Stealing Mercy (34 page)

Morning birds called out as he ran down the dirt path. Grass brushed his ankles and the dirt flew in small tufts of clouds around his feet. For a Seattle morning, typically thick with dew, the air felt remarkably dry and warm. A scorcher in a long line of heavy, hot days.

Trent ran, creating his own dust devils. He’d gotten close to a quarter of a mile from town when a dark coach trundled towards him. Where had it come from? The road only led to the brothel and he’d been fairly sure he’d been the last left on the island. But, he must have been mistaken. After all, once he saw Mercy boggling in Orson’s wagon, he’d been able to think of little else.

He stopped in the center of the road, holding out his hands for the coach to stop. It continued towards him, not fast, but not slow and definitely not showing signs of stopping. “Hey!” Trent called out.

The pair of Arabians pulling the black coach shook their manes at him as if to say,
we see you, but we won’t hear you
. “Hey!” Trent called again, but the driver, a woman draped in a dark cloak urged her team past, forcing Trent to jump out of the way or be maimed or trampled beneath the horses’ hooves and the coach wheels. He sprinted beside the coach and pounded at the door. “I need a ride to Seattle. I can pay handsomely!” he called out, but the driver, a female and the sole occupant, flicked the reins and the horses trotted past.

Trent didn’t even stop to think as the coach moved away from him. He ran, jumped and landed with a thud on the backboard. Catching his breath, he hunkered below the window, his hands grasping the sill. He waited a moment and watched the ground pass below him. The woman had to have heard him, but the horses didn’t stop. He allowed his screaming thighs a moment of rest before he pushed himself towards the window. If he’d thought the driver would allow him to roll in through the back window, he’d been sorely mistaken.

And if he’d been a fraction to the right, the bullet that ripped through the back of the coach would have tore through his belly as easily as it’d punctured the coach’s cushion and splintered the wood.

CHAPTER 37

Hot sauce: every chili pepper has a different heat level, so you must judge the amount of spice you desire. Start with small quantities.

From The Recipes of Mercy Faye

“Tell me where Steele is,” the woman demanded. She wore her thick dark hair piled on her head like a coiled snake. A tuft of hair stuck straight up from the crown of her head like a serpent’s head poised to strike. As she paced across the sparsely furnished room, arms swinging with her agitated gait, her hair slipped bit by bit. How long at the current pace would it take for the woman’s hair to fall to her shoulders? Mercy didn’t want to wait and see.

“Who’s Steele?” Mercy asked, fighting her twitching eye. “And who are you?”

The woman flashed her a venomous glance. “Come, love. Let’s stop the pretense. You know who I am just as I know you.”

Mercy bit her lip and tried to sit straight in the chair. If she slumped at all the ropes binding her constricted her breath. She wasn’t hurt, the ropes didn’t chaff, but sitting straight meant being able to breathe and her back and shoulders were beginning to ache from the enforced posture practice. Worse than dance class, she thought, remembering her early experience with toe shoes. She didn’t want to admit ignorance, nor did she want to further antagonize the woman marching across the room. Mercy shot a glance over her shoulder. Out of her line of sight, she knew Orson hung somewhere in the background. His breath was audible and he reeked of cigars. In the past few hours, Mercy had grown all too familiar with his odor.

Smoking cigars in the morning was just wrong. It was like having ale for breakfast, it wasn’t necessarily sinful, but it wasn’t done, either. Mercy sighed. Looking out the window at the sun shining off the Sound, Mercy couldn’t decide if morning had already passed. The sun had risen while she’d bounced in the back of the wagon, and it seemed like she’d been tied to the straight back chair for hours.

The woman kicked her chair and successfully returned Mercy’s attention to the conversation at hand. “I repeat, where is Steele?”

Mercy rolled her neck. Sufficient time had surely passed. Trent would have delivered Steele to Calhoun by now, she didn’t think he’d be in danger any longer of being intercepted, but she wanted the frothing woman and Orson to think she worked alone. She needed to protect the others. If she could. Even if she couldn’t protect herself.

