Chasing the Sun (5 page)

Brady felt an odd stinging behind his eyes as they embraced. He shared so much past with this delicate, damaged woman. So much pain. And now this new twist in the history that bound them together. Wondering if there was more sadness ahead, he stared over her head at the distant ice-capped peaks of the mountains. Despite the clear skies, he sensed a storm brewing.

When he released her and stepped back, he could see fresh tears in Elena’s dark almond-shaped eyes.

“Is he alive?” he asked, dreading the answer.

“I pray so. But I have not seen or spoken to him in almost three years.” Blinking hard, she put on a brave smile. “Come.” Taking Jessica’s arm on her right and Brady’s on her left, she gently steered them up the stairs. “First you will introduce me to these beautiful children and that lovely woman standing with Hank. Then you will tell me all about the rancho and how you came to build such a fine sturdy home. And later, when the house is quiet and the children are in bed, we will speak of your brother and what happened in San Francisco.”

San Francisco

AFTER LEAVING THE THEATER, DAISY WALKED AIMLESSLY until afternoon, trying to calm her turbulent thoughts. She had no family to leave Kate with, even if she could bring herself to do such a thing. Her closest acquaintance was a harlot who lived in a brothel. She had no money to hire anyone, nor would the small salary she would earn while training be enough to cover the extra expenses of bringing Kate along, much less a nanny.

Either stay behind with her or come with us.

Pain pressed against her heart. To be so close. To have the dream almost within her grasp only to have it snatched away. It was too much.

Fighting back tears of bitter disappointment, she walked woodenly toward the boardinghouse. She would have to find another position. Maybe go back to the Silver Spur and beg for her old job back. The thought made her stomach cramp. She would also have to find another place to live, another person to watch over Kate while she worked.

Come with us and be a star.

The unfairness tore at her, left her trembling with resentment and despair.

If only she hadn’t fallen in love.

If only she hadn’t allowed him to talk her into his bed.

If only she had known she was pregnant before she had let him sail away.

If only
...
if only
...
if only
.

But then there would be no Kate. It was late by the time she turned onto her street. As she neared the bordello, Lucy came down the steps of the brothel, dressed for errands, rather than work. When she saw Daisy, she stopped and waited for Daisy to reach her. “How was the audition?”

“It’s not going to work out.” As they fell into step together, Daisy told her about Madame Scarlatti and the offer to join her traveling theater company. “But they won’t pay for Kate and I won’t earn enough to meet her costs and those of a nanny. And since I have no family to take her in and I won’t leave her with strangers, I won’t be able to go with them to Rome.” Daisy blinked back tears. “And now I don’t even have a job at the Spur, either. Lord, what a mess.”

“Stump says she can stay at the house. But only if you stay, too. He is running a business, after all.”

Raise Kate in a brothel? Never. Besides, Daisy didn’t have it in her to be a whore. It was one thing to give yourself to a man you loved, and quite another to lie with a stranger. “I’ll think on it,” she hedged, hoping to God it would never come to that. Forcing a change in subject, she asked, “Where are you headed?”

“Apothecary. Hazel’s got the itch.”

But Daisy hardly heard her. They had neared the boardinghouse, and she could hear cries coming through the open upstairs window of the room she shared with Kate. “That doesn’t sound right.” Alarm exploded in her chest. “Something’s wrong!”

Charging up the steps, she threw open the front door to the boardinghouse, banging it into Edna, who lay sprawled on the entry floor, her neck twisted at an odd angle. The reek of whiskey filled the narrow space. Without stopping to check on her, Daisy ran up the stairs. When she rushed through the open door into their bedroom, she saw Bill Johnson bent over Kate’s cot. “Get away from her!” she screamed as she slammed into him.

He staggered, caught his balance, then with a snarl, drew back his arm. “Bitch!”

Daisy kicked, aiming for his groin but getting his hip instead.

He stumbled back, his fist missing her jaw, but striking a glancing blow high on the side of her head. She fell against the iron foot rail of her cot, her ears ringing.

Then he was on her, his hands around her throat. “You stupid bitch!” he shouted, his voice rising above Kate’s terrified shrieks.

