Fair Is the Rose Read online

  "Go on. Leave, girl," he taunted. "Run on downstairs and get the keys where they lie in the dirt. I'll stay right here, and you can lock me up when you get back."

  Her hand trembled as she raised the gun toward him. Their gazes clashed. Her eyes were somber and determined; his, mesmerizing, menacing. She couldn't tear her gaze away. "I'll shoot you if you come closer," she said.

  "You can't control this situation all by yourself. There's too much you don't know. You'll get yourself killed. Give me the gun, girl." He inched forward.

  She waved the pistol to warn him back.

  He didn't surrender an inch.

  "Do you want me to shoot you?" she asked, disbelief threading through her voice. He was a madman to test her the way he was.

  He whispered, "But you're messin' up my plans, Mrs. Smith. I can't let you do this."

  "You have no choice. Get back!" Her hands quaked. She wrapped both of them around the pistol to steady it.

  He moved forward, like a wolf hunched down, eyeing its prey. She bit her lip, desperately wishing it hadn't come to this. She'd never killed a man. She didn't want to have to kill him.

  Her back met the wall; she hadn't even realized she'd been backing away. He took another step, then another, all the time keeping her gaze captive to his.

  She pulled down the hammer.

  He stopped.

  The seconds passed like years while they stared at each other, assessing. He behaved as if he didn't quite believe she was capable of pulling the trigger. But she knew she was, and she desperately wished he would retreat. To her unspeakable relief, he took one small step back.

  Then he lunged for her. She screamed and pulled the trigger. But her hand was slammed against the wall. Just in time to save him. The bullet ricocheted only once before it burned into the ceiling.

  "How—how did you know I was going to shoot?" she cried, frustration and anger tight in her throat.

  "It's all in the eyes, Mrs. Smith." He drew his body closer to hers, as if to threaten her. "If a man's got a gun on you, you don't watch his hand. You watch his eyes." He released her with a violent shove. She scrambled out of his reach, still brandishing the now useless pistol.

  He walked over to the bed where her black grosgrain purse lay. "No!" she gasped, but he paid her no mind. He opened the bag and dumped the contents out onto the mattress. Out fell a small ivory comb, two bits in change, and five paper-wrapped cartridges. As if all too familiar with the task of muzzle-loading a gun, he bit off the twisted tops of the cartridges, spit the paper on the ground, then poured the gunpowder and bullets out the window to the dirt below.

  "You got any more of these?" he asked, turning to her.

  "No," she whispered in despair.

  "All right, then. C'mon." He took her arm and pushed her in the direction of the door.

  "Where are we going?"

  "Down to the camp," he answered gruffly. "The stove was taken from this place when it was abandoned. Seeing as how you're a woman, you'll be doing the cooking. Down there."

  She wished she could have said she didn't know how to cook, and that he would have to find someone else to play servant. She hadn't been raised in the brownstone on Washington Square to be a scullery. Music and drawing had filled her days. Needlepoint occupied her evenings. Even now she could picture her mother in her chair by the parlor windows, looking so much like Alana, her sister, concentrating on her sewing. Though it had been six years, she could picture every detail: her mother's blond hair pinned neatly in a large bun at her nape, the indigo paisley shawl Father had bought for her in Paris draped over her shoulders, her brown silk gown rustling softly as she bent over her needlepoint frame, counting stitches on her Berlin woolwork as she warmed herself by the fire.

  The fire.

  Christal's eyes darkened. Her gaze met Cain's. She knew how to cook, all right. Because the cozy picture in her mind was just that, a vision, a memory, alive no more. And in the past years, she'd done enough work in saloons to know what to do with a hot stove and a bag of army beans.

  They left the saloon, but not before Cain scooped up the keys lying in the dirt, now dusted in black gunpowder. He showed her a path that curved to the rear of the buildings and dropped rapidly into a gorge. The sounds of gushing water grew louder as they made the descent, but the going was slow, the wan yellow light of the lantern barely illuminating the steep, rocky path.

