The Ruination of Essie Sparks (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 2) (29 page)

"Do you know why I brought you here?" his grandfather asked.

He didn't. Unless the silence itself was the punishment.

The old man ran his hand over the red soil and sifted it through his fingers. "You are a boy who lives in two worlds. Your father's world and the world of the Human Beings. The
vé'ho'e
world is not like ours. They forgot how to listen to the earth. They listen to each other, instead, and argue the right and wrong of things. They think they own the ground. They rip down the trees to make fields and take rocks from the holes they dig and use them for their money. They do not sit on the earth or sleep in the sacred circle. They no longer hear the wind in the grass, or, if they do, they cannot remember what it is saying.

"Your blood is both
vé'ho'e
and
Tsitsista.
One day, you will choose between those worlds. Perhaps you will remember this day when I crumbled the earth in my hands. You will think of the way of the Human Beings. When your path is uncertain, sit and listen to the earth. It will speak to you. Wait, in the quiet, until it does. Then you will know what is right. Then, choose without fear, because your path will be honorable."

Cade gathered a fistful of dirt from the jail floor and flung it toward the open window. He watched it sparkle and float in the moonlight before disappearing from sight.

Listen. Wait. You will know what is right.

Honorable.

Fight for my life? Or fight for theirs? Anything it takes to clear my name would smear Essie's. Or Little Wolf's.

It seemed useless to consider his growing feelings for Essie. She couldn't understand who or what he was—something in-between. It didn't stop him from wanting her. He ached with wanting her. He could still feel her heated kiss against his mouth. The soft give of her body against his.

"You talk about fear, as if I'm the only one who has something to lose here,"
Essie had said.
"But I think it's you who's afraid, Cade... so don't pretend that thinking of me as your hostage, to push me away, is for my sake. At least admit it's for yours."

A wave of pain washed over him and he rolled onto his back. Nothing was clear to him anymore. Not honor or fear or... whatever he was feeling for the woman who'd given herself to him in that hot spring. But he would be damned if he would put her in more jeopardy.

He closed his eyes, knowing soon enough daylight would come. And he would take it in greedily, knowing his days were numbered.

Chapter 18

Ollie was waiting for them at the door when they returned to the sporting house.

"Well? I thought I left you two here with specific orders to stay put," she said before they could offer any excuses.

"Please don't blame Pink," Essie said. "I twisted his arm, and truthfully, he knew I'd just go on my own if he didn't help me."

"Damn fool girl," Ollie muttered. "I'm doin' my best to keep you safe."

When Essie explained where they'd been, Ollie was only slightly mollified. "It could'a waited until daylight."

"Maybe, but
I
couldn't. I think we know where Little Wolf is," Essie told her. "At least, generally speaking. I think those men might've traded him for that gold."

"Well, that is bad news," Ollie said, "because once that happens, it's the Devil's own work to get him out."

"So you've heard of this happening before? Of a boy being sold there?"

She nodded. "There's very little regulation down in the Chinese quarter, no oversight at all. They take care of their own and don't bother the townsfolk. They do things differently there. They keep girls in cribs and treat them like chattel."

"Why doesn't someone help them?" Essie asked.

Pink glanced at Ollie and she looked away. "Someone should. But women have few rights hereabouts, in case you hadn't noticed. China girls, even less. It's a fact of life."

Essie shook her head. "Only because we—all of us—allow it."

With a sharp look, Ollie studied her for a long time, contemplating what, Essie couldn't imagine. Finally, she rolled her eyes and said, "You're absolutely right. Pink, I have something to tell you. Essie, this is not for your ears. But if you happen to hear what I'm about to say, then we shall be agreed that I told you nothing."

Confused, Essie stared at her, a bad feeling crawling up her spine. "And what, exactly, am I not to hear?"

Ollie turned directly to Pink. "Pink, Cade's been arrested. He is in jail right now as we speak."

"What?" Essie gawped.

Ollie ignored her. "Those two men who were chasing him caught up with him in Coulson and trounced him pretty good."

"How bad is he?" Essie demanded.

Still talking to Pink, she said, "Doc's already seen him. No use anyone trying to see him tonight. Morning'll be soon enough. But they're chargin' him with horse thievery and kidnapping, as well as the murder of a certain teacher from the Industrial School who is apparently still missing—"

"They're what?" Wide-eyed, Essie could hardly believe what she was hearing.

"—and if they don't come to understand that she's alive and well—"

"Of course I'm alive and well."

"—or that the boy stole that horse, and not Cade, then they'll hang him for certain."

Hang him?
Oh, dear God
. "Stop talking as if I'm not in the room!"

"Now, Pink," Ollie continued, "since I promised that mule-headed friend of mine in jail that I would not impart any of this information to Mrs. Sparks, and that I'd make sure she was on a train east first thing in the morning—"

Essie scoffed and jammed her hands on her hips. "I most certainly will
not
be."

"—the only way she can hear about him is if you tell her
,
as you made no such promises to him. I will leave that in your capable hands."

Pink shook his head disbelievingly, then slowly turned to Essie. "Mrs. Sparks," he began. "It 'pears that Cade has been taken—"

"Oh, for heaven's sake! I don't need to hear it again. News like that is bad enough the first time." She turned back to the door. "I'm going right now to see him."

