The Great West Detective Agency (24 page)

“You have made a friend. Tovarich is the smartest of them all and knows you saved him.”

“I'm glad,” Lucas said, meaning it with all his heart. “How'd you know where to find Clifford and Tovarich?”

Good moved into his field of vision, arms crossed over his chest.

“I thought you'd left me. You went to fetch Vera and her men—her dogs?”

The Indian nodded once.

“You made it just in time.” Lucas shifted his weight, but Tovarich refused to let him up until Vera threw her arms around the dog's neck and pulled him away.

“He likes you,” she said.

“What are you going to do?”

Vera looked at Good, smiled a little, then dragged Tovarich off. Lucas climbed to his feet.

“You're going after the gold, aren't you?”

“I will see that she finds it, then get to the coast.”

“What's there?”

“There is a Russian colony at Fort Ross. She and her friends will take ship back to her home.”

Good tried but could not keep the sadness out of his voice.

“Are you going with her?”

“There is no place for me in Russia.” Good spun and strode away. The pack of dogs sprang to their feet and trailed him as he disappeared into the night with Vera Zasulich.

Lucas stared at the carnage. Clifford and his men were all dead. How many of Vera's had died, he had no way of guessing. The pack of wolfhounds roved at full strength, and now that Tovarich had returned, they would trot along and sniff out the gold.

At that thought, he had to laugh. Lucas held the jar of perfume and started to unscrew the lid, then thrust it back into his pocket. No matter how sensitive the dog's nose, it could not sniff out hidden gold smeared with the spikenard. Too many questions cropped up as he thought about Good leading the way to some hidden cache.

Who had put the perfume on the gold and then thought to train the dog? A simple map made more sense and required less effort. Even the best trained dog might leave the trail to go racing after a rabbit. After all the tribulations the dog had been through, death would have left the gold forever hidden. Tovarich was a fierce fighter, but eventually the rats or other dogs would have killed him in Makepeace's rat pits.

Amanda had somehow gotten the perfume from Vera's wagon, but how did she know this was the key to unlocking the dog's sensitive nose? Lucas shook his head sadly. There wasn't any way. No way at all.

In the silence of the night, Lucas looked up at the crystalline stars. The dogs were long gone, and not even a breeze stirred the bushes. Bodies strewn all over the ravine began to smell, forcing Lucas to climb back to the bank of the ravine. From here he found his horse, mounted, winced, and then settled down.

Tovarich might be the key to finding the gold, but the perfume had nothing to do with it. In spite of the pain in his butt, back, and legs, Lucas trotted back to Denver because he knew how to find the gold.

L
ucas got more excited with every mile he rode on the way back to Denver. When Amanda's Cherry Creek shack came into view, he let out a whoop of glee. He was right. He had to be since nothing else made a lick of sense. With a quick move, he dropped to the ground. His earlier weakness had passed, and the certainty he'd gained while turning over every possibility in his mind gave him renewed confidence and strength. Even his legs were strong and worked well as he kicked back the door and went inside.

The interior was too dark for him to find what he wanted. He lit a match and held it aloft as it sputtered and flared. He turned slowly until he found the corner where Tovarich had been chained. The mute testimony to the dog's confinement lay on the dirt floor. He dropped to his knees and pawed through the debris, hunting for what had to be here. Amanda had freed Tovarich from the collar and dropped it. When he pushed aside a pile of offal, he touched the thick leather strap.

He fell back and found a dirty rag to wipe off his hand and Tovarich's collar. A second match provided enough light for him to examine the collar. Along the inside the thread had been ripped away. His fingernail completed the cut so he could peel back the leather to expose a metal strip. By the time Lucas pried it away from the collar, his match had burnt to a black, charred stick. He went to the door and held up the metallic strip so starlight shone off it.

More by touch than sight, he made out lines and dots stamped into the metal. Holding it close, he got a good look at it. A slow smile came to his lips. Tovarich had been the answer to finding the gold, but it had nothing to do with the dog's keen nose. The map had been sewn into his collar.

