Colorado Dawn (3 page)

Her pretty eyes narrowed in suspicion. “A long way from where?”

“Scotland.”

“I told you he wasn’t from around here,” the clerk muttered.

“Yancey, I’ll handle this!”

But Ash could see his answer had startled her, and he wondered why.

“What is your name, sir?” she asked.

“Ashby.”

“That’s it? No first name?”

Ash shrugged. “Some call me lord.”

Understanding came quickly—the woman was blade sharp. “Lord Ashby? Is that a joke?”

“Regretfully, no. I’ll pay double,” he added to distract her.

“Why are you here? In Heartbreak Creek?”

“I’m seeking a woman.”

The clerk snorted. “Aren’t we all.”

With a hiss of exasperation, she whirled on the old man. “Yancey, please assist Miriam upstairs. Billy”—she waved to the freckled boy watching with wide-eyed interest from his post by the front door—“fetch Sheriff Brodie, if you will. Now.”

After the boy dashed out the front door and Yancey stomped up the staircase that rose along the wall separating the lobby from the dining room, she returned her attention to Ash. “What woman?”

Ash frowned, put off by the challenge in her tone. Not many would dare. Especially a female. But he had no wish to sleep on the ground again tonight, so he kept his tone pleasant. “Madeline Wallace.”

“Why?”

“I have news of her family.”

“What news?”

Bugger this.
He started toward the door.

“Ah…double, you say?”

He stopped, debated, then thinking of the cold dampness that awaited him if he left, turned back. “Aye. But the bed canna have a foot rail.”

“You’ll bathe your dog?”

Ash thought of the last attempt. “Aye. If you have four stout men to aid me.”

“You can bathe him in the trough around back. I’ll send out Yancey and Billy with drying rags.” Her green eyes flicked over him. “You may use the tub in the washroom off the kitchen. But not the dog. And we don’t have stables here, so you’ll have to take your horse to the livery on the edge of town.”

It took Yancey, Billy, and two lengths of rope to get Tricks into the trough, but the deed was done without loss of limb. When Ash left the washroom an hour later, clean and freshly dressed with his pouting and mostly clean wolfhound at his heels, he found a man leaning against the wall beside the door, working at his nails with a penknife. By his expression when he saw Ash, it was apparent he had been waiting for him.

“Heard you were looking for Maddie Wallace,” the man said, studying Ash through dark eyes from beneath the brim of his black flat-crowned hat. He was even taller than Ash and solidly built, and he would have carried an air of authority even without the sheriff’s badge pinned to his vest.

Ash nodded. “I am.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

Ash did, so he dinna respond. Tricks plopped onto his belly by Ash’s boot, his rangy body taking up most of the hallway, and began licking the dampness from his front legs.

“Impressive dog,” the man said as he folded the penknife. “Is he as dangerous as he looks?”

“Not to me.”

The sheriff nodded and slipped the penknife into his pocket. Bending down, he let Tricks sniff his open hand, then gently stroked the knobby head.

Ash was surprised. Like most of his breed, Tricks was standoffish
with strangers. By accepting the sheriff so readily, it only confirmed Ash’s assessment of the man. A reasonable fellow who wore his position well.

The sheriff straightened. “See that table in the back corner?” He pointed across the hall to the open door that led into the dining room. “The one with the ladies?”

Ash followed his direction and saw the blond woman seated with a dark-skinned woman and a pregnant sandy-haired woman. All three were staring their way. And frowning. “Aye, I see them.”

“The blond is Lucinda Hathaway,” the sheriff explained in a friendly tone. “Owns the hotel. Yankee. Smart. Carries a pepperbox pistol. Far as I know, she hasn’t killed anyone with it. The dark-skinned woman is Prudence Lincoln. She lives at the school the ladies set up for ex-slaves and anyone else who wants to come learn. Whether she likes it or not, she’s under the protection of a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. Ever heard of them?”

Ash had. He’d never seen one, but he’d heard of their legendary fierceness in battle and admired them for it. He was Scottish, after all. But right now he was less curious about Indians than why the sheriff was telling him all this.

“Now that blue-eyed beauty,” the man went on, his voice softening as he looked at the sandy-haired woman. “She’s Edwina Brodie. She might fool some with her southern charm, but she’s pretty handy with a shovel and once even faced down a mountain lion with a bucket of salad greens. And if that’s not enough to give a man pause…” Swinging his gaze back to Ash, he gave him a hard look. “There’s me.”

