Rocky Mountain Oasis Read Free Page B

little thing, if you catch my meanin’.” With one last surge of pressure, he pushed away from the shuddering man. “And take the poster down. It’s an awful likeness. Makes me look as though I’m some unkempt hooligan.”
    The operator nodded and, as the man turned to leave, he heard him slide down to the floor. He smirked and sheathed his blade.
    Moments later he stepped out onto the boardwalk. Smoothing the front of his coat and squinting into the sunshine, he walked up the street toward the stage that waited for boarding passengers. Tipping his hat, he smiled at a woman with a young child in tow.

    Pierce City
    12:03 p.m.
    Lee Chang lumbered up the street toward the telegraph office. Opening the door, he eased himself into the small, dusty room. The office had been shut down several years ago, when the population had dwindled to the point that there were no longer enough people in town to warrant its use, though the telegraph was still operational. An occasional message came through, though, and if someone who could read Morse code happened to be passing by on the street to hear it, sometimes it even got to the person for whom it was meant.
    On this day, however, Lee knew a message would be coming through and didn’t want to chance someone walking by on the street and hearing the clatter of the code. Especially not David Fraser, who understood Morse code.
    Leaning out the door, he scanned the street to be sure no one was near. Finally satisfied he was alone, he eased the door shut. He had just turned toward the desk in the darkened corner of the room when the telegraph began to click and tap out its message. He scrambled for a pencil and paper.

    Lewiston

    12:15 p.m .
    Brooke placed both hands beside her on the seat to help keep her balance as the stage careened around corners and over bumps, heading toward Greer’s Ferry. She tried to ignore the chatter coming from the man opposite her. Brushing a stray curl of hair out of her eyes and tucking it behind her ear, she peered out the window at the passing scenery and tried to swallow the lump of nervousness in her throat.
    Wondering what the man she was to marry would be like, she wished again that Uncle Jackson had not sent her away. I could have gone to work and helped support him. Even living with Uncle Jackson was preferable to being married to a man like the ones she’d seen yesterday.
    But his cutting words still rang in her ears. “You good-for-nothing little tramp. I should have sent you off the moment I became your guardian.” His laugh had been cruel as he continued, “At least I’m getting fifty dollars for the trouble you’ve been! Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, my dear.” She shuddered, giving herself a little shake to dispel his face from her memory, and forced her mind back to the present.
    Besides the minister, who traveled with her to perform the marriage ceremony at the trail’s end, two other passengers had gotten on the stage. One, a burly mountain man who resembled how she’d always imagined a mountain man would look—with a long, tangled gray beard. It evidenced the fact that often when he spit tobacco juice, he didn’t really spit at all but merely let the juice dribble out the corner of his mouth…a most disgusting phenomenon Brooke had witnessed more than once on the trip. When he’d hauled his considerable girth onto the stage, he’d grunted a greeting, let his eyes rove over her form, and then slouched in his seat with his muddied boots stretched out as far in front of him as they would go. Giving Brooke another appreciative look, he’d rested his head against the side of the coach and fallen fast asleep. His snores would have been enough to harry a hen laying eggs, but any hens in the vicinity had probably already been disturbed by the second personality who’d joined them on the stage.
    This man had not been quiet for more than five consecutive seconds since his foot first touched the floor of the stage. His