Janet Quin-Harkin (19 page)

“That kiss will certainly last me a lifetime, Mrs. Hugh Grenville,” Gabe said shakily.

That night Libby lay awake, looking up at the stars through the filigree of leaves and branches. She was very conscious of Gabe lying beside her. Her whole body ached with longing. After so long, to be kissed and held in strong arms, to be desired so strongly, was almost more than she could bear.

I didn’t want to like you, Gabe Foster, she thought. Now I don’t think I can ever be content without you.

T
HE NEXT DAY
the trail dropped steadily downward, the hot air rising to meet them, smelling of sage and bay. Libby went ahead and Gabe led his horse with the two little girls perched among his baggage. It was pleasant going, cool and shady under the trees with the flash of blue jays and large hawks circling overhead. Small songbirds twittered in the trees and the blue jays’ harsh cries echoed from the valley sides, unnaturally loud after so many weeks of hearing no sound except the wind. Gradually, they were aware of other noises—the distant ring of pick and shovel on rock, shouts echoing up steep canyons. They came upon an empty cabin, the path became clearly defined and by midday they could glimpse clusters of tents and crude shacks along the creek sides. The next day they walked into the main street of Hangtown.

“Welcome to civilization,” Gabe said quizzically as Libby looked around her in dismay. She had expected a town, maybe not as old and established and neat as New England, but something that bore some resemblance to the towns she knew. This was more like the tent city at Independence. It was a jumble of structures, perched in random order on any flat piece of ground. The term
structures
was more apt than buildings, because apart from a few log cabins, most of the buildings consisted of wooden frames between and over which canvas was tacked. This even applied to the grandly named Empire Hotel which was two stories of canvas with red calico draped in place of window glass.

Several dirty, unshaven men were sitting out on the unfinished wooden porch, filling glasses from a bottle they passed between them. One of the men leaned over the edge of the porch and spat onto the dust below, which was littered with every imaginable piece of garbage from old sardine cans to empty champagne bottles. None of the men seemed to notice Libby, Gabe, and the children. There was no real main street but in the dusty track which passed for a main street, men were busy digging deep holes, as if this were a mine and not a town. As Libby and Gabe stared, one of the men popped his head up with a shout. “Told ya I’d strike something here, didn’t I!” he yelled, holding up something in his hand that was too small to see. Instantly, several other men leaped up from the porch of the Empire Hotel and ran across to join him in digging.

Gabe touched Libby’s arm. “What now?” he asked.

“What can I do?” Libby said, looking around as if for inspiration. “I’ll have to take the children to that so-called hotel and make enquiries about Hugh. Everyone says this is the crossroads and that any news comes through here. I should have thought men who looked and talked like Hugh were rare enough to be noticed.” She looked up at Gabe. “And you, what will you do?”

“Me? Oh, I’ll give myself some time to look around,” Gabe said. “Maybe I’ll stay a few days in the Empire too. Get the feeling of the place—see if they’re interested in playing cards here.”

Just as he spoke a horseman galloped up and flung himself from his horse, yelling, “They got her. Looks like they’re bringing her here.”

“Honest Injun?” one of the diggers asked, leaning on his shovel. “Did she confess?”

“She did it right enough,” the horseman said excitedly. “They found two bags of dust under her mattress and Fat Joe swears one of the bags looks like the one Pete brought in with him.”

“She claims she won it fair and square in a card game, so I heard,” another of the men said. As if by magic, a crowd began to form in the middle of the street. Many of the men were carrying bottles from which they took frequent swigs and the noise level rose as if it were a big party. Gabe stopped a young fellow as he hurried to join them. “What’s going on here?” he asked.

“They caught Rosa Montez,” he said excitedly. “You know—the gambling-house girl who murdered poor old Pittsburgh Pete. I reckon she thought she could get away with it, seeing as how she’s a woman, but I don’t think she will. The boys are all riled up, on account of old Pete being so generous with his liquor.”

