HT02 - Sing: A Novel of Colorado (43 page)

Reid laughed. “Ah, sweet emotion. It makes for such perfect manipulation.”

“Leave her alone,” Moira growled, hating that Reid had put them in this situation, that he controlled even this,
this
.

“You, my dear, are in no position to make any demands,” he purred in her ear. He kissed her, right below her ear, then. “I’ve enjoyed our brief reunion, but I’m onto the prize.” He looked up and stared over at Daniel.

Daniel.

Moira still couldn’t believe he was here. That he was alive.

That he’d come after her, despite his injuries.

“Adams,” Reid called. “You obviously came here for Moira. Here she is, though she ain’t so pretty now, is she? You can have the whore. Just give me the other sister in exchange.” He pushed Moira forward, closing the gap between them but carefully keeping her between himself and Daniel’s gun.

Moira lifted a hand to her face. “Don’t look at me, Dess. Don’t look at me, please. I’m a monster. I’m so sorry. So sorry Reid is using me—”

“Sh, shh,” Odessa said, reaching out, as if she could touch her across the twenty paces that now kept them apart. “You are not a monster. You are alive, Moira, alive, and you have no idea how—” her voice cracked—“how happy it makes me. I’ve been afraid … when I didn’t hear …”

“Too busy living in sin to write your only sister?” Reid asked Moira, his face a mask of mock dismay. But Odessa’s eyes remained on her, full of longing and love.

“Mrs. McAllan!” Daniel cried, as Odessa stepped forward.

Reid eyed his men coming from the north, three on horses, one trailing behind. “No more time for games,” he said. “When my boys get here, things will get infinitely more complicated. Keep it simple, Daniel. Throw down your gun, or I’ll shoot Moira right now.”

“You shoot Moira, I’ll shoot you.”

“But you still lose her.”

“And then you lose your life.”

Moira’s eyes flicked from Daniel to Reid and back again. She could not make it if Daniel died here. Not here. Not now. Not because of her or her family—

“Daniel, let us go,” Odessa said. “It’s the fastest way through this. I know what he wants.”

“No. No! He’ll kill you! This man knows no boundary.”

Reid grinned and pointed his revolver in Odessa’s direction. Once he had her, he threw Moira to the ground before him. Moira was weeping again, shoulders shaking. She reached up to her sister, wanting to touch her, just once more—“Odessa.”

“Moira,” Odessa said, her heart in her eyes. “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

Reid hauled Odessa away then, toward his horse. He climbed up in one swift motion, keeping his gun trained toward Odessa’s ear. “Tell Bryce and his men that if they try and leave the ranch or come after us, our sharpshooters will cut them down,” he called over his shoulder. “They’ll show no mercy. I’ll return the woman when she gets me what I’m after. Maybe.”

Reid reached down and Odessa accepted his arm. He hauled her up behind him, even as he turned the horse, so that the only exposed back to Daniel’s gun was Odessa’s. They galloped off across the field, thick clods of sod flying behind them. Up ahead of them, three men edged out of the trees toward them, guns drawn. Bannock’s men, come to claim him, protect him.

“Odessa,” Moira wept, a hand stretched in the direction they went.

“We’ll get her back, Moira. Trust me.” Daniel bent to help Moira to her feet, his gun still before him, even after Reid and his men receded into the trees on the far side of the field, Reid’s reference to sharpshooters clear in both their minds. Slowly, they backed into the house. Once inside, with the door locked, Moira turned to him and he enveloped her in his arms, careful not to touch her burns. “You came for me,” she said. “You came after me, Daniel.”

“I made a promise,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “It’s been a long time since a man kept his promise to me.” She withdrew and looked up at him. “You were shot. I saw it.”

He lifted his chin and tried to smile. “Winged me. But didn’t kill me.”

“You rode all that way … wounded?”

“So did you.”

A girl peeked around the corner of the hall. “Mrs. McAllan, he took her?”

“He took her,” Daniel said with a groan and slid into a kitchen chair. “Come in here, please, Cassie. Sit down, Moira. We need to find a way to save your sister.”

Manuel said nothing more to Nic after that night tied to the mast, but his words echoed through his mind as clearly as his father’s. At last, the northern territory of Baja California dominated their view, a long and desert-like peninsula in Mexican territory that would go on for days, by all reports. Giant sharks inhabited these waters, and Nic was glad for the ship’s shallow draft, not eager to hit a reef here. The sandbars and coral raced upward and descended just as quickly. It stole Nic’s breath when he dared to watch, but the captain stayed at the helm, unperturbed, under full sail, the steam engine silent. They were blessed with constant, steady winds and, the captain obviously preferred the free wind power over that which cost him in coal.

The men relaxed, half of them given leave to rest in their hammocks, half on deck dangling from their sitting positions across the lanyards or against the deck walls. Some whittled wood, others told stories. Some sang. Others, like Nic, only gazed out at the peninsula, willing it to pass by more quickly. He dreamed of that moment when he would stand again upon steady American soil, remembering how he would likely still feel the swell and release of the sea for days as he acclimated to life on land.

