HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado (2 page)

He stepped forward and slowly closed the door behind him, then gradually raised his eyes to meet hers. Tears welled and threatened to roll down his cheeks.

“Oh!” she said, clamping her lips shut, feeling tears clench her throat. “All of them, Bryce? Are they all dead?” She moved forward to wrap one arm around him. Samuel wailed louder than ever, infuriated by the crush of his parents. But the two adults remained there as each gave way to the tremors of sobs.

Her husband wiped his cheeks with the palms and then the backs of his hands, trying to regain control. “Best we can tell, the storm took many of them.” He took another deep breath. “Some might have made it to the far side, instinctively heading for the shelter of the trees. But we’ll need a week of melt before we can make it across to see. And we can’t—” his voice broke and he wept for a moment—“we can’t even be sure how many are there, by the snow breaks. They’re buried, Dess. Buried. Stood there, waiting for us to save them.”

She moved back in to hold him, crying with him again.
Dear God … Please. Please.
The mere idea of it, the overwhelming vision of a hundred horses now dead.…
No, no, no. Savior, please!
What would become of them? The ranch depended on the income of the sale of a hundred and fifty horses each summer. One hundred already dead? And with more snow coming? Her eyes went to the front parlor window, a dark bank of dense snow.
Show us, Lord. Show us what to do. We need You. We need You!

15 March 1887
Rio de Janeiro

“Come, Son, we have need of your services,” said a man gruffly, hauling Dominic to his feet.

Nic winced, both at the rapid motion and the bright light of morning. His stomach roiled and his head spun. Whatever they were pouring last night at the bar was hard on a man’s gut, even one used to liquor. He squinted, trying to see the men who were on either side of him as they rushed him down the stairs, out the door, and through a crowded market plaza. “Stop!” he yelled. “Unhand me! What’s this about?”

The two men paused, tightening their grip on his arms as he fought back. Two others arrived and lifted his feet from the cobblestones. “Wait! Where are you taking me?” Nic cried, battling both fear and fury now. He writhed and pulled, but to no avail. By the look of them, these four men were hardened seamen.

The leader motioned for the others to halt, and he was once again on his feet. A crowd of curious onlookers gathered, staring at them, but Nic was struggling to steady his eyes on the man. “Where are you taking me?” he repeated. The first relinquished Nic’s arm to another’s care and turned to face him. “You cost my cap’n a large sum of money last night with your poor fighting.”

“The man was twice my size!” Nic snarled, feeling the man’s complaint as if it were a sucker punch.

“Yes, well, the cap’n had high hopes for you. Your reputation, up to last night, was … unequaled. He put a fair sum down on you.”

“That’s a gambler’s risk.” He pulled again, hoping to get free, but the men still held stubbornly to his arms. If he could get even one fist free.…

The leader grinned, showing a mouthful of decaying teeth. “Too bad you didn’t win last night. He believes you owe him the money he lost.”

“That’s preposterous!”

The man shrugged and smiled again. “Be that as it may, we are only obliged to follow our cap’n’s orders. And our cap’n is now yours as well.”

Nic paused and swallowed hard. So that was it. These men intended to shanghai him—force him to serve aboard their ship. “You’re nothing but a crimp! There are laws against—”

“For American ships, sailing under American laws,” said the man. He motioned to the others and turned to walk toward the docks, the others following behind, dragging Nic along. “We lost a dozen men here in port to the fever,” he said, turning partially toward Nic to speak while they walked. “Now the cap’n is not only cantankerous over losin’ them, but also losin’ his heavy purse over you. It’s your bum luck. Best to accept it and embrace it, man. Six months from now, you’ll be set free, in whatever port you wish.”

“If I’m not already dead.”

The man laughed, a slow, deep guffaw that eventually built into laughter that spread among the others. “Aye, that’s the risk of any sailor’s life, especially in the waters where we are headed.” He looked over his shoulder at his prisoner. “Come along, St. Clair. Cease your struggle. It is of no use. You’ll take to the water, you’ll see. Yes’sir, gamblers and fighters—they make the best of seamen. You might find you love it as much as the ring.”

Cañon City, Colorado

Reid Bannock straightened, groaning at the ache in the small of his back and between his shoulders. He set the pickax against his leg and gestured to the water boy to come his way. He casually met the gaze of the deputy, who watched over the prison chain gang with an armed shotgun resting across his arms. The man gave him a slight nod. They got on, the two of them. Reid fancied the idea that the younger man felt sorry for him, even though the two had never shared more than a few words. Undoubtedly, Deputy Johnson knew Reid’s story, passed along more from lawman to lawman than within his files.

The blue-lipped, shivering water boy finally reached him and offered up a grubby ladle full of water. The boy’s hand trembled violently, not out of fear but from exposure. In the cold, the top of his bucket kept frosting over and encased the whole thing in ice. He had to break through the top to fetch Reid the water, and it was so cold, it made Reid’s teeth hurt as he drank.

