Broddock-Black 05 - Force of Nature (12 page)

J
o had been on the stage to Great Falls for some time when Hazard and Trey discussed their plans, and when Hazard spoke to Blaze at lunch, Jo was enjoying the scenery outside the post stop at Guthrie’s store. The map she’d purchased yesterday was carefully folded in her purse, her new saddlebags were piled into the baggage compartment of the stage and she’d been pleased to find that her riding clothes hadn’t caused a single raised eyebrow. Her fellow passengers saw nothing amiss for a woman traveling to her ranch to be dressed for riding. Although she’d had to lie about her destination, choosing a vague locale east of Great Falls and hoping no one was overly familiar with the area. But the two salesmen and the elderly lady weren’t from Montana. The young couple with them were newlyweds and too much in love to notice anyone; they could barely keep their hands to themselves.

At their most blatant displays of affection, Jo would stare fixedly out the window, struggling to restrain her own desperate longing. Although, in her more rational moments, she chose to characterize her trip north simply as one of apology. That most would view travel into an embattled area as inconsistent with personal safety, she chose to ignore.

Perhaps she had more of her mother’s personality than she acknowledged, for she was intent on having her way. Had she known her father better, she would have understood that her heritage precluded a cautionary nature. It would have soothed her occasional qualms on that long journey to know that natural selection had long ago marked her as headstrong.

Hell-bent as she was to reach Flynn’s ranch, she wasn’t foolish enough to venture into the wilds unescorted. At Great Falls, she hired a horse and a guide at the livery stable, the story she concocted having to do with meeting friends on the upper reaches of the Sun River. Already late for her rendezvous, she explained, she’d prefer traveling at night if possible. Since she was willing to pay well, her guide saw no reason to refuse the generous fee.

They left Great Falls at twilight.

The moon was full; the trail well lit.

And Flynn was waiting, Jo reflected with buoyant spirits.

❧

The same moon illuminated Hazard’s route as he and his party left Helena that evening.

It shone as well on Daisy as she walked home after a long day at the office. Surprised to see her house so well lit, she recognized something was amiss even before she found Blaze waiting in her parlor.

“Jo’s not with you?” Blaze rose from her chair, her anxiety obvious.

“I thought she was with you. She was going to help me with Flynn’s case, but when she didn’t come in, I thought she’d decided to attend Adelia’s musicale with you instead.”

Blaze frowned. “I haven’t seen her all day. Do you think she spent the day with her mother?”

“Would you like me to call on Lucy and save you the aggravation?”

“Of course, I would.” Blaze made a moue. “But with your father gone, the responsibility is mine.”

“Do you know if either Father or Trey saw Jo today?”

Blaze shook her head. “I didn’t think to ask them before they left. I assumed she was with you.”

“Why don’t we check with the servants first. If they don’t know where Jo is, time enough then to speak to Lucy.”

“How clever you are,” Blaze declared, clearly relieved. “Jo may have spoken of her plans to Mary.”

Jo’s lady’s maid, however, hadn’t seen her all day. “She told me last night she was going to see Miss Daisy, ma’am, bright and early in the morning, so I didn’t worry none when she was gone before breakfast.”

“And I thought she’d stayed with her mother when I didn’t see her this morning,” Blaze remarked, worry creasing her brow. “I’m afraid we’ll have to pay a visit on Lucy.”

❧

“You’ve lost my daughter! Is that what you’re telling me? I can’t believe it!” Lucy shouted, her eyes flashing like the new diamonds she wore with her new evening gown and new shoes and everything from the skin out that had been purchased with Hazard’s money. “You have the nerve to come here and inform me that you’ve misplaced my daughter!” She jabbed her closed fan at Blaze. “This is outrageous!”

“We thought she might be with you,” Daisy interposed, moving forward enough to force Lucy and her eye-level pointed fan to retreat a step.

“Well, obviously she isn’t! As you see!” Lucy exclaimed, in high dudgeon, sweeping her arm back and forth across the room. “I insist on seeing Hazard this instant! Do you hear me? This instant!”

“He’s ridden north.” Blaze spoke mildly, trying to maintain some semblance of civility when she was sorely tempted to rip Lucy’s fan from her jeweled fingers and beat her with it. “I don’t expect him back for some time. Did you see Jo at all today? Perhaps this morning?”

