Twin of Fire Read online

  Leander set such a hard pace down the mountainside that Blair almost wished she hadn’t gone with him. She could be safe now, asleep, instead of half falling down the dark, steep cliff. Twice, she skidded down on her back, but managed to catch herself before she fell too far. Lee seemed to be saying that since she’d been fool enough to want to come with him, she had to look out for herself.

  They finally came out at the bottom of the steep ridge and looked out over the little mining community.

  “I guess it’s useless to ask you to stay here, isn’t it?”

  “Entirely,” she replied.

  “All right, then, stay close to me. Don’t get more than two feet from me. I want to know where you are every minute. You understand? And if I tell you to run, that’s just what I want you to do. No questions, no arguments. And be as quiet as you can.”

  Blair nodded in answer to his warnings and began to follow him down into the camp.

  It was late and most of the lights were out. Only a few saloons were still open and busy. They ran from the cover of one building to another, and Blair could feel her heart pounding with excitement.

  “We’ll have to break into the company store first. I’ll need a crowbar to get that lock and chain off.”

  They crept to the back of a large building that was nearly in the center of the town. Three times, they had to duck when people walked by.

  “Blair,” Lee whispered, “I’ve got to break this glass. I want you to laugh to cover the sound. Make it a loud laugh, like a pros—like a lady of the evening. No one will pay attention to a familiar sound like that, but they’ll come running to the sound of breaking glass.”

  “Leander,” she said stiffly, “I am not as experienced as you are. I have no idea how a lady of the evening laughs.”

  “Suggestively. Sound like you’re trying to get me to go into the woods with you so you can do pleasurable things to my body.”

  “That should be easy,” she said, and meant it.

  Lee wrapped his hand in his handkerchief and prepared to smash through the glass in the door. “All right. Now!”

  Blair tossed her head back and gave a raucous laugh that filled the air, and when Lee looked back at her, there was admiration in his eyes.

  “I’ll take you up on that offer as soon as possible,” he said, even as he reached inside and opened the door. “Stand over here and be ready to run if someone sees us.”

  Blair stood to one side of the door and watched Lee as he made his way about the store looking for a crowbar. Behind her were stacks of canned goods, bags of flour, a barrel of crackers. On one shelf were six little barrels of honey. Looking at them, Blair smiled, as they reminded her of the bears.

  Suddenly, without having a specific plan, she grabbed a rucksack from a pile on the floor and shoved two barrels of the honey into the bag and put it on her back. By the roll of wrapping paper on the counter was a pencil so, quickly, she tore off a corner and wrote a note.

  “What are you doing?” Lee demanded.

  “Leaving an IOU, of course. After tomorrow, I’m sure the entire town will know we blew up part of a mountain, and people will know we had to have stolen the dynamite. Unless you usually carry some in your medical bag. You weren’t planning to just take this without saying who did it, were you? Someone else would be blamed.”

  Lee looked at her for a moment. “Good thinking,” he said at last. “There’ll be no reason for secrecy tomorrow. But I don’t want to be caught tonight. Let’s go. Wait a minute. What do you have on your back?”

  “Honey,” she answered, and she didn’t give him time to ask more questions before she left the store ahead of him. He closed the door carefully and, unless you looked for it, you couldn’t see the broken glass.

  Lee led her through the camp, back to the outskirts, and once it occurred to her that he knew the place awfully well. But then, she’d heard that he sometimes treated injured miners.

  They walked over ground that was crunchy from slag, and the slight wind blew coal dust into their eyes. Behind the railroad tracks, behind a fifty-foot-tall mountain of coal dust waste, behind the long rows of ovens where the sulfur was burned from the coal, was the explosives shed.

  Rubbing her eyes, Blair stood in the shadows while Lee pried the door off the shed. As quickly as possible, he shoved sticks of dynamite under his shirt and wired the door shut. He wouldn’t leave it hanging open for a passerby to help himself to what was inside. Whoever opened it next would still have a difficult time.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and Blair began the steep ascent to the top. At times, the ground was directly in front of her face and she had to pull herself up.

  Lee was waiting for her at the top, but he didn’t give her time to catch her breath. They nearly ran to the cabin. “I’m going to saddle my horse and leave it in front. I thought you might get out of bed to get something to eat, and you might forget and leave a knife within her reach. I’ll be waiting outside to follow her when she goes back to the canyon.”

  “We,” was all Blair said, but the way she looked at him made him sigh.

  “All right, but get inside now and wait for me.”

  “I have to tend to a personal matter first—in the bushes,” she said, and she didn’t know whether she was blushing from her words or from the fact that she was lying.

  Lee didn’t even look at her as he saddled his horse. Blair ran up the side of the hill toward the bears’ den. Cautiously, she approached the black hole of the cave, listening for any sounds. Holding her breath in fear, she picked up a rock and smashed it against the corked hole in one of the barrels of honey she’d taken from the pack on her back, then listened again for sounds of movement. Still quiet.

  Turning the barrel so the honey ran onto the ground, she began to make her way down the mountain toward the cabin, leaving a thick trail in the leaves and grass.

  Lee’s horse stood ready and saddled in front of the cabin, and Blair managed to remove the cork from the second barrel of honey without any noise before she tied it on the back of the saddle. For a moment, she hesitated about what she was doing, because if Françoise took too long to cut herself loose and the bears smelled the honey first, then the bears could go for the horse before it had a rider. Timing was everything.

  She climbed in the cabin window and saw, even in the dark, Lee frowning at her because she’d taken so long. As quickly as she could, she removed her medical uniform. She wanted to look as if she’d just wakened.

  Françoise was lying on the floor and Blair could see that there were raw places on her wrists where she’d tried to get out of the bindings. Blair’s stomach lurched. She’d taken a vow to relieve suffering, and she hated to be the cause of pain in anyone.

  Françoise opened her eyes as Blair walked by.

  “I guess I haven’t recovered since you tried to starve me,” Blair said, as she sliced a piece of cheese from the chunk on the corner of the table. “It won’t be long now before the sheriff will be here.”

  “If he were coming, he’s had time. The man who came with Leander has been killed by now.”

  “Too bad,” Blair said nonchalantly. “He’s Taggert, the one with the money.”

  With a fierce yawn, Blair put the knife on the table and picked up the piece of cheese she’d cut. “I’m going back to bed. Sleep well,” she laughed before leaving the room.

  As soon as she was out of sight of the woman, she began to dress, slowly and silently, while she placed herself so that she could see Françoise. The outline in the moonlight showed that the woman lost no time in taking the knife from the table and even less time in cutting her bindings. She was out the door in seconds.

  “Let’s go,” Lee said as soon as he heard his horse take a step.

  “Let me guess, more walking,” Blair said heavily, feeling very tired.

  “When we get through with this, you can stay in bed for a week,” Lee said. “With me.”

  “That sounds restful,” Blair said sarcastically.