A High Sierra Christmas Read online

  He waved his uninjured arm at his surroundings. “I won’t live long behind bars. You know that. You’ll be a widow, and you can find yourself a husband who can take care of you like you deserve.”

  “Stop being an idiot,” she said. “I’ll get you out of here, and we’ll go someplace where you can get better—”

  “There’s not any such place,” he interrupted. “And you can’t get me out. There’s no money for bail.”

  “I’ve put aside a little you didn’t know about—”

  He was too tired to even be bothered by the admission that she’d been hiding money from him. Good for her. He said, “But there’s not enough, is there?”

  “Well . . . no. But if the man you tried to rob were to drop the charges against you, they’d have to let you go, wouldn’t they?”

  “I don’t know. They might. Why would he do that, though?” Lewiston shook his head. “I did try to rob him, you know. I threatened him with a gun, and then I tried to cut him with a knife.” He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “What a fool I was. That man Jensen, he was just playing with me. I couldn’t have actually hurt him in a hundred years.”

  “Jensen,” Alma repeated.

  “Yeah. He gave his name to the officer who arrested me. Smoke Jensen.”

  “Did he say where he lives?”

  Lewiston frowned. “Why? Alma, what in the world are you thinking of?”

  “I thought that if I talked to this man Jensen and told him that you’re not really a criminal, not a bad sort at all, he might see his way clear to dropping the charges.”

  “No!” Lewiston said. “I don’t want you getting mixed up in this, Alma. You’ve already had way too much trouble in your life because of me. Anyway, it wouldn’t do any good. Jensen’s a cowboy. A real hard-bitten type. The policeman acted like he’s some sort of famous gunman. There are dime novels about him.”

  “He’s still a man,” Alma insisted. “He must have a spark of decency in him. I’ll tell him about how you were wounded in Cuba, and about the laudanum and the opium—”

  “He guessed already about the opium,” Lewiston said, wanting to hang his head in shame. “I don’t think he cared.”

  “I’ll make him care. I’ve always been able to convince men to do what I wanted, ever since I was fourteen years old. You know that, Gordon.”

  Lewiston didn’t doubt it. Alma’s beauty might be faded a little, but she was still one hell of a woman. He didn’t know everything she had done over the past couple of years to help them get by, and he didn’t want to know. But this time it wasn’t going to work.

  “Not Jensen,” he said. “I’m sorry, Alma, there’s just nothing you can do for me.”

  “Where can I find him?” she insisted.

  From the far end of the corridor, the jailer called, “Time’s up, lady. You’re gonna have to go.”

  Alma gripped the bars harder and said, “Tell me, Gordon.”

  Lewiston swallowed. He supposed it couldn’t hurt anything for her to try.

  “The Palace Hotel,” he said. “Jensen told the officer he was staying at the Palace Hotel.”

  She reached through the bars and stroked his gaunt, stubble-covered cheek. The jailer yelled, “Hey! Get your hand out of there! No touching or reaching through the bars.”

  Lewiston caught hold of her hand with his good one and pressed his lips to the back of it for a second. Then Alma stepped back as the jailer stomped angrily toward her.

  “Don’t give up, Gordon,” she said.

  He managed a weak smile and a nod, but he didn’t believe it.

  He had been in the process of giving up for too long to stop now.

  * * *

  Smoke always traveled light, but the same couldn’t be said of Denny and Louis. Denny had added to her load with her shopping excursion, too. Because of that, the cart that a porter wheeled out of the Palace Hotel that morning was piled high with bags. A second porter helped load them into a wagon.

  Smoke ambled out of the hotel’s front entrance and watched the loading. He didn’t like having anybody taking care of chores for him, but he fought the urge to step in and heft some of the bags himself. That was the porters’ job, and they might be insulted if he acted like they weren’t doing it correctly. He would give both men a good tip when they were finished.

  While he was standing there, he looked up and down the street, halfway expecting to spot Peter Stansfield lurking around somewhere near the hotel. There was no sign of the reporter this morning, though, so Smoke hoped he had found somebody else to write about . . . and to bother.

