Born of Treasure (Treasure Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  “They’ll take me,” Clark stated. “You don’t want that.”

  “Of course we don’t want that. They can’t take you against your will. You didn’t agree to become their test subject. It was an accident. The president will understand.”

  “Father will protect you.” Amethyst held out her hand for Clark. “This is the most amazing idea!”

  “You’ll need to ask the Bromi chief to have his warriors escort us as far east as they dare. We’ll make it to New Addison City,” Garth said.

  “We’re going home,” Amethyst squealed.

  Clark drew a deep breath. He’d decided to go to Garth so he could use the Treasure name as protection. Garth could fulfill that role now. Eric had hidden from Clark all those years of running, when he’d felt alone and lost, helpless.

  Eric had created wicked inventions just for the love of inventing, while Garth adhered to his pride in the country.

  Clark exhaled slowly. “All right. We’ll do it your way. I’m sick of running.” Garth’s plan could end all that.

  The Bromi chief halted his horse and lifted his hand. The party following him slowed, keeping to the plains where the heather swayed in the wind. A mile or two out lay the darkness of a town. Lights twinkled, and what sounded like a steam train whistled.

  “Here we stop.” The chief stared at Clark, who’d ridden at his side. “This town is kind to us. We have traded with them and they have not reported us. We dare not go any further.”

  “We thank you.” Clark bowed his head. Amethyst, seated behind him, followed suit. Her arms squeezed his ribs.

  “You look ill with worry,” the chief said. “My plan will remain if yours fails. Be brave and walk not with death as a cloud, but as a shadow, forever at your use.”

  Clark winced. “I have to trust Garth. I don’t know a lot. I’m not up on the law. I’m a miner, the son of a Tarnished Silver—”

  “You are the one death touched and left whole.”

  Could that mean something? Clark bowed his head. “Thank you for your guidance.”

  He slid off the horse’s back and helped Amethyst down. Garth, Georgette, and Zachariah followed. They’d ridden borrowed horses like he had, but Amethyst hadn’t had the experience to handle a mount well over the rough terrain. The warriors trailing the chief took the reins to guide the horses back to the tribe.

  With them, went Clark’s opportunity to follow his own path, to obey his father.

  He turned toward the city. Garth had to be trusted.

  Amethyst bounced on her heels. As soon as they reached the city, she would show Clark her favorite restaurants. She would show him the finishing school she’d attended and the ice cream parlor where she’d had her first kiss.

  Maybe not that parlor.

  She grabbed his hand and swung it. “Relax. Father will take care of everything.”

  Her father fished bills from the sack he’d taken from that disgusting shed cellar and handed them to the ticket man behind the counter at the train station.

  Clark remained as straight as a glass stylus.

  “Please relax?” She batted her eyelashes. “Do it for me?”

  “Hush.” Georgette grabbed her arm, turning her from Clark. “Act your age and leave your brother alone.”

  Brother. Ha. Amethyst jerked away. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Names?” The ticket seller pushed back her father’s change in coins.

  “G. Peterson,” he said. “My wife, Mrs. Peterson. Our children. Put them as C., Z., and A. Peterson.”

  The ticket seller blinked, cocking his head. “If you insist.” He scribbled the names into his ledger.

  Amethyst shifted her stance. Why hadn’t her father made up names for them? Using their initials sounded suspicious. Clark had insisted on doing nothing, if they could help it, out of the ordinary. People riding trains always used their full names, from what she understood.

  The seller pushed the tickets through the window and her father accepted them. “Thank you and have a great day.”

  “Are we getting right on or do we have time for traveling clothes?” Amethyst asked. Trekking across the desert and riding horseback hadn’t been the same as a proper press. Her hems were ragged, spots beneath her arms from sweating.

  “There are more important things than new clothes,” her mother snapped.

  “We’ll get onboard since the train leaves in an hour,” her father said. “We’re lucky to have made it so we didn’t have to spend the night in town.”

