Breathe: A Novel of Colorado (44 page)

But James would not convince her to turn down this opportunity. She would leave him. He was interesting, intriguing, and
fabulously wealthy, but no man would own her, manage her, control
her. She was talented, the director said. Fabulously talented, said
Jesse McCourt, the male lead.

She needed no man, really. As Nic had pointed out, she now
had her father's money. It would give her the start she needed.

Because this was just the beginning of what she wanted to do.

The mere beginning.

She attacked the rehearsal as if it were opening night, digging
deep for every low note, clawing toward every high one. She became
the heroine, Camille, imagining Odessa at her most dire hour in
every anguished move. She magnified the role, giving it life, even as
her character succumbed to death. She felt the power of it within her,
knew it was moving. Her excitement grew at the ease of it all, how it
flowed from her mouth, her steps, her eyes. She became Camille for
a period of time, so lost in the role was she, as if she had fallen asleep
and awakened to find herself another.

Instead of barking orders, the director was silent for the first
time in weeks, watching one scene after another unfold. The other
actors were equally quiet, each becoming more absorbed in their
own characters even as Moira fell more deeply into the well that was
Camille. By the end, two women near her were weeping, as was the
director.

The death scene wound to a close, each breath becoming more
difficult for "Camille." Moira thought of her mother, taking her
last breath, then considered her father, feeling his heart thud to a
stop as if it were now in her own chest. She became Odessa in the
sanatorium, once so pale, almost translucent, with such long pauses
between breaths that they thought they had lost her. She emulated
Odessa in those dark days, held her breath, took another sudden,
shaky breath, held it ... and then another ... and then stopped
breathing altogether.

The cast about her and the director paused, holding their breath,
waiting for her. The other actors completed their final lines, sniffing
and teary, and Moira could feel their eyes upon her, could feel the
tension in the room as if they were worried she had actually expired.
Finally, the last line had been spoken, but still she remained.

The stage was silent.

"M-Moira?" the director dared, climbing the stairs.

"That went well, don't you think?" she said brightly, sitting up
upon her settee.

The cast laughed nervously, and then applause burst out all
about.

And never, never had Moira felt more gratified.

Their car was transferred to the next train in Canon City, a narrow
gauge, and from there they climbed the dry brown canyon dug over the
millennia by the Arkansas River, far below. Sparse vegetation clung to
the cliffs, and Odessa wondered for the first time if she was heading to a
high desert valley rather than the lush valley she had pictured.

The river was high but receding, curving one way and then the next
in a silky blue snake's shape as it rushed downward, ever downward. And
still they climbed, the rails sometimes precariously close to the riverbank.
At a tiny station-little more than a platform and water tower-the
conductor drew the train to a stop and Bryce and Odessa disembarked,
both sorrowful to be leaving the Palmers' lovely car behind. Several men
unloaded their trunks and placed them into a waiting wagon with the
Circle M brand on its side. A couple of men brought Bryce's horse out
of a freight car and handed her reins to Bryce. And then the train pulled
out again, heading for the mining camps higher up.

Bryce led the horse to water, but Odessa watched the train
as it rounded the corner, the locomotive gone, then the first car,
then the second ... three more cars and then the Palmers' car was
turning the bend. And then it was gone. All at once, she could
hear nothing but the rush of the Arkansas River upon the rocks
below and Bryce talking lowly to the horse, who balked at the idea
of hauling a wagon after her recent weeks of freedom from such
chores. Eventually, Bryce got her in the harness and turned to look
upon his bride with a tender expression.

"It's a little isolated out here for a city girl."

"I think I can manage it," she said, lifting her chin.

"Yes, for now. In a few weeks you'll be begging me for a trip to
the Springs-or at the very least, Canon City."

"Few weeks? I can last a few months, at the very least!"

He smiled and drew her into his arms. "Is that a wager on your
lips, Mrs. McAllan?"

"No, Mr. McAllan," she said, kissing him slowly, softly. "My
family does not abide by gambling."

"No money will exchange hands," he said, the dare in his eye.
"I'm just saying you won't last three weeks before you're begging me
for a city fix."

"Three weeks is nothing," she said, scoffing. "Say I last four
weeks. What will be my prize?"

"That's to be decided," he said.

"New fabric for our window curtains," she said. "And other girlish things I say we need. I don't trust you to have outfitted our new
home with much more than a table and two chairs."

"Oh no," he protested, wrapping his arms around her again.
"There's a bed, too. A big bed. We just need our bedroom done so we
have someplace to put it."

She giggled and accepted his kisses. "Take me home, Husband."

"Lead the way, Wife."

"Right away." She stepped into the wagon and picked up the
reins. "Which way is home?"

He smiled and took the reins from her, crossed the train
tracks, and they began to climb a narrow dirt road with one sign:
WESTCLIFFE. "See now, there's a town. That won't count in our
wager, will it?"

"Trust me, Westcliffe is no Canon City, and a far cry from
Colorado Springs."

"Small-town life. I'll get used to that."

"Small towns are one thing. It's the ranching life I'm worried
about," Bryce said.

She laughed off his concern, but inside, she wondered. Had she
ever really been more than a mile from another? In Philadelphia,
there were five hundred people inside a square mile. In the Springs, still a hundred. On the road-the road toward Divide-she and
Helen had been fairly isolated. But still, there had been other travelers, people heading in the opposite direction ... and others. She
closed her eyes, trying to drive out the memory of the men who had
chased them, tried to kill them.