  A carriage was parked in front of the wagon, waiting to carry Smoke, Denny, and Louis to the train station. Denny wasn’t the sort of young woman to spend hours and hours getting ready to go anywhere, but she was enough of a female that she usually wasn’t as prompt as her brother, either. When Smoke heard a footstep behind him and glanced over his shoulder, he wasn’t surprised to see Louis.

  “Is your sister almost ready?” Smoke asked.

  “When I knocked on her door, she said she would be down in just a few minutes.” Louis shrugged. “Don’t ask me what that translates to in actual time.”

  “Are you talking about me?” Denny asked from behind him.

  “Of course not,” he said smoothly as he turned to smile at her.

  “Yeah, you need to take up the law, all right,” she said. “It’s the natural profession for anybody who lies that easily.”

  Smoke flipped open the turnip watch he had just taken from his pocket to check the time. “We’d better get going,” he told his children. He snapped the timepiece closed. “We don’t want to miss that train.”

  He cast an eye toward the distant mountains. The sky was overcast this morning, as it often was in San Francisco, and the clouds were a dark, ominous gray in the direction of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

  Denny wore a dark brown traveling outfit today, and Louis was in a brown tweed suit. The cold air that swept along the street made both of them shiver as they started toward the carriage.

  Smoke had traded in his town clothes for garb more suitable to riding the range. He wore a sheepskin-lined jacket over a flannel work shirt and jeans. The authorities in San Francisco frowned on wearing guns openly, so he hadn’t strapped on his shell belt and holster this morning.

  But there was a Colt Lightning .41-caliber double-action revolver tucked into the waistband of his jeans, out of sight under the coat but where he could get to it quickly if he needed it. He didn’t anticipate needing the gun, but he had carried one for enough years that it didn’t feel right to be unarmed.

  As his old friend Pearlie had once said, “I been packin’ iron for so long that if I don’t have one on me somewheres, I walk slant-wise.”

  Smoke felt the same way.

  They climbed into the carriage and the driver slapped the reins and got the pair of horses hitched to it moving along the street. The wagon with the bags rattled along behind them.

  Since the carriage was the open type, the driver was able to turn his head and say over his shoulder, “They tell me those horseless carriages are gonna take over and fellas like me will be out of a job. You believe that?”

  “They’re the coming thing,” Louis said. “I read the other day that there are already several hundred automobiles in service in the United States.”

  “Maybe out on flat land,” the driver said. “You reckon one of those rattletraps could make it up and down hills like we got here? That takes a good team o’ horses!”

  “Maybe you’re right, sir. I’m a young man, but I’ve already seen enough in my life to know that it’s difficult to keep things from changing. Sometimes everything seems to change while we’re not even looking!”

  The driver just harrumphed and kept his team moving.

  The carriage and the wagon arrived at the depot a short time later. More porters came out to unload the bags, place them on carts, roll them inside, and load them into the baggage car of the e
astbound train that would be departing shortly.

  Smoke, Denny, and Louis had round-trip tickets good any time—one of the advantages of being an investor in the railroad—so they didn’t have to stop at the ticket windows in the lobby. A conductor met them beside the steps leading up to one of the cars.

  “Mr. Jensen,” the blue-uniformed man said as he tugged on the brim of his cap. “Good to see you again. You, too, young Mr. Jensen and Miss Jensen.”

  “How’s the weather along the route, Mr. Kanigher?” Smoke asked. “I don’t mind saying, I don’t really like the look of those clouds over the Sierras.”

  “And well you shouldn’t,” the conductor agreed. “Word came last night from the Summit Hotel in Donner Pass that it had started snowing heavily up there. Juniper Jones, the telegrapher, said it was snowing fit to bust, in fact. But I reckon the snowsheds and the Chinese walls are doing their job. Last I heard, the tracks were still clear and open and the telegraph wires were still up. We’ll make it through if anybody can.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Smoke said, “because I’m planning on being home for Christmas.”

