A Touch of Frost Read online

  She did not deceive herself that there would be a search party. Phoebe concluded that she was on her own when no one from the train stepped forward to help her. Not that she blamed them. She was fairly certain that the passengers had been relieved of their guns, and the one man who was still carrying was lying unconscious in an aisle. Even if someone made noises about following Shoulders and his men, how could they manage it on foot? The telegraph lines had been cut. She knew that because she overheard the men masked by the blue kerchiefs talking about it. It seemed to her that they meant her to overhear, meant her to accept there would be no rescue. She supposed she was meant to embrace hopelessness and therefore be easier to manage.

  They didn’t know she had been managing situations more hopeless than this since she was thirteen and the actress in the role of the ingénue in The Tiny House came down with chicken pox. She had been a seamstress then, a dresser, occasionally moved props, but more often inventoried them. She had been called upon to open and close the curtains when Mr. Bird was so drunk that he was more likely to hang himself in the ropes than pull on them, and she was allowed to give cues to the actors from the wings because her stage whisper was never audible to the theater’s patrons. So when the production of The Tiny House, a play in three acts written by their most influential supporter—and their leading lady’s current lover—was set to open and the ingénue had more spots than a Dalmatian, something had to be done. A generous application of greasepaint disguised the spots but exacerbated the itch. Phoebe pointed out that the actress was going to permanently scar herself with her scratching, which had an immediate but short-lived effect, and when the fevered scratching resumed, it was apparent that appealing to the actress’s vanity was not the solution that would see them through opening night.

  Phoebe had never had the least desire to move beyond the wings. She was satisfied with whatever work was thrown her way and being backstage suited her just fine, so no one was more startled than she when she announced, quite boldly as it happened, that she would stand in for the ingénue. Everyone in the crowded dressing room gaped at her. She was six years younger than the part called for and more than a decade younger than the actress she was replacing, but none of that mattered. She knew the lines, and at the moment, that was the salient point.

  In very little time she was dressed, painted, and turned out in manner that made her unrecognizable when she regarded herself in the mirror. The director pronounced he was satisfied. The leading lady gave her stiff encouragement. The playwright looked her up and down with an interest he had never shown before.

  She went on. Her fellow thespians were supportive, the audience warmed to her, and the critics wrote kindly of her performance, if not of the play. Phoebe remained in her role until the afflicted actress recovered and then she played a succession of smaller roles, male and female, as other members of the cast took ill.

  The Tiny House stayed open for two months, primarily because the playwright had misplaced pride in his work and the deep pockets to support it. Phoebe never took a role onstage again, which was acceptable to her. She was a manager anyway, and her real strength was in acting as if she weren’t.

  Phoebe’s head turned in the direction of her captor. “You should allow me to examine your arm. That’s why you brought me along, isn’t it?”

  He did not look at her. “Later.”

  “That is why you brought me, isn’t it?” When he ignored her, she asked, “Why can’t I see your friends? Shouldn’t we be close to them by now?”

  “We’d be considerably closer if you hadn’t needed to stop.”

  “And you’d be with them if you hadn’t insisted that I come with you. What purpose can I possibly serve? I’m no nurse, which I told you. And we both know you were not grievously wounded. I will be surprised if the bullet from my pistol did more than graze you. I am not a good shot.”

  “Good enough.” He rolled his shoulder, drawing her stare. “That’s blood on my sleeve. You didn’t miss.”

  “I was aiming for your heart.”

  “Oh. Well, then you’re not a good shot.” Now he spared her a glance. “You had no call to shoot me, by the way. I wasn’t going to hurt you.”

  “Plenty of people got hurt when you stopped the train. That alone made you worth shooting, but stealing Mrs. Tyler’s ring . . . that was . . . wrong.”

  “Wrong,” he repeated. “You’ve got me there. But it hardly seemed worth it to stop the train only to get you off it. The effort justified a guaranteed reward. That was their thinking, by the way, but not unreasonable.”

