The sun was just peeking over the eastern horizon when Grace Upton left her home, carrying a tray covered with a clean cloth. There was a distinct chill in the air, but she knew it was only a hint of the weather that would eventually arrive when winter set in. The cloud cover was dissipating, but the fog that had rolled in overnight was still present. It would burn off quickly in the bright sunshine.
Ignoring the typically sour face that glared at her through Iris Metzger's window, she crossed the yard and entered town, feeling a twinge of resentment that the hateful old biddy was still spying on her, even after having been put in her place by the marshal at the town meeting. If anything, the spying had gotten worse, as if the woman was trying desperately to catch her at something to regain her own standing. She wished the men of the town would hurry up and get started on her new house, so that she could escape the constant surveillance, but she knew that would have to wait until they learned the fate of Doctor Dumont and Marshal Craddock.
She passed the saloon, the doors of which were still locked up tight, indicating that the owners had not yet risen, and proceeded past the stage offices to the office shared by Corporal Bennett and Marshal Craddock. She had been returning home from dinner with the MacWherters the previous evening when Clive and the others had arrived back in town from their search. She had noticed that he had gone straight to his quarters without stopped for supper. He had apparently skipped his supper, and she determined that a hot breakfast would be appreciated before he set out to resume the search.
Setting the tray against her hip, she turned the doorknob and backed in, protecting the contents of the tray as she entered. She pushed the door shut with her foot, and turned to face the handsome Mounted Policeman.
"Good morning, Clive," she said.
Clive was fastening his gun belt around his waist, and he looked up in surprise when she came through the door. "Hello, Grace," he responded in a decidedly lackluster greeting. "I hope it turns out to be a good morning," he added with more skepticism than she had ever heard from him. His eyes fell upon the tray she carried. Almost instantly, the room had filled with the tantalizing aroma of bacon and eggs.
"I knew you would be going out again, today, and I decided you should have a hot meal before you go," she told him as she placed the tray on his desk.
He looked at it, genuinely touched by the gesture. "That was thoughtful of you, and I appreciate it, Grace, I really do, but I can't take the time. I actually intended to get an earlier start than this, but I overslept."
"You overslept because you were exhausted, and you must eat something," she told him. "I know you didn't stop for supper last night."
A slight smile curled the corners of his mouth. "Now, how did you know that?"
"Because my uncle is the same way. Whenever he's on the job, he won't take the time to maintain his own health. You are very much like him. I know you're worried about them, Clive, but you must take care of yourself. You won't do them any good if you pass out from lack of nourishment during the search."
"I'm not quite to that point yet, Grace," he told her, patiently.
"Five minutes," she urged. "Five minutes won't make that much difference. You'll feel much better afterward, I promise, and you will be more productive." To tempt him further, she lifted the cloth from the tray, revealing two plates heaping with bacon, eggs, biscuits, a crock of jam, and two steaming cups of coffee. "My mother says that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so we always had a big one, back home."
"My mother always said the same thing," he said. The sight and the aroma of the food made his stomach rumble and his mouth water with anticipation. "Did you make this yourself?"
She smiled, coquettishly. "Of course. I happen to be a very good cook."
"It certainly looks good," he said, weakening. "Well, I suppose I could wait five more minutes."
"Good. I made enough for two, so you wouldn't have to eat alone."
He pulled out his chair, and offered it to her. "You take my chair. I'll borrow Craddock's." He circled his colleague's clutterd desk, and grasped the back of the chair. He hesitated only briefly as a moment of nostalgia reminded him that the owner of the chair was probably in serious trouble, then he rolled it to the edge of his own desk, and sat down. They had been missing for two days; would five or even ten more minutes really make that much difference?
He draped a napkin across his lap, and reached for his fork. "This is good," he said after the first bite.
Pleased by his praise, she said, "Thank you. I'm glad you like it."
"Shouldn't you be getting ready for class?" he asked.
"I have almost an hour before class starts," she replied. "That'll be plenty of time. The children seemed very reserved and unusually quiet, yesterday. I think they were worried about Mrs. Dumont and Marshal Craddock."
"Yes," Clive agreed. "Jack gets along well with children, and I suppose everyone likes Marie. She's just that kind of person. Everyone is comfortable turning to her for help and advice."
"She seems like a nice woman," Grace said, averting her eyes to avoid revealing any jealousy to him. "What do you think happened to them? Someone in town said that awful British man was probably involved."