  CHAPTER 7

  At the touch of a hand on his shoulder, Frank Colbert instantly came fully awake. His eyes opened, he saw the shadowy figure above him, and his reaction was lightning fast.

  He grabbed the figure by the neck with his left hand and rolled to the left as his right hand snatched the knife from the little table close beside the bed.

  Colbert pinned the person who had awakened him to the pillow while the tip of the blade rested just under that unwise individual’s jawline, ready to plunge in and rip across the throat in a killing stroke.

  Selena Charlton gurgled and sputtered but couldn’t form any coherent words with Colbert’s fingers locked painfully around her throat, cutting off her air and threatening to crush her windpipe.

  Her green eyes were huge with surprise and fear, though. Those emotions were quite obvious.

  So were her breasts, since the silk dressing gown she wore had come open when Colbert flung her down on the bed.

  In the murky light that came through a gap in the curtains over the window in the room on the second floor of the First and Last Chance Saloon, Colbert gradually became aware of the red curls in disarray on the pillow, the soft flesh of her throat in his grip, and the abundant milky flesh on display. His breathing slowed, and his pulse didn’t hammer quite as hard inside his head.

  He took the knife away from her throat, let go of her, and said, “For God’s sake, Selena, I could have killed you.”

  She had to gasp for air, hauling in deep, ragged breaths for several seconds before she was able to say, “What the hell . . . is wrong with you?”

  “You don’t come up on a sleeping man who got out of prison only a few days earlier and touch him,” Colbert rasped as he tossed the knife back onto the bedside table and stood up. He stretched and shook his head as if trying to dislodge the cobwebs of sleep from it.

  He wore only the bottom half of a pair of long underwear. His bare torso was fish-belly white but covered with slabs of hard muscle.

  Colbert went on, “You should have known better. Anybody who sneaks up on you in prison probably wants to stick a shiv between your ribs, or cut your throat with it.”

  Selena sat up, sniffed haughtily, and pulled her dressing gown closed. “For your information, I tried to wake you up without touching you, Frank. I said your name a couple of times. But you were sleeping like a dead man.” She smirked. “I guess I wore you out good and proper last night.”

  “I would have said it was the other way around,” he snapped, unwilling to let her get the better of him.

  “Anyway, when you didn’t wake up, I figured I ought to try harder, because I knew you’d want to see this.”

  She reached into the gown’s pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

  Colbert recognized it as a yellow telegraph flimsy and leaned forward to snatch it from her fingers. He scanned the block-printed words.

  JUST ARRIVED RENO STOP PROFITABLE WORK HERE STOP ALL FRIENDS SAY HELLO STOP LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU BEFORE CHRISTMAS STOP DM

  “Is that what you’ve been waiting for?” Selena asked.

  “Reno,” Colbert said instead of answering directly. “The train goes there, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Is there one this morning?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  Colbert ripped the curtain aside to let in gray light. “What time is it?”

  “Around ten o’clock. Awfully early for somebody in my line of work, that’s for sure. But one of the bartenders came up and said there was a wire for you, and I knew how anxious you’d been for it, so I had him bring it up to me.” She paused. “Did I do the right thing, Frank?”

  “Yeah. You did.”

  She massaged her throat where he had grabbed her. “And in return you tried to choke me to death or cut my throat.” She smiled coyly. “I think you should come over here and give me a proper thank you.”

  Colbert turned to the wardrobe and jerked it open. “No time for that. I need to get to the depot and see if I can catch a train.”

  He knew the telegram was from Deke Mahoney, at last. The whole gang was in Reno waiting for him, and “profitable work” could mean only one thing.

  Deke had a big job lined up, one that would net them a lot of loot. And whatever it was, it had to be pulled off by Christmas.

  This was going to be a holiday worth celebrating after all, Colbert thought as he hurriedly began getting dressed and ignored the redheaded whore who sat pouting at him.