Mercy looked at the ceiling. “He’s at Calhouns.”

The woman snorted. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Why not? They were business partners after all. Both had a stake in the brothel.”

The woman halted and Mercy could see the conflicting emotions crossing her face. If she believed Mercy, she’d know where to ambush Steele, but she couldn’t very well go there herself. But, why not send Orson? After all, he’d been Calhoun’s henchman. And what had happened to his cohort, the other brute?

“It makes sense,” Mercy continued. “The brothel had been destroyed. They’d have plenty to discuss.”

The woman wheeled around and pointed her finger at Mercy. “Yes, but the brothel still stands!”

Mercy did her best to feign surprise. “Goodness,” she gasped. Her voice sounded false even to her own ears.

The woman’s voice lowered to a menacing growl. “We’re looking for your china man. Despite his alchemy, he cannot protect himself. We’ll find him.”

Mercy sent a quick prayer for Young Lee, remembering to express gratitude that small Asians in capes tended to look surprisingly similar. “This is all very confusing. I didn’t know we were looking for a, a chinaman, did you say? I thought we were conversing in this charming room.” Mercy looked around at the room: four blank walls, the two tall windows, and except for a bed and a chair, empty of furniture. They’d pulled into an alley and then climbed a back stairway. Given the towering rows of wooden structures they’d passed, Mercy knew they were in town, but she didn’t where. She gulped, acknowledging that she should have been more attentive to back alleys.

“There are just so many of them,” Orson, somewhere behind her, grumbled.

“You won’t have any trouble once he’s found.” The woman said, casting a glance to the back of the room and in that glance Mercy read intimacy. Unmistakable intimacy. Orson and this woman had more than a business relationship. Somehow, that changed things. The stakes became different. She couldn’t wound or even escape one without the other.

“Madam? Or should I say Lady Luck?” Mercy cleared her throat. “What is Steele to you?”

“A dead man,” Orson rumbled.

Mercy heard jealousy. “Claris?” Mercy nearly squeaked.

Lady Luck started and then resumed her pacing.

“You didn’t die,” Mercy guessed.

Lady Luck gave a tiny shake of her head and continued on her path. “Neither did you.”

“You knew about me?” Mercy twisted in her chair as the woman passed from her view. “I got the suicide idea from you. It was rather brilliant. When did Steele find out?”

“He hasn’t,” Orson said. From the sound of the shifting of the bedsprings, Mercy realized he’d stood. Steele certainly knew she’d lived, so how had Lady Luck managed to keep her health from her husband? It occurred to Mercy that that’s why Lady Luck hadn’t fled into the hall with the others during the explosions and fake fire. She’d known Steele was in the house and she couldn’t risk meeting him.

“But how?”

“When it comes to my dear husband, very little escapes my attention.” Lady Luck paused in front of the window and Mercy could tell from the twinge of melancholy in her voice and the stiffness in her spine that she still loved Steele. “You understand why you must die,” she said with her back still turned.

Mercy pushed that comment to the back of her mind. She wouldn’t dwell on her near and probable death. She’d fight to the end, no matter how bleak the situation appeared. She swallowed. The situation appeared very bleak indeed. “When did you come to Seattle?” Her voice sounded small and timid. Mercy cleared her throat with a loud, noisy grumble.

Lady Luck turned slowly around and Mercy guessed that she’d followed her husband.

Another thought occurred to Mercy. “But, wait, what happened to the other Madam?”

Orson rumbled a deep laugh. “What do you think will happen to you? The Sound is bottomless in places.”

“And fish work fast,” Lady Luck added. “Don’t worry. You’ll be beyond feeling by then.”

Fish food? “But, why now? You must have had countless opportunities.”

Lady Luck tapped her nose. “I’m a business woman and you could have been of value, to me and to others.” She laughed. “You must know how you look dressed as Bo Peep.”

Mercy looked down at the cinched corset and barely there pantaloons.

