Lake of Fire (51 page)

Hours passed. Each time Cord shot to attract attention, there was a “discussion” between him and Laura. By the time the light was fading from the sky and they were facing their first night below ground, she finally agreed that, even captured, Cord stood a better chance than he did in this premature grave.

“It’s too bad we can’t burn some of the pine,” he said. “Get some smoke rising.”

“Why can’t we?”

“No matches.”

Laura reached to the bodice of her dress and drew out the small piece of obsidian he’d given her to hold in her mouth. “Can you use this as a flint?”

“Perhaps if I chipped it against my belt buckle.”

Laura moved to help him snap the dead pine into kindling.

With a fire laid, Cord removed his belt and turned
his attention to some thin slivers of bark. He knelt with his face close and chipped the glass against metal. Nothing happened.

The second time, there was a small spark.

Cord tried again; this time the spark flared to brief life on a fragment of bark and sputtered out.

He sat back on his heels to rest a moment.

Then he leaned down and starting chipping obsidian against metal rapidly, while blowing a light, but steady stream over his work. A few more flashes … a piece of bark flared and settled into a diminutive flame.

Laura sat against the wall and watched as the pile of pine caught. Smoke eddied and curled, then finally coiled up and out the hole.

Cord restrung his belt and sat beside her, but she could feel his restlessness. She tried to start a conversation about what they’d do when they got out of here; it fell flat. Finally, she leaned her head against his shoulder and let the fire’s hypnotic influence fascinate.

So beautiful and so deadly. It gave warmth and life … but did Cord see his parents’ cabin inside every flame? Would some part of her forever cringe back because of the dragon whose breath had almost seared them?

For good or ill, their little beacon did not last long. The pine snapped as the fire’s teeth devoured it, until nothing remained but orange, then crimson embers. Finally, she and Cord sat before a bed of cooling white ash.

What were the chances their signal had looked
any different from the smoke that was probably still rising from the remains of the forest?

The light faded, and the chill from the rocks began to be uncomfortable.

Cord pulled out his Colt again. “Last one.”

As Danny had fired one shot to attract the soldiers before, now the fifth and last bullet in the revolver exploded into twilight.

Sending up their final signal to the world on the surface seemed to take the heart out of Cord. Laura, seated on a relatively smooth patch of rock floor, gestured for him to join her.

When he moved slowly to sit beside her, she wished she could tell him it would be all right. But what were the chances the soldiers were still out there? Even if they were on the mountain, the sound of the Colt must be muffled from down here.

“We’ve done what we could,” he said, putting an arm around her and drawing her against his side.

Defeat came with exhaustion. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired.” The last hint of light was suddenly gone, and they were in total darkness.

“Must be cloudy tonight,” Cord observed, without interest.

She put her head against his chest and closed her lids to stop her eye muscles from straining. His heartbeat beneath her ear was strong and steady.

This floating feeling of unreality reminded her how she’d slept against his shoulder on horseback after the stagecoach attack, wrung out in the aftermath of terror.

This time, instead of sleeping, she sat awake while minutes and then hours ticked past. No sounds came from above, save the occasional crack and thud of a burned tree succumbing to the roving wind. Sparks of color played tricks on Laura both when her eyes were open and closed, but no torchlight appeared to brighten the blackness.

Once, as they waited for a dawn that seemed forever in coming, Cord’s lips brushed her hair, and she knew he was awake, as well.

“I love you,” she said.

“I knew I’d fallen for you,” he replied, “when I couldn’t bear to put you on Hank’s steamboat. I needed those last hours beside the lake before never seeing you again.”

How long did they have this time? He’d spent their last bullet …

She’d heard people could live for a number of days, maybe close to two weeks, without food. And they had the slush pile to drink from, however long it lasted.

All she wanted was go to sleep and hide there while death crept up on them both. If she went first, she’d have someone with her … but how could she leave Cord to set her lifeless body aside and curl up alone to die?

Tears sprang to her eyes. It wasn’t fair; having finally found each other, they should have their whole lives to look forward to.

Cord’s chest heaved; he was weeping, also. Mourning those sunrises and sunsets on his ranch,
giving up wondering what ancestors their children might resemble, saying good-bye to being a part of the human chain that linked each parent to immortality.

Knowing he loved her was the cruelest irony, when they had no hope.