  * * *

  Jerome Kellerman strode into the railroad station carrying a carpetbag in his left hand and a smaller, flatter case made of fine leather in his right hand. A stocky, middle-aged, well-dressed man with white hair under his black bowler hat, he walked directly to the nearest ticket window and asked the clerk, “When is the next eastbound train leaving?”

  “You’re in luck, mister. It was supposed to pull out twenty minutes ago, but there was a problem with the engine and it’s a little behind schedule. Should be ready to go in just a few minutes, though. You need a ticket?”

  “Would I have asked if I didn’t?” Kellerman said, not bothering to conceal the impatience he felt.

  The clerk sniffed a little and asked, “How far?”

  “All the way through to Chicago.”

  That ought to be far enough, Kellerman thought. And Chicago was a big city, big enough to get lost in so that no one would ever find him.

  If he changed his mind later, he could always travel on to Philadelphia or New York or Boston. He could afford to go anywhere he wanted now.

  When the clerk named the price, Kellerman pulled out a pocketbook made of expensive leather, like the case, and paid for the ticket. He was vaguely aware of someone standing behind him but didn’t pay attention until the man said, “Hurry it up. I’ve got to get to Reno.”

  “So do I, my good man,” Kellerman said as he put away his pocketbook and reached down to pick up the carpetbag he had set momentarily on the floor. “So do—”

  He fell silent at his first sight of the man glaring at him.

  The man was tall, with dark hair and a mustache, and as Kellerman looked at him, he was reminded instantly of a wolf or a panther or some other sort of predator. The man was dressed in a cheap suit and was the sort of individual Kellerman would have kept a close eye on, if he had ever walked into the bank where Kellerman worked.

  Where Kellerman had worked. He would never set foot in the place again. Those days were over forever.

  Now there were nothing but better days ahead of him.

  As he stepped aside and the dark-faced, menacing-looking man moved up to the ticket window, Kellerman smiled and nodded to the woman who was also standing in line to pay for her fare. She was blond and reasonably attractive, though a little time and care worn. He briefly considered approaching her on the train. She might b
e pleasant company.

  But then he discarded the idea. For one thing, he could afford to do better now, and for another, she wore a wedding ring. He knew that such vows of fidelity meant very little to some women, but the woman being married might well be an obstacle to overcome and she wasn’t that good looking.

  Without looking back, he walked across the cavernous, high-ceilinged lobby toward the platform where the train that would carry him to a new life was waiting.

  * * *

  Smoke, Denny, and Louis had a private compartment on the train. The two young people sat on a padded bench and watched their father pace back and forth as best he could in the cramped quarters.

  “Really, Father, it’s just a minor delay,” Louis said. “Nothing to worry about. The conductor assured us that the train would be ready to roll any time now.”

  “I know.” Smoke stopped his pacing and looked out the compartment’s single window, but he couldn’t see anything from there except part of the depot. “Earlier, though, he told me it was snowing up in Donner Pass. You two haven’t spent enough time out here to know what it can mean when a bad snowstorm blows in, up there in the high country.”

  “Donner Pass,” Louis repeated with a slight frown. “Why do I know that name?”

  A bark of laughter came from Smoke. “You’re bound to have heard of the Donner Party. That’s how the pass got its name. Before that, it was called Stephens Pass, after one of the fellas who first explored it, but once the story got out, nobody ever thought of it as anything except Donner Pass.”

  “What story?” Denny asked with a note of impatience in her voice.

  “Back in forty-six, there was an immigrant trail that ran through the Sierra Nevadas over that route. The California Trail, folks called it. Thousands of settlers traveled over it safely, but that year one group of them, led by a man named Donner, got too late a start. The approach to the pass isn’t too bad on this side, but on the east it’s a real ripsnorter, with lots of cliffs and very rugged country, so it was slow going. The Donner Party didn’t make it through the pass in time. A blizzard dumped so much snow in it that the trail was blocked until the spring thaw. Donner decided that he and his people would camp there on the eastern slope and wait it out.”