"That is what we're all thinking, but we're not sure what he did with them. He was really infatuated with Marie, so it's probable that he kidnapped her."
"Now that I think about it, she must have been the woman he was talking about on the stage."
He looked up, startled. "What?"
"I rode into town with him on the stagecoach. It was a long trip, so we started talking." She shrugged. "Well, actually, he did most of the talking. He has a very high opinion of himself."
"I had forgotten. Do you remember anything of what he said?"
"Some. Most of the time, he was bragging about himself and his profession, saying that he was doctor of high standing in England, and that he came from a highly respected noble family. Personally, I didn't care much for him. He seemed very arrogant and self-centered." She frowned, recalling an initial perception about him. "Actually, something about him seemed almost hostile. It's hard to explain. Just something about his mannerisms that made me uncomfortable. Anyway, he said he had accepted a position in Vancouver, but had to stop off first in Bordertown to get his fiancee."
"His fiancee?"
"Yes. That is what he called her. He said he had met her back in Paris, and that she had moved here some time ago. I just assumed that she had come out here ahead of him, that he had matters to tie up back home, or something."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"I never really thought about it. I don't think he ever told me what her name was. And remember, I didn't know a soul here when I first arrived, so I had no reason to find anything he said strange."
"He told Marie he came here to visit Jacques's grave, but he must have been expecting that she was in love with him, or something. He probably thought he could win her over, and that she'd accompany him to Vancouver. He became aggressive when she didn't return his affection."
"I'm sorry, Clive. I didn't think anything he said on the stage was that important."
"Well, it changes nothing, but it does tell me that he came here with very specific intentions. Jack was right, all along. I should have listened to him."
Grace heard something in his voice that she had not heard before, and it worried her. Reaching out, she placed her hand on his wrist, drawing his eyes to hers. "Clive, don't you go doubting yourself. You're a good lawman. You can't be expected to notice everything."
"I should have noticed this, Grace. It's my job to protect the people of this town. I let Marie down in that respect. I became overconfident, and Marie and Jack may have paid the price for it."
"Clive, please ---"
He pushed out the chair, abruptly, and stood up, tossing the napkin on the tray, a gesture of self-disgust. "I have to go."
The door opened, and Dom stepped inside. "Ready, Corporal?"
Clive turned to face him. "Almost." He reached for his coat and hat.
The shuffling sound of another person entering the room drew his attention to the door once again, and he, Dom, and Grace all stared at the scruffy old man who stood before them. He had obviously been living in the hills for a long time, judging by the condition of his clothing. He wore a ragged coat, and instead of boots, he wore a pair of worn-out moccasins, made by hand, probably his own. His well worn clothing was filthy, and the scraggly gray beard was stained with tobacco juice, and the few teeth he still possessed were discolored. His posture was erect, with no hint of a stoop, and Clive suspected that he looked much older than he really was.
Grace shuddered, repulsed by his appearance. And she had thought Jack Craddock was uncultured! This man appeared to be a walking germ bed.
If the old man noticed her revulsion, he made no indication, or maybe he was accustomed to it. "You the corporal assigned to this here post?" he asked.
"I'm Corporal Bennett, and I'm in kind of a hurry. What is it you need?"
"I want to report a theft and a murder."
Clive's interest increased with the word murder. "Theft of what, and murder of whom?"
"My dynamite was stoled, ten sticks of it."
"Dynamite? Who are you?"
"Name's Harvey Graham. I prospect up in the hills, and in case you're wonderin'', I get my dynamite legal-like."
Clive blinked with surprise. "You're Harvey?"
The grizzled head dipped in a single nod.
"You said something about a murder?" Clive prompted with a trace of impatience in his voice, urging the prospector to come to the point.
"Yeah. There's this ol' house up in them hills north o' town. I like to winter there, sometimes. Some confounded British fella stole my dynamite, and used it to blow up that house. Now, I got no place to winter, and cold weather's a-comin'."
Clive felt suddenly chilled, as if the room temperature had abruptly dropped twenty degrees. He glanced at Dom, and realized instantly that the other man was thinking the same thing. "That would be the explosion we heard the other day. We assumed it was you."
"No, it weren't me."
"All right, someone blew up the house. How does this relate to murder?" Clive asked.
"I think there was someone inside that house when she blew."
