“A duchess from Lanconia?” He looked at her with one eyebrow raised.
Quite suddenly she realized what he was doing. She had been trembling when he’d entered and near to tears, but now she was better—a lot better. “How about a glass of port, Captain?”
He knew she understood, and it made him feel good. “I’d rather have a song. A song just for me.”
“Ha!” she said, but she was smiling. “You must slay dragons for that reward. Tonight all you deserve is a glass of port. But it is the finest port in the world.” It pleased her that he’d gone from ridiculing her singing to wanting her to sing for him.
“Then I’ll have to take what I can get, but I mean to earn that song.”
She poured the rich liquid into two crystal glasses that she kept in a box specially made to hold and protect them.
“To truth,” he said, raising his glass.
Maddie drank the toast, but she fully expected to be struck dead on the spot. She gave him a weak smile over the top of the glass and vowed to not give him another piece of information.
The next day they traveled and Maddie was once again stuck inside the rocking coach with Edith, who slept and snored. Captain Montgomery had asked to be allowed to ride inside with her, but she’d refused. She would very much have liked his company, someone to talk with, but he’d gotten too much information out of her.
At midmorning Frank stopped the coach and the captain came to the window. “I’m afraid I have a favor to ask of you. Toby isn’t feeling well, so could he ride inside the coach?”
“Of course. He can sit by Edith.”
“That’s the whole idea,” ’Ring said softly.
“I beg your pardon.”
He motioned for her to lean toward him. “I think they’re in love,” he whispered in her ear.
“Oh?” She straightened and looked from Edith to Toby, who looked perfectly fit.
’Ring motioned her down again. “They want to be alone.”
She still wasn’t understanding.
“You can ride with me.”
“I see. If this is an attempt to get me alone with you, you can forget—”
“You can ride my horse.”
She didn’t question how he’d known she could ride his stallion, or that she was greedy to do so, but she wasn’t going to turn down the offer. She flung open the coach door so quickly she caught Toby on the shoulder.
“I’m sorry, I—”
’Ring practically lifted Toby and thrust him into the coach, then slammed the door behind him. “Edith can take care of him.” He moved his arm in a sweeping gesture toward that gorgeous horse of his.
She smiled up at the animal. “Here, Satan,” she called, but the horse didn’t move. “Satan?”
’Ring took off his hat and scratched his head. “Try, ah…Buttercup.”
She looked at him. “Buttercup?”
“It wasn’t my idea. My little sister named him. He eats anything. My brothers wanted to name him Sawdust, but I thought Buttercup was the lesser of the two evils.”
“No Satan?”
He looked down at his hat. “I would have been laughed out of my family. You ready to ride him?”
“Come, Buttercup,” she called, and the horse trotted straight to her, went past her outstretched hand, and started munching on the coach’s red paint.
She laughed, took the reins, and mounted.
“He’s not used to anybody but me, so your lighter weight may disturb him,” ’Ring said as he shortened the stirrups for her.
She patted the horse’s neck. “I’ll manage. My father taught me to ride. We’ll get along fine, won’t we, you big, beautiful male?”
Frank looked at ’Ring and ’Ring shook his head. Women and horses.
Maddie handled Buttercup easily. It was wonderful to once again be on the back of such a spirited animal, and she went up the steep hill ahead of the coach so that ’Ring, on Toby’s horse, had trouble keeping up with her. She would have loved to try him out on a flat stretch of ground, but in the Rockies, flat land was not to be had.
When ’Ring pulled up beside her, she was grinning broadly.
“It must be wonderful to be back in the country where you grew up,” he said casually.
“Oh, it is. It’s heavenly. The air is so clear and cool and—” She realized he’d trapped her again. She looked at him, and he was smiling smugly. She looked away. “Captain,” she said slowly, “what is your name? I mean besides ‘boy’ as Toby calls you?”
“Or ‘devil incarnate’ as you call me?”
She kept her face turned away from him.
“It’s ’Ring.”
She turned and gave him an odd look. “ ’Ring? I see. And all these brothers and sisters you have, what are their names? Necklace? Bracelet? Anklet, perhaps?”
He chuckled. “No, actually it’s Christopher Hring Montgomery. My middle name is spelled with an H on the front of it, but the H isn’t pronounced. My mother always spelled my name with an apostrophe on the front of it. I guess it kept people from calling me Huh-ring”
She was silent for a while, enjoying the air and the wonderful horse beneath her. “Where did you get such a name?”
“My father has a big old family Bible full of names for our family.”
“Such as?”
“Jarl and Raine and Jocelyn.”
“Jocelyn’s pretty.”
“Not when it’s given to a boy, as it is in our family.”
“Perhaps you’d have to give the boy another name, such as…well, I don’t know. Lyn, maybe.”
“Lyn! He’d have to defend himself with a gun from the time he was six.”
“Lyn isn’t any worse than ’Ring. Why didn’t they call you Chris?”
“Christopher is my father’s name. I would have been ‘Young Chris’ or, in our family, ‘Young Kit.’ All in all, ’Ring is all right, just so it’s not Huh-ring.”
He smiled at her. “And where did you get the name Maddie?”