Ash heard the challenge but gave no reaction. “And who are you?”

The sheriff touched the tips of two fingers to the brim of his hat. “Declan Brodie. I’m temporary sheriff here at Heartbreak Creek. And her husband.”

The warning was clear, although Ash had no idea why Sheriff Brodie had issued it. Maddie Wallace was the woman he had come to see, not these females. “Why temporary?” he asked.

“Because I’m a rancher,” Brodie explained, which explained nothing. “As you can see,” he went on, glancing back toward the women, “the ladies are upset. It’s not good when they get upset.”

“Which of us is in trouble?” Ash asked, although he had a fair idea.

Brodie flashed white teeth in a crooked grin that changed his austere face to one that women might find handsome. “Hell, I’ve got four kids and a pregnant wife. I’m always in trouble. But this time, it’s you.”

“What have I done?”

“That depends.” No longer smiling, the sheriff stepped toward Ash.

Immediately Tricks rose.

The sheriff paused, looked from the dog to Ash, but came no closer. He showed no menace, yet Ash sensed an unbendable resolve within the man. He respected that, since it was a trait they had in common.

“Why are you looking for Maddie?” Brodie asked again.

That was the second time the sheriff had casually used the shortened version of Madeline’s name. Ash dinna like the sound of it on another man’s tongue. “As I told the Hathaway woman, I have news of her family,” he said stiffly. “Is she here?”

Brodie remained silent. Ash suspected he was being assessed by the lawman, and although he dinna like it, he withstood it without showing his growing irritation.

The women continued to watch them and whisper quietly amongst themselves. Ash could feel the censure in their eyes and wondered what he’d done to cause it.

“She’s off making pictures,” the sheriff finally said. “Should be back in a week or so, then she’ll be leaving again for the big meeting up in Denver.”

“Meeting about what?”

“Political thing. Statehood. Delegates are coming from all over the territory. Promises to be quite a gathering.”

“She’s a delegate?” That surprised him. Despite her father’s
leanings, she had showed no interest in politics before. But then, that she was here instead of Scotland where she belonged showed how little he knew her.

“No, I am. Part of the job. Or so I’ve been told.”

Ash heard the disgust in the man’s voice and guessed the sheriff wasna excited about the trip. But he’d heard enough to know this was the woman he sought, and his natural impatience caused him to speak more sharply than he intended. “I canna wait another week. Where is she now?”

The sheriff reared his head back and subjected Ash to another lengthy assessment.

Ash was weary of it. “It’s important that I speak to her.”

“You’ll not hurt her?”

“I dinna hurt women.”

After more scrutiny, the sheriff sighed, as if he’d come to a decision he might later regret. “She headed up to the Alamosa a month ago.”

“The Alamosa?”

“Alamosa River. Things are hopping up there since the strikes.”

Brodie must have seen Ash’s confusion. “Gold strikes,” he clarified. “Miners are pouring in from all over. She wanted to document it. Photograph it. She’s a photographer. Didn’t you know that?”

Of course Ash knew. It was through her photographs that he had tracked her this far. But he thought the woman had more sense than to go haring off to a place as dangerous as a wide-open mining town. “She dinna go alone, did she?”

“She’s got Wall-eyed Willy with her, not that he’d be much protection.”

Bluidy hell.

“You going after her?”

“Aye. I’m going after her.” After tracking the lass from Scotland to England to Boston, then halfway across America, Ash wasna about to lose her in some western mining town.
Daft woman
. But first, he had to send word to his banker in Boston, telling him to let
his family know where he was and that he’d found her. “Is there a telegraph office in town?”

NEAR BRECKENRIDGE, COLORADO TERRITORY

Sixty miles away, in an abandoned mining shack not far from the Blue River, loud voices cut through the night.

“You moron!” Cletus Cochran caught his brother, Silas, on the side of his head with a backhand that sent the younger, smaller man flying. “You idiot! I told you to watch him, not kill him!”

“I didn’t mean to, Clete, I swear.” Si cowered, one hand pressed to his cheek, the other raised to ward off another blow. “But he got loose and was about to get away, and when I tried to stop him, he started hollering and hitting me and I was afraid—”

“So you cut his damn throat?” Clete’s kick sent Si hard against the wall. Dust and dirt rained down from the sod roof, momentarily dimming the pale lantern light and making him cough.