“No, I did not,” Lucy snapped. She never rose before noon, a fact she chose not to mention. “I want Hazard back in Helena,” she commanded as though she had the right. “Send him word; I want him back immediately. I need Jo’s father at my side with heartbreaking news like this.” Her voice trembled slightly at the last as she slipped into a distraught mother mode. “Tell him, our baby is gone!” she sobbed, forcing out a single tear for effect, pressing her hand to her breast with born stage presence, showing off her new emerald ring in the bargain. “Giuseppina’s in some terrible, terrible danger, I just know!” she wailed.

Gritting her teeth, Lucy’s theatrics difficult to stomach, Blaze spoke with as much composure as she could muster when she wanted to do bodily harm to Lucy Attenborough or put her on the next train, whichever would be most conducive to her peace of mind. “We’ll send our men out to search for Jo,” she said instead, the strain in her voice evident. “As soon as I know anything, I’ll see that you’re informed.”

“I’ll never, never forgive you for losing my baby,” Lucy cried, falling back onto the sofa in an exaggerated swoon, sobbing as though her heart was breaking. “Never, never, never...”

Exchanging pained glances, Blaze and Daisy left Lucy to her histrionics.

“She wouldn’t want to actively join in the search,” Daisy cynically said as they walked from the hotel.

“Jo has essentially raised herself, I understand. Why start at this late date to be a mother,” Blaze noted with disdain.

“Men,” Daisy muttered in disgust.

Blaze pursed her lips. “I agree. At times like this I’d like to slap your father silly.”

“What in the world did he ever see in her?”

“Surely you’re not that naive.”

Daisy slanted a glance at her stepmother. “You’re very understanding.”

Blaze smiled. “Your father’s had to do penance on more than one occasion since Lucy arrived. And very nicely, I might add. But I didn’t know him then and the past is the past. What we must do right now is find Jo. We can deal with Lucy later.”

As soon as they arrived at the Braddock-Black home, they gathered a search party and a short time later, their servants set out to comb the town.

Blaze and Daisy set about exploring Jo’s room in hopes of finding some indication of her whereabouts.

Jo had few personal belongings on display, even her wardrobe was scant despite Blaze’s urgings. But tucked under the stationary in the desk drawer, Daisy found an account ledger and some recent receipts that had been slipped inside.

“An engineer’s sensibility,” Daisy murmured, surveying the small neatly written columns of numbers in the book recording Jo’s expenditures. She held up the receipts not yet entered. “A map of Montana purchased at Harold Lloyd’s, another from Mercer’s Saddlery for saddlebags and a third for a Colt revolver from Sackett’s.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Blaze asked, softly.

“Of course.”

“She’s like her father,” Blaze said with a sigh. “Without fear.”

“And as stubborn,” Daisy added. “I should have suspected this. She and Flynn argued before they left. He wouldn’t take her with him.”

“So she went herself.”

“Obviously.” Daisy pursed her lips. “The question is when and how.”

When they inquired of the grooms though, none of them had seen Jo take a mount that morning. Neither had she rented a horse at the livery stable when they asked. The stage office was closed at that hour, but George Parsons was still up when they reached him at home. He remembered selling Jo a ticket to Great Falls. “She didn’t say she were Hazard’s daughter. If I’d known, Mrs. Braddock-Black ...” His voice trailed off in unease; Hazard was a man who generated a degree of fear.

“You couldn’t have known, George,” Blaze assured him. “Nor can you inquire after every passenger’s motives.”

“Sure enuf, there, ma’am,” he answered with a modicum of relief. The frontier attracted people who wished to escape the complications of their past; it wasn’t prudent to ask a person’s last name. “The lady was right polite though, spoke real qualitylike. That’s why I remember where she were goin’. Thought she might be the new school marm up that way. She’s there by now, though,” he noted with a nod in the direction of Great Falls. “That stage gets in round supper time.”

After thanking the ticket agent for his information, Blaze and Daisy took their leave.

“Jo could be at Flynn’s by now,” Daisy remarked, trying to be reassuring as they began retracing their steps home.

“God willing and the Empire boys notwithstanding,” Blaze murmured, her face grave. “Your father and Trey left too late to be of help,” she added, biting her bottom lip.