Lucas ran his fingers over the metal strip until dawn broke and gave enough light for him to get a better look. The small triangles had to be mountain peaks. Dots showed a river or perhaps a road. But where? It took him another few minutes to understand the final part of the map. Corners on one end had been folded back and a notch on the bottom cut out. An arrow. An arrow like a compass needle.

He aligned it with north, then studied the Front Range as sunlight struck the mountains fully. Was it intended to be magnetic north or should he find the North Star? Lucas realized that hardly mattered since the map lacked detail. This was a broad hint where the gold had been cached and nothing more. He pressed his thumb down over the X that would make him fabulously wealthy.

Anxious to get on the trail, he realized he needed to prepare. He needed supplies for at least a week, and more immediately, he needed food now and rest.

Lucas got his supplies and ate in the saddle as he rode into the foothills. Excitement kept him alert and on the trail until he fell asleep and almost toppled from the saddle. Realizing how dangerous it would be to tumble off his horse and down the increasingly precipitous drop-offs along the trail, he found a cave, gave his horse what grass he could pull up, and then lay down out on his blanket, intending only to take a quick nap.

Ten hours later, he came awake with a start. He stretched, moaned a little at the effort, and made sure his horse got more fodder before eating some of the food he had brought along. The time it took to prepare galled him, but his hunger had grown to the point his hands shook and dizziness hit him whenever he moved suddenly. That might be due to the increasing altitude, but Lucas had pushed himself to the edge of exhaustion.

He told himself he needed to be sharp, alert, and able to appreciate the treasure trove when he found it.

After eating, he took out the thin strip map. He pressed his thumbnail into it. The metal might have been tin or some other malleable metal. The map was plainly punched into the strip that had been hidden in Tovarich's collar. He almost wished the dog could be here to share his triumph. Then he realized how little he liked dogs. Vera's pack had attacked him in town, even if it had saved him from Clifford and his men.

He oriented the strip and found the highest peaks to the left. Only the loftiest 14,000-foot mountains had been used as markers on the map. His heart raced when he realized he was getting closer. The cache had been placed remarkably close to town, but from what he had overheard, this was Confederate gold so had to have been moved from its original hiding place.

In places he had to walk. This caused him to worry how the gold had been moved this route in the first place. More and more he checked the metal strip to reassure himself he wasn't going in the wrong direction. Then he went down a steep slope and into a grassy valley feeling winter's first bite. Snow dotted the ground. He caught his breath when he saw how a horse had come from the other end of the valley and turned due west—the direction his map showed. He dismounted and studied the tracks. They weren't too recent, but he wasn't much of a frontiersman and couldn't be certain. It had been several days since it had snowed. The icy crust that formed in the warm autumn sun had folded over some of the hoofprints. Or maybe he was only minutes behind the other rider. How anyone else knew of the location baffled him, but he was willing to fight for his share.

He was willing to fight for it all.

He lost the tracks across a rocky patch. Lucas stopped looking for the other tracks when he saw what had to be the hiding place. Twin rocky spires rose on either side of a narrow valley entrance. In spite of gasping from the altitude, he ran forward. His horse balked, but he tugged at the reins. Lucas dropped the reins and scrambled up a rock-strewn slope to what had to be the hiding place.

The dirt and frozen mud had been disturbed. He wasn't the only one who had been here. That didn't mean whoever had entered knew anything about the gold. He had slept in a shallow cave the first day out. This might be another pilgrim on the trail to—where? Lucas had no idea.

Anxiously entering the cave, he took a deep whiff to be sure there wasn't bear or wolf spoor. Finding nothing, he pushed deeper. At this point, he would have wrestled the bear and the wolf, both at the same time, to get a million dollars of gold bars. Or was it coins? How had the Confederates poured their gold?

