Two Brides Too Many (5 page)

Stopping at Bennett Avenue, Nell looked both ways. “Which way did Hattie say to go at the corner?”

“Left.” While Kat stepped up onto the boardwalk, she looked down at her sister. “I’m not patient, Nell,” she said quietly. “I saw Patrick.”

“We don’t know that was him.” Nell joined her on the boardwalk, her blue eyes soft with compassion. “We have no proof—”

“No. I mean I talked to him last night.”

“You couldn’t have. I was with you, and then we were sleeping.”

Kat shook her head and stopped in front of the telegraph office.

“You snuck out?” Nell’s brow furrowed.

“To go to the saloon next to the Cash and Carry.”

“Kat!” Nell’s eyebrows shot up. “I can’t believe you’d do such a thing.” She shook her head. “All alone?”

“I had to see him.” Kat stepped to one side to let a couple pass. “I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t him we saw with that woman,” she said, trying to figure out a way to make her sister understand. “And I knew I couldn’t marry him if it was.”

“You found him there?”

Kat frowned, nodding. “With a woman on each side.”

“Oh, Kat.” Nell let out a breath. “I’m so sorry. What did you say to him?”

“I was too busy pouring a vase full of flowers down his front to say much of anything.”

“You didn’t!”

Kat demonstrated her action, and they both giggled.

“I can’t marry the man,” she said.

“Of course you can’t!”

“But what’ll we do? The money Father gave us isn’t going to last long.”

“I don’t know.” Nell straightened her shoulders and turned toward the door of the telegraph office. “But let’s start by finding out if the telegram I sent to Judson was delivered.”

A bell jingled when they stepped into the small office, and a tall man holding a half-spent cigar rose from his chair behind a desk.
“Ladies, how may I help you?” His raspy voice made it sound as if he’d been smoking most all his life.

“Good day, sir.” Nell dipped her chin. “My sister and I have come to send a telegram, but first I’d like to check on the arrival of one I sent from Maine last week.”

Setting his cigar in an ashtray on a desk, the man pulled a ledger out of a drawer and walked toward the counter between them. “Last week, you say?”

“Yes sir. Mon—” Kat caught herself speaking ahead of Nell and looked over at her sister, who gave her a crooked but gracious smile.

“Last Monday to a Mr. Judson Archer at the Mary McKinney Mine.” Nell’s voice still sounded dreamy when she said his name.

The man pulled spectacles out of his vest pocket and then flipped pages in his ledger. “Ah. Here it is.” He scanned a page. “I received it Monday afternoon, and my boy delivered it that same day to the mine. Bucky Holt signed for it. He’s the paymaster out there.”

Nell looked at Kat, brows raised. “But that doesn’t mean it got to him. We don’t know if Judson read my telegram.”

“Ma’am, the paymaster told my boy he’d see that Mr. Archer got it. That’s as good as I can do. Only Holt knows what happened after that.”

“Yes, thank you.”

The man closed his ledger and picked up his cigar.

Kat reached into her pocket for the note she and Nell had composed. “We’d like to wire Miss Alma Shindlebower in Maine.” As Kat spoke the name, she couldn’t help but wonder if she herself would end up a spinster like Aunt Alma.

“Of course.” He returned his cigar to the tray and crossed the room to the telegraph machine. “Whenever you’re ready.”

A shot rang out before Kat finished repeating her aunt’s name for him. Another shot followed, and then a third in rapid succession.

“Fire!” The man scurried toward the counter that stood between him and the sisters. “It’s another fire!” He pulled buckets out from behind the cabinet, clanging them together, and then held two buckets out to each of the sisters.

Kat stuffed the note into her cape pocket, unsure of what he expected them to do with the containers.

“Don’t just stand there.” The man shoved the pails at them. “There’s work to be done. We nearly lost our town Saturday. We have to save it now.”

“Us?” Nell looked as if she’d just swallowed a mouse.

