Flash Gold (2 page)

“
For all I know, you’re one of these bandits, eager to rob me for...whatever they think I have.”

“
Would I have shot them if that were the case?”

Kali shrugged. “I haven’t noticed that criminals care overmuch for other criminals.”

He walked toward her. She tensed, but he stopped a few paces away and stared her in the eye.

“
I’m no criminal.”

“
Then what are you?” she asked. “Why do you want to go with me?”

“
I’m a simple traveler seeking adventure.” He nodded toward the sled. “I believe you are someone whom adventure finds.”

Kali snorted. In the aftermath of Sebastian’s betrayal, those words were proving too apt for her tastes. Yet it might be useful to have such a capable fighter along,
if
he did not mean to betray her himself. At the least, she could put him to work loading and unloading supplies.

“
Fine,” she said, hoping she was not making a mistake. “We leave at eight A.M. Bring food for yourself for several days and kerosene for the lamps. Since it’s dark most of the day, we’ll travel through it when the trail allows.”

She headed to a coat tree and bundled up. She would have to visit the new Mountie headquarters to report the incident. Things had been easier before the law showed up, representing the “Dominion of Canada.” Criminals’ bodies had merely been tossed out for the wolves.

“
Where do I sleep?” Cedar asked.

Kali stopped at the door and gaped at him. “Uh, the Blue Moon Saloon has a couple rooms.”

“
You’re not paying me enough to cover lodgings.”

She wasn’t
paying
him at all. No holes or frayed sleeves marked his clothing, and he bore quality weapons. Surely, he was no penniless pauper without coin for a room. “You’re not sleeping here.”

She did not want him roaming around her property while she slept. The flash gold was hidden and booby-trapped, but what of her other valuables? Her
tools
?

“
Are you always this warm and demonstrative to men who just saved your life?” Cedar asked.

“
I don’t know. You’re the first who’s bothered.”

“
Then perhaps you should consider displaying gratitude, thus to encourage others who may consider similar acts.”

Kali scowled at him. Why did she have a feeling he was going to be trouble?

“
Fine. You can sleep in the shop down here. Don’t touch anything.”

Whale oil lanterns burned on the dock, doing little to push back the darkness. This late in the year, dawn would not come until after nine. The sleds would be long gone by then.

Wind gusted down the frozen river, ruffling the fur on Kali’s parka. The warmth from the open firebox door offered a slight reprieve from the cold, but she kept her scarf over her nose as she shoveled coal inside. Embers glowed red, and the pressure gauge on the boiler ticked closer to the operational mark.

She paused to issue a fierce yawn. The Mounties had kept her up late with questions and paperwork, making her regret her decision not to simply throw those thugs’ bodies to the wolves. Cedar had been conveniently, or perhaps conspicuously, absent when the Mounties came to retrieve the dead men.

Nearby, dogs pranced and whined with excitement as men led them to the traces. More than a dozen sleds were lined up on the riverbank. Kali ignored the muttered comments about her monstrosity as well as the wager going around as to how far she’d make it before crashing through the ice or having a catastrophic boiler failure.

Cedar was hefting sacks of sand onto her cargo platform. Each sled would carry a five-hundred-pound load in addition to whatever supplies the mushers took. She worried again about the mass of her contraption. More than once, she had debated saving weight by skimping on coal and cutting wood as she went, but that would take time she could ill afford to lose during the race. She supposed she could leave a few tools behind, though the box of smoke nuts was definitely going. A girl had to have more than a rifle for self-defense purposes.

“
Morning, Kali.”

Though a scarf muffled the voice, Kali recognized the drawl. Originally from Georgia, Nelly managed to look beautiful even in a parka. Though layers of winter clothing obscured her curves, the long blonde hair spilling from her hood always enticed the northern men.

“
Morning,” Kali said.

“
I came to wish you luck. I slipped away from my young man to see you off.”

“
Which young man is it this time?”

“
The one I’d marry if his claim ever panned out.”

“
So...that narrows it to...Charles or Saul. Or is Rupert still a contender?”

“
Saul,” Nelly said, a smile in her voice.

Cedar dropped another sack on the sled, working quietly and efficiently. The perfect employee. Kali still found him damned suspicious. She took Nelly’s arm and drew her back a few paces.

“
This fellow you sent over without asking if I was interested... What do you know about him? I question the wisdom of going out in the wilderness with a stranger. A tall, strong, well-armed stranger.”

“
He walked into my salon and looked at my face instead of my breasts,” Nelly said.

“
I see. And that makes him utterly trustworthy.” Kali stamped her feet, already missing the warmth of the firebox.

“
I didn’t say
that
, but he probably won’t try to rape you out there.”

“
An admirable quality in a man, I’m sure, but why does he want to go with me? Did you tell him...?” Kali watched her friend’s eyes.

“
Only that you were hiring. He came in asking about the folks and businesses in town.”

“
Asking?” Kali said. “Like fishing for information?”

