Crossings (28 page)

Helena had gone to the meeting. So had Emilie, Ignacia, and Eliazer. But Carrigan was nowhere to be found. Helena hadn't seen him since he'd stood in Nixon Street just before disappearing around the side of the stockade without saying a word to her. She'd worried about him those long, interminable minutes before the meeting got under way. Once it did, her thoughts were taken by the startling news.

The fire had been started by the Paiutes. Ned Sanders had seen them on ponies in the sagebrush behind Main. They'd ridden pell-mell down the alleyway, shooting off several burning arrows into the buildings. There had been only a handful of the Indians, so Mr. Brown, the Indian agent, had discounted the possibility that the episode was a war party. In his estimation the incident was one of young warriors blowing off steam. But still . . . Genoa being attacked in broad daylight made Helena afraid.

“I tell you, people,” Mr. Brown stated over the rain hammering on the ceiling, “I will inform Carson City of the events and request troops be brought into Genoa as soon as possible to dissuade any further trouble.”

The room grew into a buzz of voices, then Mr. Mayhew rose from his chair. “I'd like to thank the Lord for the rain.” Seeing the crestfallen faces of Messrs. Noonan, Paster, and Wetherill, he added, “And I'll be the first to pitch in and help my neighbors
rebuild.” Nods of agreement followed. “But it has to be said, I'd likely be burned down, too, if it hadn't been for Mr. Carrigan.” Shading his eyes with his hands, Mayhew searched the crowd. He saw Helena. “Where's your husband, ma'am?”

Helena bit her lip. “I'm not sure.”

“Well, I think the town ought to know how he saved my shop.” On that, Mr. Mayhew related the events, and a chorus of applause rose from the crowd for the hero not in attendance. Helena graciously acknowledged their cheers, thinking that Carrigan should have been here to receive his congratulations.

“Before you go handing out accolades for Miss Gray's husband,” Bayard said from the front of the room, “I think you ought to know the truth about him.”

The room fell still, Helena's heart with it. She stared at Bayard—albeit a ragtag version in his soiled suit of clothes and face darkened with soot—seeing the familiar figure of a man she'd known and trusted. Counted on more times than she had fingers. Been a confidante to, and loyal to the bone. What he was going to say made her nauseated. He would slander her husband. And in front of the town.

“As you know, Miss Gray's horses were let out on the evening of May the ninth.” It didn't go unnoticed by Helena that Bayard didn't address her by her legally married name. “I was a witness to their release.”

A rush of astonished voices passed through the crowd, and gazes fell to Helena. She kept hers fastened on the man who commanded the room. The man who commanded Genoa with his judicial presence. Her friend. Her betrayer.

Bayard's watch fob caught light of the high lanterns hanging from ceiling chains. “I had the misfortune to see Carrigan letting her animals go. Such an offense is a hanging one.”

Gasps rose; so did Helena. She angrily twisted the
front of her apron in her fingers. “I asked my husband about the incident, and he claims his innocence. I believe him. All the animals were rounded up—with his help, I might add—and no harm was done. I will not press any charges against him. I don't believe the law permits a wife to testify against her husband anyway.”

Bayard's face went red with rage, and for the first time, Helena was scared of what he could do with the given authority of his appointed office. Could he impose a sentence on Carrigan, even if she wouldn't accuse him of the crime in question? Bayard's attempt to slander Carrigan was nothing short of getting back at her for marrying someone else. Perhaps she was due some of his scorn, but she hadn't intentionally scandalized him in public, as he'd just done to her. What he'd said was cruel, and she wouldn't readily forget his insensitivity.

No one dared say anything against Judge Kimball, but neither did they back him up in his quest to see Carrigan taken into his custody and hanged for an offense he didn't commit. Thankfully, just after Bayard's announcement, the discussion returned to the Paiutes, and the meeting broke up without any further mention of Carrigan. Bayard tried to cut through the throng to get to Helena, but she artfully eluded him, using the side aisles to make her escape.

She couldn't speak to him right now. Not with the way she was feeling about his duplicity. Once outside of the Nevada Hotel, Emilie linked her arm through Helena's. They walked with hurried steps in the rain to the general store. Helena's mind was not at all trained on her stride, but rather on where Carrigan had taken himself off to. As she stepped over a puddle, she tried to piece together why he'd left without an explanation.

“I need to know something, Lena,” Emilie said through the downpour, drawing Helena from her troubled thoughts of Carrigan's disappearance. “The
land your . . . Jake . . . was talking about was the parcel Father bought for us. Wasn't it?”

Helena couldn't flat out lie to her sister when Emilie was stating the truth. “Yes.”

“I thought as much,” she replied dismally. “How could you do it, Lena?”

“I had to. It was the only way he'd marry me. I'll get us other land. I promise. The station will bring in enough revenue for an even better parcel.” Helena wrapped her fingers around her sister's arm, wanting desperately to make peace with her. “Believe me. Please believe me when I say I would never hurt you, Emilie.”

Emilie stared at Helena, her youthful face looking wiser than her years. “I believe you, Lena. Just stop treating me like a child.”

Helena found no ready reply to give her, no easy rejoinder that would dismiss her sister's worry of forever being a young girl in Helena's eyes. Rather than make any false promises, she said nothing.

