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Come unto me,
all ye that labour
and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you,
and learn of me;
for I am meek
and lowly in heart:
and ye shall find rest
unto your souls.
(Matthew 11:28, 29)
—
April 24, 1909
EDMUND O’DELL, PINKERTON agent, squinted in the early light as he studied the remains of Corinth Mountain Lodge. At his feet embers steamed under the morning sun. He gingerly toed what might have been a silver tea tray, now a twisted and blackened lump.
His brow furrowed. He had seen a tea service on the lodge’s ornate sideboard, had he not? The sideboard itself had been massive, constructed from solid wood, intricately carved, oiled, and polished to a fare-thee-well.
No doubt it had burned splendidly, he snarled to himself. He whipped off his bowler and ran a hand through his dark hair, stopping to rub at the dull headache throbbing at the back of his neck.
He had been a “guest” at the lodge a little more than four months. Yes, he had been working an active case, but in that short time he had begun to feel . . . at home. More at home than anywhere he had laid his head since he had left childhood behind. At one point he had allowed himself to wonder, to almost hope that somehow, someway, he might have a future connected with—
He pulled himself up short, stopped himself from following that thought further. It could only lead to a dark hole, one with no bottom.
It was clear to him now that he had deceived himself. He had allowed himself to forget his real role in Corinth. And what he had witnessed in the first light of this new day had stamped “paid” to the dream and jerked him back to harsh reality.
He rubbed his weary, smoke-stung eyes. Like the others who had lived at the lodge, O’Dell had been up most of the night. He clenched an unlit cigar between his teeth as he again relived the events of a few hours past.
The lodge’s residents had awakened when Banner’s men had thrown their fiery brands through the lodge’s front windows to force them out. Once the household members had safely escaped the burning building, they had been backed up against its blazing timbers, outnumbered and outgunned.
Banner’s gang had nearly won last night. Sheriff Wyndom and his deputies had arrived scarcely in time to stop what would have been sure disaster.
Worse than disaster. A slaughter, O’Dell mused with a grimace.
Wyndom had marched both the gang and the lodge’s residents through the dark to Corinth’s little town plaza. A crowd of disquieted town residents, wakened by bells tolling news of the fire, had gathered there.
O’Dell mentally replayed the confrontation in the plaza: Joy Thoresen—no, Joy Michaels—had delivered a stunning indictment against Dean Morgan, Banner’s boss and the figurehead who owned the two houses of unspeakable evil in little Corinth.
O’Dell had watched and listened, mouth open, as spellbound as the crowd had been. Joy had been magnificent; even, perhaps, inspired.
By torchlight, the dark imprint of Banner’s hand stamped on her face, her long, blond hair tumbling down around her shoulders, Joy Michaels had bested Morgan. She had publicly laid bare his secrets and plots. And, doing so, she had turned the people of Corinth against him.
O’Dell shuddered and turned to let the sunlight warm his face. Things had been dicey for a few minutes after that. Morgan’s thugs had overcome Wyndom and his men and had nearly taken Joy by force. But then federal marshals and O’Dell’s fellow Pinkerton agents had stormed the plaza, surrounding Morgan and his men.
In a desperate move, Morgan and his bodyguard had used Joy’s mother, Rose, as a shield for their escape—and had almost succeeded. Almost. The men were safely in custody now, headed down the mountain on a train that would take them to the county jail.
When Morgan’s bodyguard, Su-Chong, released Rose, O’Dell had seen Joy sag and nearly collapse. She had taken a beating that night. He had seen her pain and exhaustion and had wanted to go to her, but her cousins and friends had come to her aid first.
So . . . he had backed away and done his duty, assisting in the identification of those being arrested and the charges to be laid against them.
O’Dell slapped his derby against his thigh. He could still see her, could not get the image to leave his mind. Her hair had hung about her slender shoulders like a cloud filled with moonlight.
After he had finished with the marshals, he had returned to the plaza, hoping to speak to her. O’Dell shook his head and ground his teeth. He did not want to remember what he had witnessed then, but he was powerless not to.
Night was slowly giving way as morning crept over the mountains. Out of the waning shadows had stepped a man, a man O’Dell knew well, an honorable man he considered a friend. A man he had promised he would help.
As the shadowed figure approached Joy and her cousin Arnie, O’Dell had seen the hesitant, unbelieving recognition. He had witnessed the sweet, gentle touching and tearful embraces of a husband and wife reunited.
He shuddered. It was over. For him, in any case.
It would never have worked anyway, he told himself, and not for the first time. He swore aloud in frustration. He and Joy were far too different, she with her living, breathing faith and he set in his cynical, pragmatic ways.
And yet it had not seemed to matter that they were so very different. His heart had just kept hoping.
Yer a fool, O’Dell, he charged himself.
He seethed with self-recrimination.
O’Dell released a laugh, harsh and discordant, and crushed the stogie between his teeth. He needed to get out of Corinth and away from the people here. Quickly.
Get out? It will not be hard and should not take long, he fumed. It is not as though I have bags to pack.
In fact, he had nothing left in this place but the clothes on his back. Everything he’d owned—hopes and dreams included—swirled around him in the ashes and smoke.
I only need a little cash to get down the mountain to the Denver Pinkerton office and a nearby bank, he planned. Groman, head of the Omaha Pinkerton office, was still in Corinth helping with the investigation. Groman will stake me for my train fare.