  Phoebe frowned deeply. She tried to slow her mare by making a grab for the reins, but Shoulders snapped them away and urged the horses to a quicker pace. She had no choice but to grip the saddle horn and keep her eyes on the horizon as a wave of nausea roiled her stomach.

  “Slow down,” she said. “Slow down or I am going to be sick.” She felt his eyes on her, but she did not return his stare. Whatever he saw in her profile must have convinced him she was telling the truth because the horses slowed. She wished she understood how he did it. There was no perceptible movement that she could glimpse. “It’s not the baby. It’s the motion. It was the same on the train.” The headache that was forming behind her eyes was also quite real, but she did not mention it.

  “Explain yourself,” she said when she thought she could speak without vomiting. “Please.”

  “You heard me fine. You just don’t believe it.”

  Maybe that was true. “You stopped the train to take me off. That’s what I heard.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw him nod once. “But why?”

  “Figure you’re good for ransom. Saw you switch trains in Denver. Made a point to find out where you were headed because I recognized that you carrying a child and all would add to your value. From there it was just a matter of crossing your path again.”

  “Ransom.” She said the word under her breath before she added more loudly, “What makes you think there is anyone who will give you money for me?”

  “Just a feeling I have.”

  “Do you think my husband is waiting for me?”

  “Is he?”

  “No. I’m a widow.”

  “Kind of interesting, then, that you’re not wearing widow’s weeds. You being pregnant suggests he must have died recently, else you made short work of finding another fella to warm your bed.”

  Phoebe’s stomach turned over. “We have to stop. I’m going to be sick.” And this time she didn’t wait for him to help her. Her dismount was clumsy; she was sliding off the saddle before she had her right leg properly over the mare’s back. She might have fallen to the ground if she hadn’t been squeezed between the pair of horses. Mr. Shoulders was forced to give her room to move and she slipped out and hurried ten yards to the side and was promptly sick.

  Phoebe did not hear him coming up behind her so she startled when his hand appeared holding a canteen. She accepted it without thanking him, sipped, rinsed, and spit. When she took a second mouthful, she swallowed and returned the canteen. He accepted it and thrust a blue kerchief at her. Phoebe’s first thought was that it was a match for the ones his men wore. Her second thought was to take it and dab at her mouth. After she was done, she carefully folded it, and held out her hand to give it back. He refused it, shaking his head, and she tucked it under the sleeve of her blouse at the wrist.

  “C’mon. Time’s wasting, but I think you know that.”

  • • •

  Remington set out from the train alone. He reasoned that in the end it was better that way. There were some volunteers, and as it happened, there were four horses being transported in addition to his pair of thoroughbreds, but when Remington polled the men who stepped forward to help, he judged them to be more eager than experienced and therefore a hindrance. He bartered one of his thoroughbreds for a steel-gray gelding whose owner swore was a surefooted mount who could cut calve
s from the herd with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. For Remington the advantage was securing an animal that was used to having someone on his back and could take direction from an experienced rider. The gelding, whose name was Bullet, deserved the moniker because he was swift right out of the gate.

  Setting off in the direction provided by Mrs. Jacob C. Tyler and verified by several other passengers, Remington found the trail easily enough. The rising moon, only a few days past full, cast sufficient silver light across the landscape for Remington to keep Bullet moving at a steady pace. There were signs early on that reinforced Remington’s thinking that he was making the right choices. Trampled tufts of long grass. Loose rock. A disturbed bed of needles at the edge of a row of loblolly pines. Divots of turf where the horses had made a steep ascent. There were so many signs, in fact, that Remington wondered at the experience of the men he was following. They had chosen to stop the train at least thirty miles from the nearest town, and they had cut the telegraph line. They had set a bonfire to warn the train of approaching danger, so it seemed their intention was not to harm the passengers unduly. They made a good job removing ties and rails on the other side of the bonfire, but they hadn’t destroyed them. Remington suspected that within a couple of hours the track would be repaired with enough integrity to support the train moving forward. By that time, No. 486 would be so late for its next scheduled stop in Frost Falls, coupled with the lack of communication, that someone would be sent out to investigate.