Si cried out, sliding down the rough planks and rolling into a ball. “It was an accident, Clete! I didn’t mean to. The knife just slipped. I swear.”

Clete kicked him one more time because he could, then turned and studied the dead body sprawled on the dirt floor. There was blood everywhere, on the log walls, on his brother, even on the pale, thin roots hanging down through the beams overhead. Si must have cut an artery. The place smelled like a goddamn slaughterhouse. “Did he tell you anything?”

Eyeing his older brother, Si pushed himself into a sitting position. “No, Clete. Mostly he just yelled.”

“You freak. I should have killed you the day you were born.”

“Ma wouldn’t let you. That’s what you said.”

“I should have killed her, too, just for birthing you.”

Suddenly remembering, Si reached into his pocket. Pulling out a small leather pouch, he offered it to his brother. “Look, Clete. I found it in his pack. I think it’s gold.”

Clete snatched the pouch from Si’s hand and opened it. Nuggets. All sizes. Sharp edged, not rounded and smooth like the placer gold men were digging out of the Blue River north of town. There was even a strip of rope gold. He held it toward the lamp. “This here’s from a vein, Si. Proof the bastard struck big. I knew it.”

Si grinned and nodded vigorously. “You were right, Clete. You were always the smart one. Everybody says.”

“Shut up.” Clete dropped the gold back into the pouch and shoved it into his pocket. His brief triumph gave way to unreasoning fury when he realized that with the man dead they would never know the location of the strike. He wanted to hit something, kick his brother until bones snapped. Kill him. “Now we’ll never find the claim, you moron, because you killed him. I ought to kill you, too, and get it over with. Where’s that knife?”

“No, Clete, wait! There’s something else.” Si scrabbled over to the dead man’s pack. He dug for a moment, then pulled out the cards and papers and offered them to his brother. “Look, Clete. Pictures. Pretty pictures. And papers with writing on them.”

“Idiot!” Clete kicked Si’s hand and sent the cards and papers flying. “I don’t care about damn pictures. I want to know where the strike is.”

“He didn’t say, Clete, I swear it.”

“Quit blubbering, you whiny bastard. I can’t take it anymore.” He made a show of looking around. “Where’s the knife?”

“No, Clete! I’ll stop!”

“Stupid, crying moron.” Clete paced, his hands opening and closing at his sides, his mind still fogged with rage. Why didn’t anything ever go right? All they needed was for the man to tell them where he’d found the gold, but his idiot brother couldn’t even do that right.

“Just watch him,” Clete had instructed his brother. Then he comes back to find the man dead and Si blubbering about pictures.
Son of a bitch!
Now how would they find the claim?
Damn him.

He paced a few more loops, then stopped before Si. “Give me the pack. Maybe there’s something in there that’ll at least tell us who he is.”

All he found of interest were some letters from an Aaron Zucker in Pennsylvania addressed to Ephraim Zucker of Breckenridge. Brothers? Clete studied the dead man’s battered face. He looked like an Ephraim. Small and skinny like Si, but twenty years older. Late thirties.

A plan formed. Clete played with it, studying it from all angles.

Assuming the dead guy was Ephraim Zucker, and if Clete posed as his brother Aaron, from Pennsylvania, he could ask around and maybe retrace Ephraim’s trail back to where he’d found the gold.

Might work. Might not.

Hell, it was their only shot.

He tossed the pack to his brother. “Bury this. And him. Deep. And don’t you botch this up, Si, or by God, I’ll gut you. You understand?”

“Yes, Clete. I’ll do it. You can count on me.”

“Yeah, right. Moron.” He started for the door.

“Where you going, Clete? You’re not leaving me, are you?”

Clete heard the fear in the whiny voice and knew his brother was about to start wailing again. He gritted his teeth. If he hadn’t promised Ma he’d look after the pathetic little freak, he would have shoved him in a river when he was born seventeen years ago. He might anyway, once this was over. A man can’t spend his whole life wiping up his idiot brother’s snot.

“I’m going back to the saloon where we first saw him. See if anybody knows him. You bury him and the pack, then wash off all that blood and wait here. I’ll be back.”