  Cain let her walk unfettered by his hands until a gleam in her eye must have betrayed her desire to flee. Like a jailor, he took hold of her arm and guided her down. She rebelled at the iron grip, but her skirts tripped her more than once, and her booted feet skidded on the bone-dry earth. Once, she almost slid the entire fifty feet to the bottom of the gorge, but he was there to steady her. And force her to continue.

  Soon they were in the gorge, where a distant firelight flickered through the pines. They approached it and she could see the light was from a freestanding stone chimney, the mining cabin long since burned down. Gunmen were everywhere, darting in and out of the half-moon of firelight as they passed by the chimney. She counted nine of them including Cain. There was only one she hadn't seen before, a barrel-chested man with white hair to his shoulders and a large mustache. When he stood, he was almost as tall as Cain, and in his fringed leather jacket he could have been the main attraction in Bunt-line's production of Buffalo Bill. But he was no actor playing a cowboy. The fringed leather jacket gleamed with brass buttons cut from an old Georgia infantry coat. And the man had eyes like a Doberman pinscher, a terrifying dog she'd seen once in a New York exhibit.

  She looked around anxiously for the other stage passengers. Behind her, Cain said, "All right, take 'em on up to the room and lock them in there. Boone, you can bring 'em grub when there is some." Then Mr. Glassie was shoved into the crescent of firelight, his beautiful verdigris suit pale green from the dust of the road. What horrified her was not his nervous expression, nor the way he stumbled from fatigue, it was the iron manacles that bound his hands and feet, in turn chained to Pete, then to his father, then the preacher, and lastly, the Overland stage driver. The outlaws had seen to everything. None of the passengers was going to escape and ruin the plan. She was the only one who had a breath of a chance.

  The passengers filed past her like a chain gang. Helplessly, she watched Pete demand she go with them for her own protection, but the outlaw holding the bullwhip silenced him just by raising his hand. The chains scraped and rattled in a miserable melody as the men disappeared along the path that led up to town. Fear ripped through her heart.

  "So this here's the woman."

  Christal's blood ran cold. She turned and found the white-haired man staring at her. Then she realized all the men were staring at her, and the campfire talk had died.

  One of them licked his lips. The hairs pricked at the back of her neck. Terrified, she stood like a statue, unable to move.

  "She's gonna do the cooking, Kineson."

  Cain's voice, deep and gravelly, broke her trance. Her presence of mind returned, and she realized he'd called the white-haired man Kineson. Kineson was the man the gang had been named after.

  Fear ran up her spine as she met those predatory eyes. She took a step back, but Cain stopped her flight. With nowhere to run, she came face-to-face with the gang leader.

  "Git to it, girlie," Kineson said, nodding to the fireplace. A malicious grin cracked his face. "I got a big appetite."

  He laughed, and she wanted to spit in his face, but Cain pulled her to the fireplace. She twisted out of his hold and shot him a look that should have knocked him dead. Begrudgingly, she began her task, wishing that each and every one of the gang members were turning on the spit instead of the deer that roasted there now.

  Her nerves stretched to the breaking point, she muddled through finding a pot and some canned beans in an old burlap bag. She dumped the beans in a pot and set it on the fire. Every man's gaze was glued to her, as if they were a pack of rabid curs.

  She then felt a
tug at her skirt. She spun around and saw that the men had sat in a circle around the fireplace, trapping her. Except Cain. He leaned on the fireplace, casually examining one of his revolvers. Again the hand grabbed her skirt. She stepped away from the outlaw, her eyes flashing with hatred, but, surrounded, she left one only to end up next to another gunman who in turn tried to look up her skirts. The men laughed and quickly made a game out of it. Panicked, she was near to crying, but her tears froze in her eyes. If she broke down, they'd have her.

  So the game continued, the outlaws closing the circle around her, enjoying her desperation and fear. She ran from one part of the circle to another, and another, never finding escape. Then the game ended. Kineson's hand snaked beneath her petticoats and grabbed her ankle. She couldn't free it. He yanked and she landed in the dirt, the breath knocked clean out of her.