C
onstance woke at dawn in the room she shared with her mother at the Lake Hotel. If she had once believed Cord was the man for her, she now saw the error of her ways. With him, there had always been a sense of something held back, while Norman embraced her with what felt like his soul.

Throwing back the covers, she got out of bed and went to the window. The lake was just beginning to reflect the palest gray from the eastern sky. Out there somewhere, Laura and Cord were being hunted, while she remained here doing nothing. It made her ashamed of the way she and Laura had fought since coming to Yellowstone. Sure, there had always been a tension between them, their spats and jealousies …

Most of the time, things had evened out. For every time Constance had been chosen to sing solo soprano in the choir, Laura had won the blue ribbon for jumping her horse over the tallest and widest obstacles. For
every prize Constance had won for her preserves and comfits at the Evanston Ladies’ Club, Laura had seen samples of her poetry and journaling printed in their monthly newsletter.

Whatever Cord had held back, things to do with his family … and later, to do with Laura … none of that mattered. As surely as Constance and Norman enjoyed the precisely pruned shrubs and formal garden of Como Park in St. Paul, Cord and Laura both belonged in the chaotic country of Yellowstone.

Constance stared out at the wilderness that had swallowed them and prayed Laura’s toughness would bring her through.

Deep down, she loved her as though they were sisters.

Norman Hagen left his room when sunrise silhouetted the Absarokas and turned the dark waters into a lake of fire. He’d planned to see this dawn on the train.

Walking down to the pier, he saw that sometime during the night, the remains of the
Alexandra
had sunk. Tough break for Hank; there’d been a deal of money in that boat, and Norman hated to see anyone’s investment turn sour.

Yesterday afternoon in the lobby, he’d come upon Hank still wearing his tattered clothing and drawing stares from arriving guests. Aware of the image the railroad wanted to project in their hotels, and, not incidentally,
feeling sorry for Hank, Norman offered him a shirt and trousers. They were about the same height, and though Norman was thicker in girth, Hank had been able to cinch up his belt. Someone must have taken pity on his sister earlier in the day, for she wore a lavender lace-trimmed dress instead of the violet robe Norman had seen her in during the fire.

Their lives had changed, as had his.

Today, he planned to ask Constance to marry him. And he intended to make sure Forrest Fielding understood that, despite the hotel deal falling through, Norman would use his influence to be sure the Northern Pacific threw some banking business Fielding’s way.

All night, Sergeant Nevers had kept his vigil guarding the infirmary and the two men who’d been attacked. At times, he wondered why he bothered, for there was a quality in the stillness around the hotel that said no one was abroad in the night.

Every half hour, he checked in at Edgar Young’s bedside, but by dawn the patient had not made any coherent sounds. He did moan occasionally, and Dr. Upshur had indicated that perhaps there was hope. As for the other patient, with the coming of morning, Larry heard Forrest Fielding demanding breakfast and a bath and reckoned he was much improved.

Larry decided to go over and check in by telephone with Headquarters. They could send over some
fellows from Norris Station to reinforce the reduced staff here.

He checked out with Dr. Upshur and left the infirmary. Though he started to take the most direct route, when he was near the hotel he stopped and looked toward a clump of brush not far from the wall.

Stepping out into the hotel drive, he gauged the distance to the thicker vegetation. He turned and looked down toward the pier where the
Alexandra
had been docked, again thinking distance. He picked up a chunk of gravel and, trying to mimic Feddors’s trajectory, pitched it.

It disappeared into the thicket, just as he’d watched Cord Sutton’s obsidian fly out of sight into darkness. Apparently, there was something special about the stone, at least to Laura Fielding, who had wanted it badly.

Larry headed for the scrub and started looking. It didn’t take long to find the distinctive piece of black glass, shiny side up and glinting in the morning sun.

Manfred Resnick had already dressed and was drinking coffee before a lively fire when the soldier station phone rang. He went behind the wooden desk, sat in the straight chair, and answered, identifying himself as being with Pinkerton’s.

The male voice over the wires sounded tinny. “This is Private Arden Groesbeck calling from Headquarters.”

“Yes.” Resnick recognized him as one of the members of the posse from Lake.

“There’s no danger at Lake,” Groesbeck said. “Last evening, Sutton was sighted up in the Absarokas, miles from there. He and the girl had abandoned their horses and set out on foot.”