He moved to one side and let the light from the cave mouth show him the way. The only possible spot where anything might have been hidden was a narrow crevice jammed with loose rocks. He tore at the rocks and threw them to the cave floor until he came to a wooden box. Small enough to hold in his hands, it could not possibly hold even a few hundred dollars in gold, much less a million dollars.

Hardly daring to act, Lucas summoned the courage and pried open the lid. Nothing inside. Nothing. He carried the box outside into the bright sun, where he could better examine the box. It had once held fine Cuban cigars. Now not even dust was inside.

He turned the box over and over, then discarded it. Whatever had been here was gone. The rider whose tracks he had seen had come here and beaten him to the contents. Another map? Why would anyone create such a chain of clues? He had no answer for that.

Lucas leaned back, closed his eyes, and let the warm sun soothe him. He had dared everything and lost. But so had others who were less inclined to have stardust blind them. Dennis Clifford had given his life hunting for this. So had Jubal Dunbar. Gregor and Dmitri. He tried to imagine the tracks coming here as belonging to Good or Vera Zasulich. That hardly seemed possible. All of them had hunted for gold and lost far more than he.

He opened his eyes and squinted. Not everyone had lost. There was one other player in this treasure hunt who might not have lost.

Lucas picked up the cigar box, tucked it into his saddlebags, and then mounted. His search wasn't quite at an end. Not yet.

L
ucas moved his pile of belongings and rolled over onto his back. The crack in the ceiling had grown larger in the week since he'd been thrown out of his boardinghouse. The landlady complained of Dunbar's henchmen being rude to her, demanding to know not only where he was but where all her other boarders were. No matter how Lucas tried to assure her that Dunbar and his men would never be a problem again, she would have none of it. He had picked up his belongings on the street and considered where to stay.

The Great West Detective Agency had an empty storeroom. He'd bedded down there, getting up before the Northcotts came in to work at 9
A.M.
Felicia Northcott had proven almost as insistent as his old landlady, wanting to open the office at seven. Lucas tried to fire her and Raymond, but the conversation always twisted away from it. Looking at Raymond and seeing his hangdog expression kept Lucas from pressing the point, although Felicia finally relented and agreed to open the office at a time when Lucas could reasonably be awake after working at the Emerald City all night long.

He closed his eyes and tried to picture Carmela Thompson, but already she faded in his memory. She had continued her tour while he was out in the mountains trying to get rich from a hoard of Confederate gold. Lefty replaced her with a half dozen cancan dancers, real crowd pleasers, but not a one of the dancers had the talent or stage presence of lovely Carmela. When he finally sidled up to the faro table for work once more, he expected to see Claudette. Lefty said she had pined for him and disappeared after a couple nights. Lucas tried to picture the two of them together, but couldn't.

Lefty had been distant, probably because he had been sweet on Claudette and blamed Lucas for her going.

And his run of luck had been poor. Losing at the faro table meant he not only cost the house but wasn't being paid since there weren't any earnings to share. After his shift, he had tried his hand once more at the poker table. No matter how he played, loose or aggressive, he simply could not win.

That summed up his life from the minute Amanda Baldridge had walked through the door. He hadn't heard a whisper about her either. Or anyone unearthing a huge trove of gold.

He wished her no ill though she had involved him in a world of trouble and double-crossing. If anyone found the gold, he wanted it to be Amanda.

The rapping on the front door brought him to his feet. He looked out and saw Good pressing into the plate glass until his nose flattened and his face took on an otherworldly aspect. The Creek knocked again. Lucas padded over, not bothering to put on his boots, and opened the door to let the Indian in.

Good stepped in and stood, arms crossed and looking glum.

“I never expected to see you again,” Lucas said. “You didn't find the gold.”

“No.” Good glared at him. “The dog did not hunt. Vera tried everything but nothing.”

“A shame. Where is she?”

“On her way back to Russia. Revolution means everything to her.”

