Beyond the Eclipse (Elkhorn, Colorado # 2)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Elkhorn, Colorado

Caleb Marlowe stepped out into glaring midday sun and stopped short on the wooden sidewalk. In the street two men, locked in battle, rolled under the nervous hooves of horses tied to a railing.

Each man, wild-eyed and disheveled, held a knife in one hand and the wrist of his foe in the other.

Kicking and straining for some advantage, their ferocity was unflagging.

Dirt and filth from the street covered their faces and torn clothes.

Blood streamed from their noses and mouths and from cuts on arms and hands.

Between the spot where Caleb stood and the Belle Saloon, a few doors up, a small crowd of drunken miners followed. Forming a moving line of spectators, they shouted curses at the combatants and egged them on. Wagers on the outcome were being exchanged.

A few feet away, Sheila Burnett stood frozen on the boardwalk, staring at the spectacle with wide blue eyes.

Her pale summer dress, trimmed with modest lace at the collar and cuffs, seemed impossibly delicate amid the dust, noise, and profanity of Main Street.

Beneath a straw bonnet tied with a blue ribbon, a few strands of dark hair had escaped to brush her cheeks.

For a moment Caleb forgot about the fight altogether.

She looked as though she belonged in a drawing room back East, not in the middle of a Colorado mining town where two grown men were trying to carve each other open before noon.

He stepped beside her.

"Morning, Sheila."

She glanced up at him, clearly relieved to see a familiar face.

"Is this normal?"

"Depends." Caleb folded his arms and watched one of the fighters lose his grip on his knife. "If they kill each other before dinner, I'd call it a busy day."

Her expression suggested she wasn't entirely certain he was joking.

Right then, across Elkhorn’s Main Street, a deputy emerged from door of the jail. He cast one look at the fight and the growing crowd of spectators, and skulked off down the street in the opposite direction. If any shooting started, he didn’t want to be anywhere nearby.

The fighters rolled out toward the middle of the street, joined now by a barking street dog that was biting at booted ankles and torn woolen trousers.

Caleb nodded toward the scene.

"Just waiting for the brass band to arrive."

She looked at him.

"What?"

"Couple of beer vendors. Maybe somebody selling apples and meat pies. Then we'll have ourselves a proper festival."

Despite herself, the corner of her mouth twitched.

"Aren't you going to get involved?"

Caleb considered it for all of half a second before dismissing the idea.

“Nope. I’m no longer a lawman.” He had no intention of throwing himself between two fools whose disagreement might have started over a bumped shoulder or a spilled drink. He'd seen such fights before. He'd see them again.

The sound of a gunshot down the street drew Caleb's eye for a moment. The noon stage was leaving.

At the same moment, one of the fighters lurched closer. Caleb touched Sheila's elbow and gently guided her backward. Without really thinking about it, he moved slightly in front of her, putting himself between her and the brawlers.

The gesture felt natural.

Too natural.

When he glanced back, the two men were on their feet and circling warily, their knives flashing in the sun.

One said something. The other nodded. The dog walked off, bored.

They both lowered their hands and backed away.

It was over—for now—and the crowd began to jeer disapprovingly before turning to wend its way back through wagons and horses toward the Belle.

Sheila let out a slow breath.

"I don't think I'll get used to this."

"Does that mean you're heading back to New York City?"

She looked at him for a moment before answering.

"Do you want me to?"

The question caught him off guard.

Immediately, his mind betrayed him.

He remembered the accidental kiss they'd shared before. Barely a touch. Just the briefest meeting of lips. Yet somehow the memory had taken on a life of its own. More than once he'd found himself thinking about it while riding herd or lying awake at night listening to the wind outside his cabin.

"No," he said quietly. "But I want you happy. And safe."

A faint blush appeared in her cheeks.

"That's very kind of you, Marlowe."

"Wasn't meaning to be kind. Just honest."

For a second neither of them spoke.

Then she lowered her eyes.

"I should be on my way."

"Probably."

She gave him a small nod and continued down the boardwalk.

Caleb watched her go.

That was becoming a habit he needed to break.

She unsettled him in ways he wasn't prepared for. Made him think about things he'd spent years avoiding. Things like staying in one place. Building something permanent. Having someone waiting when he came home from a hard day of wrangling cattle.

Dangerous thoughts.

