Fletcher's Woman (28 page)

The rickety board door of the crib creaked open, and a muscular, middle-aged man appeared in the gap. “Shit,” he said, in gruff greeting. “It is you! What the hell do you think you're doing, dragging a man from his pleasures when he's been at sea for two months?”

In the darkness behind Malachi's half-naked form, a woman whined something obscene.

“I need your help,” Griffin said flatly.

Malachi cursed roundly as he wrenched on his shirt. “Damn your hide, Little Fletch, this here is the best gal in the place. Whatever it is, it had better be good.”

Griffin himself was surprised by the blunt honesty of his answer. “Frazier's got the woman I love,” he said, striking a match on the weathered board of the crib's outside wall and lighting another cheroot.

In the glow of the flame, Malachi's face showed every minute of the long, hard life he'd led. “Why, that seagoing skunk, I thought the sheriff of San Mateo County put him out of business two years ago when he tried to sell that San Francisco banker's daughter to a Pinkerton man!”

Griffin drew deeply on the cheroot. “You didn't see the
Drifter
riding at anchor? Your eyes are going, Malachi.”

The jibe made the old seaman bristle and sputter. “I see you've still got the same smart-ass mouth you've always had! Old Mike should've tanned your hide more often and broke you of that.”

“Did you see the ship or not?” snapped Griffin.

“Hell, yes, I seen the ship!” Malachi roared. “I just figured she had a new captain—high time she did. What do you say we find Frazier and slide his features around like the furniture in an old maid's front parlor?”

Griffin sighed. “Just come on, will you? I haven't got all night!”

Over the shrill and somewhat colorful objections of the prostitute he'd engaged, Malachi Lindsay righted his clothes; wrenched his ancient, billed cap onto his head; and followed Griffin out of the dirt alleyway and onto the Skid Road.

Barely twenty minutes later, the scattered crewmen of the
Merrimaker
were converging on the wharf, half-drunk and full ready to tangle with the mates from the
China Drifter.

Malachi was warming to the project. “What do you say we just board the
Drifter
and wait?”

Jonas obviously liked the idea, but Griffin was already scanning the dark hillsides of Seattle. “I'm going to make sure he isn't planning to take her overland, to Tacoma or some-where. Malachi, you know Frazier. Where did he hide his ‘cargo' when he worked San Francisco?”

Malachi puzzled for a moment, rubbing his stubbly beard with one huge, muscular hand. “Probably in Chinatown.”

“Good,” said Griffin, turning to walk away. “Let's hope the bastard is consistent.”

•   •   •

Douglas Frazier was feeling uneasy, and he was beginning to wonder if one temperamental young woman, however enticing, was worth the risks he was taking.

The carriage shuddered and creaked as it moved along the rutted dirt roads into the Chinese quarter. Frazier longed for the rolling shift of a deck beneath his feet.

Jaw tight with lingering annoyance, he remembered the night he'd found Rachel wandering along the Skid Road, completely unattended. It worried him—proper young ladies avoided such places.

Douglas closed his eyes and tilted his head back, wondering. Was she really a virgin, or had Wilkes been telling the truth? If she wasn't untouched, Ramirez would know within minutes of being alone with her. And he wouldn't pay the agreed price until he was sure the bargain was to his liking.

Douglas sighed. Chang Su could be prevailed upon to examine Rachel, to determine the true state of affairs.

The carriage rattled to a stop, and Douglas bounded out, grateful for the bracing coolness of the night air. But the doubts followed him, howling at his heels like dogs.

Rachel had spent the night in Jonas Wilkes's bed. To the delight of the men he'd sent to fetch her, she'd been completely naked.

Douglas Frazier cursed. Maybe he should have taken Wilkes's bank draft and honored the bargain. Maybe he would have been ahead. After all, the violet-eyed nymph was of questionable innocence, and she was sick, too. She might not even survive the journey.

He tapped briskly at the door of a board hut, annoyed. The stench of spoiled fish and offal stung his nostrils; he wondered how these yellow-skinned devils could bear living the way they did. They were so damned passive—

There was a whistling sound, and then an explosion of pain in
the back of Frazier's skull. He cursed as his knees buckled beneath him, groaned when the side of his head struck a wooden step.