“From the queen, of course. She names all the little duchesses.”
“I guess she named your little sister Laurel after some Lanconian plant. I’ll bet—”
He stopped because all humor left her face. He searched his mind for what he’d said wrong. “Laurel,” he said softly, and saw her wince. “Look! Was that a mountain bluebird?” He watched her turn away, and when she looked back she had herself under control again. Laurel, he thought. Perhaps all this had to do with her little sister Laurel.
He didn’t try to provoke her again but let her enjoy the day as he vowed to keep an even closer watch on her than he had.
Chapter 6
Maddie’s second performance needed no showy display to make the miners listen to her, for word of her first performance had spread across the mountain and men had traveled from camps all over to hear her.
She told Captain Montgomery that she would sing outside. He’d protested, but relented when he saw how determined she was. The men built her a stage of sorts, large enough for her and for Frank behind her, this time playing a flute. Captain Montgomery stood at one end and Toby at the other.
While she was singing she glanced once at Captain Montgomery. He was leaning against a tree, his eyes closed in pleasure. Whatever else she had to say about him, he was coming to genuinely like her music. By the end of the performance she found herself singing for him, watching out of the corner of her eye as, when she played with notes, holding them, trilling them up and down, he’d smile ever so sweetly.
When, after four hours, he led her from the stage, he wrapped her arm tightly in his, his fingers closing over hers. “You were right,” he said. “You cannot say enough about your voice.”
She thought perhaps it was the most sincere compliment she’d ever received. The compliment was so sincere and the moonlight was so lovely that she didn’t invite him into her tent for a glass of port, and once she was alone inside the tent she got out her photograph of Laurel and looked at it for a long while. Wh
atever she must do she must trust no one, at least not anyone who might possibly interfere. She imagined Captain Montgomery charging up the mountainside, sword drawn, and challenging that dreadful man with the letters. And in payment they might harm Laurel.
By the time she went to bed she remembered only Laurel.
There were no opening or closing hours for the saloons in the Pikes Peak gold fields. Since getting drunk was as much of an occupation as looking for gold, the drink flowed as freely as the mountain streams.
Inside one of the many tents there were two empty whiskey bottles on the table that would have been full of splinters except for the layer of gray grease coating it, and the four men were rapidly emptying the third bottle.
“Ain’t never heard nothin’ like her,” one man said.
“An angel can’t sing no better.”
“Member how Sully said she’d not be any good?”
“I would have liked the boys to hear her.”
“We could ask her to sing up at Bug Creek.”
“Takes a day to get there and there’s only fifty men. Wouldn’t even pay her way. She ain’t gonna do that.”
They called for bottle number four and drank half of it. “I think she ought to sing for us. Sully’d like to hear her, even if he thinks he don’t want to, and he can’t leave the fields, what with claim jumpers all around.”
They silently finished the bottle, and when they called for bottle number five their courage was at its highest. “I think she ought to sing for us.”
“Yeah,” the three others said. “Yeah.”
’Ring heard the men near Maddie’s tent and woke instantly. He couldn’t tell, but he thought there were two of them. Silently, he rolled out of his blankets, his pistol in his hand, and made for the trees. He was barely on his feet before he saw the shadow of a man near a tree.
’Ring stuck his pistol in the man’s ribs, and when the man turned, he grinned in the moonlight, and his breath was enough to knock a person down. “Evenin’,” the man said.
It was the last thing ’Ring heard before a pistol butt came crashing down on his head and he crumpled to the ground.
He woke to a pair of large hands shaking him vigorously. Groggily, he opened his eyes, but it was so dark he could hardly see the black face in front of him. Besides that, his head hurt abominably. It took a moment for his memory to come back, and then he tried to leap up but instead found himself staggering. He clutched at the big shoulder of the man. “Sam,” he whispered.
“She’s gone,” Sam said in a surprisingly soft voice for a man so large.
“Gone?” ’Ring couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening since his head was splitting in half. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, then looked again at Sam. “Gone? Maddie is gone? Where? Who’s she meeting this time?”
“She was taken. Four men.”
’Ring stood still for a moment, trying to take this in. “Who?”
“Don’t know.”
“Well, where the hell were you?” ’Ring shouted, then grabbed his head in both hands. When his brain stopped moving about in his skull, he realized it didn’t matter who or why, it just mattered where.
He went down the little rise to her tent. Edith was inside going through Maddie’s clothes. “Tell me all you know,” he said to her, the light hurting his eyes, but he squinted through it at her.
“There were four of them. They came into the tent and took her. I think they were drunk.”
His head hurt so much that he was having trouble thinking. “Where were you? And Frank? And you?” he said to Sam.
Edith answered. “I was sleeping outside and didn’t do nothin’ or say nothin’. I’d like to live awhile longer.” She glared at him, daring him to say anything. “Frank ain’t here, I don’t know where he is, and I think they hit Sam.”
’Ring turned to see the man, and because of his darker skin the blood running down his neck hadn’t been immediately visible. ’Ring knew Sam’s head must be hurting as much as his own did, but Sam gave no indication of it. ’Ring’s opinion of the man rose a bit. He looked at Edith, barely able to keep the sneer from his voice. “Which way did they head?”
