Lake of Fire Read Online Free PDF

for the final nineteen miles of sandy road, or transfer to the steamboat Hank Falls owned for a ride across the blue lake in the breeze. The driver had recommended the boat; Hank had confided to Forrest that he offered all the drivers, or “savages” as they were known locally, a little additional “tin” as incentive to add to his business.
    The cavalry hailed the stage driver, and he brought the coach to a halt with a jingle of harness. A final jolt and the springs bottomed out.
    The lead horseman dismounted. Forrest reckoned the red-faced, sweating officer at no more than half his fifty-seven years.
    “Gentlemen, I am Sergeant Larry Nevers.” He nodded to the woman holding the child Hank had rescued at the geyser. A look of apprehension clouded the youngster’s eyes as he advanced toward the coach window. “I’m looking for a Mr. Fielding.”
    “Right here.” Forrest opened the coach door. With care, he let himself down from the high step into dust that rose in twin puffs, laying another layer onto his boots.
    Nevers turned and walked to the side of the Grand Loop Road, removing his black worsted gloves as he went. Forrest followed, and the two men looked out over the tops of the pine forest. A mile away and a few hundred feet below, wind etched a herringbone pattern into the cobalt surface of Yellowstone Lake.
    With a grave look, Nevers adjusted his thicklensed glasses that were slipping down his nose. “I’m afraid, sir, that the stagecoach carrying your daughter was attacked in Jackson’s Hole.”
    “My God.” The sun had receded behind clouds, and the wind whipped up cold in the late afternoon. “She was supposed to be on the train to the north entrance.”
    Forrest found that his hand rested heavily on young Nevers’s arm. He remembered the waiting silence, a spare last second when he’d stood in the doorway of Violet’s bedroom. Her dark hair, still damp with the sweat of childbirth, spilled over the pillow. Thedoctor’s ponderous bulk hid the crimson bloom, leaving Forrest the length of the flowered carpet to live in the time before his wife died.
    Please, God, not his daughter, too.
    Blood pounding at his temples, he managed to speak. “Is Laura dead?”
    “The scouts found the coach, with the driver and another man dead,” Nevers answered in a low voice. “Your daughter’s valise was there. She wasn’t.”

    At the unmistakable press of feminine flesh against his back, a slow smile curved Cord’s lips. This young woman was obviously clever and scared to death he would press his advantage.
    She wasn’t off base. He knew men in Jackson’s Hole who would have thrown her on her back and then left her.
    Though that was not his way, he couldn’t help wondering what she would look like in one of those lacy gowns left behind at the coach. She was slim hipped, but her wet clothes hadn’t hidden the curve of the breasts moving against him with the rhythm of Dante’s hooves. He turned, as though to look back the way they had come, and stole a peek.
    She was asleep. At his motion, her head lolled awkwardly on his shoulder blade. He shouldn’t be surprised after what she’d been through, but he was somewhat astonished at his reaction to her innocent touch.
    The journey would no doubt be easier if he continued the charade that she was male, but it was several days’ ride to the Lake Hotel.
    He didn’t believe he could keep up the pretense.

    Laura came awake to find her arms around Cord’s chest.
    She jerked away. “Where are we?”
    “Jenny Lake.” His voice might have been tinged with emotion.
    Afternoon shadows lengthened across a perfect jewel of tarn, lapping gently at its graveled shore. Evergreen, paler aspen, and a profusion of wildflowers grew down to a beach crisscrossed by gnarled ghosts of trees. Mirrored in the water, a craggy peak was haloed by the setting sun.
    Holding Dante’s reins slack, Cord looked over his shoulder. His sleek black hair shifted over his collar.