•   •   •

Chang Wo dragged the captain away from the step and into the shadows; he was a heavy burden, and the task took precious minutes. When it had been completed, he knelt and bound the captain's wrists behind him.

There was still the carriage driver. He hadn't heard anything, but he would become suspicious if the captain didn't reappear when expected. Chang weighed these facts in his mind as he groped for Frazier's handkerchief, wadded it, and pressed it between the captain's teeth and far back into his throat.

The man was like a great, red lion. When he awakened, his bonds would hold him only briefly, for his rage would give him much strength.

Chang crept back into the hut where Su waited, frightened and distraught. “You have killed?” she whispered, raising her lowered eyes to the face of her brother. “You have killed the sea lion?”

Change shook his head, impatient with her fear, yet all too conscious of its basis in reality. “Missy is ready?”

“She be big sick. Not walk.”

Chang had gone too far now to turn back. He had struck down Frazier, who might already be stirring in the darkness. “We carry,” he said.

They supported the inert girl between them and crept slowly out through the one door and into the night, taking care to keep to the shadows as they passed the captain's carriage.

•   •   •

Driving a dishonorably acquired horse and buggy, Griffin went uphill toward the Chinese community. Comprised of tumbledown shacks and poverty, it was not a place that inspired civic pride.

They had been so welcome once, when there were railroads to be built, these quiet, yellow-skinned people. They were lauded for their ability to hang by a rope over the side of a trestle for fourteen hours at a stretch, working industriously and without complaint; and for their placid ability to lay charges of dynamite in precarious pits where other men refused to go.

All this for a bowl of rice and a minuscule wage.

Griffin remembered the bitter uprisings against the Chinese in the middle of the decade. Once the tracks had been laid,
there weren't so many jobs. Competition became fierce, and the yellow man's willingness to work for next to nothing was no longer venerated—it was despised.

Griffin spat. Such was the grateful nature of mankind.
You've served your purpose now. Go home.

Something inside him tensed suddenly as he rounded a corner and came into another street. In the moonlight, he could see that there was a carriage up ahead, and a man was bellowing in rage—a white man, judging by the cadence of his words and the timbre of his voice.

Instinctively Griffin drew the buggy to a stop, hoping that its approach had gone unnoticed in the fuss.

Frazier. The howling maniac was Frazier himself. Griffin held his breath.

“There weren't no wagon, I'm tellin' you!” whined the dark figure in the carriage box. “Those Chinks must have sneaked past me on foot!”

Frazier was reeling in his anger and his panic. “And I'm telling
you
that you're a liar, Hudson! How much did Wilkes pay you?”

“Cap'n, I swear there weren't nobody by here!”

Frazier's big frame seemed charged somehow; he lumbered toward the carriage, flung himself up into the box, and hurled the trembling driver to the ground. Hudson crawled ignobly into the sanction of the thick darkness of a copse of fir trees.

The moonlight was so bright. If Frazier turned in Griffin's direction, he would surely see him, surely realize that the opposition had caught up to him. But the giant was intent on his own purposes.

Towering like a mountain in the box of the carriage, Frazier bent, took up the reins, and stood straight again. Griffin watched with a sort of hateful admiration as he brought the panicked team under control and turned the phaeton around in a broad, graceful sweep.

Everything inside Griffin screamed for Frazier's blood, but he sat still in the buggy seat, waiting. After the longest minute of his life, he brought the reins down with a light slap and followed the carriage at a discreet distance.

It was immediately apparent that Frazier was on his way back to the waterfront—probably planning to cut his losses and run. Whatever his plans were, it was highly unlikely that Rachel was a part of them.

Griffin felt mingled relief and frustration. Where was Rachel now? Was she still alive?

A cloud moved across the moon, blotting it out, and then passed by to reveal it again.

A small, queued form leaped in front of the buggy, waving frantic arms. “Dr. Fletcher? Dr. Fletcher!”

Griffin reined in the stolen horse and peered into the darkness. A shaft of silvery moonlight illuminated the Chinaman's anxious features. “
Chang
?”

