The Union (33 page)

"Something the matter, Dutchy?" Patterson asked.

Dutchy let out a long breath. "I shouldn't be helping you boys. My partner's due back from town any minute. He's a stubborn Irish cuss. Not nearly as kind-hearted as me. He went to town to take part in the riots. He sees you boys, he'll kill you."

"Look, Dutchy, we're hungry. Give us something to eat and we'll be on our way." Patterson sounded tired.

Dutchy shook his head. "Not time for that. You fellows need rest. Come with me. I got a place where you'll be safe for a bit." He headed out around the cabin to a small stone shack just a few feet from the back door. He stopped and unlocked the door. "We keep our valuables in here, but he isn't likely to look in here for now." Dutchy held the keys out to Dietz.

Dietz hesitated.

Dutchy stepped back from the door and shook the keys at Dietz. "You can lock yourself in. I'll bring you some grub directly."

What the—? Lock himself prisoner in a dingy stone hut? Dietz didn't like it, not one bit, but presently his options were limited. He took the keys and stepped back and extended a gentlemanly arm to indicate Patterson should go first.

Dutchy headed back to the main cabin. Once inside the hut, Patterson and Dietz locked themselves in and settled down to rest. They sat in silence a few minutes—a heavy, oppressive silence that allowed too much time for thought.

"Heard his partner's a dynamiter." Patterson's eyes danced as he spoke. "What do you think, Dietz? Is he waiting for his hotheaded Irish friend to come back so they can blow us both to kingdom-come with giant powder?"

The correct response should have been,
I hope not
. But death held some appeal right then. "We're rats in a trap. But he
did
trust us with the key. Hardly the move of a man bent on murder."

Just then Dutchy called to them. "There's a tray of food outside the door. Hurry and take it in before Mickey gets back." Then he scuttled away.

Dietz pulled the food in. Moments later they each sat with a cup of coffee and a plate piled high with food.
 

"Last supper of a condemned man?" Patterson shifted his plate on his lap.

"Stop trying to raise my spirits." Dietz set his coffee down. "I was condemned long ago, now I'm surely damned as well."

"Got your own demons?" Patterson asked between bites.

"What do you think they've done to her?" Why couldn't he push his worries away?

"To whom? Miss Byrne?"

"Mrs. McCullough." Dietz laughed then, at himself, at the situation. It rang hollowly off the walls. "I left her there."
 

He ran his fingers through his hair, raking it so it stood at odd angles. He didn't care about anything but her. He rested his head in his hand. "I left her there. I left her to the dogs."

"They won't hurt her—"

"The hell they won't!" He paused. "She wouldn't come with me. Not that I couldn't understand her sentiments at that moment." He shook his head again, berating himself. "I should have hauled her pretty little ass out of there. Fought her every step of the way if that's what it took." He looked around at the cold, stone walls. "If that's what it took."

Patterson shook his head. "You'd have gotten both of you killed. She made her choice."

"A choice she would never have been forced to make without me." Dietz pushed his plate away. "Is what I've chosen any better? Trapped, hunted like an animal, wracked with worry about her. What if they hurt her?" He pounded the dirt floor. "How can I live with myself? I chose my own safety over hers." He leaned back against the wall.

What did Patterson know of guilt? What did anybody? Dietz could blame whomever or whatever he wanted—circumstances, improper upbringing, a mother who abandoned him, but, still, it all came down to personal accountability. Maybe the detective agency had taught him that; where else he could have learned it, he couldn't imagine. All he knew was that he had made a choice to leave her. And he missed her, longed for her, worried about her. Life would never be the same without her. Who could have known it would be this hard? If only he could have escaped without her ever discovering his identity. Left her with dignity and pleasant memories, maybe then he wouldn't be feeling so low. Or maybe he only kidded himself.

"Does the ache ever go away?" Dietz spoke without thinking. He didn't want to appear weak and foolish before Patterson.

Patterson snorted and shook his head. "You're talking about missing her?" He sounded sympathetic. "Is that a rhetorical question?" He took a long, slow sip of coffee. He looked miles away with his thoughts.

"I have no right to, but I feel like a blasted widower myself. Like Blackbeard himself." Dietz fixed his gaze on the wall above Patterson's head. He couldn't look his fellow agent in the eye just now. "I killed her. Not physically, though God knows what will happen to her now. I killed something in her—something good and hopeful. Optimism, trust. Hell, I don't know what, just something I'd never experienced before. Something I had no right to." He stared vacantly, confronting the dark thoughts tormenting him.

"I don't mean to sound egotistical. It's not like Keely won't survive. It's not like I think she can't ever be happy again. It's that she won't be the same, and I'm responsible." He took an absentminded sip of coffee gone cold.

"Part of me, selfish bastard that I am, doesn't want her to forget me." He laughed at himself. "What a fool I am. It isn't likely she'll ever forget me, after what I've done to her. But that's not the way I want her remembering me."

"Never is," Patterson said.

"At the time, I thought I was doing the right thing, Patterson. The only thing I could do. I held her hostage." He gulped. Her expression, the feel of her in his arms, haunted his thoughts. "I tried to make them believe I had duped her along with the rest of them, that she had no part in all this. That she was innocent.
 

"Now, I can't be sure I did right. I was only trying to give her back her life, atone for messing things up." He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his face. "It was the hardest thing I ever did." Finally, he looked into Patterson's eyes. Maybe what people said was true. Maybe confession really was good for the soul. At that moment, he felt lighter, less burdened. "You lost your wife, but at least you have no guilt, no regrets to contend with."