“Jo has a weapon.”

“We can only pray she doesn’t need it. One woman against who knows what,” Blaze noted, nervously. “I wish your father hadn’t taken most of his men.”

“Jed and Matt are here. They’re good trackers. Although, in all likelihood, Father will reach her first, or better yet, she’s already at Flynn’s,” Daisy murmured.

And neither woman cared to contemplate the alternatives.

“We have to tell Lucy,” Blaze said, tersely.

“Brace yourself for another tirade,” Daisy warned.

But when they reached the Plantation House, the anguished mother they’d so recently witnessed in full tragic form had gone out for the evening.

❧

“She must have recovered from her swoon,” Daisy observed, drily.

“How fortunate for us,” Blaze briskly said. “We’ll leave a note. And if Lucy cares to reach us tonight for more details, she can come to the house.”

“Ten dollars says she won’t.”

“A thousand dollars says she won’t. The Finnegans are having a dinner and dance and she and Ed are very close, I hear.”

“But then Mabel Finnegan has taken an interest in the church choir of late, I understand,” Daisy noted with a quirked grin. “The new choir director has more than a fine voice, rumor has it.”

“My goodness—Mabel?” Blaze looked shocked.

“Who would think,” Daisy replied, smiling faintly.

“I can’t say she doesn’t deserve a bit of fun in her life. Ed’s never home.”

“Which fact allows for private choir lessons in Mabel’s parlor, I’m told.”

“My word,” Blaze breathed, the image enough to leave one speechless.

W
hen Jo estimated they were nearing Flynn’s ranch, she offered up a long, perhaps slightly too loud, plaintive sigh that pricked up her horse’s ears and caused it to whinny back. But intent on her plan, she ignored the fact that her acting was less than professional and said in a less dramatic fashion, “I’m completely exhausted. Is it much farther to the rendezvous?”

Her guide shot her a glance. The truth was not likely to get him his remaining fee, which was to have been paid when they reached their destination. “Mebbe another hour—more likely two,” he said about the four-hour ride.

“Oh, dear. Is there a ranch nearby where we might stop?” Jo spoke in a small wispy voice. “Even a brief rest would help.”

Her guide hesitated, weighing the danger of approaching Flynn Ito’s in the dead of night.

“Surely, there must be somewhere we could find accommodations,” Jo insisted, reining her horse to a stop and sighing again.

Her guide brought his mount to a halt. “I don’t know, lady.” He frowned. “The people round here are apt to shoot first and ask questions later.”

“If you could just point me in the right direction,” she said, her tone soft with appeal. “I’m sure they won’t shoot a lady.” Considering Flynn’s reputation with the fair sex, she just might just be closer to right than wrong. “Tell you what.” Caution colored every nuance of Howard Nagel’s tone. “If’n you don’t mind ridin’ a piece on your own, I could take you as fer as Flynn Ito’s fence line.”

“I would be ever so grateful.” Jo’s smile required no pretense, but for good measure she added a further embellishment as stage prop to her artifice. “Do you think my friends may have sought shelter with this Mr. Ito as well?”

“Doubt it, ma’am. He don’t take kindly to strangers ridin’ in.” “In any event,” she said with genuine delight, “if you’d be so kind as to show me the way, I’ll take my leave of you there.”

“It’s a fer piece yet.”

“How far?”

“Mebbe five mile or so to the ranch once we reach the fence.”

After traveling for hours, surely she could manage a few miles more. “I’ll be perfectly fine,” she pleasantly said. “Why don’t I follow you,” she suggested, waving him on.

When they reached the barbed-wire boundary of Flynn’s land, a broad valley lay before them in the moonlight, spreading out as far as the eye could see, a silvery ribbon of river visible in the distance.

“That’s it, ma’am.” Her guide pointed to a barely perceptible flicker of light. “Sun River Ranch. You still got time to change your mind.”

“I appreciate your help, Howard, but I’ll be quite safe, I’m sure.”

“Suit yerself, ma’am.” In Montana Territory, it never paid to get too personal. No questions asked was the golden rule.

“Thank you very much for your help,” Jo said, handing him the rest of his fee.

“Thank you, ma’am.” With a dip of his head, he turned his horse and rode away with a clear conscience and the most money he’d ever earned for half a day’s work.