  What planning there had been appeared to be around the safety of their victims. So why had they taken Phoebe Apple? An impulse? Something motivated by revenge for her actions? Remington could not make sense of that.

  The train had been stopped and boarded at dusk, which was better, he imagined, than carrying out the robbery in the full light of day. And yet they had chosen an evening with a nearly full moon. That was hardly wise, so did it mean they had no choice or were so sure of success that they saw moonlight as no impediment to their escape? According to Mrs. Tyler and the lieutenant’s wife, the men did not overstay their welcome. To turn a phrase, they came, saw, and conquered.

  And now they were gone.

  Remington’s attention was caught by something fluttering in some scrub brush off to his left. He slowed Bullet to a walk and cut sideways. He could not make out the thing he was seeing because its fluttering folded it in on itself like a wounded bird pulling in its wings. He could not reach it from the saddle, so he dismounted to investigate.

  Moonlight had exposed the kerchief but also leached it of its color. It appeared gray, but Remington had no doubt that it was blue. He lifted it to his nose and sniffed. The odors were unmistakable. Sweat. Vomit. And a hint of lavender. That was interesting.

  He folded the kerchief and put it in a pocket inside his coat. It would serve as evidence, provided anyone made it to trial, and Remington did not hold out much hope for that outcome. His mouth pulled to one side as he shook his head in derision and disgust. He gave Bullet a pat on the neck before he remounted. “They have the collective sense of a bag of hammers.” Then he was off.

  Remington estimated he rode for twelve, maybe thirteen miles, circling back occasionally when he realized he had strayed from the trail. He regretted that he had asked Mrs. Tyler if perhaps Phoebe Apple was one bullet short of a six-shooter. He hadn’t put it in terms that plain, of course, but it was what he had been thinking. Mrs. Tyler had set him straight. He knew now that Phoebe was not only clever; she was resourceful.

  He had no idea how many clues she’d left to mark her passing because he did not believe he had found them all, but what he did find kept him from meandering far from the trail. She had dropped a silver-plated hair comb, the kind that kept her heavy hair tucked neatly in place. She appeared to have snagged the hem of a lacy petticoat or shift on a bramble bush. That little white flag was like a beacon in the moonlight. Clearly her captors were bent on getting where they were going and not paying enough attention to her.

  Remington slowed Bullet to a walk again when he caught sight of the rough-hewn cabin tucked in a gentle slope between a narrow stream and a nearly impenetrable thicket of water birches. Dismounting, he approached slowly. Neither he nor the surefooted Bullet made much sound. At a distance of seventy yards, Remington saw movement at the edge of the birches. A horse revealed itself, saddled but tethered to a tree. He waited, expecting to see three more animals, but after two long minutes, none appeared.

  Not knowing what he would find when he reached the cabin, Remington left Bullet secured among some junipers and continued alone. The evening had turned cool enough that a fire would have been a comfort for any occupant, but the distinctive odor of wood smoke was absent in the air. The presence of the horse suggested someone was around but did not necessarily mean the cabin was occupied. Remington veered his approach in order to skirt the edge of the thicket and take cover if needed among the water birches.

  He saw no evidence that the property was regularly used any longer. No patch of land had been tilled and seeded for a garden. The small smokehouse looked to have been abandoned for some time; the structure leaned noticeably toward the stream.

