Mountain Laurel

  “I trust you with my life, but—” She broke off, the emotion of the night too much for her. “Leave me for a while, please.”

  He walked behind her, then turned her and pulled her into his arms. She struggled against him. He wouldn’t touch her when she wanted him to, but the minute she couldn’t bear the sight of him, he held her close. “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t.” He stroked her hair. “You have no idea how you feel about me.”

  “But I guess you do know?” she asked angrily.

  “I think I know better than you do.”

  She pushed away from him. “You say that I’m vain, but it’s your vanity that knows no bounds. I imagine you think I care about you. Well, I don’t. I care nothing at all about you.”

  “You sure looked like you cared nothing about me when I plowed my way through those men to get to you tonight. I never saw such joy on a person’s face as when I held up my arms for you and you fell into them with absolute and total trust.”

  “I would have gone to any man I knew. The men who were carrying me didn’t have me balanced properly.”

  “Oh? From the moment the men picked you up, Sam was not a foot from you, and since he’s somewhat taller than I am, why didn’t you see him and go to him?”

  “I saw him,” she lied. “I just didn’t choose to go to him, that’s all.”

  The way he grinned made her turn away.

  “I wonder if we could stop arguing just long enough for you to patch me up? I’m bleeding.”

  She whirled on him, immediately putting her hands on his waist and turning him about. “Where?” There was a large bloody patch on his back and at the top of it his shirt was cut. “Oh, ’Ring, you fool. This looks serious. Why didn’t you say anything? Did someone use a knife on you?” She glanced up at him and saw the way he was smiling. “Not that I care in the least. I don’t. I would help anyone in my employ, even men I don’t like. Oh, do stop smirking and take that shirt off. I have bandages in the trunk.”

  “You will do anything to get me undressed, won’t you?”

  “Truthfully, I like the look of you better than what comes out of your mouth.”

  She saw him wince when he moved his arms out of his shirt. “Sit,” she ordered, and he did.

  She’d bandaged men before and knew something about wounds. The cut wasn’t deep, and she didn’t have to sew it, but it looked grimy. “What did you do, roll in a pigsty after you were cut?”

  “More or less. Somebody hit me in the knees and I went down, then about thirty or forty others decided to walk across me.”

  “I saw you go down, but there was nothing I could do.”

  “And I heard you call out to me. I’m sorry I couldn’t get to you,” he said softly.

  She looked back at him, but his eyes were on the part of her anatomy that was bulging over the top of her corset. Now he looks at me, she thought angrily, and poured whiskey onto the cut.

  He sat up straight, drawing in his breath. “A little gentler, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’m being as gentle as you deserve.”

  “Then I deserve the best. If it weren’t for me, you’d probably be in some miner’s tent right now, at the mercy of half a dozen men.”

  She stepped away from him. “At least they’d know that I was a woman. At least they wouldn’t look at me on the sly.”

  He put his hand up to the side of her face, burying his hand in her hair, his thumb at the corner of her mouth. “Don’t you understand anything? Anything at all? You’re the most desirable woman I’ve ever met in my life. Between your body and that voice of yours, I—Never mind what I feel, but I don’t want you if you want just any man. I want you only when you want me. Me, ’Ring, not Captain Montgomery, not a man you don’t trust, not a man you consider an enemy. You’re much too important for anything less than that.”

  There was too much of him unclothed, too much of her uncovered, and they were too close together. She backed away from him. “You want information from me.”

  “I want a lot more than that from you.”

  “To sing for you?” she whispered.

  He sighed and turned away. “Do you think this cut needs sewing?”

  “No.” She was confused by his words, didn’t at all understand what he was saying. In fact, the more she was around him, the less she understood about him. She didn’t want to talk anymore about whatever it was that they were talking about.

  “Who was the man who sang with me?” she said as she began bandaging the cut on his back, winding clean strips of linen around his shoulder, under his arm, and across his back. She tried to ignore the way her nearly bare breasts rubbed against his bare back and chest as she reached around him.

  “I didn’t have much time, and, if the truth be known, I could hardly take my eyes off the spectacle you were making of yourself, but, from what I gather, he is the town drunk of a town of drunks. Comes from a place called Desperate.”

  “Not a bad voice. I can’t imagine where he got the music to Carmen. I wouldn’t have thought it had come west yet. There, that should hold you.”

  He caught her hand. “Thank you.” He looked at her hand, then turned it over and kissed the palm, holding it for a moment against his lips. She put her hand on his thick, dark hair. When he looked up at her, she felt a little weak-kneed. “You were great tonight. I imagine you changed a few minds about opera.”

  Now she was far enough away from her performance to remember it with embarrassment—including her performance in the tent with him. “I’m afraid I went a little too far in the other direction. I’m afraid they’re going to have a new opinion of opera that is as bad as their old one.”

  “They are certainly going to think of opera singers in a new way.” He looked pointedly at her bosom which was about three inches from his face.

  Maddie nearly jumped away from him and pulled her dress together. “I don’t know what came over me.”

