A Victorian Christmas (2 page)

Phoenix, Arizona

The memory of the previous night’s choking nightmare swept over Aaron Hyatt as he strode through the lobby of the Saguaro Hotel in downtown Phoenix. He had dreamed he was going to marry Fara Canaday. Stopping stock-still on the burgundy carpet and staring up at the hideous gargoyle that had reminded him of the nightmare, he ran a hand around the inside of his collar.

Marriage? What a despicable thought. What a gut-wrenching, spine-chilling, nauseating idea.

“Evenin’, mister.” A young bellboy peered up at Hyatt. “You look a little pale, sir. Are you all right?”

Hyatt’s attention snapped into focus. “Why am I going to New Mexico?” he demanded of the lad. “I’ve been sitting in my room most of the day pondering the question—and I still don’t have a good answer. Why would a sane man travel across mountains and deserts —give up two good months of his life—just to meet a woman?”

The bewildered boy swallowed. “Maybe . . . maybe she’s a beautiful woman?”

“She’s not. If I were a gambling man, I’d wager half my fortune she’s plain faced, oily haired, dull witted, and lazy. She’ll be all done up in silks and ribbons. She’ll giggle and mince around the parlor like a little lap dog. She’ll have nothing in her brain but bonbons and fashions. I know the type. Know them well, trust me. So why am I going?”

“Because . . . because you were told to?”

“Asked. Asked by my father on his deathbed.”
Go and find
Jacob Canaday, the best man I ever knew. Honest. Hardworking.
Loyal. A Christian man. Go and find him. He has a daughter. If you
can, marry her, Aaron. She’ll make you a good wife.

“She might make a good wife,” the boy ventured.

“Pah! You have no idea. None whatsoever. She’d nag me to death. The rich ones always do. They’ve had life too good. Too easy. She’d want everything she doesn’t have—and twice as much besides. She’d make my life a sludge pool of misery. Well, I’m not going. I’m a praying man, young fellow, and I surely believe the Lord speaks in mysterious ways. That dream must have been a sign.” He reached into his pocket for a coin. “Send word to the livery stable for me, will you? Tell them Aaron Hyatt wants to be saddled and out of town by six.”

“Hyatt? Are you Mr. Hyatt?” The boy’s eyes widened. “There’s a gentleman’s been lookin’ for you. He’s waitin’ upstairs with his pals. They’ve been drinkin’ whiskey for hours, but he says he’d wait all day and all next year if need be. Says he’s been expectin’ you to track him down these fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years? I was no bigger than you fifteen years ago— and sure as summer lightning I wasn’t tracking anybody but Sallie Ann, the girl next door with the pretty red pigtails.” Hyatt glanced up the staircase. “Who is the man?”

“It’s Mr. James Copperton, of course. He’s famous. He owns the biggest saloon in Phoenix and half the trade in loose women. Maybe he wants to do business with you.”

Hyatt scowled. “I wouldn’t do business with a man like that if my life depended on it. But I reckon I’ll have to speak to him. Run up and tell him I’m here.” He glanced at the gargoyle again. “Then hotfoot it to the livery, boy. Tell them I’m riding out tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“I’m not one to waste a single minute once I’ve made up my mind. The more miles I can put between Miss Fara Canaday and me, the happier I’ll be.” He flipped the coin to the boy. “Hop to it.”

“Yes, sir!”

The lad raced up the curving staircase, taking the steps two at a time. Hyatt pondered the gargoyle a moment longer.
Spare
me, Lord,
his soul whispered in silent prayer.
If I must take a wife,
give me one with fire in her spirit, brains in her head, and the smile
of an angel. Amen.

As he started up the stairs, the young bellboy flew past him. “They’re waitin’ for you, Mr. Hyatt,” he said. “I’m on my way to the livery.”

“Good lad.” Hyatt reached the landing and turned the corner to start up the second flight of steps. As he placed his hand on the banister, a strangled cry echoed down.

“It’s him! It’s him!”

Hyatt looked up—straight into the barrel of a trembling six-shooter.
Ambush
. Fire shot through his veins, tightened his heart, stopped his breath. The small pistol tucked under his belt seemed to burn white-hot. Could he reach it in time?

“You sure it’s him, boss?” someone shouted. “He looks awful young.”

