Yellowstone Memories Read online

  So long as he could keep the blood in his head and put one boot in front of the other.

  Wait a second—was that a light from inside? Or merely the reflection of his own lantern? Wyatt forced his glasses deeper on his nose and leaned closer, squinting against broken glass to see better, and felt a brittle tree root give way under his boot. When he scrambled to his feet, banging his shoulder against a crooked shutter and nearly bashing the lantern against the stone-and-log wall, the light had vanished.

  Wyatt turned the lantern this way and that against the shattered glass, feeling a nervous ripple down his spine.

  “Calm down, for pity’s sake,” he scolded himself, annoyed at his shaking hands and clammy cheeks. “It’s your own reflection, man. Pull yourself together and get in there before Kirby Crowder does.”

  Wyatt squared his timid shoulders and marched around to the front of the cabin.

  Well, well. What do you know. Wyatt tamped the smooth soil at the base of the old door with his boot, that tense quiver traveling down his spine again. Pierre’s had visitors. And recently.

  The last time Wyatt had come to the cabin, windblown soil and leaves covered the threshold, piling up so deeply over the old ruin of a door that he’d had to shovel before it pushed open—and even then with difficulty.

  A strand of torn cobweb inside flickered in the lantern light, blowing.

  His heart thrummed as he pushed the door open with a long and plaintive creak, wishing he’d unstrapped his rifle and brought that with him, too. He held the lantern in one hand and swiped at cobwebs with the other, observing the mess: The chimney lay in ruins, a stack of broken and charred stones, and the floor had heaved and cracked from tree roots. Making the ancient table tilt and smash into the wall. An old branch still hung from the gash in the roof, splitting the ceiling open. Wyatt looked up through frosty wire-rimmed glasses, holding his breath, and saw starlight.

  A rough stone staircase led down to the old root cellar, its chilly interior dank with age. Lantern light splashed down the uneven steps in bright slants, glowing against old broken barrels and glass jars. The bright red hairs on the back of his neck tingled with the eerie sensation of being watched—and yet he saw no one, heard no breath or movement.

  Wyatt swiped the lantern back and forth, making shadows slant and bend, but the root cellar remained wordless and clammy. Gravelike and silent.

  And then—a bump, a sound. A scurrying.

  He froze on the last step, motionless. Stilling the squeaking lantern handle and swinging globe with his free hand.

  But as he swiveled around, his wobbly lantern beam illuminated nothing but empty, dusty shelves. Old barrels and feed sacks in the corner. An ancient pair of boots. Wyatt kicked one, and a mouse darted out of the boot and into a crevice in the wall.

  Wyatt shuddered, jumping back in disgust.

  An abandoned Smith & Wesson revolver gleamed back from an empty shelf, which lay sticky with cobwebs, and Wyatt picked up the revolver in surprise. No dust on the barrel, and the stock looked well kept and polished.

  Why had it been left behind? A relic from a gold digger a few years past, forgotten? It couldn’t have been Crazy Pierre’s. Not in such good shape, with no dust or rust.

  No matter. There was no time for speculation. Not now, when he stood so close to the box that had eluded him for years.

  Wyatt dropped the revolver back on the shelf, feeling his fingers tremble with excitement. He counted the rotten oak shelves, measuring over exactly two feet, and then pried out a loose board from the floor below. Then another. The next board split in his hand, crumbling with a tinny sound onto something beneath the boards.

  His heart stood still as the lantern beam illuminated a dusty box.

  An ancient wooden box with rusty metal braces and a lock just the right size to fit a key in Wyatt’s hand.

  Wyatt knelt down, his hands shaking so much he nearly dropped the precious keys in his sweaty fingers, and inserted the first key into the lock. This key ring was nearly as valuable as the gold; he’d found it with the infamous initials carved in the rough metal: PDL. Pierre DuLac. Or in local Wyoming vernacular, Crazy Pierre.

  A rusty key ring to match the coffer. The missing link everybody’d been looking for. Men would kill for this.

  He tugged and jiggled, but it held fast.

  He pulled out the key and tried another and then another, but still the lock refused to budge.

  Wyatt tried each of the keys again, one after the other—grunting and straining at the lock.

  And … nothing.

  Wait a second. Wyatt jerked up the key ring and shook it in the light. Three keys? He thought there were four.