"He doesn't want you to know where he is."

"I don't care if he doesn't like it. I will not let him hang for something he didn't even do."

"So... he didn't take you?" Ollie asked, pinning her with a look.

"Well," she equivocated, "that... that's a complicated issue."

"I don't think they'll think it's complicated. Either he did or he didn't, Essie."

She pressed her hands together. Cade's life might all boil down to what she said about that first morning. What she was willing to say. "He didn't. I... I chose to go with him. On my own."

"That's not what they claim they saw. At least, that's the talk around town."

"They can say whatever they want. If
I
say he didn't kidnap me, then they can hardly say he did."

Ollie and Pink exchanged dark looks. "You know what that will mean for you, don't you, Essie?" she warned. "To claim you willingly ran off with a man like Cade?"

A man like Cade?
She recalled all the times he'd saved her life, protected her, wrapped himself around her to keep her warm. She thought of the hot spring and the memory of him inside her sent a wave of longing through her. Did she know what running off with a man like Cade meant for her? "Can you imagine that I do not understand?" she asked Ollie. "But I dare anyone to call me a liar."

"No one's callin' you anything, least of all me. I know the man Cade is. But there are a bunch of witnesses who'll say otherwise. Who'll claim he had a knife to your throat."

"Be that as it may. Let them say what they will. If I don't press charges, what can they do? And if they press me, let them explain shooting at us both on the way out. They could have easily killed me themselves. So if their great concern is for my well-being, let them explain that."

"They can do whatever they want, and usually do. And they can still hang him for stealing that horse—"

Pink interrupted. "I reckon if there's any horse thieves to be had, it was them that tried to sell that pony to Hiram. Find them, find your horse thieves."

"That might work. But the boy..." Ollie began.

"Yeah, about him." Pink grabbed Ollie's coat off the rack near the door. "They can't rightly claim it was the boy stole that horse without admittin' the low-down thing they done to him. We need to go find him before somethin' worse happens. And it might take more than us findin' him to get him out. It might take cash."

"
My
cash?" Ollie asked, but the question was rhetorical.

Essie shook her head at Pink. "Certainly selling a Cheyenne boy is illegal. Can't we just get the sheriff? Take him back? After all, slavery was—"

"You're talkin' about a Cheyenne boy," Pink told her. "And there's some things even the law won't step into out here. The Chinese world is one of 'em."

"What makes you think we can buy him back?" Ollie asked.

"If we can't, we'll take him," Essie vowed. "But I'll pay you back whatever it costs."

"Last I heard, you're fresh outta work."

Pink's gaze slid to Essie, one dark eyebrow raised.

"I have some money saved back at the school," she said, though it was all she had in the world. "It's not much, but it will be a start."

Ollie frowned with a sigh. "Keep your money. I'll bring what I've got on hand. You know where to look for him?"

"We have a good idea." Holding the coat up for Ollie, Pink sent Essie a slow, certain smile.

It never hurt, Essie thought, to have a man who wore the name Pink so well on your side in a fight. "I have one stop to make first. After that, we'll go find the boy."

* * *

The silver comb bent easily in Little Wolf's hands in the darkened hole of a room in which Chen Lee kept him. With his fingers, he worked the teeth of the comb until one was separated from the others and bent at just the right angle.

Now, he fitted the tine of the comb into the lock of the manacle strapped around his leg and gave it a jiggle. Lock-picking was a trick many of the children had learned at the school. There was a root cellar they kept padlocked outside the kitchen and there never seemed to be enough to eat. Hunger drove them to invention, and when no one was looking, he and some of the other boys would sometimes pilfer apples and other food to distribute among the children. If the disappearing food was later discovered, it was assumed to be a shortage from the store. They never suspected the children of being clever enough to manage it. No one had found the courage to try the same thing on the padlock of Wages of Sin while someone was inside, though it would have been a better use of their skill than pilfering apples. But Wages was at the center of the courtyard and too hard to approach.

He put the place that had lived in his nightmares from his mind. He would never go back. If they caught him, he would find a way to escape again. But he wouldn't get caught. Tonight would be his last night in these chains, and Shyen Zu's as well.

He and Shyen Zu would run away together like Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and maybe they'd even build a raft to float down the Yellowstone to his mother's camp. Or he would make her his wife so no man could ever hurt her again. Not that he wanted to take a wife to his blankets yet, but a Cheyenne boy could do worse than Shyen Zu, the prettiest girl he'd ever seen.

The manacle made a click as he twisted the comb inside the lock and it fell open on his ankle. The metal clanged against the floor and he trapped it in his hand before it could make even more noise.

He released a breath and stretched out his leg. A raw, bruised spot on his ankle ached, but he ignored it, getting to his feet and hobbling toward the closed door. Pressing his back against it, he stopped to listen.

In the room next door, the bedstead banged against the wall and he heard the low, sharp demands of a man's voice. He didn't know the name of the girl in that room, but he had seen her, a sad-faced girl with blank eyes. Every now and then he saw her sip on the pipe in the smoke room with some man she was pleasuring. It was perhaps the only way to survive the life in this place for a girl like her.

The rhythm beat faster and faster, along with other noises coming from the rooms around him. The cacophony of sounds at night, he'd found, made sleeping impossible, but would likely cover his own escape if he was lucky.