“You aren't up for overthrowing the czar?”

Good glared at him.

“It's not my fault you—Vera—didn't find the gold. I came away empty-handed, too.”

Good grunted.

“You could always catch up with Vera,” Lucas suggested. He wondered why Good had stopped by like this, but he lacked the will to ask. He was a bit intimidated by the man.

“She is gone. All my Russian tongue is wasted now.” Good looked around, grunted, then said, “You stay here?”

“I'm bedding down in the back room until I find a new place.”

“You have no money.”

“That's a fair way of putting it. I spent everything Amanda gave me in bribes, for information, getting supplies.” He considered leaving the office before he had to pay the Northcotts because he barely had two nickels to rub together. That wasn't fair, but then they hadn't done much more than file papers left by Runyon. There hadn't been any new business to generate money to pay salaries.

“I will work for you.”

Before Lucas could do so much as laugh, Good clapped him on the shoulder, smiled wickedly, then said, “She will be at Governor's Ball tonight.”

“Amanda?” Lucas spoke to thin air. Good moved with surprising speed and lost himself in the crowd outside.

He closed the door and considered how much he wanted to see Amanda again. He went to the storeroom and pulled on his boots. The door opened again, and he heard Felicia berating her husband. He settled his coat, walked out, touched the brim of his bowler to them, and said, “Carry on. You're doing a good job.”

Before Felicia Northcott could reply, he followed Good into the street and put as many people between his back and the detective agency as possible. Lucas spent the day walking around Denver, taking in the brisk air, enjoying the crush of the crowd about him, even stopping on the edge of the crowd and listening to the Preacher spin a wondrous tale of rejuvenation and all for the price of a two-dollar bottle of Professor Drosselmyer's Somatic Potion, straight from the Old Country and responsible for men and women in the Black Forest living to age one hundred and beyond.

Whatever the Preacher sold probably had a bitter taste—it was medicine, after all, and medicine had to taste bad. Otherwise, only the cheapest of ingredients went into that bottle. Lucas walked on, whistling now. Somewhere during the day he came to a conclusion.

That night he found himself outside a large private house on Capitol Hill. He remembered the last gala he had crashed. Amanda had been there, too, but this time she wouldn't have Dunbar escorting her—as a prisoner. Lucas had never come to a satisfactory conclusion as to whether she had been a willing prisoner or he had coerced her. Now Jubal Dunbar was moldering in a grave and she was free.

He caught his breath when he saw a carriage stop and a tall, slim man in a tuxedo reach up to take Amanda's gloved hand. She was resplendent in a gold dress decorated with tiny pearls. The neckline was daring, even for a frontier ball, and she still made him stare at her face. She was achingly pretty. Moving like thistledown, she floated up the flagstone path on the man's arm, paused on the porch, and turned to look back. For an instant their eyes met. Lucas thought she opened her fan and waved it a few times as she studied him, then laughed and went inside amid orchestral music billowing out into the night.

Lucas went around back. A dozen servants worked to bring in cases of liquor and prepare food to maintain the flow of gaiety inside. He found a carriage house and opened the door partway. The carriage seat was comfortable enough to sit in while he waited. An hour later he heard the soft whisper of cloth brushing the ground and looked up.

“Hello, Amanda,” he said. “I figured I would find you where there was a party—or rather, when you were heading out for a grand ball.”

The woman stood silhouetted in the carriage house door, the bright lights from the house behind her. The light highlighted her dark hair and turned it into a halo. Here and there a sparkle betrayed a hidden gemstone. She had done well for herself in the last week.

“Hello, Lucas. I never thought I would see you again. I'm happy to say that I was wrong.”

“Are you?” He stepped down from the carriage and went to her. “You are still using the same perfume.” He pulled her closer and took a deep whiff.

“Spikenard,” she said.

“Perfume you stole from Vera Zasulich.”

“That is a bit strongly worded. Let's say I sampled her exotic scent.”

