For four heartbeats, he was stretched out straight, suspended between the tree and the horse. His already dark skin took on a darker hue. His feet kicked as the pony stepped out from under him. The men laughed.

“I guess he made his choice, then.”

“Looks like we’re having our hanging, after all.”

“No.” They couldn’t do this. “Cut him down.”

Nobody paid any attention to her and she realized she’d spoken in her native Chinese. Not that they would have paid attention to her if it were English. Their macabre game had begun. Fei Yen darted through the men, grabbed the thief’s calves and pushed up. With no result. The man was too heavy. Harsh laughter accompanied her efforts.

“No point in wasting your effort, girl. That boy’s hanging. Fate’s come to a decision.”

No, it had not! It couldn’t. The long American skirts tangled around her legs as she tried to jump and reach the rope. It was far above her. She controlled her breathing. Think. She needed to think. The man gasped and gurgled and kicked. His foot caught her in the side. She went down, amidst more laughter.

The men were getting the show they wanted. But what about what she wanted? Did it not matter? She’d worked too hard. Too much was at stake for their drunken play to interfere with her plans.

She pushed up onto her hands. Two feet from her position, a knife stuck out of a boot. Grabbing it, she ran back, climbing up the man’s body like a tree, ignoring the abrupt cessation of noise as her weight was added to the noose.

“Son of a bitch, would you look at that?”

Ignoring the men, she sawed at the rope, using every bit of strength she had. With a snap, it let go, throwing them to the ground. But it wasn’t enough. The noose around the man’s neck was still tight. Still cutting off his air.

She didn’t know what he did when he wasn’t stealing horses, but no one deserved to die like that, staring at the sky while they starved for air. No one.