A knot began to twist in Clive's stomach. "Why do you think there was someone inside?"
"'Cause I went there yesterday to see if the house was still a-standin'. It weren't. It's just a pile of rubble, now, but while I was there, a British fella came up, so I hid in the bushes to see what he wanted. He shouted someone's name, like he was tryin' to see if they was still alive, and then, when no one answered, he started cryin' like a babe, sayin' how sorry he was that he had to punish the person like that. Never see'd a man cry like that a-fore." He tapped his temple with one grimy finger. "I think he were a little tetched, if'n ya know what I mean."
"That sounds like Oliver Knapp," Clive said.
"Did he say who it was that he was trying to punish?" Dom asked.
"I cain't remember the name, but it was a woman's name, I do recall that."
"Marie?" Clive asked, softly.
Harvey thought about that for a moment, then bobbed his grizzled head. "Could'a been. Yeah, come t' think of it, I think that was it. Marie."
Clive felt deflated, stunned, nauseated, and desperately wished he had skipped breakfast. "That's it, Dom," he said, quietly, fighting the urge to be sick. He had seen many disagreeable things in his service as a Mounted Policeman, but nothing sickened him as much as the thought of having to retrieve the mangled bodies of his friends from a pile of rubble. "That's where they are, where they've been all this time. He lured them there, and he blew up the house with them inside. He hated Marie for not being receptive of his advances, and he hated Craddock because he thought Jack stole her away from him. We were completely wrong about his intentions! We were wrong about everything!" He turned back to Harvey. "Can you show us where the house is?"
Harvey scratched at his beard, digging his fingers deep into the stiff white hairs, and Grace imagined that he was probably chasing some unseen vermin around in that matted tangle of filthy hair. Her suspicion was confirmed when she saw something fall to the floor, something with legs. "Well, I rode well into the night jus' gettin' here, and I got up early so's I could be here at dawn. My mule is mighty tarred, 'n so am I. However, I s'pose I could lead ya there, after I've had myself a rest and a good meal."
"If your mule is tired, I'll let you ride one of my horses, and you can rest and eat later. Please. Two of my friends are missing, they may be trapped in that house."
"I don't think there's any need t' hurry, Corporal. If'n they's in that house, they's prob'ly dead. I don't think anyone could'a survived in there."
"Just take me there!" Clive snapped, his last ounce of patience spent.
"He won't need to, Corporal," Dom told him. "I know where it is. That would be the old Coggins place. It's been abandoned for a long time, now. We were near there, yesterday, probably within a mile or so."
"That close," Clive said softly, with regret. If they had expanded their search yesterday, moving east instead of farther north, they would have come across the old house. They would have known, by now, one way or the other, the fate of their friends.
Dom was thinking the same thing. "I haven't thought about that house in years. If I had remembered it yesterday, we could have checked it out. I'm sorry, Corporal Bennett."
"You had no reason to think about it. We were going on the assumption that Knapp was trying to get Marie out of the area. Dom, we don't know what we're going to find when we get there. Go get Sally, and tell her we need some things from the store." He paused, trying to quickly calculate the items they would require to search through the rubble of the collapsed house. "We will need a couple of pulleys, several lengths of rope, some saws and axes, and . . ." He hesitated, then added, "And you'd better get a couple of blankets." To wrap the bodies in, he thought without saying the words aloud. "And anything else you see that might be helpful."
Dom nodded, soberly, then hurried out the door.
Clive turned back to Grace, who had been watching with building anxiety. He did not have to say anything; she understood.
"I'll say a prayer for them," she promised.
He wanted to thank her, but the words would not come. Instead, he gave a curt nod, and departed to round up the men once again.
Left alone with the prospector, Grace avoided his rheumy eyes as he observed her with interest. Nervously, she wondered how long it had been since he had seen a woman. She busied herself by grasping the back of the marshal's chair and returning it to his desk. As she did, she noticed the small beetle on the floor where it had fallen from the prospector's matted beard. Swallowing her breakfast a second time, wondering what other vermin were crawling around inside the man's hair and beard, she found a broom and swept the creature out the door.
Turning away from the woman, Harvey's eyes fell upon the plates of half-eaten food. "Is anyone gonna finish that?" he asked.
She glanced at the plates. "No, I don't think so."