Daisy clawed at his fingers, fighting for air. Her vision narrowed. A buzzing began in her head. In flailing desperation, she grappled for her coat pocket, found the pistol. Without pulling it from her pocket, she jerked the hammer back, thrust the barrel into Johnson’s gut and squeezed the trigger.

A muffled “pop,” then his grip on her neck loosened. As he lurched back, she smelled spent powder and scorched cloth and the hot, rank scent of blood.

Johnson stood swaying, a look of stunned disbelief on his face. He looked down at the blood blossoming across the front of his vest then up at her. Surprise gave way to fury. Roaring like an animal, he charged toward her.

Pulling back the other hammer, Daisy yanked the pistol from her pocket and fired her last shot up into his open mouth.

Three

LUCY BURST INTO THE ROOM THEN STUMBLED TO A STOP. She gaped at Johnson’s bloody face, then at Daisy, who stood frozen, the pistol wobbling in her hand. “Holy Christ!”

“Is he ... is he ...” Daisy shook so hard she could hardly form the words.

White-faced, Lucy peered down at Johnson. “Dead as a dog in a ditch.” She kicked him to make sure. “What happened?”

“He was a-after K-Kate.” Daisy threw the pistol onto her cot and grabbed Kate. “Shh, baby,” she crooned over and over, holding her wailing twenty-two-month-old daughter’s face to her chest so she wouldn’t see the dead man. “It’s all right. Mama’s here.”

Lucy leaped into action. Yanking open drawers on the small bureau, she threw the contents on Daisy’s bed. “We gotta get out of here quick. You got a valise?”

Daisy blinked at her, still so frozen by what she’d done she couldn’t think, couldn’t move. “Under the b-bed.”

Lucy pulled it out, opened it, and began stuffing it with their clothing. She moved with such savage determination that within a few minutes the room was stripped bare of all of their belongings. After buckling the straps on the valise, she straightened and looked around. “Anything else?”

Daisy looked at her, feeling detached and adrift, her shocked mind still unable to come to grips with the dead man on the floor.
God.
What had she done?

“Titty,” Kate cried, reaching for her stuffed cat, which had fallen to the floor.

Lucy picked it up and put it in her pudgy hand. “Where’s the pistol?”

“I-I’m not s-sure. My coat—no, there.” She pointed to the bed. “Under the valise.”

Lucy snatched it up and slipped it into her pocket. “Take off your coat.”

“My c-coat?”

“Hurry! Before someone comes! And wipe that blood off your face.”

Daisy lifted a hand, felt splatters of sticky wetness on her forehead and cheeks, and felt her stomach lurch. Setting Kate on her cot, she yanked off her coat, desperate to be rid of it when she saw the bloodstains on the front. She scrubbed at her face with a sleeve, then handed the coat to Lucy before picking up Kate again.

Throwing the bloody coat over her arm, Lucy grabbed the valise. “Come on.”

On wobbly legs, Daisy followed her down the stairs. When they reached the entry, Lucy set down the valise and bent over Edna’s prone body. “Help me get your coat on her,” she ordered. “We need to make it look like she killed Johnson in a drunken rage then fell down the stairs.”

Reluctantly, Daisy set Kate down on the steps and turned to help Lucy. It took only a few moments. But when they lifted Edna to slip the coat around her shoulders and Daisy saw the way her head rolled on her shattered neck, she almost gagged. After Lucy put the pistol in the dead woman’s hand, she straightened, took a last look around then picked up the valise. “Come on.”

As soon as they were back on the street, fear almost sent Daisy into flight, but Lucy made her walk slowly, as if nothing was wrong. Luckily Kate had settled down, although there was still a hitch in her breath. The click of their heels sounded unnaturally loud to Daisy.

“Keep your head down and quit crying,” Lucy ordered.

Daisy wasn’t aware she was.

“If anyone asks, tell them your husband just died.”

“W-Where are we going?”

“There’s a church on Morton Street. I know the pastor. He’ll let you stay there until you can get out of town.”

“Out of town?” Daisy looked over at her friend, the numbness of terror fading enough that she could think again. “Where would I go?”

