The man who came in on silent feet was not someone I’d seen before, not that I remembered. He was tall, with black hair and eyes, his hair tied back in two braids. The shape of his head was funny, flat and his skin was red but not so red as Rain’s. He grabbed me by the shirt front and pushed me up the wall until I was free from the hook. He let me drop to the floor with a thud. I banged my elbows, head and back but I couldn’t make more than a grunt of complaint.
“This is the boy, Flat Iron?” the butcher asked. “The one that there’s a reward for?”
The half-breed didn’t answer. Instead, he turned and hit the butcher who staggered back, his hands going to his throat. He tried to speak, and blood spurted out ten feet as he sank to his knees. No one noticed the puddle of blood that was just another one adding to the mess on the floor and walls of the killing sheds.
Flat Iron pushed the body into a hog pen and watched as the swine grew more and more excited. I turned away as they started to pull and tear at the body. I tried to wiggle free, but my hands and feet wouldn’t move, and my mouth was full of a dirty, nasty handkerchief. He picked me up off the filthy floor, threw me over his shoulder and walked out of the slaughter house without a word to anyone.
I rubbed my face against his back until the kerchief fell out and yelled. I bit at him, my teeth grabbing only at his dirty duster. It must have been a mere annoyance as he ignored me until I worked up a piercing shriek that echoed off the rafters.
Everyone looked up. Slinging me around, he wrapped one giant hand around my throat and squeezed. I couldn’t breathe, I fought him, kicking both feet against his hold, banging my hands into his chest, digging at the hand holding my throat. Nothing touched him.
Spots flickered in my eyes. Sound narrowed until all I heard was the thudding beat of my heart. A wheezing whistle made it past my throat. My body went limp as the last light flickered in my tunnel vision.
Harris looked up and realized that he had spent an hour with Miss Holden. A very pleasant hour but he hadn’t seen Cris in all that time. Not that he hadn’t seen him, but his attention had been fixed on the gentle face of the café owner, so he hadn’t noticed when the boy had drifted off.
“Where’s Cris?” he asked the other patrons in the dining room and was astonished that no one had seen the boy for an hour. He was told Cris had wandered out the door toward the left side of the street. He ran outside, stood on the sidewalk and yelled the boy’s name up and down street. It was not returned. Several men busy unloading a beer wagon pointed toward the shops on his left.
Caitlin came out throwing a coat on her shoulders, offering to help search for the boy. She asked if it were possible that he had gone back to the hotel and was waiting for him to return. She said he seemed smart, unlikely to get lost.
“Maybe,” Harris said. She came with him and remained in the lobby when he went upstairs to check the room, she asked the clerk if he had seen the boy and looked troubled when the answer was ‘no’.
“Where else would he go?” she asked, laying her hand on the Sheriff’s arm.
“I don’t know. He was hesitant to leave the room, afraid someone would take him. I coerced him into coming out with me. I promised he’d be safe,” Harris agonized.
“Is he your son?”
He knew that she was asking in a roundabout way if Cris was a half-breed child although from the boy’s blonde looks and fair skin, he could only be white. By her interest, she was indicating that even if the boy had been, she did not care. An attitude in that time that was not the norm, half-bloods were considered lower than Indian.
“No. I took him away from a pair of French trappers. They used him as a slave. You should have seen the boy, he hauled and cut firewood, cooked, fed them and their horses. Everything and anything the two wanted, the boy did. Without complaints but with plenty of curses and cuffs. He’s only eight years-old. I couldn’t stand how they treated him, so I took him and sent them on their way.
“He was ill, couldn’t remember his name or family. He told me that a squaw had found him, nursed him and was escaping from a hunting band when the Frenchies caught up. She told him that he was her son and he believed her.
“He speaks French and Gaelic, can read, write and do numbers. He has to come from a well-to-do family, no one else would educate an 8-year-old child. Somebody has to be missing him, so I decided to run a notice in the nearest paper, the Dispatch, along with a sketch of his face and a reward.”
“Oh,” she said. “I saw the picture, but I didn’t connect the two with you. Where do you thinks he might have gone? Has he been drawn to anything special since you brought him to town?”
“No. On the contrary, he wanted to stay in our room and hide from– I wonder if he saw one of the men who had taken him away from the squaw?”
“You should have seen him trying to take care of two grown men, their horses and himself. He has woods skills, he found his way home last night when I was totally lost.” They walked back to the Dispatch’s sale office where they caught the attention of the editor just as he was closing the front doors. They were heavy wood with glass panels, a luxury that was only afforded by the very wealthy. A hansom cab waited at the street where a big horse stamped at an early mist cuddling around its fetlocks.
“Sheriff,” he said in surprise and tipped his hat to the young lady. “Ma’am.”
“I’ve lost the boy,” Harris said baldly. “I was enjoying a meal and the company of Miz Caitlin Holden. I guess we spent more time than was bearable to an eight-year-old boy. He must have wandered off, gone exploring.”
“And you want my help in finding him?” Baker said. He climbed into the cab and told them to join him. Harris offered Miss Holden a hand up and entered after she sat down, smoothing her skirts beneath her.
“Samuel,” he said, leaning forward toward the driver. The overcoat clad driver tipped his beret.
“Sir?”
“We’re looking for a lost eight-year-old boy. Blonde with bright blue eyes, and fair skin. He wandered off or was taken from the little café near the Driscoll. Where would he go?”
“Don’t know, sir. Unless he went to the river. But I knows a few lads that could find out for a fee. This the same lad whose picture was in the paper?” His grin was wide in the light of the oil lamps swaying from the cab’s arms.
“Let’s put the word out, Samuel,” Baker said. He settled back as the driver flicked his whip and the big black workhorse trotted off in high-stepping style.