HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado (26 page)

The man walked several paces to her right. “Now look up here.” He pointed to the top right corner of the showroom ceiling. “Good. Don’t move.” He returned to Gavin’s side. He was shaking his head. “I’m sorry but this is far too suggestive. Do you see that when she looks back at us, she is a seductress. I assume you are not marketing a whore’s services.”

“No,” Gavin conceded before going on. “But don’t you see—there is a touch of innocence that is equally enticing, yes? She is innocently seductive, as if caught unawares.”

The photographer was deep in thought. “I shouldn’t agree to this,” he said. “I have a reputation as a decent businessman, a—”

“And as an artist,” Gavin coaxed. He waited for the man to take the bait. Moira watched it unfold, had seen Gavin manage to get his way in similar situations countless times, though she was as amazed at his gift as if this were the first “negotiation.”

Finally the photographer arched a brow. “Very well,” he said.

“Grand,” Gavin said. He barely could keep the glee from his voice. He looked back at her, and Moira shivered in pleasure. She felt more beautiful and daring than she ever had before. “Can you do the portrait now?” Gavin pressed.

“But of course,” said the man. He quoted Gavin a price. Gavin quickly laid out the cash on the counter. “Let’s get several renditions,” Gavin directed, laying another bill on the counter. “I want it to be perfect.”

“Done,” the photographer said, scooping up the money and placing it in his small register.

They conquered Silverton and then Ouray, and the new poster photograph accomplished what they intended—crowd attention. It was eye-catching, evocative, and yet innocent and hopeful. It elicited gasps and whispers, but over and over, they saw people stop and peruse the poster as if trying to decipher what caught their attention.

After a long train ride to Crested Butte they met with the proprietor of the opera house, Andrew Wiman. He was young, as handsome as Gavin, and terribly debonair. Moira moved toward the tall, sandy-haired and blue-eyed man. He looked down at her and slowly kissed her hand. His eyes traveled up the length of her arm to her face. “You are as lovely as your posters promised, Miss Moira,” he said.

“You are too kind,” she said, flattered by his attentions.

“Not kind, simply honest,” he returned. He looked to Gavin, then to Moira, then back to Gavin again, clearly assessing them both. “I assume you travel as man and wife to cover your affair,” he said in an even, quiet tone. “But I would be most appreciative if I could steal Miss Moira away for a dinner alone this night. She is an entertainer in my opera house. I always consider it a privilege to be privately entertained before opening night.”

What did the man intend? Moira looked with alarm from him to Gavin, but Gavin was staring solemnly back at him. “I assume you speak of supper only, nothing more.”

Andrew smiled impishly. “Why, Mr. Knapp … of course that would be all. I simply love the company of a beautiful woman and am in the position to request it. Do you mind it, terribly?” He turned his gaze on Moira. “Or do you, Miss Moira? I shall immediately rescind my request if I offend.”

“No, no, of course not,” she said, immediately sliding a dainty hand into the crook of his elbow. She glanced Gavin’s way. He was silent, considering, playing the game—and she assumed he wanted her to do the same. “But Andrew, I shall expect the finest supper this town can offer.”

“Of course,” he said. “And I always insist on champagne. I’ll have her back by seven,” he tossed over his shoulder at Gavin, not waiting for a response.

Moira glanced again at Gavin and smiled her farewell, covering her shiver of glee. Gavin was seething, clearly jealous. It was just where she wanted him, again thinking solely of her and not of business affairs in New York as he had been that morning, sending telegram after telegram.

“I didn’t need your front men to tell me I wanted you in my opera house,” Andrew said once they’d finished the main course. He leaned over the table as if sharing a secret, “I knew I wanted you here from the first time I heard your name. Moira Colorado. You are on your way, miss.”

“My success is largely Gavin’s doing,” she said. “I was preoccupied with opera in Paris. It was he who showed me that if I simply modified my goals I could find a much broader audience.”

“Much. He’s a smart manager. He gained a mistress and a moneymaker in one move.”

Moira frowned. “Please. Lower your voice.”

“You are ashamed that he is your lover?” His brow lowered as if he was laughing at her.

“Andrew, I must insist,” she hissed. “Please. Lower your voice.”

He picked up her hand, looking at each finger. “I figured you as a cultured woman, a woman of today. But you have a streak of innocence that is terribly provocative.” His eyes moved to hers, and she pulled her hand away. “Do you wish to leave your partnership with Knapp, Moira?” he asked, leaning back in his chair. “There are other opportunities, you know. Other men of substance.”