Once at the station, everyone cleaned up and ate a cold supper before retiring early. The stressful exhaustion of the day had taken its toll on them all.

Everyone except Carrigan.

He hadn't come back, and the hour had grown late. The rain had increased, its deluge turning the streets into muddy streams. Had the weather permitted, Helena would have put on her clothes, taken a lamp, and walked to Carrigan's cabin. She couldn't help reliving the day she'd found him shot.

How could he make her worry so about him?

When they'd returned from the lake, she'd been filled with anxiety over where he would sleep tonight. But if he didn't come home, she wouldn't have to wonder anymore. Things had changed between them, but the elements of their marriage had not. At least not here. In the house, their relationship would have to remain the same. There was Emilie to consider. She would not embarrass her sister in such a way. And
she could not put herself in Carrigan's embrace again. It was too difficult to leave it. But right now she would have gladly thrown her arms around him if he walked through the door unharmed.

The patter of rain fell on the boardwalk in front of the general store. Helena had come into this part of the house to wait for Carrigan. The rhythmic sounds of torrential water seemed to chant his words:
You're everything I have. You're everything I have.

The litany confused her already unsettled thoughts. Did she really mean something to him? Or had he spoken to her in the heat of the moment, needing her to promise she'd leave if the fire came too close? Either way, he'd said them, and she couldn't forget.

In her nightgown, robe, and stockings, Helena stood at the store's window inconspicuously looking between the frame and the drawn ivory shade for a sign of Carrigan. The intersection was near pitch-dark, as lights from the four corner businesses were all but extinguished. A velvet yellow spilled from beneath the batwing doors of the Metropolitan Saloon. Talk of the fire would undoubtedly fill the rest of the night's drinking conversations. She'd welcome Carrigan being in the bar getting drunk with the rest of them. As it was now, she hadn't a clue to his whereabouts.

Blinking her weary eyes, she kept a vigil while shifting her weight from one foot to the other. In a moment she'd make a pot of coffee and bring it back to the window. And wait. And look. And hope.

13

C
arrigan was dying.

The mother of all hangovers had made itself known in his brain and was hammering mercilessly at his blood vessels until he swore they would rupture from the pressure. Lying on the rumpled bed in his cabin, he fixed his gaze on the ceiling timbers. It had to be daybreak because he could see sunlight beaming through tiny cracks in the corner joints. Staring so long, his eyes grew dry. Carrigan blinked. His vision blurred. Then he closed his eyes again and went back to sleep. For what length of time, he had no idea.

When he woke, he was as cold as an outhouse seat on a January morning. Slipping first one, then the other, eye open, he attempted to lift himself onto his elbows. His head spun like a top out of control, and he had to lie back down until the spasms of dizziness subsided. When he was able, he pushed himself up and glared at the yawning front door. He must have left it open all night long.

Rainwater puddled on the flooring in front of the
door. Damn, he was freezing. He hadn't slept with a blanket on that he could recall. Mustering his energy, he rose to sitting. Instantly he clutched his head before it split wide open. He sat that way for quite a spell, then by small degrees, inched his legs over the side of the bed. When he stood, he had to grip the bedstead for support. Slowly making his way to the door, he held the jamb and leaned on his side before proceeding outside.

The sun was blinding, and were he able to hit a mark right now, he would have thrown his boot at it to shut it off. Walking to the rear of the cabin, he relieved himself in the blue building, then went back inside and closed the infernal cold out.

He needed to get warm and opened the door to his stove, hating that he had to turn to fire so soon after yesterday. His hangover left him incapable of judging how much wood to put inside, so he pitched in three huge wedges and slammed the door.

Obsi lay in the corner, his head lifted from his paws as Carrigan stumbled about.

“What are you looking at?” he snapped.

The dog lowered his chin and watched his master make an ass out of himself.

Carrigan rifled through the trunk by his bed, searching for another bottle of Snakehead. He knew he had one around here somewhere. Surely he couldn't have drunk the place dry. He needed a bracer to take the edge off this damn headache. Finding a bottle buried in the folds of the bedclothes, he popped the cork and took a burning swallow, thankful he couldn't smell the smoke anymore.

He'd come to his cabin after the fire and stripped out of his clothes, plunging into the trough in the corral and scrubbing the stink off his body until his flesh stung. But he could still smell it. The reeking scent of smoke and charcoal. It had upset his stomach, and he'd gotten sick once more. When he couldn't take the smart of lye soap anymore, he'd
walked naked into the cabin and dressed in clean clothes. But the permeating stench had gotten inside him. He'd had to turn to liquor to get rid of the odor. To fog his mind enough to pass out.

He'd had a dream last night. A vile, sickening dream. That he'd been chewing on the end of his gun and . . . Jesus, he couldn't summon any more than that. But it was enough to make him want to jump out of his skin. During his cattle days when nights were spent around a campfire discussing philosophy, Hart had told him that every man had some peculiar train of thought that he fell back on when he was alone. For years that deliberation had been on Jenny and her death. That, and the unknown troopers who'd raped her. But last night's dream had him scared. The normal course of mourning had gone over the edge the moment he'd had to encounter that fire and saw firsthand the jailer who'd kept his wife captive while she perished.