Blaze (31 page)

"Wait until Jimmy brings them. Rising Wolf won't be back again for days."

"That's the point. Jimmy hasn't come. Evidently there's some problem. Rose knows everything in the county. I'll find out."

"I don't suppose it would do any good to beg and plead?" Blaze winsomely asked, the firelight warm on her fine-boned face.

"I won't be gone long," Hazard said, forcibly restraining himself from responding to her delicate beauty and entreaty. "Two or three hours at the most," he added. Reaching for his rifle, he slung it over one shoulder and then shrugged a leather pack over the other. "Do you want me to bring some books back for you? I know how tedious the days can—"

"Damn you, Hazard. Do I look like I want you to risk your life for some damn books for me to ease the damn tedium?" She'd risen to her feet in her fear, and tears of anxiety and frustration had welled into her eyes. "Do I, damn you, look like I want you to die?" she said in a trembling voice.

Hazard set his rifle down and with his habitual fluid grace strode soundlessly across the narrow room. He looked down at her apprehensive face for a silent moment and then pulled her close. He'd never realized how susceptible he was to her moods. "Don't cry bia-cara," he whispered, kissing away her tears. "Don't cry. I'd be a fool to take any chances when I've you to come back to." He nibbled on her lip, a light teasing gesture. "You know how I need you," he murmured.

Blaze's wet, shiny eyes lifted and met his. "Really?"

"Word of honor," he said and then smiled that heart-stopping smile.

Blaze's mouth quivered into an answering smile, a sweet rush of joy inundating her senses. "Hurry back," she whispered to the man who touched her soul.

"I'll run all the way," Hazard softly replied.

And he did, setting out in a loping stride that he'd been taught could be sustained from sun to sun.

WHEN he neared the outskirts of Confederate Gulch, where scrub pine and alder bushes marked the perimeters of civilization, he stood motionless for several minutes, his eyes scanning the disreputable hodgepodge of buildings in the shallow basin below. The town was a jumble of houses, stores, streets, timber mine frames, tents, log cabins built to the needs of the miners without regard to plan. But Hazard knew each building, knew where each street meandered, knew most of the inhabitants by sight. Like a scout, his eyes scoured the scene, quartering the area, reassessing it, moving to the next section with a methodical thoroughness that he'd learned, on raiding parties into enemy territory, could mean the difference between living and dying.

Satisfied at last that no one was waiting for him in the immediate vicinity, he carefully moved into the deepest shadows and stealthily made his way to Rose's.

He saw them first. As he'd expected. Lookouts posted front and back at both entrances to Confederate Gulch's finest brothel and gambling hall. He didn't recognize them; they weren't locals. These had the look of eastern pilgrims. Backtracking, he approached Rose's from the far side of the block and, assessing the distance to the roof of Malmstrom's Leather Shop, decided he could just reach the chimney in back with his lariat. The supple rope made from braided buffalo hair was a requisite item on any Absarokee raiding party; since horses were wealth and raiding a means of obtaining them, every Absarokee warrior was an expert with a lariat by ten years of age.

The loop fell perfectly over Malmstrom's back chimney and, after two strong tugs to determine whether the masonry was sound, Hazard climbed hand over hand up the taut rope to the wood shingled roof. Leaning against the chimney, he recoiled the lariat, then tied it with a slip knot to his belt. He sat quietly for several moments judging the variety of roofs he'd have to traverse, reconnoi-tering, now that he was above street level, for lookouts posted on any adjacent buildings. Satisfied he was alone, Hazard gripped the shingles through his soft-soled moccasins and carefully moved eastward toward Rose's establishment six buildings away. The imposing limestone and wrought-iron elegance dominated the far side of the block.

Morality hadn't arrived yet in Confederate Gulch. That always came later, if the gold lasted long enough for more stable settlement. In the boom months of a new strike, even the first few years, there was no law except miners' laws, no principles except the concept of "get rich quick," no formalities for judging right or wrong except the fastest gun or knife; and territorial justice, although in theory prevailing throughout the territory, was a hundred miles away in Virginia City. The leading industries were saloons, gambling houses, dance halls, and places like Rose's. Later on, the socializing available at Rose's would be relegated to areas off the main street. But in these frantic new growing times, hers was the biggest structure in Confederate Gulch, splendidly constructed of pink-hued limestone carted overland from Fort Benton.

Rose had always insisted on the very best, ever since she'd been old enough in New Orleans to know what the best was. Although she had been born on the wrong side of the blanket, her mother's protector had been generous to his beloved mistress and natural daughter. Until her parents' death in the typhoid epidemic of '59, Rose had had all the advantages money could buy. But when they died, her father's family chose not to recognize her, although she had the Longville looks there was no denying: violet eyes, skin as white as magnolias, hair black as night and silky smooth. Unfortunately she was, through her mother's side, one thirty-second black. To avoid the taint to the Longville name, she'd been abducted one night by a Longville employee, shipped upriver, and sold at Natchez. Her owner died the same night he purchased her and deflowered her—from a slit throat, the papers said. Served him right, Rose had thought, if he didn't have brains enough not to fall asleep in a drunken stupor after he'd abused his newest slave. She was, of course, wanted for murder, the papers reported, but by that time she was halfway to St. Louis with the contents of her short-lived owner's money box hidden in her baggage.

She'd set herself up in business, or rather, set up business at St. Louis the summer of '59; Rose Condieu had never actually worked at her business. She'd had enough money not to have to. Her choice of career was a decision based on the rather limited areas open to women without family who chose not to eke out a living on a subsistence level. And more important, it would offer her the protection of the local law enforcement officials who patronized her establishment as her guests. Southern justice was adamantly malevolent toward slaves who killed their masters, and Rose planned to be careful.

