Colorado Dawn (32 page)

Abruptly Clete laughed and cuffed Si upside the head, almost knocking him off the rock he was sitting on.

“Maybe I’ll give you a turn on the woman, too, since you seemed so taken with her. Or better yet, sell you to the perverts at one of the vice palaces. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Si? Yeah, I can hear you blubbering now.”

Jefferson was a one-street village perched like a wart on a flat plain that was bordered by rolling hills sparsely covered with stunted, wind-bent pines. It looked like a town that wasn’t sure of its purpose—ranching, farming, timber, or mining. So it made halfhearted attempts to cater to each and ended up meeting the needs of none. Like Heartbreak Creek, it was a ghost town in the making.

But it did have a hotel that served meals and a barn at one end of town that boarded animals. Tricks was posted there to stand guard over the buggy and wagon, while Thomas, who preferred to sleep outside, made camp in the trees nearby. It took Ash several attempts to make the dog understand he was to stay, but the wolfhound finally accepted the separation from his master and settled in for the night.

An hour later, the travelers met in the dining room. Because there were now seven in their party—probably the biggest group the dining room had ever served—the hotel kept the kitchen open late to accommodate them. A tureen of stew with vegetables, fresh rolls, and a warm berry cobbler sat on the table awaiting them when they arrived.

“There’s no landslide at Kenosha Pass,” Declan said as he took his seat beside his wife. “Hasn’t been one in years.”

“So I guess we avoided an ambush.” Lucinda settled into the chair on the other side of Edwina. “But I still don’t know what that other Zucker wants.”

“Or who he is,” Maddie added.

They had the room to themselves and so dinna have to worry
about eavesdroppers when the reverend repeated all he’d told Thomas and Prudence Lincoln at the sheriff’s house on Elderberry Creek.

“I knew he was evil the minute I saw him last night,” Edwina pronounced as she ladled stew into bowls and passed them around. “You can always tell. It’s in the eyes. And his were different colors, at that. That man was as ugly as homemade sin.”

No one argued the point. So the discussion moved on to speculation about what might be the purpose of such a ruse.

Declan Brodie remained silent throughout, and Ash guessed the sheriff had reached the same conclusions he had. “The only way he would know enough to pose as you, Reverend Zucker,” Ash said during a lull in the speculations, “is if your brother told him about you.”

Maddie shook her head. “I don’t think he knew more about the reverend than his name. He wasn’t dressed for the part, and when I mentioned the letter you sent me, sir, and that you were meeting Ephraim in Omaha, he seemed surprised.”

“Perhaps he intercepted a missive from you to your brother,” Edwina suggested. “If so, that would give him your name and that you were from Pennsylvania.”

“But that wouldn’t explain how he came into possession of the third copy of the photograph,” Maddie argued. “Unless your brother gave it to him.”

“Not willingly.” Lucinda looked around at the doubting faces. “Think about it. If Ephraim told him about the reverend and gave him the photograph, why didn’t he also reveal the whereabouts of the mine?”

“Maybe he did,” Edwina said.

“Then why is he still harassing Maddie about its location?”

No one had an answer to that.

“So the only things we know for certain at this point,” Brodie said between bites of biscuit, “is that Ephraim Zucker is missing, and the man impersonating the reverend doesn’t know the location of the mine.”

“Perhaps the claim was never registered,” Edwina suggested. “And the imposter is trying to find it so he can file before Ephraim can.”

The reverend shook his head. “No, he registered it. In his last letter, he said the paperwork was already on its way to Denver.”

“Then your brother should have a copy of it,” Brodie pointed out. “That way, if this imposter tries to jump the claim, your brother can prove he staked it first.”

The reverend sighed. “I don’t know where the papers are. I don’t even know where my brother is.”

Or if he’s still alive,
Ash thought, exchanging a look with the sheriff.

“Then how can we help the reverend and make sure this imposter quits harassing Maddie?” Edwina looked at Maddie, her blue eyes bright with worry. “It’s all so unfair.”

Ash reached over and put his hand over his wife’s. It felt cold and small under his. “He’ll not get near my lass,” he said flatly. “Tricks and I will make sure of it.”

Maddie rewarded him with a grateful smile. “I don’t doubt it.”