“You hitched a ride with her caravan?”

“I was down on my luck.” Amanda shrugged her shapely bare shoulders.

“So you stole it. Is that when you heard about Tovarich, Gregor, and the gold?”

“How's a girl supposed to close her ears to such wild talk? The Russians gathered around their campfires.”

“They'd be speaking Russian.”

“Not when your friend joined them. He spoke poorly so they often used English, even when he wasn't nearby.”

“Good?”

Amanda smiled. She pressed against him and put her arms around his neck.

“That's all in the past. What are your plans?”

“You didn't find the gold, did you?”

A flash of disgust crossed her face, then she smiled again.

“No. If there ever was gold, it is long gone. More likely, it is only another tall tale built up by retelling.”

“A million dollars,” he mused.

“See? Never did anyone claim a million dollars in gold had been hidden away. They began by saying ‘a prize beyond value.' That translated in the revolutionaries' minds as gold. What else could it be?”

Lucas laced his fingers in the small of her back. Whenever she spoke, he imagined soaring dreams and honeyed lies. He kissed her. This took her aback. She tried to push away, then melted into his arms and pulled his head down for an even more passionate kiss. They broke off.

Her bosom heaved, and he thought she was flushed.

“If only it could have been different between us,” she said.

“Fate can be cruel, but we are both penniless. We—”

He looked up. Amanda's escort stood a few feet away. Lucas had sought out the man most likely to have a future and knew that Amanda would end up at his side. Hearing of the gala tonight made this the likeliest time and place to find the woman. Lucas wished her new beau had dallied just a few minutes longer.

“There you are, my dear. I missed you.” He stepped closer, studied Lucas, then said in surprise, “You're the one she won't stop talking about. It's so good to meet you, Mr. Stanton.”

Lucas tried to find words to give him a few seconds to think. His thoughts tumbled and churned. Nothing came but a tiny ulp.

“He came to give a final report about . . . the matter we spoke of,” Amanda said.

“Dunbar,” the man said angrily. “What a yellow dog. The state of Colorado owes you a great debt of gratitude.”

“I should send my bill to the governor,” Lucas said. Amanda hid a grin.

“Don't do that. He is up to his ears in dealing with other matters affecting our statehood. If the Eastern politicians caught wind of what Dunbar intended, it would put us in a bad situation.”

“Certainly,” Lucas said. “I can understand that.”

“Send your bill to me. Mark it personal.”

“Yes, send it to Lafe.”

“Lafe?” Lucas was adrift.

“Lafayette Head, our lieutenant governor.” Amanda clung to the man's arm. He beamed at her.

“I'd never heard you called that,” Lucas said. “Only the lucky gent with the lovely woman on his arm.”

“From all my darling Amanda has said, the state would be willing to entertain a bill of, oh, say, one hundred dollars for your efforts.” She squeezed his arm and stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. He nodded. “Becoming a state has turned everything into a morass of paperwork. It might be some time before payment could be made. Send along your bill, and I will see to it personally.”

“That's very generous.” Lucas couldn't take his eyes off Amanda. She flashed him an impish smile.

“Considering your part in this sorry matter, it would be well to keep your agency on retainer.”

“The Great West Detective Agency,” Amanda cut in. The look she gave him was undecipherable.

“Yes, that,” Head said. “I am sure we can find new investigations to keep you busy. Colorado is a brand spanking new state and corruption will be rife. Where there is opportunity, there is also excess.”

“I can appreciate that, sir,” Lucas said.

“We must get back to the ball. Governor Routt wouldn't understand if we weren't there to greet him when he makes his grand entrance.”

Lucas watched them go, arm in arm, back to the house. On the back step Amanda blew him a kiss and then disappeared. If he collected the promised money, his luck had indeed changed, and it was at least partly due to Amanda Baldridge. He touched his lips. The wine of her kiss remained all the way back to his pallet in the back room of the detective agency.