“It’s him. It’s Hyatt!” The man holding the pistol swayed at the top of the staircase. Hyatt had never seen the drunkard in his life. “Fifteen years you’ve been after me, Hyatt! Every time I look over my shoulder there you are, haunting me like a devil. I’ll stop you this time—”

“Now just hold on a minute, mister—”

“Is your name Hyatt?”

“Yes, but—”

The pistol fired. The pop of a firecracker. Pain. Blood. The smell of acrid black smoke. Gasping for air, Hyatt flipped back his jacket, drew his pistol, aimed, and fired.

“I’m hit! I’m hit!” the man moaned.

A bullet struck the mirror on the wall beside Hyatt. Glass shattered. Screams erupted in the lobby below. Hyatt jammed the pistol under his belt and grabbed his left forearm. Searing purple pain tore through him as he turned on the landing.

“After him! After him, boys. Don’t let him get away!”

Another shot splintered the wooden balustrade. Hyatt hurtled down the steps, his pursuers’ feet pounding behind him.
The
livery. Get to the livery.

He raced through the lobby. A woman fainted in front of him, and he vaulted over her. He burst through the double doors. Dashed out into the chill darkness. Down an alley. Across a ditch. He could hear men running behind him. Shouting.

His head swam. The livery tilted on its side, lights swaying. The smell of the stables assaulted him, made him gag. In the doorway, the bellboy’s face looked up at him, white and wide-eyed.

“You’re bleeding, mister!” he cried. “What happened?”

What happened? What happened? Hyatt didn’t know what happened. Couldn’t think. His horse. Thank God, his horse! He wedged his foot in the stirrup. Threw one leg over the saddle. The stallion took off, hooves thundering on the hollow wood floor of the ramp. Galloped past the men. Past mercantiles. Houses. Foundries. Corrals.

Hyatt cradled his scorched and bleeding arm. He no longer heard his pursuers. He turned the horse east. Mountains. Caves. Tall pine trees. Fresh springs. Better than desert.

Yes, he would head east.

CHAPTER ONE

Holly. Ivy. Cedar wreaths. Pine swags. Hot apple cider. Cranberry trifle. Plum pudding.

Oh, yes. And mistletoe.

Fara Canaday dipped her pen into the crystal inkwell and ticked the items on her list one by one. She had planned and organized the sixth annual Christmas tea for the miners’ children as carefully as she always did. Each item on the list was in order, and in two weeks the anticipated event would go off without a hitch.

Tomorrow, a fifteen-foot pine tree would be cut, brought down from the forested ranch near Pinos Altos, and erected in the front parlor of Canaday Mansion. Already, piñon logs lay in neat stacks beside the seven fireplaces that heated the large brick home. The silver candelabras had been polished, the best china washed and dried, the white linens freshly pressed. Twelve plump turkeys hung in the smokehouse, ready to be garnished and set out on silver trays. The only thing remaining was to post the invitations. The housekeeper would see to the task.

Leaning away from her writing desk, Fara kneaded her lower back with both hands. The lady’s maid had the morning off, and Manuela had laced Fara’s corset far too tightly. Born in the mountains of Chihuahua, Mexico, Manuela possessed a flat face, bright brown eyes, and an indomitable spirit. She approached her labors like a steam locomotive on a downhill run. She polished silver-plated bowls straight through to the brass. She dusted the features right off the Canaday family portraits. And when she laced a corset, strings broke, grommets popped out, and ribs threatened to crack.

Fara sucked a tiny breath into her compressed lungs and tugged at her collar. The ridiculous lace on the dress just in from New York threatened to choke her to death. And these silly shoes! The pointed little heels poked through the carpet. That morning they had nearly thrown her down the stairs. If it weren’t for a business meeting at the brickyard, a trip to the bank, and dinner with the Wellingtons still to come, Fara felt she would tear off the abominable gown and shoes and fling them down the coal chute. With a sigh, she tossed her pen onto the writing desk. Black inkblots spattered across the Christmas list.

“Confound it,” she muttered. If only she could escape this sooty town and her ink-stained lists. She would pull on her buckskins, saddle her horse, and ride up into the hills.

“Letters,” Manuela announced, barging into the library and dumping a pile of mail on the writing desk. “Invitations mostly, señorita. You’ll be here all afternoon answering these.”

Fara restrained the urge to remind her housekeeper to knock. To announce herself. To use all the polite manners so painstakingly covered in the manual Fara had brought from the Boston school for young ladies.

“Did you already go to the post office, then?” she asked.