  The tethered horse nickered softly as Remington came upon it. He stroked the mare’s neck, quieting her. Her damp coat told him that she had been ridden recently. No one had attended to her, which suggested that time was a more important consideration than the animal’s well-being. He laid his hand on the saddle and found it was cool to the touch. There was no lingering warmth from the rider’s body heat. The mare did not appear to be injured, and abandoning it while still tethered seemed unnecessarily cruel. Given that cruelty did not appear to be a hallmark of the robbery or the robbers, Remington believed he would find at least one occupant. He examined the mare’s tack again. No rifle scabbard. No saddlebag. Perhaps those items had been removed, but if the mare had never carried them, it meant he was standing beside the animal that Phoebe Apple had ridden.

  Remington continued his cautious approach to the cabin. If the situation had not demanded restraint, there might have been a spring in his step.

  Chapter Four

  Phoebe’s fingers scrabbled to pluck at the knotted rope that not only bound her wrists together but also secured her to the foot of the cabin’s sole bed. She had been engaged in this activity since the men left her and no longer had any sense of the passage of time. Her fingers were stiff and her wrists burned where she imagined they had been rubbed raw by the heavy hemp rope.

  Mr. Shoulders had shown no compassion for her condition, ordering her to sit on the floor so one of his men could tie her to a foot leg. She made an effective, if mildly embarrassing, argument for another call of nature, and the men vacated the cabin while she used the porcelain pot. They did not stray far—she could hear them talking just beyond the door—and they did not give her much time. She was shoving the pot under the bed when they stomped back in. Mr. Shoulders made his first order of business to pull the pot out and determine that it was used. His men sniggered at what was now deeply humiliating to her. That lasted as long as it took Shoulders to thrust the pot at one of them. That unfortunate fellow slunk outside to empty it while the other man tied her up. Phoebe wanted badly to yank on his blue kerchief and reveal the face of at least one of her captors. She didn’t, though. Perhaps it was good judgment that prevented her from taking action, but she suspected that her courage might have finally failed her.

  After she was tied, they had talked for a bit among themselves. She couldn’t make out everything they said because their deep voices were like sluggish sash flies buzzing around her head, but she understood there was a disagreement and because of the furtive glances in her direction, it was clear she was the bone of contention.

  Phoebe was not flattered. Whatever plan was unfolding, there wasn’t enough trust among them for one or even two of them to see it through. They were all in, or all out. That meant she would be left behind. Alone.
r />   Excited by the prospect, her heart stuttered, jumped, and then was still. It was in that brief stillness that she recognized it was not merely excitement that had overtaken her. It was fear.

  A succession of calamities immediately sprang to mind: fire if the lantern tipped; darkness if the oil ran out; hunger; thirst; the return of the mad mountain man who likely owned the cabin; unseasonably cold nights; and worst of all to her way of thinking, sitting in her own waste.

  Phoebe wanted to believe that she remained stoic as the catastrophes mounted—flood, landslide, high winds that would remove the roof and collapse the timber walls—but it was probably truer that she telegraphed every one of her end-of-life thoughts and her captors simply did not give a damn.

  Mr. Shoulders was the last one out the door. He tipped his hat in a mocking farewell gesture. Phoebe waited until he was gone before she called up the first in a colorful string of curses. The theater was fertile ground for blue language and she had paid attention. When she had exhausted her repertoire, she sat quietly, catching her breath and waiting for inspiration. She tried lifting the bed so she could drag the binding rope under the leg. The bed frame was crafted from pine and the legs were square, thick, and heavy. Nothing she attempted gave her enough purchase or leverage. It was then that she began twisting her wrists and plucking at the knot. When she thought she might cry from frustration, she made herself rest. Once, she surrendered long enough to close her eyes and bang the back of her head against the foot rail.

  She did not know she was biting her lip as she worked until she tasted blood. After that she pressed her lips together to keep them away from her teeth.

  Mr. Shoulders had given her no indication when he expected to return, or even if he would return, so when she heard footsteps confidently crossing the narrow porch from the side of the cabin to the door, she assumed it was Shoulders, one of the Blue Bandannas, or the mountain man. Before she could decide which was the least of those evils, the door opened.