A distant roar could be heard on the other side of town, like an approaching parade on the Fourth of July. Libby glanced at Gabe and he pulled his horse, with the children still perched in the saddle, off to the shelter of one of the half-finished buildings. Soon they could see that it really was a parade approaching. A whole seething mass of men in colorful blue and red shirts, with bandannas tied around their throats, came up the street, yelling and firing guns into the air. They were unkempt with long matted beards and wore misshapen hats pulled down over their faces. Libby’s first reaction was that they were some sort of brigand army.

Some of the men at the front ran to the Empire and came out with a table decked in red calico and several chairs which they put down in the middle of the street. After a certain amount of arguing and jostling, five men were pushed over to the table and sat down. Then from the middle of the crowd two men dragged a beautiful young woman. She was dark skinned, dark eyed, and had long heavy black hair flowing down over her shoulders. She was dressed in a skimpy red satin dress with a black-fringed shawl over her shoulders and she looked as out of place, among this slovenly band, as a swan among the chickens. Her eyes darted around nervously as she was pushed forward to the table.

“We found her trying to run off down to Diamond Springs,” one of the men said. He was a tall, skinny fellow with a long, drooping moustache and was dressed head to toe in black.

“Did she have the money on her?”

“No, but we found these here bags under her mattress,” another man said, holding up two leather pouches. “One of them looks just like the bag Pete had on him.”

“I no keel him!” the Mexican girl exclaimed. “Why I want keel him? He good man. Pay good money.”

One of the men at the table stretched out long, booted legs. “I reckon you thought you didn’t get enough out of him at cards last night, so you’d help yourself later,” he said. “I’ve got men who will swear they saw Pete going up to your bedroom.”

“So? Was wrong? He pay me,” the girl shrieked. “If I go keel him, why I not keel him in my bed? Why I keel him after, eh?”

“If you didn’t kill him, why were you trying to run off when we came for ya?” the first man demanded.

“I know you no believe what I say,” she said. “I Mexicano. I foreigner. You think all Mexicanos bad.”

“Who else would want to kill old Pete? That’s what I say,” the man in black insisted. “I say she’s a no-good whore and she should get what’s coming to her.”

One of the men at the table, gray haired and more distinguished looking than any of his fellows, glanced around. “Do you think we should call some witnesses?” he asked. “Maybe there was someone who saw Pete leave the hotel. Maybe someone was seen to follow him.”

“Heck no, Doc. We heard all we need to hear,” the man in black insisted. “Me and the boys want justice for old Pete.”

“That’s right. String her up. Get it over with,” several other voices shouted.

The gray-haired man looked at his companions. One of them shrugged. “If that’s what they want, you’d better go along with it, because they’ll do it anyway,” he said.

“We should at least try to get her a priest,” the gray-haired man insisted.

Libby had stood in the shadow of a small wooden cabin, not fully understanding what was happening until one of the men stepped forward with a rope. She stared at it in horror and disbelief, then she strode out into the sunlight. “You can’t be thinking of hanging this woman on such vague evidence,” she said.

The effect was instantaneous. There was an intake of breath, like a giant sigh, from the whole crowd and the noise level dropped to whispers. Libby was conscious of many pairs of eyes, all staring at her as if she had just popped out of a bottle, like a genie.

“It’s a woman. Look, a woman,” was whispered at the front of the crowd and those at the back pushed and shoved to get a better view.

The older, gray-haired man stood up and removed his hat. “You’ll have to excuse them, ma’am,” he said. “Many of them haven’t set eyes on a woman in months. Not a real lady like yourself, that is.”

“Then it seems as if I’ve arrived just in time,” Libby said, looking around at the faces and trying to determine if they were friendly under all that hair and dirt. “Have you been away from civilization so long that you can think of hanging a lady without a proper trial?”

One of the men took off his hat and stepped forward, clutching it to his middle as if he were going courting. “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he said, “but this ain’t no lady. This is one of the card dealers from the Fandango House. They’re all a bad lot. Any one of them would stab you in the back for a couple of ounces.”

The Mexican girl looked at Libby with imploring eyes. “Tell them I no do nothing,” she said. “I no keel.”

“If I am not mistaken, California is now part of the United States, so she’s entitled to a fair trial, whoever she is,” Libby said with her best Boston haughtiness. “Where is the judge in this town?”