  “Carmen did,” he said, then stretched, his hands touching the canvas of the tent. “But I’m glad you’re back. Carmen’s not the kind of woman I’d choose. Tell me, what happens to her in the opera?”

  “Don José kills her.”

  “That would have been my guess. You ready to go to bed? You may be willing to stay up all night, but I need my sleep.”

  She was staring at him. What did he mean by, “the kind of woman I’d choose”?

  “You plan to wear that to bed?”

  That shook her out of her trance. “You expect me to undress in front of you?”

  “From what you were wearing tonight, I expect you to put on more clothes to go to sleep. Want me to help you with your ties?”

  “You lay one hand on me or my undergarments and I’ll give you a wound that’ll make the one on your back look like nothing.”

  “It might be worth it. I’ll have to consider the matter.”

  “Get out of here and call my maid.”

  “I’m good with corset ties.”

  “Go!”

  “All right, but when you’re ready for bed, I come back in here. Understand?” He didn’t give her time to answer before he left the tent.

  Maddie sat down on the cot. She didn’t understand the man at all. One minute she was practically throwing herself at him and he was ignoring her, then the next he was offering to take her clothes off for her.

  It was several moments before she realized that Edith was standing over her and whispering.

  “I got it.”

  “Got what?” Maddie asked.

  “The fruit you asked for. I had to pay a lot for it though.”

  Maddie still wasn’t thinking clearly and just looked at Edith.

  “He make you forget your little sister again? If a man could make a woman forget, he could, but I can’t tell that he’s interested in women.”

  “Because he’s not interested in you?”

  “Jealous, are you? I haven’t seen you wakin’ up happy after a night with him. Or is tonight the first? You
sure put on a show for him this time.”

  “Help me undress, and I did not put on a show for him. I merely sang and played a role as it was meant to be played. It was about—”

  “You don’t have to explain any of it to me or to anybody else. A blind man could have seen what you was singin’ about. The way you was rubbin’ on that post and lookin’ at Captain Montgomery. Mmmm-hmmm! I’ll have to try that sometime.”

  Maddie could feel her face turning red and was glad for the nightgown going on over her head.

  “You want the fruit or not?”

  It took Maddie a moment to remember what Edith was talking about. Early the next morning she was to leave the camp, alone, and make the long climb up the mountain to meet the man and exchange letters. And if she did everything he said and did it well, she would see Laurel.

  “You still want the fruit, or you gonna just ask him to let you go?”

  Yesterday Maddie had decided that the only way to get away from Captain Montgomery was to do something that would force him to let her go alone to meet the man who had Laurel. She knew there was no use trying to talk to him. He’d set himself up as her caretaker, and he wasn’t going to relinquish the job.

  Sitting in that coach for hours yesterday, she’d come up with nothing more creative than to once again use opium. It would get him out of the way for a good long while, giving Maddie the time she needed to get ahead of him, and Edith seemed to have an unlimited supply of the stuff. Maddie had been able to form a plan that would probably trick him enough to get him to take the opium in some dried fruit.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I still need the fruit.” As she said it, she felt quite bad. It hadn’t bothered her before when she’d seen him drink the whiskey with the opium and now, if anything, he was more of a nuisance and a hindrance than he was before. But since then he’d rescued her from the men who’d taken her and wanted to hear her voice. He had dressed himself like an arsenal tonight, ready to use fists or guns or whatever was needed to ensure her safety. And he’d come to get her when the men had carried her off on their shoulders. And if she were honest with herself, she knew that the truth was that she’d been able to perform Carmen only because she knew that he was there watching over her. Had she been alone, with just Sam and Frank to take care of her, she would never have dared to act in such an audacious way. Of course, while she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that she might not have wanted to be Carmen and rub up against a post if Captain Montgomery hadn’t been there watching her.

  “Bring the fruit in the morning. At about five. That should make him sleep most of the day. Did you get a horse?”

  “Just like you said. It’ll be waitin’ for you.” Edith looked at Maddie awhile. “You really gonna go out there in them woods all alone?”

  “The woods are safer than a town like this. The woods don’t frighten me a bit, but when Captain Montgomery wakes up, he’s going to be in a foul mood.”

  “Is he! I think I might find I have to do somethin’ on the other side of town all day tomorrow. I don’t want him to find out I had anything to do with this.”

  “Wise decision.”

  When ’Ring returned, Maddie was hidden under the covers of her hard little cot, but she listened to him as he undressed and spread his blankets on the canvas-covered floor. She wondered what he was wearing, or, more precisely, what he wasn’t wearing.

  He turned out the lantern and moved between his rough army wool blankets. “Good night,” he said softly.

  Maddie didn’t answer, but waited, wondering if there was more to come. She remembered how Toby had said that Captain Montgomery wasn’t interested in women. All women, or just her?

  “Was I actually good tonight or were you just being kind?”

  “You were more than good.”

  She paused a moment. “I’ve never done anything like that before. I mean, I’ve never acted like that before. My life has been rather sedate when it comes to men. I haven’t really…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I know.”

  His bland assurance that he knew everything there was to know about her made her angry. “Why do you assume you know so much about me when I know so little about you?”