Patterson snorted again. "Don't I? I watched my Mamie die slowly, wither away."

Dietz tried to interrupt, but Patterson cut him short with a gesture. "It wasn't the watching that I regret, nothing I could have done about that. It was the leaving her alone while I was off in the field. It's knowing that she waited faithfully for me while I consorted with all types of women in the name of the job.

"Sometimes I imagine what my thoughts would have been had things been reversed. It's knowing I left her alone with thoughts and fears no wife should have to have, and that she loved me still and waited." Patterson took a heavy breath.

The room felt close and hot around Dietz, weighted with Patterson's confessions and his own guilt.

"My job and my love of it deprived her of my protection and company when she needed it most. The only comfort I gave her was my paycheck." Patterson shook his head. "I left her alone to raise little Viola. Now that Mamie's gone the poor little thing's being raised by her aunt and uncle. Still, it's a better life than I could give her."
 

Patterson stretched. "Maybe you're lucky, Dietz. Being a detective is a life more suited to a single man. Didn't I warn you not to mess around with marriage?"

He sure had. Why hadn't Dietz listened?

Patterson paused. "No regrets, eh? Maybe you aren't as smart as I thought. Life is full of regrets. It's learning how to live with them that makes the man."

###

Lunn sat in Keely's kitchen. She felt his gaze on her as she performed her chores by rote. Some things never changed. Or maybe they did, you just had to look beneath the surface. But she didn't want to look, because when she did, she saw things she didn't want to, things like the open lust in Lunn's eyes. Like his ebullience over the violence and the victory.
 

When she pictured herself outside her body, looking in at the scene with the dispassionate eye of observer, she could almost believe that she had skipped back in time to just before the detective had arrived. But when she came back to herself she felt the hole John Dietz's absence had left, and the odd skew to her universe.

"You still wearing his ring?" Lunn twisted in his chair, following her movements.

She turned to stare at him. "It's valuable. I didn't know what else to do with it."
 

Wear it for the rest of my life? Keep it to torment myself?

Lunn frowned. "Give it to me for safekeeping."

"Thank you, but no. As soon as things calm down, I'll take it to the bank."

He shrugged. "Have it your way."
 

She could tell he was unhappy.

"What are you doing today?" Lunn's tone sounded too casual.

"The wounded are mostly taken care of and President Waters has called in a mortician to take care of the dead. But I thought I'd check in over at the temporary hospital anyway, just to see if there's anything more I can do. Then I guess I'll come home and do what I always do."

What I'll be doing for the rest of my life—mourning McCullough, as played by John Dietz.

Lunn shoved back his chair and stood. In two strides he was beside her. Before she could back up he took her into his arms and pulled her face up to look at him.
 

"Marry me, Keely Byrne. Marry me today in the midst of the victory, in the middle of the celebration." His words were less a question than a command. A manic light lit his eyes.
 

His intensity frightened her. "I—"

"You, what?"

He drew himself up to his full height and puffed his chest like a randy peacock, daring her to defy his wishes.

"I can't, Lunn. It wouldn't be fair to you… " She trailed off, hoping he would leave her alone.

"You can't love him after all he's done." His words exploded into the room. He squeezed her chin in his grip so tightly it hurt.
 

"The marriage," she said. "We don't know—"

"Brown will take care of it." He leaned to within inches of her face. "Listen, Keely, you need me. I love you and am willing to protect you. There are those that don't believe in your innocence."

She took a deep breath to keep from letting her fear show. He spoke the truth only too clearly.

"I'll protect you with my life. I promise."

"It's not that, Lunn." She needed to buy time. Tears stung her eyes, partly from the pain of his grip, partly put on for effect. She lowered her voice. "I didn't want to say. It's...so personal." She squeezed a tear out. "But of course we had...well, I might be carrying his baby."

Lunn released his grip on her chin and took her by the arms and shook her. "Do you know something for sure?" His fingers bore into her. If only she could run.

"No. But how could I come to you carrying another man's child?" She bit her lip. How to proceed?
 

"It wouldn't matter to me. It would be all the better for you. I'd pass it off as mine and no one would dare argue."

"I couldn't. I'd rather know for certain—"

"How long till you'll know?"

"A week and a half, maybe two." She couldn't hedge too long.

"Pregnant or not, you're mine. I've gone through too much to get you to lose you now to a baby. You understand?"

She nodded dumbly. Poor Lunn, what could he imagine he'd done? Did mere longing count?

"Good." His mouth came down on hers hard and ugly.
 

She fought shivers of revulsion. Even empty and numb she could not enjoy Lunn's kisses. His mouth was a cavern swallowing her whole, slobbering over her lips. When he released her, his eyes glimmered with excitement. She resisted the urge to wipe off his kiss with the back of her hand.

###

After being on the run and hiding out in the woods for two days doing what spying they could while waiting for the militia to get control of the territory, Patterson and Dietz presented themselves just before dusk to General Carlin at his headquarters at the Carter Hotel.

"Thank God, the cavalry has arrived." Dietz smiled as he spoke to the General, who laughed at his remarks.

The boy could still joke, but Patterson worried about him. Any man jilted in love was a loose cannon, and one carrying Dietz's burden qualified as a whole wall of cannons.

"Who might you two gentlemen be?" the General asked.

Patterson extended his hand for a shake. "Charlie Patterson and John Dietz, sir."

"Oh, hell," the General said. "I just sent two dozen troops out looking for you two."

Patterson smiled. He liked nothing more than being known for his stealthy moves. So they'd slipped in past the union
and
past the militia.

"A fellow friendly toward the owners warned me the union had sent men out after you," the General continued.