“Unfortunately, your cunning is much too annoying. I’d never be able to trust you.”

Even though she hadn’t any need or desire for Lady Luck’s trust or good opinion, the words, so closely resembling Trent’s, stung. Mercy wondered if she’d ever see him again.

“Burn down the dem building, or something,” Orson grumbled.

Was it her imagination, or did she smell smoke? Not the putrid smell of Young Lee’s fireworks, nor Orson’s fetid cigar, but wood burning smoke. Like a forest fire.

Only they were nowhere near a forest.

CHAPTER 38

To remove the hot chili oil, wash your hands, shake a teaspoon of salt into your palm and work it as you would soap. Rinse and repeat.

From The Recipes of Mercy Faye

His feet kept time with clanging fire bells. Wagons, children, women with babies tucked under their arms, merchants with wares piled into wheelbarrows, horses with wild eyes and flared nostrils crowded the street. Beneath his feet surged dogs, cats, birds, rats, and raccoons. Pushing through Main Street was like swimming upstream in a river of animals and humanity. As the smoke grew thicker, the crowd lessened and changed. Men, grim faced and already blackened with soot worked in lines passing buckets from one hand to the next. From his vantage at the top of the hill, he could see the bucket brigade lines snaked all the way to the pier. Men, boys, and even some women worked side by side, buckets sloshing with the precious water.

The smoke filled his nostrils and lungs he could see it pressing down on the townsfolk. He saw the fatigue in the arms, shoulders and backs of the fire fighters around him, but he couldn’t see Mercy. And he hadn’t a clue where to look.

Until he saw a woman draped in black emerge from a lone brick building. She pushed her hood away from her face and looked up and down the street, disbelief written across her face. Trent moved into the shadow of a store stoop, hoping she wouldn’t recognize him as the man who tried to invade her coach. With a hand over her nose, she pulled her hood back up over her head and hurried in the direction of the city jail.
She’s looking for Steele
, he thought. After she disappeared into the teeming multitude, Trent watched the windows of the building where she’d come from while the crowd surged around him. Like all the other windows on the street, they appeared dark. But, then he saw a flicker of movement.

A woman dressed in rags gave him a scowl, as if to ask why he was standing still in the midst of a fire war. She handed him a bucket of water which he contemplated for only a moment. Then he threw the bucket as hard as he could at the window of the brick building, perhaps the only building on the street that wasn’t being licked by flames. The water, newly acquired from the Sound, rained down on Trent and the people on the sidewalk. The people looked at him as if he was a lunatic, but Trent had eyes only for the window. The bucket, made of wooden slates bound with twine, had had little effect on the window, except to draw the attention of the room’s occupant.

Fleeting, but unmistakable. Orson came to the window and then disappeared.

Trent bolted up the steps.

*****

Mercy found she could move almost by accident. When something smacked into the window, it startled Mercy such that she jumped in her chair and actually managed to move her it by several inches. She was still slightly rocking when Orson turned from the window.

He gave her a slant eyed look and then, with an ear cocked towards the door, drew his gun.

“We’ll die if we stay here,” Mercy said. “It smells as if all of Seattle’s on fire.”

Orson grunted, moved toward the door with his head cocked, and slipped his gun back into the pocket.

“I heard it, too. Someone’s on the stairs,” Mercy said. “But, that’s not surprising. Everyone sane is leaving.” She paused. “Lady Luck has already gone.”

“Quiet,” Orson barked, turning to the door, hand on holster.

Mercy took the opportunity to scoot her chair closer to the window. She gave Orson a wide eyed innocent look when he turned back in her direction. “We’ll soon be toast,” she told him.

“Not me, you,” he said. “You’re attached to kindling.”

“You should go,” Mercy urged. Her plan of throwing herself and her chair out the window wasn’t an entirely fail safe plan, but it beat staying put and dying of smoke inhalation. Given her current situation, hands tied behind her back, ankles and chest bound to the chair, she wasn’t sure if she could fling herself at the window with sufficient force to break the window, but it seemed worth the try.