“We don’t have any idea how to fight a fire.” Kat reluctantly took the buckets from his outstretched hand.

He dashed to the door and threw it open, looking to the right. “Myers Avenue again. Looks like the Portland Hotel. Women work the bucket brigade.” Two nuns in full habit ran past them down the street, carrying empty buckets. “Follow the sisters up to the reservoir. Go!” He gestured for them to head out the door. “I gotta get my stuff out of here.”

“Come on, Nell,” Kat said, craning her neck to see up the street. “This is our home now. We have to help save it.” Kat walked out the door, and Nell followed. Smoke billowed from the hotel several blocks away. Wagons and carts jammed the street, and throngs of people rushed out of nearby businesses, shouting and carrying goods. Kat
rushed up the road with Nell at her side, trying to keep the nuns in her line of sight.

Nell pointed as the sisters and a crowd of women and children turned north at Hayden and scrambled up the hill.

Kat and Nell had climbed a block or two past Golden Avenue, Hattie’s street, when Kat began to feel the effect of the high elevation. Her chest began to ache, and she stopped at the side of the road to try to catch her breath.

“I wasn’t prepared for climbing these hills.” Nell’s words came out in huffs and puffs, and she set her pails down and placed her hands on her knees. “Especially at that pace.”

Kat moistened her lips. She’d heard about fires in Portland, even seen evidence of them, but never been involved like this. She’d never seen anything like this before.

“You all right?” Nell’s voice had evened out some, but she still gasped a bit.

“I am if you are.” She tried to sound brave.

Lord, please help us be all right. Please help these townspeople
.

Nell nodded, lifting her buckets from the ground, and they resumed their trek to the top of the hill. Clusters of women were gathered around the reservoir. It looked more like a pond to Kat. The older nun, sprigs of white hair sticking out from her headpiece, helped fill buckets and pots, while the younger nun dashed over to a woman with a squalling baby.

Kat dipped her buckets into the cold water and pulled them up. After Nell did the same, they ran to join the women and older children, who had formed a line down the hill. Below them, red-orange flames flicked up through a heavy cloud of smoke. A deep roar echoed
all around them. When they reached the business district, flames hissed and explosions shook the air. Kat’s breath caught as buildings groaned and surrendered to ravenous flames. The putrid stench of burning rugs and horsehair mattresses clogged her nostrils, and she coughed.

Joining the end of the line, the sisters began passing buckets of sloshing water down the hill. Dynamite blasts weakened Kat’s knees. Shouts and pleas directed folks who fluttered about like sparrows in a gale. Some wheeled baby buggies and wheelbarrows full of ammunition boxes and clothing out of burning buildings. Two men carried barber chairs that were still attached to broken floorboards.

The younger nun rushed over to the line, her face pinched. “I need a woman to come with me.”

“I’ll go with you.” Nell stepped forward.

“Leave your buckets,” the nun called, already running back up the hill.

Nell set her buckets on the ground and gave Kat a quick hug. “I’ll meet up with you at Hattie’s.”

“Take care,” Kat called as she watched Nell disappear into the crowd. Kat stood only three blocks from the hotel where the fire had started, passing buckets in the line along Bennett Avenue. A low, hollow boom behind her made her jump.

“The Portland’s roof done caved in.” Random shouts and screams drifted in the air, along with the smoke and ash. Embers took flight, falling silently on surrounding businesses and on the houses that dotted the slopes. Several blasts followed soon after. Now horses and burros ran wild in the streets. Moving with an almost intelligent fury, the fire raged.

Kat glanced around, wishing she’d gone with Nell, praying her
sister was all right. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a little girl running up the street. She was headed directly for a burning building.

Kat’s temples pounded out a wild rhythm with her heartbeat. Shaking herself out of a daze, she dropped her buckets and raced after the girl. “Stop!” she cried. “Stop!”

“Mama!” The child stopped in the middle of the street, her eyes wide, staring at a wooden structure just down from Kat. Flames lapped at its second-story porches.

