Of Risk & Redemption by K.J. Jackson

Author:K.J. Jackson [Jackson, K.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

{ Chapter 12 }

The wind whipped against her cheek, the beads of ice pelting like hundreds of needles into her skin. Cass tugged the hood of her cloak to the side, blocking the sleet.

Swathes of grey clouds had crowded the sky halfway to Widow’s Creek, and a drizzle set in before they had started to ascend the mountain road to the town. Drizzle had turned into sleet with the wind picking up an hour before they arrived.

Now this—angry shards of tiny ice whipping sideways through the air as the little light that managed to glow through the heavy clouds disappeared, night descending.

Sudden noise made her peek out the side of her hood. Flapping. Fast, rhythmic, angry. The bottom corner of a canvas tent stretched tight across a makeshift frame thrashed in the bitter wind as they passed it. Unending, the racket from the wall tent beat through the storm, enough to drive a person mad.

Cass attempted to ignore the sound as she followed as closely as she could behind Rorrick. She huddled along the back of his long black overcoat, the breadth of his wide shoulders shielding her from not only the wind, but also from the atrocity of the town around her. Dirty, unkempt men fumbling drunk along the street. Ladies in bright red corsets bellowing down from balconies. Miners fighting, rolling in the gravel. The storm didn’t hinder any of them from their daily business.

The long tail of fabric on his overcoat blew out to the left, and Rorrick’s arm swung out, clasping it back to his body. Even with the bitter wind, Rorrick kept his overcoat open as they moved through the town, his two pistols in holsters low along his hips in full view.

She had seen the rifle on his horse, but she hadn’t realized he had brought two pistols as well—hadn’t realized just how important the show of them was to walking about in a town such as this.

Once they had arrived in Widow’s Creek and secured their horses at the blacksmith’s, Rorrick had demanded she stay close to him, within an arm’s reach at all times.

She had no plans of being further than a hand’s width away.

Concentrating on the dark wool of Rorrick’s coat in front of her, Cass bumped into his back when he stopped suddenly. She caught herself on his waist, not letting go of his overcoat as they ducked through the opening flap of the next tent.

Thirteen of these wall tents they had visited, scattered along the edge of town. Town—as if seven solid buildings, four of which were saloons with whorehouses atop and the other three a bank, a blacksmith-goods store, and a claims office—constituted an actual town. But the array of wall tents spreading out from the buildings was unending, each tent holding squalor, desperation like she had never seen.

Stepping into the tent, Cass peeked around Rorrick’s torso. A woman was hunched over a wash basin, her hands and forearms deep into a launderer’s tub. She looked up at the cold blast of air, the intrusion not giving her the slightest pause in her work.

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