The Ruination of Essie Sparks (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 2) (28 page)

"This is what comes of being a lone wolf, like you are, Cade. This is when you need your friends, not turnin' inward and givin' up."

"No sermons now, Ollie. I just need you to help them. Essie and the boy."

"Have I ever refused you anything?" Her cocoa-colored eyes softened as she watched him. "I do like her though. Your hostage girl."

"She's not my hostage. She never was."

"No, I guessed she wasn't. But I'd say she's falling in love with you."

He turned his head away and closed his eyes. He was tired. Bone tired and he ached all over. He couldn't think about his feelings for Essie now. Couldn't allow himself to remember her soft green eyes or the way she'd asked him to make love to her. If he did, he'd only end up blaming himself again, because it was—really, all of it—his fault. But mostly, what had happened to her.

"You rest, Cade," Ollie said, standing up. "I'll see you in the morning."

"You remember what I said," he warned.

"I'll remember."

Chapter 17

Essie and Pink moved down the darkened streets of Billings, avoiding crowds near the local saloons and gambling palaces and places illuminated by streetlamps. Pink was not only acquainted with all the liveries in town, but he also claimed he knew most of the stablemen who operated them.

By the time the moon had risen in the sky, they'd checked all but the last with no luck at all. No sign of Lalo and they'd found no one who'd seen a boy fitting Little Wolf's description either.

Discouragement weighted her steps as they walked to the last place. She'd been so sure she'd been right. To fail was simply unacceptable. Yet it seemed that Little Wolf had vanished like smoke once he'd made it here. It seemed altogether likely that they'd merely passed through town on their way to some other destination. A mine, perhaps. Those mining camps nearby infamously employed children for slave wages to explore their most dangerous shafts where adults could not fit. Immigrant children and even those children of the Cheyenne who were no longer eligible for school
. God help him if they've taken him there
.

Finding him in one of those camps, scattered as they were throughout the southern part of Montana Territory, might take months if not years.

What else could those men possibly want with a boy like Little Wolf?

Pink took her arm. "This way." Steering her down a darkened alley, she thanked her lucky stars again that he was with her. She would have been a fool not to listen to Ollie on this. The streets of Billings at night were no place for a woman alone. Or, in her opinion,
anyone
alone.

Klingman's Stables sat at the far edge of town, near the cattle pens and the rail yards. In fact, it wasn't clear where the cattle pens ended and the stable paddocks began until she saw a row of hacks and wagons lined up against one fence line, and finally, a hand-lettered sign over an inconspicuous entryway.

Pink tugged at the door only to find it locked up tight. "Dad blast it," he muttered. "Must've closed for the night."

"Maybe we can sneak in the back through the fence and take a peek?"

"And get your fool head shot off?" He shook his head like she was daft.

"Good point," she agreed. "Does that mean someone is watching the place?"

"Retired for the night, and prob'ly not feelin' all that generous about bein' disturbed, I reckon. Might 'soon blow us to kingdom come for trespassing, as answer the door."

"I thought you said you knew him."

"I
do
know him. That's the problem. He's... ornery."

"Could you, for me, Pink? He's our last hope."

He considered, looking none too happy about it. "Why don't we come back in the morning?"

"If he was your boy, would you wait?"

With a sigh, he turned and raised a fist to the door. "That there's why I never had no children." He pounded on the door and they waited a minute. Two. He pounded again.

"We're closed!" came a shout from behind the door.

"It's me! Pink! Open up, Hiram. I need a favor."

"And I need my bones to quit aching," Hiram complained. "But nobody's makin' that happen. So go away."

"We're looking for a horse, Hiram. A small paint. Brought in the last two or three days or so. Seen one like that?"

"No!"

Essie's face fell as she met Pink's look.

"You sure?" Pink shouted through the door again. "Mostly white with patches of—"

"Maybe," Hiram grumbled. "Lemme think a minute."

She and Pink waited while Hiram contemplated. Then they heard the heavy lock open.

"Well? What are you waitin' for? Come on in."

Hiram was a small, crooked man with shaggy gray hair and a belly from too much whiskey. He frowned up at her, then at Pink.

"Hiram Klingman? This here is Mrs. Sparks. Mrs. Sparks? Hiram."

"Don't like surprises," Hiram grumbled, half to himself, as he turned to make his way into the stables. "A man can't hardly have a moment's peace anymore."

They walked to the far back of the stable. When they reached the last stall, Lalo peered over the door and gave them a sniff.

"This the one you mean?"

Essie had never been so happy to see a horse in all her born days. "It's her! It's Lalo!" she cried. "I knew it. I knew I'd find you somewhere."

"Funny you'd ask about her. I had a bad feelin' about this one." Hiram scratched his ear. "Something about them two fellers made me itchy."

"They stole her, those men, from a boy," Essie said, petting the horse's velvet nose. "What can you tell me about them? Did you recognize them? Have you seen them before?"

"Horse thieves? Nope, can't say I have. But they paid me with a gold piece for her board."

"A gold piece. So they didn't try to sell her?"

"I wasn't buyin'. Like I said, something about them two. But I reckon they aim to sell her if they find a buyer."

"Did they mention where they were staying? Anything? What did they look like? Did you get their names?"

"That's a lot of questions, missy."

"They took that horse from a boy we're lookin' for," Pink told him. "He could be in real trouble. So anything you remember might help us find him."