Alejandro, clearly bored, trolled by on occasion, trying to get a rise out of Nic by calling him names. But Nic ignored him, thinking about the wounds on his back still healing and why those were there. They were scabbed over by now, but once in a while he would move in such a way to break one open, and his shirt would become soaked with blood. Healing was a long process, one he was not eager to begin again. But if Alejandro ventured ashore in California, then he could give him everything he had without threat of a captain’s repercussions. The man passed him, whispering taunts, and Nic’s eyes went from him to the captain. The captain saw it all, absorbed it, looked past what he could, addressed what he had to. Nic was determined not to force him to address his behavior again. All he wanted was his pay for the voyage and to be off, back in his own country.

Nic looked over the starboard rail, watching as a pod of dolphins raced the ship, gleefully jumping in graceful arcs, then diving down to gather speed again. The dolphins always made him feel lighter, somehow, like watching children play. They didn’t have a care in the world. Nic glanced back at the captain and returned to his thoughts.
He looked past what he could and addressed what he must.
He seemed a reasonable, peaceable sort. Could Nic do the same—address only what he must? What was Alejandro to him once he was on shore? He would likely never see the man again. Could Nic walk away and not look back? He had never been much good at looking past things that irritated, angered, or frustrated him. How did one do that? Was it inborn or something he could learn?

Manuel passed by him, and Nic quickly looked away, not wishing to engage the man in conversation. But he caught the smile in Manuel’s eyes, the sense of peace about him. Was it his faith that gave him that? The coal boss thought he had it all figured out.
Give in to God—until you do, you won’t find rest.
How did he know that it would work for Nic? Nic hated people who were so smug about their faith, as if they lived in the light and he was in the dark.

He looked down at his hands and slowly unclenched them. He considered all the men he had punched with those fingers. Even on nights he had been severely beaten, afterward he would find a moment’s rest, a bit of the peace he sought. His mind, his body were spent, and he could sit in a place of nothingness for a while, sleep without dreaming. He wished he could stay in that place, day and night. Calm, at rest. Yet it was impossible.

“You are wrestling inside,” Manuel said, leaning against the rail beside him.

Nic looked up to the sky, trying to mask the irritation he felt. He had not invited the man to stop. Could not the captain decide to set the steam engine to work again and aid the sails? Then, at least Manuel would be down in the hold, attending to the coal rather than up here, idle, with nothing to do but pester Nic.

“You are a passionate man, Dominic,” the coal boss said. He bit off the end of his cigar and spit it out to the sea. He left him for a moment to go and light the cigar in a hatch lantern that always remained lit. Nic braced himself for his return. “The key to passion is to find the appropriate outlet.”

“Yes, women,” Nic said with a grin.

Manuel laughed, and Nic softened a bit toward him. “A good woman, a wife, is a good place to put some of that passion to work,” he said, waving his cigar at the ocean as if he were talking to the dolphins as much as to Nic. “But God can take our passion and give us fulfillment.”

“See here,” Nic said, straightening, “I’m not in the mood for another of your sermons.”

“I don’t blame you,” Manuel said, still leaning on the rail. “If a man is on the run he does not wish to pause for instruction.”

“I’m not on the run.”

“Aren’t you?” Manuel squinted at him over his shoulder, blew out some cigar smoke, and looked back out to sea. “You don’t belong here, aboard ship. I believe you didn’t belong in Argentina, where you began your journey. How far back did you cease to belong?”

Nic frowned and rubbed his face, trying to get hold of his rising anger. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh you do, you do, amigo. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“How far back did I cease to belong? What does that mean?”

“When did you lose your way? When did you begin to fight anyone who threatened you in the least bit?”

“I was a kid. A hotheaded kid.” Nic leaned against the rail again, this time with his back to the waves.

“So … soon after one of your brothers died?”

Nic thought back to the first time he ever scuffled with another boy. There had been skirmishes at school here and there. But the first time he punched another until he bled? Scrabbled until he himself bled? That was the day after little Clifford, the brother he had felt closest to, died. Nic clenched his lips a moment and then said, “It means nothing.”

“It does,” Manuel said softly. “If you are not on the run, then you are adrift. You are like a ship without a mooring, weathering one storm after another.”

“Isn’t that life? Don’t we all make our way through the storms, hoping for calm weather ahead?”

“No, life, life as God intended it, is sailing in a certain direction, with good bearings. Yes, there are storms. Sometimes there are shipwrecks. But we sail with a goal in mind. Before you were shanghaied—”

“How do you know I was shanghaied?”

“Because a man such as yourself does not sign on to sail unless he’s forced to it. Before that, where were you going? What were you doing?”

“I was in Buenos Aires, fighting in the ring. Making a pretty good living at it too.”

“And did you intend to stay there? Do that forever?”

“No one fights forever. They get too old, too broken.”

Manuel took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So what did you intend to do then, when you became too old or too broken?”

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “See what captured my interest next.”

“Adrift. Passion without an outlet.” Manuel turned to lean his back against the rail beside him. He watched a few sailors pass by, nodding in greeting. “You are like this ship, with sails lashed and coal sitting in a pile. You are pent up, waiting for something, wishing you could move. Who is your captain? Who will give you the direction to haul sail or feed coal to the fire? How do you know which direction to point your ship?”

“You don’t know me,” Nic said, turning to face him. He wished he could knock that knowing expression off his face, but Manuel remained at ease, leaning back, puffing on his cigar and scrutinizing him. “Why not go and bother someone else? Why me?”

“Because God is after you,” he said, gesturing toward him with the cigar between his second and third fingers. “And my direction is to follow God’s direction. It is what keeps me from being adrift. It fills my sails with wind, keeps my steam engine’s stove with burning coal.”