  “We learn where our interest lies.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He didn’t say a word, and she knew that he wasn’t going to answer her. She remembered the way he’d come for her tonight, and she thought of what she was going to have to do to him tomorrow. “ ’Ring,” she whispered.

  He didn’t speak, but she knew he was listening. “Sometimes a person has to do things that aren’t right, or they may not seem right at the time, but in the long run they have to be done whether one wants to do them or not. Do you understand?”

  “Not a word.”

  She sighed. Maybe it was better that he didn’t understand. “Good night,” she said, and turned onto her side and tried to go to sleep.

  In the morning, at five, a sleepy-looking Edith came into the tent, carrying a little wooden box. “Mornin’, Captain,” she said.

  Maddie rolled over and looked to see Captain Montgomery, fully dressed in his dirty, bloody shirt and army trousers, sitting on the stool drinking a cup of coffee. “How long have you been awake?” Maddie asked.

  “Awhile. What do you have there, Miss Honey?”

  “Dried fruit. One of the men sent it to her,” Edith said, pointing at Maddie, “for the singin’ last night. I think they’re called figs. Ain’t never had none myself, and they don’t look too good to me, but one of the girls said that they cost a lot.”

  ’Ring took the box from her and looked inside. “They are indeed figs.” He held out the box to Maddie. “Have one?”

  She sat up in the bed and made a great show of rubbing her eyes. “No, thank you, but you have some.”

  She tried not to watch as he put his hand over the box, then hesitated. “No, I think I’ll wait.”

  He got off the stool. “I’ll wait outside while you get dressed and then I’ll escort you to the necessary. Today you’re not getting out of my sight.”

  “Now what you gonna do?” Edith asked as soon as he was out of the tent.

  “I have no idea, just help me get dressed and then I’ll think of something.”

  True to his word, Captain Montgomery was waiting for her outside when she was dressed. He offered his arm to her, but she refused to take it. “I can walk on my own.”

  “Whatever.”

  She didn’t want to talk to him, because she had to think. If he wasn’t going to eat the figs, what was she going to do to get rid of him?

  She assured him that she could make her way to the necessary all by herself and so walked ahead of him. But she was just inside the place when she heard hissing outside.

  “Ma’am, it’s us. ’Member us?”

  Quickly, Maddie looked around for knotholes in the outhouse and saw about fifty of them. She sighed in resignation. “What do you want?” They were the four men who had kidnapped her and taken her to sing for them. What they had done was wrong, of course, but she couldn’t hate any men who wanted to hear her sing as much as these men had. They had kidnapped her so that their friends could also hear her sing.

  She listened as the men asked her to grubstake them. In return, they’d give her a deed to half of their three claims. Why not, she thought, and at the same time knew that Captain Montgomery would hate the idea. But then, the fact that she even considered such a proposal was his fault. All his talk of old age and what was she going to do when she could no longer sing had made her think about needing money. What had John done with all the money she’d earned over the years? He’d always paid any bills she’d run up, and it had never occurred to her to ask him what had happened to the rest of the money.

  “All right,” she said. “Go tell Frank I said to give you a hundred dollars each.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” they chorused. “Thank you. We’ll make you a rich woman.”

&n
bsp; She was relieved when they left and she at last had some privacy. Captain Montgomery was waiting for her outside the little shack. I am little more than a prisoner, she thought. For some reason, all my freedom has been taken away from me.

  In the tent, Captain Montgomery held up the box of figs. “Want some?”

  “No, thank you. I really don’t like them. But you have as many as you want.”

  “Don’t mind if I do.” She watched as he picked up two of them and ate them quickly. “They’re really good. You should have a few.”

  “No, I’d rather not.” She smiled as he ate another fig, but then frowned as he ate a fourth one. She didn’t have any idea how much opium Edith had put in each fig, and she didn’t know how much a person could take without sleeping forever.

  When he put the fifth fig to his lips, she leaped at him. “No!” She knocked the box to the floor and grabbed the fig from his hand.

  He looked at her in surprise, then understanding. “What have you done, Maddie?”

  “Nothing I didn’t have to do. Please try to understand.”

  “Understand that you don’t trust me? That you think that I’m so incompetent that I can’t help you in whatever it is that you have to do?”

  “Yes. I would ask for your help if I could, but I can’t. You must understand.”

  “I don’t understand at all.” He put his hand to his forehead and swayed on his feet.

  Maddie went to the side of him, put his arm around her shoulders, and led him to the cot, where he half fell onto it, pulling Maddie halfway down with him. She pushed at him, trying to get away, but he held her. She relaxed after a moment, knowing that soon he wouldn’t have the strength to hold her.

  “Where are you going? Who are you meeting? What’s so important that you have to risk your life for it?” He had a hold on her neck, not allowing her to move from her position of half on, half off his body.

  “I can’t tell you. Believe me, I would if I could. I would like to have someone’s help.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, then forced them open again. “Is it the same man as before?”

  “What? Oh,” she said, remembering the first time he’d followed her. “I can’t say. I have to go. I have a long way to go before tonight.”