Lucy didn’t answer. At the end of the block, they turned left then cut into the alley that ran behind the brothel. At the back stoop, Lucy let the valise drop and sank onto the bottom step. “I gotta rest a minute.” She gave a shaky laugh. “I don’t know when I been so glad to see this old whorehouse.”

Daisy slumped down beside her. Even now her heart drummed with fear and relief at how terrifyingly close she had come to losing her daughter. She looked down into Kate’s sleeping face, tears burning behind her eyes.

“What was he doing in there?’ Lucy asked after she caught her breath.

Swiping the back of her hand over her eyes, Daisy said, “When I came into the room, he was standing over her bed.” She shuddered, the image of Johnson’s hands on Kate burned forever into her mind. “I don’t know why.”

“To sell her.”

Daisy blinked at Lucy in surprise. “Sell her? To who? And why?”

Lucy looked down at her clasped hands with their bitten nails and nicked knuckles. They looked like they’d seen their fair share of fights. “I heard the girls talking. Said a man named Wild Bill was going around to all the whorehouses talking about a blond girl baby he had for sale. I didn’t think of Kate until I heard him yelling upstairs. Baby-stealing bastard!”

“I don’t understand,” Daisy said. “Why would anyone want to buy a baby?”

Lucy turned her head and looked at her. She didn’t speak, but the hard knowledge behind her sad brown eyes said it all.

Daisy drew back in horror, her arms tightening around Kate so much the exhausted child whimpered in her sleep. “No, Lucy. Surely not. She’s just a baby.”

“There’s a lot of crazies out there.”

It was obscene. Beyond evil. Monstrous. Daisy felt like vomiting.

“We got to get you away from here,” Lucy said after a moment. “Someplace far away. Where the law won’t find you. Or Johnson’s friends.”

“But he was attacking my baby,” Daisy argued.

“Don’t matter. You’re a woman, he’s a man. That’s the way it works.”

“But, Lucy—”

Her friend rounded on her, her eyes hard as flints. “Do I have to explain it? I’m a whore and you’re my friend. I may already be in trouble. Somebody may have seen us—seen me. Stump won’t pay bribe money, so we got no protection.”

“But how could they blame you?” Without thinking, Daisy reached out and put her hand on Lucy’s shoulder.

Lucy shied away then tried to cover it with an embarrassed smile. “I’ll be okay. If he has to, Stump will hide me until it all blows over. He’ll even cover for us, maybe pass the story around that drunk old Widow Tidwell shot Johnson then fell down the stairs and broke her neck.” Lucy gave a crooked smile. “Who knows? Maybe the old lady really did try to stop him and he killed her for it.”

Daisy felt tears well up again. A drunk, a harlot, and a jaded procurer. What an odd assortment of guardian angels. She wanted to hug Lucy in gratitude, but knew her friend wouldn’t like it. Lucy might earn her living allowing strangers to use her body, but she didn’t like to be touched. “Oh, Lucy. You’ve done so much to help me. Even put yourself in danger. How do I thank you for that?”

Lucy looked away, a flush further staining her rouged cheeks. “You take that sweet baby out of this hellhole. That’s how you thank me.”

“Take her where?” Daisy slumped wearily, the false energy of fear draining away, leaving her trembly and dispirited. “I’ve got hardly any savings, no job—”

“What about her Pa?” Lucy cut in. “Would he keep her while you trained?”

“Jack?” Daisy gave a strangled laugh. “I don’t even know where he is.”

“How about his family then?”

“I don’t know them. And even if I did, I couldn’t leave Kate for two years.”

“You don’t have to
leave
her,” Lucy argued with strained patience. “Just get enough money from them to take her with you.”

Get enough money
how
? Just waltz in there and ask for it? Ridiculous. That would never work. Would it?

Foghorns on the bay signaled the mist was rising. The sky hung low, clouds draped like frothy gray blankets over the peaked roofs of the row houses. Already the air was so wet Kate’s blond curls had started to frizz.
We should get to the church before the fog comes in,
she told herself. But she couldn’t seem to move.