Within a year, her undertaking was the most successful of its kind in St. Louis. But when news of the gold strikes came four years later, the adventure appealed to her. She was still young, only twenty-three years old— and St. Louis was becoming boring.

The wrought-iron second-floor balconies made access from the roof simplicity itself. Hazard dropped down to the railing and then to the balcony floor in one light swinging motion, silent as the dim shadows between Rose's and Shandling's Hardware. Easing the balcony's French doors open, he pulled aside the gold brocade drape a narrow half-inch and looked into the bedchamber. Roxy, lying on her back, was entertaining a customer, but her gaze was wandering, mild boredom evident in her expression. When Hazard stepped into the room, he raised his hand in salute and smiled. The aging businessman, for his wife's benefit supposedly at a meeting of the Masons that evening, had his back to Hazard and was seriously involved in his own enjoyment. Quietly crossing the room, Hazard reached the door, Roxy watching him with a small smile on her face. Carefully, he opened the door, glanced up and down the hallway, and, seeing no one, blew Roxy a kiss and slipped out of the room. Roxy's mischievous wink in return had been both suggestive and humorous, and Hazard was still smiling when he entered Rose's suite three doors down.

Rose's startled glance gave way to recognition. "You're a fool, Hazard," she said, her admonishing tone bordering on vexation, "and smiling about it. This place has been under surveillance twenty-four hours a day since your last visit."

"I'm smiling at Roxy's particular style," Hazard replied, bright, imperviously cheerful, ignoring Rose's nettled admonition. "Although," he went on with a quirked grin, "Reggie Weaver looked like he might not make it through another 'Masonic meeting' without an apoplexy."

"Is that how you got in?" Rose was checking the bow windows facing the street to see that the heavy silk drapes were tightly shut.

"The entrances looked slightly busy," Hazard conceded drily.

"You shouldn't have come."

"Thanks for the friendly welcome," Hazard said, dropping his rifle and leather pack and settling into a velvet armchair.

Satisfied the curtains were securely closed, Rose turned back to Hazard. "He's got every scoundrel in town hired to kill you," she warned, "not to mention the bodyguards he brought with him from the East. And posters went up yesterday. He's offering one hell of a nice price for your head."

"He? Not the Colonel."

"No. Yancy Strahan. The kind of no-account gentleman who gives the South a bad name," Rose disgustedly added.

Hazard grinned. "I thought you despised the South."

"Not the South, Hazard, just some of the asses who thought they owned it and anyone with skin a little darker than theirs. And don't try to change the subject. You know damn well who is out to see you dead. Which brings me back to the beginning of this conversation. Why don't you leave right now and go back the way you came before someone notices something?" Her voice was firmly persuasive, her large violet eyes filled with concern.

"Nothing to notice," Hazard soothed. "Relax. No one saw me except Roxy, and she's not likely to kill me."

"Only with kindness, if you'd let her," Rose drily agreed.

"Now, Rose, you know you're the only woman for me." Hazard's smile was easy and winning.

Until his last visit, Rose was quite confident she had more than her share of Hazard's attention. But confidence had been dislodged by the evidence that Hazard's hostage had replaced her. Knowing Hazard's sexual appetites, it didn't surprise her; after all, Miss Braddock was near him twenty-four hours a day and Hazard had never struck her as either celibate or ascetic. "No one's going to have you, Hazard, if you stick around here too long. Except the undertaker."

"Why has this Strahan fellow taken over suddenly?"

Rose walked away from the window and in a whisper of silk and fragrance perched on the arm of a loveseat. "Rumor has it he and the Colonel's wife are mighty friendly."

Hazard's eyebrows rose in mild astonishment. Milli-cent Braddock had struck him the few times he'd seen her as a thoroughly asexual female. Too thin, too controlled, too perfectly put together, such that a sudden jolt would shatter the fragile confection. "You don't say," he murmured, alive to the changes this could make in his life. While the Colonel might be overly cautious about his daughter's safety, Yancy Strahan, on the two occasions he'd spoken with him, appeared immune to any humane motives.

"Sleeping together, Hazard. I have it on good authority," Rose explained, as if Hazard were too dense to understand all the resulting ramifications.

"Do you think they've heard the Colonel's dead?" He'd already dismissed the sleeping relationship as minor compared to the cryptic significance of the Colonel's apparent disappearance.

"Good Lord! Is he?"

"He might be."

"Jesus, Hazard, if he is…"

"It's just a possibility," he assured her. "Some third-hand gossip from Rising Wolf. I'm not certain."

Swiftly coming to her feet, she took two nervous steps toward Hazard, the hem of her lilac gown fluttering silkily over the intricate flowered carpet. "Hazard, get your sweet body out of here. My God, if he's dead, your life's not worth much. Strahan's dangerous, I'm telling you. He hurt a couple of my girls when he first came into town. I told him after that he wasn't welcome here. Luckily, I had Buck and Tom to back me up because he wasn't going to be reasonable about his ouster. Yancy Strahan doesn't care who he hurts. It's a fact, Hazard. So will you get the hell out of here?"

"Don't panic, Rose. I can handle Yancy Strahan."

"Maybe you can, and maybe you can't; his type doesn't fight fair. They never even fight their own fights, Hazard, if they can avoid it. He's a bully through and through. And he's got half an army of hired thugs with him." Just then a knock on the door echoed sharply through the sumptuous room. Rose stifled a cry of alarm.