Yes. He needed to be on the next train, away from Corinth. He had his investigations to complete and young women to, hopefully, locate and reunite with their families.
His next step would be to question Gretl Plüff, one of those missing girls. She had been found in one of Corinth’s two “elite” houses of ill-repute. With her help he hoped to track down a few more of the girls whose disappearances had brought him to Colorado in the first place.
If Morgan’s crew had sold the missing girls to other brothels, they were likely in nearby Denver. He would find them, wind up the investigations as quickly possible, and leave Denver to return to his Chicago home office. He could not be done here in Colorado fast enough.
O’Dell spit pieces of tobacco. He had ground through the cigar until it had fallen apart in his mouth. Throwing the remaining stub down and grinding it with his boot, O’Dell turned his back on the cooling embers of the lodge.
He turned resolutely from a hope that could never be realized.
—
JOY SLEPT FITFULLY through the day and into the late afternoon, until her aching bruises and cracked ribs finally overcame her exhaustion. It took her a few moments to remember that she was in David and Uli’s home, tucked into their daughter Ruth’s bed.
Something stirred and wriggled near her feet. As she lifted her head—cautiously, given the throbbing of her face and chest—the wriggling bundle licked the fingers of her hand.
“Blackie!” she exclaimed softly. The half-grown black-and-white puppy scrambled up and over her body in a frenzy to wash her face with his tongue. Before Joy could feel his full weight on her bruised chest, the pup was deftly scooped up and off the bed.
Looking up, Joy saw Blackie held by . . . her husband.
Still unbelieving, she stared at him, taking slow inventory . . . his brown hair, prematurely shot with silver, but curling about his face as she remembered; the roughened, scarred patch on one cheek; the many unfamiliar lines about his mouth.
And his hazel eyes. She would know those eyes anywhere.
He hesitated before speaking. “I know I must look different than you remember me.” He offered a tentative half smile.
His voice was also rough and damaged, but Joy could still tell it was Grant. She longed for him to come nearer, and she lifted her hand to him. Grant set Blackie on the floor, pulled his chair close to the bed, and touched her outstretched fingers. All this he did with his left hand. His right arm hung motionless at his side.
“You look just as I saw you in my dreams, again and again,” he whispered, gazing with hunger at her blue eyes and the shimmer of blond hair spread across her pillow. “Even though I could not remember your name,” here he looked down, shamefaced, “or even how I knew you.”
Tears sprang to Joy’s eyes. “It is you,” she breathed. She closed her fingers around his and drew him to her. Nothing mattered at that moment but to feel his breath on her face, his lips upon hers.
Gently, tenderly, their faces drew closer until their lips touched. Joy sighed and wrapped her arms about his neck, pulling him closer.
A few minutes later a discreet knock sounded on the door and they drew apart. Uli, Joy’s cousin, peeked in. “Are you awake then? I thought I heard you talking.” She smiled and, staring at Grant, shook her head in happy amazement. “We still cannot—it is entirely too wonderful.”
Grant ducked his head, that half smile still curving his lips. “I am sorry I do not remember you yet.”
“It is all right, Grant,” Uli told him sincerely. “Things will come right eventually. We are just so glad to see you.”
Joy had not relinquished his hand. “Will you help me to sit up?” she asked him.
He bent over the bed and slid his left arm behind her. “You may take my other arm and hold on to it,” he instructed. “It will not hurt me.” He nodded at his right arm.
Joy did as he suggested, and he gently lifted her up. The arm she grasped felt thin, slack. Uli helped Grant turn Joy until she was sitting on the bed’s edge gasping a little in pain. Uli knelt down and placed slippers on Joy’s bare feet. Together, Grant and Uli helped Joy into the chair Grant had been using.
“I will bring you some broth, Joy,” Uli stated. She smiled again and slipped out of the room.
Joy’s eyes never left Grant’s face, but her expression had become solemn. “How did it happen? Do you know? Do you remember?”
He knew what she meant and hesitated before pulling the covers up on the bed and taking a seat on its edge. Their knees touching, he replied. “I do not remember, but the kind men who pulled me from the water told me my arm was tangled in a line wrapped about a life preserver. The type of preserver that they tell me is usually lashed to the rails of a ship.”
He gestured with his chin toward his motionless arm. “A doctor told me that the rope cut into my arm and kept blood from the nerves too long. I cannot move it anymore.”
He looked at the floor. “I am sorry.”
Joy was quiet for a moment, thinking through what he had told her. “So the rope was twined around the life preserver and your arm was twined within the rope. And when the ship went down and took you with it . . . the preserver pulled you back to the surface.”
She spoke it as a statement, searching his face.
“Yes, I suppose that is right,” Grant replied, still staring at the floor.
“You are saying that the very thing that took the strength from your arm also saved your life, allowing you to come back to me?”
His head jerked up; his eyes found hers.
“Oh, Grant,” she said, emotion clogging her voice. “Without that rope and that life preserver, we would not, at this moment, be looking at each other. This was God’s great grace and mercy to you, to us. Please do not be sorry. Not ever again.”
She held out both her arms and he leaned into her, nestling his face in the warm crook of her neck, both of them weeping tears of gratitude.
~~**~~