  The men howled with laughter. Kineson reached for her, but before he could touch her, Cain jerked her off the ground. She fought him, scared out of her mind that he was going to attack her, but instead he said gruffly, "You got things to do. Do 'em."

  She caught her breath, her gaze unable to leave him. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought he'd just saved her. He'd never been part of the game. He'd been off in die shadow of the chimney, watching. Until she fell.

  She returned to the pot of beans, an insane gratitude sweeping over her. She was crazy to feel such a thing toward Macaulay Cain, her captor; for all she knew, he'd ended die torture for the sake of a timely dinner. She sneaked a glance at him. He had returned to the chimney and once more studied his revolver as if the incident had never occurred. She snatched up a wooden spoon and scraped the center of the pot where the beans had burned, chastising herself for even thinking the man had helped her.

  "Cain . . . you know . . . sometimes I wonder who the leader of this here gang is . . . you or me." Kineson stood, his eyes full of threat.

  The gang quieted in the speed it takes to snuff out a candle. All eyes turned to Kineson and Cain, who still stood nonchalantly at the fireplace polishing his revolver.

  "You gonna answer me, boy?"

  Cain slowly lowered the revolver and raised his eyes. Christal held her breath, the forgotten wooden spoon in her hand poised over the pot. Conflict was simmering faster than the beans.

  "This is the Kineson gang. They haven't named the damned thing after me." Cain's every word was cool and concise.

  Kineson eyed Christal in the manner of a victor. He smiled and sat down. "Just you remember that, boy."

  Cain's quiet words were like thunder. "I'm no boy. Just you remember that or you'll be in your grave before you can."

  Everyone froze. The next move was Kineson's. Christal slowly slid her gaze to the gang leader.

  Kineson stared at Cain, unease in his eyes. There was a strange imbalance between the two men. Kineson was clearly the leader, but the man they all seemed to fear the most was Cain. Cain had the ability. In a gunfight even she would put her money on Cain. Kineson knew he'd win too. He didn't challenge Cain at all. He merely scratched his jaw and called for a drink, putting an end to the incident.

  But Christal soon saw it was far from over. The gang returned to normal and she continued to cook the beans, and once, when no one else saw her looking, she found Kineson's gaze nailed on Cain, hatred burning in those terrible eyes.

  Chapter Three

  It took a century for the beans to cook. In that time the men spoke to one another in low tones, every now and again sliding a look to Cain, who cleaned his gun by the fire. Kineson ignored everyone but Christal. She couldn't make a move without feeling his gaze drive right through her.

  A man picked up a banjo and began to strum. Eventually he began to sing. The words ran through Christal's blood like ice.

  I'm a good ol' Rebel soldier, and that's just what I am;

  For this "fair land of freedom" I do not give a damn.

  I'm glad we fit against it, I only wished we'd won,

  And I don't want any pardon for anything I done.

  The war had been over for ten years. She could hardly remember it, it had touched her so slightly. Life had continued as usual in New York for the elite Knickerbocker class. Irishers were the ones sent to fight the South, and even when they abolished the draft, the Irishers were still the ones to go, for that was the only work they could get. Christal didn't know a single soul who'd been affected by the War Between the States. Until she listened to the outlaw sing his Rebel song.

  I hates the Constitution, this great republic too.

  I hate the Freedmen's Bureau, in uniforms of blue.

  I hate the nasty eagle, with all his brag and fuss

  And the lyin, thievin Yankees, I hates 'em wuss and wuss.

  Her only real memory of the war was holding on to her father's hand in the crowd while Lincoln's body rolled down Fifth Avenue. She'd been nine years old, and it had been very confusing to her why someone would shoot the president. But the West had taught her a lot about the war. Bitter Confederates were known to have banded together to raise the South once more. They started out robbing and thieving to fuel their politics, but quickly they degenerated merely to fueling their own greed. Their cause became skewed; still, like John Wilkes Booth, they held on to it to the bitter, dying end.

