Asa took charge like a pa might. Or so Bronx imagined. “Sad to hear it. But seems you growed up fine. And now, you’re here. And at a good time. Look how the mountains light up like fire. Them aspen trees are something to watch, ain’t they? And don’t you dare miss Turquoise Lake.”
“Yep. Something,” Bronx responded automatically. But his old life breathed, seethed. Lake Louise, so green-blue you had to see it to understand. And the Athabasca River, that same color, flowing the same blue from the icefields to forever and beyond.
To Rebekah.
He gulped away the past, stared at Asa to stop remembering. “A horse,” he stumbled. He’d sold his fine beast back in Billings.
“Get yourself to the livery on East Third.” Asa cackled like a biddy. “Jesse James, God rest his soul, was here a while back and some say, that very livery belongs to some Youngers.”
Asa grinned with real amusement, but Bronx chilled a bit. Dime novels held outlawing so glamorous, and the occupation was nothing attractive at all. Not one single bit. Jesse himself had not met a good end, shot to death in his own parlor. By a friend. And Bronx Sanderson still lived inside an outlaw’s body, despite turning good. He had no choice. Had no desire to be the hero in a cheap story.
“And you shoulda been here last spring. Doc Holliday hisself got tried for shooting a man. But that’s then. Now’s now.” The guffawing stopped and Asa turned tender. “I recommend finding a room on the Star Block or Dornfeld’s Boardinghouse at Fourth. Miz Frieda’s a fine gal.” His eyes, tone, turned dreamy. “She runs a good house, good meals. Clean sheets.”
Eyebrows rose like flying gray moths like he wanted to know more, but Bronx wouldn’t say. “Less you choose some played-out placer and stake claim to some leftover miner’s shack.”
Bronx sighed, long and deep. “Thanks, my friend, for your helpful words. I reckon a boardinghouse will do me fine.”
He could pay. He’d earned a good wage with the Montana Vigilantes. Well, at least Shandy Brinks had. A peaceful, easy time even with sore muscles and short nights. He would have stayed hadn’t a Pinkerton started sniffing. Money for a horse, for grub, and a roof over his head was his own, a stash he’d earned honest and true. Including a pile to pay back the horses he’d pilfered. Other than, of course, it being wages earned by a man with a false name.
Ah. Bronx unwound his shoulders and took deep breaths of coal smoke from the engine. Today was a new day in a new life.
The Denver and Rio Grande gasped into the top of the world and groaned to a stop at a fine looking station of gables and columns. Rising, Bronx peered around his new home.
Cloud City.
He and Asa walked outside, boot heels clacking against boardwalks. Bronx all but rubbed his eyes like he’d scoured away mirages in the desert. No worn-out slagtown, this Leadville, but wide streets and civilization and a thousand folks bustling into every kind of respectable commerce imaginable.
“Harrison Avenue,” Asa announced, pride shining in his face as he pointed. “And that pile of sticks over there is St. George’s.”
Bronx grunted. In this booming down, he reckoned he’d find enough people to hide behind, But the only person he’d trust was himself. The only two feet he’d stand on were his own. Asa aside, he’d not mix himself up with anybody else—and most of all, he’d hide his heart deep inside so as never to lose it again.
At the very thought, Bronx’s heart stopped one more time, at least half a minute’s worth, at what he saw. Harrison Avenue, Asa had called it. The long street separating two halves of the busy town, wide enough for buggies to park on both sides of it. And strolling quick, a woman.
From a black bonnet, a long rope of a braid hanging down her back, tied up with hair of many colors. Silver, gold, copper. Then she turned right and disappeared down an alleyway. He couldn’t breathe, and it had nothing to do with the cold thin air.
Widows’ weeds had flapped around the woman like bat wings, and why not? For he’d sent her husband to his grave. Rebekah Creddit.
Had she finally found him?
Chapter Two
Lila hurried through Pine Street but permitted herself one quick peek down Stillborn Lane. A nasty road, the catch-all for the detritus of the bordellos. Detritus meant so many things.
And so did a street called Stillborn. She shivered with pity and cold. Emmett had reckoned, one day, he’d find someone to save. Especially since he’d been unable to give her a baby the right way. But none of it had happened, and now...
Now she was all alone, living the life Emmett had wanted.
She clenched her jaw one more time, but it never helped. Lila was simply tired. Emmett’s quest these four years of saving Leadville’s lost and fallen and unwanted had been a holy one. But he was gone now, and she’d made him a promise she couldn’t break.