  Sighing, Amethyst followed her parents and brother across the station and onto the train. Clark trailed behind her, one hand on her back as though ensuring himself she was safe. She leaned back against his chest, smiling. With her father and Clark in charge, everything would be fine.

  Her father led them three cars forward, toward the steam engine. How odd. Normally, first class stayed in the back. According to letters from Georgette, the family owned a private car that attached to the back. Of course, they couldn’t use it then, but…

  “This will be ours.” Her father stopped at an aisle. In this compartment, the windows were all opened and rows of cramped seats occupied the space.

  “We’re riding here?” Amethyst waved at the lumpy seats. Some already had men and women slumped in them, some asleep, others staring out the windows or at them. Men puffed on cigars and pipes. Two little boys ran down the center row, shoving Amethyst’s hip as they passed.

  “For now, we have limited funds,” Georgette said. “We’ll make do. Cheaper seats means we’ll be able to purchase food in the eating car.”

  “Didn’t you say you and Father had worse conditions when you first came to Hedlund?” Zachariah asked.

  So, he’d finally decided to talk.

  “Indeed we did.” Garth rubbed Zachariah’s shoulder. “We’ll tell you children about them during the ride. We’ll be stuck on here for about three days, so we’ll have plenty of bonding time.” He laughed. He actually laughed. How could anything be funny?

  When Amethyst had first arrived in Hedlund from New Addison City, she’d expected to ride home just as she’d ridden there. She would have the first class car, where her velvet seat reclined into a bed and there were tables set up for her to play cards with the other passengers. Rich, creamy foods had been brought to her at mealtimes, and servants had carried around wine, cheese, and peanuts every few hours for snacks. She’d read, designed new dresses for her city seamstress to make for her, and written letters about what an amazing journey it was—elaborating, of course—back to her finishing school girls. Even if she loathed it, they could still be jealous.

  She pushed past her parents and crawled across the seats, barely wide enough for her to fit through, then dropped onto the chair beside the window. She folded her arms, leaned back, and squeezed her eyes shut. “Wake me when we arrive. I’m going to pretend this is all a nightmare.”

  The seat beside her creaked, and Clark brushed his fingertips over the back of her hand. “Think of how I feel.”

  Amethyst winced. She had been concentrating on herself and not on Clark. She slid her fingers through his and squeezed. “No matter what, I’m here for you, honey. I’ll stick by your side, even if we get stuck in the desert.”

  The ticket seller handed his ledger to the telegraph officer. “Do it quick before anyone else comes in.”

  “It’s late.” The officer trailed his finger down the list of names until he got to the first for the day. “Ain’t no one else coming now, I swear.”

  “Then hurry up so we can get home. I’ve got cheddar soup waiting for me back there.”

  “Wonder how long Senator Horan will want all the passengers telegraphed to him. Ain’t easy, you know. Irritating as all rusty gears.”

  “They’re searching for those Treasures.” The ticket seller leaned against his counter and lit a cigarette. “I starred an entry on the third page. They fit the description, but sure didn’t look like no wealthy folk.”

  The officer pau
sed, his finger holding his place in the text. “You really think it was them?”

  The seller scratched his neck where his whiskers were growing in. “I don’t rightly know. Feel bad for them. The army takes what they want.”

  “I’m glad.” The officer snorted. “It’s about time the mighty fell.”

  “Senator Horan?” The secretary knocked on the parlor door.

  The senator looked up from his evening newspaper and removed the cigar from his lips. “What is it?” Everyone should know better than to bother him when he relaxed before retiring to his bed.

  The secretary stepped into the room and bowed, holding out a paper. “We may have gotten a hit on the Treasures. A family traveling east by train, destination of New Addison City.”

  Senator Horan placed his cigar in the ashtray on the mahogany table beside his reclining chair. His nerves tweaked and his breath hitched, but he forced his hand to be still. “Hand it to me.” The blasted Treasures would be destroyed and he would have Dead-Boy Clark. At last.