Like me,
he was saying. She was flattered and yet flabbergasted by the man’s forthright manner. But Gavin promised her a future, new adventures, not a dull life stuck in a town destined to fade in time. And yet this man owned the opera house in which she was to sing. She could not offend him or close this door yet. As if reading her mind, Gavin arrived at their table then, and Moira breathed a sigh of relief.

“Finished, darling? I thought I might escort you home.”

Andrew covered a smile with his hand and then looked up with a sober face. “It was kind of you to see to us. Yes, we’re quite finished. Although we just had the most illuminating discussion. I believe that Miss Moira might be up all night, thinking about it. Forgive me for getting her mind on other things besides the show. We all know how important it is.”

Gavin looked down at her, a slight frown in his brows. Did he have another of his headaches? “Come, Moira.” He reached for her hand. “You need your rest before tomorrow. Andrew is quite right about that.”

Andrew rose with her. She offered her hand and he kissed it, elegant and smooth in his movement. “Until tomorrow.”

Nic made it through thirteen days and nights, steadily making his way north via the narrow, winding trade roads, before the smell of roasting meat brought him to the edge of a village. The abuse from outsiders in these high mountain towns had made many a villager leery of newcomers, more apt to strike with an arrow than offer a cup of water. After two such experiences, Nic decided he was better off not encountering another.

He hid in the brush watching a native family preparing a meal. At the smell of roasting meat his stomach rumbled. He pressed a hand to halt the sound and his eyes widened, fearful that his body would betray his hiding place. After a few tight breaths, he watched in relief as two village women came to turn the goat on the spit. They moved on, back to tiny huts, apparently to tend to children whose voices he could hear.

The meat cracked and sizzled. Downwind, so the smell wafted over to him. His stomach rumbled again. Weeks aboard ship, well fed but constantly at work, had left him lean, taut. Nearly two weeks on this trail had him starving, on a diet of berries, leaves, and as of yesterday, bark he’d seen the green-faced monkeys eating. He had to have something more, something of substance, if he was to make it. He was slowing down, nowhere near his prior pace of twenty miles a day. He was lucky to make ten miles now.

I must have some food
. He rose dizzily from his squatting position in the brush and looked, as if in a dream, left and then right. No men were in sight, just a couple more women.
Just that leg from the charred side. I’ll leave the rest.

He moved forward on stiff legs, drawing very near one of the huts. A small child with big eyes came to the doorway and watched him, hand in mouth, as if Nic were some sort of exotic bird, landed among them.

Nic brought a finger to his lips and winked, hoping to keep the child in rapt, silent attention.

He was a foot away from the fire when the boy child looked over his shoulder and said something to his mother.

Too far from the forest for safety, too close to the meat to give up, Nic stepped forward and grabbed the hoof of the goat and yanked. But the meat was still partially raw and didn’t release in the moist, succulent manner in which he had fantasized, popping at the joint, tearing neatly away …

He frowned and tugged again, even as a woman screamed in outrage. He could sense others emerging from their huts, adding their cries. And that was when he heard the answering call of the men.

Grieving his loss, but certain he would be killed if caught, Nic turned and ran. He dived into the jungle and moved downhill. The one time he stopped, an arrow came whizzing through the trees, striking a trunk three inches to his right. Poison darts.

Nic ran until nightfall and the dense canopy above him kept him from navigating by the stars. Frightfully dizzy and with his knees collapsing beneath him, he edged under the wide, umbrellalike leaves of a low-hanging bush and curled up as tightly as possible.

He slept until the screech of monkeys and cries of the birds edged him awake. He knew he couldn’t keep on, couldn’t make it all the way up and out of Argentina, let alone through Central America and Mexico. Distantly, he considered the desire to allow himself to remain right here, to go to sleep to the jungle’s lullaby and never awaken.

Odessa. Moira.

Look after them. Make certain they are all right.
His father’s voice echoed in his ears, years after the fact. Nic opened his eyes and stared at the spine of the broad leaf above him, now illuminated by the meek sunlight that infiltrated the canopy. He hadn’t written in months. Hadn’t been long enough in one spot to hear from Odessa in a year. What had happened with them? Were they all right? What would it be like for them if he disappeared? Would it be a relief? Or would they forever wonder about him?

He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, thinking of his sisters’ faces. He couldn’t stand the thought of them, either of them, fretting over him. Moira was likely busy with her own life, but Odessa would be wondering, wishing for a word. He’d doled out the inheritance from their father and walked away, only able to see his own path. But that had never been his father’s desire; his desire for Nic and the girls was that they might somehow, some way, remain connected. Family.

And Nic and Moira had run as far away as possible.

Failure upon failure.
Dominic St. Clair could not allow it, could not allow himself to die with such a word ringing in his ears. He was a fighter. A fighter!