  I followed Old Mas' Robert, for four years, near about,

  Got wounded in three places, and starved at Pint Lookout.

  I cotch the rheumatism a-campin in the snow,

  But I killed a chance o' Yankees—

  And I'd like to kill some mo'.

  The man's singing rang in her ears. The Kineson gang was nothing more than a bunch of outlaw southern sympathizers. Thinking back, she recalled that even Cain's words sometimes relaxed into a drawl. The ill-fated passengers of Overland Express had landed in the hands of a bunch of outlaw Confederates.

  One by one, all the men started singing until Christal fought the urge to put her hands over her ears.

  Three hundred thousand Yankees are stiff in Southern dust;

  We got three hundred thousand befo' they conquered us;

  They died of Southern fever, and Southern steel and shot,

  And I wish it was three million instead of what we got.

  She looked over at Cain. He'd stopped polishing his revolver. On the last verse, he sang the words with the rest of the men, a faraway, melancholy look on his face.

  I can't take up my musket and fight 'em anymore;

  But ain't a-goin to love 'em, now that is sartin sho';

  And I don't want no pardon for what I was and am,

  And I won't be reconstructed, and I do not give a damn.

  Nervously she stirred the beans, all the while praying they never found out she was from New York. She cringed when she remembered Mr. Glassie telling them he was from Paterson, New Jersey. That didn't bode well for him.

  The men called for their meal. Rebelliously she sloshed beans onto plates, and they settled down to eat, like bears stuffing their maws. Exhausted, she stood by the fire and wondered if the time to escape wasn't at hand. The men were preoccupied with filling their stomachs.

  Where she would go, she didn't know. She secretively glanced at a copse of aspen beyond the firelight. If she could flee into the copse, she might be able to hide from them in the darkness. If her luck held that far, perhaps tomorrow she might stumble upon a miners' camp or a trapper who would help her.

  Slowly she counted the men to make sure their attention was on their plates and not her. It was; even Kineson's lascivious looks had ebbed with the need to appease his hunger. Her blood pounded with excitement. Again she looked into the darkness to the copse of aspen. Then her gaze slammed into Cain's.

  Since they'd gotten to the campfire, he'd done his best to ignore her. He was not ignoring her now. She could see in his face that he knew she contemplated escape; she could also see the slight smirk on his lips, taunting her to try. He might have unintentionally stopped the men from harassing her, but she knew he was as serious
about the kidnapping as any of them. And if she ran, he would catch her.

  Her shoulders slumped. She was running out of ideas. Desperate to think of another avenue of escape, she became so absorbed in thought, she didn't see Kineson until he stood in front of her.

  He smiled. Anxiety shot through her veins like liquid fire. She turned away, but the chimney blocked her path. Trapped, she tried to push him away, but he was too strong. He held her face with his hands and looked down at her pale, fear-ridden features. She pulled his hands off of her but it only further amused him. He smiled again, then reached for her, this time using a brutal grip around her waist while she struggled to keep him from kissing her.

  "She's mine, Kineson."

  Kineson looked behind him. Cain stood there, his right hand relaxed at his thigh, clearly ready to shoot the man's brains out.

  "Get him off me," she gasped, her blue eyes frightened and angry. She looked to Cain, but his eyes turned ice cold. It was clear he didn't care to help her, only to retain what he considered his property.

  Nonetheless, Kineson was furious. He spat, "What you mean by that, Cain? Why you helping this girlie? You making a claim on her?"

  "Yeah." Cain crossed his arms lazily over his chest.

  "You ain't gonna share?"

  "No."

  Kineson stared at him. Cain returned the stare, unflinching. Between them, they fought a silent battle. But it was a standoff. Neither man relented. Soon Kineson's hand seemed to itch for his revolver. He put his palm around the pearl handle, then looked at Cain's hand. A mistake. Cain's notoriety as a gunman came from speed, precision, and, as Christal now knew well, the fact that he could read a man's eyes and be the one to shoot first. Kineson caught Cain's stare again, and she could tell the gang leader himself knew he was disadvantaged. Kineson stepped aside.