  “The names don’t fit.” The secretary passed over the paper. “When the telegraph came in, this entry was highlighted. The ticket seller left a note that their physical descriptions matched the Treasures.”

  As Senator Horan read the handwritten note, his heartbeat sped and sweat beaded on his brow. The first initials matched perfectly, but the last name. Peterson.

  Garth’s father was Peter Treasure. Poor Garth, so honorable he didn’t even know how to properly hide.

  ‘This is them!” Senator Horan jerked to his feet. “Have them apprehended at the next station.”

  trumpet honked from the yard. Jeremiah wiped his flour-speckled hands on a dish rag as he headed out, grinning at Alyssa where she stirred a pot of boiling water over the stove.

  “I never thought I’d become Nolan.” Jeremiah chuckled. “Here I am making biscuits for stew.”

  Alyssa laughed. “And making a jolly mess out of the whole baking endeavor.”

  He pressed his hand to his heart as though wounded. “I’ve made bread before when Father and I went camping.”

  The trumpet sounded again.

  “Let’s go get our workers.” She used a hook to pull the pot away from the fire. Stew had seemed the best bet, throwing together what vegetables they’d scrounged from the garden, and Jeremiah had slaughtered one of the male calves that should’ve gone to market during the army occupation.

  He slung his arm over her shoulders and steered her through the house. Captain Greenwood would be in his father’s study doing who knew what. It would be too late to hide any confidential papers, but his father kept the most important documents in a safe at the bank. The rest of the army would be lounging somewhere, eating Georgette’s bonbons and gulping the nasty moonshine they’d bought from one of the hillbillies who lived in shacks in the wilderness.

  Jeremiah ground his teeth. They would’ve bought it by selling some of his family’s goods.

  The town magistrate stood on the veranda steps with his son, a boy of ten, beside him with a polished trumpet. People crowded behind them. Jeremiah blinked, freezing in the front door. He’d expected twenty men at most, the kind who couldn’t hold a proper job and would want whatever they could get.

  This group had to be worth half the town in population, and maybe some folks were from other towns, judging by the amount of unfamiliar faces. They wore working clothes: the men in overalls and denim, the women in homespun.

  Jeremiah whistled. “You’re all here to work?” When they ran the bill in the papers every spring for seasonal workers, they never got that many takers in one swoop. Drifters, mostly, took up their job offers, wandering by to work for the summer before moving on.

  A man he recognized from the lumber yard stepped forward to clap the magistrate’s shoulder. “Your family’s always been ready to help us. If we can’t pay the doctor bills, your dad slips us a little. Your mother does her charity parties. You’ve never been above us. If we need help, your folks are always right there.”

  “But you have other jobs.” Jeremiah wiped his hand over his gaping mouth. “I can pay you folks, but…”

  “I can work a half day,” the lumber yardman said. “Some of us do that, and the rest of us will work for you full time.”

  The school teacher, a young girl with a blue bonnet, ushered a mass of children forward. “Some of us aren’t looking for payment. I called everyone back from summer vacation to do volunteer work, like they do in the east. We’ll write essays and poems on what we do here. We’ll make it a grand time.”

  Another man, a farmer Jeremiah recognized from the next town over, jogged through the crowd. “We don’t like what the army’s done to you folks. It ain’t right.”

  Alyssa clapped. “Thank you all. This is remarkable. I’m Alyssa Treasure. Jeremiah and I married last night. We had to do it then, or he wouldn’t have gotten his inheritance. When my parents arrive, we’ll have a grand celebration and I want all of you, our neighbors and friends, to attend.”

  The crowd cheered. She’d said exactly the right thing, as Georgette would’ve done.

  Jeremiah leaned against the railing to scan the crowd of grinning faces. “Alyssa’s the new mistress of the ranch. Those of you wanting to work the fields follow me out to the barns and we’ll figure out a plan of action. Those of you looking for house or garden work, see Alyssa in the ballroom.”

