Blood Gold by Michael Cadnum

Author:Michael Cadnum
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

CHAPTER 23

It was hard to sleep that night.

Ben and I were stretched out on the plush furniture of the Castleman sitting room, our heads on feather-stuffed pillows. We were comfortable enough. But men in the street outside were liquored up, cheering and arguing. Some sort of contest was going on in the dark street, a footrace or a wrestling match. When the drunken competition had concluded at last, something like silence descended over the neighborhood.

Then Mr. Castleman’s voice resounded through the walls. I could not make out the words, but only the distinct rise and fall of his speech, a man in love with his own voice. Now and then his wife made a sound, a reassuring murmur. She had a beautiful speaking voice, it was true. Mr. Castleman would start in again, and, for all his talk, I began to wonder if he was as confident as he wished to be. What would our duties turn out to be, I wondered? Would we help to drive a team of mules, and nail stage scenery into place? Or would we act as bodyguards in some unsavory business?

I was aware, too, of the soft steps of his daughter in the room adjoining ours.

Ben slipped into the slow, steady respiration of a sleeper. The building shook faintly when someone leaned heavily against the exterior wall of the place, and the joints and timbers of the house creaked in the wind. But I was pleased to have a bed within walls and under a roof, and before much longer I enjoyed a dreamless slumber.

A whisper woke me.

Someone had spoken.

Or was it a laugh?

Ben was gone, leaving only a tangle of blankets.

I groped through the poor light and found my knife.

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