foot on the driver’s knee and pressed down.
“Ow! S-sure. Whatever you say, Will.”
“And he’ll deliver the next load to you on credit.”
“What?”
Crockett put his weight into it, and the driver yelped like a dog. “Right. C-credit. No problem, Mrs. Crockett.”
Wonderful. More credit. Just what she needed. Kate stood there, feeling rather weightless, as if she were in the middle of some eerie nightmare. Mei Li took her hand and pulled her in the direction of the Chinese camp.
“We make ready, quick quick. Mei Li help.”
Will Crockett jammed his hat on his head and shot Kate a stony glance. “I’ll leave you enough cash to get by on. Be back here in an hour, and we’ll get it over with. I’ve got a ship to make.”
Mei Li yanked the buckskin drape closed across the glassless window in the tiny shanty where she’d told Kate she lived with her father and her brothers.
“No mother, four brothers,” Kate repeated. “Just like me.”
She took in the assortment of unusual objects, cooking gear and other domestic possessions jammed into the tin-and-timber shack. The air was thick with an exotic potpourri of pungent scents. She’d never known any Chinese. Had never seen any until she stepped onto the wharf in San Francisco less than a week ago. How her world had changed since then.
“You sit.” Mei Li nodded at the carpet-covered ground. “I fix wild hair.”
“Wild?” She smoothed her auburn tresses and ignored the girl’s well-intentioned command. “My hair’s fine. Besides, it’s not as if it’s a real wedding.”
“It real enough. Will Crockett real man. You real woman.”
Kate fought a smile. Aye, Will Crockett was a real man. His behavior that morning had been nothing short of chivalrous. She recalled, with a bit of shameless glee, how he’d decked the wagon driver. Crockett had watched out for her. Protected her. First against the driver’s manhandling, then against Landerfelt’s threats.
Her stomach tightened every time she thought of it. No man had ever gone out of his way to protect her. None, save her brothers back home. And they didn’t count, really. They were family; it was expected.
Aye, Will Crockett had been gallant, but in a cool, almost unfriendly manner. As if the whole affair was just an unsavory business arrangement he’d gotten caught up in. “Kate, you dolt.” She shook off her girlish stupor and plopped cross-legged onto the carpet.
Mei Li frowned down at her. “What mean dolt?”
“Fool.” For that’s what she was. Of course Crockett viewed it as a business arrangement; that’s exactly what it was. She needed his name to keep the store, and he needed—
What did he need? What was Will Crockett getting out of the bargain that was important enough to overrule his stalwart refusal of the night before? Her father’s horse and a bit of coin? Surely it wasn’t worth the trouble to a man in such a hurry to leave town.
“Mei Li, why do you suppose Crockett’s marrying me?”
The girl ignored Kate’s earlier protest and worked to tame her hair into some kind of fantastical upswept arrangement. “He like. I see it.”
“No, you’re wrong. Mr. Crockett doesn’t like me.” He’d made that clear last night. He’d chastised her, in fact, for her outrageous proposal. His censure had made her feel dirty, cheap. She recalled those dark, judgmental eyes of his and how his lips had tightened into a thin line. “No, he must have a good reason to be doing this.” But what was it? He was leaving in a matter of hours. What possible inducement—
“Crockett need money. Pay for ship.”
Kate twisted around so she could see Mei Li’s face. “What do you mean? He doesn’t have the money already?”
“Money gone. Horse, too. Pay for debt.”
“He owed someone a debt?” Well, she wasn’t the only one in hot water, it seemed.
Under her breath, Mei Li muttered another of her seemingly endless strings of Chinese expletives. “He pay Landerfelt. But no Crockett’s debt. Cheng’s debt. My papa.”
“What?” Will Crockett had used the money for his ship passage to pay off the debt of a Chinese laborer?
Mei Li nodded. “Papa in big trouble. Run card game. Break law.”
“A card game?”
“Only white man allowed to—”
“Don’t tell me…to run that kind of business, here in Tinderbox.”
The fusion of rage and frustration on Mei Li’s young face was answer enough. “Game okay, as along as Landerfelt win. But he lose big to man from Hangtown. More coin than I ever see. Crockett pay back so Papa no lose job or house.”
“You mean to tell me that Eldridge Landerfelt would have—? Why the bloody—”
“Yes. Him very bloody. Very bad.”
Kate scrambled to her feet and peered out the small, glassless window toward town. Will and Matt were unloading the supply wagon right there in the muddy street. Miners crowded around them, shouting out offers.
It amazed her that men were willing to pay the hugely inflated prices even a fair man like her father had had to charge to cover his transportation costs. She hadn’t been inside Landerfelt’s Mercantile, though she suspected his prices were even more outrageous. She’d seen no customers in the place since she’d arrived yesterday.
Until that very moment. How strange…
Will Crockett plucked something from amidst the shards of broken storefront glass and ducked inside Landerfelt’s. Kate waited, and in less than a minute he came out again, pocketing whatever it was he’d evidently purchased.
She eyed him, wondering exactly how much he would make in this last-minute sale of her father’s goods, and if he’d keep his word and leave her with enough money to tide her over until another load could be hauled from Sutter’s Fort. She also wondered whether the driver would keep his word about extending her credit.
Mei Li crowded in beside her at the window for a look. “Him good man.”
None of the men Kate had known in Dublin, save her own brothers, would have exhausted their life savings to insure the livelihood of an immigrant laborer and his family. “You’re right. Crockett is a good man.”
“Oh. Him, too.”
Him, too? She realized Mei Li’s wide eyes weren’t focused on Will Crockett at all. The girl was wholly captivated by his rough-looking, tawny-haired friend. “You mean Mr. Robinson, don’t you?”
A tiny smile bloomed on Mei Li’s lips.
Good Lord! Kate snapped the buckskin drape back into place over the window. “They’re nearly done with the load, and our hour’s almost up.” They might as well—how had Crockett put it? Get it over with.
“You not ready. Dress all wrong. I fix.”
“I’m fine, Mei Li. I told you, it’s not a real wedding, just a wee business arrangement so I might keep the store long enough to raise some money.”
Mei Li shook her head and uttered a few more choice words in Chinese. “Might as well go, then, if you no care how you look.” She parted the canvas flaps of the shanty’s entrance, and they stepped into the sun.
Even if, heaven forbid, it were to be a real wedding, there wasn’t a man of God to be found for a hundred miles in any direction. A thousand for all Kate knew. Landerfelt had been right about that. She hadn’t seen a proper priest since she’d left Ireland six months ago.
And it was