Lake of Fire (46 page)

Finally, she struggled and found footing. With Laura hanging on, a drag on the saddle, she staggered out of the river.

Laura let go and landed on her feet. With no time to waste, she remounted and rode in the direction of the shots.

Dripping wet, she should be freezing. She should be thinking about what she’d do if whoever had a gun decided to take a bead on her.

She pressed on.

Ahead, suddenly, there was light. A valley, covered in lush grass opened up between the lake and the forest, stretching to the east. A stream meandered across its floor.

And a cavalryman on foot led a horse with a man’s body slung across its back.

Laura recognized the soldier. “Sergeant Nevers! That is, Larry.”

Was that Cord?

“Miss Fielding.” He doffed his cap. “… Laura. What are you doing out here?” He looked with disbelief at her soaking clothes; even her hair was wet.

“I …” She could say she was taking a ride, but who would ford the Yellowstone for sport? “I … heard shots.”

Her heart raced while she waited to know.

Larry gave her a steady look. “You were afraid the posse had shot Sutton.” His tone said he knew about her and Cord.

“He’s not … ?” She stared at the man’s motionless legs, not long enough to be Cord’s, she saw that now, ashamed to be so relieved. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

Laura brought White Bird closer and took in the brown suit, matted brown hair, and pale forehead. “That’s Edgar Young, Cord’s banker.”

“Looks like there was a knife fight and someone dumped him in the river.” Something in Larry’s face changed.

“Will he be all right?”

“He’s breathing.”

She looked at the motionless form. A person in this condition often never woke, or if they did, they were changed in some monstrous way. If that were true of Edgar, he might not ever be able to tell what happened.

“I saw you this morning,” she told Larry. “Riding out with Feddors.”

“The rest of them have gone on. I stopped to take care of … Edgar.”

Laura focused on Larry’s eyes, enormous behind his spectacles. “Cord is a good man. He couldn’t have burned Hank’s boat, and he would never have fought Edgar.”

“I’d like to think that’s true.”

As soon as Larry headed toward the infirmary with Edgar, Laura surveyed the valley and the mountains. She saw no one.

Now that the rush of fording the river had passed, she began to shiver. But there was no time to build a fire and dry her clothes as she and Cord had done after their dunking in the Snake. Had there been, she had no matches. Her sack lunch had gone down the Yellowstone; all she had left was a full canteen.

This was crazy. She had to turn back.

But there, on the other side of the valley, barely visible above a rocky cliff, she believed she spied the head of a black horse.

Laura stood up in the stirrups and waved both arms.

The figure of a man appeared on the bluff. He wore the blue of Cord’s denims and cotton shirt. For a moment, he stood without moving.

Then he ducked out of sight.

This was the sheerest folly, waiting for Laura when he was hunted by a man who wanted nothing more than to kill him outright.

After evading the posse in the forest, Cord had reined Dante in on a promontory, where he would have sworn his Nez Perce uncle, Bitter Waters, had rested his tired horse back in 1877. Pelican Valley lay behind in the flats, rocky slopes ahead. Here, the tribe had surveyed the valley, looking back for signs that the Bluecoats were still in pursuit.

Thankfully, the posse had made a turn to the southeast and headed up Bear Creek, clearly understanding Cord would have gone that way to get out of the park as soon as possible.

If Laura got here soon, they might thread the needle through Mist Creek Pass and come out into the Lamar Valley ahead of Feddors and his men. He would follow the route he remembered traversing when Cappy Parsons had taken him to find women and dairy cows.

Laura and White Bird reached the upper end of the grassy valley. The day had heated up; flies buzzed around the bloody marks on Laura’s skin where a few bold mosquitoes had braved midday for a feast.

Though it would be only a little way up through the forest to where she’d seen Cord, Laura had to rest the mare before the climb. The stout girl was a work-horse,
but the treacherous footing in the wetlands had winded her. Thankfully, there’d been abundant fresh water and the horse had drunk her fill.

She loosed the reins and let the mare crop sweet grass, for once they got into the pine forest there would be nothing for her.

A look around the valley floor confirmed no sign of Feddors and his men. If this were a case of vigilante justice, and she prayed it was unfounded …

Yet, Cord had left her bed, either before the fire broke out or afterward. There had been doubt in Larry Nevers’s eyes when he spoke of someone dumping Edgar in the river.

A flash of the night she and Cord had spent together in the stable came back. “I hate that I’m in the middle, neither white nor red … I loathe that supercilious captain who marked me the moment he saw me and won’t let it drop. And I hate myself.”

How far would a man go if he hated himself and so many others?