Kat had just reached the little girl when windows above them shattered. Kat encircled the girl with her arms and rolled to the middle of the road. They scrambled to their feet, and the little one backed away from Kat, her arms crossed.

“You not a Sunny girl. Where’s Mama?”

Kat reached for her, but the child swung her arms, hiding her hands behind her back.

“I want Mama!”

“I’ll help you find your mama, but we need to stay away from the fire.” Kat didn’t know how she would find the woman, but she couldn’t leave the child alone on the streets. “You need to stay with me until we find her. Will you do that?”

“You find Mama?” The girl’s face looked so hopeful, Kat didn’t know what else to do.

She nodded. “Yes.” Kat held her hands out to her.

“Rosita promise.” The little girl crossed her heart, staring up at Kat. “Now you.”

Kat crossed her heart, praying she could live up to her promise to find the child’s mother. She glanced around, hoping to see the woman dashing toward them. No one came. But if folks had had time to pull
boxes and beds and cases of whiskey out of buildings ahead of the fire, surely everyone had time to escape the buildings. Perhaps this girl’s mother was one of the women at the reservoir.

“Rosita, we need to get you up the hill, away from town,” Kat said, peering past the long line of women still passing buckets up the steep slope, toward the reservoir. The little girl reached for her, and Kat started to hoist Rosita to her waist, but as soon as she did, the child pushed away from her. “You bleeding.” She stared at Kat’s back.

Kat swiped at her left shoulder blade, and her fingers brushed against something hard. She tried to ignore the warm, sticky blood and felt something hard digging into her skin. She wrapped her hand around it, pulling out a piece of glass. She gasped and closed her eyes, then took a deep breath. She tried to get air into her lungs, but within seconds, she felt Rosita’s weight pressing into her skirt, and the girl slid to the ground. Kat’s ears roared, and then there was an unnatural hush.

And then…blackness.

S
IX

I
will do a new thing.… I will even make a way in the wilderness
.

Morgan had read the passage from Isaiah in his hotel room in Divide last night. And now as his coupé climbed up the slushy road to Cripple Creek, he had no doubts that a new chapter in his life had begun. Boston’s graded, sea-level roads had not prepared him for Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.

Two weeks ago, he’d been in line for the position of research scientist at the Medical Research Institute. Today, following his response to an advertisement in the
Boston Herald
, he was on his way to work with a Dr. Paul Hanson at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital in Cripple Creek. The hooves of his new horse created a muffled
clip-clop
on the slushy path before him. At this high elevation, the brisk wind was chilling even with the bright sunshine, and he pulled his derby down to meet the scarf at his ears.

Morgan watched an eagle soar against a craggy backdrop and prayed that he would soon be soaring above his past. For now, he was awed by the majestic mountains and regal rock formations of his new
home, and he was glad to be free of the bustling city streets of Boston and the political entanglements there. He would continue to look for the Lord’s way here in the West.

After traversing a couple more miles, his coupé peaked a hill, and Morgan stopped to stretch his legs. According to the map he’d studied, the vast valley he looked out across would be his new home. But smoke billowed to the southwest, right where he expected Cripple Creek to be.

A fire.

A fire meant injuries. Morgan climbed back up into the seat and grabbed the reins.

He’d made it halfway down the hill when his physician’s coupé reared back, dropping its bucket to the right. As the seat spring slammed against the wood frame, Morgan pulled up on the reins. His horse jerked to a stop. The axle ground against rock, and he twisted and watched a wheel careen down the hill past him. It rolled about twenty feet, then flopped onto the ground.

His heart still racing, Morgan jumped out and retrieved the wayward wheel. What was he thinking, leaving the comforts of Boston to head to parts unknown? Now what? Fixing this mess was a two-man job, and that was after he found the nut that had come off the hub.

“That was one wild ride there, mister.”

Morgan looked up into a face as rough hewn as the peaks behind him.