  Weren’t there …?

  Wyatt counted again, feeling the color drain from his face.

  At that exact moment, he heard a sneeze. A distinct bump, coming from the dank recesses of the room behind the cluster of barrels and feed sacks.

  Wyatt scrambled to his feet, stumbling twice, and pulled his Colt from its holster.

  “Come out now,” he ordered, trying to make his voice sound sterner than he really felt as he cocked the hammer. “Or I’ll blow all those barrels to bits.”

  Silence.

  Wyatt moved closer, his boots shuffling on the hard-packed earth. A cobweb tickled his neck, and he slapped at it, trying to keep his teeth from chattering. Kirby Crowder was probably crouching back there with his posse, waiting to pump him full of lead and gunpowder.

  Men had died over gold. Ezra Kind’s whole group of prospectors back in 1834, including a Crow scout, had probably been murdered by the Sioux in an attempt to keep the gold in the Black Hills. And the likes of the Crowder brothers—and whatever scum they’d dug up from bars and gambling outfits—sure wouldn’t think twice about slitting Wyatt’s throat for a chest of gold.

  Wyatt steadied the gun and eased a step closer, kicking at one of the barrels. “Come out with your hands up, or I’ll shoot.”

  His hand on the trigger flinched, palms sweaty.

  And before he could pull it, a shadowy figure rose slowly from behind the barrels, casting a terrible shadow.

  Wyatt thrust the lantern forward, heart pounding in his throat.

  Chapter 2

  Jewel?” Wyatt leaped back, feeling the blood drain from his face as if he’d seen the ghost of Crazy Pierre himself. He reeled, light-headed. “Uh … Miss Jewel? Ma’am?” he corrected, trying to recall his manners as a thousand disbelieving thoughts hit him at once.

  Take off your hat, Wyatt! For pity’s sake. Wyatt scrambled for his brown leather cowboy hat with his free hand, gun wobbling, and clumsily dropped the hat on the floor.

  “What,” he stammered, “in thunder’s name are you doing here?” He cleared his throat, all nerves and shaking fingers. “Ma’am?”

  Wait. Shouldn’t he translate? The girl spoke as much English as her ridiculous Indian pony. Arapaho, maybe, the few words he knew—or French or something? She came from a French trapper’s outpost in Idaho. That much he knew, from all his wasted tutoring sessions back at Uncle Hiram’s cabin—mainly trying to pry her knowledge of the gold.

  But his dry mouth couldn’t form any words. Couldn’t think.

  On a good day at the ranch he could barely meet her eyes, so graceful she was—so darkly mysterious, so confident. Oh, how he envied her ease and confidence—her uplifted chin and sparkling black eyes, meeting his for a fleeting second over the Bible pages or across the stable.

  And his gaze would flutter away in embarrassment, landing on his boots or the table, or on her simple wedding band. Scurrying off like a field mouse before she noticed the ruddy glow in his freckled cheeks.

  Jewel raised her head from behind the barrels, her earrings glittering in the light from the lantern, and said nothing.

  “Answer me, miss, or … or …” Wyatt couldn’t finish his own sentence, trying to keep the gun level and make his lips move. “Why are you here? At my uncle’s, and at Crazy Pierre’s?”

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nbsp; He blinked, feeling sweat break out on his forehead under his hat. Her appearance made no sense. His uncle’s Arapaho horse trainer who bungled all her verbs and couldn’t understand a lick of English? In Crazy Pierre’s root cellar at midnight? Black spots swirled before his eyes, and he reached out a shaky hand to steady himself against a brittle shelf.

  Jewel lifted her chin in an almost haughty manner. “My given name is Collette Moreau,” she said coldly in perfect English, standing up to her full height. Hands raised. “But you may call me Jewel like everyone else. What are you doing here?” She nodded to the floor. “And you may get your hat.”

  Wyatt stared then fumbled on the dirt littered floor for his hat. He slapped it back on his head at a crooked angle.

  “I’m … I’m looking for something,” Wyatt stammered, strangely unnerved by her calm and even accusatory demeanor. For pity’s sake. He was the one holding the gun!

  He jabbed the gun barrel forward, trying to keep a steady grip as his palms perspired. “How did you find out about this place?” Wait a second. “You speak English?” Wyatt stared, openmouthed. “I thought you could … could barely get out a sentence.”