“
He spoke of doing some prospecting, but I could tell he was a tenderfoot who needed looking after.”

Kali arched her brows. Cedar might be new to the area, but he had already proven he could take care of himself. Besides, the only men Nelly worried about “looking after” were handsome ones.

“
I told him he couldn’t prospect for anything in the snow,” Nelly said, “and he might as well settle in and get a job ‘til the streams thawed. Coincidentally, you were hiring.”

“
Yes, but I
wasn’t
hiring.” Kali glowered to let Nelly know she did not appreciate the big-sister interference.

Nelly waved away the glower, unperturbed. “You need someone out there with you, and he’s a fine enough fellow to keep you company. In more ways than one, I’m sure.”

“
Nelly.”

“
What? You’re too young to act like an old maid. Just because Sebastian was a scheming scoundrel doesn’t mean all men are.”

Kali shook her head. “This one’s up to something sly. He doesn’t seem desperate enough to work for the
possibility
of pay.”

“
You’re overthinking this, Kali.” Nelly gave her a friendly shove toward the sled. “It’s a three-day race. How much trouble could you two get into?”

Kali found it impossible to dismiss her glower as she returned to the furnace.

Daylight brought little reprieve from the cold. The sun occasionally peeped through a cloud, but it provided only light, not warmth. The wind continued, whistling down the river valley between snow-smothered hills dotted with spruce trees. Kali’s sled chugged along at the rear of the pack. The next slowest sled disappeared around a bend ahead.

“
Should we be concerned?” Cedar asked.

He jogged beside Kali, frosty breaths puffing before him. Though he wore a heavy pack, the pace did not appear to bother him, and his sure feet never slipped on the ice. She steered from the rear of her contraption, riding footboards as a real musher would. She would have preferred to create a seat up front so she did not have to peer past the gray plumes of smoke rising from the stack, but Francis had insisted she build something that looked and drove like a real dog sled.

“
No,” she said. “The dogs will get tired. My girl won’t. We’ll make up lots of ground after we get off the river at Forty Mile. The return route goes through the hills.” Kali patted the side of the smokestack with a gloved hand. “We
love
hills.”

He eyed her sidelong, probably thinking her odd. He wasn’t the first.

Something glinted on the hillside ahead, like sunlight bouncing off a watch or a spyglass. Kali frowned. Trails
did
run through the forest up and down the river, but few traversed them in the winter. And she and Cedar were more than ten miles outside of town.

His face had turned toward the hill too.

“
Did you see it?” she asked.

“
Perhaps nothing,” he said.

“
And perhaps something.”

“
Yes.”

Cedar removed his rifle from his back and flipped the safety off. For the first time, Kali got a good look at it. Meticulously cared for, the Winchester 1890 had a fancy checkered walnut stock and engraved inlays.

“
Nice rifle.” Kali arched her eyebrows. “Though not the kind of weapon you expect from someone desperate enough to sign on for work with a gal who can only pay him if she wins a race.”

“
Bad economy of late.”

“
Uh huh.” Kali checked to ensure her father’s old Winchester 1873 was in reach. Nobody would call her an expert marksman, but she had taught herself enough to be deadly—occasionally to animals instead of herself. Thanks to a couple modifications, it fired more rapidly than normal as well.

“
Will the other teams stop and come back to help if there’s trouble?” Cedar asked.

She snorted. “It’s a race for one thousand dollars. What do you think?”

He turned a steady, considering gaze toward her.

“
Probably not,” she said. “Even if they put human life above money—which isn’t all that common out here—I’m not the best liked girl in town.”

“
Because you’re a witch?”

“
I’m not a witch,” Kali snapped.

His eyebrow twitched.

“
It’s none of your business.” She studied the hill, but no movement or further glints came from that direction. That did not reassure her. There were not as many hiding places as during spring and summer, when dense green undergrowth cloaked the hills, but the evergreen trees offered plenty of cover.

“
Down!” Cedar shouted.

Even as Kali ducked, a rifle cracked. The bullet clanged against the metal frame of the sled and ricocheted off. She heaved on the brake lever and stopped the machine a heartbeat before Cedar grabbed her and dragged her to the side of it.

They crouched behind the boiler, using it for a shield. Something that would only work if attackers waited on only one side of the river. She wouldn’t count on it.

Cedar rose, laid his rifle across the sacks and supplies loaded on the front of the sled, and fired. A return shot came promptly, but he ducked in time. The bullet hammered into the ice behind them.

“
Did you see him?” Kali slid her own rifle out, grabbed a wooden box, and put her back against the sled. She scanned the shoreline and the hills on their side of the river.

“
Them,” Cedar said.

“
Oh, them. Of course. They might get lonely planning ambushes without friends.”

Several meters in front of her, a branch dumped a load of snow. Too much weight building up over time? Or had someone bumped it? Kali went down on one knee, pressed the stock of the rifle into her shoulder, and watched over the sights.