  Captain Greenwood shoved the brocade curtain back across the office window and stomped to Garth’s desk. Why did Jeremiah and that girl have to ruin everything? It would’ve been perfect, what with Senator Horan’s new law getting into place. Unwed Jeremiah wouldn’t get his inheritance until he married, and that was supposed to take a couple weeks. By then, the law would’ve gotten into place, stating that if a man couldn’t inherit within a week, the property reverted to the territory for auction. Horan, senator of the territory, would auction it off to his rancher brother next door. The Treasures would have nothing.

  Why did that girl have to agree to the wedding? What girl didn’t want a lavish affair? The Treasures could certainly afford it, and neither of them knew about the property going to the territory clause.

  Captain Greenwood pulled a clean sheet for paper from the top drawer and dated it. He had to word the letter carefully lest Senator Horan take his head over the blunder.

  With his men scattered across the ranch working odd jobs, Jeremiah opened the shed door.

  “Got to check supplies,” he called over his shoulder. “Who knows what’s missing. We’ve got to replace what we can.”

  The closest worker, a farmer who lived ten miles away, waved two fingers in acknowledgement as he walked by with a bucket. Jeremiah stepped into the atmosphere of musty hay. Dust particles floated in the air. He took the pencil and notebook from his back pocket as he scanned the shelves, checking off his nonexistent list in case anyone walked by. He nudged the door shut as if checking behind it, and lifted a corner of the trapdoor. With no one in sight, he scurried down the ladder, leaving the door open a crack to let sunlight filter down. If anyone looked inside, they might see a bump in the floor, but those were common in outbuildings, constructed fast and not meant to last forever.

  Wooden shelves had been made into the dirt walls, covered with supplies, changed as necessary; he spotted the space where two canvas sacks had been taken. A folded paper rested on the floor near the wooden ladder. He stuffed it in his jacket pocket and hurried back up. He shut the trap door, brushing dirt and hay over the wood. Alone, sunlight dancing across him, he unfolded the letter.

  Three words stared at him: Gone to Bromi. He recognized the sharp, decisive handwriting as his father’s. Why would they do that? Jeremiah scowled. How would the Bromi help? How would they even find them? When the army went out to round up new slaves, it took them weeks to locate a tribe on the plains or in the cliffs. He’d read about it in the newspapers, when the army posted notices for new slaves for sale.

  He snorted. Clark. He’d lived with the Brom
i. He would know how to find them. Would his family be safe there? Jeremiah had to believe Clark would protect them. Having them there, though, meant Jeremiah wouldn’t be able to find them until they showed up. May rust break all the gears.

  What would Jeremiah do if he was a wanted man? A chill crept over his skin. He wouldn’t know the first thing about hiding right.

  “Treasure?” a man called from outside.

  Jeremiah stepped into the doorway. “What?”

  An army man walked toward him, swinging his cap at his side. “Captain wants to see you. He made a list of food stuffs you need to order.” The man grinned, the look lopsided, one of his front teeth missing.

  Snorting, Jeremiah tapped his pencil against his notebook. “Jolly good. I’ll add it to mine.”

  lark leaned forward to see out the window beyond Amethyst. The bridge the train rested on stretched across the great King River, which ran from north to south across the country.

  “They say when our first king landed on our shores,” Garth recited, “that he came west far enough to come here. He claimed this river and everything between here and the eastern sea his own. It was only in the last hundred years we’ve ventured on to find the western sea.”

  “And all the other countries in the world,” Zachariah added.

  Clark wished he could pull Zachariah aside to find him something new to fixate on other than the army that had abandoned him. Did he feel comfortable with his family? From what Clark understood, Zachariah had always focused on becoming one with the army, a fixture of itself, as though he could become its arm, a defender and participant.

  “Will we eat lunch soon?” Amethyst touched her forehead to the window glass. “My stomach won’t stop rumbling.” She glanced at Clark, as though recalling how often he’d gone hungry. “Or whenever. I can wait.” Her cheeks flushed.

  “Not many should get on or off here,” Garth said. “Most of the people along here work riverboats, showboats, or shipping. Not many care about going east or west.”