  His mind reeled as he recalled hours and weeks of tedious tutoring, trying not to fall asleep at his uncle’s brawny oak table while she stammered over the simplest of words in the thick family Bible. He’d lean his stubbly red- bearded chin in his hand and yawn, pulling off his glasses to wipe bored tears from his eyes.

  “That fool girl can’t speak a word of English,” Uncle Hiram had said after she left, rocking back in his chair and making the wooden slats of the chair groan in complaint. “Figures. Redskins are awful slow at learning. Which is why you’ve gotta work your hardest to get anything she knows outta her. You hear?” He swept an arm around the golden-hued room. “This is a fine ranch, Wyatt, but we’d be sitting on a gold mine if she led us to that treasure. Why, we’d be kings. You know that?”

  Now here Wyatt stood, trying to remember how that same tongue-tied girl—who had stumbled over his broken French and questions about the gold with blank eyes—had just spoken in flawless English.

  “But I thought …” Wyatt blinked at her through crooked glasses.

  “Of course I speak English.” Derision flashed in Jewel’s eyes. “I did go to school, you know—the mission school where I grew up—and I worked for an English doctor for a while. I’ve heard and understood every word you’ve said since your uncle hired me on the ranch. And as for the intelligence of my people, why don’t you let me give you a lesson in Arapaho nouns—since you think you’re so smart?” Jewel moved closer. “Truth is, you can’t even say the name of my pony correctly, and I’ve told you dozens of times. You pronounce all the consonants wrong, and you’ve absolutely no tonal distinction whatsoever.”

  She put her hands down slowly and moved, as if in defiance, from behind the barrel. Sweeping her long skirts and shawl with graceful ease.

  Wyatt took a step back and kept himself between Jewel and the revolver on the shelf, trembling. “So this is your gun,” he said, finally finding words. He picked it up and stuffed it in his belt. “And that must have been your light I saw. Now get your hands up, or I’ll … I’ll shoot!” He gulped the words down, ashamed. He’d sooner put a bullet through Uncle Hiram’s prize stallion than this wisp of an Indian girl who worked tirelessly, frosty dawn to blue-cold evening, without complaint.

  Then again, she’d probably shoot him first if she got the chance.

  Jewel made a swipe for her revolver and then put her hands back up. “Of course it’s my gun. You think I’d be foolish enough to ride off the ranch at night without a firearm?” She tossed her head. “You startled me. I didn’t have time to grab it before you came down the stairs.”

  Wyatt opened and closed his mouth. “So … you know.” His words came out hoarse. “You know where the gold is.”

  Jewel tipped her chin up. “As if I’d tell you.”

  The gun wobbled in his hand as he took another step back, strangely terrified by her fearlessness. “I mean it! I’ll shoot!” he stammered, gripping the stock with two hands to keep it from shaking.

  “No you won’t.” Jewel crossed her arms as if in defiance. “What clues can I give you if I’m dead? That’s what you’ve been after the whole time, isn’t it? With your ridiculous questions about Pierre DuLac that you thought I couldn’t understand?” She pushed the gun aside. “And you’ve got a spider on your head. Hope it’s not a black widow. One bite can disable or even kill a man.”

  “A … a what? A spider?” Wyatt scrubbed at his head in a panic with the crook of his arm. “You’re lying.”

  Jewel shrugged. “Suit yourself. Odds are it’s a black widow though. They nest in dark and undisturbed places just like this.”

  Wyatt wavered, and nausea rose in his gut. “Where is it?” He dropped the lantern on a shelf with a clatter and slapped his forehead, nearly dropping his gun. “Get it off me, will you?”

  “Give me the gun.” Jewel calmly held out her hand, rings sparkling. “Before you shoot yourself.”

  He hesitated, his chest heaving. How could she possibly know he hated spiders? His deepest, darkest, most tightly kept secret that he’d kept from everyone, including Uncle Hiram. What was she, some kind of a mind reader, intent on humiliating him beyond reason?

  “You’re lying.” Beads of sweat broke out on Wyatt’s forehead, and he leveled the gun at her, trying not to think of webs and crawling legs. “Put your hands up.”