He nodded vigorously. “You take Missy!” he pleaded breathlessly, disappearing into the shadows and then reappearing again, with Rachel propped between himself and a slight, terrified girl.

Rachel.
Griffin jumped to the ground so quickly that the impact jarred his battered body and made his head spin. He drew a deep breath, righted himself, and lifted the unconscious Rachel into his arms.

She stirred against him, a strangled sound bubbling in her throat. “No . . .”

Griffin closed his eyes, let his forehead rest against hers. He could manage no words of comfort or reassurance.

Chang tugged hesitantly at his sleeve. “Missy say Chang get job back. Say Mr. Wilkes let Chang work again.”

Griffin opened his eyes. “If he doesn't, I will. But you'd better keep out of sight until the
Drifter
sails.”

“Nowhere Chang hide!” protested the distraught man, his voice rising in a thin rush of panic.

Griffin lifted Rachel gently onto the buggy seat, ferreted crumpled currency from his pocket, and extended all but a few dollars to Chang. “This might make it easier.”

Change stared at the money in disbelief. “Buy horse,” he breathed, finally. “Buy
wagon
.”

“Come and see me as soon as you get back to Providence,” Griffin said, climbing gingerly onto the footrail on the buggy's side. “And Chang? Thanks.”

Chang and the woman were gone a moment later, whispering as they went.

Griffin lifted Rachel up, sat down, and then lowered her again, so that her head rested in his lap. The even meter of her breathing was like music in the night.

He touched the pulse point beneath her right ear and smiled. She needed rest and care, but she would recover. The knowledge made Griffin's spirit soar.

When Rachel was strong enough, they would talk about that night in the lumber camp, the night they'd made love, and what it had really meant to him. Perhaps she wouldn't even want him; she might leave the territory forever or even, God forbid, marry Jonas.

Whatever happened, Griffin vowed he would not pretend indifference toward her again.

Aware that the business of the night was far from finished, he deposited Rachel in the competent care of his friends, Dr. and Mrs. John O'Riley, and guided the horse and buggy toward the waterfront.

Frazier,
he thought, as the sounds of a rousing, all-out brawl reached his ears.
I want a piece of you.

The fight was everywhere—on the shoreline, on the wharfs, even on board the
Drifter
. Flailing bodies were splashing into the water from her decks, and howls of rage and grunts of pain came from every direction.

Griffin scanned the rowdy crowd of sailors and found Jonas in the center of the fray. His back to a mountain of whiskey barrels, he landed a decent punch in Frazier's mammoth midsection.

Frazier didn't even flinch.

Griffin vaulted over the railing and ran down the wharf, the magic already beginning in his feet. “Rachel is all right,” he said, for Jonas's benefit.

A smile broke over Jonas's face, only to be replaced by a grimace as the captain's fist caught him squarely in the stomach.

Griffin considered letting the battle take its inevitable course, but he couldn't quite bring himself to turn away. He and Jonas would come to terms later, on their own turf.

Almost of its own accord, his right leg swung into a high, graceful arch, his foot catching the side of Frazier's head and dropping him to his knees. The wharf seemed to vibrate under the impact.

Douglas Frazier was a big man, and even though he looked stunned as he raised himself to a crouch and then his full height, Griffin knew that he was far from defeated.

He swung hard, and Griffin ducked, feeling the savage protest in his rib cage. He thrust the heel of his boot into Frazier's throat, watched without satisfaction as he crumpled back to his knees, with indifference as he struggled up again.

The captain was savagely angry now, and consequently,
reckless. Raising both hands, he lunged for Griffin's throat and grasped it, like a bear grasping the trunk of a tree. For a moment, Griffin was off balance; he couldn't breathe, much less move to break the hold.

Jonas's voice came from somewhere nearby, prodding him lightly. “He was going to sell Rachel, Griffin. Frazier was going to sell her to some rich bastard for a plaything.”

The reminder exploded in Griffin's mind, splintering his reason. By the time it had reassembled itself, Jonas and Malachi were struggling to restrain him, and Frazier was lying motionless on the wet, shifting wharf.