It stayed cold, even within him, making him feel as if he swallowed a chunk of ice rather than liquid. He coughed, thumped his chest, and gazed up at the mountains, finally clear after the blizzard. It mattered little, this trial. In a few months he’d be free. Regardless of the sentence, he’d be free. Every morning, he was up and dressed, awaiting the deputy who would chain him to others for the work on the new prison building, whatever the weather. Only the blizzard had allowed them a few days’ respite. Each mornin’, he greeted the deputy with a friendly word, knowing that consistent good behavior could knock months off a man’s sentence.

By his calculations, the county was drawing too many new people, and therefore too many new criminals. The general’s propaganda was doing its good work, and Colorado Springs, Pueblo, even Cañon City were seeing pioneers arrive by the thousands, all hoping to make a new life for themselves. After a winter like they’d had, many of them were liable to be desperate, driven to desperate decisions, not all of them on the right side of the law. Already, Reid shared his tiny cell with five other men. Word had it that a sixth would be brought in soon, left to sleep on the narrow space that was currently the only flooring between the two bunks, each with three levels. How long until a seventh arrived? Yes, when number seven arrived, tough decisions would have to be made; the prison warden would have to speak with judges, finding a means to alleviate the pressure before the prisoners exploded.

“Get back to work, Bannock,” the deputy barked.

“Yes sir, right away, sir,” Reid called back, immediately picking up his ax. He lifted it up over his left shoulder and then let it arc down toward the boulder in front of him, imagining faces upon it, as he had every day on every rock he had destroyed over the last three years.

Moira St. Clair. The woman who had stolen his heart, and then crushed it.

Dominic St. Clair. The man who had stood between Moira and him.

Odessa and Bryce McAllan, the people who refused to give up what was destined to be his.

A chunk of granite fell away with his next strike, revealing a tiny, crooked line of gold that glittered in the sun, too small to warrant the work of extraction, but tantalizing. It was common, these tiny remnants, teasing their discoverers with the idea about where the rock had once stood and what vein had once connected to this small one.… In spite of himself, he leaned forward and traced the line with his finger. Gold. Silver. Treasure untold. Sam O’Toole or his parents had discovered something, up near his mine. Something beyond the few sweet silver nuggets he’d brought out to Westcliffe and sold. Had the McAllans discovered it yet? Had they squired it away for a rainy day?

“The Spaniards, they came up this way, ya know,” said an old man, chained to his right leg. He was a chatty fellow, and Reid glanced at him before striking with the pickax again.

“That so?” he said casually.

“Yep. My great-granddaddy, he was a trapper. Ran with Kit Carson and the like for a time. Knew a lot of Injuns.”

“And the Spaniards?” Reid asked lowly.

“My great-granddaddy, he was chased right up into the Sangres by the Ute who didn’t take kindly to him being—”

“You two!” barked the deputy, frowning in their direction. “Less talking, more work!”

Reid frowned too and doubled his efforts against the boulder. But with each strike, he wondered more about what the old man had to say. A few minutes later, he dared to glance at the old man.

I’ll tell you later,
his eyes said.

Chapter 2

When it was apparent that Max Foster was not attending Madame Toissette’s tea, and she could not find him in any of his usual haunts, Moira returned home, perplexed. She paced the parlor floor and hallways all night, trying to understand what Max’s rationale might be, where he might have gone. Come morning, she collapsed into a chair by the entry window, anxiously watching for Francois, the director at the Opera Comiqué, who had pledged to return to her with information, but she could not keep her head erect any longer. She had just closed her eyes when a sharp knock at the door brought Antoinette scurrying from the kitchen.

“Non, non,” Moira said in irritation, rising. “I’ll receive him.” She ran a hand over her hair and smoothed her dress, donned a nonchalant smile and opened the door. But the grim expression on Francois’s face immediately shredded any semblance of propriety she maintained. “Francois?”

He wearily shrugged out of his coat and hung it on a peg by the door. “Come, mon ami. Let us sit in the parlor. I have much to tell you.” He offered his arm. Moira numbly took it and allowed him to lead her into her own sitting room. Antoinette stood, waiting for her mistress’s direction.

“Tea, and plenty of it,” Francois said, waving her off. He sat on an ottoman by Moira’s knees, so he could take both of her hands in his.

“You are frightening me.” Francois was always jovial, a chipper bear of a man, her friend who always made her feel better, brighter, when he was around.

“Forgive me. But it is bad, very bad.”

“Quickly, simply tell me. All of it.”

Francois swallowed hard and ducked his chin into the folds of fat at his neck. His eyes shifted left and right as he searched for a way to begin.

“Francois—” Moira scolded.

“Max is gone. He boarded a ship yesterday evening, bound for Lisbon.”

“Portugal?”

“Portugal.”

Moira pulled her hands from his and leaned back. She turned her head to the side, and rested an elbow on the thickly padded arm, knuckles to lips. “He always wanted to see Portugal, wanted me to consider the growing opportunities there—”

“He has a new client. A young thing he discovered in the Moulin Rouge.”

Moira dropped her hand from her mouth and let out an outraged laugh. “The Moulin Rouge?” For three years, she had been Max’s client; in the last two, she had been Max’s
only
client. Why leave her now? For a fallen songstress from the red district? “Were they …” she sputtered. “Were they in love?”