“Through the town.”
“West,” he murmured, then turned and left the tent. He woke Toby when he was saddling Buttercup and quickly, tersely, answered Toby’s questions.
“You ain’t goin’ by yourself, are you?” Toby asked.
He knew he had to. Toby wasn’t especially good on a horse and, besides, he was getting old, and on top of that ’Ring didn’t want to put him at risk. He trusted no one else. “I want you to stay here and find out what you can about what’s going on. Where was Frank and—?”
“Gamblin’. The man’s a heavy gambler.”
’Ring turned to Toby. “And the cowardly Miss Honey?”
“Takes in customers after ever’body’s asleep.”
It was amazing that a person could know someone as long as he’d known Toby and still find out new things. He’d had no idea Toby could be so observant. “And Sam?”
“He’s real hard to figure.”
’Ring mounted his horse. “Find out what they know. Find out whose side they’re on and—” He paused. “Find out who hired them.” He reined his horse away. “I’ll see you when I have her.”
He rode through the camp, concentrating hard to ignore the pain in his head and the anger in his soul. He blamed himself for her having been taken, for not looking more and seeing more.
There was no way to track her in the dark through a camp of several hundred men who did anything but keep regular hours. All ’Ring could do was ask. After an hour he found a couple of men who said yes, they’d seen four men riding west and the opera singer had been sitting in front of one of the men.
“How did she look? Hurt?”
“Pretty,” one man said. “I told her her singin’ was real good, and she nodded toward me. Didn’t smile though.”
“You have any idea where they were taking her?”
“I didn’t ask, but there’s only five or so camps up that road. ’Course I ain’t been up there for a couple of weeks now, so there might be more ’n that now.”
’Ring thanked the men and started up the steep, rutted trail. On each side of the road the trees had little bark left on them because the miners had used block and tackles to get their wagons up and down the road.
The sun came up and still he rode, his eyes searching the ground for any clues to the direction she took. Perhaps she knew something about tracking, at least enough to leave something behind so someone could follow her. The sun was high in the sky, and he saw nothing that gave him a hint as to where she’d been taken. At about eleven he came to a fork in the trail and he halted his horse, removed his canteen, and drank.
He had a fifty-fifty chance of taking the right way. With resignation he started down the right-hand trail. He’d gone no more than fifty feet when, from overhead, came an arrow, which stuck into a tree ahead and to his left. For a moment ’Ring stood still. It was a Crow arrow, exactly like the one shot near him before.
Slowly, he rode forward and took the arrow out of the tree. Was it another warning? As he looked at the tip, he suddenly knew: the arrow was meant as a barrier. He was going the wrong way. So the Crow must know where she’d been taken. He knew but he wasn’t going after her. Why?
’Ring looked up in the mountains, but saw no one. Because she’s not in danger, he thought. She might have been taken, but she wasn’t in danger.
’Ring turned his horse around, then started down the other trail. He felt sure of himself now. Ten miles down the road he came to another branch and this time, when he took the right branch, there was no arrow. He kept going until, at sundown, he reached a little camp of no more than fifty men living in shacks and tents and under overhanging rocks.
Maddie wasn’t difficult to find. She was sitting on a stump surrounded by very sad-looking men.
“Just one song?”
“P
lease, ma’am?”
“We’ll pay you.”
“We’ll sign a claim over to you.”
“Please.”
’Ring almost smiled at the scene. She sat there in a dusty dress, her hair hanging down her back, looking as regal as a princess. “Might as well give up, boys,” ’Ring said from behind the men. “She’s the most stubborn female on earth. Can’t make her do anything she doesn’t want to do.” He smiled across the men at her, and she gave a little smile back. It was a smile that said I knew you’d come, but what took you so long?
He made his way through the men, stepping over a few sprawled on the ground, and when he reached her he held out his hand. She took it and stood, then followed him through the men. They groaned and made a few muffled pleas for her to sing for them, but no one made any vigorous actions.
Slowly, ’Ring led her to his horse, lifted her onto it, then mounted behind her. Slowly, his hand near his pistol, he rode out of the camp, but not one of the sad-faced men followed them.
“You can relax now,” she said. “They won’t follow us.”
“Bastards!” he said under his breath. “As soon as we’re farther down the road, I’m going back and—”
She put her hand on his on the reins. “No, please. They meant no harm.”
“Harm! My head feels as though a wagon ran over it, Sam’s head was bleeding, and you say they meant no harm.”
“They were drunk, but it’s not something that hasn’t happened to me before.”
“I see, you’re a regular kidnap victim. Is that what that man the night before last wanted? To hear you sing?”
She wasn’t going to answer that. “These men,” she said pointedly, “wanted to hear me sing, and for a singer of my quality, abduction is not so unusual. In Russia, after I sang for the czar, the students unhitched the horses from my carriage and pulled it to a dreary little boardinghouse. They could not afford even the cheapest tickets, but they very much wanted to hear me.”
“And did you sing for them?”
“No. I wanted to because I was very flattered by their attentions, but I was afraid that if it were told that, like a bird in a cage, I would sing in captivity, then someone might permanently put me in a cage.”