"Well, t'would be a shame to let it go to waste." Before she could object, he sat down in Clive's chair and picked up one of the forks, and began to eat.
Grace stared at him, horrified, wondering if she would ever be comfortable using those dishes and forks again. "Well, I have some things I need to do," she said, and made a hasty exit. She would retrieve the tray and the plates later, after the prospector was gone. Perhaps after being washed five or six times, she would consider them useable again.
Dom wasted no time as he rushed down the street toward Marie's house. He ran faster than he had run in years.
Carrying his pitchfork, ready to begin the task of mulching the stalls, Wendell was just opening up the stable doors when he saw Dom running down the middle of the street, and realized by his unusual behavior that something important was occurring. "Mr. Bertino!" he called. "What's going on!"
Dom briefly slowed his speed, gesturing toward the stable with his arm. "Start saddling our horses! We know where they are!"
Wendell instantly tossed his pitchfork into the haystack, and went first to the stall in which Clive kept his bay gelding.
Dom ran up the steps to Marie's front porch, and opened it without knocking. Leaning inside, he called, "Sally!"
She hurried to the foyer from the parlor, alarmed by the excited pitch of her beau's voice. "What is it, Dom?"
"Get the key to the store. We know where they are, and we need to get a few things."
Sally's face brightened. "Where are they? Are they all right?"
"I'll explain on the way. Get the key. Hurry!"
Sally quickly retrieved the key, and as they walked briskly toward the store, he explained what the prospector had told them. The news was not nearly as good as Sally had hoped. Her hands were shaking so badly that she was having trouble fitting the key in the lock. "Oh, Dom! What if they're ---"
"We don't know that, Sally," he told her, quickly, cutting her off mid-sentence..
"But it's been two days! Even if they survived the explosion, they could have been lying there, hurt, all this time!" In her nervousness, the key slipped from her trembling fingers, and dropped onto the boardwalk. In frustration, she covered her face with her hands, forcing back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes.
Dom placed a hand on her arm in an attempt to comfort her, but he had no consoling words to offer, so he bent to retrieve the fallen key without speaking. He loved her dearly, but she was useless in a crisis. He inserted it into the lock, then pushed the door open and went inside. Quickly, he began searching the shelves and display tables for the items they would need to conduct the rescue of their friends, or the recovery of their bodies, as he was well aware might be the case.
"Sally, do you have a couple of blankets?" he asked as he removed axes and saws from the pegs on which they were hung, and carried them to the sales counter.
"I'll get them," she replied, her voice sounding strangely weak. She stepped into the storeroom, and removed two blankets from the shelf, then stood silently gazing at them as she placed her hand on the soft fabric and thought about what they might be used for. Tears flowed unchecked, and she leaned back against the shelving and wept.
From the front room, Dom could hear her weeping, softly, and wanted desperately to take her into his arms to comfort her, but he knew he couldn't spare the time. Corporal Bennett and the others would be waiting for him. Grimly, he continued his task of gathering the required supplies.
Across the street, Diane Denny opened the front door of the saloon to prepare for the breakfast crowd in the dining room, and she instantly noticed that the door to the general store was open. Puzzled, she cocked her head and watched, noticing that someone was inside the store, apparently searching through the goods.
Assuming that a thief had broken in, taking advantage of the absence of both Marie and the marshal, she summoned her husband. "Zack?"
The poker chairs had been turned over on the tabletops the evening before so that the floors could be easily swept, and Zack was busily returning them to their upright positions on the floor when he heard his wife's concerned voice calling him from the door. "What is it, darlin'?" he asked in his quiet southern drawl.
"Someone's prowlin' around in Marie's store!"
Zack and Diane were the ideal example of the perfect mismatched couple, and a study in the attraction of opposites. Zack was the working class southern businessman from Atlanta, and Diane, the former slave whom he had met while she was selling produce from a cart in an effort to make money during the reconstruction era that followed the Civil War. Thousands of slaves had found themselves on the streets of each large southern city, freed by the northern armies, but left with no means of support. The Old South was figuratively destroyed, and even if the white farmers and businessmen had been willing to hire black laborers, they could barely find a way to support their own families. Most of their cash had been poured into the southern cause to feed the armies, whether by choice or confiscation. Their livestock was gone, as well, taken by both armies to provide transportation or food for the vast numbers of soldiers. In the midst of all this grief, Zack had found the love of his life. He had fallen instantly in love with the beautiful black woman, and they had left Atlanta to find a better life in the west, where they would not be judged unfairly by those who did not understand the depth of their affection for one another.