"Are you afraid?" Bryce asked, taking her hand in his.

"Afraid?" She feigned ignorance.

"Afraid. Being here. Near Sam's land. Near Amille and John's
mine. Are you afraid they'll come after us?"

"Are you? I thought you felt safer here, on your ranch."

"I think you're safer here. Between me and Tabito and the other
ranch hands, no one will get to you. And if you're safe, I'm content."

Odessa leaned into his shoulder, hugging his arm and looking
up, intent upon only pleasant thoughts that pertained to the day,
the potential in her future. Not the past. She searched the rocks as
they left the river behind, some perched precariously atop others as if
barely maintaining a balance, erosion creating odd shapes of others.
And then she saw it.

"Stop, Bryce."

"What?"

"Stop."

He pulled the horse to a halt and turned in his seat, giving her a
curious look as she stood and then climbed down, moving back up
the road a bit. "We don't have much time to dawdle," he said, "not if
we want to make the ranch before nightfall."

"Come here, please," she murmured, staring upward.

Wearily, he set the brake and laid the reins aside, then climbed
down to stand beside her. "Rocks, and plenty of them."

"No. `Two forgotten men, desperate for drink.' Sam referenced
them. See them?"

He looked for several long, quiet seconds and then laughed under
his breath. "There they are, `perched over a river winding, never to
reach her shore."'

She grinned and then looked elsewhere. Nothing resembled
"God's finger pointing" to the southwest. "Know of any rock that
looks like God's finger, in this direction?"

"No. But I know the way to Sam's land, of course."

He helped her back in and they resumed their drive up, up,
among pinon pines and scrub oak, rough, dry country that reminded
Odessa of the true Wild West. The road ran beside a small ranch-"the
Schaefers, fine folks," Bryce said-and then back through a series of
hills. Here and there, the road had been washed out, which took them
more time to cross, but then Odessa glimpsed it-a tall, snow-covered
mountain, more glacial and clean-edged in appearance than Pikes
Peak, which tended to ramble out more as a hulking mass than an
elegant presence. And then she saw another, and another. In minutes,
they crested the last hill and a vast valley spread before them.

Bryce pulled to a stop. "Pretty, isn't it?"

"Magnificent," Odessa said, fingers to her lips. She shivered
against the sudden wind, a wind that seemed to lift from the snow
high above and rush down to cover them like a wave from the sea.
But she was not eager to move. The beautiful peaks appeared as
mighty ladies, shoulders jutting toward the valley and then dissolving in long, smooth purple skirts. They wore capes and hoods of
snow as if it were the tip of fashion, and Odessa knew they would
appear bare, unclothed, without it.

"Later in the summer, they still have a bit of snow here and
there. But they become more red than purple," he said. "At certain
times of day, they appear crimson, which gave them their name."

"The Sangre de Cristos," she whispered. "Far more beautiful
than I could've believed."

"Even though I told you?"

"Maybe if you had painted it I would've believed you," she said
with an impish grin. "Where is your ranch? Can we see it from here?"

"That's it," he said, nodding to their right. The mountain range
ran southward, but here at this corner edged a bit northwest. A vast
valley, her belly full of lush spring-green grass, spread out before
them.

"That's ... all of it? That is all yours?"

"Ours," he said with a grin, then cocked his head. "With a small
portion owned by my father."

She looked at him hard then. "Bryce, how many acres do the
McAllans own?"

"Ten thousand."

"Ten thousand? How? How could you have acquired such a massive tract of land?"

"Well, my uncle left me his property in his will. We homesteaded
some. Bought some more. Pretty much every penny I've earned out
here for the last five years has gone back into the land. People ...
people find it hard out here, Odessa. The wind, long winters, short
summers. High and dry is good for ranching, but not for farming.
I've lost some fine neighbors who tried their hand at tilling the soil
and nearly starved to death."

"But then you were able to buy their land at a bargain price."

"True, but I would've gladly traded it for their company. Even I
find it isolating out here, Odessa."

"Hopefully a wife at home will help ease that."

"Already has."

They moved out again, and Odessa gestured to another mountain range. "Are those the Wet Mountains?" They wouldn't be going
that direction, but it wasn't far away.

"`Damp to her East, wounds to her West,"' Bryce quoted.

"So it's that way, somewhere."

Yes.

They rode on in silence for several minutes.

"Odessa, I want you to stay far from that land. There's a lot
you need to learn, a lot you need under your belt right here ... and
there-" He paused to glower toward a far valley. "I've lost some more
fine neighbors. Friends. I don't intend to lose my new wife. I don't care
what Sam's mine holds. I know you're dying to unravel the mystery,
see where it leads. But I don't think it's worth the risk. This," he said,
taking her hand again and looking into her eyes, "is all the treasure
I've ever wanted. Whoever is after Sam's mine ... let's leave it to others
to figure out. We have a life ahead of us. When a body has struggled to
simply gain a decent lungful of air, life is enough, isn't it?"

"Bryce, I'm not going anywhere without you," she said, her tone
sounding suddenly like her mother's hushing an agitated child. "I
promise."

But as they turned a bend in the road, heading northwest, she
couldn't help but glance back over her shoulder to the miles and
miles of territory. And somewhere, nestled among those low-flung
hills, was Sam O'Toole's treasure.