Brodie pushed his empty plate aside. “And meanwhile, we can check with the mining office in Denver. See if a claim has been registered to Ephraim Zucker. Then go from there.”

Maddie smiled apologetically at the reverend. “I’m so sorry I can’t remember where I took that photograph, Reverend. I took so many over the last two years.”

“I understand, Mrs. Wallace. It was rather a long shot, I’m afraid.”

“I will find this claim,” a deep voice cut in. Everyone turned to stare at Thomas. Those were the first words he had spoken throughout the meal.

“How?” Brodie asked.

The Cheyenne took another bite of stew, chewed for a moment, then said, “I know where it is.”

The reverend almost hopped to his feet. “You’ve been to my brother’s cabin?”

“When I was there, there was no cabin. But the peak behind it is known among the People. Faces the Dawn, it is called.”

The reverend’s round face split into a hopeful smile. He grabbed Thomas’s arm. “Can you take me there? Please?”

Thomas stopped chewing. He frowned down at the hand gripping his arm.

The reverend hastily took it away.

Thomas resumed chewing. “Yes, I can take you there. But first, I must take these people to Denver. They have been gone only two moons and already they are in trouble.” He sighed and shook his head. “White people.”

Denver was a bustling place. Situated at the confluence of the South Platte River and Cherry Creek, it sprawled across a high plateau, surrounded by distant snowcapped mountains. It was mostly a mining community, which was reflected in the vast number of establishments that catered to lonely prospectors who had more gold dust than sense.

After various name changes, the town had finally settled on Denver when it had become the territorial capitol three years past. And this year, with the completion in June of the Denver Pacific line from Cheyenne and the last spike of the Kansas Pacific being driven at Strasburg, it was a town ready to bloom.

Except for those pesky statehood issues.

“It’s been going on for over a decade,” Lucinda complained to Maddie and Edwina later as she deftly turned the buggy in behind Declan and Ash as they headed back out of the business district. The reverend followed in Maddie’s wagon, and Thomas brought up the rear. “It’s been a mess.”

They had planned on staying at one of the downtown hotels, but when their husbands saw the desperadoes and drunken miners staggering in and out of the saloons, and the painted women hanging out of the windows calling to passersby, they decided it wasn’t a
safe place for their wives. Now they were all headed back to the less commercial area they had ridden through earlier.

“First, the residents voted against statehood,” Lucinda continued, “because they didn’t want to have to pay to operate a state government, then—what are you doing?”

Edwina, seated between Lucinda and Maddie, had leaned forward as far as her stomach would allow. “Look at that hussy!” She glared at a scantily clad woman on the balcony of a glitter palace. “She’s waving at my husband. The nerve!”

“He’s not waving back, is he?” Lucinda pointed out.

“He looked.”

“So did you.”

“Isn’t this marvelous?” Maddie dipped her head to peer beneath the buggy’s roof struts at a grizzled old man kissing a mule smack on the lips. “I could take photographs here for a month.”

With a snort, Edwina squeezed back into her place on the crowded buggy seat, her arms crossed over her bulging midriff. “Lucky for him he didn’t wave back, that’s all I can say.”

“Why would he, when he has you?” Maddie peered through the open doors of a saloon, then jerked back. “Oh my. Did you know they have paintings of naked women in there?”

“That’s disgusting. Declan better not be thinking of going into one of those places.”

“Then five years ago,” Lucinda continued, “the residents finally approved statehood and petitioned Congress. But because of an alleged voting scandal or some such, President Johnson vetoed it. Twice. Can you credit that? Sometimes I think Booth should have shot him instead of Lincoln. But now that Grant is president, and if we can get Teller and Evans and Chaffee to quit squabbling long enough to agree on who is to be the second senator, we might pass the vote this time around.”

“Are we almost there?” Edwina muttered. “I really could use the necessary.”

“Again?”

“I can’t help it, Luce. If you haven’t noticed I have a giant Declan-sized baby bouncing around on my inner parts. It’s a wonder I can function at all.”

“Oh, you’re functioning just fine,” Lucinda said drily. “In fact, you’ve functioned three times in the last two hours.”