  “If you say so.” She fixed her stare on his forehead and raised her hands about two inches as if in mocking. “Black widows use a poison that paralyzes the nervous system of the body, you know,” she added. “Which causes incredible swelling and pain. In fact, in just five minutes after the initial bite, the venom spreads to—”

  “Cut it out!” Wyatt slapped at his head again in agony, doing a little dance.

  “I’m warning you.” Jewel held out her hand again. “Don’t complain to me if you shoot a hole in your foot and can’t walk to the doctor to get an antidote.”

  “Fine.” Wyatt smacked the gun in her hand, trying not to hyperventilate. “Get it off me, will you?”

  Jewel took the gun and leveled it at him. “Thanks.” And she kept the gun trained on Wyatt, spreading out her skirts to kneel on the cold dirt floor in front of the wooden chest.

  Wyatt shook out his hat and hair and then slowly turned to Jewel. “You were bluffing about the spider,” he croaked, watching in horror as she produced a key from the folds of her skirt. No, two keys. His eyes bulged behind crooked glasses. “Why, I ought to … to …”

  “To what?” Jewel aimed the gun at him. “Hands up, please.” She wagged the barrel of the gun. “And don’t bother trying to use my Smith & Wesson. It’s empty. See for yourself. I used five rounds on a pack of coyotes on the way over here.”

  In a quick second Wyatt raised his head and pictured poor Samson hobbled to a tree by his lead, fending off half a dozen coyotes—while he poked around in Crazy Pierre’s basement.

  “Coyotes, you say?” He glanced upstairs nervously. “Did you kill them?”

  “I’m an excellent shot, Mr. Kelly.” She raised an eyebrow. “Samson’s fine. I’m sure of it.”

  Wyatt swiveled his head back and forth between Jewel and the cellar door, mouth open in question.

  “How did I know you were thinking of Samson?” Jewel’s tone softened, tender almost, and she gave the faintest hint of a smile. “I’ve seen you in the stable, Mr. Kelly. You might not be so good with roping and branding, but you love that horse. You’d do anything for him, wouldn’t you?”

  Wyatt felt his fingers quiver on her revolver, nearly dropping it, as that humiliating blush of heat climbed his neck.

  The gun. The gun, for Pete’s sake! Wyatt fumbled with the barrel, showing an empty chamber. Six hollow clicks. “So you are out of rounds. But … but lying about one thing, Mrs. Moreau.” He stood up straighter and forced himself to meet her eye
s. “There’s no spider. And you stole my key.”

  “Of course I stole your key, since you were so kind as to leave it carelessly lying around in the stable. And”—she shot him a cool look—“it matched the one Pierre sent my husband.”

  “Your husband?” Wyatt sputtered, trying to straighten his glasses and nearly knocking them off. “That’s who Pierre sent the letter to?”

  “Thing is, you need two of his keys to open the lock.” Jewel ignored him, holding both keys together. “See how they interlay?”

  Good heavens. Wyatt craned his neck to see the pattern in the keys, which made a rough “PD” in dull metal. Pierre DuLac. That son of a gun.

  “I didn’t know there was a fourth key,” Wyatt muttered, humiliated at being duped.

  “What did you think, that Pierre would carry around the missing key to the coffer in his pocket while the US Army was tromping right past his house?”

  “The army?” Wyatt scrunched up his face. “What are you talking about?”

  “Yes, the army.” Jewel raised her eyes boldly to meet his, endlessly black in the flickering light of the lantern. “Didn’t they settle the borders of the national park while he was still living here?”

  “What are you, a history expert?” Wyatt snapped, feeling like a simpleton.

  Jewel ignored him. “And Pierre wanted for all kinds of crimes? What a ridiculous idea. He was smarter than that. He planned to come back to his cabin once the army backed off, and he sent the key to my husband for safekeeping. Intending to get it later.”

  “Your husband,” Wyatt repeated in a hollow voice, feeling doubly duped. He took a chaste step back, putting his hands up so as not to touch her. “A Moreau.”

  “A DuLac Moreau.”

  “Well, you’re overlooking something, Jewel. Collette Moreau. Whoever you are.” Wyatt pointed a shaky finger. “I knew Crazy Pierre myself. I used to haul wood for him. And key or no key, you won’t find the gold in that chest.” He gestured with his head. “I saw him bury this. There’s no gold inside.”