He tore his gaze away and turned his attention back to the street.

As the drinkers went back to their bottles and the card players back to their games, Caleb’s eyes were drawn to heavy clouds of black smoke rising in the distance beyond the jumbled line of buildings across Main Street.

There were dozens of mining claims being worked in the rugged landscape up there, but the smoke was coming from the jagged scar of a logging cut.

The operation was doing its best to carve up the green spruce forest that ran up to the craggy ridges to the north.

Elkhorn was growing, and it needed lumber.

The Wells Fargo stagecoach racketed past, heading east out of town toward Denver and raising dust in the bustling street. The driver cracked his whip and shouted curses at miners and drifters, riders and carters, women and children, and anyone else in his path.

Caleb was getting tired of waiting, and he ran his gaze along the street. It seemed like every time he came into Elkhorn, there were more buildings, more people, more fights, more noise.

Sheila was right in being shocked with all of this. The fighting part, anyway. The rest of it, some liked to call it progress.

From where he stood, he counted five new buildings under construction along Main Street alone. The sounds of saws and hammering could be heard coming from the closest one, another hotel.

As he watched, two barefooted youngsters, no more than ten years old, raced across the street carrying scraps of wood they’d nicked from the building site. Shouts from the builders followed them as they weaved between wagons and carts and horses and disappeared into an alley across the way.

Caleb pulled off his wide-brimmed black hat and combed his fingers through his sandy brown hair before putting it back on. He didn’t like hanging around town. The usual restlessness was gnawing at him. It was the same feeling he got every time he spent too much time in a crowd.

Right now, he’d like nothing better than to go collect his horse, leave the congested streets behind him, and ride back out to the quiet, open space of his fledgling ranch.

He had a great many things to do there. He still hadn’t had time to hang the damn door on the cabin he was building.

He had to check on the new calves. Finish fencing off the small pasture for the bull.

Build the barn. Attend to a dozen other chores.

But besides all that, Caleb didn’t like waiting on anyone.

He glanced at the sign above his head. H.

D. Patterson, Justice of the Peace. The very man who was keeping him here.

In smaller letters, the sign read, Land and Mine Sales, Side Door.

Caleb had no doubt there was a line of men standing around the corner right now, waiting to hand over their money in exchange for the hope of sudden wealth in the silver-rich hills around the town.

The wooden boards beneath his feet shook in warning as the front door swung open and Horace D. Patterson himself appeared.

“Marlowe, sorry to keep you waiting.” The judge nodded to the hulking bodyguard on his heels. “Fredericks here seemed to think you’d already be halfway to your ranch. I told him that was nonsense. You agreed to share a meal with me.”

At the notion of “Frissy” Fredericks thinking anything at all, Caleb had to bite back a comment. He glanced up at the small black eyes that glittered like pieces of coal in the blotchy white pig face. Not a friendly look.

Caleb had little choice in the matter, though. He couldn’t afford to alienate the judge. His partner’s release from the city jail in Denver still rested on the man’s goodwill…and his influence with the governor.

Patterson gestured down the street, and Caleb walked beside him. Frissy stumped along behind.

“I thought we’d try out the dining room in the new hotel down on this side of Main Street,” the judge said. “The cook worked in the kitchens of no less a place than the Gardner House Hotel in Chicago. And now he’s right here in Elkhorn.”

Caleb didn’t give a hoot where the cook came from, whether it was Chicago or Timbuktu. Beef was beef, and before the year was out, he’d be the one supplying it.

Patterson broke into his thoughts. “Not that I think that would impress you, Marlowe. But it’s one more thing that makes me proud of the direction Elkhorn is heading.”

Two well-dressed young women approached them, and the men stood aside to let them pass.

“Good day, Judge.”

“Good day to you, ladies.” He tipped his hat to them.

The women—all bonnets, ruffles, and kid gloves—had their eyes on Caleb as they passed. One was wearing a plumb-colored dress that had black buttons the size of twenty-dollar gold pieces. The other wore pale blue, trimmed with enough dark cord to truss a gaggle of geese.

As they continued along, the judge told him, “Those two run the reception committee planning the solar eclipse events.”

From what he’d heard from Doc, that was one of the projects Sheila was getting involved with too.

The event was to occur at the end of July, and Elkhorn was reported to be a prime location for seeing it.