Mountain Laurel Read online



  “How many other women would be fool enough to travel alone to a town of forty thousand men?”

  Toby took the spyglass and looked through it. They were standing on a hill looking down into a pretty valley where a bright new red stagecoach sat, glittering in the setting sun, a tent not far away. In front of the coach was a woman sitting at a table, slowly eating her dinner while a thin, blonde woman served her.

  Toby lowered the glass. “What d’you think she’s eatin’? It looks like somethin’ green on her plate. Do you think it’s peas? Maybe string beans. Or is it just green meat like the army has?”

  “I couldn’t care less what she’s eating. Damn Harrison! Damn him to hell and back! Incompetent bastard! Just because he can’t run a fort the size of Breck, he sends me off to do his dirty work.”

  Toby yawned. He’d heard this a thousand times. He’d been with ’Ring since ’Ring was a boy, and he might seem stoic to others but Toby knew the truth. “You oughta be thankin’ the man. He got us out of that godforsaken fort and put us out here where the gold’s ours to be had.”

  “We have an assignment, and I mean to fulfill it.”

  “You is right. I ain’t part of the army.”

  ’Ring started to remind Toby of the uniform he wore, but he knew it was a waste of breath. Toby had joined the army because ’Ring had and for no other reason. The purpose of the army, the work that needed to be done, meant nothing to Toby.

  But it meant everything to ’Ring. He’d joined the army before his first beard had fully grown, and he’d always tried to do his best, to always be fair, to see what needed to be done and do it. He’d been quite successful and quite happy until last year, when Colonel Harrison had become his commanding officer. Harrison was an incompetent fool, a man who’d never seen any action, a desk officer who had been sent west and had no idea what to do. He’d dumped his anger at his own incompetency on his captain’s shoulders, making ’Ring take the blame for what the colonel couldn’t do.

  “She’s eatin’ somethin’ else too,” Toby said, looking through the spyglass. “You think it’s lettuce? Maybe carrots. You think it’s somethin’ besides hardtack?”

  “What the hell do I care what she’s eating?” He walked away from the ridge. “We have to make a plan. First of all, she’s either a good woman or a bad one. If she’s good, she has no business being out here alone, and if she’s bad, she doesn’t need an escort. Either way, she has no need for me.”

  “What’s that say on her door?”

  ’Ring paused in pacing and grimaced. “LaReina, the Singing Duchess.” He looked back down at the red coach. “Toby, we have to do something about this. We cannot allow this young woman to go into the gold-mining area. I’m sure she knows nothing about what she’s getting into. If she knew the many dangers she faced, I’m sure she would return to her point of origin.”

  “Her point of—?” Toby said.

  “Origin. Where she came from.”

  “You know, I was just wonderin’ how she got this far by herself. You think she drove that coach herself?”

  “Heavens, no! A Concord isn’t easy to drive.”

  “Then where are her drivers?”

  “I don’t know,” ’Ring said, waving his hand in dismissal. “Perhaps they’ve deserted her to work in the gold fields. Perhaps the woman will be grateful if I explain to her the hazards involved in a journey such as she’s planning.”

  “Humph!” Toby snorted. “I ain’t never yet seen or heard tell of a woman that was grateful for anything.”

  ’Ring took the spyglass from Toby and looked through it again. “Look at her, sitting there calmly eating, and unless I miss my guess, that is very fine china she’s eating from. She doesn’t look like a woman who is used to the hardship of a gold camp.”

  “She looks pretty fine to me. Big top on her. I like the top half to be big. And the bottom half, too, if the truth be told. I can’t see her face from here.”

  “She’s an opera singer!” ’Ring snapped. “She’s not a dance-hall girl.”

  “I see. Dance-hall girls sleep with miners and opera singers sleep with generals.”

  ’Ring glared at him and Toby glared back until ’Ring walked away. “All right, here’s the plan: We show her a little of what the West is really like, what she can expect in the camps.”

  “You ain’t plannin’ to use her for target practice, are you?”

  “Of course not. I’ll just, maybe, well, scare her a little bit. Put some sense into her.”

  “Great,” Toby said with a sigh. “Then we can go back to Fort Breck and Colonel Harrison. That man’s gonna be as glad to see you as he would be to see a pack of Apaches. He don’t like you none at all.”

  “The feeling is mutual. Yes, we’ll return to Fort Breck, but I’ll put in for a transfer.”

  “Good. In four, five years we should be able to get out of the place. By then you ain’t gonna have no skin left on your back from tryin’ to play the hero and impress the men.”

  “It was something that had to be done, and I did it,” ’Ring said as though from rote, for he’d said this a thousand times to Toby.

  “Like you gotta go scare this lady now, is that it? How come you don’t just go tell her you don’t wanta ride around the gold fields with her?”

  “It must be the woman’s decision to return to civilization. Otherwise, I am not free from my duties and obligations to her.”

  “So maybe you’re plannin’ to scare her for yourself and not to save any of her skin.”

  “You have a very pessimistic outlook on life. It would be the best thing for both of us if she were to turn back. Now, are you coming with me or not?”

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Maybe she’ll offer us somethin’ to eat, but I sure hope she don’t sing. I sure do hate opery.”

  ’Ring straightened his uniform, adjusted the heavy, long saber at his side. “Let’s get this over with. I have many things to do back at the fort.”

  “Like keepin’ ol’ man Harrison from killin’ you?”

  ’Ring didn’t answer as he mounted his horse.

  Chapter 2

  Maddie pulled the photograph of her little sister from the trunk and looked at it. She was so absorbed, she didn’t hear Edith enter the tent.

  “You ain’t gonna start cryin’, are you?” Edith said as she spread a blanket over the hard cot that was Maddie’s bed.

  “Of course not!” Maddie snapped. “Have you cooked anything yet? I’m starved.”

  Edith pushed a strand of dishwater-blonde hair out of her eyes. Neither it nor her dress was too clean. “You thinkin’ of changin’ your mind?”

  “No, I’m not. I’ve never considered doing anything but what I have to. If I have to sing for a bunch of dirty, thieving, illiterate miners in order to save my sister, I’ll do it.” Maddie looked at this woman, who was part maid, part companion, part pain-in-the-neck to her. “You aren’t getting cold feet, are you?”

  “Ain’t me who’s got a sister they’re gonna kill and, besides, I wouldn’t care if they did hold my sister. I’m plannin’ to get me a rich gold miner and make him marry me and set me up for life.”

  Maddie looked at the photograph once more, then put it away. “I just want to get this done as quickly as possible and get my sister back. Six camps. That’s all I have to do, and then she’ll be returned to me.”

  “Yeah, well, you hope. I don’t know why you trust them so much.”

  “General Yovington promised he’d help me, and he’s the one I trust. When this is all over, he’s going to help me prosecute her kidnappers.”

  “You have a lot more faith in men than I do,” Edith said, jerking the bed covers. “You ready to—” She stopped as she saw a large, dark form at the tent flap. “He’s here again.”

  Maddie looked up, then slipped out of the tent. She returned in minutes. “There may be some trouble,” she said to Edith. “Be very cautious tonight.”

  An hour later, just as Maddie w