Several of the men grinned. “Ain’t no law in this town ‘ceptin’ us,” someone drawled. “We make our own law and those who don’t like it, just ride on out of town again.”

“Please step aside, ma’am,” the man clutching his hat said. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. The boys are itching for a hanging and a hanging it’s going to be.”

“Come on boys, take her over to the tree,” the first man shouted. “Let’s get this over with and then I say free drinks all round with poor old Pete’s gold.” A great roar went up from the crowd. Libby tried to step forward to reach the girl but the men surged around her like an inflowing tide. Libby heard a scream as they dragged the girl away. She started shouting in Spanish, alternately pleading and cursing as she was dragged down the street.

“No! Wait, come back,” Libby shouted as she tried to fight her way through the crowd. She felt a restraining arm on her and Gabe held her fast. “Let it be, Libby, there’s nothing you can do.”

“But they’re going to kill that girl.”

Gabe’s eyes were solemn. “I know, but there’s nothing we can do to stop them. You can see how they’ve all been drinking. Look at their faces—this is fun to them. They want it.”

“But that’s horrible,” Libby said, shuddering.

The last of the men hurried after the procession. They were bright and excited, joking with each other as they ran. “I’ll wager ten to one she don’t die in five minutes,” Libby heard someone shout. One of the last men turned back to Libby and Gabe. “Don’t fret about it. She deserves all she’s going to get whether she killed old Pete or no,” he said, grinning pleasantly. “These fancy card dealers who come in here and cheat a miner out of his hard-earned gold . . .” He paused and spat on the dirt. “Hanging’s too good for them, that’s what I say.”

The crowd noise faded as the men ran down the street and around the corner. Libby and Gabe were left alone outside the hotel with the calico-draped table and the five empty chairs.

“Now we know why they call it Hangtown,” Gabe said. “I get the feeling I’d get a warmer welcome someplace else.”

Libby hadn’t considered before that he might be in danger. “Gabe,” she said, touching his arm gently, “do you have to go back to being a gambler?”

A broad smile spread across his face. “What would you have me do? Break my back digging all day in an icy stream when I can earn the same amount or more by a quick flick of the wrist and the luck of the cards?”

“But you saw what they think of gamblers here,” Libby said.

He looked down at her tenderly. “Don’t worry about me. I know how to take care of myself, and don’t forget, Old Nick takes care of his own. I’ll do just fine, I’m sure.”

“Then I hope for your sake that all the settlements aren’t like this,” she said.

“If they are, I’ll head down to San Francisco,” Gabe said. “I hear it’s a city known for its sinful ways. I should be right at home there.”

Libby managed a weak smile. Don’t go, she wanted to say to him. I need you here with me. I don’t want to be left in this place on my own. I don’t want to be without you. But she managed to keep silent. “I suppose I should go and check in to the hotel,” she said. “And you should be on your way.”

“I suppose so,” Gabe said. They stood there facing each other, neither moving. “Look Libby,” Gabe said at last. “I’ll stay if you want me to, until you meet up with your husband.”

“Oh, no, I’ll be just fine,” Libby said lightly. “Besides, it would only start rumors if you were seen around here with me. I think it would be best if you got right away.”

“If that’s what you really want,” Gabe said.

“It’s what I really want.”

Gabe took a deep breath. “Right. Then that’s that. I’ll get on my way and try to find a friendly spot for the night,” he said. “You’re sure you’ll be all right?”

“I’ll be fine. We’ll all be fine. I’m sure we’ll find Hugh really quickly and everything will be fine,” Libby babbled, horrified that she might cry if he stayed any longer.

“What about money?” Gabe asked. “You lost all your things. Do you need money?” He started to reach into his inside pocket.

“I have money,” Libby said quickly. “I always kept my money on my person, thank heavens. I’ve enough to pay for a hotel until we find Hugh. I expect he’s already got some sort of shelter for us. We’ll survive very well.”

Gabe ran over to his saddlebag. “At least take these,” he said. “This is the wolf pelt we traded for your comb, and these are a couple of other skins I got later. I wouldn’t like to think of you cold in winter.”

He held them out to her. She hesitated. “Take them, please,” he said. “Besides, I’m going to be offered so many warm, soft beds that I won’t need them.”