Pushing aside her doubts, she urged White Bird forward. Would Cord have waited or had his ducking out of sight meant he was long on his way?

To her relief, he came to her on foot. His eyes were bloodshot, his hat and clothing dusty from fast riding. “Are you all right?”

She nodded.

He reached to help her down, his hands at her waist. “What are you doing out here?” He took in her ruined silk. Though dry, it bore the shriveled look of having
been through a clothes wringer without ironing.

“Looking for you. Feddors has made up a posse …”

“I’ve already been shot at, thanks.” He gestured bitterly toward Dante.

Laura sucked in her breath at the raw red scar across the side of the stallion’s neck. Though no blood ran, the furrow was at least a half-inch deep and crawling with flies Dante kept tossing his head to avoid.

“I heard the shots.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact. “That’s when I had White Bird swim the river.”

“You might have been coming to view my body.”

Laura took a steadying breath. “Dead or alive, I was going to find you.”

For a moment, they looked at each other, last night and the night before swimming to the surface of consciousness. They had to get through to his ranch, and she was ready for whatever it took.

Somewhere along the way, she’d lost the mind-numbing terror that had marked her first encounter with a raging river, the screaming rush when the grizzly had attacked at the brink of Lewis Canyon. There were more important enemies.

“I saw Danny this morning, riding around the hotel on his palomino, bold as brass since the soldiers were out after you.”

“This gets better and better. I suppose you believe I burned Hank’s boat.”

She hadn’t been certain, but faced with Cord’s injured expression, she did know. If she hadn’t believed in him, she wouldn’t have swum the Yellowstone.

L
arry Nevers stood guard outside the Lake Infirmary. With one shooting victim inside, and Edgar Young another victim of foul play, he took up his post as naturally as breathing.

Not long after Edgar was brought in, Manfred Resnick showed up, his hands and clothing sooty from examining the wreck of the
Alexandra
. “Definitely arson,” he reported. “Somebody went on deck and splashed around a load of kerosene, then must have overturned a lantern.”

“Somebody?”

Without answering, Resnick went into the infirmary. Though Larry had no backup watch outside, he went in, also. From the start, he’d felt something about blaming Cord Sutton wasn’t right. Talking with Laura had cemented it.

Dr. Upshur stood guard in his own way, putting up a hand to stay anyone who would enter the room
he had Edgar in. “He’s in grave condition and I won’t have him …”

He was talking to Resnick’s back, for the Pinkerton man pushed past and went to Edgar’s bedside. “A man in grave condition needs to unburden himself of who harmed him,” Resnick said over his shoulder.

Larry thought the words “before it’s too late,” hung on the air.

Resnick peered with his one good eye at the unconscious man. Wasting no time, he dug his thumbnail deeply into the nail bed of Edgar’s index finger.

The hand jerked back.

Resnick grabbed it and repeated the maneuver on another finger, and another.

The third time, Edgar groaned.

The fourth, he rolled his head on the pillow and his eyelids fluttered.

“Edgar!” Resnick called.

“Uhhhhh …”

“Who hurt you, Edgar?”

His eyes blinked, unfocused.

“Edgar?”

His head lolled back.

“Cord Sutton? Was it him?”

Edgar’s eyes closed.

“Not Cord?” Larry hoped.

Resnick was no longer hurting him, but holding his hand in a supportive grip.

Edgar lay still and silent, breathing evenly as he had before.

Before Resnick could try anything else to awaken him, Dr. Upshur tapped his shoulder. “I must insist.”

Larry followed the Pinkerton man outside. Though he was supposed to take charge, he deferred to him. “What do you think?”

“Sutton fought with Falls last night, but that was apparently over Laura Fielding.” Resnick stroked his chin. “And while he might have gone back to finish the job, she says they were together when the boat went up.” He pulled out his tiny pad and pencil. “I haven’t had a chance to question her about the business of her father’s shooting, but I’m certain she’ll back him.”

Recalling a conversation he’d overheard between Resnick and Feddors, Larry asked, “Do you think she’s lying this time?”

Resnick shook his head. “If she had any inkling a man had shot her father, she’d have gone straight to the authorities.”

“What about the outlaw?”

“I used the company resources to check. A Daniel Patrick Falls was born the same day, same town in Idaho, as Henry James Falls, who goes by ‘Hank.’“ Resnick made a note. “When Hank denied having a brother, that proved there was trouble between them.”

“Edgar was meeting Danny. Couldn’t he have hurt him, rather than Cord?”

After another scribbled notation, Resnick lifted his head. “Possible, even probable.”

“But they’re hunting Sutton.”