“You’re counting? I cannot believe you would count the—”

“They’ve stopped.” Maddie pointed ahead to where Declan and Ash had reined in before a slightly worn but respectable-looking two-storied house bearing a sign in the yard that read, M
RS.
K
EMBLE’S
B
OARDING
H
OUSE FOR
P
ERSONS OF
Q
UALITY
.

“That doesn’t look so bad,” Edwina said. “Do you think they have an indoor facility?”

After the men conferred for a moment, Declan swung down, wrapped his horse’s reins around a hitching post by the street, and walked up the stone path.

“I do wish he would hurry,” Edwina muttered, tapping her foot on the floor of the buggy in the exact tempo of the painful throb bouncing between Maddie’s temples. “Sometimes he can be as slow as molasses.”

A few minutes later, Declan came back out, pointed Ash and Tricks around the side of the house, then walked toward the buggy.

“They have rooms for everyone but Thomas, who wouldn’t stay inside, anyway, and a stable for the horses. Follow Ash around back. We’ll unload there.”

Though by no means elegant, Mrs. Kemble’s boardinghouse was clean and the rooms were spacious and adequately furnished. Edwina was delighted to find a water closet at the end of the upstairs hall by their bedrooms, and Maddie was just as pleased to find a roomy washroom with a deep tub on the ground floor. It had been a long four days.

Once they had unloaded the wagon and buggy, Declan left Edwina napping in their room and rode back into town with Reverend Zucker to find out where the delegates would be meeting and where the claims office was located. While Maddie and Lucinda made use of the washroom, Ash and Thomas took care of the weary horses
and Maddie’s mules, rubbing them down with burlap, checking their hooves for stones and cracks, and applying salve to any cuts or rubbed spots left by the rigging.

Ash was trying to comb the tangles out of Lurch’s tail when Thomas, working on his own mount beside Lurch in the narrow aisleway of the stable, finally broke the long silence.

“Your horse does not hear.”

Working a twig free, Ash tossed it aside and started on another knot. “He was injured in an explosion.”

“Yet you did not put him down.”

“No.”

“Why?”

Ash straightened, one hand resting on Lurch’s croup. “He’s a good horse.”

“He is old.”

“He does well enough.”

“He is still old.”

Ash knew that. He had inherited Lurch from a fellow cavalryman who had died of malaria in India. Rather than leave the horse behind, Ash had brought him back to England. That was over a decade ago, and they’d been together ever since. In fact, they’d been together longer than many of the men Ash had served with. They trusted each other. Depended on each other. And after suffering his own debilitating injury, Ash wouldn’t do to this fine horse what had been done to him. Lurch wouldn’t want to live a useless life. “He’s a good horse,” Ash said again and went back to combing.

“You brought him with you from that place you call home?” Thomas asked after a moment.

“Scotland. Aye.” He gave Lurch’s arse an affectionate pat. “He’s been to India, Ireland, England, and halfway across this vast country. A well-traveled lad, so he is.”

“I do not know those other places. Are they far?”

“Aye. Across oceans and seas and mountains as tall as these.”

Resting an arm across his spotted pony’s back, Thomas stared past Ash at the distant peaks framed by the open stable doors.
“Prudence Lincoln has told me of the big lakes the whites call oceans. But I have never seen one.”

Ash chuckled. “I had my head in a bucket for most of the crossing, so I dinna see much of it, either.” Seeing Thomas’s questioning look, he made a face and rubbed his stomach.

“Ho.” Thomas nodded in understanding. “Like Declan Brodie after I gave him
mataho—
peyote.”

Ash had heard of the vision-inducing cactus buttons but had never tried any. He was glad he hadn’t if it could bring down a man Brodie’s size. He grinned, picturing it as he stroked the curry comb down Lurch’s flank. “How did you and the sheriff become friends?”

“He saved my life.” Thomas said no more for a while, then added, “And I saved his.”

“A poor trade.”

Thomas scowled at him over his horse’s back. “Because I am not white?”

“Because he’s a terrible shot and useless in a tussle. You’re better.”

Thomas’s lips twitched. “He can fight when he must. But that is not his way. You like to fight.”

“I dinna mind.” Ash hung the curry comb on a nail protruding from an upright post. “A friendly wrestle now and then eases tension and clears the mind. We often had regimental matches.”