Hiram erased the crankiness from his expression with an effort, tucking his fingers into the straps of his seen-better-days overalls. "I think they were brothers. I heard one of them call the other one... what was it? Payton, I think was the name he used. He was the tall one. The other one, a head shorter and thick as a board. But they were jangling a bag o' gold coins between them like they'd just struck it rich."

Essie slid a worried look at Pink. "Anything else you can remember? Any little thing?"

He thought for a minute. "Well, I'm not much for reading. But I did notice some kind of symbols on that little gold bag of theirs because they was unusual. I've seen 'em before on some hogsheads and crates gettin' offloaded at the rail yard. And if I ain't mistaken, those symbols were Chinese letters."

* * *

Little Wolf staggered through the opium room, carrying a covered bucket of offal, trying not to breathe. Naturally, that was impossible, so he inhaled some of the sweet-smelling smoke the men lying on the beds exhaled. Most of them looked asleep. Those who weren't were on top of a woman who stared with dead eyes at the ceiling as she let the man have sex with her.

Except for animals, he'd never before seen real sex, though he'd heard his parents beneath their buffalo robe when he'd been just a boy, and he'd learned young what that was. But that seemed nothing like what was happening here. His mother used to giggle and speak softly to his father and sometimes make noises of pleasure. If these girls made noises, they were noises of pain, grunting sounds as men forced themselves on them.

He'd walked past a room occupied by Shyen Zu and an older Chinese man who'd paid four bits for her time. That was two bits more than some of the other girls got, though she kept none of that money for herself.

Little Wolf had stopped outside her door and listened to the bed rock against the flimsy wall, to the sounds of the man grunting, to Shyen Zu's gasps of pain when he did something to her Little Wolf could not see. He'd had the impulse to break down the door at that terrible sound. To rescue her. But Chen Lee had walked by then and struck him with his cane for standing still. And, shamefully, he'd moved on.

Later, when he'd seen her, Shyen Zu's face was bruised and she wouldn't talk to him.

A fist of anger had boiled up in his chest for her. He wanted to kill Chen Lee and the man who'd hurt her.

With a start, he realized that the violence that had bubbled up in him, since that stay in the Wages of Sin, was relatively new. Never before that had he wanted to take another person's life. Never had he even wished another dead. But now he felt that part of him that once believed things could get better leaking away from him. Was this how it was to be a man? Was revenge a sacred duty in this world? Did a man have to kill to survive?

It was not the way of the Human Beings. At least, he didn't think so. Counting coup was true bravery, his father had told him. To get close enough to kill one's enemy, but only touch instead. That way, the enemy would know how close they came to death. And then they would have to live with that defeat.

But the old ways wouldn't work on men like Chen Lee, or the men who took him up in the mountains. Or Sergeant Laddner. Men like those did not understand about courage or honor.

Perhaps he didn't either. Now, all he cared about was getting out. Getting out with Shyen Zu.

So as he worked, he watched for opportunity. Like an eagle, hovering on the currents of air, he watched. Waiting. Knowing he would find it.

As he set the half-full bucket down to tip another piss pot in, opportunity scurried across his line of vision with a flash of silver. The simple three-toothed comb bounced across the floor with a metallic
ping
, unnoticed by the girl from whom it had fallen.

He blinked at the thing, instantly categorizing its usefulness.

Glancing around to see if anyone was watching, he reached for the comb and stuffed it in his pocket before hurrying off to finish his job.

* * *

With an effort that cost him, Cade rolled toward the moonlight spilling through the barred window and gazed out at the stars. He could not see the valley from here, or the street, but he could hear the sound of people there, even at this late hour. And he could see the halo of the oil street lamps of Billings which had been, no doubt, lit by Boone Proctor, a kindly drunk who earned his meager living lighting and dampening the streetlamps.

But the stars... they blinked to life in the velvet wash of black above. Through the small window of his cell tonight, the sky felt boundless.

He felt small.

This country, the valley that surrounded Billings, was as much a part of him as the mountains they'd come down. It wasn't often he thought of the land here this way, but he loved it. This land was his history, muddled though it was, and in his heart he'd always imagined he would end up here one day, settled permanently.

And by permanent, he didn't mean in Boot Hill, the cemetery above the town, where more than a few men had ended their Montana dreams. But it looked like he might have miscalculated on that account as well.

He'd gone over options in his mind again and again tonight. If there were regrets to be had, losing Little Wolf and Essie were two. But he'd run flat out of options on both accounts now.

There was what he
should
do and what was best to do. Those two things were seemingly at odds with one another.

Something came back to him then. Something Three Bears, his grandfather, had told him once during one of his summer visits with the People.

He'd been almost thirteen then, that summer before his mother's death. The summer before his life changed unalterably. He'd been showing off for some girl, riding with the other boys in a dangerous way that ended with a collision and a broken arm for his friend, Running Fox.

It was not the way of the People to punish such foolish behavior. Instead, his grandfather took him for a long walk. He said nothing along the way, even when they reached the top of the rim rock. There, they sat for hours, listening to the wind blow in the grasses around them. They sat until his legs fell asleep and his back ached and Cade could no longer take the silence and he broke. He told his grandfather about wanting to impress the girl, about his jealousy of Running Fox who always caught the eye of the girls and always bested him in competitions. He'd told him that he'd known how he acted was wrong. That he should have been the one who broke his arm.