Zack looked up, startled by his wife's words, and he joined her at the door to gaze across the street, trying to get a good look at the man who was still inside the store, moving back and forth in front of the window as he removed goods from the shelves and stacked them on the countertop.
"Do you suppose it's a thief?" Diane asked, worriedly. "Or that awful British man?"
"No. That's Dom," he said, recognizing the familiar tall figure of his employee. "Somethin's goin' on. I better get over there and see what it is."
With Diane following, Zack quickly crossed the street, and stepped into the store.
"Dom? What's happening?"
Again, Dom reiterated the story told by the prospector. "The corporal asked me to get a few things from the store that we might need."
Zack and Diane watched as Dom continued to add to the growing pile of supplies on the sales counter. Already on the pile were axes, saws, three lenths of rope, two pulleys, S-hooks, a large section of canvas, several pairs of work gloves for the businessmen involved in the rescue who did not normally participate in manual labor, and the blankets that Sally had just included.
"You'd better take some canteens full of water," Zack recommended. "If they're still alive, they're gonna be mighty thirsty."
"We have canteens," Dom told him, depositing the last item on the pile. "I'd better get these down to the stable. Would you give me a hand?"
"Certainly," Zack replied. Quickly, he removed his apron, and passed it to his wife. "I'll be goin' with you," he said to Dom. "I'm not much of a laborer, but I reckon it won't hurt me none to get my hands dirty, seein' as how it's a good cause. I wouldn't feel right sitting here in town while everyone else was out there." To his wife, he said, "Just keep the saloon and the dinin' room closed today, Diane. I doubt if we'll see much business anyway. I expect most of the men folk are gonna be involved in the rescue."
"All right, Zack," she said, carefully folding up his clean apron to be used later.
Zack and Dom gathered their arms full of supplies, and hurried up the street to the stable, where Clive had outfitted a packhorse in anticipation of the large number of supplies they would be carrying to the explosion site. Silently, the Mountie began arranging the items on the pack-rig and securing it, while Zack began saddling his own horse.
Clive had summoned those who had gone on the search the previous day, and those men had informed others of the developing situation, who had in turn informed still others. In a matter of minutes, almost everyone in town knew the events that had occurred.
The stable and the pasture had nearly been emptied of livestock, as almost every man in town prepared to join in the rescue. Inside the stable and out, tied to stalls and tied to the paddock fence, even tied to Marie's picket fence, were horses, either saddled or in the process of being saddled. Also tied nearby was a harnessed team of horses with draft blood that would be used for heavy pulling, in the absence of a winch.
Clive picked up the canvas, and glanced at Dom.
"I thought we might use it to build a travois, in case they are injured or . . . ." Dom explained, hesitated briefly, then added, "It doesn't seem right to just throw them over the back of the horses, if you know what I mean. They're our friends. They deserve more respect than that."
Clive nodded in agreement, but did not answer. He placed the canvas on the rig, and tied it in place.
Liam Gleeson was just entering the stable, having just heard the news, and he said, "I'm not a very good horseman, but if you'll allow me to borrow a mount from someone, I'd like to accompany you," he said, but his lilting Irish accent did not sound so merry, now.
"I'll get an extra horse," Wendell offered, but instead of removing one horse from the dwindling herd in the paddock, he removed two, deciding that he, too, would go along. Like Liam, he was not the town's best horseman, but he figured he could keep up, if they did not go too fast. He was in good company, knowing that Liam and Zack were no better at riding than he was.
Clive gazed slowly around the crowd of townspeople who had turned out to offer their help. Almost every man in town was there, a melting pot of ethnic backgrounds and a hodgepodge of varying accents from all over the world: Irish, Swedish, Russian, Canadian, Americans representing both the North and South, German, English. All were there to lend a hand. He felt compelled to say something to them, to thank them for their willingness to help, but the words would not come. Gazing at their somber faces, he knew they understood.
He untied his horse from the post, and mounted.
As if on cue, the other men mounted their horses, and with Dom and Clive in the lead, the riders turned north and rode toward the hills, past the skeleton of the unfinished church, where Lucy Walker knelt in prayer, asking for the safe return of her guardian, Marie, and her friend, Marshal Craddock.
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