“
Sí
, señorita. You didn’t have anything you wanted to mail, did you?” Manuela eyed the large stack of invitations.

“Just these two hundred letters.”

“Ai-yai-yai.”

Fara let out her breath. “Manuela, please. When you’re going into town, let me know. I need a new bottle of ink, and we have to get some red ribbons—”

“Look at this packet, Farolita!” Manuela was sifting through the mail on the writing desk. “It’s from California. I wonder who it could be? Do you know anyone in California?”

Fara grabbed the thick envelope. “Manuela, I asked you not to look through my mail. It’s private, and you’re . . . you’re . . . well, you’re supposed to be the household staff. It’s not proper.”

“And who is to say what is proper?” Manuela sniffed. “I have been with your family since I was four years old. I knew your mama before she was married. I knew your papa back when he was working in the mines. I used to change your diapers,
niñita
. I am not household
staff
. I am Manuela Perón.”

“Yes, but at the school in Boston—”

“
Now
you decide to follow the rules of the school in Boston? After you have chased away all the men who want to make you a wife?”

“I’m trying to honor Papa. I know he wanted me to have a family of my own. Children. A husband.”

“Pushing a man out the window will not get you a husband.”

“That lamebrain had climbed up the rose trellis!”

“You broke the other man’s nose with the bust of George Washington.”

“You didn’t hear what he had suggested.”

“What about that poor fellow in church? You stuck out your foot and tripped him!”

“He had passed me a note saying he wanted us to marry and move to Cleveland, where he would buy a shoe factory with Papa’s money.”

“Maybe you would have liked this Cleveland. These days all you do is make your lists and go to meetings. Even the Christmas tea you run like a big project at the brickyard or the silver mine.” She gave a sympathetic cluck. “What has happened to my happy Farolita? my little light?”

Through the window over her desk, Fara studied the pine-dotted Gila Mountains with their gentle slopes and rounded peaks. Outside, soft snowflakes floated downward from the slate gray sky to the muddy street. At the Pinos Altos ranch, it would be snowing on Papa’s grave.

The black-iron window mullions misted and blurred as Fara pondered the granite headstone beneath the large alligator juniper. This would be her first Christmas without her father. Though she had managed her own affairs—and many of his—for years now, she missed him. The house felt empty. The days were long. Even the prospect of the Christmas tea held little joy.

A portly Santa Claus in his long red robe and snowy beard would not appear this year. Instead, the gifts of candy canes and sugarplums would lie beneath the tree. The miners’ children would ask for the jolly saint, and Fara would have to tell them he had already come—and gone away.

When had life become so difficult? Where was the fun?

In the mountains, that’s where. At the old ranch house at Pinos Altos. The stables. The long, low porch. The big fireplace.

“Open the packet from California,” Manuela said. “Maybe it’s a Christmas present to make you smile again.”

Fara broke the seal and turned the large envelope up on her lap. A stack of letters tied with twine slid out, followed by a folded note. She opened the sheet of crisp white paper and began to read.

Sacramento, California
Dear Miss Canaday:

       
As evidenced by the enclosed correspondence, my late
father, William Hyatt, was a close friend to your father, Jacob
Canaday. I understand they once were gold-mining partners
in a small mountain town called Pinos Altos. Perhaps you
have heard of it. My father moved to California before the
New Mexico silver strike of 1870—an event that proved to
be of great benefit to your family.
       
In compliance with my father’s wishes, I am traveling
to Silver City to discuss with you possible business and
personal mergers. I shall arrive in New Mexico two weeks
before Christmas and will depart after the start of the
new year.

Cordially yours,
Aaron Hyatt

Fara crumpled the note. “Of all the pompous, arrogant, conceited, vain—”

“What is it?” Manuela asked. “What does the letter say? Who is it from?”

“Another complete stranger with the utter gall to impose himself on my hospitality at Christmastime! Another moneygrubbing attempt to get at my father’s fortune! Oh, I would like to wring this one’s ornery neck.” Fara stood and hurled the balled letter into the fire. “‘Possible business and personal mergers,’ he says! ‘Our fathers were close friends,’ he says! As if I would give such a man the satisfaction of calling on me. Manuela, I tell you, they’re all alike. They catch the faintest whiff of money, and they come wooing me with flowers and chocolates. Fawning all over me. Calling me
darling
and
dearest
. Proposing marriage left and right.”